How Many Buttons Should You Undo on a Polo?

One button open, two if the collar holds its shape without help, and the top button done only under a tie or a zip. Three open is never, on any shirt, at any age. The count is also less useful than the share of the placket you clear, so a two button placket gives you one and stops there, while a three button placket gives you one as the default and two as the outer limit. What settles all of it is the collar. A collar that stands on its own can carry an open button and still frame your face. A soft collar cannot, and the moment you open that top button the points give up and lie flat on your chest.

The collar decides the number

How far down you go is a property of the shirt, not a property of you. A collar is either built to stand or it is not. Open the top button on a collar with body and it keeps a small, deliberate V with the points aimed at your shoulders. Open the top button on a limp one and the whole thing spreads sideways, the points flop down, and you get the washed out look of a shirt past its useful life even when it is new.

So the collar spec is worth more attention than the color. The David Polo in Navy lists a firm collar as a published feature, and that is the reason it behaves with a button open. Fabric decides how the shirt feels in heat. The collar decides how it reads across a room.

Do the mirror test before you leave. Button the top and look at the collar. Now unbutton it and look again. If the shape survives, you have a shirt that wears open and you have two buttons available to you if you want them. If the points drop flat, that shirt wants the top button done, and doing it is the correct call rather than a fallback.

Tapered Menswear puts it as a count in its guide to buttoning a polo shirt: "If your polos have buttons you want to make sure you at least leave 1 or 2 buttons undone." The same page also says, "It's not weird at all to button up your polo, even to the top button." Both lines sit on one page, and that is the point. A number rule cannot cover a stiff collar and a soft one at the same time, which is why looking at the collar beats memorizing a figure.

David Polo in White

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Navy David Polo

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Steven Polo in Brew

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The placket decides what one button means

One open button is not a fixed amount of skin, it is a fraction, and the fraction changes with how many buttons the placket carries. Count yours before you decide anything. A polo placket usually carries two, three or four, and the same single open button can mean half the shirt front or a quarter of it.

Two button placket

One open is half the placket and that is the ceiling. Two open on a two button front takes you down past the sternum and turns the collar into two loose flaps. Leave the lower one done, always.

Three button placket

One open is the default and reads as deliberate. Two open is the maximum, and only on a collar that passed the mirror test. Past that you are into territory nobody gets back from.

Four button placket

One open barely registers, which is fine for an office. Two open is the practical limit and looks intentional. Three is where the shirt starts to read as unfinished, and the extra button length is exactly what makes that mistake tempting.

PILLAR does not publish a button count for its polos, so do not take a number from a spec sheet. Hold the shirt, count down the placket, then work out what one open button clears on that front. Your eye reads percentage long before it reads arithmetic.

An undershirt decides the second button

Open a second button and a crew neck undershirt becomes part of the outfit whether you meant it to or not. The crew collar sits roughly where that second button was holding the placket closed, so clearing it shows a white arc of cotton framed by your polo. It looks like an accident because it is one.

If you want two open, either wear a deep V undershirt or wear none. If you are committed to a crew neck, stay at one open and the placket covers it cleanly. The broader case for wearing one at all belongs to the undershirt question in desert heat, and that post settles it. Here the only thing that matters is that the undershirt neckline puts a hard cap on your button count.

A quarter zip decides the top button

Under a quarter zip pulled to the throat, button the top. The zipper tape and the pullover collar close over your polo collar, and if that top button is open one collar point will fold under the zip and stay folded for the rest of the day. You will not see it. Everyone else will.

Done up, the polo collar keeps a closed ring at the neck, sits inside the pullover collar and stays flat. If you drop the zip halfway later, undo the polo button then and the collar comes back out with its shape intact. The Alec Quarter Zip in Blue is the layer to test this with, and the rest of the pullover range works the same way.

Alec Quarter Zip, Blue

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The room decides how far down you go

Once the collar has told you what is possible, the room tells you what is appropriate. The range is narrow, and the exceptions move in one direction only, toward buttoning up rather than down.

If the room is business casual and you are weighing the polo against a shirt with a full front placket, that is a different comparison and it has its own answer in the polo against the button down. Whether the hem goes in or out is also a separate decision, and the correct length for a polo covers it in one place. Neither of those changes the button count.

A print decides less than you expect

A print hides the placket, so the button count reads quieter and the collar carries the whole job. On a solid polo the placket is a visible vertical line and your eye counts the gap instantly. On a pattern the line breaks up, the open button stops announcing itself, and what your eye picks up instead is the shape at the neck.

That cuts both ways. A print buys you a little room, because one open button on a busy front reads softer than one open button on flat navy. It also removes your cover if the collar is weak, since no placket line is left to distract from points lying flat. The Brew colorway of the Steven Polo is a textured print at 88 percent polyester and 12 percent spandex, four way stretch, sweat wicking, classic athletic fit, U cut hem. Judge its collar the way you judge any other, in a mirror, top button open.

Habit decides it for most men, and habit is usually wrong

Most men are not choosing at all. They wear the shirt the way the store folded it, which means every button open, and that is the actual error behind this whole question. Retail folds a polo with the placket flat and open because it stacks better. Nobody unbuttoned that shirt for a reason.

Fix it at the mirror, not in a window reflection at lunch. Two open on a soft collar is the common version of the mistake and the one that makes a good shirt look cheap. Buttoning the top on a soft collar is not a concession and not a dated look. On that shirt it is the only thing giving the collar a line.

The other half of the problem is a collar that used to stand and no longer does. That is a laundry and construction story rather than a styling one, and what makes a polo collar curl has the causes. What matters tonight is that a collar which has gone soft has lost your second button permanently. The David Polo publishes 84 percent nylon and 16 percent spandex with four way stretch, sweat wicking, a firm collar, a U cut hem, pre shrunk and easy care, and the collar entry on that list is the one that decides how the shirt wears open a year from now.

The questions that decide the rest