Men's Jacket Sleeve Buttons - Why Are They There A Little Bit Of Menswear Style History
Hi!
I'm Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style.
Today, we're going to be talking about jacket sleeve buttons.
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The question that came in and I had a gentleman ask me, "What are the buttons on the jacket
sleeve for?
Should I just remove them?"
This is an interesting question because obviously, he's asking it of a jacket in which the buttons
are just there for decoration.
You have to know a little bit of the history of why there are buttons here and it makes
sense that you understand why not to remove them, I guess unless they're incredibly ugly
and gaudy, and then perhaps you want to replace them with nicer buttons.
The buttons and the history behind it -- I mean, this is a hundred plus year old history,
but the idea was that there was a time when all men pretty much wore jackets and it was
something that it didn’t matter if you're going off in a combat or if you're just out
about town or if you're going out to even work on your own land.
You actually always donned a jacket and a hat.
These are pieces of gear that were protective.
They were made from heavier materials, a bit rougher, and it was just normal wear for people
to take this stuff out there.
So because it was normal wear, it needed to be functional.
Nowadays, it sets you apart in business.
It says that you're here to do work.
It's more for the appearance, but there were times when let's say a field surgeon, whenever
he was out there and he was wearing a jacket and he had to be dressing a wound, or there
was a gentleman that he was going to be doing work out on his land, he would actually want
to roll up his sleeves and that was the advantage of this, is you didn’t have to take your
jacket off, which actually taking your jacket off in public was akin to stripping down to
your underwear, but he could roll his sleeves up similar to this.
Everyone have their different ways, but in the same way that you could roll a shirt back
and all of a sudden, he wouldn't be getting -- I mean, because laundry was a pain in the
backside back then.
It kind of still is for many people right now, but you could imagine having to wash
everything by hand.
And so, you are very careful not to get blood, not to get dirt, not to get grime, mud, anything
on your clothing.
Well, you try to not get as much there.
You wanted this to last.
Clothing as a percentage of your budget was more, so what you had was higher quality usually
and you took better care of it.
That's really why the buttons are there.
Nowadays, most off-the-rack jackets, they don't make the functional sleeves, and the
reason they don't make the functional sleeves is because you could only adjust these so
much.
Really, the amount I can adjust this is at the most an inch, usually though about half
an inch to three quarters of an inch.
And whenever a person buys a jacket off-the-rack, they want to have -- and most manufacturers
want to give you the leeway to adjust up to two inches, so they usually put it in quite
a bit of fabric that allows you to let that sleeve out or to bring it up in.
It never looks exactly right because they're trying to go for the lowest common denominator.
They're trying to fit in as many body types as possible.
The sleeves oftentimes are going to be really wide and things like that, but again, what
they're going for is for this to fit as many body types.
And by just sewing the buttons on the outside making these nonfunctional, it allows the
sleeves to be adjusted quite a bit and you can just take the buttons off and move them,
so now they're for decoration.
That's why this question makes sense.
However, I would tell the gentleman to go ahead and leave them on for tradition's sake,
but now that you understand this, be out there looking for jackets that you could find perhaps
at thrift stores or now at higher end men's retail stores that actually have working sleeve.
You're oftentimes not going to roll this up, but it's a very interesting bit of history.
When you start to understand men's clothing -- I'll actually link to an article in which
I talk about history in men's clothing.
I think when you understand the history behind men's clothing, it gives you the confidence
to wear it because you understand that this is something that protected your father and
your grandfather.
Well, maybe not your father so much, but your grandfather and your great grandfather, and
knowing that, it really makes it easier to put on a jacket and to wear it with confidence.
This has been Antonio Centeno with Real Men Real Style.
I will see you guys in the comments.
And if you want to go check out our Men's Style Q&A website, I'm going to link to that
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Take care.
I'll see you guys in the next video.