All people who dress elegant have asked themselves at least once in their life: “Why do I find these three useless buttons on both wrists?”. Obviously, the more superficial will have recognized the detail as a aesthetic factorbut that’s actually not the case.
Despite the varied testimonies, it seems that the introduction of buttons on the sleeves both of military origin; in fact, the sources attribute the “enlightenment” to great historical figures of state, primarily Frederick II of Prussia. Although the narratives differ as to the authorship of the addition, they converge on the motif why these objects are inserted. Why, then, were soldiers forced to wear jackets with this type of ornament?
Well, you can well imagine that in military circles, especially older ones, we certainly didn’t wake up in the morning to study the Etiquette: the soldiers, in fact, had the bad habit of wiping his mouth and nose with his sleeve of the military jacket. Would you ever imagine Napoleon Bonaparte’s army showing up on the front like children learning good manners? Or during a ceremonial parade? In short, the leaders were so fed up with this vice that they decided to fix it with buttons.
Their presence would have made the soldiers’ habit more troublesome; in some cases, experience it was really painful, as in the first instance the buttons were made of brass. If you are in the mood to discover other curiosities that you have never found an answer to, then you might be interested in our article on the magic trick of the man suspended with a stick.
