Still faking the whole adult thing

[gfish]

How do people deal with tucked-in shirts on a regular basis? I don't mean that in a fashion sense or even strictly a comfort sense. I mean it in a purely pragmetic, functional way. How do you keep tucked-in shirts tucked in? If I raise my arms above about 45 degrees, they start to pull out. It feels like I'd need at least 18 extra inches of shirt to prevent this, and only then with renfaire-levels of blousing going on. And even with a lot of blousing, there seems to be a natural ratcheting effect which pulls the shirt out sooner rather than later. I don't see everyone else constantly retucking shirts, much less going around with any blousing at all. I don't understand how they can even walk with shirts tucked in that tightly. Is my torso just unfortunately shaped? Do most people just not bend or lift their arms for most of the day? I did pleasantly discover that suspenders helped a lot. I'm unclear on the mechanism, however, and obviously that isn't the normal solution. Is this one of those basic life skills that I missed out on as a kid when I was going through my nihilistic escapism phase, obsessed with nuclear war? Seems like it was about that time when everyone switched to boxers without telling me.

Comments

[johno.livejournal.com]

1) Folk do tuck, they just do it right away when they stand up.
aka: The Picard Maneuver

2) When I was in the military, there something called the shirt garter. A elastic strap that connected your shirt to your socks. Kept the shirt down and the socks up.

[johno.livejournal.com]

MensWearhouse...

http://www.menswearhouse.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay_10051_10573_10601_204177_-1_10573_WHITE_10051_1z14174Z1z141yjZ1z141ye?cm_vc=40169

[gement.livejournal.com]

I've wondered about whether those still existed!

Fish, we all blouse out. I reconfigure every time I go to the bathroom, and sometimes just because I notice. I second the Picard Maneuver thing.

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

You can tuck in the bathroom, too.

Also, why on earth would anyone with enough status to wear a tucked-in shirt ever need to left their arms above 45 degrees? That's so low-class and menial. (Similar to: why would anyone wearing high heels ever need to run? And the Richard Nixon jacket moment.)

[ilmarinen.livejournal.com]

http://www.duluthtrading.com/ has shirts with ample arm movement, etc. However, they cut really big in the mid-sections, as they seem to expect all their clients to be pot-bellied. Find the implied correlation between economic class and health interesting there.

I often wear tucked-in button-up shirts, really not so much of a problem. My big problem have is getting long enough sleeves.
-B.

[neuro42.livejournal.com]

My guess is it has to do with your pants not fitting right, but I'm no paragon of fashion wisdom.

[keystricken.livejournal.com]

As a regular tucked-in button-down wearer, I depend on a small amount of blousing to keep me sane. I see it on most of the people around me, too. And yeah, if you raise your arms above 45-50 degrees, the shirt ratchets out -- so little by little, you notice that you don't raise your upper arms so much anymore. But maybe that's not the universal experience -- I take a lot of behavioral cues from my clothing and footwear, which is why I commonly change after work.

I've been informed that fitted shirts are where the real status is nowadays, which might explain why they're more expensive and harder to find. Speaking personally, the most irritating thing about dress shirts is the way they grab around the armpits and shoulders if you raise your arms.

[mlerules.livejournal.com]

Um, just an FYI, but not every guy's switched to boxers. (Thank goodness!)

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I don't usually tuck, but I think at least part of it has to do with the fit of the shirt. A shirt that fits well doesn't lift much or at all when you lift your arm. I learned a bit about this when making mail, as having shirt-lift when you lift your arm is a whole different experience when the cloth weighs over 2 pounds per square foot. I seem to recall something about Coco Chanel having done a bunch of work on fitted sleeves/shoulders to build nearly perfect non-lifting shirts, but I'm totally not sure about that.
A shirt that's almost tight, with the smallest sleeves you can fit into, does much better. manintheboat, coming from a dressmaking and fashion background, has a lot to say about shirt design, including that the triple seam where the front and back pieces of the shirt meet the sleeve should be directly at where your shoulder goes from mostly level to just starting down to your arm. If it's any lower the shirt is too big and will pull and scrunch.

My tuck experience is that about 1/3 of my pants fit fine when I first put them on in the morning but by evening are riding *very* low and I have to tuck to prevent embarrassment.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

Agree with randomdreams: make sure your shirts fit. I have my shirts made-to-measure from Hemrajani (http://www.mytailor.com/), which is excellent value in the long run, but there can be an up-front cost if the first shirt or two isn't quite right, plus you have to wait two months for each shirt.

Shirts are supposed to blouse somewhat. Suspenders probably help because they can keep the trousers up higher and looser.

[tarkrai.livejournal.com]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is camouflage.

All of the above statements are true. However, also remember that many people who wear button down shirts and ties are also wearing... jackets.

Yes- they hide a LOT, and let you get to the bathroom to re-tuck...

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

This. Also, vests!

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Eh, my students don't comment when my shirt untucks, because I control their grades, BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Uh, and I sneak into the bathroom during break and they probably laugh at me behind my back. But at least it hasn't reached Ratemyprofessor.com.

[hpapillon.livejournal.com]

Helpful solution: Wear a dress.

[tereshkova2001.livejournal.com]

My shirts usually reach an inflection point of blousing and stop pulling out any more. I wonder if that's related to different figure shapes for men and women.
It could also be because I start writing at the top of the whiteboard, thereby getting the worst of the arm lifting over with right away.

[najalaise.livejournal.com]

I find tucked in shirts to be intolerable for this reason also, and have wondered the same thing! Just not lifting my arms too high is simply unacceptable. (Also, how in the world do people wear boxers without perpetually feeling like they have a wadded-up tangle of fabric in their pants? I suspect that I am about equally inept at both of the binary gender options. Oh well.)

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Now that you mention it ... I only tuck my stretchy undershirts, and try to only wear stretchy overshirts of the untucky style. Of course, no one looks to me for fashion pointers, so. It is true that shirts that are tailored well, for me, did not used to have this problem, when I wore them, which was about three times, money and opportunity being what they have been.

[woggie.livejournal.com]

That sort of movement is actually my test for whether a shirt is long enough.
If it's tucked in and I do that in the dressing room, and the shirt continues to cover me all the way through the maneuver, I know the shirt fits me.