So how are cufflinks supposed to fit? Not “which ones look nice”, not “which ones match your watch”, actually fit, like there’s a wrong size and a right size the way there is with a jacket. Because most of what you read online about cufflinks approaches them as jewellery, pick a shape you like and you’re done, but that’s how I found myself standing over the sink in a pub toilet for four minutes, trying to wedge a cufflink through a cuff hole that really wasn’t having any, missing the beginning of my mate’s speech, halfway through sweating through a shirt I’d ironed that morning. Fit matters with cufflinks. It’s just not the fit people mean when they talk about it.
The bit that actually has to fit: the fastening, not the look
This is what no one tells you when you buy your first pair. You can’t technically “size” a cufflink like you can a shirt, but the mechanism on the back-end, the actual toggle through which you thread the cufflink, has to match the type of cuff holes you’re trying to get it through on your shirt, or else you’re not just going to have a fashion faux pas you’re going to have a getting dressed issue.
The ones that ruined my best man’s speech were fixed backs, a solid little bar that doesn’t fold or swivel that looks dead classy sitting flat on the counter of a jewellery shop, completely useless on a shirt with narrow buttonholes spaced closely together.
I essentially had to fold the cuff in half and shove the cufflink through like it was a needle and I was sewing with thick gloves on. Eventually got it through, looked like I’d dressed in the bottom drawer.
What works? Well, these days I almost exclusively reach for whirlybirds, also known as bullet backs. These ones fold flat in line with the post so it weasels through the hole with zero resistance then rotates back 90 degrees to lock everything in place. It sounds petty to care about that sort of thing and honestly it completely is, until you’re the person sprinting ten minutes across London because your cufflinks refuse to play ball with your favourite shirt. Chain links are classics I’ll give them that but they’re a two-handed job and require triple the patience, which is fine when you can do them in front of a full length mirror at home and useless if you’re hanging out of the drivers seat trying to fasten them on the way to somewhere you’re already late for. So fastening first, before colour or shape or how good they’ll look on Instagram, see what your shirt cuff needs. Double cuffs with generously spaced holes will forgive you almost everything you throw at them. Slimmer shirts with narrow cuffs expect the folding variety, don’t try and argue.
The bit that this actually affects though, not just whether it can thread through the hole but whether it secures both sides of the cuff together correctly when it does, is size. A cufflink too small for the gap will leave you with a slither of white showing on the underside of the cuff when it’s fastened, not something you’ll notice under the wing of a jacket but pretty much the first thing someone will notice if it catches under your rolled up sleeve at a wedding reception. After drilling my mate about it for weeks I eventually sent him a photo of the offending shirt tucked into my trousers pre drink, no message needed, one of his friends replied “gap”. Nothing else. One word wrecked his week.
The bit that just has to suit you: size and weight on the wrist
The bit of “fit” that’s actually about you comes once you’ve sorted the mechanism. Size. Well, size not in terms of measurements in millimetres, but size relative to your wrist, how much cuff you show when your arm’s actually being put to use rather than crooked at an unnatural angle for a photo. Thick, ornate cufflinks look amazing on camera with your hand half resting on a desk, catching the light as you’re talking. Trust me I’ve built an entire portfolio off them. Try and wear that same pair while actually working at a desk all day, or to a wedding where you’ll be bobbing between standing and sitting and shaking forty pairs of sweaty hands, and suddenly it’s hitting your shirt sleeve when you reach for your drink, catching you as you scroll through contacts on your phone, and telegraphing that it’s just not a part of your arm, it’s something you’ve got stuck there.
I bought a pair years ago as big as ten pence pieces because they looked incredible on YouTube in a thirty second video, realised they were about the least practical things I own the second I left the house, and have worn them twice since.
Weight is equally important, and yet somehow never mentioned.
A heavy cufflink yanks down on your shirt cuff throughout the day, which means you then find yourself subtly lifting your sleeve back into place at regular intervals without realising it’s what you’re doing. Been there with these guys. And if you’re constantly standing up or getting your jacket on and off, welcome to an exhausting couple of hours. Every pair of cufflinks I’ve ended up keeping and wearing anywhere near regularly are all lighter than you’d think them to be, stay close to the wrist rather than jutting away from it, and vanish into the background as soon as you start looking at something else. Literally the point of a cufflink doing its job.
So next time you’re staring at a selection of cufflinks wondering how on earth you “size” something that doesn’t even come in sizes, that’s your two “sizes”. The physical size for your wrists, and the technical sizing that’ll make sure they go on in the first place. Get both right and suddenly cufflinks don’t make you think about your sleeves, they disappear into them. And let’s be honest, that’s the whole compliment.
