Reader Question: Short Sleeves and Ties

Loyal reader Steve writes:

Is it proper for a professional male to wear a suit with a short-sleeved dress shirt and tie rather than a long-sleeved shirt?

Your answer, Steve, is no.

Actually -- and don't let anyone know that I told you this -- you may, MAY get away with this in a DIRE FASHION EMERGENCY ONLY if no one will EVER know that you're wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt under your jacket. You'll have to keep your jacket on the entire time, and that might prove awkward -- unless you're a network anchor, most men like to remove their jackets while sitting, for instance.

If you want the official line, it's that wearing a short-sleeved "dress" shirt with a tie for any reason is a serious no-no, in a number of ways. Not the least of which is that it makes you look like an IBM engineer from 1960 (which seems, troublingly, to be something of a recurring problem among this site's readership.)

If you're drawn to short-sleeved "dress" shirts (note the derisive use of quotation marks -- they're quite intentional here) to keep you cooler, consider that wearing proper long-sleeved dress shirts won't make you that much warmer -- you're still wearing a jacket over it all, remember? And you can roll your sleeves. More importantly, appropriate fabrics will keep you cool in summer and warm in winter. Ever wondered how indiginous desert peoples keep from frying alive under hoods and robes? It's because they know the value of fabrics that breathe. Think linen.

Short-sleeved "dress" shirts themselves are a bit of a pitfall for many folks. If you're wearing short-sleeved "dress" shirts simply, like George Leigh Mallory, because they're there, then, my friend, you need to reconsider your wardrobe. Short-sleeved dress shirts can look OK in the following cases: Totally obscured (as above;) casual (with jeans or cargo pants;) or when you live and work in the tropics.

Here's your executive-level takeaway from all this: Avoid short-sleeved dress shirts in business, and avoid using them with ties unless NO ONE will notice and you have no other option.


These guys might have been pioneers in the computer industry, but they were also victimized by fashion. Don't let this happen to you!