Dress Shirt 101: Pleat Types

In my last post, I introduced to you some collar types found on dress shirts. Today, we'll be going over the types of pleats you may choose to include on your custom-made shirt.

But before I get into that, you may want to know what pleats do if you don't already know. They can be for aesthetics but most importantly, they provide the room that you need to move your arms freely.

There are basically two types of pleats. The first is called the "box pleat". It's around 1.5 inches of fabric folded into itself on both sides and stitched down at the upper back.

Box Pleat

The second type is the "side pleats". Side pleats are about 3/4 inch of fabric folded into itself on both sides of the back and stitched down.

Side Pleats

Finally, there is something called "darts". They're not pleats because they don't open up when you pull on the fabric. They are folds of the fabric sewn shut. Darts are typically found in shirts that are really form-fitting. Their function is to make the shirt more fitted and therefor creating a more slender silhouette. It is more common to find darts in ladies' shirts than on guys'.

Darts

I personally prefer "box pleats" in my shirts. I like the way they look but they are trickier to iron properly.