Why do they sew the pockets in suit jackets shut?

[kittenblue]

My understanding has always been that suits in a store on a hanger look tidier with the pockets not gaping open, and are easier to steam if they arrive slightly creased. But a good menswear shop should remove the stitching for you, especially if you’ve had any alterations done.

[chicken_wire]

Holy shit, there’s pockets in that thar jacket! Bought one last week and was somewhat puzzled at the non functioning outer pockets. Never struck that before. Can you tell that I don’t wear/own a lot of jackets? One SDMB thread and a sharp implement later, I’ve got pockets, baby!

[constanze]

@kunilou

You don’t wash a suit, you have it dry cleaned.

Or, in guy language, you stuff it on the cleaner’s counter wadded up in a ball, and get it back on a wire hangar, in a bag. The typical man only finds the dry cleaning tags purely by accident. Why would he even look for pockets?

I most certainly don’t dry clean any of my stuff. Okay, I’m not a lazy guy, but

1. it’s expensive
2. suits don’t get that dirty, anyway
3. the chemicals are very very bad for the enviroment; and you don’t know how many stay in the clothes and then get into your skin to cause cancer or similar
4. after I learned that the “dry-cleaning” services also use water, they just agitate less, my resistance to hand-washing was completly gone.

[constanze]

@Airblairxxx

The master has already spoken (sort of) about cuff buttons on men’s suits.

As much as I like Cecil’s snarky and witty writing style, and though I don’t have a cite to offer against, I don’t believe that nice anecdote.

It seems much more plausible to me that originally, the buttons were functional, like on the sleeves of blouses and men’s dress shirts, so you can get your hands through the opening even if it’s narrow (and stow a handkerchief in the little opening above it). A lot of non-dress jackets, blouse-jackets and similar still have working buttons on the sleeves.
So probably they simply devolved into non-functional buttons because this was easier to make, and since jacket sleeves are wider than dress shirt sleeves, less necessary in terms of functionality.

[phreesh]

As much as I like Cecil’s snarky and witty writing style, and though I don’t have a cite to offer against, I don’t believe that nice anecdote.

I got the same feeling. I see that the article is about 30 years old, so perhaps Cecil’s grown a bit more rigorous over the years.

[Bookkeeper]

Originally, coats had long, wide cuffs which were normally folded back, but could be opened and unfolded to lengthen the sleeves and cover the hands in cold weather. The buttons kept the cuff closed and could be unbuttoned to make it easier to fold them up or down. As fashion changed, the cuffs became purely decorative and finally disappeared, but the buttons were retained as decoration. Fancy full-dress military uniforms still retain both the decorative cuffs and prominent buttons.