Marc Chevalier
Gone Home
- Messages
- 18,192
- Location
- Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California
Jovan said:(Though, only issue I have with Browne is that he keyholes the lapels rather than a straight one.)
Jovan has pointed this out before. Did y'all know that it has a pedigree?
German suits have had keyhole buttonholes on their lapels (both single and double-breasted) since at least the 1930s. I know, because I've seen them again and again on '30s German suits and tuxedos. So often, in fact, that I began to think that it was a distinctly German practice.
When I told my tailor -- who worked in Hamburg for years -- about this, he laughed and said "Of course! Hugo Boss really popularized it, and Boss suits made in Germany still have it!" Well, that made sense. Hugo Boss's company was around in the '30s, making military uniforms. My tailor explained that back in the day, keyhole buttonholes were more difficult and time-consuming to make by hand than bar tack ones, and so German custom tailors would do them to show off the quality of their work ... even on the lapel(s). Apparently, the impression of quality stuck.
I hope that this little explanation has helped to shed light on a peculiar tailoring detail. True, Thom Browne isn't German, but he seems to have adopted at least one "Germanism."
.