Tuck Style: Wisdom from the Comments

Reprinted, here in its entirety, with my imprimatur, is a comment from Mr. Timothy Chen Allen on how to prevent a bunch of folds in the back of your dress shirts.  The elegantly simple solution comes, not surprisingly, from our armed forces.  I have experimented with both styles and have a slight preference for the Marine Corps Style.

I went to the Naval Academy, and was commissioned into the Marine Corps in 1986. We learned two different styles of tucks in the Navy and the Marine Corps. Both keep you from having bunched up material in the back.

In both cases you start with the shirt tails tucked into your trousers, which are not all the way closed up.

1) Navy Style: Grab the sides of your shirt at the seams. Put a thumb into the material *behind* the seam, an make a fold on either side of your body going towards your spine. Keeping this fold tight, you grab your trouser waistband with your pinkie and ring fingers and pull up our pants. Keep the waistband tight so you won't lose the tuck, and work your hands around until you can button your trousers.

2) Marine Corps Style: Much the same, but the folds start farther back and go towards the front-- in other words, the reverse of Navy style. They're further back so you don't have the folds swimming around in front.

If you want to really get hard core, both Navy and Marine Corps officers used "Shirt Stays"-- elestic bands that attached the shirt tails to the tops of the socks so everything stayed drum tight. OOHRAH!

Disclaimer: This is what I was taught. In reality, there was a right way, a wrong way, and a Navy way to do everything.

 Hats off to you, Mr. Allen.  Thank you for the tip, and thank you for your service.