Sleeve garter

A sleeve garter is a garter worn on the sleeve of a shirt. It came into wide use in the latter half of the 19th century when men's ready made shirts came in a single (extra long) sleeve length. Sleeve garters allowed men to customize sleeve lengths and keep their cuffs from becoming soiled while working or at the correct length when worn under a jacket.

While a century ago this item of clothing was once something a man may have worn regardless of profession (with the possible exception of the wealthy or those too well-dressed to wear non-tailored shirts), today sleeve garters are usually seen in relation to one of the following contexts:

According to jazz historian Al Rose, the popular image of an early 20th-century saloon pianist being flashily dressed with arm garters was inspired by the way Tony Jackson used to dress while performing. Sleeve garters are still worn not only by pianists who play ragtime and other turn of the 20th century American music, but also by Dixieland banjo players and many other types of musicians who perform music of that general period. Because sleeve garters are very much a part of the costume of contemporary barbershop music performance, an activity for which unimpeded manual dexterity does not play a vital role, the association between sleeve garters and the contemporary performance of turn of the 20th century music may have more to do with evoking the fashion of the era than with utility or a tradition begun at some later time.

Today, sleeve garters are part of the costume of poker dealers and other card dealers in casinos. While this is widely understood to make it more difficult for the dealer to cheat by concealing a card in his sleeve, note that the sleeve garter is usually accompanied by a vest and bow tie (and sometimes a visor) suggesting that this usage, too, might hark back to late 19th and early 20th centuries fashion at least as much as it serves a real purpose.

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