I'm wearing a button-down shirt with a suit today.

They should have been serious about it.

Read The Suit: A Machiavellian Guide to Men's Style by Nicholas Antongiovanni to see why.

Pretty pretty pretty pretty good....

If you know Rick, you know this is par for the course.

I find this pretty hilarious, though if true, I doubt it would have had an adverse affect on the associates. Unless you never leave your desk, your manner of dress can have impact on your client relationships. Firms certainly have a right, I would go so far as to say a duty, to protect their image.

The finest clothing stores in Chicago? What, Banana Republic? Chicago's one of the worst dressed cities I've ever visited (though DC takes the grand prize).

All my SHIRTS are button down (i.e. they button down the front. My COLLARS, on the other hand, do not have buttons or holes.

The real problem arises when people wear a button down SUIT.

Man, that is so inappropriate.

These actions were not limited to April 1st: In my prior life I was an associate at a Big 4 (3.5) accounting firm. Associates did not have offices but sat in cube farms, therefore all items on one's desk were available to anyone walking by. One guy was famous for resetting one of the MS Word auto correct features if a fellow associate was dumb enough to leave his computer without locking it. The guy would set the auto correct to replace FIRM NAME with "I like young boys."

Same guy would also take fellow associates computers if they were not properly locked to the desk. He would wait for someone to completely freak out and call security before "finding" it in a nearby cubical.

DC always wins for bad fashion - I'd be willing to bet we have the highest per capita rate of Ann Taylors/Ann Taylor Lofts in the country.

I'm a bit confused. Aren't you supposed to wear a button down shirt with a suit? If not, then what type of shirt are you supposed to wear with suits? A t-shirt? A sweatshirt?

4:56-
That's what a "button-down shirt" is... a dress shirt with a button down collar. You don't have to refer to the collar specifically. And yes, they shouldn't be worn with suits, or during more formal occasions. They can be worn with sport coats though.

At first this made me mad b/c we all know that button downs do go with suits unless you are a sleazy italian mobster.

But then I read that it was an april fools joke. oh touche.

K&E male summers were once instructed to attend a How-To-Iron-Your-Shirts-Seminar in a similar affair.

5:00 is expressing merely his opinion. Currently, fashionistas (who know nothing about style) fool the uneducated into thinking that suits should not be worn with button-down collars.

Shirt collar type should flatter your face, neck, knot, and lapel width. Generally speaking, rounders faces shouldn't wear button-down collars because the added bulge accentuates the curve in the cheeks.

Anyone wearing a shiny suit should be force-fed spicy food, given a perforated ulcer, then tied down and left to expire.

5:00 - wrong. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dress_shirt

Maybe you would have benefitted from this seminar.

April Fool's jokes are all lame. If you pull such a joke, you're a loser.

Re-do the poll. Button down collars are highly inappropriate with a suit.

I hope Kirkland gets their butts handed to them like Price Waterhouse. See Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins 490 US 228.

Don't think firms are immune from Title 7. Sidley Austin found that out the hard way.

Hey, don't hold back, 5:07, you can tell us how you really feel. Damn.

Button down with a suit is acceptable if it is a high end button down and you are wearing a boxier-cut american label suit. If you are wearing a high-armhole, fitted, eauropean style suit, you should wear a spread collar with a large know (at least half if not full windsor).

Button down shirts are not only acceptable, but encouraged if you are (a) WASPy; (b) at a WASPy firm; (c) want to look WASPy; or (d) are over 45.

If you are going for looks (a) through (c), you get bonus points if the shirt is slightly frayed where the tie knot rubs the buttoned-down collar.

The Clintons made $109MM since leaving the White House. Outrageous.

Do you really want to elect another rich person? Really?? Did you not learn the consequences of Silver Spoon W???

A vote for Clinton or McCain is a vote for the rich over the poor.

Lat,

It should be:

So we're pretty sure they "[f]igure[d] it out."

5:25, how the hell do you get McCain as more a vote for the rich over the poor than Obama? To be sure, McCain married money, but he himself was anything but silver spoon fed. Obama, on the other hand, has been a rich brat from day one.

Shouldn't we be voting for the "rich over the poor" anyway? Seriously, the poor are less educated, less given to reflection on the issues (given the lack of leisure time, aside from those on welfare), and have generally proven themselves to be less able than their money making fellow beings.

5:10 - Why the animosity? I doubt big bad Kirkland did anything to hurt you.

I'd say grammar instruction is what's "highly needed."

I pulled a chart labeled "Inapppropriate/Appropriate Facial Hair" out of an employee manual for a paint removal company (they need to wear special respirators on the job that require a tight seal) and dropped it on the chair of a 1st year associate who had just returned from vacation with a beard. The associate assumed the chart was firm policy and from our employee manual. He was so freaked that he resolved to leave immediately and shave -- I let him in on it before he actually shaved it off (too nice I know).

The chart is now posted on his bulletin board and he laughs about it (while waiting for another newly bearded junior associate to replay the prank on).

Who cares about McCain or Obama? I care more about these fashion nazis who want me to stop wearing button down shirts with suits.

The human head weighs 8 pounds!

My suits all use velcro

Button downs are too casual and should be reserved for those making less than $50,000/year and who wear ties with short-sleeve shirts.

BTW--Young dudes should NEVER wear a 3 button suit. You look like a damn goofball.

You make Kirkland look pretty bad putting the April fools stuff after the jump. A lot of people will only read the main post and think they are a bunch of jackasses (aside from what anyone may already think)

6:24, Awww, but Sipowitz does it!

K to the E.

6:24 - what if the suit is 3 roll 2 or 3 roll 2.5? If you don't know what that is, you're a freakin' idiot and a damn goofball.

I get my clothes and accessories on eBay, where I can indulge my taste for 1940s retro: blade-cut suit jackets, high-waisted trousers, spectator shoes, short ties adorned with hand-painted images of hula girls, a fine Knox or Cavanagh fedora, Full-Vue spectacles, and pocket watches on long gold chains. It works for me.

This month's GQ has about 10 guys in the button down / suit & tie combo and another in what appears to be a button down / three-piece suit & tie combo with the jacket not pictured. But what does GQ know? Keep wearing those wide ties and big knots!

Hey 7:19: Sounds like you spent too much time measuring inseams.

For an April Fools joke, my firm fired all the lawyers in the securitization practice. Boy, that was so funny.

I knew right off it was a joke (having worked at K&E for many years) -- only Sidley lawyers would wear buttondowns.

The button-down collar with a three (roll to two) sack suit is part of the classic American trad look -- what used to be called the Ivy League style. Trad is related to preppy, but preppy in the J. Press sense (not Vineyard Vines).

Wear a blue oxford shirt with a button-down collar, a red and blue rep stripe tie, and a grey suit (always flat-front pants), tweed jacket or blue blazer, and you'll look like W.F. Buckley, Arthur Schlesinger or Archibald Cox. I'm sure there is at least one partner at every major East Coast law firm who sports this look; at old white shoe firms, there are probably quite a few. (Other signifiers: LL Bean, horn-rimmed glasses, Barbour jacket, Alden loafers.)

It's a subtle, simple and unobtrusive style that for many years was the default at places like Exeter, Deerfield, Yale, Virginia, Dartmouth, Middlebury, Williams, etc. (I even saw a bunch of these guys at a Brown alumni event.) The fact that a button-down collar is utilitarian and slightly informal is part of the charm.

Anyhow, I don't wear the button-down collar with suits, but it is absolutely acceptable if you do it right. (It's obviously better than the pseudo-European look with three-button suits, shiny ties, a huge watch and those awful square-toed shoes.) Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know much about men's clothes. Naturally you're going to look awful if you're wearing a $15 tie and a brown short-sleeved "dress" shirt with a button-down collar from Men's Wearhouse, but then your problem isn't that your collar has buttons.

On Tuesday, April 8, we will conduct a pep rally. The theme is: Bring Back Jamie Sprayregan. Get us another $100 million bankruptcy!! Use GWB's Andover cheerleading garb as a model of appropriate attire.

I'm HIGHLY amused that Lat's ego leads him to think that the button-down-with-suits comment was a nod to ATL, when really, as these comments show, it's really a nod to a long-running feud about whether it's actually appropriate or not.

(BTW, ans: yes, but only for the aforementioned trad look, which is itself not something you're likely to want to wear to court in NY, DC, or Chicago.)

Nicholas Antongiovanni's book is full of sartorial assertions and edicts of a dubious nature. I'd be very wary of actually taking it seriously.

A website edited by persons who write encyclopedias as a hobby is not persuasive authority.

I don't get it -- to achieve this "no-button" look, do you guys just yank the collar buttons off your shirts or something?

6:24, just wearing a short sleeve button down shirt - tie or no tie - is an offense to the human eyes. Is it ever really so hot outside that you can't bear the 12 inches of addtional fabric on your forearm? In an air-conditioned office?

6:24, just wearing a short sleeve button down shirt - tie or no tie - is an offense to the human eyes. Is it ever really so hot outside that you can't bear the 12 inches of addtional fabric on your forearm? In an air-conditioned office?

It's an awful idea to rely on people who *sell* clothes for advice on how to dress. Most high-end retailers are fashion-oriented and can't teach you a thing about style, propriety, or taste.

That is why we have Brooks Brothers 11:34. Style, propriety, and taste in a classic and not absurdly expensive package.

Brooks would be a decent reference, but I'm willing to bet that they're looking for more fashion-oriented advice (after all, what's the matter with a 'boring' tie?). They'd be better off bringing in a Savile Row tailor. Heck, Chris Despos is *in* Chicago; now, he knows how to dress a man.

happily, the tards who care about such things won't make partner except at firms where every third year IS a partner...

What the heck is wrong with my shiny suit?

8:20,

Not a thing. Just make sure to wear enough gold chains and other 'bling' with your shiny suit. Please also make sure you're showing enough chest hair through the open collar of your shirt while wearing the shiny suit.

Who gives a shit?

Re: Vineyard Vines.

Curious to know people's opinions. Bought a lot of their ties a few years back when I was living in Beacon Hill, thought they were the coolest things. Now I see them opening a store in Georgetown and getting higher profile beyond MA - have they jumped the shark yet?