Details of Dress Shirts for Men

Posted by CesarMuler on July 18th, 2013

Dress shirts for men come in all sizes, colors and styles but it is best to simply design your own shirt in order to make sure that you are satisfied with all details that can include: cuffs, plackets, buttons and pockets. However, custom designing dress shirts for men supposes basic knowledge of all these shirt aspects.

Shirt cuffs are a small but important part of a gentleman’s ensemble. They are one of the visible parts of a shirt when a jacket is worn. Properly worn, they offer a polished look to the entire ensemble. Button cuffs are usually found only on ready-made dress shirts for men. They wrap around the arm and are buttoned into place. They have a single button or are adjustable with two buttons side-by-side.

The more formal option is the barrel cuff that has a small button on the sleeve – between the cuff and the end of the cuff opening. It is intended to prevent the area from opening and exposing the wrist. However, the most formal option is the French one. French cuffs are perfectly appropriate for daily wear in industries such as finance. The French cuff is a double cuff. It is folded back and fastened with cufflinks, thus, creating a distinctive and more refined appearance.

Another important detail to dress shirts for men is the front style. It is determined by the choice of placket which is the fabric edge of the left front panel. The standard placket is used on casual shirts, but the modern plain French placket is more popular with famous brands because it creates a creased edge and gives shirts a simple but sophisticated look. The simplicity of the French placket is usually taken as formality instead, which is why it is usually preferred to the standard placket.

Another but seldom used front style is the covered placket. It is rarely seen on off the rack dress shirts for men. It is geared towards dandies and it is never worn by those that simply wish to blend in or make a good impression. 

Dress shirt buttons are the most underrated detail to dress shirts for men. They are not only used for their functionality but also for their aesthetic value. They usually display very intricate design: two or four holes, engravings and a variety of materials used to craft the buttons themselves.

Most buttons are of plastic – a material that is both inexpensive and strong. Plastic holds up even under conditions of rough washings. A sophisticated alternative to plastic is pearl. Pearl buttons are made of hard shells that can break needles. However, they are found only on the highest quality shirts.

Shirt pockets are another interesting aspect of dress shirts for men. Most of them have a single pocket on the left breast giving the appearance of depth. With a wide variety of styles, pockets have become a detail that many men like on their shirts. However, a simple clean look can increase the formality of dress shirts for men, which is why the absence of pockets is also preferred by many.  

All in all, there are many styles for shirt pockets and, on casual dress shirts for men (including shirts with western themes), there is often a double pocket that sets the shirt apart from the crowd.

The difference in pocket styles also lies in the overall shape of the pocket or the presence of the flap which can make a shirt informal and not appropriate for a suit. Shapes range from diamond cuts to square cuts or rounded edge cuts. There is no better option. It is all a matter of taste, which is why the shape of the pocket should only reflect the personality of the wearer. 

Therefore, dress shirts for men can be regarded as sophisticated clothing items that display many details to which all gentlemen should pay due attention. As a result, the only valid solution is to design your own shirt that will reflect your personality as well as your refined tastes instead of reflecting the vision of a brand designer who has in mind the profile of the average man.

For more details, check out dress shirts for men and make sure you design your own shirt.