A recent client of mine named Jason asked me, Bally: “My jacket is too long as I wear predominately french cuff shirts, and the cuff is mostly hidden, so basically what is the ideal amount of shirt cuff to show off?”
I replied by saying Jason, there is no hard and fast rule and sometimes it is not your jacket that one needs to worry about but your shirt sleeve length. Since working in men’s fashion I can openly say that shirt sleeves are one of the most obvious and most commonly overlooked elements of good fit, people tend to overlook this and ask for shorter jacket lengths – but in reality it is their shirts that need to be lengthened appropriately.
A shirt sleeve should just reach the mid point between the base of your thumb (top knuckle) and the point where the wrist ends and your hand starts. The jacket sleeve should end approximately a quarter of an inch to three quarters of an inch before the shirt cuff.
When you are sitting with your arms in front of you on a desk, you will tend to show a little more – approximately another half inch, huh, why you ask? Well the simple answer is that your suit jacket sleeve should move up and not take your shirt with it! A point to note however is that we are seldom motionless and shirts vary more than jackets, so it’s unlikely that the amount of visible cuff will remain precisely constant for a single shirt-coat combination, let alone across a wardrobe.
The other thing I notice quite a bit is that for many people, either their shirt sleeves are too short or jacket sleeves are too long, so enough of the shirt sleeve is not shown as both shirt and jacket sleeves are the same length or the shirt sleeves are shorter than the jacket’s! Off-rack clothing is usually the culprit, and it has to some degree ruined men’s understanding of fashion, because many have gotten used to no shirt cuff showing and jacket sleeves reaching lengths that are simply too long.
Ideal showing of a shirt cuff
For these individuals, when they experience tailored clothes for the first time, they are often a bit insecure about the shorter (but correct length) jacket sleeve or the longer shirt sleeve resulting in more of their shirt cuff showing. They also always lift their arms in front of them like Frankenstein’s monster and then comment that the sleeves are too short when more of the shirt cuff is exposed and the jacket sleeve rides up their arm a little. At first this was a bit frustrating because people didn’t want the correct length, they wanted the unsightly longer jacket sleeves! Over time I came to realise that it’s a normal and understandable reaction, and I guess that shorter jacket sleeves are something that take getting used to and is a psychological hurdle that is difficult to overcome.
Hopefully this entry has helped some of you understand the ideal amount of shirt cuff to show and that showing a bit of shirt cuff is not a sin, and my hope is that you’ll embrace the shorter jacket sleeve length or longer shirt sleeve length when making your next purchase!