# Origin of 3/2 roll, and date it emerged.



## Theoden (Dec 16, 2009)

Gents,

I've seen discussions on this forum and other places about the 3/2 roll, but I'm not too clear _when_ tailors/manufacturers started making them this way?

I think the idea was to expose more shirt on the 3 button jacket and lower the button stance. Since some true 3 buttons can roll a bit, the idea of keeping the top button and and rolling the lapel to cover it as well and designing the jacket to fully expose the button-hole became popular among tailors/manufacturers.

Anyone know if tailors started it for their ivy-league clients and then companies like Brooks Brothers and J Press began carrying 3/2 roll jackets?

Thanks,

Theoden


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## closerlook (Sep 3, 2008)

Well, its more of an evolution if I understand it. The roll was always part of men's attire - coats used to button up all the way but roll to the desired informality. I've seen 19th century, say, 6/5 rolls and the like. 

When it settled on three is more Cards' territory.


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## Cardinals5 (Jun 16, 2009)

Since no one else is tackling this difficult question...

Closerlook has it right. Sack (undarted) suits have been around since the 19th century and were considered (by many, but not all) to be "lounge suits" or leisure wear when not wearing more formal attire. The suits had various numbers of buttons and people buttoned them according to their desired level of comfort. By the 1920s you find a fair number of makers producing 3 button suits that are worn rolled to the second button. I suspect those 1920s suits were "true" three button suits meaning the top button could be buttoned without throwing off the lapels, but many men chose to wear them with only the second buttoned (Apparel Arts has lots of images of 3b suits wore as 3/2.5). It strikes me that it's not until the mid- to late 1960s that suit manufacturers really began making true 3/2 suits. When I say "true" I mean that the ephemeral button hole actually faces out rather than perpendicular to the wearer - such suits are usually distinguished by their flatter lapels and finer finishing on the "back" (facing front) of that buttonhole. Late 1960s Brooks seems to have sold a lot of true 3/2 suits/sport coats while makers like Norman Hilton tended towards the 3 button suit intended to be buttoned only at the second (with a more voluminus lapel roll), which is often referred to as a 3/2.5 roll. The main problem is that our nomenclature is loose and there is little agreement on what actually constitutes a 3/2 v. 3/2.5 roll (I argue it's the roll of the lapel and its relative "volume").

So, to answer your question, I'd have to say manufacturers really started making true 3/2 sack suits in the 1960s, but they were simply following a decades old habit of men wearing 3 button jackets who left the top button undone.

True 3 button worn with top button undone, but still obviously a 3 button jacket (Metropolis, 1927)









Apparel Arts, 1934 - 3B worn as 3/2.5










Late 1960s BB - a true 3/2 with buttonhole facing out (the jacket would obviously pull across the chest if that top button were buttoned.)







+

Another Brooks 3/2










AlanC in a Hilton 3/2.5 (top button could be done up and would look okay, but not great)









Hilton, 3/2.5


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## The Rambler (Feb 18, 2010)

a finely drawn distinction, Cards, I've never put my thoughts together on that subject.


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## Cardinals5 (Jun 16, 2009)

I'm a master of minutia. There's probably also something to be said about the relative height (button stance) of the buttons on a 3/2 v 3/2.5, but I'll leave that to someone more ambitious than I.


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## AlanC (Oct 28, 2003)

I just wish that guy in the background of the Apparel Arts shot would get some trunks.


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## Jovan (Mar 7, 2006)

But he has to show off his manly physique!

Cary Grant, circa late '30s I believe.


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## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

This is from 1936










I would say that the basics of Cardinals5 are right. One of the problems with saying anything about the history of clothes, especially prior to the war is that there were so many makers of clothes, that practically any type of clothes were made by someone somewhere.


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

^^^

Is that a basket weave instead of a herring bone??

Neet!!


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## Theoden (Dec 16, 2009)

Cardinal,

Excellent reply.

It seems from some of the photos after your post, that true 3/2's where you _couldn't_ button the top button, were in circulation in the 1930's.

I have a 3 button Hickey Freeman that seems to be more of a 3/2.5. In other words, it can be buttoned as a 3 button, but it looks kind of funny. It looks much better buttoned on the second button, but the third button hole is more perpendicular and doesn't lie flat. The salesman noticed it and wanted to get it pressed to it could look like more of a true 3 button, but I had him leave it as is. It's an unusual jacket, not tradly, but very nice.


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## Master-Classter (Jan 22, 2009)

very informative little tid-bit there, thanks for the explanation Cardinal


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## Cardinals5 (Jun 16, 2009)

Theoden said:


> It seems from some of the photos after your post, that true 3/2's where you _couldn't_ button the top button, were in circulation in the 1930's.


No doubt there were some tailors/manufacturers offering true 3/2 suits prior to the 1960s, I was just speaking to general trends.


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## The Rambler (Feb 18, 2010)

Until I recently trashed it after getting a reweaving quote (extensive moth damage) I had a blue flannel BB 3 piece from the 80s which was clearly a 3/2 with the top button finished on the same side as the lower 2; similarly this 3/2 Langrock, of uncertain date [yes, here it is again] but surely not the 50s is finished on the same side as lower 2:


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## The Rambler (Feb 18, 2010)

but anyway, to return to my favorite, annoying issue with the benefit of Cards' useful distinctions, isn't a true 3/2 a 2 button with an ornamental, or totemic 3d buttonhole and hidden button never meant to be used? I mean in terms of how its constructed? Is a 3/2.5 cut and sewn as a 3 button or a 2 button?


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## Cruiser (Jul 21, 2006)

Whether they were 3/2's or 3/2.5's I can't really say, but I do know that this style was quite popular when I was in school in the early 60's. And keep in mind that I attended an upper/lower - lower/middle class school in the South where almost everybody bought their suits and jackets from a local clothing store that would be comparable to Men's Wearhouse today, so these definitely weren't high end suits and jackets.

I also don't think that the guys were consciously thinking that they were wearing a 3/2 or whatever. They were just buying whatever was in the store. This picture of one of my schoolmates taken in 1961 is an example of what I'm talking about.










Cruiser


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## boatswaindog (Nov 18, 2010)

I think the George Frazier article about 'The Art of Wearing Clothes' is available on the web. I assume it is accurate as to the history. Much to my personal astonishment he mentioned the tailor shop of Arthur Rosenberg of New Haven as having invented the Ivy League style sometime around the turn of the 20th century. Certainly it was an adaptation of Victorian clothing. I bought my first suit at Rosenberg's in New Haven after being sent there by the salesman at the Yale Co-OP who thought their styles wouldn't fit a very thin physique. It was all a very long time ago.The early 70s. But I like to think that the style was invented in New Haven.
Just to add a bit of family history: My Father had his Naval officer's uniforms tailored at Rosenberg's when he was called up for the Korean War in 1950 after having served 4 years during WWII. Back in the age of real men.


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## C. Sharp (Dec 18, 2008)

Unlike Weatherill, Lord of New York is brash, explorative, and highly disorganized. Chronologically, Lord of New York is a branch of a genealogy that goes all the way back to 1835 and Brooks Brothers' natural-shoulder-or, as it is precisely known, No. 1-sack suit. Around the turn of the century, Arthur Rosenberg, then the foremost tailor in New Haven, began to exploit this style among Yale undergraduates, and, not long afterwards, J. Press, also of New Haven, fell into line. Eventually, two Rosenberg employees, Sam Rosenthal and Moe Maretz, went out on their own as Rosenthal-Maretz; then Bill Fenn and Jack Feinstein left David T. Langrock to form Fenn-Feinstein (now associated with Frank Brothers). Somewhat later on, Mort Sill and (a year later) Jonas Arnold quit Press and opened a shop in Harvard Square, Cambridge, which they called Chipp. Then, with his partner's departure to form Sill (New York and Harvard Square), Jonas Arnold entered into an agreement whereby two former Press employees-Sid Winston and the late Lou Prager-were permitted to use Chipp as the name of the shop they were about to open in New York. Arnold, who closed his Cambridge store several years ago, is still a partner in the New York Chipp's. In 1952, Lord of New York was begat by Chipp-or, more accurately, by three of its former employees, Ken Frank, Mike Fers, and Peter D'Annunzio. Lord charges $195 and up for a two-piece hand-stitched suit lined with tie silk. Unlike Chipp, it neither charges extra for open buttonholes on jacket sleeves nor does it line coat collars with foulard. Unlike J. Press, it resists such gimmicks as lining the breast pocket of a jacket with foulard that can be turned inside-out to serve as a handkerchief.​


boatswaindog said:


> I think the George Frazier article about 'The Art of Wearing Clothes' is available on the web. I assume it is accurate as to the history. Much to my personal astonishment he mentioned the tailor shop of Arthur Rosenberg of New Haven as having invented the Ivy League style sometime around the turn of the 20th century. Certainly it was an adaptation of Victorian clothing. I bought my first suit at Rosenberg's in New Haven after being sent there by the salesman at the Yale Co-OP who thought their styles wouldn't fit a very thin physique. It was all a very long time ago.The early 70s. But I like to think that the style was invented in New Haven.
> Just to add a bit of family history: My Father had his Naval officer's uniforms tailored at Rosenberg's when he was called up for the Korean War in 1950 after having served 4 years during WWII. Back in the age of real men.


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## EastVillageTrad (May 12, 2006)

Yes, the cut and shape of a sack jacket EASILY goes back to the mid-19th Century. You'll find CDV/photographs images of this type of coat worn as a casual alternative to a more formal cut-away or frock coat by the working/middle classes. And you'll even see the incorporation of the 3/2 roll.

Personally I think it is a carry-over from the roll and non-functional buttonhole on frock coats of the early part of the 19th century.

Take a look at this period reproduction company; 
https://www.cornerclothiers.com/coats.htm


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## bandofoutsiders (Jul 26, 2007)

I think that the terms 3/2 roll and certainly 3/2.5 are rather invented terminology that, though useful, is really more of a fora-based phenomenon. The tailoring term is a "tipped" three-button, or "button-on-center" as Dennis at J.Press calls it. The degree of the roll (i.e. whether it looks like a 3/2 or a 3/2.5) from a tailoring standpoint, depends on two things: The narrowness of the lapel at the point where the buttonhole sits and the height of the fastening. The fact that narrow lapel 1960s suits have a roll that almost folds the top buttonhole in half is due to the narrowness of the lapel. The fact that people are often seen in period photos wearing these suits with the top button done simply means they wore them incorrectly. In my opinion, granted, it is only an opinion, there is only a true 3-button and a three button "button on center." Whether you like the fully flattened outward facing top button or a more minimal roll is obviously a matter of preference, but one is certainly not more traditional than the other. Consider the following two jackets from O'Connells:


The top is a Samuehlson and the bottom is an H.Freeman. Though the button stance is at roughly the same point, notice how much narrower the H.Freeman lapel is at the top button position when compared to the Sammy.


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## The Rambler (Feb 18, 2010)

from a tailoring standpoint, isn't the way the canvas is cut where it meets the lapel a major part of determining where the lapel will roll?


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## Orgetorix (May 20, 2005)

bandofoutsiders, while there may be some merit in what you say, those pictures don't support your argument. Look at the top of the lapel below the notch--they're almost exactly the same width. Lapel width normally isn't measured down near the buttons, precisely because jackets can differ so considerably in the way the lapels are rolled. The Samuelsohn has a very flat, hard roll that occurs in the space of a couple inches or less along the jacket edt. The H. Freeman has a much bigger, softer roll that occurs over 6-8 inches or more of the jacket's edge. The difference, as Rambler notes, has a lot more to do with the way the canvas and horsehair in the jacket fronts are cut and sewn than it does with the width of the lapel. That Freeman could have been made up just like the Sammy, if it had different guts.

I don't disagree with your assertion that narrow-lapeled '60s jackets may have appeared as 3/2.5 because of the narrowness of the lapels, but that H. Freeman isn't an illustration of the phenomenon.


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## bandofoutsiders (Jul 26, 2007)

Orgetorix, I don't disagree with you about the way lapels are measured. My point is that the shape of the H.Freeman lapel, and consequently the degree of it's 3/2 roll, is an intentional design feature of the jacket. The H.Freeman tailors cut the jacket to have a lapel that widens out much more dramatically than the Sammy, even though the lapels measured at the notch are the same width.

Re. the canvas: I am not a tailor, so I can't speak to this without cutting two jackets open to see. However, tailors have told me that a true 3-button can be pressed into a 3/2, and a 3/2.5 can be pressed to a hard 3/2, as long as the collar is tightened at the back. As Paul Winston (an expert) has stated on this forum before, lapel roll is not merely a matter of pressing. That said, it stands to reason that since the lapels on the two jackets are of very similar width, it seems like the H.Freeman could be pressed and tailored to look like the Sammy in terms of the degree of the roll.

There could very well be a difference in the cut of the canvas, but who can tell me what that difference is?


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## Jovan (Mar 7, 2006)

Bandofoutsiders, welcome back! We don't see you much these days.


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## Cardinals5 (Jun 16, 2009)

Before we get into a rumble over how lapels are rolled, pressed, whatever, can we agree the visible determining factor between a 3/2 or 3/2.5 versus a true 3 button is the finishing on the backside of the top buttonhole? How that top buttonhole is finished seems to me to indicate the "intention" of the suit manufacturer and allows us to avoid cutting our lapels open with a knife to decide 3B v. 3/2


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## Orgetorix (May 20, 2005)

bandofoutsiders said:


> Orgetorix, I don't disagree with you about the way lapels are measured. My point is that the shape of the H.Freeman lapel, and consequently the degree of it's 3/2 roll, is an intentional design feature of the jacket. The H.Freeman tailors cut the jacket to have a lapel that widens out much more dramatically than the Sammy, even though the lapels measured at the notch are the same width.
> 
> Re. the canvas: I am not a tailor, so I can't speak to this without cutting two jackets open to see. However, tailors have told me that a true 3-button can be pressed into a 3/2, and a 3/2.5 can be pressed to a hard 3/2, as long as the collar is tightened at the back. As Paul Winston (an expert) has stated on this forum before, lapel roll is not merely a matter of pressing. That said, it stands to reason that since the lapels on the two jackets are of very similar width, it seems like the H.Freeman could be pressed and tailored to look like the Sammy in terms of the degree of the roll.
> 
> There could very well be a difference in the cut of the canvas, but who can tell me what that difference is?


Just a disclaimer: I'm not a tailor either, just an amateur who tries to pay attention. So this could be wrong.

That said, here's the pattern for a jacket (darted, but it still works). The triangular area in the upper right is the lapel. I've marked in where the buttonholes would be if this were made up as a 3-button coat. What I was trying to say in my earlier post is that this same pattern could probably be made up to look like either of the jackets you posted. What makes the difference is not the cut of the cloth, which I took to be the essence of your argument, but rather the way the cloth is made up with canvas and horsehair.


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## Orgetorix (May 20, 2005)

Cardinals5 said:


> Before we get into a rumble over how lapels are rolled, pressed, whatever, can we agree the visible determining factor between a 3/2 or 3/2.5 versus a true 3 button is the finishing on the backside of the top buttonhole? How that top buttonhole is finished seems to me to indicate the "intention" of the suit manufacturer and allows us to avoid cutting our lapels open with a knife to decide 3B v. 3/2


Agreed. Although that distinction doesn't help with a 3/2.5, which could be finished on either side.


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## The Rambler (Feb 18, 2010)

I agree too, in theory, and a logical theory it is; but there are many exceptions, some on (otherwise) well-made jackets. btw, I was watching the outsanding 70s movie of _The Day of The Locust, _which is set in the 30s, and is beautifully costumed. Donald Sutherland plays a dork, and he is dressed in the kind of really sacky sack EVT is talking about. Looks very different from what we call a sack.


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## Chico (Apr 22, 2010)

Getting really nerdy on lapel rolls is why I love this place. I'm no tailor but I do know that in a canvassed/un-fused jacket, the tailor "sews" in the lapel roll. They pad-stitch the canvas to the wool and sew a piece of stay tape in the lapel line. So, in this canvassed type of jacket, you can press the lapel anyway you want, but it'll never "roll" better than the way the tailor designed it to.

For example, I have a H Freeman and sons dartless suit that is canvassed and is designed as a true 3 button. I also just sold a H. Freeman sack that is 3/2. When I do the "pinch test" at the lapel line, I can feel the stay-tape start above the third button hole on the first suit, and the stay-tape stiching can be felt below the third button hole on the 3/2.

PS: I didn't like the look of the true 3 button so I pressed it into a 3/2 type lapel. I look better in it but it doesn't have that soft roll like the tailor designed it. More of a hard fold look.

Source of of my tailoring info:

Lapel fold tape:

https://www.martinstall.com/2007/07/21/lapel-fold/

Pictures of the canvas that show all the pad stitching in the lapel:


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## bandofoutsiders (Jul 26, 2007)

Chico, did you have a tailor tighten the collar after pressing the jacket into a 3/2? Pressing the 3-button to a 3/2 can cause some slackening of the collar behind the neck, which sometimes makes the lapel look somewhat flattened and sometimes the notch will float away from the body of the jacket slightly.


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## Chico (Apr 22, 2010)

Hmmm, that's a good point. I need to take a closer look at that suit.


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## bandofoutsiders (Jul 26, 2007)

Ok, here are some camera-phone photos of the jacket I am wearing today. I would consider this a 3/2, meaning that it is a 3 button jacket but the top but is vestigial and is not to be buttoned when worn. 
Here is a photo of the natural roll of the lapel. I guess this is what folks here would call a 3/2.5, because the buttonhole is incorporated into the roll of the lapel, sort of folded in half, so that when worn, only half of the top buttonhole is visible to the viewer:








This buttonhole is finished on both sides. The front-facing side:








and the inside, the side of the buttonhole that faces toward the wearers body:









My only assertions, that I have been making in a roundabout way, are these:
1. This jacket is meant to be worn in the same manner as a "hard-pressed" 3/2, meaning that the top should not be buttoned.
2. There is nothing more or less ivy/traditional about this type of roll.
3. This is more commonly found on narrow lapel jackets and jackets where the top buttonhole is situated on the narrowest part of the lapel (i.e. usually 3/2 sacks with lower fastening points)


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## The Rambler (Feb 18, 2010)

^very nice suit, and very nice camera phone..


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## Theoden (Dec 16, 2009)

Gents, as I was reading this weekend the #1 Sack suit from Books was introduced in 1895. It was a 3 button sack. Does anyone know if was designed NOT to button at the top button (true 3/2) or was it more of a 3/2.5 roll?


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## Orgetorix (May 20, 2005)

Theoden said:


> Gents, as I was reading this weekend the #1 Sack suit from Books was introduced in 1895. It was a 3 button sack. Does anyone know if was designed NOT to button at the top button (true 3/2) or was it more of a 3/2.5 roll?


In 1950, Lester David wrote in Coronet magazine that "By far the best individual seller is still the "No. 1 sack suit," a straight-hanging model with no padding in the shoulders or stiffening in the lapels. The style hasn't changed in more than 40 years."

In the '40s and '50s, from what I've seen, the top buttonhole was finished on the outside of the lapel and not intended to be fastened. If it's true that the style hadn't changed in 40 years, that would put the 3/2 roll back to 1910 at least.

Here's a reproduction of a '40s BB ad, and you can see the top button is clearly nonfunctional. Oddly, the suit is displayed with only the bottom button fastened.


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## The Rambler (Feb 18, 2010)

^ A very shapely sack, and square in the shoulders, too. A 3/1 1/2 roll?


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## boatswaindog (Nov 18, 2010)

The 1929 catalog shows two bottom butons buttoned. The top button could not possibly be functional. Just like the illustration above. I have the little book that Brooks published on their 100th anniversary. The victorian fashions that they display are very different. I think the Frazier article was accurate. The style came from New Haven. Top buttoned unbuttoned.


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## Theoden (Dec 16, 2009)

Orgetorix,

Good point -- thanks for the research. Looks like the 3/2 roll goes back to the early 1920's. Thanks. Curious -- what's the closest thing Brooks has to the #1 Sack suit? Do they ever re-issue it periodically.

Thanks,

--Theoden


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