French Cuff

A Cuff Folded Back and Closed Without Buttons

The French cuff, also called the double cuff, is defined by two linked features: extra length and a missing button. A French cuff is a cuff on a dress shirt which is folded back and then closed with cuff links or silk knots, instead of buttons. The cuff is cut roughly twice the depth of an ordinary cuff, folded back on itself so the wrist is wrapped in two layers of shirting, and the folded layers present aligned holes through which the fastening passes. That construction gives the French cuff its distinctive look: a thicker, crisper band at the wrist with a band of folded cloth standing slightly proud of the sleeve, and a piece of jewelry, the cuff link, displayed at the fold where a button cuff shows only its own sewn button. Cuff links and silk knots exist solely for shirts with French cuffs, a neat measure of the cuff's importance: an entire category of accessory owes its existence to this one way of finishing a sleeve.

The fold does more than look formal. Doubling the cloth makes the cuff stiffer and more durable at the edge that knocks against desks and table edges, and the fold line gives the shirtmaker a clean, self-finished edge with no raw seam at the most visible point of the sleeve. The cuff's length must be judged with the jacket it will be worn under, since the doubled band needs to show its intended margin beyond the coat sleeve, and its holes must align exactly when folded, or the link will sit crooked and the fold will twist. Those fitting details are why French cuff shirts sit in the dressier part of a shirt wardrobe: the cuff asks more of its maker, its wearer and its fastenings than a button cuff does, and it shows that it does.

Formality, Preference and the Silk Knot Alternative

French cuffs are considered to be more formal than button cuffs, and that ranking is the cuff's main social fact. Worn with a suit or a tuxedo, they lift the shirt, and with it the whole outfit, a register higher; the cuff link at the wrist is read as deliberate dressing. At the same time, French cuffs are optional and a matter of preference, and the ranking has limits that keep it sensible. If a standard suit, as opposed to a tuxedo, is formal enough for an occasion, then so are button cuffs: no occasion that accepts the suit rejects the simpler cuff. Context can even reverse the preference. For a job interview in a business environment, shirts with button cuffs are generally preferred to those with French cuffs, because the interview rewards an impression of unshowy competence, and the plainer cuff makes it better. The French cuff is therefore best understood as the formal option within dress shirts, chosen when display is welcome and set aside when understatement serves better.

Alternatively, instead of cuff links, French cuffs can also be closed with the much less expensive, but just as formal and well-regarded, silk knots, sometimes called monkey's fists. A silk knot is a small ball of braided silk cord with a loop, pulled through the cuff holes to hold them; it does the cuff link's job with softness instead of metal, adds a point of color at the wrist, and costs a fraction of even a modest link. Silk knots tend to be better known in Europe than in the United States, where the cuff link dominates the French cuff's image. The choice between them is the choice within the formality: metal links for weight, shine and the whole range of engraved and enameled design, silk knots for a quieter, traditional finish that is no less correct. Either way, the fastening is the cuff's reason for being, the visible proof that this sleeve was made to be folded back and closed by hand with a separate piece, not buttoned and forgotten.