Button, Button

Your assignment: describe this tailored shirt for women.

Source: Corporette blog.*

Me, I'd call it a tailored shirt with buttoning cuffs, or perhaps a button-front shirt. But at some point in recent history, women's-fashion copywriters started calling it a button-down shirt. See here, here, and here, for starters.

I beg to differ.

My very first job, as a teenager, was in retail sales. Later, I wrote fashion copy for years. I learned all the lingo, from raglan to dolman to balmacaan to peplum. And I learned that a button-down shirt was this:

Source: Brooks Brothers.

See the difference? I mean, apart from the tie. It's the collar that defines this style: its points button down to the shirt body. Hence, button-down shirt.

The women's shirt in the first photo? No buttons on the collar. Not a button-down shirt.

John Brooks, grandson of the founder of Brooks Brothers, introduced this style in 1896, calling it the "button-down polo collar shirt." According to the Brooks Brothers website, "His design inspiration came after attending an English polo match where he observed the players' shirts secured with buttons to keep them from flapping in the wind."

The button-down shirt—that is, the shirt with a button-down collar—really became popular in the 1950s, when it epitomized square, conformist style. Comedian Bob Newhart appropriated the term in a 1960 recording:

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Today, a men's button-down (or buttondown) shirt is still a shirt with a buttoned collar, as distinguished from a spread collar, snap tab, forward point, etc. And some women's retailers maintain the distinction, too: for a few sticklers, "button-down" refers to a specific collar style. But even as true button-down shirts have fallen out of favor in women's wear, perhaps because their look is too fussy, the term has survived, now describing (inaccurately, IMO) any shirt that buttons up the front. Well, I ask you: what else would a shirt do? If it didn't button up the front, it wouldn't be a shirt; it would be a tunic or pullover.

Has anyone else noticed this peculiar (to me) semantic creep?

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* "A fashion and lifestyle blog for women lawyers, bankers, MBAs, consultants, and otherwise overachieving chicks who work in conservative offices and need to look professional, but want to be fashionable."

Comments

[Cori]

Haha - brings me back a 3 decades to my first year of college at Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC. I learned all those terms. (what about shirts that button up the back?)

[Nancy Friedman]

Generally speaking, a women's upper garment that buttons up the back is less tailored than a shirt, so it's called a blouse.

[Meg]

Wow, I learn something new everyday!

I thought pullovers were sweaters? Though, I only have heard my husband use the term to describe his jacket which has buttons -- so I figured there was some semantic creep there.

And then what are t-shirts if not shirts?

Arrrg.... you're making my head spin!!!

[DEJ]

"If it didn't button up the front, it wouldn't be a shirt; it would be a tunic or pullover."

What about a T-shirt?

I learned the correct/original meaning of button-down shirt long after thinking it meant a shirt with buttons down the front.

[Nancy Friedman]

@DEJ: A T-shirt is a subset of pullover shirts.

@Meg: "Pullover" usually describes a sweater, but shirts can pull over the head, too. (See directly above.)

[The Name Inspector]

Yes! I've noticed this, too. Thank you for pointing it out. But I have to agree with the others about T-shirts--though they pull over the head, I'd never call one a "pullover". It's always a shirt.

[Nancy Friedman]

@The Name Inspector: OK, how's this: T-shirts are to shirts as Jockey shorts are to shorts. (Except for the Jockey brand part.) T-shirts originated as underwear; they're a sub-species of undershirt.

[felicity]

i have been ranting about the slippage of the term "button-down shirt" for years! we don't need a word for a regular shirt that buttons!

your blog gives me hope that it's not a lost cause.

[Elizabeth]

My sons, who are in their 20s, call those shirts "button-up" shirts to distinguish them from button-down shirts.

[Mary Sullivan]

It's more a generational thing. I noticed my son (now 28) referring to his button-front shirts as button-down shirts some years back.

[Tracy]

Oh that's true! I hadn't really thought about it. How funny.

I want somebody to tell me why fashion people say "a pant" and everyone else says "pants". And where do slacks fit in?

Forgiveness if this has already been covered.

Also, the husband is from Ireland; we've got a fight going on over what the children idea of "jumper" is.

[Jon Carroll]

Yeah, British jumpers and U.S. jumpers are not at all the same thing -- although buttons may be involved in each.

[LocalGlobalGirl]

I can't stand it when my husband wears his button down shirts unbuttoned...it just looks wrong. But I refuse to dictate his dress style...that would be controlling : )
Button down shirts are also very "preppie"...Brooks Brothers in US; Jack Wills in the UK has picked up on this style for younger market.

[NextMoon]

First of all, I loved this article. Haven't had to think about different shirt names in years. I suspect that we categorize button-front "men's style" shirts (dress shirts, guayaberas, aloha shirts) differently from knit shirts (t-shirts, polo shirts, turtlenecks).

In Australia, turtlenecks are "polos," cardigan sweaters are "jumpers," pullovers are "pullovers," sweatshirt tops are "sweaters," and undershirts are "skivvies." Oh — athletic shoes are "trainers," and swimsuits are "bathers."

[Erin]

All this time, I've been understanding "button-down" wrong. I still don't really understand why a shirt with buttons on the collar wouldn't be called, you know, a "button-collar", but there is little good in quibbling the vagaries of language. :)

At least I have the excuse of being female, and thus not being accustomed to button-downs as a semi-formal alternative. My husband wears them, but they seem pretty interchangeable with the button-ups to me. Certainly you can get both kinds at a range of price points.

[liz.nicole]

Interesting post -- I'd mentally filed this term under "regional."

Where I'm from, NE Indiana, I've heard these shirts called "button-down shirts" or "button-downs" pretty exclusively from the mid-90s on. (Shirts with button-down collars are "button-collar shirts.") I hear "button-down" all over the Midwest. But if I use the term in New York, about half the time people ask me what I mean.