Charles Tyrwhitt's Oversized French Cuffs

[rjc149]

I posted another thread a while back about how happy I am with CT's non-iron twill dress shirts for office wear, particularly at the price point.

I now own 6 CT dress shirts (spending $198 total), two of which are French cuffed. I like French cuffs since cufflinks add another dimension of the outfit and there's no buttons to wear out. In my industry sprezzatura is more acceptable, and the no-tie French cuff look is almost becoming an unspoken dress code.

However, one sticking point with the CT French cuffs is that they are quite large and bulky -- noticeably more so than any of my other French cuffed shirts. They are out of proportion with the shirt. They snag when putting on or taking off a suit jacket, and essentially form the jacket cuffs into bell-bottoms when wearing them.

My suits are mostly bespoke with working buttons (which I wear with one button undone on each sleeve), but I don't see undoing another button as a "solution."

Anyone concur here? Can this be "corrected" by a tailor, or do I simply avoid CT's French cuffs from now on?

 

[WhereNext]

This is one of the main fit issues (as opposed to style, choice of cloth, etc.) that sent me the MTM/bespoke/custom route for my shirts. I found a lot of French cuffs to be too bulky and/or too loose around my wrists; with a button cuff, you can at least address the latter, but short of having new cuffs made, there's not much else to be done about the former (I did have one shirt I liked re-fitted with white cuffs and collars so I could keep wearing it).

 

[rjc149]

This is one of the main fit issues (as opposed to style, choice of cloth, etc.) that sent me the MTM/bespoke/custom route for my shirts. I found a lot of French cuffs to be too bulky and/or too loose around my wrists; with a button cuff, you can at least address the latter, but short of having new cuffs made, there's not much else to be done about the former (I did have one shirt I liked re-fitted with white cuffs and collars so I could keep wearing it).

I also dabbled with bespoke shirts, but I've come to realize that daily-wear white dress shirts are consumables that need replacement every few years. Since they are worn almost entirely at my desk, the superior fit doesn't quite justify the higher up-front and replacement cost of the shirt.

Which I realize then begs the question -- if the shirts are just disposable cubicle wear, why do I care how the French cuffs look? Well, I suppose I don't, all that much. Yes, I suspected "correcting" the French cuffs would mean replacing them. That's the advantage of a $33 dress shirt -- yellow collar stains, ripped elbows, frayed cuffs, ketchup stains, oversized French cuffs -- it's not a big deal

I was also considering cuffing them in the barrel style rather than the standard kissing style, but then there's a bit of metal from the cufflink potentially scratching my watch bracelet. Those silk knot links are a freaking pain to put on and take off, especially if I want to roll my sleeves up.

 

[rjc149]

So to update, I realized that because the CT non-iron shirts do not shrink to any appreciable degree that I've noticed in 2 launders, the 33-inch sleeves were too long.

CT's return policy made exchanging the whole lot of 6 shirts -- including the 2 French cuffed -- quite easy. I brought the shirts in, and they gave me a new set of 6 with 32 inch sleeves. It was a 5 minute process. I made sure to forgo the French cuffs this time. All 6 are barrel cuffed, so, I no longer have this issue ?

To add, I was informed that CT donates all shirts that are returned. Furthermore, they will donate any old dress shirt you bring, regardless of brand, and will give you a $10 rebate per shirt on any non-promotionally priced item at CT.

So good feelings all around with CT at this point. Let's see how the shirts hold up over time.