Button Down With Ya Bad Self

Never underestimate the power of a button down.

It is perhaps the most versatile wardrobe item you could own, what with its multidirectional buttons that allow you to declare that actually, you’re wearing a button up. The world can’t stop you. Can’t box you in.

A button down is the one piece of clothing that’s truly transitional. Save for a bra, nothing can take you from balmy summer days (rolled sleeves) to temperate fall, to being the layer underneath sweaters as the chill comes in, and then have the ability to retain its timeless charm while being worn on its own again once spring arrives. It never gets old, especially not as you begin undoing buttons like they’re the windows on an advent calendar leading all the way up to that first hot day, then you’ll roll up your sleeves and start again.

Button downs encourage sharing. Men express concern that what we may consider borrowing is essentially stealing, but no one ever told them that silk blouses were off limits, so really, that’s their problem. It’s also not our fault that denim and gingham is universally flattering.

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As Leandra brought up earlier, there’s about a million different ways to style them. The truly long ones can be worn like a tunic. They can make a fringed jacket look less thematic, and they can make an after-work drink more dramatic.

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They’re simple without being “basic,” classic without implying stuffy: a single shirt can be worn down to the belly button, secured with a pair of high waisted pants. Theoretically, you could wear one backwards. Yet somehow buttoning them right up to the neck — right to the very top button just over your throat — adds yet another type of edge. There’s something sexy and mysterious in deliberate concealment.

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Some of the best people reached style icon status for their consistent wear of the button down; think Lauren Hutton, Karl Lagerfeld, Diane Keaton, cowboys, everyone who is French. But what’s amazing is that to wear a button down isn’t copying them (though whether you button up or down might be inspired by them) and this is because the beauty of the button down is everyone has one.

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You could never look at two people wearing the same button down and assume that one ripped off the other. I could never look at a friend in a button down and declare that she stole my look. And yet all of us — and this is nothing short of a miracle whipped into fabric — could look at ourselves in a button down shirt and declare with definitive, unwavering confidence that this button down is so very “me.”