The Button Down Shirt: A Perennial Classic

By Sean Longden

An in-depth look at the origins, evolution, and enduring appeal of the iconic Button Down Shirt.

True story … back in the 1980s, a friend of mine started work for a major international company. He was sent to various departments, to try his hand, then came his turn in the sales department. When he arrived, he was told “Always wear a suit and tie, but you can never wear a shirt with a button-down collar. It’s too casual. Our customers expect the salesmen to be correctly dressed … they don’t want to see a salesman in an informal shirt.” Fast forward 40 years and the notion of a button-down collar being ‘too informal’ for the workplace, even in a job where suits are still routinely worn, seems bewildering. In an era when men seem to be dressed down at all times, the notion of a button-down collar being deemed inappropriate seems like ancient history.

So, what is the history of the button-down collar?

The most popular claim to be the originator of the button-down collar shirt is that of the US menswear legend, Brooks Brothers. Established in 1833, the company launched its button-down collar shirt in 1900. According to the Brooks Brothers website, the story goes that in 1896 John E. Brooks, the grandson of the company’s founder, Henry Brooks, attended a polo match in England where he “noticed something peculiar about the players' collars: they were buttoned down so as to prevent their flapping in the wind. John brought his discovery back to Brooks Brothers, and thus was born the Button-Down shirt, a Brooks Brothers classic and what some called "the most imitated item in fashion history".”

The shirts worn by the polo players were reported to be home-made improvisations, designed to stop the shirt’s collar flying up and distracting the wearer. Inspired by the style, John E. Brooks then devised the world’s first commercially available button-down shirt, which was launched in 1900. Interestingly, for a garment that was to become so associated with the Brooks Brothers brand, the company’s own history of its first 100 years made no mention of the button-down collar shirt.

It’s a good story, and the Brooks Brothers shirt is certainly the most distinctive version of the style, however it’s not entirely true that it was the first button-down shirt. Advertisements from the late 1890s show that soft-collared sports shirts, worn for cycling and tennis, were already commercially available in the UK as seen in these adverts from 1899.

What really made the button-down shirt distinctive was the fabric it was made from. Oxford cotton, with its basket-weave, is soft and comfortable, something that set it apart from other shirting on the early 20th Century. Compared to the starched collars and cuffs of most other shirts, the collars and cuffs of the Oxford cloth button-down shirt combined comfort with a defiantly casual appearance. It soon became a favourite of American students, in particular those studying at the USA’s prestigious ‘Ivy League’ universities. As noted in a 1950s menswear manual “The colleges gave rise to many important fashions, among them the grey flannel suit, the camel’s hair overcoat, the button-down collar-attached shirt, the narrow-brimmed hat and the white buckskin shoe”. It further noted: “This style is a favourite of both college men and postgraduates. It has a casual appearance because of its slight roll.”

Whilst button-down shirts are most famous for being made from Oxford cloth, other fabrics were available. In the 1920s printed ‘Madras’ cottons and mercerised cottons were used to make the style.

A survey of men carried out a fashionable event in Rhode Island in 1927 found 65% of men wearing white shirts and 19% of men wearing shirts with a button-down collar. A similar survey, carried out among participants at a golf tournament, found 70% of golfers wearing white shirts and 16% wearing button-down collar shirts.

Although the button-down collar shirt never reached the same level of popularity in the UK as it did in the USA, the style remained available through the early 20th Century. Work shirts, casual summer shirts, and sports shirts were all available with buttoning collars.

With time, the button-down collar progressed from being the favourite shirts of college students and spread into the mainstream, being worn by Hollywood stars and musicians. One brand even offered a button-down shirt named the ‘Duke of Kent’, suggesting a connection to the fashionable members of the British Royal Family. In 1949 Brooks Brothers, spurred on by the ongoing popularity of the button-down shirt, introduced the ‘Pink Oxford Shirt’, a feminised version of their classic design.

By the early 1950s the style’s profile was such that button-down collar shirts went full-circle and reappeared on the UK market. In the early 1950s button-down collar shirts began to be a feature of British menswear. Although the style had its origins in the UK, this need breed of shirts was wholeheartedly promoted as being ‘American style’. As one menswear company put it, these were ‘novelty’ shirts. Others described them as being “American Men’s Wear” or gave them names such as ‘The New Yorker’ or the ‘California’. The shirts came in a variety of colours, including white, cream, green and blue.

Cary Grant

Montgomery Clift

Henry Fonda

In the USA during the 1950s the button-down Oxford shirt became synonymous with a new breed of young actors and musicians, men who adopted the campus styles – the ‘preppy look’ and the ‘Ivy League’ styles – of American youths and took them worldwide. Although based on looks that had long dominated American colleges, it was a style that appeared fresh to those unfamiliar with Yale, Stanford or Princeton. The look was new, determinedly youthful and, for British teenagers who were exposed to the style via the cinema and illustrated magazines, these were in stark contrast to the styles of post-war Britain.

James Garner

Anthony Perkins

William Holden

As the fifties drew to a close, and the sixties began, a new breed of British youth, often tagged as ‘Modernists’ adopted the button-down collar as a part of their fresh new look. Young men searched far and wide for the shirts, hunted down imported Levis 501 jeans, searched sports shops for American basketball shoes and dreamed of colourful cardigans. It was soon part of a new scene that became labelled as ‘Mod’, an ever-changing fashion scene that emerged in the early 1960s.

With button-down collars entering the British consciousness in the relatively restrained styles of the standard Brooks Brothers shirt, and its many imitators, the style soon started to change, as fashionable British youths became determined to develop their own styles. One of their favourite shirtmakers was ‘Ben Sherman’, a company launched in 1963 to bring American styles to the UK market. The brand used imported American Oxford cloth in pale shades of pink, yellow and blue to make slim-fitting button-down collar shirts. Broad ‘Candy stripes’, also in pale pinks, greens and blues, became a firm favourite, and gingham checks became popular on the new ‘Skinhead’ scene. Other brands offered multistripe ‘pyjama style’ button-down shirts. In the early 1960s ‘Cecil Gee’, the menswear shop that had originally styled itself as ‘Britain’s leading American Store’, offered pink, white and blue button-down shirts along with gingham button-down shirts in mustard/white, black/white, blue/white and even purple/white, from their ‘Bronds’ shirting collection. They also sold button-down denim shirts, a style that was worn by the legendary TV journalist David Frost. In the mid-1960s the ‘Arrow’ shirt brand reported that button-down and tab-collar styles were the most popular for business-shirts.

By the mid-sixties, as the ‘Swinging London’ scene – or the ‘Peacock era’, with The Tatler describing 1966 as ‘The Year of the Peacocks’ - emerged from the ‘Mod’ look, the plain Oxford cloth shirt faced challenges from flower prints, polka dots and paisley patterns. New looks, such as wearing thin roll neck jumpers under button-down shirts, emerged. Button-down shirts were available in denim, or corduroy, and came with long pointed collars, or rounded collars. Some added epaulettes and multiple pockets. New non-iron fabrics appeared, as did nylon shirts, intended to keep the wearer looking fashionably smart but all too often making them unfashionably sweaty. Towards the end of the decade button-down shirts, often made from garish patterned cottons, became available with matching ties.

In the years that followed, button-down collars came in and out of fashion, disappearing for much of the seventies – an era of super-wide collars – then reappearing with the UK’s mod revival of the late 1970s. During the 1980s the style returned as a staple of menswear, available in every high street menswear shop, a classic casual look that was sported by men across society. In time, it achieved the status of a classic of menswear, as stylish now as it was 100 years ago, and the perfect shirt to wear for all but the most formal occasions.