Nobody could deny that Sherlock dressed with a certain effortless grace. Long, lean suits; shoes always polished to a slick shine, no matter the weather or what he'd been running through; that glorious greatcoat that gave him such a distinctive silhouette. He had somehow even managed to make that silly deerstalker hat look relatively stylish. The man was so wardrobe-conscious he even indexed his socks, for pete's sake.
The one thing John could never understand, though, was why despite all this attention to his appearance, Sherlock's shirts always looked as if he'd appropriated his shirts from some sixth-form student. More than once, John found himself fantasising about the starched fabric reaching a breaking point, the tiny discs of pearl, shell, or resin giving way and popping off dramatically, to scatter across the room and expose Sherlock's gloriously pale, sculpted chest to the world.
Years later, once Sherlock had discovered the wonderful easy comfort of soft jumpers (usually nicked from John and thus too short in the sleeves), John would find himself reminiscing about his former sartorial grace. He'd think about that plush arse in those ridiculously well-fitted trousers, that dramatic coat Sherlock wore whenever possible. But most often, he'd find himself offering a silent mental salute to the most brave and noble of items in Sherlock's wardrobe - his shirt buttons.