Men's suit, pants question -- cuffs or no cuffs?

They're excellent for golf in chilly weather.

 

If you don't get your suit cuffed you look like a sanitation worker going to a funeral.

The classic look never gets old. If you want your pants to hang properly with pleats and break correctly at shoe where suspenders.

 

Actually, I have an Armani suit that is cuffed, but it is a very simple, conservatively cut black suit that I bought in an Upper East Side thrift shop for $100 in 1995. I got married in that suit. My lone venture into Italian suits.

 

Damn. Sweet.

 

Wait ... button-down shirts are "out"?

Then what the hell kind of shirts are "in"?

I know this makes me sound like a 20-year-old frat boy, but there's no better place for casual button-down shirts than Abercrombie & Fitch's Web site. Tons of colors and patterns. Fit great tucked or untucked.

Yeah, I know this thread is about suits. But I'm just mystified as to what sort of shirts I'm supposed to be wearing if not oh-so 2006 button-down???

 

Some people misunderstand what buttondown means. It refers to the collar with buttons -- it is buttoned down instead of flapping free like a point collar or spread collar, etc. It does not mean all dress shirts with buttons.

 

Ah, OK. I call those "Oxfords." Same thing, right?

Spread collars look bad without a tie.

 

Oxford refers to the cloth, a heavier cloth than other dress shirts. There are also buttondown broadcloths, pinpoints, etc. I usually wear Oxford cotton buttondowns (OCBD), but I have the finer material for more dressy needs.

 

Cuffs. they're in indeed.

 

Nonsense. There are some styles of suits where neither pleats nor cuffs work.

 

Thing about buttondown shirts (particularly Oxford cloth) is that they're too casual for certain events. They're not terribly elegant.

Some situations call for say, an Egyptian cotton dress shirt with a point or spread collar and French cuffs.

 

You're right, JR. If you're gonna wear an Oxford buttondown with a tie, it goes best with a blazer or tweed sport coat. Supposedly, the only kind of suit you can wear with a buttondown collar of any kind is a sack suit, an undarted, natural-shouldered, three button with the top botton rendered unusable by the lapel roll, such as those sold by Brooks Brothers or J.Press or made by the Canadian company Samuelsohn. But as I love buttondown collars in both Oxford cloth and finer weaves, I knowingly break this rule most of the time.