Today I’m sharing with you essential style tips for guys who want to dress better.
Whether you’re a complete beginner or have been working on your style for a while and need a refresher, I’ve refined these concepts and tips over the last 11 years to help you look your best in no time.
1. REALIZE THAT DRESSING WELL IS A SKILL
Just like cooking or shooting free throws, dressing well is a skill that can actually be learned.
My job as a personal stylist isn’t to buy clothes for guys and send them on their way. I teach men how to choose clothes that enhance them so they can do it on their own. If dressing well wasn’t a skill that could be taught, I’d be out of a job!
With all skills, you get better the more you practice. And unless you live in some weirdo nudist colony (I would apologize here, but if you’re a nudist reading this blog, you’re in the wrong place), you need to get dressed everyday. That means you have an opportunity to practice and nurture the skill of dressing well every single day.
2. DEVELOP YOUR “EYE” BY IDENTIFYING STYLE YOU LIKE
Right after guys tell me that they’re just not “naturally stylish”, it’s often followed up with:
“I just don’t have an eye for putting together outfits or knowing what looks good”
Here’s what I tell them:
“Ok. Is there anyone who’s style you think looks good? Something you think ‘I’d like to dress like that’, even if you don’t think you could pull it off. Maybe it’s a celebrity, a musician, an athlete? Even a fictional character. Some of my clients have mentioned James Bond or Tony Stark before.”
The guy will then list off a ton of men he thinks dresses cool. And then I like to point out that he just debunked his own assumption that he doesn’t have an “eye”. He just showed me he can see and recognize great style!
Now, he might not know the why yet, and that’s often the reason why guys tell me they don’t have an eye. Understanding why is learnable.
But whenever you’re working on a goal, it’s important to identify and challenge stories you tell yourself. Whether it’s that you don’t have an eye for style, you’re too busy to work out, or you’re just a shy person. The stories we tell ourselves are often invisible barriers to keep us in our comfort zone.
3. SOLVE 90% OF YOUR STYLE PROBLEMS BY GETTING THE RIGHT FIT
This is something an actual client said to me once after seeing the picture of Ryan Gosling above.
“How the hell does he look so cool wearing just a t-shirt and jeans?”
The answer, my friend, is fit.
Fit is the most important thing when it comes to great style. It’s so important, in fact, that I tell every one of my clients “wearing clothes that fit properly will solve 90% of your style problems.”
When clothes don’t fit properly, they throw off your body proportions. Because of the excess fabric, clothes that are too big make you not only look sloppy, but fatter and shorter than you are.
Men have the tendency to wear clothes that are too big for them because it either “feels more comfortable”, or they just don’t know how clothes are supposed to fit in the first place.
The right fit is how someone like Ryan Gosling (or me, or you) can look effortlessly stylish rocking a plain white t-shirt and jeans, and how someone can look terrible in a “nice suit” that probably cost 20x more.
This also means if you think you need a suit in order to look stylish, you don’t!
If you’re more leather jacket and jeans like me, you can be leather jacket and jeans and look great, as long as you’re wearing clothes that fit right.