Cufflinks?
Seriously.

When British GQ asked Sir Paul Smith what single garment he'd rescue from a fire, he didn't hesitate. Not his navy suit. Not his favourite waistcoat. His cufflinks. "They're the one piece of clothing I couldn't live without," he told Teo van den Broeke in February 2026. His signature multicolour-stripe motif, crafted in brass with enamel detailing, represents what he calls "a tiny but essential canvas" for adding personality to an otherwise classic suit.

It is a telling moment. In an era where we've spent years debating whether ties are dead, whether suits are obsolete, or whether the entire formalwear ecosystem belongs in a museum, Smith's instinct is to reach for the smallest, most intimate detail of dressing. A man who saves his cufflinks is a man who understands that the devil is not just in the details — he is the details.

I wear French cuffs with links all the time. My default is the double cuff. It's not affectation; it's habit. The ritual of folding the cuff back, threading the metal or silk through the thick fabric, and adjusting it to perfection takes thirty seconds. It changes how you feel. It is the sartorial equivalent of putting on a seatbelt: unnecessary for the short hop to the kitchen, but essential for the journey.

My go-to pairs are a job lot of fifty Turkish knot cufflinks in silk, plain and multi-coloured. Bought from a Chinese manufacturer via Alibaba. Not a particularly romantic provenance, I grant you, but they are inexpensive, replaceable, and perfect for when I want to add a flash of colour without committing to something precious. They are the disposable cutlery of the cufflink world, and I wear them with the same lack of guilt.

My heritage pair, however, are sterling silver Concorde cufflinks by Links of London — gifted by my sister from the aircraft's exclusive onboard collection when she was British Airways cabin crew during the supersonic era. They are rare, discontinued, and now worth considerably more than I'd like to admit. They are not just cufflinks. They are a conversation piece, a memory, a small piece of aviation history that happens to sit on my wrists.

Here's a thing about cufflinks: you can hunt them down. Antique fairs, pawn shops, estate sales — they are everywhere, and for at least three decades they have been overlooked. A previous generation wore them as a matter of course. Then came Casual Friday, remote work, and the Great Suit Collapse. Suddenly, cufflinks were relics. That is bad news for the suit, but excellent news for the bargain hunter. A stallholder on Portobello Road once sold me a pair of 1950s enamel cufflinks for £8. They had been sitting in a box for thirty years, waiting for a man who cared enough to notice.

I have been in the habit of buying them as mementoes of different cities — Madrid, Caracas, Hong Kong, even a rather fun pair of silver dolphins from Cancún. Each has a pair in my collection. They are not expensive, but they are anchors. A reminder of a trip, a meeting, a moment. When I wear them, I am not just dressing. I am remembering.

The runways have noticed. Giorgio Armani's Fall-Winter collection featured sleek, minimalist metallic cufflinks in polished stainless steel and brushed silver. Amiri's Paris show introduced statement pieces with gold-toned frames and enamel motifs. British GQ's curated gallery for 2026 features minimalist geometric designs by Babette Wasserman alongside Paul Smith's bold enamel pieces. After years of casual culture, the wheel is turning full circle.

Smith's rule is simple: always wear two cufflinks, never one. It sounds pedantic until you realise it's about symmetry, balance, and the basic grammar of dressing. You wouldn't wear one shoe. Beyond that, the guidelines are flexible:

• French cuffs only. Button-cuff shirts don't take cufflinks. This isn't a suggestion — it's physics.
• Match your hardware. If your watch is steel, go steel. If it's gold, go gold.
• Consider the occasion. Silk knots for daytime. Silver or enamel for evening.
• Two cufflinks, never one. Paul Smith's rule. Follow it.