One of the quickest and easiest ways to ruin the refinement and seriousness of a suit is to throw on a ski coat or parka. The contrast between the high and low is too strong and it sends a subtle message of not finishing what you’ve started. The men I see sporting this look often look like Frankenstein’s monster – a piece pulled from this body, another pulled from that, throw it all together and hope it lives.

If you spend any time in a white-collar uniform, a topcoat is a worthwhile investment. Start with wool but if you can invest a bit more, cashmere is a game changer.

Use versatile shades like navy, grey, and charcoal but avoid black. Winter is already dark and somber enough.

Don’t hesitate to wear it casually either. I’ve seen a lot of looks that combine a topcoat with a t-shirt and jeans, joggers, or even sweats. The high/low works to your advantage when dressing it down.

Also, my hair was huge last winter. Geez.

That’s not intended to be some cheap clickbait title – at least not entirely.

One thing any veteran of the #menswear world can attest to is the commonality of different courses and guides that are offered to help guys dress better – I think the only industry more saturated than ours is the world of online fitness.

Most men’s style bloggers will offer a couple of different courses that teach the fundamentals about dressing well. In fact, I have two of them (Style Handbook and the Staples) and I even have three more on their way (Rugged, Refined, and Rakish Style Guides). These are great, but they don’t really help guys internalize the concepts behind dressing better. As well-intentioned as we are, we largely end up treating you – the buyer – like a mannequin. One whose identity, goals, and tastes can all be pigeonholed into our lists of essentials.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a phenomenal jumping off point. By helping readers immediately start dressing better, it breaks the aesthetic rut we can all easily find ourselves in. But, if we stop there, you’re not really dressing better or improving your life, you’re just letting us treat you like a doll.

And this is the whole reason I created Style as Storytelling. Those who heard it live can attest to the fact that there is not a single article of clothing that is recommended, there is not a style rule stated, and there aren’t icons I tell you you should emulate.

It’s a mindset course that is designed to walk you through the deep and ingrained relationship between masculinity and appearance. I teach you principles, give examples of how these principles have been demonstrated in the past, and then ask you to reflect on how these principles can apply to your own goals of dressing better and using that improved appearance to enhance the rest of your life.

The course can be broken down into these lessons:

1 – What’s Your Story?

2 – Clothes Don’t Make the Man

3 – Antipathy, Indifference, and Affinity

4 – Tribe

5 – The Way of Men

6 – Strength

7 – Courage

8 – Mastery

9 – Honor

10 – The Three Style Archetypes

Notice how there isn’t anything in there that’s specific to style. That’s not the point. I want you to think about your clothes, grooming, and appearance in a whole different way.

The course isn’t cheap, and it’s not just a plug-n-play formula to make your life any easier. It requires some real investment on your part (both financial and mental) to really reap the full benefits. If that isn’t what you’re after, buy the Staples and the Handbook or wait until my other guides come out.

Here’s what it will do for you though.

It will change the way you see the importance of clothing by either dialing up its priority or toning it down.

If you apply its principles it will ensure that you never feel awkward or out-of-place when wearing a particular piece of clothing. Every item you have in your closet will be infused with meaning, personality, and purpose to the point that you will better communicate who you are than you have ever been able to.

It will help you develop the vision necessary to create an aesthetic and a wardrobe that consciously and deliberately accomplishes the goals you’ll need it to. There will be no accidents.

Once you have the principles mastered, it will free you up from ever having to worry if you’re dressed well – leaving you to fully focus on more important parts of your life.

If that sounds like something you want, and you’re not afraid of a little mental work and a change in your mindset – then this is the course you’ve been waiting for. It goes live on November 4th.

Dressing well is significantly easier and infinitely more effective when you know who your tribe is and how honor and status are aesthetically expressed within that tribe.

I wouldn’t wear this to a football game, a powerlifting meet, to church, at the beach, or applying for a job.

But because I’m in the world of menswear, an ensemble like this is not only appropriate, it’s almost a requirement.

We are T-minus 10 days from the new Style as Storytelling course going live and I’m getting more and more excited about it. I’ll be releasing a full table of contents in the next couple of days but I wanted to share an entire chapter with you today.

This is lesson #6 and it focuses on the tactical virtue of strength. Check out the full video.

Other lessons in the course will be taking on the other three tactical virtues, along with other areas in which men have always used clothing to indicate our masculinity.

You excited yet?

Did you know that before the invention of nylon or spandex men were limited to uncomfortable clothes that were incapable of moving with their bodies?

Yeah, doesn’t really pass the sniff test. The idea that a man has to get all kitted out to spend anytime with less pavement than a suburb is sill

This is a shot from a hike I went on with my family this Monday. Immediately after we were done we went to the library and then to grab some dessert.

By wearing outdoor-rooted clothes, things like chukkas, jeans, an oxford shirt, and a herrington jacket, I was able to have the function I needed up on the mountain, while keeping the form I wanted back in the city.

I’m all for dressing appropriately to the situation, but sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking we need more than we do. My getting overly dressed for an outside walk with my kids is like wearing a tuxedo to a job interview – overkill.

It all comes back to that idea of intentionality. By knowing what works when and where, I’m able to dress in a way that helps me accomplish my goals each day.