A Brief Treatise on the Lengh of Shirt Sleeves

Apparently, Anne Boleyn had an extra finger on each hand and in order to hide the fact started a fashion for wearing shirt sleeves that were so long that they covered the fingers. To me, that sounds highly impractical and potentially downright messy but, hey, she was Queen so could, I suppose, get away with it. Still, it’s interesting to think that she went from having one finger more than most people to having one head less than most people, so I suppose it all balances out.

Nonetheless, am I the only person in this day and age to think that shirt sleeves are a bit too long? Based on the fact that a few shirts I have from different shops fit perfectly well around the body yet somehow seem to be a bit long in the sleeve leads me to wonder if I have arms that are too short, but I somehow don’t think it’s that. Or at least I hope not. I don’t tend to wear shirts very often but when I did I almost always rolled them up to my forearms as I found the sleeves got in the way. They get stuck on your watch, or they obscure your watch meaning you have to unbutton them anyway. And the buttons or cufflinks clatter against the keyboard when you’re typing. But whilst I never had my sleeves at their full length, I would obviously never dream of wearing short sleeved shirts; whilst I suppose they’re acceptable on holiday, short sleeved work-type shirts are clearly the work of the Devil and should only be worn by IT technicians who live with their mum. Moss from the IT Crowd being the prime example.

All the same, I reckon there’s potential for meeting in the middle here, so I’ve invented a new shirt. Why not just have one where the sleeves go about halfway down the forearm? That way they’d be out of the way when you’re typing or washing your hands yet they’d still be long enough to keep most of your arms warm. Personally I think it’s an excellent idea and not at all like those creepy half length trousers that some fashion houses were trying to promote a few years back; they would only lead to cold ankles, whilst my new shirts are entirely practical. Perhaps the only example of a development of style that actually makes sense rather than just being something created on a whim by a coked-up fashion designer. If anything, they’d be a good way of showing that pretty much everyone these days has the standard number of fingers. I think, as a society, we have to consider that a form of progress, and how many other fashion innovations can you say truly show off our successful development as a species?