How to be fashion-forward in tucking.
1970s full tuck look
When I was young, a clean look demanded a tucked-in shirt. A neatly tucked-in shirt conveyed professionalism, manners, and a meeting of the unspoken dress code that used to dictate how we dressed at the time. I have always felt that a tucked in shirt can pull together an outfit or bring a casual look to a slightly more formal level. But a tucked-in shirt can also be correlated to nerdiness, (remember Steve Urkel from Family Matters?), stiffness, or a lack of style. An untucked shirt, on the other hand, carried a more comfortable and relaxed air, while seeming to convey a disregard for the standard, even if only for the purpose of looking slightly ‘cooler’ than the nerds in the science lab or the squares making their morning commutes. Sometimes, however, in contrast to ‘pulled together,’ it looked sloppy and unkempt. Untucked was saved for weekend-wear.
Not so anymore! Today, we see shirts in all manner of tucked or untucked across dress codes: there are the half tuck, the side tuck, and the French tuck, among others.
The French tuck was popularized by Tan France on Queer Eye, as seemingly every makeover included a lesson: tuck in just the front 3-4 inches of your shirt and let the back go untucked. According to France, this minor adjustment can elongate the legs and make one’s silhouette appear leaner than if the shirt is tucked in all the way around or left entirely untucked. Stylists seem to agree that your preferred ‘tuck’ should depend on the shape of the shirt you are tucking in and the features you are looking to accentuate in any outfit.
Kate Young, a stylist who works with celebrities like Margot Robbie and Dakota Johnson, attributes the growing popularity of the half tuck to the trend of oversized men’s shirts, the volume of such tops requiring some interruption but not so much that you look like a mushroom. This style of shirt also lends itself to unbuttoning the bottom buttons and tying the shirttails into a knot at your waist, which is perhaps a bolder look.
A side tuck is a tuck just above your hipbone instead of at the center of your waistline.
When can you revert to a full tuck? Apparently only when you are wearing a pencil skirt or a tailored, formal type of button-down shirt. Still, if you’re going for a more tailored look, a slightly fitted shirt tucked into trousers or a skirt is probably the way to go.
So, to tuck or not to tuck? If you’re still in doubt, perhaps Tan France has the answer. Here is a compilation of French tucks from the early seasons of Queer Eye. Enjoy!
