The 7/8 Sleeve
The 7/8 Sleeve
A three quarter sleeve stops at the wrong place on a man's arm.
Sleeve length is one of those decisions that nobody talks about and everybody notices. Move a hem an inch and the whole shirt changes.
What Three Quarter Actually Means
A three quarter sleeve ends between the elbow and the wrist, usually just below the elbow. It has been around a long time. It shows up in the mid nineteenth century, it runs through the 1950s in raglan sport shirts, and there is a version called a bracelet sleeve cut to sit just above the wrist bone so a watch or a bangle shows.
On a woman it can be beautiful, and it has been for two hundred years. It draws the eye to the narrowest part of the forearm and the wrist.
On most men it lands in a different place. A man's forearm is thicker and the widest part of it sits closer to the elbow, so a sleeve ending just past the elbow tends to stop at the widest point rather than past it.
The Fix Is an Inch
Take the sleeve further down the arm and the geometry changes completely. Past the belly of the forearm, the arm is tapering, so the sleeve ends on a narrowing line rather than a widening one.
It also stops fighting you. A three quarter sleeve on a man is always about to be pushed up. A longer one sits where it was put.
And it leaves the wrist and the hand showing, which is the part of the arm that reads. A watch shows. A cuff of tattoo shows. Nothing is buried.
Why 7/8
Seven eighths is the fraction that describes it honestly. It is not a long sleeve and it is not a short one. It stops short of the wrist, above where a long sleeve would break, and it looks intentional rather than shrunk.
That is the whole test for a design decision. If somebody looks at the sleeve and wonders whether the shirt was washed too hot, the length is wrong. If they look at it and it reads as a choice, the length is right.
How to Wear It
On its own in the shoulder seasons, which is what it is for. Spring and fall in the Pacific Northwest are mostly one long argument between short sleeves and long sleeves, and this is the answer to it.
Under a jacket it works particularly well, because there is no cuff to fight the jacket sleeve and nothing bunches at the wrist.
It layers over a long sleeve too, and then you get two lengths showing at once, which is a good look and an old one.
Ours
The 7/8 Sleeve Ultimate Pocket Shirt is a custom sleeve length designed by Josh. It is cut from the same 10.5oz slub cotton produced in the USA as the rest of the family, with heirloom flat stitch seams throughout and the rain drop pocket on the chest.
Designed and made in Seattle.
One inch of pattern. It changes the entire shirt.
A Way Of Life.
Shop the Story
the 7/8 Sleeve SLUB Ultimate Pocket Shirt
the SLUB Ultimate Pocket Tee in natural
Related Reading