Button down collar with double cuffs.

[jcusey]

Cusey, pay attention! I suppose that if a thread is not about shoes, you don't read it carefully?

Oh, manton, manton, manton. While it is true that suits and shirts and such flimflam deserve much less attention than shoes, I do on occasion pay attention to threads about them.

The particular rule violation we were discussing here is matching french (double) cuffs with a button down collar. That is a much graver sin than pairing a buttondown shirt with a DB coat.

A wise man once wrote:

Whoever looks down at the feet of David Letterman or Donald Rumsfeld will see sneakers, even when they are wearing suits. This cannot be called an error, since it is so far beyond the pale that even they must know the violence they are doing to their own appearance and to good taste.

And so it is with button-down shirts with French cuffs. Why bother discussing them?

[jcusey]

For the reasons Manton gives, I have my buttondown collar shirts made with ribbed knit cuffs.



OK. I made that up.

You're really on a roll today. Did someone put something in your coffee?

[dopey]

For the reasons Manton gives, I have my buttondown collar shirts made with ribbed knit cuffs.



OK. I made that up.

You're really on a roll today. Did someone put something in your coffee?

Sorry - the opposite, really. Too much post-LL EC meeting scotch and not enough sleep.

[rip]

The question was rightly asked, "From whence cometh the rule?" What was absent was any kind of reasonable answer, only that it was "Ugly, ugly, ugly!" But it is only ugly because someone once upon a time made up a rule that henceforth, button-down collars and french cuffs together would be ugly, ugly ugly. There is no inherent sense to this, no aesthetic crime being committed, except in the eyes of the keepers of the True Flame. Truth be told, it makes a certain sense to pair a soft collar with soft cuffs. Of course, at one time, anything other than a wooly mammoth skin would have been "against the rules", and I sometimes feel that the "rule-keepers" would return us there.

[jcusey]

Sorry - the opposite, really. Too much post-LL EC meeting scotch and not enough sleep.

You East Coast LLers have all the fun.

[AlexanderKabbaz]

Of course, at one time, anything other than a wooly mammoth skin would have been "against the rules", and I sometimes feel that the "rule-keepers" would return us there.

Hear, Hear!
Of course, this might immediately be "rule approved". After all, didn't the wooly mammoth have natural shoulders?

[Alias]

Hear, Hear!
Of course, this might immediately be "rule approved". After all, didn't the wooly mammoth have natural shoulders?

No they were padded.

[RWS]

The question was rightly asked, "From whence cometh the rule?" What was absent was any kind of reasonable answer . . . .

To my eye, the strange -- silly -- pair of buttondown collar with double cuffs may be disliked on both utilitarian and aesthetic grounds as well as historical.

What is the purpose of the buttondown? To keep the collar from flapping around during strenuous activity, or the pretense of it (for those of us who might occasionally wear a buttondown on a country walk, for example). Would one wear double cuffs and cufflinks during strenuous activity? Not of a sort which might be mentioned here -- and in such, a buttoned-down collar might import rather an undesired message.

As for the aesthetic: this, of course, is highly personal. But I'd find the busyness of additional attachments bothersome, and distractive from both the wearer's face and his cufflinks.

In short, though not a "rule" (not my way of considering dress), I see no good reason to wear this combination and have regarded it (on the one or two occasions I've seen it) as a bit of ignorance or a silly affectation.

[TVD]

I must admit I wear double cuffs with everything, but then I do not own a single button down collar either. If one choses one's cufflinks according to the envisaged activity, double cuffs are at least as practical and comfortable as buttoned ones. Actually I find they are loser and softer around the wrist.

However, if you take a hard-lined (even better fused) stiff chunky double cuff, one of those that seem to stand proud of their sleeves and give the impression of the stocks one used to attach to prisoners of old, and add some heavy cufflink with a toggle back, well yes, it will lack comfort no matter what. It will even look unnatural and uncomfortable in a formal context.

Until a decade or so ago the double cuff was the preserve of the old and the formal, a few connoiseurs excepted. Then fashion discovered it, and suddenly all shirts (at least in the UK) have double cuffs again. 15 years ago in Germany you had to order double cuff shirts MTM, nobody stocked them. They are ubiquitous today. But as always with fashion, what may be a good idea is executed by those with little expertise or and practical experience. And naturally the double cuffs offered on most RTW shirts are too big, too stiff, too narrow, with too small holes for the links, with the pleats and opening in the sleeve of wrong proportion and wrongly placed. And those wearing them look like some Cromagnon men scrubbed up for their annual trip to town.

The cuff is incredibly important in creating our overall impact. Hands and feet come in different shapes and sizes, and need to be somehow integrated into our visual appearance. In the same way that large feet require wider trouser bottoms and benefit from certain shoe styles and colours in order to create a harmonious look, hands need to appear active and proportionate. Somebody with large hands wearing a slim and narrow single cuff buttoned wit a single button may feel comfortable but effect the look of two shovels sticking out of his sleeves. A deeper, squarer two button job cut a bit wider, and you will never notice that he wears gloves size 12 and could squeeze an Orange in his palm.

The cuff also affects the diameter of the coat's sleeves. Too much space, and the suit looks too big. Too little, and it will be too effeminate. If you fail to have all shirts cut with similar size cuffs, your coats will never fit uniformly.

I am certain most LL members know all this, and more, but I must admit that it enrages me how unwary RTW clients are sold overpriced designer gear that makes them look silly.

[manton]

The question was rightly asked, "From whence cometh the rule?" What was absent was any kind of reasonable answer, only that it was "Ugly, ugly, ugly!"

No, the "ugly, ugly, ugly" remark was posted before the question "whence cometh the rule?" which was answered almost immdediately.

But it is only ugly because someone once upon a time made up a rule that henceforth, button-down collars and french cuffs together would be ugly, ugly ugly. There is no inherent sense to this, no aesthetic crime being committed, except in the eyes of the keepers of the True Flame.

I disagree with this, and have already explained why. My reasoning is akin to what you write below:

Truth be told, it makes a certain sense to pair a soft collar with soft cuffs.

Of course, at one time, anything other than a wooly mammoth skin would have been "against the rules", and I sometimes feel that the "rule-keepers" would return us there.

Once again, if we must have this semantic debate over what is a "rule" or a "standard" or a "practice" or a "guideline", I am prepared to have it. In the meantime, I would only ask those who inisist that there are no rules and mock anyone who insists that there are: Would you wear a purple notched lapel tailcoat with a buttondown shirt and a long tie and tan suede loafers in the daytime? And if not, why not?

[TVD]

Only if I were the employee of some particularly trendy (and scatterbrained) designer hotel where this was the uniform. An accountant would say the probability of such an occurence is REMOTE.

Just as an aside, the one area where such amusing anomalies used to be de rigeur were dictators' uniforms. A dying breed, alas. The uniforms I mean, the dictators seem to be still en vogue in certain regions.

[whittaker]

The cuff also affects the diameter of the coat's sleeves. Too much space, and the suit looks too big. Too little, and it will be too effeminate. If you fail to have all shirts cut with similar size cuffs, your coats will never fit uniformly.

I am certain most LL members know all this, and more, but I must admit that it enrages me how unwary RTW clients are sold overpriced designer gear that makes them look silly.

This is a conclusion that I arrived at today.

Last time I visited a bespoke shirt-maker I was counselled that bespoke might be an unnecessary expense as I was "of normal size". I purchased some RTW shirts, of perfectly adequate quality but on wearing, the cuff diameter is too wide. The only RTW shirts I've bought with snugly fitting double-cuff sleeves are from Paul Smith but I am not a huge fan of his shirting fabric or designs.

So, I shall begin a bespoke relationship with Turnbull & Asser next week and obtain a "perfect fit" but also, as you point out, also a consistent fit.

[alden]

Whenever I read discussions like this I immediately think of our dear Jonathan Swift and the debate he described regarding an egg.

There are a few points that can be made. Essentially there are two kinds of men, those who believe that “clothes make the man” and those who believe that “a man makes the clothes.” I don’t think it’s a particular secret that I am of the later persuasion. As Manton, Etutee and others have pointed out on many occasions, men of singular character and taste have changed men's dressing over the decades and, notwithstanding the influence of mass-marketing and fashion, will probably do so in the future. If this were not true we would be wrapped in towels like Moses cringing before a broken series of tablets.

“Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.” Monsieur Wilde had the concept right and there does not seem to be a great debate regarding the veracity of this statement. What everyone should be talking about in thelondonlounge is guidance, because it is our charter to provide same to those who are curious to learn.

The real problem is probably the use of the word “rules.” Mark Twain said that the difference between Americans and Brits was that “Americans want to be loved and the English want to be obeyed.” Societies bent on having their citizens obey, create and enforce rules, not laws, rules. There is a difference. The Yanks were clever enough to get anxious about those rules and celebrate a rather large tea party. The Constitution they drafted changed the world, saved the world and hopefully it will eventually have an effect on the Continent of Europe. The point is that there are plenty of well dressed chaps who simply cringe at the word, rules.

Let’s discuss the principles of good taste, the canons of elegance, the result of many centuries of the rigorous application of common sense that come to us as a place to begin and explore our own creativity and individuality. Even Mozart learned the scales, before he learned harmony. From this base he went on to improvise a bit.

The mix of a button down collar with a French cuff is not aesthetically pleasing, as has been pointed out, because it allies an informal and formal element together. I remember a few years ago visiting the city of Dallas where I saw a Rolls Royce that had been made into a pickup truck. Now as far as I know there are no rules prohibiting one from doing so, but the result was particularly unusual and yes maybe even ugly.

Cheers

[dopey]

. . . I remember a few years ago visiting the city of Dallas where I saw a Rolls Royce that had been made into a pickup truck. Now as far as I know there are no rules prohibiting one from doing so, but the result was particularly unusual and yes maybe even ugly.

Cheers

More than anything else, that is audacious. Audacity can be its own virtue, particularly when combined with humor. I would like to see a Rolls/pickup truck someday. One thing is for sure, whoever did that knew EXACTLY what he was doing. That, too, is important.

Thank you Alden. You made me smile.

[Mark Seitelman]

Whether or not there is a rule against buttondowns with French cuffs, Cary Grant was able to do it because he was a paragon of style and elegance.

He was able to bend the rules now and then because he was not only a style leader but one of the greats of the screen.

He once said that he wish that he could be Cary Grant.