December 15th, 2006

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Mixed Bag
8 Comments »

The Conspiracy of French Cuffs

I like shirts with French cuffs, because I like to wear cufflinks. They’re one of the few non-cheesy types of male jewelry.

I recently went out in search of a new French cuff-enabled shirt, and after visiting four different shops, I devised a theory: there’s a French cuff conspiracy.

I visited some pretty ordinary stores (Sears, The Bay) and some fancier ones. In all cases, you can’t buy a shirt with French cuffs for less than CAN $150 (and Sears only had white ones).

Practically speaking, producing such a shirt costs marginally more than your average dress shirt. Why the aggressive pricing, then?

Here’s my theory: stores and wealthy consumers are engaged in a racket to protect the symbolism of French cuffs. They want them to consistently imply elitism and wealth, so they engage in and enable this price fixing. Bankers and financiers want to be able to spot each other in a crowd, and the cuffs are their calling card.

What do you think?

Comments: 8 Responses so far

Chris Garrett
December 15th, 2006
10:21 am

Not heard them called french cuffs before, cool. It must be a Canadian thing, in the UK while the selection isn’t as good as buttoned cuffs they are not really treated that much differently in price to ordinary shirts and they usually come in a lot more variety than just white. I like these sorts of shirts too but hardly ever get a chance to wear them now (boo hoo).

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Brent
December 15th, 2006
2:05 pm

I bought a fc shirt at the Bay downtown for $79 and Harry Rosen had fc white shirts as part of their annual $69 white shirt sale.

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Lovewine
December 15th, 2006
4:17 pm

I’m also a big fan of the french cuffs but I do not see them around all that often. Some forward thinking fashion companies are applying the french cuffs to their products but items will be priced over $100. I have had some luck finding these shirts in second hand stores. They’re often in great shape because this type of shirt was used in more formal situations.

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Arieanna
December 16th, 2006
7:21 am

Have you checked at Mexx? I bought Ianiv one quite recently there and I remember seeing others.

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darren
December 16th, 2006
11:15 am

Arieanna: You know, I like the style, but I’ve been repeatedly disappointed by the quality of Mexx’s clothes. Stiches have come undone, edges have frayed and they’ve lost their colour quickly. It’s too bad, because if I hadn’t had those experiences, I’d shop there a lot.

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double-plus-ungood
December 16th, 2006
12:01 pm

Dude, just buy regular cuffs and get to work with scissors.

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andrew
December 17th, 2006
11:04 am

i too had trouble finding french cuffs for less than $150 in Vancouver. If you are going to spend over $100 on a shirt, you might as well get one custom made.

Here in Ireland it is difficult to find dress shirts with button cuffs for those times when i don’t want to deal with cufflinks.

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David
December 17th, 2006
3:05 pm

I live in San Francisco and French Cuffs are very easy to find. I can get them at any of the major retailers including Macys and Nordstrom. I saw some today at Macys for $39.99 I see people wearing them everywhere recently. I think it would be great if they became more common. I agree, they are a nice piece of man’s jewelry.

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