Welcome back to the Gentleman's Gazette.
Today's video is the ultimate guide to Polo Shirts.
Polo Shirt Collars: most Polo shirt collars today have a ribbed collar that is in the
same color but attached separately.
The same ribbed material is used for the sleeve ends.
The disadvantage of this collar is it really rolls up very easily and after a few hours
of wear they look really ugly.
Because of that, you can find things like Polo collar stays however unlike most shirts,
there's no way to put your collar stay and so it's usually an adhesive that glues onto
your collar from underneath but they fall off when you wash them and it's just a mess.
The best way to deal with this is to actually get a collar that is sewn out of the same
material, the same mesh, the same knit as the shirt itself.
Lately, they've become more popular, you find them for more like mainstream brands such
as Polo Ralph Lauren, I think Uniqlo does some and other companies are following along
so if you want a collar that looks nice at all time go for a shirt style collar.
Pocket or no pocket?
Just like with regular dress shirts, it looks much cleaner if you do not have a chest pocket.
The material is so thin that even if you would put something in your pocket it would sag
and look ugly nevertheless, some manufacturers offer pockets.
You can either have them taken off by your alterations tailor or you just buy polo shirts
without a pocket.
I would always urge you to go pocketless, at the end of the day, it's your decision.
When it comes to buttons, what's most classic is to have two or three Polo shirt buttons.
More fashionable brands have five or six all the way down where others have maybe one.
I suggest you go with two to three cos it looks the best.
Lower quality Polos will have plastic buttons most of the time, sometimes they have a mother
of pearl effect.
Higher end Polos will have real shell mother of pearl buttons, they are nice.
In this case, I think they used dark mother of pearl, usually they are white sometimes
they have four holes or two holes that just depends on the brand, what they want.
For Rugby shirts, they use rubber buttons because they don't break if you are in action
which can help too but it's a less expensive material.
Mother of Pearl is the most beautiful one and you should add them if you can.
If you have a Polo and it has cheap buttons you can always add mother of pearl buttons
and it's very easy to do so.
You can tell a button is made of mother of pearl if you use a little piece of metal that
you touch it with it, like if you iron for example, makes a very distinct sound.
They also feel slightly cooler to the touch and they have this nice iridescent way to
shine when light falls on them.
This is an example of mother of pearl button, this is a plastic button.
When it comes to buttonholes, Polo Shirts are often very sloppily made and have button
holes that really don't look very nice.
In an ideal world, a buttonhole should be cut first and then sewn.
More often than not, buttonholes on Polo shirts are sewn then cut providing you with a fraying
button hole.
You can tell quality manufacturers neat buttonholes that will look nice for a long time but sometimes
even brands like Lacoste show actual loose threads in the beginning which I think is
rather bad.
If you enjoyed this video, check out our Ultimate Polo shirt guide article which is even more
in depth than this video.