the story about King VII may be apocryphal. i don't know of any primary evidence to support it started with him. but not every detail in an outfit has to have a "functional" purpose. clothing is about semiotics, so design is about social language 🧵
if people are bothered by the bottom-most button, they should also have a problem with the lapel's buttonhole, which is a vestigial detail from when coats were made with Ghillie collars designed to button up to the neck to keep the wearer warm.
at some point, people figured out they could fold the collar down so it sat flat against their chest. and viola—we get the single-breasted rever (lapel), which was the embryo of the modern suit. the buttonhole remains as vestigial detail from our past
i have seen some people ask why can't they just wear a one-button coat. the reason is bc the design is about social language, not just function. in Britain, a two-button config used to be the standard for business suits. here's Gregory Peck stepping out Huntsman on Savile Row
american style was historically marked by the three-rolle-two (3r2), which means the coat has three buttons, but the lapel rolls to the center button (looks best when you only fasten the center button, so now you have two useless buttonholes!)
no one truly knows where the 3r2 came from, but one origin story says ivy students in early 20th century pressed their coats to look 2-button when 3-button became passe. others say they pressed them to make them look old (as 3 button eventually rolls to center button). who knows
in any case, the 3r2 is appreciated now by people around the world, including Italy and Japan. it is also a hallmark of traditional Neapolitan tailoring.
the one-button coat is a signature of some tailoring houses, namely huntsman. but it is otherwise a formalizing detail best kept to evening clothes, such as tuxedos or mohair suits. detail should work in concert with other things, such as lapel style (e.g., peak, not notch)
in this sense, clothing details are like words in a sentence. cloth, cut, and details come together to create meaning.
for instance, four button at the cuff is standard for suits. but three button is a little more casual. two button is ivy. one button is sporty.
very few ppl today know or care about this sort of detailing bc tailored clothing is almost an artifact of history. but for ppl who love tailoring, this is part of the fun. and this answers the questions: why can't i fasten the bottom button? or why cant i have a single button?
for more on how to read formality in tailored clothing, you can check out his post
one more point: my feeling on the story about Edward VII getting too big to fasten his bottom-most button, and thus kicking off a century-plus trend, is that if a story sounds too neat and tidy, there's good reason to be suspicious of its veracity
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I get this type of response a lot, often from leftists who believe that tailored clothing represents an elite capitalist aesthetic (when, in fact, rich ppl now are in business casual). But I think this view misses the nuances in tailored clothing.
🧵
You could give the same cloth to ten different tailors and get ten different garments, not just because of differences in styling (e.g., single-breasted vs double-breasted), but also differences in silhouette.
Silhouettes can be shaped in any number of ways: X, Y, or columnar I. Shoulders can be soft or structured; chests lean or full; quarters closed or rounded. Jacket can be slimming or full, lengthening or widening.
All this is determined by subtle nuances in how a garment is made
First, let's recognize why people are doing this. As dress norms have become more relaxed and casual, many men are trying to straddle the line between looking nice and looking overly dressed up. So they are trying to find ways to dress down their tailoring.
The problem with this outfit is that there's no harmony between the upper and lower halves. It's a business suit jacket with a white dress shirt up top, faded jeans and cowboy boots down bottom. This outfit looks like a giant mullet.
The most obvious problem is that the coat is too small for the wearer. Many indications of this: the divot at the sleevehead, the lapel buckling away from the body, and the vents flaring.
The tightness at the lower back and strained button also indicate waist is too small
When men get a suit, they often ask the tailor to take in the waist so they can achieve a V-shaped figure. But they are often buying very slim suits with narrow shoulders and small chests, and the jacket's waist can only be taken in as much as the body allows.
Speaking for just menswear, I don't think thrifting is bad (I don't know anything about womenswear, and I'm not in that convo). I also recommend military surplus clothes and affordable brands that aren't fast fashion (e.g., Hanes, LL Bean, Camber, Carhartt, etc.) 🧵
Lots of ppl conflate "fast fashion" with "cheap clothing" when they're actually two diff things. Fast fashion is about producing the trendiest clothes possible for as little as possible. Look at how much new stock Shein adds
On the other hand, companies such as LL Bean, Lands’ End, Camber, Clarks, Timberland, Converse, Vans, Hanes, Wrangler, Lee, and Carhartt all sell affordable clothes that last for a very, very long time, both in terms of construction *and* design
I recently wrote something for @MRPORTERLIVE about what you can expect from a suit at different price points, ranging from $650 to $3,000. For the article, I spoke to my friend Jeffery Diduch, who has helped leading US factories make suits for ~20 yrs 🧵
Jeffery actually laid out a very complex price scheme for me, showing how different fabrics, trims, and construction techniques affect the cost of a suit. And how US production numbers compared to China's
My editor (wisely) edited out a lot of that complexity bc those numbers don't necessarily reflect what Mr. Porter sells, and some readers may find the details too tedious to read. The final article is very simplified, but I think it's still interesting for the average shopper.
I think I've done a pretty good job of covering a wide range of budgets for people who are interested in dressing better. Here are just some resources:
I've done multiple Twitter threads on how to find cool clothes on eBay: