The Abuses of Button-down

The Problem of Button-down Shirts

It doesn’t seem obvious that a shirt collar would need to be buttoned down. Unless you were the kind of preppie jackass who wore his shirt collars popped up about five years ago (these people should have had their collars permanently sewn down with hard titanium thread), you probably have not had problems with unruly collars. Apparently polo players did a century ago, hence why they wore shirts with collars that buttoned down to the shirt, a style that Brooks Brothers copied.

There is some confusion as to what the term “button-down” means. It refers to a style of collar. Here’s a picture of someone wearing one.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, as photographed in 1937 by Carl Van Vechten. Van Vechten's whole portrait archive is in the public domain and is a convenient source for stock photographs.

This could be called a “button-down shirt,” although I’d prefer to call it a “shirt with a button-down collar,” brevity having been sacrificed for the sake of clarity. Often, people say “button-down” when they mean “button-front,” which refers to a shirt that buttons completely down the front (as opposed to a pullover shirt).

Besides this, there seems to be confusion as to the nature of the button-down collar. The way I see it, the collar is one of the most important factors in determining how formal a shirt is. The collars descend in formality in this order:

1. Standing
2. Wing (also called “wingtip” or “poke”)
3. Straight/Spread/Rounded Turndown
4. Button-down
5. Band (what one sees on very old work shirts and t-shirts; dress shirts that accept detachable collars also feature banded collars, but, these are particularly rare today, and they are not meant to be worn without the collar)

The button-down collar is, for all practical purposes, a casual collar. When I was in high school, I thought of the button-down shirt as being suitable for wear with a suit, but I have since realized the error of this thinking. One could suggest that buttons are perfectly acceptable on on formal and informal garments, citing the numerous buttons on a typical suit coat, especially double-breasted ones. There is a difference between the buttons on a suit coat and these collar buttons. The buttons on suit coats are (or stand in the place of buttons that once were) used to close the garment. The buttons at the collar points are not closures–they’re meant to fasten the collar so that it doesn’t fly around.

First of all, a collar to be worn with a suit or anything more formal should be stiff enough that it does not fly around. Second of all, a man wearing a suit should avoid situations that would cause his collar to fly up. I’ve never had my collar fly up except when I was inverted. Third of all, consider analogues in other parts of clothing. Consider the buttons on a coat or shirt. They exist to keep the garment closed. Consider, on the other hand, the buttons on the pocket flaps of work shirts and military garments. These buttons exist to keep the flaps closed. These buttons are concessions to utility at the expense of appearance, hence why suits commonly don’t have buttons on the flaps for the pockets, except possibly for the rear back pockets, and these usually lack flaps so as to be less obtrusive. Military garments do typically have the button-flap pockets, although it is worth noting that the Ike Jacket, a particularly interesting military garment, completely conceals its buttons (partly for looks, partly because these buttons were snagging on things, hence the fly front). And military garments are of a different character than what we civilians generally wear.

I do, nevertheless, often wear button-down collars. Indeed, the straight collar with a sport coat and contrasting trousers looks slightly of place, in the same way that a standing collar would look out of place with a suit. But the button-down collar has its place: casual wear. Now, my definition of casual does differ from the generally accepted definition today. I’d use casual to define everything below a suit, but above athletic wear, sleepwear, work wear, or what people wear when they obviously are completely unconcerned about their appearance (e.g., leggings as pants, sleeveless shirt on a man).

The button-down collar has a special place in casual attire, as far as I see it. Consider a tweed sportcoat; twill, solid color trousers (or perhaps corduroy); a button-down shirt in a solid color or with a windowpane, tattersall, or stripe pattern; a wool, plaid or silk/cotton, knit tie; plain derby shoes, an eight-panel or ivy cap; and perhaps a very plain vest. This is the essence of good casual. Notice that this form of casual consists of basically the same garments worn with a suit:

• Matching coat, trousers, vest —> contrasting coat, trousers, vest in bolder fabrics
• White, straight-collar shirt —> boldly-patterned shirt with soft collar that requires no special pressing and that is more comfortable against the neck
• Silk neck tie —> sturdier neck tie in a less luminescent fabric that holds up better to laundering
  Oxford shoes, cap toe or brogues/wingtips —> Derbies with a less glossy finish, perhaps in a suede leather that requires no polishing
• Derby, fedora —> eight-panel cap that is less expensive, harder to crush and damage, softer, and easier to travel with

As you can see, this form of casual allows for gentlemanly but laid-back dress with relaxed rules that open up new possibilities for expressing one’s personality.

The button-down collar ought not to be worn with suits. It’s a great collar, and it’s great with casual-wear. Notice, however, that you’ll never find a suit model wearing a button-down collar in the Brooks Brothers’ catalogue, nor will you find said collar on suit models in just about any catalogue. Once this guideline was pointed out to me, I realized the good sense behind it, and I now follow it. Moreover, anyone I see wearing a button-down collar with a suit can instantly be identified as uninformed.

It’s (About to Get Even More) Complicated

Achieving colorimetric harmony would be an easy task . . . if one’s wardrobe were unlimited. Nevertheless, I think that, excepting my boater’s hatband, I ordinarily am able to do reduce my color dissonance to acceptable levels, even with a finite selection of vestments.

Thus, this fledgling, new challenge has emerged to keep me from equilibrium: the contrasting vest. I intend not to wear such vests with suits, but rather to wear them under my sport coats, which I wear with contrasting trousers. This new variable substantially complicates matters, however. It’s like going into all-range mode on Star Fox 64. Indeed, with such an outfit, it would be difficult to achieve harmony between sport coat, trousers, tie, and vest.

For example, on an ordinary day, I might wear a grey herringbone sportcoat with a green tie and navy pants. What color vest could I wear? I think a dark charcoal vest is really the only option, and I still don’t even know if that would look good. This juggling act is one that I, nevertheless, intend to solve, even if it requires that I have 4 vests, even if I wind up wearing vests with really ridiculous patterns. After all, the Victorian Era vests were characterized by how crazy they were. Anyway, I am on the verge of getting my 1907 Elgin pocket watch fixed, and I’d like to be able to get some use out of it without also having to install watch pockets on all of my trousers. Ergo, I will wear vests.

In Defense of the Tuxedo

The tuxedo isn’t quite an endangered species–there are plenty of tuxedos in existence–but like the typical American, the tuxedo isn’t getting out much. In the same way that the American sits on couches and accumulates excess body fat and loses muscle, the tuxedo hangs on hangars in closets, acquires blandness and loses its interesting features. We don’t read books anymore. Sure, we may be exposed to short blasts of information over the internet in the form of tweets, Wikipedia introductions, and blog articles, but we tend less and less to read long, substantial books. And let’s face it: how much can you really say in a Wikipedia article? My opponents might retort that at some point books become long, recursive, winding roads of information that accomplish their goals inefficiently, and that’s true. Usually I can’t remember the beginning of a book by the time I finish it. So I guess books really are just a waste of time.

Anyway, I’m about to forget that I’m trying to discuss tuxedos. We probably spend as much money on clothes today as we did a century ago, but we look much worse. The technology for making clothing has been getting better and better, and so our clothes would reflect improved methods in sewing. Instead, we invest in the brand equity of designer labels who churn out flimsy garments that are made to look shabby. I’m still not talking about the tuxedo, am I?

Yes, the average man should own a tuxedo. It’s not a complicated garment. Moreover, a tuxedo is likely to last a man his entire life. The style is slow to change, so a tuxedo bought today will probably not look out-of-place half a century from now. The way I imagine it, a man buys his tuxedo roughly around the time he finishes high school and begins college. By this time, most men have reached their maximum height. Perhaps they will gain weight as time goes on, but this can be allowed for in the seams after the initial tailoring. Furthermore, it is around this age that a man is expected to begin wearing black tie to semi-formal events, for a man of this age is becoming an adult and is striving for independence. And in my imagined world, the man keeps this tuxedo for the rest of his life (of course there is always the possibility that it gets destroyed in a fire, lost in a move, ruined by spills, or ripped to shreds by nymphomaniacal women, and in these cases the man would, yes, sadly, have to replace his tuxedo). Thus, a man’s age is reflected in his tuxedo. It isn’t unheard of for what we wear to reflect our age–many men wear their college or high school class rings, which are typically stamped with the graduation year. Thus, at a black-tie event today, one would expect to see old tuxedos on the tribal elders, new tuxedos on young men, and slightly old tuxedos on the middle-aged men. Naturally, there would be some older men with newer tuxedos. These men perhaps suffered one of the aforementioned tragedies or simply became tired of their old tuxedos. And there would be younger men with older tuxedos, or older men with superannuated tuxedos. These men perhaps have an affinity for older styles or are honoring a similarly-sized ancestor.

So the tuxedo is immune from the ephemeral tides of fashion. The tuxedo is as sound an investment as a US Treasury Bond (although not quite as fungible, hence why China does not invest in tuxedos).

There are some who contend that the tuxedo is too ostentatious, too bold for stoic, manly men. These men prefer to wear a subtle-colored suit. Perhaps they rise above their norm and wear a neck tie (probably not a self-tie bowtie, though). Regarding these men, I wonder what agent of insipidity whitewashed their personalities away. The tuxedo, resistant to the momentary urges of fashion endemic to women’s formalwear, is an icon of stasis and masculinity. Compare the tuxedo to the extravagant dress of the Renascence. The tuxedo is more Puritanical than it is ornamented. It is all black; it drapes over the body with simple, geometric lines; there are no poufs, frills, billows, or other emasculating features. The tuxedo’s laudable achievement is that it looks festive at all. The ancient Romans prided themselves that their toga was a simple garment*. We should pride ourselves that our tuxedo is a simple, yet practical, ergonomic garment.

*Of course, part of the Roman’s pride was that the toga could not be worn for fighting. Indeed, James Bond might have had a harder time wearing a toga. Caesar was, nevertheless, stabbed by toga-wearers, and war-unreadiness is not a trait we seek in our formalwear. We should not be ashamed of how practical our tuxedos are.

Some people have the opposite problem: they consider the tuxedo to be illiberal. It comes only in one color (two if you count midnight blue, two and a half if you count the white linen dinner jacket for summertime, and the midnight blue is somewhat out of place today since midnight blue was introduced only to counter the inadequacies of early incandescent lighting). My rebuttal is that the tuxedo’s uniformity is a good thing. On one hand, it suggests humility. No man thinks himself so special that he may deviate from this one standard. Moreover, black does not clash with any skin tone. Certainly individuality in clothing is allowable and even encouraged in informal settings; but gentlemen understand that the solemn color black is reserved for special occasions. Plain black suits are generally out of place in informal daywear. My plain black suit is only worn to funerals, which call for the solemnity of black without the tuxedo’s flair. In short, the tuxedo’s color palette is narrow because this narrow palette of colors is reserved for the kinds of special occasions to which tuxedos are worn.

Do you want to help me revive the tuxedo? The first step is simple: never watch the Academy Awards. The only winners you were even marginally interested in will be in the paper the next morning. You’ll be better off not looking at those communists and their drab travesties of tuxedos. The second step is to buy one. Don’t get a lame one. Don’t listen to the salespeople. They push the lame ones. You’ve read my posts on tuxedos. You know what you want. You might even try looking on ebay.

This next step is very important: convince your friends to buy tuxedos. This may be difficult. If you need help, I’ve always considered cannabis users to be the sages of peer pressure. Then, you and your friends should wear tuxedos to events. If you’re afraid, opera and symphony concerts are good starting places. Go to a restaurant beforehand. Walk around afterwards. Invite your friends to black-tie house parties on special holidays. There’s strength in numbers. In concluding this post and in trying to instigate the revival of the tuxedo, I’ll quote Arlo Guthrie’s song “Alice’s Restaurant”:

“You know if just one person does it, they may think he’s really sick, and they won’t take him. And if two people do it, in harmony, they’ll think they’re both faggots; and they won’t take either of them. And if three people do it, can you imagine three people walking in, singing a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out? They may think it’s an organization. And can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day, walking in singing a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. And friends, they may think it’s a movement. And that’s what it is. The Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Massacree movement. And all you gotta do to join is to sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar. With feelin’.”