This is one of the shittiest answers ever! This MUST be crap! Came on, we want the straight dope, not a good story.
Just looking at the cover of the book I’m reading now (Penguin’s really cheap edition of Samuel Richardson’s “Pamela”) I see a detail from a 1744 painting showing Mr B. with a coat with 3 buttons on the sleeve. Two of the buttons are open showing the lace on the shirt sleeve. So, here are my wild guesses:
the buttons were there to be opened and show all the pretty lace.
the buttons were there so that the sleeve could be folded back. This wound come handy when riding a horse, or when wearing leather gloves.
They have now lost their function, much like some suits nowadays have fake pockets.
I’m sure someone, somewhere, has a better explanation. Don’t be lazy, Cecil, star researching!
I cannot provide a cite, and it may be a myth, but I have heard that buttons were put on uniform sleeves to keep soldiers from wiping their faces/noses on their sleeve. Today, of course, they are purely decorative.
Gotta agree, weak column. As the OP stated they were probably functional at one point, then downgraded to decorative.
Where you guys might have heard this nose wiping explanation before was on reruns of “Cheers”. Cliff Clavine’s Mother gave this as the reason for buttons on sleeves. She said it was Napoleon however. Sad when Cecil is as reliable as Cliff’s mom.
Being from a naval background I was told that during the Britannia Rules The Waves years young Officers In Training ( as young as 12 ) would cry and wipe their noses / faces on their sleeves due to homesickness and hardship at sea. They were instructed to sew buttons on their sleeves to prevent this from happening. Messboys and stewards ( who would have been young boys ) also still have these buttons on their white jackets - but not cooks.
Also.
Why a button hole on the lapel of a suit jacket ?
If the arm was injured, the button on the sleeve could be fastened into the button hole on the lapel to provide a temporary sling.
Fodder for thought.
You’ll find buttons on jacket’s arms going waaaay back to medieval times, long before there was a Royal Navy or any social stigma attached to wiping one’s eyes with homesickness.
Buttons on men’s suit jackets are to roll the sleeve up or to assist in removing/donning the jacket itself. 2 world wars (among other factors) led to the desire to use less fabric in the construction of clothing, and so, the jacket sleeve buttons become mere decoration. The number of buttons changes with style, 2, 3 or 4 (but hardly ever just 1, can’t figure that out).
The button-hole on the lapel serves to close the lapel of the jacket in inclement weather. What? you don’t have a button to close it too? Blame the fashion mavens again. We are so used to controlling our environment that we are hardly ever more than 10 feet away from a space heater and a hot toddie. So the button-holed lapel is just another appendix in the evoluntionary chain of men’s clothes.
Another problem with Cecil’s answer is that it would be very easy to wipe your nose with the sleeve of you jacket, even if it has buttons on it. Just use a part that doesn’t have buttons. Unless the sleeve is completely encrusted with buttons there’s not difficulty.
The way I heard it, the row of buttons - generally three - on the underside of the sleeve (the cuff) are what’s known as “surgeon’s buttons”. Once upon a time they were actually functional, you could unbutton them and then button them right back up, unlike the majority of today’s, which are mostly decorative except on very expensive or custom-made coats. So, surgeon’s buttons. The reason they’re called this is because, way back when, surgeons would flounce about in their fancy jackets, before aprons and robes and hygiene were invented. When they wanted to stick their (gloveless) hands into the middle of someone’s guts, obviously they would get a bit of ichor on their cuffs and sleeves. Unsightly! So they had the buttons put on there, so one could undo them and more easily roll up one’s sleeves whilst operating, to prevent stainage. Maybe a myth, but I like it.
Also, I agree: Cecil’s answer was pretty shoddy. And 1976? Haven’t they had any questions lately?
I agree with the rolling back of the sleeves proposition, and I think this is pretty obvious really (if only by extension from the way one rolls up one’s shirt sleeves), so you’ve got to ask why Cecil missed it. I guess that early on in his ignorance-ectomy carrer, he hadn’t yet honed his skills to perfection.
Incidentally, in a (temporary) moment of wealthy-ness a few years back I bought a quite expensive jacket from a London tailor, and it has working sleeve buttons. These however would not facilitate the rolling of the sleeves more than a couple of inches due to the thickenss of the material. Perhaps the surgeons’ jackets were more flimsy?
When I was in the Royal Air Force, I remember during training, when we were studying military history, the buttons on the sleeve subject was explained as being there in order to attach a ceremonial cuff. If you look at pictures of militry personnel in their ceremonial dress, there were large cuffs, edged with gold cloth, and buttoned onto teh existing sleeve. Like most modern dress, military ceremonial dress now has the cuffs attached, and you end up with several uniforms. In previous centuries, one uniform would suffice, with various attachments as necessary.
You can still get a hangover of those times with certain dress shirts which have removable and interchangeable collars. In fact, the label on my uniform shirt says “Shirt, Airman’s, Blue, collar and cuffs attached”
I’m afraid that all the creative solutions about snot catchers, surgeon’s sleeves and detachable cuffs are interesting but wrong. The buttons on the cuff are there because they have been there all along, at least since the 1340s when the men’s coat as we know it developed.
In the 1340s men’s fashions developed a number of important characteristics including bias cut fabric and things we take for granted. One of the most important was the notion of fashions that changed the silouette of the wearer. Men’s coats (or ‘cotes’ as then spelled) had buttons from neckline to hem and from elbow to wrist in a line between the elbow and the base of the little finger. These buttons were originally necessary to put on the garment because it was practically skin tight. Actually, shirt tight since men then as now wore a shirt under their coat. By the 1440s the cote was no longer the formal outer garment as it was superceded by the gown, a vestige of which remains in the graduation garment. At that point and from then on the cote became looser and the number of buttons began to lessen, but they never moved. Details of the origin of the garment, buttons and all, can be found in Newton’s Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince and many pictures of its development in Scott’s History of Dress volume on the 14th and 15th centuries.
doesn’t sound like ANY of you have done any significant looks at men’s fashions, particularly in the 1700s or earlier. elaborate lace edgings on men’s shirt sleeves and at the neck/throat were extremely fashionable in those periods. trying to put on coat sleeves over that much excess fabric would have been quite an exercise in logistics – unless you could unbutton the sleeve ends to allow the draping material to pass through.
heck, look at the uniforms of the Colonial period, both for the British and the nascent U.S. they all feature folded-back, BUTTONING cuffs on the jackets.
the coming of “Beau” Brummel, and his radical restyling of fashions during the Regency period in England, did away with much of the excess fripperies of men’s clothing. however, the buttoning cuffs on men’s coats was such a standard by then, even though the folding-back portion evolved away, the buttoning option was still a useful element. (particularly for wearing shirts with folded or “french” cuffs, and/or using “links” [otherwise known as cufflinks, a nearly forgotten accessory lately] to fasten the sleeves closed.)
i’m force to agree, though. Cecil really let us down on this one.
UPDATE AFTER Preview:
darmok obviously has a much better over-all analysis of the general lineage of the coat. however, the carryover of sleeve, particularly cuff, buttons is pretty much a direct copy of the miliary uniform stylings that i mentioned above. the number of buttons on the sleeve decreased, to the point where they were only concerned with the cuff portion. from there, what i said is pretty much the rest of the story.
Hey, the column is from 1976. We have there an example of a callow Early Cecil facing a question he deemed so trivial as to not be worth his while, but which aparently was all that was left to work with that week.
Had it happened a decade later it would have been bumped to the SDSAB to come up with an answer.
So from all these answers, what it boils down to is that for whatever reason once upon a time European men’s coats had multiple button-based adjustment points, at cuffs, collars, lapels, epaulettes, pockets, hems, etc. and as the fashions became more simplified and standardized some of those survived for decorative purposes.
The consenses seems more or less even as for the use of the buttons. It would be practical and real boon to the utility to have button sleeves on your coat. As I recall from pictures of folks dressed in their 17-18th century uniforms or suits, they tended to have tight fitting look (as compared to today) and had tails. So in which case the usefulness of have coat sleeves you could get your hand through easily (not to mention the frilly cuffs of shirts worn with suits) isn’t terribly difficult to imagine. On the other hand, perhaps it was a conspiracy by the button maker’s guild to ensure that their members would have increased demand for buttons.
I know a somewhat about the history of men’s fashion and have actually worn re-created clothing from the 1300’s thru present day.
The OP did not require a detailed lineage of men’s fashion from horse-hair woven loincloths to the silver jumpsuits of the future, he only commented about the origin of men’s jackets having buttons. I believe the question was answered by myself and others before the inestimable darmok added his detailed and enjoyable post.
By the way… it’s no special chore to put a frilly, laced-sleeved arm into a snug fitting jacket, I’ve done it many times.
well, i’ll certainly give you points for the “storm-button” at the collar info. (a feature still occasionally present on modern-day riding coats, particularly those tailored for foxhunters – we own several such.)
and yes, you pretty much said the same thing i did… we just differed as to specificity of detail.
regarding whether or not it’s a chore in donning a coat over laced-edged shirt sleeves… i think that’s a function of exactly how much excess ruffling and lace you’re dealing with. the guys had no compunctions against being “froufy” back then. i have no way of knowing just how lavish your costumes may have been, so this may come down to relative merits.
but from my experiences of ever trying to put on a skirt or dress by pulling it up over slips or petticots… let’s just say, the wider the fabric passageway, the better.
huffs and puffs in his best stumbling Nigel Bruce manner…
Madame, please excuse me for speaking so undecoriously on such a sensitive subject as men’s garments before first determining your gender. I trust I did not shock you.
