Braces are the easiest thing in the whole skinhead wardrobe to get wrong, which is odd when you think about it, because there are only about five decisions to make and every one of them was settled by 1969.
We sell a lot of braces and we get asked the same questions in the same order every week. Button or clip. How wide. Which colours. Belt as well, or not.
Buttons Versus Clips
Button braces fasten to buttons sewn inside the waistband, three at the back and either two or four at the front depending on who made the trousers. Clip braces grip the cloth with a sprung metal jaw. On a pair of Sta Press or on any tailored trouser, buttons are correct and clips are not, and the reason is mechanical rather than snobbish. A clip pulls the entire load of the trouser through two small points of fabric, so it distorts the waistband and eventually chews through the cloth.
Most trousers no longer arrive with buttons fitted, which is a shame and easily fixed. Any alterations shop will sew a set on in ten minutes for very little money and it is the single best thing you can do to a decent pair of trousers. If you have to use clips, put them on jeans, where a bit of damage to a heavy denim waistband is neither here nor there.
X Back and Y Back
A Y back joins the two rear straps into a single point that sits between the shoulder blades and fastens to one button, or to a close pair, at the centre back. An X back keeps four separate straps and crosses them, fastening to two buttons set well apart. Y is the older arrangement and the more common one. X spreads the load across a wider area and stays put better on a broad back or under heavy work.
In the scene, Y back is what you see in almost every photograph taken between 1968 and 1971. X back turns up more on the wider styles and on working braces built for a day of graft. Neither one is incorrect. A Y back does lie flatter under a suit jacket though, so if you are wearing tailoring that is the one to reach for.
Widths and What They Signal
Width carries meaning here, and it is more specific than most people expect. Half inch braces, roughly twelve millimetres, are a mod and early suedehead detail worn under a jacket where nobody was supposed to see them at all. One inch is the general purpose width that suits almost any trouser. Inch and a half, so thirty five to forty millimetres, is the skinhead width from 1969 onwards, worn openly over the shirt, because the entire point was that they were visible from across the street.
| Width | Metric | Period and scene | How they were worn |
|---|---|---|---|
| Half inch | 12mm | Mod and early suedehead | Under a jacket, out of sight |
| Three quarter inch | 18mm | Suedehead, the smarter end | Over a shirt with a suit |
| One inch | 25mm | General purpose, any era | Either, depending on the trouser |
| Inch and a half | 35mm to 40mm | Skinhead from 1969 onwards | Over the shirt, fully on show |
Wide braces need a wide waistband to sit against, so they belong on a proper high rise trouser rather than a low modern cut. Put an inch and a half brace onto a trouser that sits on the hip bone and the angle is wrong before you have even done the buttons up, because the strap has too far to travel and it drags the shoulder forward.
Colours, and the Ones We Leave Alone
Plain black, plain white, burgundy, bottle green and navy are the backbone and always have been. Tartan runs right through the suedehead years and still looks good against a plain Oxford shirt. Solid colours in the wider widths age far better than anything patterned.
There is a part of this that nobody enjoys discussing. Through the late 1970s and 1980s, far right groups tried to claim the skinhead look, and in some towns particular brace and lace colours were read as a political signal. There was never one agreed code, and a fair amount of what got printed at the time was guesswork, but the reading was real and in places it lingers. We avoid anything that carries that association and we say so plainly when customers ask. This scene came out of Jamaican sound systems and West Indian rude boy style, and the people who tried to take it never had any claim on it. If you are building a skinhead wardrobe, that history is the whole reason it is worth building.
Never with a Belt
Wearing both at once is wrong, and we are not going to be talked round on it. They do the same job by opposite means. Braces hold the trouser up from the shoulder, which lets the waistband sit loose at the natural waist, and it is why properly braced trousers are cut fuller through the seat and the rise. A belt clamps the waist tight and pulls everything inward. Do both and you have a trouser being hauled in two directions, a bunched waistband and a hard line across the front that ruins the drape entirely.
If you want a belt, wear a belt and take the braces off. Our snake belts are the right thing with a casual trouser and they have been on the scene since half the country wore them to school.
Setting the Length
Adjust them standing up, wearing the trousers and the shoes you actually intend to use, with the shirt tucked in. The waistband should sit at your natural waist, which for most men is roughly level with the navel and a good deal higher than they expect. The straps want to be taut enough to hold the trouser without lifting it. If a gap opens under the arm at the front, they are too tight.
Check it sitting down as well, because a length set standing up will pull hard the moment you fold at the waist. Get all of that right and the trouser hem should break just on top of the shoe, or sit clean with a quarter inch of sock showing if you are going for the shorter suedehead length over a pair of monkey boots.
Braces Worn Down
Loops hanging at the hip is a genuine look and it is older than most people realise, coming out of working dress where men dropped them off the shoulder in the heat and got on with the job. It works with a plain t shirt or a vest at the end of a long night. It does not work with a suit jacket, and it never looks right on clip braces, because loose clips swing about and mark the trouser leg.
Worn down with the shirt still tucked and the sleeves rolled is the version we would back, and only after midnight. Drop them off the shoulder at three in the afternoon at somebody's wedding and you simply look like a man who has given up on the day.
Braces FAQ
Braces come up in our email more often than almost anything else we sell.
- Should braces be button or clip? Button, on any trouser you care about. Clips concentrate the whole load on two points of fabric and will pucker and eventually tear a tailored waistband. Save clip braces for jeans or workwear where the damage does not matter.
- What width of braces should I buy? One inch suits almost everything and is the safest first purchase. Go to an inch and a half if you want the 1969 skinhead look worn over the shirt, and drop to half an inch only if they are going to live hidden under a suit jacket.
- Can you wear braces and a belt at the same time? No. They cancel each other out and the result bunches at the waist and kills the drape of the trouser. Pick one. Braces with tailoring, a snake belt with a casual trouser.
- What is the difference between X back and Y back braces? A Y back gathers the two rear straps into one point at the centre back. An X back keeps four straps and crosses them between two buttons set apart. Y lies flatter under a jacket, X holds better on a broader back.
- How do you attach braces to trousers without buttons? Take them to an alterations shop and have six or eight buttons sewn inside the waistband. It takes minutes, costs very little, and it is the difference between braces that sit properly and braces that fight you all day.