What happens to the sleeve pleats when I change the shirt cuffs

When your shirt cuffs wear out, changing the cuff can be a great way to rejuvenate the shirt. A common concern however, is what happens to shirts with pleats at the bottom of the sleeve also known as forearm pleats. This refers to a situation where a few layers of fabric are folded at the bottom of the forearm forming a pleat that is kept in place by the cuff. The number of pleats can vary by the shirt maker but typically can be anywhere from one to eight. The knife pleat is the most common type of pleat found on a shirt sleeve. The number of pleats is usually inversely correlated to the width of the fold. When a shirt has eight pleats each one will be narrower. On the other hand, when a shirt has fewer pleats, each one will be wider. It is possible to maintain the same number of pleats when changing your shirt cuffs. A seam ripper is used to carefully remove the stitching binding the frayed cuff to the shirt sleeve. The new cuff and attached to the shirt sleeve using pins and with the sleeve maintaining the same pleat formation. A sewing machine is then used stich the new cuff to the sleeve. The pins are then removed.

The existing of pleats has the added benefit of additional flexibility when changing the cuffs. Shirt cuffs tend to come in one size fits all. You may have noticed when purchasing a shirt, you are given a choice of sleeve length and collar size as well as fit. You are not prompted to pick a cuff circumference. A few made to order shirtmakers will give you the ability to add an extra inch to the cuff for the watch. For the most part though, shirt manufacturers make shirt cuffs in one size. There is a caveat though, which is the standard size of shirt cuffs varies by manufacturer or shirt brand. For example, you some shirts you wear you are able to take them off while keeping your watch on, while others you need to remove your watch in order to take the shirt off since the sleeve cuff cannot fit over the watch. With French cuffs diameter variations can be more pronounced even for those who do not wear watches since with some shirts you can leave the cuff links on when you take the shirt off and hang it up and for others you need to remove the cuff links are a prerequisite for being able to remove the shirt.

While the go to size for both barrel cuffs and French cuffs is nine inches. French cuff shirts can wound up feeling narrower at the cuff. This is because the cuff links themselves are bulkier than buttons and therefore take up more space de facto narrowing the shirt cuff since your wrist and half of the cufflink must fit within the same nine inches which makes for a tighter space than trying to fit your wrist and a button which takes up de minimis space. For this reason, we advocate for double cuff shirts to be sewn with wider cuffs than single cuff shirts. The convenience of being able to take the shirt on and off without having to remove the cuffs links each time is a much more user-friendly experience and reduces the number of steps involved in getting dressed up.

This is where the pleats provide some breathing room. When replacing the shirt cuffs, it is possible that the replacement shirt cuffs won’t be the exact same size as the original, now frayed, shirt cuffs. These deviations are minor but nevertheless the perimeter of the cuff must map to the bottom of the shirt forearm. You can’t really adjust the size of a cuff but you can adjust the bottom of the shirt. The button and button hole tend to be at either end of a shirt cuff providing little way for trimming the shirt cuff. For obvious reasons, it would be very hard to enlarge a shirt cuff since that would require additional fabric. While cutting or adding fabric to the middle of the cuff would render the shirt inelegant especially since the cuffs are a fairly prominent part of the shirt since they can be seen even when wearing a suit or a sweater. What you can do though, is add or subtract to the number of shirt pleats. If the replacement cuff is smaller, you can add pleats to the shirt sleeve. If the replacement cuff is larger, you can let out some of the pleats to widen the bottom of the shirt sleeve. This gives you the latitude you need to change cuffs for any dress shirt. The beauty of this solution is it leads to no perceptible differences in the shirt sleeve. If a shirt has six pleats instead of eight or five instead of four it will look the shirt was designed that way to begin with.

Under certain circumstances you may want to enlarge a shirt’s cuff. This may be done because your current cuff is too small or because you need to accommodate a wrist watch. In this case by checking the pleats on the sleeves you can determine how much you are able to widen the cuff. It should be noted, that you do want to preserve some of the pleats for both elegance and because you need to the sleeve to be able to adjust as you move your arm as this will make it much more comfortable by providing you with elbow room. Thus, we do not advise letting out all the pleats.

So, to summarize shirt cuffs unlike collars are one size fits all. There are however minor variations (likely no more than an inch or two inches) depending on the manufacturer, shirt maker or brand. Adjusting the number of pleats lets you exactly match a replacement shirt cuff to the shirt sleeve in the event there are deviations. It should be noted that more often than not, this won’t be necessary given that the standard shirt cuff size is nine inches across a range of major menswear brands.