Take a full set of buttons that runs from clavicle to belt buckle. Add a collar. And then subtract at least 50 per cent of the sleeves. What does that equal? The most irrationally reviled garment in menswear. In a world where onesies and wifebeaters pass muster as items of male attire, the short-sleeved, buttoned-up shirt remains mystifyingly controversial.
Polo shirts are normal. T-shirts are youthful. Full shirts are smart. But the short-sleeved, buttoned-up shirt is a pariah. Even the most obtuse menswear snobs don’t know exactly why this shirt is so frowned upon, but all agree that it is. The perennial summer work-wear debate — can you wear this shirt and look businesslike? — invariably concludes that it’s only for the brave or the office boy.
On screen, especially when teamed with a tie, it is a shorthand for stupid (Homer Simpson), psychotic (Michael Douglas in Falling Down) or spectacularly geeky (The IT Crowd’s Moss).
But the fashion industry is making a concerted rehabilitation effort this summer. Designers with proper clout (Paul Smith, Prada, Bottega Veneta and Alexander McQueen) are pushing the short sleeve — but ridding it of its woman-repelling, Zeta male aura demands a more profound reputational deep clean. Even the designers seem to know this: The Belgian Walter Van Beirendonck teamed his jazzily ruffle-cuffed catwalk short sleeve with what resembled a Wehrmacht helmet — either to deflect the criticism, or to trump the shirt in the ‘things you’d be better off not wearing’ stakes.
It’s a shame because these shirts are pleasant to wear. They’re breezy, far cooler (temperature-wise) than rolling up your sleeves, yet much more stolidly polite than the lazily sagging pique of the polo shirt. Perhaps it is this tension between the informality of the short-sleeve and the smartness of the collar/button combo that is the root of the prejudice.
To evade that juxtaposition, short-sleeved shirt wearers often resort to print, making this shirt the only item of male clothing that is easier to wear in a floral pattern than plain. Printwise, though, I prefer geeky gingham. Another au courant technique is to turn up the sleeves like Ralph in Happy Days, but I’m not so sure about that.
Really it’s best just to brazen it out and go plain. As fashion’s perverse pendulum has clocked, short-sleeved buttoned-up shirts are so out of style that wearing them suddenly looks radical — hence that designer revival. But the best reason to embrace this unjustly put-against style is that they’re comfortable — especially when you dump the tie.
