FWIW, I believe there's an old sartorial rule that goes: 'sometimes, always, never', in reference to buttoning the buttons on a suit jacket in order, top to bottom.

I learned that from a movie of the same name 😃

I think the main reason one wouldn't button the bottom button is because when sitting, it would cause the jacket to bunch and ride up unattractively.

Carol...I can understand the issue with sitting. The first one I noticed was the host of Jeopardy...he comes out, always standing, with just the top button secured. Since then, I've noticed it on many others. It looks ridiculous. Maybe it's just me.

That’s the way suit jackets are supposed to be buttoned. Top button only buttoned when standing and unbuttoned when seated. The “sometimes, always, never” applies to three button suits. Bottom button on both types is left unbuttoned.

HU-787167202....wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Lol

porkandham...really? Maybe their suit jackets aren't the right size for them? I would imagine that with the top button done, the rest of the jacket would be closed and smooth?

Suits are quite fitted now - that is the current fashion for men who are fit enough to carry it off. It is definitely a different look than years past (many years) but when the uniform is pretty standard, the updates have to be enough to make older versions look, well old. And the bottom button is always unbuttoned.

My husband is perfectly capable of dressing himself.

Another here who was taught that the bottom button is always unbottoned. And every authoritative or semi-authoritative source I can find on the internet agrees….If it 3 button, it is ”sometimes, always, never.” If it is a 2 button suit, it becomes ”always, never.”

I'm kinda with Orchidrain here. It's a sloppy look. Maybe it's the newer suit styles that make it look like your gut is hanging out? Older style jackets just hung better so it wasn't as obvious that they weren't buttoned.

My pet peeve is when people abuse capital letters. Is it that hard to use proper punctuation?

Oh, one more pet peeve—I hate when people yell in their posts.

ETA: I hate when posters type in disappearing ink.

I hate the men's clothing look that's popular of the one size too small suit and pants...looks ridiculous to me! And don't even get me started on those baggy rear and skinny leg pants...terrible!

I am thrilled seeing suit jackets buttoned at all these days.

I am used to seeing the top button on a two button suit or the top two buttons on a three button, suit done up.

I have opions on all matters, great and small, though I specialize in small.

Oh, and the suit looking like you shrank it in the dryer, no, thank you.

As long as the guy remembered to zip up, I have no complaints.

I've certainly read somewhere (and just found this graphic to share) about how men are "supposed" to only button the top button on a two button suit (and what to do with a one or three button suit as well).

Apparently mens suit jackets are specifically tailored to not button that bottom button. I don't know why.

I read that a king couldn't do up the bottom button of his vest and therefore everyone emulated him and that included with suit jackets eventually.

Of course the Tailor's cut had to make it look flattering enough and so it continued as the style.

I watch Lester Holt every night and he consistently does the one button look. I understand this is the style, but his jackets appear too short (to me), especially with the tie hanging out.

I think Lester looks like his jacket is too small for him making the jacket gap opened. His sleeves look to me like he can hardly even move. Looks like if he reached his arms in front of him to reach out to something, the sleeve shoulder seams would rip out! :)

As I said above this is the 'look' now. Of course not every man can carry it off and not everyone (man or woman) likes the look. It's a throwback (with the requisite updates) to the 60s, kind of Mad Men.

The 1960s tight suit was generally worn by skinnier men than they are worn by now, the body shape has changed because people are not smoking, they work out, and they grew up eating a lot of hormones in food (chicken fingers) so there are a lot of big assed guys walking around with the back vent of the jacket wide open over their pickup truck. It used to be very important that the vents of the jacket stay closed, and if you needed it you wore a jacket with side vents instead of one in the middle.

Did you know that men's clothes and women's clothes button differently because the first clothes with buttons were worn by people who had a maid or a valet (because it was all expensive), and while a maid would fully dress her mistress, including doing up all the buttons, a valet usually handed the gentleman his clothes and helped him on with things but did not actually button up the shirt or pants (which may have been considered too intimate). So women's clothes, buttoned by a right hander who is not the wearer. men's clothes, buttoned by a right hander who is the wearer.

Before buttons clothes were pinned on or tied on if they were not one piece that would stay on when you pulled it over your head.

Another random piece of sartorial trivia.

The Irish kilt is a fairly recent thing (19th c?), kilts are Scottish, the Irish thing was more of a shift, if it was a full garment or a skirt. Young boys in Ireland wore skirts until a certain age, and this persisted into the 20th c. in rural areas. It originated as a means of protection. Evil faeries would abduct children and they were more interested in boys, so you could trick the faeries into thinking a small boy was a girl by having him wear a skirt until he was older/big enough to fight off the abductor. (So the story of "why" goes.)

My grandfather, who was 78 when I was born, so was born in the 19th c. was born in America, but lived in a mining village, wore a dress until he started public school. (This is not him) and this is later, probably 1920s in rural Ireland.

pal....love your description of the 60's suit then and now and how the shape of man has changed.. Made me laugh. Thanks for the trivia info and the laughs.

“Their pickup truck”. Too funny but an apt description.

pal those are great stories and picture! You're so right that bodies have changed and even in the 60s not every man was built to carry that look well. As a descendent of Eastern European peasants my father and brothers etc were not of that long, lean mode !

Pal 😂🤣

Love the picture of Irish lads in skirts, Pal! My dad wore dresses as a baby and toddler, later he wore knee pants until he finally graduated to long trousers. I vastly prefer children’s clothes that look childish as opposed to those tiny suits on one year olds and toddlers that make them look like used car salesmen.

What drives me crazy is when people wear their coat with the designer's label still sewn on the outside bottom of the arm. I can't figure out if this is a trend or if people think they're actually supposed to be left there. Or, when people don't clip the stitch keeping the vent closed. I see this often on people walking ahead of me up the subway steps. Not sure if they think it's meant to be worn that way, or if they're even aware that it's there. I guess there are probably a lot of pockets left sewn shut too.

Pal, thank you for the trivia on the buttoning. I always wondered why it was different. Sometimes dh would try and school me on which direction women's belts were "supposed" to run and I would wonder how such nonsense came to be. Like many things, it is nice to know there is a historical basis.

I always leave the pockets on my jackets sewn shut and I finally convinced DH to do the same. Putting hands and stuff into the pockets of suit coats ruins their lines and makes the jacket look sloppy and IMHO cheap.

As to labels and vents, I assume they were just missed and would be found when the gentleman brushed his suit that evening.

I don't think most people who leave the labels on or the stitch holding the vent together do it inadvertently. I think mostly they don't know they are supposed to come off.

But I have seen designer wear where the "removable" label on the sleeve has become part of the design of the garment. Either to be ironic or poke fun at the people who do it unintentionally, or a part of the trend to make expensive clothes that come off as cheap-looking and trashy. Which seems to be a thing.

I don't put things in the pockets, but will still remove the stitches.

A few years ago a Frenchwoman explained to me that it was a faux pas to remove the label from a coat sleeve. I was speechless.

Having looked at a lot of European AirBnbs, I think it's time to stop thinking that just because you are European you have good taste.

The historical basis I learned in my costume/fashion history classes was that the direction of men's coat fastenings originated when swords were commonly worn on the left side, and it became traditional for other men's garments over time.

Yes I have heard that