Want to buy French cuff shirts? Read our guide for facts and info on this brilliant French fashion tradition…
French cuff shirts are a popular clothing item and one of the trendy options available for the dress shirts today. Men’s shirts have become more vibrant, colorful and structured with the passage of time and the pastel and white business shirts are disappearing. However, the French cuff shirts are a classic and timeless piece of men’s clothing that lends grace and formality to any suit. It is quintessentially the most formal dress shirt for decades.
Different Cuff Shirts
The button cuffs or the barrel cuffs are the ones with buttonholes on one edge and one or more buttons on the other. The link cuffs have buttonholes on both edges and are fastened with either silk knots or cufflinks.
These can be fastened in two different ways; one is the kissing when the inner sides of the cuffs are fastened together or with the one outer face touching the inner face of the cuff like a normal button cuff.
French Cuff Shirts Variations
Cuff shirts with link cuffs are available in two types, the single cuff or the French cuff Shirts. The single cuff is associated with white tie or black-tie suits.
French cuff shirts have cuffs which are twice the length of regular shirt cuffs and are folded back onto themselves. French cuff shirts were initially considered to be very formal as compared to button cuffs.
However, in recent years they have come back into business wear, especially in Europe.
Earlier French cuff shirts were only worn with the lounge suit or more formal clothing such as formal suits for conferences, weddings or other black-tie events. However, these were never sported with a sports jacket but now people wear them without a jacket and tie also.
The French cuff shirts are very popular and available in three styles. The French cut, the French round and the French straight.
French Cuff Shirt Care
To extend the life of your dress shirts, make sure you machine wash in a gentle cycle. Do not dry clean the shirt because the chemicals may destroy the fabric. Avoid using antiperspirant spray or deodorants immediately before you wear the shirt. To avoid colors washing out during laundry, separate the shirts into whites, dark and light colors.
To keep your French cuff shirt in a crisp condition make sure you iron it when it is still damp. This will actually allow you to remove all the wrinkles from the shirt. Also, to retain the shape of your French cuff shirts make sure they are hung on sturdy broad shouldered hangers.
French Cuff Shirts Ironing
For easy ironing of French cuff shirts, start by ironing the shirt collar first on the outside then follow with the inside of the collar. Now stretch out a shoulder of the shirt and start ironing from here to the edge of the sleeve. Spread out the cuff to open it and iron it flat. Now rotate the shirt on the ironing board and iron the back, and then the front of the French cuff shirts in the end. Hang it immediately on a hanger for it to cool down and avoid wrinkles.
