STYLE GUIDES: essential or obnoxious?

Alright elmo, quincie, and anyone else: I put that style guide poll up FINALLY. Have at it.

I completely agree with elmo's shit up there

disappointed that I missed the poll

fwiw the international cybersecurity practitioner style guide includes a LOT of not ironing anything, chuck taylors, non-shiny ironic "ha yeah like this is a tie but not serious" ties and shell toes. everybody is totally surprised

I feel like there should be a whole style guide just telling nerdy dudes how to be more like the last couple of dr. whos so they can get out of the black tshirt and doc martens hole we've been in for decades

You will have to leave Eccleston out of the guide then

yeah yeah I meant smith and tennant. eccleston is exactly the problem (and more or less how I dressed during most of my 20s)

WILSON'S LEATHER

lol

have been thinking about this quite a bit today, again

at this point, i have temporarily dropped out the blog circuit because the it was causing more resentment than enjoyment

i pretty much am a style guide now

j/k

I am a lot happier now that I've stopped looking at style blogs, geek li

whoops thar was supposed to say

feel like sometime last year I just figured out what I like and was able to start ignoring blogs, magazines, etc

what I like turned out to be dressing like my dad btw

I feel silly posting that because it makes it sound like I've figured out style, which i haven't, I think a lot of the time I look merely passable , functional, anonymous etc

ok, so i guess what i'm getting at is something my friend said. my friend, who i haven't spoken to in a long time, so let's call her acquaintance, was some sort of big stylist type. like one year she did all the branding for window displays at the gap, and one year for j crew, and one year for madewell, etc etc. and her advice was always "wear what you feel". like, wear clothes that feel like you and that feel how you feel, and don't wear clothes that don't, no matter how intellectually good they seem. she doesn't look like a model at all, in fact, she's pretty unglamorous looking, but she does always comfortable in her skin because she "wears what she feels", i guess.

i guess this is the problem w/ style guides, is they're based on what someone else feels, what "the mood of the season" is, etc

and i guess what i'm getting at is thank fucking god i finally feel comfortable enough to be able to wear what i feel, and to (vice-versa) know what i feel like, which is like almost always white and navy, sometimes green and tan, never feel like red or orange, really, ok maybe a tiny bit etc. and it feels good to be able to trust in that rather than to try to feel out what feels good from looking at style guides.

this aging thing isn't so bad after all, i guess.

unfortunately all of the above reads like braggin so sorry in advance

I didn't think it read like braggin at all

I think what I needed re: style was somebody to show HOW to dress like I feel, the world is full of rules about how to dress like somebody else feels, so you rebel against that by looking like a generic schlub and maybe occasionally going OUT THERE with some bright colors or a pattern or a paisley tie or some shit.

Most people are looking for permission and after a while they give up and let wifey buy them whatever's on sale at land's end.
I am all hell yes about sale shit at land's end, don't get me wrong, but I'm not into office uniform mediocrity, never have been, I feel pretty sad when I think about my lost years in the khaki polo IT guy shit country.

maybe there should be a style guide about basic principles, expand on "wear what you feel" with some more explicit instruction, like "think you don't feel a tie? here's some ways to feel like a necktie" or "hate going to men's wearhouse? how to beat the pinstripers with separates"

something to give more kids the right clues so they don't have to wait for someone to buy them a copy of TAKE IVY

it's true, i had to wander in a wilderness of tons of garbage clothes for a long time before i figured it out

'dressing how you feel' requires one to first be aware how you feel, which might be a problem for some guys!

one of the differences between style rules for men & women is that while women are, i think, encouraged to use their attire to express various sides of themselves as they suit various roles & occasions. for ex, you can be a chic sophisticate in the office friday and a sultry temptress on saturday night and a sweet girl next door for sunday brunch. but i feel that for dudes, there is only one identity that is advocated and that is MAN and the only variations are just different positions on a casual vs. formal scale.

maybe there should be a style guide about basic principles, expand on "wear what you feel" with some more explicit instruction, like "think you don't feel a tie? here's some ways to feel like a necktie" or "hate going to men's wearhouse? how to beat the pinstripers with separates"

anyone finds these or writes these, let me know.

like, a lot of these style blogs pay homage to developing a 'personal style' but like, you have to choose ONE LOOK and commit to it completely, and you should be able to dress yourself in the dark because your wardrobe is arranged so that every shirt can be matched with any other pair of pants you own

*case study*

this pic & quote is from a dude i follow on tumblr, seems like a nice dude, takes good photos and has some nice clothes.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mav7k0sFqp1qdb4s4o1_1280.jpg

Pattern Mixing

Perhaps the gingham of the shirt and the PoW check is too close in scale. I also thought the faint burgundy overcheck would draw out some of the reddish hues in the tie.

so, i appreciate how he's mindful of scale and color, but it saddens me that it's done with such a reliance on established rules about pattern and color. like, dude, you look fine, why do you think that wearing a faint blue micro gingham shirt is some kind of risky style move, the fuck

men who internalize style guides as some sort of prevailing superego of fashion, that shit is dumb, stop doing it

who the fuck dresses like that, prime ministers?

you can do that shit with a t-shirt and a hoodie

who the fuck dresses like that, prime ministers?

tumblr #menswear powerbloggers, half of styleforum, moderators at r/malefashionadvice

i'm not endorsing wearing a t-shirt and hoodie to work

but i do think if you're a lawyer or accountant dressed like that a lot of people are gonna be like wtf.

you can get the same dose of color theory with a dress shirt and a sweater

there are teachers who are menswearish, like they'll wear suspenders, old-timey shirts, rolled up jeans with dress shoes, etc

i think it makes more sense to dress like a camp counselor than going that route

i think there's a line of overdressy that you don't need to go very far to step over comfortably in business clothing

like if you get the fit right, you can wear basics all the time and wear a tie or something and look a million bucks

I pretty much agree that the shirt in that picture is way too same-but-different in pattern to the jacket and they don't look good together, especially with the busy tie. Two of the three would work, but not all three.

All this stuff is like jazz -- you can make the wrong notes sound right. But since most men are not miles davises of style, the rules are there to help them avoid looking like a mess. That said, yeah, these style bloggers get a bit fascistic about it.

I say that a man who is not a miles davis of style.

idk, i wouldn't have picked the combination but fair is fair and i'm not wearing it, i think it looks nice but it's not even very noteworthy imho. & i'm not going to criticize anybody for overdressing because i overdress for any & every occasion.

the thing that bummed me out was the "oops i broke a rule please don't pick on me" vibe from the caption.

it's hard to tell -- it looks like the kind of thing that, if everything was otherwise high quality and well-tailored for the man wearing it and the guy was well-groomed and put together etc then it might work very nicely, but if it was just your average midtown manhattan guy with off-the-rack clothes, the clash would make it look extra sloppy.

i dunno, it's not even that defensive in tone i guess, but i just get VERY SUSPICIOUS of dudes who consistently annotate their WIWT shots by explaining how they put their outfit together, what rules they followed, why they chose blue socks, why it's appropriate for the weather or the occasion. like everyone's gotta play the role of gq assistant fashion editor all the time? stfu.

also i think i have a higher tolerance for clashing than many other ppl fwiw

the tie is a dark "value" than the shirt and the jacket is inbetween, as it should be

the hue of the jacket is brown which is like a shade of orange which goes nice with the gingham which is like a hue of blue, complementary colors etc if i'm reading it right

there a consonance between the gingham and tweed and the tie itself is tying it all together HOHO but with a pattern that breaks up the non-square lines in the tie and he's correct it picks up some of the colors in the jacket

big fucking WHOOP