A Fashion Low in High Finance
By D. CRAIG ELBERT
The problem with using staples instead of cuff links to fasten French cuffs is not so much that it doesn’t work — it doesn’t — but that people tend to associate the look with an unattractive mental instability.
It seems pretty obvious to me now. A French-cuffed shirt requires cuff links. Full stop. However, 10 years ago, when I first removed the pins and packaging from a dress shirt and threaded my arms through the sleeves, I was that most hapless class of human being — a college intern. It was my first morning in New York; I had just woken up on my friend Dan’s couch in Murray Hill; and I had one hour to go before the scheduled start of my professional life. I was to be an investment banker, if I could just get dressed.
The bank’s welcome packet had advised that the dress code was Business Casual. I figured that meant something sharp, like a pair of Dockers. Or, since I didn’t own any khakis, how about these tan, five-pocket corduroys? One of the belt loops had come loose and, yes, the cuffs had begun to fray where the gaping boot-cut swallowed my shoes and lapped at the pavement. But these were not jeans and thus, by my calculations, were Dress Pants, perfectly acceptable for Sunday church back in Iowa and therefore equally appropriate for one of Manhattan’s revered financial institutions. Dan had already left for work, or else, presumably, he would have questioned some aspects of this logic.
(29/05)