Newbie Fashion Tips for Grown-Up Men

But over a month ago, I ran into a friend at a CES effect. While I come across this friend around town in one case in a while, this was the first time I'd seen him in a non-coincidental setting since Blogworld 4 months earlier. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, he asked me an odd question: "Is this like your conference party outfit?"

Indeed, I was wearing the exact aforementioned clothes I'd worn to the event four months before. Since he doesn't unremarkably see me dressed up, it stood out enough for him to remember. Only that's not the real point, here; the real point is that I have few apparel suitable for "developed" gatherings.

I accept a conform, of grade, for weddings and funerals. (I haven't had a job interview in 9 years, but if I did, information technology would be suitable for that, too.) And I have my twenty-four hour period-to-twenty-four hours wearing apparel, which aren't atrocious merely which aren't anything to brag about, either. Functional casual, basically: jeans and khakis, an array of button-front shirts, some cotton sweaters.

As a college professor, there'south not a lot of pressure on me to dress upwards. If anything, it'due south just the contrary. For one matter, I interact regularly with younger people, mostly teenagers (I teach 100-level courses), and being too formal creates a bulwark betwixt my students and me. That might be ok in business organisation or law (think John Houseman in Paper Chase) only for my classes and my teaching style, some level of rapport is crucial. For another thing, my boyfriend professors don't exactly ready the sartorial bar very high – and at that place'due south a certain sense of maverick "me-against-The-Automobile" mental attitude expressed by violating "corporate" standards of dress.

Merely mostly I dress the way I do because I've never really learned how to dress otherwise. Similar a lot of my fellow geeks, fashion just wasn't on the radar for me. Fortunately I accept a brother who has always been very style-conscious, and he'd take me in hand every few years when my fashion sense got too out of touch with reason and social acceptability.

Well, my friend'south off-mitt comment was a wake-upward telephone call for me. I mean, I'm a grown man – I should accept more than ane pair of slacks and one shirt squeamish enough to wearable to an industry outcome without embarrassing myself! So I set out to educate myself on some fashion nuts – what shoes go with what kind of trousers, how to distinguish various sorts of wearing apparel shirts, and and then on.

I did what any true-blooded geek does when he or she wants to find out about a new topic: I googled it. But what I found was scattered, oft contradictory, and for a newbie like me, downright disruptive. A lot of the information out in that location is tied to specific social contexts: the workplace, the nightclub, and dating, mainly. And a lot of it's quite vague – the answer to most questions is "it depends on your personal style" which I'thousand sure it does, but what if y'all don't know your personal style nonetheless?!

With some perseverance, a few trips to department stores, and the aid of friends on Twitter, I managed to get together the following rules. Every bit with all rules, they're meant to be broken – but only by people who know how to break them.  For the balance of united states of america, this is a pretty good primer on bones men'south fashion.

Dress Suits

1. You lot eventually want to ain three suits. Your first suit should be either navy bluish or gray, possibly with a light chalk stripe (like a pinstripe, but softer), and in an all-season, medium weight.  Either of these colors will fit into most social settings. Your second suit should exist the one yous didn't become the first time around. Your third should be black – not for funerals, but for black tie diplomacy. If you piece of work in a field where suits are the norm, you'll probably want more three; once you've covered the nuts, you can motion on to more than distinctive suits (pinstripes, different weights, anarchistic colors, etc.).

2. Suits are made of wool or cotton wool. College thread counts signify higher quality, but are ironically not as durable, and then stick with something mid-range. Ask the salesperson to help you with this. (Yes, ask the salesperson. Suits are not cocky-serve.) Synthetic fibers need not apply.

three. Y'all never push the lesser button. Patently, Edward Vii got fat and couldn't push his vest over his belly, so now nobody does. On a three-button jacket, you button the centre; the top button is optional. If you have a jacket with 4 or more push button, yous obviously know what you're doing already.

4. A gentleman carries a handkerchief in his front chest pocket. You lot don't accept to become fancy, just fold it square to fit and accept 1/4" to 1/2" sticking out the top. Then proffer information technology as needed. And wash it later.

Shirts

1. Don't wear your sleeves too brusk or too long. i/4" to 1/2" of cuff should show across your jacket sleeve.

2. Shirts with button-down collars are non dress shirts. They're sports shirts, so wear them with a sports coat. Polo players used to button their collars downward and so they wouldn't flap up in their face while they played. (Are you showtime to sense a theme here? Manner rules are largely dictated by what English gentleman and nobility did generations or fifty-fifty centuries ago. Sports coats? You wore them during sport, i.due east. hunting. Regimental stripes on ties? They indicated your regiment in the British military machine. So on.)

3. If y'all unbutton your collar, remove your necktie. You lot can wear a conform or sports coat without a tie – just ask Obama – but wearing a tie with an unbuttoned shirt looks sloppy.

4. You can unbutton the height button ever (provided you're not wearing a tie), the 2d push usually, the third button only on disco nighttime at the Rollerama.

Trousers

1. Wear your pants at your natural waist. Too high and yous wait like Grampa, too low and you lot await like a high school kid. Your waistband should sit down ii-3 inches below your belly button.

ii. Pants should nigh touch the footing without your shoes on. Jeans can be a little longer, since they shrink a flake when y'all wash them.

3. One pleat, maximum. If you're a large guy, like I am, you learned somewhere along the line that pleats are slimming. They're non. At all-time, they expect like y'all're a large guy trying to look slimmer; at worst, they really make you lot look heavier because they pull out beyond you lot, broadening your appearance. In any case, the task of a pleat is to maintain that crease sown the front end of your pants. For pants without that crease (and many with it), pleats are unnecessary; for pants that need the pleat, they just need one.

4. 1" to i 1/2" cuffs. Or not. There's nothing wrong with cuffs, there's aught incorrect with no cuffs. They are understood, all the same, to be an older human being's style – not in a bad way, call back sophisticated, experienced, distinguished, and conservative. For younger men, a cleaner line is by and large preferred.

5. A useful piece of trivia for the American away: in British English, "pants" are underwear. And then if, for instance, you lot are in London and get invited out and peradventure your trousers are dirty from work, don't say "I'd love to become out, I but need to go home and change my pants offset." And if someone should inquire, "Why, are your pants muddy?", don't say, "Yeah, I always get my pants dirty at work." You will be laughed at. Er, I assume.

Shoes

i. Pay attention to your shoes. Everyone else does. Information technology's hard for the not-fashion-maven to tell a more expensive arrange from a less expensive ane, a high-quality shirt from a medium-quality one, and and then on. But everyone can tell cheap or poorly cared-for shoes. Buy the all-time ones you tin afford, and take care of them. Smooth them regularly (a few swipes with a wax-infused polishing cloth is frequently all it takes) and store them covered if you won't be wearing them for a long time. Shoe trees, it turns out, are important: they not only hold the shape of the shoe but the cedar ones blot moisture (and thus odors) which helps preserve the leather. (Bated: women tend to pay a lot of attending to men's shoes. Keep that in mind when a) dating, and b) interviewing for a job.)

two. Shoes are made of leather (besides sneakers). Anything non made of leather y'all can consider a non-shoe. Leather breathes and adapts to the shape of your foot. The soles don't have to exist leather, but the uppers do. (Truthful story: equally a fellow, my brother was a automobile salesman here in Vegas. In the summer, the tarmac could get well over 150 degrees F. Standing out there with leather-soled shoes could give you second-degree burns! So they wore condom soles, which melted later on a calendar month or two and had to exist replaced.)

3. You lot need more than one pair of shoes, just not likewise much more than. Black oxfords (lace-up dress shoes), black loafers (skid-on shoes), brown oxfords or loafers, and you're set (not counting your athletic shoes, of grade). A pair of ankle-high boots in black or brown can substitute for the loafers. Ox-claret (burgundy) shoes are harder to find only in theory become with everything. You lot can pretty safely ignore white shoes.

four. The shinier the shoe, the dressier. Matte-stop shoes – nubuck (that pebbly leather), suede, and distressed leather shoes are automatically compatible with jeans or khakis; shinier shoes might still go with jeans but it depends on the rest of your outfit, the dressier you are the shinier your shoes can exist. If y'all can wear them with a accommodate, y'all probably can't wear them with jeans, and vice versa.

5. Shoes should be the aforementioned tone or darker than your pants. This is all the dominion you demand to know when trying to effigy out what shoes to wear. This is why you never habiliment brown shoes with black trousers, merely you can usually wear black shoes with brown trousers. When in incertitude, wear black.

Accessories

1. Match your belt to your shoes. Information technology doesn't have to be a perfect lucifer, equally long as you clothing a black belt with black shoes and a chocolate-brown belt with brown shoes.

ii. Match your socks to your pants. Again, it doesn't take to be a perfect match – a little lighter or darker is fine. If you lot don't have socks to match your pants, you can match your shoes, or but wear black socks.

3. White socks are for sports. Only. Unless you are a) wearing sneakers, and b) doing something athletic in them, avoid white socks.

four. Your necktie should reach your belt. Annihilation short of your belt makes you look like a rube.

5. Endeavor a forepart-pocket wallet or coin clip. This volition save wear-and-tear on your back pocket (helping to avoid the heartbreak of "buttsquare"), help avert pickpockets (a little – the practiced ones know…), and save your dorsum. Plus: classy!

6. You're allowed ane affectation. A fedora. A pocket watch. A bracelet or grade ring. A vest (if you're not wearing a iii-slice suit). An expensive wristwatch. Pick one, just no more – give your whatsoever-information technology-is space to say whatever-it-says.

If information technology feels similar these rules are arbitrary and stifling, they are. Remember of information technology similar learning how to pigment: first, you lot do a still-life (capricious) using just one color (stifling). Eventually you motility upwards to 2 and three colors, then maybe a warm or cool palette, and your subjects might expand to include figures or landscapes. One time yous've mastered the basics, you tin can brainstorm to press confronting the rules, juxtaposing not-complementary colors or painting unconventional subjects.

In fashion every bit in fine art – fashion emerges non from a lack of rules but from a mastery of them, from making them serve yous instead of the other fashion around. If you lot're a geek like me, you need to punch a fresh start – articulate your closets of all those conference freebie t-shirts, put a polish on your shoes, and burn down your butt-crack pants. Ultimately, these rules are not at all about tamping down your personality only well-nigh learning how to limited it. And unfair every bit it is, people will take you more seriously when yous dress with a modicum of manner.

Anyone else have tips for the newcomer to the world of style? Requite u.s.a. your best communication in the comments.

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/newbie-fashion-tips-for-grown-up-men.html

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