Cufflinks are men’s jewelry items worn on dressy shirts instead of sleeve buttons. They require French cuffs and come in a variety of materials, styles, and prices. They can have motifs on both or one side only, and the decorated side should be visible when worn.
Cufflinks are men’s jewelry items worn on dressy shirts instead of sleeve buttons. A relatively recent innovation in men’s clothing, cufflinks supplanted the old-fashioned tie that previously kept men’s shirt sleeves closed at the wrist, and were supplanted by buttoned cuffs.
Cufflinks are still in style for formal wear, requiring the dress shirt to be made with French cuffs. These are the ends of the sleeves that are longer than the arm to the wrist, so without cuffs, they fall to the knuckles. The sleeve is folded back one turn and then cufflinked through ‘eyelets’, a misnomer here, as there is a hole on each side and no button.
While the buttoned sleeves overlap in a spiral, the cuffed sleeves are closed with the two sides together so that the end of the sleeve comes to a stylist point. Cufflinks may have motifs on both, or on one side only, the undecorated side being the mechanism, usually a bar that rotates horizontally to prevent the cufflink from slipping backwards through the buttonholes. If you are wearing cufflinks with only one decorated side, such as a jewel or monogram, the decorated side is on the outside. That is, with the arms at the sides, the decorated side of the cufflink should be visible and the mechanism side hidden.
When selecting dress clothes, it is important that the dress jacket is tailored with French cuffs in mind, if you plan to wear a formal shirt with cufflinks. The jacket sleeve should be wide enough so that the cuffed sleeve is not crushed. Otherwise, when you ‘shoot your cuffs’, the masculine attire gesture that lines up your jacket sleeves and shirt sleeves, you risk your cuffs sticking out of the sleeves and the sleeves being too narrow to fit. They can retire back inside.
Cufflinks are available in a variety of materials, styles, and prices. While cufflink jewelry is rare, very large diamonds can present an organized crime look to the ensemble. The monograms are always correct. Imaginative cufflinks with trade emblems are always popular, eg T-squares for architects. Organizations, lodges and fraternities will often supply their twin members with indicatives of their affiliation. And, of course, cufflinks with the presidential seal are always symbols of status.
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