Did You Know?

What about that loop on the back of my button-down?

If you were to go pick a button-down shirt out of your closet and examine the back of it, you might find something surprising: a small loop of fabric found an inch or two below the collar. Like all great stories, the origin of locker loops, as they’re known, involves sailors, the Ivy League, and the mid-20th century. Having just heard their name, you can likely guess why they exist: hanging shirts is a pretty hip way to store them, not to mention time-saving and efficient.

Because locker loops are believed to have first appeared on the uniforms of East Coast sailors, whose ships tended to have lockers rather than closets, their function was twofold: they saved space and prevented wrinkles that might arise from, erm, folding. Locker loops were then incorporated into the button-down shirts made by Gant Shirtmakers,  Yale’s official clothing brand at the time, helping develop an aesthetic that would now be described as preppy.

No longer content to simply use locker loops for storage purposes, as the fine people at Gant intended, students began to use them to signal their relationship status. Girls would remove the locker loops from shirts belonging to the object of their affection, and some boys would tear off their own to let the world know that they were taken. This trend didn’t last (perhaps because men would need to buy all new shirts after any break-up?), but the loops are still around today.

Everything has a story if you dig deeply enough and your Two Chums love doing the digging!