Me and French Cuff Shirts

I had a Proustian moment this week. It was not the smell of a madeleine that set me off; it was a columnist’s casual remark, “I hate French cuff shirts.”

I bought my first French cuff shirt 53 years ago. It was black. I always wore it with a white tie, all the way through college. (To be honest, the depicted black shirt is my second one; the first was ruined by cigarette smoke when I tended bar at my aunt’s party, age 17). Black shirt/white tie was a Mafia look in the 1960s, but I was drawn to French cuffs when I noticed in photographs that executives, politicians and movie stars all wore them. All my dress shirts have had French cuffs ever since. I am down to six of them (the black one disappeared shortly after I was married).

I wore French cuff shirts to high school, even though there was no dress code. They contributed, I am sure, to my reputation for eccentricity. I know I still wore them on “state” occasions in college because of the photo I linked to above, and because of my distinct memory of my first visit to my fiancé Sherry’s house in Elizabeth, N.J.; I packed three French cuff shirts and found myself in a cuff link desert, so I wore them with paper clips. (To this day, I carry a spare pair―cuff links, not paper clips― in my suitcase)

I wore them daily as a journalist and as a middle-school teacher. You can see that I wore them while reviewing software for the Computer Chronicles.

These days, I don’t go out, I don’t have meetings on Zoom or in person, I no longer appear on PBS, but because I enjoy looking stylish, I still wear French cuff shirts around the house three days a week. To me, they continue to be the epitome of class.

I still have several of my high school cuff links, but they are so garish I rarely wear them. My four favorite cuff links among the handful I have left came to me from my wife and my daughters, and I essentially wear those all the time. Neither of my sons-in-law will want them, so my French cuffs are on a greased slide to the great Goodwill store.

Comments

[Robert E. Malchman]

I love French cuffs, too, and for about a decade had my shirts made in Hong Kong (great quality). Then I got fat again, and stopped needing to wear suits except occasionally, so it's not worth it to get tailored shirts (or suits) anymore. (My favorites were colored or patterned shirts with white cuffs and collars -- my sartorial preferences never left the 1980s).

Oh, and donate your old shirts to Goodwill or something; don't landfill them.

[Paul Schindler]

You're right. I should have said Goodwill, and so changed the item.