Bizarre Style Rules & Logic Behind Them [0:00:00]
The first bizarre style rules that a lot of men blindly follow, wearing their watch on
the left hand side. I mean, seriously, you’ve got another wrist, why not wear it over here?
As it turns out, there’s some pretty practical reasons why most men wear watches on the left
wrist. First up, the majority of world - me included
- were right-handed, therefore it’s easier to set the time to set your watch because
the crown is over on the right side. If the crown was on the other side of the watch,
we’d have to take the watch off to set the time to wind the watch. So, right here, this
is a lot easier and that made a lot of sense when most watches had to be wound daily.
Seriously, this goes back almost a hundred years to the pocket watch. The pocket watch
was amazing, except you had to pull it out of your pocket. During World War I, officers
started attaching pocket watches to their wrists on their jackets. And they found, hey,
we need to be able to wind this thing and make it easy, we wanted to make it practical.
And, speaking of practicality, since most of us are right-handed, we’re more dominant
with our right hand. We’re going to be writing, we’re going to be doing more actions with
our right hand controlling things. And, guess what? If you have a watch over here, you’re
more likely to scratch it. This was a big deal when watches were a lot
more expensive and they actually didn’t have those faces that are sapphire are going
to be anti-scratch, so it was very easy to scratch the face of the watch and you wanted
to better protect them, so you put them on the hand that you use less often.
Another practical reason the watch is on the left hand, it’s simply easier to spot the
time because if your right hand is busy, let’s say you’re playing tennis, you got that
tennis racket going back and forth, guys, you can flip the wrist without breaking your
game, you can quickly tell the time. And, speaking of swinging the hand, you want
to protect the watch because if you’re using a tennis racket or you’re just swinging
a hammer and you have your watch on that side, you can actually damage the watch. So, again,
having it on your non-dominant hand is sometimes a really good thing.
Now, there are some brands out there that have watches made to be worn on the right
wrist for left-handers. I know, Tudor there probably goes a line, their dive line basically.
They’ve got a watch that’s made to be worn on the right wrist, so you’ve got the
crown over on the left hand side. You’re also going to see some watches that
are kind of a hybrid. Right here, is the classic Monaco Calibre 12. What’s interesting about
this one, if you go back, a lot of people say that they made it for Steve McQueen to
be worn on the right wrist because he was left-handed.
But, that was actually just a stylistic feature of the design of the watch. When they were
putting it all together they just found because they had to pushers over here on the right,
they just couldn’t get an engineer to set it up, so they put the crown over on the left
and end up being a great style choice, became a classic piece that many collectors like
myself want to own and do want. Now, gents, there’s really no rule that
says you can’t wear a watch on your right hand, so if you really want to, go for it.
I know some guys choose because the location of the crown especially if it’s one that
protrudes, they simply don’t want it digging into their wrists, so it works better on the
right hand. Next up, let’s talk button placements. So,
we see this on both shirts and jackets. Buttons are on the right side, while the buttonholes
are on the left side. This seems pretty normal until you look at women’s wear and it’s
the complete opposite. Now, some historians have tried to explain
this by saying it’s all about weapon access. Your clothing had to function. You have to
be able to reach your hand over, get right underneath of clothing and be able to put
out a sword or a firearm. So, this now begs the question why do we have
the opposite for women? Well, one of the historic explanations is all about babies. So, the
idea that women would hold their child with their left hand, they wouldn’t be able to
unbutton their blouse with their right hand to be able to breastfeed.
Another popular theory is because of the time that this was coming about during industrialization,
you still saw a number of high class women being dressed by servants. So, the placement
of the buttons was for their ease to be able to button and unbutton their clothing.
Now, all that being said, me, personally, I think it’s a practicality reason. When
you have a bunch of kids, you know what I’m talking about. You can’t sort the laundry,
whose is whose especially when you daughters your sons, everything is about the same.
Now, it helps when one kid’s into Transformers the other one’s into Barbie. But, back,
you know, a hundred years, they were all wearing these white shirts. So, guess what? The placement
of the buttons made it very easy to determine which one is Susie’s and which one is Mike’s.
Next up, gents, let’s talk about the gig lines. So, the gig line is an imaginary straight
line that runs up and down the front center of the torso, formed by the alignment of the
shirt, belt buckle, and trouser fly. So, where does this rule come from? Where
do we first see the term? In the United States Navy. This was actually part of ship inspection.
And, basically, if you did not have this all lined up, you were given a gig, which is basically
a derogatory mark. Oh! And really quick, I wanted to thank Gus
for this leather jacket. He made it for me down in Mexico. Gus was actually an attendee
in my Menfluential this last year. And, Gus, thank you so much. It fits and feels beautiful.
And, guys, if you like the look of this jacket, you want to learn more, check out Gus’ website.
I’m going to put a link to it down in the description. If you’re looking for something
that’s not too hot and really is just going to build up the shoulders and make you look
amazing. [0:04:56]
Next up, let’s talk about buttoning rules for modern suit jackets and sports jacket.
The bottom button, why do we never button it? Whenever you stand, why do you need your
jacket buttoned? Whenever you sit, why should you have your jacket unbuttoned?
It turns out these rules are a bit of practicality and more just simply tradition. So, when we
look at the design of modern jackets, they’re not actually made to button that bottom button.
This is a leftover from some English king who’s a little bit too fat and basically
he did not button it, this trend took off. But, nowadays with the design of the clothing,
it does not look good when you button that bottom button.
Now, what about the top button what about that middle button on a three-button, why
would you button that when you stand? Because you do look better. It basically brings the
outfit together and it allows the eye to go up and down.
Now, why would you want to unbutton when you sit? Simply, again, practicality, it’s going
to be more comfortable. Your stomach area expands a bit when you sit, so you want to
give yourself a little bit more breathing room.
Next up, let’s talk shirt color. So, the blue like this is considered casual, white
is considered formal. But why? Who created this rule? Where did it come from?
So, first up, white has for a long time been considered the color of the higher class.
Why? Because you are able to keep it clean. The only people that could afford white were
people that did not have to work with their hands, people that didn’t have to get into
the mud, they didn’t have to get down and get dirty.
Blue, on the other hand was very inexpensive dye, indigo was basically this has been used
from centuries, but it was in 1924 in Iowa in a newspaper and once it was mentioned basically
blue collar, this referred to a type of boiler outfit that men could wear when they’re
out working, sweating, getting oil and grime. Because blue especially darker blue did a
great job of covering up those stains and could be washed and ran through the, you know,
cleaners again and again. White, on the other hand had to be boiled,
oftentimes collars were detachable because you would just simply go through so many and
you have to maintain that pristine look. So, white collar refers to office jobs, to work
that basically just requires the mind, you don’t get your hands dirty. And blue came
to be known as blue collar, men that simply work with their hands and get dirty.
Now, let’s talk hats and to a lesser extent sunglasses. Why should you remove your sunglasses,
why should you remove your hat when you walk into somebody’s house, when you’re meeting
somebody for the first time? This one is interesting. It actually goes
back to the medieval ages in which it was punishable by death as a knight if you did
no basically open up your visor, if you did not remove your helmet when you’re in the
presence of other knights or royalty because it was a sign of respect. It was to show that
you were not hiding anything. And there were times that this was a really
big deal that you could be an assassin, they didn’t know who you were. They wanted to
be able to positively identify you and it’s a gesture of you being vulnerable. You saying,
hey, this is who I am, you can see into my eyes.
And to this day, we still want to see somebody’s eyes, to see do we trust them. We want to
see, are they hiding anything. So, if you walk into somebody’s home, if you are in
a restaurant, this is why we have this tradition. Now, what about the bizarre rule of no brown
in town or no white after Labor Day? Those are old school rules basically use to differentiate
old money from new money. Going back to 1910, 1920s, 1930s, that time period when you had
a lot of people who were basically disrupting things they are making a lot of money they’re
able to be at the same restaurants as people that have wealth in their family for a long
time. So, these rules were really they were just
simply put there, so that people could distinguish who is in the know and who wasn’t.
Oh! And by the way, I’m doing a live video tomorrow, Monday at 7:00 AM Central, 8:00
AM Eastern. I think I know it’s pretty early in California about 5:00 AM for you guys.
But, over in Australia, 10:00 PM, 8:00 PM in the Philippines. Over in where? I think
parts of India, it’s got to be 5:30 PM, over in Pakistan, we’ve got 6:00 PM.
I love my guys over in Bangladesh. I love you guys all over the world that’s why I’m
doing this stuff. So, for Ukraine, Russia, I think it’s 3:00 PM, Germany, UK, 1:00
-2:00 PM. Guys, I’ve the set up and you could set
up a reminder down in the description. I do these live videos because I want to engage
with you guys. I want to get to know you better and I want to thank you for supporting my
channel here at RMRS. So, what video to watch next? How about ten
outdated style and etiquette rules that you need to stop doing? Seriously, guys, you can
take these things and throw them out the window. [0:09:11] End of audio