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For a very subtle “pop” for your men’s dress clothing suit coat or blazer, go for the easy “flair.” You can reflect your personal style, make a statement, or just radiate class by adding a boutonniere to the lapel buttonhole on your suit coat or blazer.
Men’s dress clothing suit coats and blazers will traditionally have a buttonhole on the left lapel. It’s actually a throwback to original outer coat designs, where this was simply the buttonhole for the top button of the coat. As styles changed, the upper button was left undone, then turned back against the outer jacket front to become the coat lapel.
Men dressing as peacocks went out of fashion (think of the cultural transition from royalty and aristrocracy in the late 1700’s to the Industrial Revolution in the latter part of the 1800’s), there was still an urge, even back then, to kick it up a bit, and thus, the boutonniere. Boutonniere comes from the French word, bouton, which means button, but, you probably guessed that.
If your suit coat or blazer has that left lapel buttonhole, experiment with tucking in a boutonniere. The best method is to have a small stirrup sewn into the underside of the lapel, just below the buttonhole, to hold the stem portion in place and hide it from view.
…And what constitutes a proper boutonniere? Traditionally, a single flower is the decoration of choice (in Victorian times, there was an entire language associated with choice of flowers, but I digress). Men, over the century plus since the boutonniere has been in fashion, have sometimes become identified with a “trademark” flower, such as a white rosebud or a red carnation – the other option is to choose what’s in season, even hand-plucked from a friendly gardener. I have started to see dried flowers and alternative boutonniere arrangements of feathers, beads, crystals what have you, but the classic is the single fresh flower.
As you develop your men’s dress clothing style, definitely consider adding a boutonniere – seriously, what women isn’t naturally attracted to flowers?
