boxer shorts

[HappyStroller]

Sir, I didn't realise boxer pants, or any other underpants, could be tailored until your post was made. Is such a tailor found in the land of Count Dracula?

My shirtmaker makes them with a triangular overlapping fly (extra button on the diagonal optional), flat front waistband with 2 buttons and elastic in the back. Side vents on the legs and two pleats for comfort, double seat for long life. Double stitching wherever edges need to be folded in, just as on a shirt. She also cuts a style with a one-piece back (no seam), which I don't find noticeably more comfortable and is definitely less flattering.
From the point of view of comfort, I find having boxers made to individual specifications just as important as for shirts or trousers. The ideal tension in the waistband so the boxers are not tight nor tend to slip down, the perfect waist level in relation to the trousers' cut and individual silhouette so the waistband doesn't roll over, how wide the legs need to be for comfort, how long the legs should be so the cloth doesn't bunch up - an experienced craftsman needs to consider at least these issues when designing a good pair of boxers for an individual client.

Therefore, if there is to be any consensus, the answer to your question

I wonder if there's any consensus between us Loungers as to who makes the world's finest boxer shorts - although I'll astonished if there is?

may well be "your own shirtmaker".

[HappyStroller]

Fantastic pic, thank you, Sir. But I wonder why the 3 buttons instead of an elastic waistband.

Have your shirtmaker sew a few Boxers. Here is an easy model to copy.



You get to pick the cotton used and they will wind up less expensive than brands in the stores.

Good luck

Michael

[RWS]

Believe me, HS, buttoned boxers ("French-back undershorts"), if properly cut, are (at least, for men of slender or average build) much more comfortable than elastic-banded ones.

[Manself]

I started this thread because I was working on a piece for The Times about men's underwear. Should anyone want to read it that piece can be found here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 265363.ece

[RWS]

An interesting read, Mansel. Thanks for pointing us to it.

[Costi]

I didn't realise boxer pants, or any other underpants, could be tailored until your post was made.

Dear HS,

They may not do much to impress ladies, if this is the target, but they make a lot of difference in personal comfort.

Is such a tailor found in the land of Count Dracula?

I am not sure, boxers probably don’t impress vampires much, either, as they apparently prefer to suck blood from the neck. But here in Bucharest I have my good shirtmaker to make me boxers.

[storeynicholas]

I once had some royal blue linen boxers made by Budd: plenty of room, certainly and balloon-seated but I found that, although linen was cool and comfrotable in the hottest parts of the year, heat tended to cause them to crease up very considerably. i suppose that it could have been overcome by having them less 'easy fitting' but I wouldn't venture down that road again. However, it reminds me of a story from Budd about a customer, Lord M who used to eschew any small clothes at all and just make sure that his shirts were cut long enough to wrap around, so to speak.

[alden]

The Duke had his boxers built in

[storeynicholas]

I saw that in one of the superb posts on his clothes. Wouldn't this mean that the shirt would have to go inside the boxers, instead of outside? One consequence which would seem to flow from this is bunching of the shirt (especially at the back) in the boxers?

[Costi]

If the shirt doesn't bunch in your trousers, why would it bunch in your boxers, unless they have a short fly and are tight at the crotch?
One advantage I can imagine is that the boxers' waistband rides up and down together with the trousers' waistband. Consequently the boxers are never too low, nor too high (causing the waistband to roll over). I would like to think there is no advantage with respect to quickness of dressing up, as the "lining-style" boxers should be removed and replaced after each wear, like normal boxers would (with the added unbuttoning / rebuttoning).
I don't like the fact that they don't close up in front, but I suppose the shirt tails make for an improvised cotton fly (to prevent unwanted contact between skin and trouser fly lining).
Once you have taken off your trousers, you are naked - which may prove marginally useful in emergency situations, but hardly practical for many other occasions (visiting a physician, trying on clothes etc.). If the pants are zipped, like the Duke's, God forbid that the zipper refuse to close up!
I am not very much convinced by this system. I would be curious to know if the Duke used it on many of his trousers, or it was just an experiment.

RE linen boxers - yes, they do crease considerably, but if the boxers are cut full the wrinkles don't cause any discomfort, do they?

[RWS]

I wonder whether these "boxers" might actually just be a removeable lining. I've known of at least one tailor, an older German, to recommend just such a removeable lining (for reasons of neatness, comfort, cleanliness).

[storeynicholas]

In reply to the penultimate post: creased linen boxers don't cause physical discomfort but the material does ride up, which meant, for me, that I couldn't wear them for a course of physiotherapy with a young, female physiotherapist! I had to make a dash to M&S. I agree with RWS that the Duke's buttoned-in boxers could have been removeable upper lining. It is amazing the extent to which some people used to go (well, more people used to go), with incredible little details: I imagine that the seemingly otiose button on the r/h of the fly at the top was to attach to a loop in the waistcoat to keep everything together. I once had this on white tie evening trousers, so that there would never be any riding up of the waistcoat (the button just appeared and a separate maker - Budd again - just put the elastic loop on the waistcoat, without knowing exactly what the tailor had done). I have also seen bespoke shirts from a maker (sadly the name escapes me and he is long gone) in Bond Street, who put restraints under the fronts of the collar to slip the tie through and very light lining to the shirt fronts; lambent, three-holed, hand-sewn shell buttons and tiny, tiny stitches everywhere - a lot of that skill, in minute detail, is being lost with hardly anyone (if anyone at all) doing a five year apprenticeship, with almost every effort in those five years being condemned as not up to the master's standard - until, with hope, luck and a lot of perseverance and patience all round, the final day.

[RWS]

I wonder whether that lone button nearly atop the fly of the trousers might have been sewn for the restraint of the shirt instead of the waistcoat, even though I don't remember any photograph of the DoW in such very casual trousers without a waistcoat (or DB obscuring whether a waistcoat were in fact worn).

[storeynicholas]

That's a possibility. I am going to look into whether, with d/b suit coats, the Duke did his coat up or left it open. I think that he was quite buttoned-up most of the time - as, indeed the picture, above, of his pants - in both English and American-English (possibly 'pants across the sea') here remind us!

[internationalist]

I started this thread because I was working on a piece for The Times about men's underwear. Should anyone want to read it that piece can be found here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 265363.ece

I would read it but it's not there anymore.