the everyman

65 Things A Man Should Know About Style


Sergio Valente put it best when he said, 'How you look tells the world how you feel.'

1. If you can slip two fingers between your neck and the buttoned collar of a new dress shirt, the shirt will fit comfortably after laundering.
2. The shirt placket, the belt buckle, and the trouser fly should all line up.
3. Speaking of belt buckles, the point of your tie should never fall below it.
4. Rent no clothing.
5. Ninety-dollar shoes last half as long as $180 shoes, but $360 shoes will last you your whole life.
6. Three-hundred-sixty-dollar shoes will not last your whole life if you break their backs by refusing to use a shoehorn.
7. Three-hundred-sixty-dollar shoes without a shine can look like $90 shoes.
8. Women notice shoes.
9. They also notice nose hair; so should you.
10. Good shoes and a good haircut matter more than a great suit.
11. Neckties decorated with cartoon characters, golf tees, or the paintings of dead rock musicians coordinate with nothing.
12. It is never acceptable to loosen your tie, except during the process of its removal.
13. You are in your car an hour each day; you are in your clothes from morning to night. Spend accordingly.
14. The seat-belt shoulder strap goes under your necktie.
15. You can't wear a bow tie with anything other than a tuxedo if you're under forty-five or not a famous novelist or not a total geek, professor.
16. Very few people want to see you in compression shorts, and those who do might not be your target audience.
17. Likewise tight, black leather pants, Mr. Bon Jovi.
18. A $250 shirt will look like a $25 shirt if it is professionally laundered instead of hand washed.
19. Still, you will be happiest if you regard dress shirts as disposable.
20. By the way, this blue-shirt craze is getting really tiresome.
21. Buy the lightest-weight tuxedo you can find, because dancing and drinking and scantily clad women cause formal affairs to become overheated.
22. One ring, maximum. On a finger. Not from college. Not from high school. Silver or platinum, not gold.
23. On airplane trips, briefs are more comfortable than boxers, as contents may shift during takeoff and landing.
24. There are no bargains.
25. A man in a good suit and tie looks chic; a man in a good suit without a tie looks more chic.
26. A man who uses the word chic had better be kidding around.
27. A man in a suit without a tie can wear loafers; a man in a suit with a tie cannot.
28. Ed Bradley doesn't look as good with that earring as he thinks he does.
29. Jack Nicholson can wear two-tone spectator shoes only because he is Jack Nicholson.
30. It is far better to arrive at an event overdressed than underdressed: People will think you've got somewhere more important to go afterward.
31. Cheap cashmere is less soft and more fragile than expensive wool.
32. A T-shirt that shows through a dress shirt is the male equivalent of visible panty lines.
33. Do not wear button-down collars with double-breasted suits.
34. Do not unbutton double-breasted suits, Letterman notwithstanding.
35. The only thing worse than wearing socks that don't cover one's calves is wearing patterned socks that don't cover one's calves.
36. If you lose one cuff link, remove the remaining orphan; this will make it look as if you have insouciant personal style and omitted them on purpose.
37. Keep a lint roller in your office. And in your car.
38. A good suit treated well shouldn't be dry-cleaned more than twice a season; a good tuxedo treated well should never be dry-cleaned.
    Unless you're a quarterback, never wear anything with your name and/or number on it.
39. Jeans should never meet an iron.
40. What you find at an outlet store is what other people refused to buy or what a company thinks you will buy because you're the kind of person who shops at an outlet store.
41. Khakis religiously worn on Fridays are no less a uniform than a business suit worn the prior four days.
42. Nonetheless, you can never have too many khakis. Or white heavyweight-cotton T-shirts or canvas tennis shoes. For Saturday.
    Numbers to remember: one half inch of shirt cuff; one and a half inches of trouser cuff; two inches more belt than inches on your waist.
43. Your belt and shoes should match in color, if not in material.
44. Speaking of color, there is little use for pink, peach, or teal.
45. It's not the name on the label or the numbers on the credit-card statement but how good you look in it.
46. Even Al Gore shouldn't wear a watch with a built-in calculator.
47. Like cars and stereo equipment, clothes are not really 'invest-ments,' because they cannot appreciate. They're clothes.
48. It's more important in a man's daily life to have a good tailor than a good doctor.
49. Clothing salesmen can change your life in a good way, but not many of them.
50. Two elements of style that will last longer than any man who is smart enough to own them: a sterling belt buckle from Tiffany and simple cuff links.
51. A restaurant meal tastes better when you're wearing a suit coat.
52. Band-collar shirts make you look either stupid or like a priest or like a stupid priest.
53. Whether a tie is too fat or too skinny should be decided by you, on a tie-by-tie basis.
54. When in doubt, ask a woman.
55. Know that she will often be wrong, too, and that ultimately a man is alone in a vast sea of indecision that he must ply.
56. Never trust a fashion magazine. CelebrityTrendZ is not a fashion magazine. CelebrityTrendZ likes you very much and is only trying to help.
57. Cigars are never stylish in mixed company.
58. If you hang your jacket on a chair and then sit on the chair and lean back, your jacket will look as if you had hung it on a chair and then sat on the chair and leaned back.
59. Drape your scarf on that chair and you're going to lose it, and we are not your mother.
60. A black knit tie coordinates with jeans and a blazer as well as it does with a French-cuffed shirt and a custom-made suit.
    Levi's.
61. Deep in the heart of the Middle West, some people are actually wearing those baggy, printed workout pants again, and you owe God your deepest thanks that you have the presence of mind to not be among them.
62. The most important thing about selecting a hotel is the ability of the staff to press a shirt instantly, anytime, day or night.
    First suit: navy solid. Second suit: gray solid. Third suit: navy pinstripe. Fourth suit: gray chalk stripe. Fifth suit: black. Sixth suit: You need no sixth suit.
63. To have absolute style is to break absolute rules - sometimes even these.
64. There is no foot pain so severe, no dress shoe so fragile, no commute so arduous, as to justify the sartorial holocaust that is wearing sneakers with a suit.
65. Unless you have a harelip or happen to be Wilford Brimley, you look exactly half as attractive with a mustache.