October 19th, 2004

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Mixed Bag
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Buying a Dress Shirt

I don’t know about you, but I get a special joy out of bringing a new dress shirt home and removing it from it’s packaging. Typically it’s full of pins, plastic widgets, cardboard and tissue paper. I feel like I’m disassembling a pistol or something. Nicholson Baker once wrote that the first time he felt like a man was the first time he received his pressed and folded shirts from the drycleaners.

Here’s an excellent, exhaustive article on buying a dress shirt:

On to cuffs. This is the easy part. You have a few options, but it’s mainly built-in buttons or holes for cuff-links. Again, personal style. A note on cuff-links, though, in case you want to wear them: never wear cuff-links if you’re not wearing a jacket. Otherwise you’ll look like a pirate who forgot to hide his treasure.

Arrrr…apparently I’ve been committing a fashion faux pas. On several occasions, I’ve worn a dress shirt with cuff-links and no jacket. I dig cuff-links, because they’re one of the few pieces of jewelry a man (or, at least, this man) can wear. Yet, on the West Coast, particularly in technology, it’s rare to require a suit for business. What’s the prevailing opinion on this?

Comments: 4 Responses so far

Jen
October 19th, 2004
3:35 pm

Like a tie, belt, or shoes - it’s all about the level of “bling” if you will. Some simple and small cufflinks will look fine on a shirt sans jacket. Up the ante, and you up the ante of the whole outfit, which may then require a jacket. I think it also depends on the cut of the cuff. A larger cut cuff (and usually accompanying collar) may look a bit lost on a plain shirt without a jacket.

And having spent one of my post-secondary Christmas breaks working in a Haberdashery - those little pins and widgets were the bane of my existence. Especially steaming out all of the creases they left.

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Troy Angrignon
October 19th, 2004
6:30 pm

Hmmm, first cologne, now all this talk of dress shirts and suits. Okay Darren, share with the class, what’s going on?

My take on cuff-links is that they look great….with a REALLY nice suit. More accurately, I find that all of the pieces of the outfit should be in the same class unless you are really bloody talented enough at this to be making a fashion statement by intentionally mixing say tennis shoes and dress shirt with cuff-links and the Armani jacket. I think that I would grade cuff-links around 8/10 on the formal scale and so I would match them with a really nice dress shirt and definitely a suitable suit jacket.

As for the West coast not requiring a suit, I often wear mine here because of that. True, you stick out, but isn’t that the point? And besides, I LIKE wearing suits. (shudder)

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Olaf
October 20th, 2004
6:02 am

I’m a French Cuffs kind of guy myself. It’s hard to find nice cufflinks, though cufflinksworld.com has some real *charmers*. I’ve worn them with and without a coat, but I usually have a coat nearbye just in case the fashion police stop by. I like the 5-button suits with cufflinks, actually. I’m sure you know, but antique stores can have some real nice stuff. I’m not sure if the links I like are real old or for women, but they often present detailed reliefs of flowers or fillagree. Not something I see much of now, anyway.

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joke
October 20th, 2004
4:18 pm

No cufflinks with khakis. With proper trousers, they’re OK, even sans jacket.

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