Here is an essay about the sleeves’ buttonholes of suits; It is meant for the smart or stylish man.

The first buttons were found at two notorious places: in the vestiges of the “vallee de l’Indus” civilization, on the Chinese sites of the Bronze Age and in Ancient Rome. It is said that the buttons were firstly designed more for aesthetic purposes than for fastening ones. The use of buttons for maintaining clothes especially shirtsleeves, was effective in Europe only from the 13th and 14th centuries.
It is in the reign of Louis XIV that the use of button was spread in France; it then became a luxurious fashion accessory decorated with jewels or with small- scale models of paintings.
The origins of the sleeves buttonhole are still to be clarified or confirmed. Some professionals talked about the time when doctors (specialists) had to roll up their sleeves whenever they wanted to write. Other people mentioned the military period when soldiers’ jackets were uncomfortably tighten at the wrists.

The number of buttons

The jacket nowadays is made up of one to five buttons. The creator can therefore distinguish between jackets considered as informal ones (sport jackets) to the ones more formal (smart jackets) with up to 4 buttons.
Famous fashion houses work with specifications or detailed plans about the buttonhole design. These specifications draw up the space that should exist between the buttons as well as the dimensions of the buttonholes, whether they straddle or line up. Most agree about a buttonhole of four buttons without overlapping for their most elegant suits.

The last button is sometimes left opened, comparison with the theory of the evolution of the clothes, the buttonhole is relegated at the rank of simple progressive relic, become an unused organ.

Elegance attains its paroxysm when it transforms a practical aspect, which lost its sense, into an aesthetic and distinguished detail. The Elmantine pays tribute to this organ which is not any more pointed out, rehabilitating its ornamental function.