Lately I’ve seen an explosion of half-tucked button-up shirts. How do you know which side to tuck in and what do you do in the back? More generally, what happened to the French pleat, forward pleat, or full pleat? Does one pleat scream “Midtown office” and the other “carefree on the playground”? When do you embrace each style? — Danielle, the Bronx
So many ways to quit, so hard to figure out which one is right! After all, tucking your shirt neatly into your waistband (or not) isn’t just about creating a silhouette. It is a signifier that contains multitudes. Nowadays you have to think before you stop.
That wasn’t true before. Once upon a time there was only one question: to tuck in or not to tuck in? Tucking in a shirt (for every gender and age) was seen as a sign of good manners, a mark of institutional and self-respect, and the standard dress code, both in Congress and high school. How many of us grew up hearing our parents endlessly to “tuck your shirt in”?
Detachment then became the obvious consequence, an act of rebellion and a refusal to conform – which is a different kind of conformity, but let’s leave that for now. Detaching was comfortable and relaxed. Unclogging was cool. Untucking said “off-duty” or “too distracted by big thoughts to worry about the little things.” It also said “sloppy” to some.
Still, tucking in wasn’t cool. The tucking was stiff and tense. But tucking in was also professional, leading to the creation of shirts meant to be loosened, the straight, tailored-hem types that claimed to give everyone the best of both worlds. Not to mention the fashionable middle ground of the half pleat or the French pleat.
Then came the pandemic and the rise of comfort dressing. It’s been a minefield ever since. You practically need an encyclopedia for the tucking protocol.
The French tuck, a go-to from Tan France on “Queer Eye” — which made it so popular that Brie Larson eventually taught Oprah Winfrey how to do French tuck, and the technique became the subject of a MasterClass tutorial — includes tuck in the front of a shirt, but let the back flare out like a cape. The folks at MasterClass call this “the best of both worlds.”
With the half pleat, on the other hand, one side of the shirt is tucked in, while the other side remains free. According to Kate Young, a stylist who works with Selena Gomez and Michelle Williams, among others, “The half-tuck stems from the trend for oversized men’s shirts.”
“Because of the volume of these kinds of shirts,” she said, “it makes sense to stop, but not too much or you’ll end up looking like a marshmallow on top.”
However, she added: “This isn’t an office look unless you work in a creative field or you’re going for that super preppy look, ‘I’m so rich it doesn’t matter if I’m a slob’. For this you want the shirt is a mess (wrinkles, paint splatters, shreds) and that your khaki or Nantucket reds look like you’ve been wearing them since senior year. It’s best worn, she said, “while drinking a mint julep from a silver cup .”
On the other hand, she said, “if you want to look like a ’90s supermodel or a European tourist,” opt for a more fitted shirt and tuck it completely into straight-leg jeans paired with loafers.
If all this seems too much, however, there is another way. You could avoid the problem altogether by avoiding tucking in favor of buttons: Undo the bottom few buttons and simply tie the shirttails around your waist. But that brings us to the Hyannis Port area, and that’s a story for another day.
Your style questions, answered
Each week on Open Thread, Vanessa answers a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her at any time at email or Twitter. Questions have been edited and condensed.
