Tidbits - Shirt Stays

We were thumbing through a police supply catalog the other day and came across these guys. They're like those garters old men wear, but instead of anchoring your socks to your calves they use the power of your socks falling down to keep your shirt tails from constantly blousing out like Seinfeld. And if your socks aren't bugging you or you're not wearing them, they've got another model where the bottom ends in a little stirup for your heel (two of our editors got in a really big argument about which one was probably developed first). Anyways, we hate it when that shirt-thing happens--as apparently do cops--so we were pretty psyched to see some brilliant mind had foregone AIDS and cancer to cure something real for a change and ordered ourselves a set.

When they arrived we paired up our loosest, most billowy shirt with our least elastic socks and clipped the foor little straps in place (there are two in the back) for our first taste of this brave new, constantly tucked world. Within steps the back right one had popped loose from its tail and made its way out of the pantleg. We tried fixing it, but it kept snapping off one of the ends and bunching up like when you're trying to get the last corner of a bedsheet on. Eventually we gave up and just let it hang loose down the back of our leg. The instructions warn that all four stays need to be in place for the system to be effective, but we were doing pretty fine with just the three--both socks were up, shirt was still fully tucked--besides feeling like a some sort of a nerd-transvestite everything seemed to be in order.

It was right at this peak of confidence, however, that we discovered shirt stays' fatal flaw: Sitting. Every time you take a step and your knees bend, the back straps slightly give and the front straps tug just enough to let you know they're working. But when your knee starts approaching a right angle everything falls to shit. The front dealers slide off to the back of your leg while the back ones just hang there like idiots, giving your shirt plenty of slack to start poofing out. You'd think this would correct itself when you stand up, but somehow it's even worse. Instead of pulling your shirt back in, the front stays catch on the side of your leg and just pull your socks way too far up to compensate. Then once you start walking, every time your leg straightens it slides back into place for just long enough to make you think it's fixed before snapping back to the side with a couple of leg hairs in tow. It feels like being bullied by your own clothes.

Maybe the stirup-model fixes this bug (pretty solid evidence that it came second), but to be honest, we couldn't spare the would-be geniuses at Law Pro 12 more bucks for another round of this level of disappointment. We still hold out hope that someday someone will learn from this abominable failure and, standing on the shoulders of shirt stays, finally surmount this obstacle--our money's on magnetic underwire.

Comments

[sir firsty mcfirst]

i'm a tool

[Drew]

I'm genuinely very interested in this technology.

[Brad]

Did you test it for sucking dick while on your knees?

[Cyril Sneer]

I was gonna buy these, I wasn't sure how well they would work. Thanks for the review guys, now I'll spend my money elsewhere.

[Sonikdeth]

yeah, they've been around forever, i go to military school and the first year kids are required to wear them, they get all twisted around and rub your nutsack and or thighs to the point of bleeding

all those reading be warned, stay away, shirt stays are for cops and suckers

[jeff]

hmmm.
"brave new, constantly tucked world." that is like poetry to my ears.
this suspenders sound like a pain in the ass. anyway, i think that they are made for knee-high-socks, not tennis socks, dummy.
and for really long shirts.

[nikki]

shirt stays are new????
oh, no they're not.

[mike]

these goddamn things. us marine corps wears em with their uniform. the one with khaki shirt and green pants. when I served I knew a guy whose got twisted around his nutsack during a ceremony. Well, the dumbass, being the disciplined marine he was, didn't say anything until he passed out. Later on he had to have one of his nuts taken out.

[Alfalfa]

"Eventually we gave up and just let it hang loose down the back of our leg"

You guys aren't even separate entities anymore?

[gaypenis]

knot-sees wore those.

[asdf]

This is the best piece of news offered on Vice ever.

[.]

Why wouldn't you just wear two, one on each outside of your leg, instead of front and back? You don't think that would hold the shirt down?
clowns.

[former cop]

cops wear those because their vests add that much more bulk for their shirt to fight against. and you can avoid the bendng problem by wrapping the stays around your legs. just saying.

[cf]

try riding a bike with thosse things on..............

[Skip]

I served in the Marines and these things are awesome. I noticed though you weren't wearing them the way we did. We crossed them on the outside of each leg so that the one connected to the left back shirt tail laid flat against your leg and attached to the front of the left sock and vice versa for the one attached to the left front shirt tail. Same thing on the other side. This should help with the bending issue and them going slack.

[Karim]

Hi folks,

I used to wear these standard with my military dress uniforms (USMC). Guys, the trouble here is that the shirt stays, looking at the photo, aren't attached in the best way. You need to cross the straps, meaning you attach a strip to the front of your shirt and to the back of your socks, and then another one from the back of the shirt to the front of the sock. The straps should cross. Otherwise, yes, everything falls apart.

Good luck.

[Ian Hughes]

Actually you are wearing them incorrectly. They are supposed to criss-cross behind your legs. The front-ones clip on the, well, the front of the shirt, obviously. It goes "inboard" inside of your legs and connects to the sock on the "outboard". The backside stay does the same in reverse.

You should have an "X" in the back instead of one in front and one in the rear, which permits sitting no problem.

I have been out of the military for nearly a decade but now wish to re-incorporate these into my corporate suit apparel.

[Brendan]

I was just going to say that you weren't wearing them correctly, but I see that like five people told you that already, so I won't bother.

Anyway, we wore 'em in the U.S. Coast Guard too.

I'm thinking about wearing them now that I am a civilian, but I'm not sure whether that would make me a huge tool or not.

[Jaime]

How does wearing these make you a tool? These make you look so much more professional.

[Serback]

I wasn't sure if that picture was a joke or not, but I thought the shirt stays are supposed to cross around to the other side, instead of going straight down. I used to use them 60 hours a week, for about 2 years, and I've never had a problem with them, except they only last 10 months or so if you wear them as much as I do.

[Neal]

The stirrup ones work great...no socks, thick socks, or thin socks are non-issues. The single elastic piece goes up the side of the leg and the
"y" at the top self-adjusts for any situation. Sitting is no problem.

[Steve]

The shirt stay goes down the outside of your leg not up the front. Just goes to show that you have to be 10% smarter than the equipment you try to operate.