Do You Carry Your Pen In Your Shirt Pocket?

[RayMan]

I always carry my pen clipped to my shirt pocket. Actually, that's the only way I feel comfortable carrying my pens.

[Dan Solomon]

I always carry a fountain pen in my shirt pocket--usually a Parker 51 or Pelikan M400.

[tutelman]

I have been told that the reason 'expensive' dress shirts have no pocket is because the well-dressed gentleman does not remove his suit jacket. Of course, the jacket has plenty of interior pen storage.

 

That being said - and admitting that I am not that well-dressed gentleman - I use my shirt pockets. I have even bought a few dress and casual shirts because they not only have a shirt pocket, but stich part of it vertically to provide a separate 'compartment' for a pen. (Kenneth Cole dress shirts and Columbia causals.)

[greencobra]

I know I'm not a well dressed gentleman, a comfortably dressed one maybe. I certainly have been known to tote a pen in my shirt pocket. What of it?

[welch]

Proper dress shirts don't have pockets and are usually worn with a suit and tie. You carry your pen in the jacket's inner pocket.

I wear long sleeve shirts with pockets 99% of the time, with my fountain pen in the shirt's pocket 100% of the time.

 

Hold on now. Speaking both for GE, from which I collect a 15-year pension, and for SWIFT (the banking network), I insist that

 

- the suit has to be dark blue. Sometimes pinstriped for flash, but blue.

 

- shirts are white, button sleeves and button-down collar. Anyone with cuff-links or collar-links is a dandy...not a serious contributor

 

- shirts have a pocket on the left, In the mid '90s, it was required that we have a Mont Blanc ballpoint in the pocket

 

- Dress down day on Friday, when we could wear a gray suit with a blue shirt. Button as and pockets, of course.

 

This is the Official dress uniform even now, although most times we are expected to wear "project clothes" (that was an Andersen Consulting term): Khaki pants, blue button-down shirts with pockets, Rockport shoes. (Women wear pants-suits, and are allowed a splash of color in their scarf.)

[corniche]

Hold on now. Speaking both for GE, from which I collect a 15-year pension, and for SWIFT (the banking network), I insist that

 

- the suit has to be dark blue. Sometimes pinstriped for flash, but blue.

 

- shirts are white, button sleeves and button-down collar. Anyone with cuff-links or collar-links is a dandy...not a serious contributor

 

- shirts have a pocket on the left, In the mid '90s, it was required that we have a Mont Blanc ballpoint in the pocket

 

- Dress down day on Friday, when we could wear a gray suit with a blue shirt. Button as and pockets, of course.

 

This is the Official dress uniform even now, although most times we are expected to wear "project clothes" (that was an Andersen Consulting term): Khaki pants, blue button-down shirts with pockets, Rockport shoes. (Women wear pants-suits, and are allowed a splash of color in their scarf.)

 

- Ja, mein Herr!

 

:ltcapd:

Edited May 13, 2011 by S. P. Colfer

[dsatco]

New Falcon writes...

 

...., if you ever had a pen clipped to your shirt pocket, you'd be mocked for weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, as Bob Dylan sang,

 

Tell ya what, I would not feel so all alone

Everybody must get stoned.

 

 

Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 (1966)

 

Edited May 13, 2011 by dsatco

[Parker51]

Shirt Pocket, definitely. Shirts without pockets remind me of those horrible fashions of the 60s and 70s. Not only no shirt pockets, but no trouser pockets. The modern dress shirts without pockets always look to me as missing something, the something being a Jacket, and Jackets are impractical much of the year even in the Northern part of North America much of the year.

[aawhite]

I always carry my pens in the shirt pocket. For me, one important consideration for buying a shirt is the pocket. Does it have a pocket? Can the pocket comfortably carry a fountain pen?

[ashbridg]

The shirt pocket rule is formal etiquette: Men’s dress shirts do not have pockets, or if they do, the pockets are decorative only and not to be used.

 

It may seem quaint, but dress etiquette still counts in some places, like the military, the church, and the boardrooms of New York and Washington DC.

 

Etiquette may have gone the route of chivalry (dead), but if you think there’s no interest in it, you’d be wrong. Look no further than the royal wedding of Britain’s future king and queen. The event was a study in formal etiquette that captivated the entire English speaking world. And people loved it. TV ratings went through the roof. No magazine failed to feature the beaming couple on the cover (I’ll wager the groom had neither shirt pocket nor pen).

 

The demise of etiquette doesn’t bother me a lot, but there is one aspect of formality I miss, and that is the use of a fountain pen and the cursive script it wrote so elegantly. Why, back in my day, as the comedian puts it, gentlemen and ladies wrote with a fountain pen. And they had to use cursive. Those new-fangled ballpoints were not allowed at my school. A thank-you note written in ballpoint showed bad taste and was unacceptable (poor boy, they would lament, he can’t write a proper note).

 

Writing etiquette no longer requires a fountain pen. Today it is seen by most as a frivolity—or worse. Thank-you notes went from a requirement, to a cliché, to being obsolete. That doesn’t stop me from writing them, or using a fountain pen to do it, or putting the pen back in my shirt pocket when I’m finished. And no apology is offered.

 

Ashby

[Glenn-SC]

Also not all shirts have a pocket but all trousers have pockets.

My spandex glitter pants don't have pockets.

 

:ltcapd:

 

Bruce in Ocala, FL -not that there's anything wrong with spandex glitter pants

Bruce, that's an image of you I didn't need!

 

"All proper shirts" huh?

When I was brought up, "proper" shirts had one and sometimes two pockets.

Mine still do and I carry my pens in them.

It is the only way I carry pens.

 

BTW, where were you raised that men's shirts don't have pockets?

Edited May 13, 2011 by Glenn-SC

[koa]

If you carry your pen in the heated pen pocket of your kilt, you don't hae to worry about breaking the pen when you sit down. Or about the ink freezing solid. Or any number of other things. But I am looking into a multi-pocketed kilt, or possibly a pen-ready sporan.

 

(cross posted to the Lamy forum)

[Jerome Tarshis]

As andyk, who lives in England, has already posted, it is quite common that English dress shirts do not have pockets. As Ashbridge, an American, has posted, one may wear a shirt with a pocket and on grounds of taste avoid putting anything in that breast pocket. Either because it distorts the clean lines of a shirt, or because gentlemen do not carry burdens.

 

Nobody has yet mentioned avoiding putting stuff in the side pockets of jackets, on the ground that it makes you look like a mess. A creature of awkward bulges. But yes, I suspect there are people using this board who don't actually put anything of much volume in those side pockets, either. A slip of paper from the coat check room, yes.

 

Pens do have clips, but as I understand it, the better element carried their pens, as already noted above, in an inside pocket of the jacket. I do see Europeans, some of them, with pens in the breast pocket of the jacket, the clips very visible. I don't happen to know whether in Germany that is considered the right thing to do, sehr herrlich, or what the English call naff. Obviously in a mixed society such as most literate people now live in, quite a few of us will live and die without knowing about these things.

 

Growing up at a middling distance from both English and upper-class American mores, though not at a vast distance, I didn't know about those shirt pocket ideas when I was a child. But found out later. I do own some pocketless English shirts. What we learn from these discussions is that we all of us live in different worlds to a remarkable extent. Whether it's important, and in what way, is another question.

Edited May 13, 2011 by Jerome Tarshis

[Bo Bo Olson]

Some folks are slaves of fashion, no matter how little sense it makes....shirts with out pockets.

 

There are many people who are unsure of them selves and must read what others say they must wear....no diamond rings.

BS. I see nothing wrong with a small diamond in a in a white gold ring. Small 1/3-1/2 a carat solitaire . Not golf ball sized.

But the new book says, no diamond rings.

 

Of course that is new. Don't find that listed in the etiquette books of 1860, 1880, 1920 or 1960.

 

You do know you are not supposed to toss the dogs bones from the table, right. That's real up to date, when the bigger the babbule on a ring the better. 1600 etiquette book.

 

In America they use to have knives with a bend and a slot so you could eat your peas with a knife.It was expected in better households. More than likely an English invention, it sounds stylish to me.

 

 

 

 

Yes....dress shirts....not shirts one wears to an office. In an office you are working...so those would be office shirts, not 'dress' shirts. Except for the poor who can't afford both an office and a dress shirt.

 

Dress shirts are for when one is not working.IMO

 

Of course a jacket has a pen pocket, one might need a spare pen. :roflmho:

 

I like Jar's line.""""A proper shirt has at least one pocket, better shirts also have an adjacent pen slot."""

 

I was looking at some proper expensive English shirts and they all had the option of a pocket at no extra cost.

 

Had they a pen slot I'd bought some.I didn't think to ask. Will next time I am in the mood for new shirts.

 

If one has a wife or a tailor one can have a pen slot sewed into a shirt pocket. Two if you wish.

I have a wife that don't sew. The only sewing machine I have is a 1903 Singer. It works. :hmm1:

Edited May 13, 2011 by Bo Bo Olson

[Shaq]

Interesting topic!

 

None of my workshirts have breast pockets - I get most of my shirts from TM Lewin, (Shirt store common in London).

 

My jacket does have a dedicated pen pocket, on the inside left, just below the regular pocket. That's where my Estie lives when I travel to/from work, and it stays at my desk while I'm working.

[sebas0902]

Always leather case in the jacket inside pocket, for two or three pens.

 

"Proper" or business shirts here in Spain tend not to have pockets. As a matter of fact I have both types, with and without pockets, and I feel pocketless shirts are smarter. But that is, of course, a matter of taste.

[quadrain]

I'm in my mid 20s so I lack the etiquette of wearing a pen in the shirt; however, for work (retail environment), I wear my pen in my shirt pocket (it has a pen slot, why not use it?) and a spare roller ball in my pants pocket for carbon copies and such. If I'm wearing a polo shirt (another option for work), I would just place the pen when the buttons are, just convenient.

 

Otherwise, in public, it's just clipped inside my pants side pocket for easy retrieval.

Edited May 13, 2011 by quadrain

[frazzlerazzle]

I'm in my twenties and don't go anywhere at work without my Parker Sonnet in my shirt pocket!

[Scriver]

As andyk, who lives in England, has already posted, it is quite common that English dress shirts do not have pockets. As Ashbridge, an American, has posted, one may wear a shirt with a pocket and on grounds of taste avoid putting anything in that breast pocket. Either because it distorts the clean lines of a shirt, or because gentlemen do not carry burdens.

 

Any discussion of proper attire presents a substantial risk of appearing snobbish, so I enter this discussion with some trepidation. As I understand it, it is generally agreed that formal shirts (that is, shirts to wear either with tails or a dinner jacket) never have a breast pocket (unless perhaps you are a Hollywood celebrity and wear a dinner jacket with a four-in-hand tie). With regard to dress shirts, at least under English custom, shirts with a double-cuff are more formal and have no pocket, while those with button-cuffs are less formal and will often (but not invariably) have a breast pocket. If you look at most Jermyn-street shirtmakers now, this is how their dress shirts seem to come -- that is, with a breast pocket only on the button cuff shirts (you can find button-cuffs without a pocket, but it is rare to find double-cuffs paired with a breat pocket).

 

I don't think this has been the custom in the United States, at least since the Second World War. Brooks Brothers seems to have done a great job of popularizing the button-down collar, which definitely looks better with button-cuffs and a breast pocket. So traditional American custom is much more forgiving with regard to pairing shirts with suits. So, at least here in the US, anyone should feel free to wear whatever kind of dress shirt he wishes with a suit or odd jacket. Candidly, around here these days its a step forward just to be wearing a dress shirt at all, let alone with a tie.

 

In my humble opinion, the formality of a well-tailored suit looks better with a plain-front shirt, without a breat pocket (and also without a button-down collar), since the pocket breaks up the clean lines of the lapel. You can find many pictures of American icons of style (say Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, or Humphrey Bogart) who seem to follow this approach: wearing plain-front shirts with suits and pocket-front shirts or button-down ocllars only with odd jackets. (I am sure the magic of google could find counter-examples, but this seems the trend.)

 

I too tend to prefer to wear suits with plain-front shirts, so I either leave my pens in a holder on my desk or carry one in a portfolio, briefcase, or inside jacket pocket. But plenty of others around here wear button-down, breat-pocket shirts with suits and look just fine. It is all a matter of taste. But, of course, so is the choice between using a plastic ballpoint or a celluloid fountain pen.

[eric47]

It is all a matter of taste. But, of course, so is the choice between using a plastic ballpoint or a celluloid fountain pen.

 

I opt for ballpoints of vintage celluloid, albeit with modern refills

 

 

Even if I wear a shirt with a pocket, I don't carry my pens there.