Okay - bored here working at home, so I just checked my closet.
I have 20 shirts that button down the front, including dress white long sleeved, colored long sleeved, flannel, short sleeved.
100% have a horizontal TOP collar buttonhole
1 has a horizontal BOTTOM buttonhole.
These shirts have been bought over a number of years. The only one with the horizontal bottom button hole is a short-sleeved casual shirt, bought last summer.
If it is so common, I’m surprised I never noticed it in my 35 years of dressing professionally for work.
No, I’ve never heard of button holes to button one’s shirt to one’s pants, and I’m not talking about spare buttons down below the button holes.
Hmm… OK, my own closet review gives me 4/15 of my long sleeve tuck-in shirts have the horizontal lower buttonhole.
All of them acquired in the last 3 or 4 years, all of them in the “business-casual” range. All of my dress shirts of the type I’d wear with a suit have a vertical lower buttonhole, including those bought within the same timeframe. And like Dinsdale I can’t recall encountering it in my dress shirts in prior decades either.
Of the 12 long sleeve button downs in my closet 10 have a horizontal bottom button hole. Most are carhartt FR shirts with a couple dress shirts thrown in.
Checking my dress shirts, both long & short sleeves, 8/11 have the bottom horizontal buttonhole. However most of those are from Express, which seems to use that for all their button down shirts.
It’s to keep the two sides of the shirt lined up vertically. If you have all vertical button holes, one side can ride up. If you have all horizontal button holes, the two sides won’t form a straight vertical line - the front will spread and gape unevenly.
It is only on shirts long enough have an extra button below your belt. Which automatically excludes most of my shirts. It’s conventionally at the bottom, not at the top, because if you’re paying for a shirt with a tail, you’re paying for a collar that fits. If you’re going for a different kind of collar, or need to keep the collar even on an open-bottom shirt, you can put it at the top – and if you’re cheap, you can still cut the shirt short to save fabric.
I’ve never worn shirt gaiters (buttoned to the bottom of the shirt), but I know they exist. That’s not what the horizontal button hole is for.
I just checked a women’s Brooks Brothers button down shirt that I have in my closet ( for those occasional times when I need to dress like someone else) and it has vertical buttonholes all the way down the front. The small buttonhole at the collar is horizontal, but I think that one always is. FWIW.
I see this thread has some tangents on the subject getting the buttons and holes mismatched. Here’s my technique regarding that: I start buttoning at the top, working my way down, buttoning every other button. When I get to the bottom, if the buttons and holes are still correctly paired, then I work from the bottom back up, buttoning the in-between holes.
That way, if I find that the bottom button is matched with the wrong hole, then I only have half as many buttons to unbutton and do over again. Since this happens only rarely, it seems like an optimal algorithm.
I’m highly dubious of this answer. According to whom? For that matter bell bottoms, Nehru jackets, wide ties and wader pants at one time were considered fashionable.
FYI, several of my shirts are made this way and I’ve always been curious as to why.
It’s hard to believe that so many guys never noticed this. I’m a woman and I’ve known about it for my entire life (though not the reason for it). I guess guys just don’t notice things.
After reading all these speculative ex post facto explanations, it strikes me that most of the functional explanations are weak at best. (@melbourne: To keep the shirt lined up vertically? Seriously? In 30 years of wearing dress shirts 95% of which have no horizontal buttonholes, I’ve never once had an issue with shirts misaligning vertically.)
The reality is that some shirt maker (probably a premium priced) decided it that doing a horizontal buttonhole and highlighting it in thicker different coloured thread was a good way to visually add branding and distinguish their shirts.
That look was copied by others who want to emulate the premium brand’s look.
I found a couple of manufacturer sites online where they give some bullshit explanation about how the horizontal button allows for more “comfort” around the waist area because it allows for “horizontal expansion” when sitting (2 or 3mm?!? ). But they then point out who they highlight the horizontal button hole in a contrasting thread colour so everyone will know that it’s a Brand X shirt.
I have found it useful if wearing a dress shirt with a long tail and the last button is only within easy buttoning reach if you pull it up a little bit, which then rotates the angle of the button hole, making it vertical while you’re buttoning it. I always assumed it was done because it’s easier to insert a button into a vertical hole than in a horizontal hole.
Either than or the sitting and walking movements of the day move that portion of the shirt in a way that tends to unbutton the button if the hole is vertical.
If that was true, though, it would be a big marketing fail because not one person appears to know this. Quality branding only works if people know about it.
). But they then point out who they highlight the horizontal button hole in a contrasting thread colour so everyone will know that it’s a Brand X shirt.