Button Down Collar Shirts with a Suit

[razorboi]

Most CEOs are big dorks, don't take fashion advice from them. It's not a big faux pas for no reason, it's because it looks sloppy
an OCBD is emphatically NOT more conservative than a real dress shirt, it's a casual shirt
wearing one with a tie is even worse...

Finally...a gentleman who fully comprehends the import of this thread!
An Oxford button-collared shirt is a "casual" shirt and has no business in the company of a suit and tie.
Savile Row would be in dry heaves at the mere thought!
It is a sartorial abomination!...the bastard child of spoilt-rotten preppies, more concerned with pulling vacuous birds in their Porsches than excelling at their chosen professions and honouring their families' pedigrees.
The fact that one as respected as Robert Mueller would deign to wear such atrocious clobber in such a politically significant situation only serves to underscore the depths of corruption and degradation to which our society has succumbed.
What's next? T-shirts, cargo-shorts and sockless trainers?
My God...and I'm still an exponent of wing-tips, Edwardian roundeds and French cuffs!
Certainly a blazer is fine, if one is yachting, golfing, playing at nine-pins on the lawn and such...or on the week-ends generally, but don't get me started on a jacket without a tie, or without a collar...God forbid!
That may be fine for the rich Italian play-boys currently polluting Europe with their fast cars and fast women, but not for any self-respecting English gentlemen, who wouldn't touch such Continental dreck with a barge pole!

 

[FarmerTan]

Finally...a gentleman who fully comprehends the import of this thread!
An Oxford button-collared shirt is a "casual" shirt and has no business in the company of a suit and tie.
Savile Row would be in dry heaves at the mere thought!
It is a sartorial abomination!...the bastard child of spoilt-rotten preppies, more concerned with pulling vacuous birds in their Porsches than excelling at their chosen professions and honouring their families' pedigrees.
The fact that one as respected as Robert Mueller would deign to wear such atrocious clobber in such a politically significant situation only serves to underscore the depths of corruption and degradation to which our society has succumbed.
What's next? T-shirts, cargo-shorts and sockless trainers?
My God...and I'm still an exponent of wing-tips, Edwardian roundeds and French cuffs!
Certainly a blazer is fine, if one is yachting, golfing, playing at nine-pins on the lawn and such...or on the week-ends generally, but don't get me started on a jacket without a tie, or without a collar...God forbid!
That may be fine for the rich Italian play-boys currently polluting Europe with their fast cars and fast women, but not for any self-respecting English gentlemen, who wouldn't touch such Continental dreck with a barge pole!

Could not have said it better myself.

 

[Whilliam]

Finally...a gentleman who fully comprehends the import of this thread!
An Oxford button-collared shirt is a "casual" shirt and has no business in the company of a suit and tie.
Savile Row would be in dry heaves at the mere thought!
It is a sartorial abomination!...the bastard child of spoilt-rotten preppies, more concerned with pulling vacuous birds in their Porsches than excelling at their chosen professions and honouring their families' pedigrees.
The fact that one as respected as Robert Mueller would deign to wear such atrocious clobber in such a politically significant situation only serves to underscore the depths of corruption and degradation to which our society has succumbed.
What's next? T-shirts, cargo-shorts and sockless trainers?
My God...and I'm still an exponent of wing-tips, Edwardian roundeds and French cuffs!
Certainly a blazer is fine, if one is yachting, golfing, playing at nine-pins on the lawn and such...or on the week-ends generally, but don't get me started on a jacket without a tie, or without a collar...God forbid!
That may be fine for the rich Italian play-boys currently polluting Europe with their fast cars and fast women, but not for any self-respecting English gentlemen, who wouldn't touch such Continental dreck with a barge pole!

C'mon now, tell us what you really think.

 

[Rhody]

Not all button down collar shirts are oxford cloth. I agree that oxford type has no place with a suit.

 

[Jim99]

Not all button down collar shirts are oxford cloth. I agree that oxford type has no place with a suit.

Dammit Bones! I never want to see you wearing a button down with your regulation Star Fleet uniform again! That’s an order!

 

[FarmerTan]

Dammit Bones! I never want to see you wearing a button down with your regulation Star Fleet uniform again! That’s an order!

Jim: he's a doctor, not a tailor!

 

[Rhody]

Dammit Bones! I never want to see you wearing a button down with your regulation Star Fleet uniform again! That’s an order!

Jim: he's a doctor, not a tailor!

 

[razorboi]

Not all button down collar shirts are oxford cloth. I agree that oxford type has no place with a suit.

Perfect, Dr McCoy!
Leave it to a skilled surgeon to excise the true essence of this thread from the fatty tissue that surrounds it.
Whilst the collar-buttons bespeak a casualness inappropriate to smart business attire, it is not merely the buttons themselves that are the sole offenders.
Oxford cloth itself is inappropriate. It is a coarse-woven cotton, sometimes referred to as a basket-weave, and it is that very attribute that renders it unfit to be worn with a fine business suit.
The buttons themselves were introduced to keep the collar down during the playing of sport. How could any such garment be considered for use in a business ensemble, regardless of weave?
If it still doesn't seem out-of-place to you with a conventional two-piece suit, imagine it paired with a three-piece suit!

 

[razorboi]

My understanding is that button down shirts started with polo players who were required to wear shirts with collars. Brooks Brothers took this idea to the US where their shirts became popular with Ivy Leaguers. In essence, when one wears a button down shirt with a suit, it is a statement that one comes from that sort of background. Just my $0.02!

Interesting.
Thank you for that history on the Oxford's evolution state-side. I was unaware.
It puts a whole new perspective on the subject and explains why so many men are pairing button-collared shirts with a suit in the U.S.

 

[Cumberland Sausage]

The button down shirt is not something you see worn with a suit very often here in the UK. I'm not deeply offended when I do see these items of attire combined, but just tend to assume the person concerned is trying to draw attention to himself.

 

[Jim99]

Just so I’m clear... We are talking about a dress shirt with a button on each side of the collar?

LOL!

 

[FarmerTan]

Just so I’m clear... We are talking about a dress shirt with a button on each side of the collar?

LOL!

I was, lol. I'm just not good at making myself clear.

I still get looked at by my War Department and other females on occasion, so I must clean up pretty good still. But I'm old enough to not care if I encounter someone using x-ray vision to see if my undies match my tie!

 

[musicman1951]

A button down collar is considered more casual, so it doesn't go well with a suit.

Is it the end of the world? No. I'm not mortally offended if someone wears that combination, but it's considered a social faux pas and not recommended. Why bother getting dressed to the nines and then risking looking truly sharp with something of such small consequence?

I rarely have formal occasions any more and don't really care all that much what anyone has on, but make a commitment one way or the other - don't get mostly formal.

 

[FarmerTan]

I call it "Hillbilly avant garde" cuz I dress for me. If what I wear "offends" anyone I'm in the wrong place, ha. I've only been denied entry once for not having a tie on, I proceeded to walk a block and got drunk somewhere else. Probably cheaper, and the women were looser, as I recall. But I'm old now, it could all be a misremembered memory.

 

[Jim99]

Those young whipper snappers at work nowadays look like they just rolled out of bed. Seeing any of them wearing anything resembling formal or semi formal attire would blow my mind.

 

[FarmerTan]

Those young whipper snappers at work nowadays look like they just rolled out of bed. Seeing any of them wearing anything resembling formal or semi formal attire would blow my mind.

Lol! I literally did lol. My son is 19, too danged good looking, and right now he's wearing shorts and a yucky tee shirt! On Sundays he may wear a bow tie, or regular one. He was about 14 when he went on the internet to find different ways to wear a tie. He's an odd one; I rarely if ever see any of his buds dressed up though.

 

[Rhody]

Some "men" just wear what Mother (wife) buys them. Hence fashion war crimes.

 

[FarmerTan]

Some "men" just wear what Mother (wife) buys them. Hence fashion war crimes.

I still have SOME dignity. Though not much lol. I still shop at second hand stores!

 

[razorboi]

...My son is 19, too danged good looking, and right now he's wearing shorts and a yucky tee shirt! On Sundays he may wear a bow tie, or regular one. He was about 14 when he went on the internet to find different ways to wear a tie. He's an odd one; I rarely if ever see any of his buds dressed up though.

Consider yourself fortunate that your son dresses up at all, even on a Sunday, if others of his age are anything to go by. No doubt he has you to thank for the fact that he's a snappy dresser. In fact, from the photo it is clear he got his penchant for bow-ties from you. I take it that was his daily kindergarten attire?

 

[FarmerTan]

Consider yourself fortunate that your son dresses up at all, even on a Sunday, if others of his age are anything to go by. No doubt he has you to thank for the fact that he's a snappy dresser. In fact, from the photo it is clear he got his penchant for bow-ties from you. I take it that was his daily kindergarten attire?

Lol! He WAS homeskooled, most mornings he went to school in his pajamas. He went to a lot of co-ops, and when I could go with him he would sometimes wear a tiny sport coat.

When he was about 4, I caught him trying out my cologne before church. He said "I want to be attracted to girls." I laughed and said, "you already are, obviously!"

Miss that boy somedays, but I just have to close my eyes and there he is.