In past posts I’ve addressed two major, albeit subtle, aspects of how individual men can look their best – knowing their contrast type and maximizing patterns according to build and proportions. After having those two as a foundation you can take it a step further by maximizing patterns according to your contrast type.

Before outlining all three of these variations I want to emphasize the importance of seeing these as guidelines.  I write posts like this to give you knowledge of their visual effects, not to restrict you to certain types of clothing. I think it’s great when guys know the rules and then choose to break them, unapologetically, to create a unique appearance. So, use this knowledge to expand your style, not to restrict it.

Stark Contrast:

Because a man with a stark contrast needs strong color variation to properly frame his face, his best option is to wear color-based patterns.

The most common example of this is a strong color for the pattern against a white background. The deeper or brighter the color, the better, as it provides more of a contrast against the white base.

Rather than distracting from his face, it helps to not only keep it framed, but also give some vibrancy and visual health to his skin tone.

Moderate Contrast:

Just like with colors in general, a man with a moderate contrast has the most freedom in his pattern selection. He is free to choose color-based or tone-based patterns. That being said, he is best served by seeking moderation in the pattern’s strength.

Those that are too powerful or too weak can either over or underwhelm his face and have negative visual effects. For men with a moderate contrast the key element is color saturation, not contrast between colors within the fabric.

Muted Contrast:

Because a man with a muted contrast can be visually overpowered if either the colors or color contrasts are too strong, his best option is to wear tone-based patterns.

These are characterized by combining different shades of the same color together in a pattern. While the depth or brightness of a given color still has an effect on the overall appearance of the pattern, it is mitigated by balancing it with a different shade of the same color – making it safer for men with muted contrasts to wear without being swallowed up by their clothing.

What’s nice about learning the strengths and weaknesses of pattern intensities, shapes, and sizes is that none of the options are mutually exclusive. A short, squat man with a muted contrast can find shirts with small, tone-based vertical stripes to help him look his best. While a tall, broad-shouldered man with a stark contrast can do the same by wearing a large plaid with bold, color-based variations. When all three aspects function independently of each other, you’re able to tweak all three as you need to accomplish the desired visual effect.

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This is a guest post from my good friend Remy Sheppard. To read more of his stuff, check out remysheppard.com

Tanner was gracious enough to allow me to write a guest post for his blog. With that in mind I don’t want to waste your time with something that won’t be useful for you. Instead, I’m going to ask you to examine yourself for a moment and take measure of where you are in your life and how your style plays an important role in that.

I have done the self-employed thing a few times now and I’m looking to try it again in the not-too-distant future. I’ve learned a lot of things in my struggle to be independent and free of the 9 to 5, but one of the things that stuck with me the most is that there is very little difference between an unemployed day and a self-employed day.

If I wake up, sit around in my boxers for 4 hours, sip coffee, maybe get a light lunch and hop on 9gag – well I’ve had myself an unemployed day. I’m living on wages I’m not earning, using resources I can’t replace, and wasting an opportunity to advance my position in life.

However, if I wake up, put on a nice shirt, have a working breakfast, and push myself through lunch, hit a solid work out and then get back on the grind – I’ve had a self-employed day.

You know what makes all the difference in the mindset and puts my thoughts to action? My clothes.

When you get up and get dressed – and not in some shabby band T and torn jeans, but actual nice, matching clothes – you will find that you are immediately more alert and ready to tackle the day. Something about getting dressed and ready like you’re going to go accomplish something clicks your mind over into Lion Mode and makes you want to go out and grab the bull by the horns.

In addition to improving your mindset, your clothing and style will greatly impact your masculinity as a whole. You might be saying, “What kind of metrosexual wimp worries about his closet!? lolololol!” But I want you to stop and think for a second: The last time you saw a man, a real man, and thought to yourself, “Damn, I want to be that guy!” what was he wearing?

Because I promise you he wasn’t sporting an Avenged Sevenfold T-shirt, rainbow liberty spikes, and tripp pants.

Now that man could have been the biggest loser on earth, but he dressed for success, portrayed himself as a winner and left an overall positive impression on you. It’s called the Halo Effect. It’s a cognitive bias in which your judgment of a person’s character and moral integrity are based solely on your impression of that person’s outward appearance.

I drive past a bum every day on my way to work. He sits at the same corner with the same tired sign. He’s homeless, clearly, but he looks clean. He looks like he bathes and eats rather well. He’s always smiling and happy to talk to people, like his condition doesn’t really have him down. I would not mind one bit giving that guy money each and every day.

However, down by the mall there is a guy who is really skinny, lost most of his teeth, looks dirty and mangy, and runs up on your blind spot to pester you about a dollar – I never give that guy money. Not for gas, or his wife’s medicine, or whatever story it is he has that day. He looks like he’s going to spend it on crack.

The first guy looks like he’s going to spend it on food. Halo Effect.

Your public perception is incredibly important to your success. If you wake up and dress well you’ll be more positive, energetic and ready to accomplish your day’s goal. You’ll also find that, along with the strong inner passion you’re feeling, your outward appearance will make people take you much more seriously. They’ll trust you easier, respect you sooner, and give you more time to explain yourself.

Your clothes and the way you present yourself are incredibly vital and integral to your mindset, your reputation, and your masculinity. Because of this, the way you dress is intrinsically linked to your success. Dress appropriately, dress well, and dress for success.

Remy Sheppard used to write a dating blog called The Alpha Persona. Now he writes a blog under his real name about motivation and success in life. Head on over and check it out and make sure to follow him on twitter @remy_sheppard

PS. For updates and insights follow me on Twitter.

Most men in the Western world have a weird, binary relationship with their clothing. They essentially see something as either dressed up or dressed down. We’ve already started to tackle this a bit talking about High/Low and how you can incorporate different elements of high style and low style together to create a unique look that is neither formal nor casual.

Here’s a good break down of what the scale really looks like.

As you can tell, most guys are happy to live in the land of the casual. In fact, getting most Western men to even venture into High/Low territory is like pulling teeth at first. The tragedy is that they’re still missing half of the scale of wearable clothing. You may not wear a tuxedo more than a couple of times a year (if that) and a business suit is styled and designed to typically stay in the business world.

As you can tell by what I’ve emphasized, today I want to focus on the casual suit. I know that sounds like an oxymoron but it does exist, and it’s a great way to step up your style game and set yourself apart from all the AFC’s of the world.

Spring and summer are the perfect time to start wearing a casual suit because warm-weather-specific materials tend to skew a bit more casual. Here’s what separates a casual suit from its formal and business brothers.

Texture

For casual suits you will want to avoid anything with too much sheen or too tight a weave. The more luxurious the fabric appears, the more formal it’s going to be. Warm-weather materials like cotton and linen provide great texture with a more open weave.

If you’re opting for wool, you’ll want to look for yarn-died instead of piece-died fabrics. The difference is when the wool itself is died. As I’m sure you can surmise, yarn-died wool is woven after the individual threads are colored, whereas piece died wool is woven into the cloth and then died as an entire piece. Yarn-died wools have more visual texture and variety, making them more appropriate for a casual suit.

Structure

The less structure your jacket has, the more casual it will be. There are three primary areas in which this can happen – the chest construction, the lining, and the shoulder construction. The most formal is a full, half-floating canvas with full shoulder pads and a full lining. The most casual is and unstructured chest with no shoulder pads and no lining.

Not only does this allow the jacket to look more casual, it also helps it breathe better (making it wear cooler in the warm weather) and makes it easier to travel with. An unstructured jacket is one that can be crumpled up like a shirt without the worry of damaging the lining, canvas, or jacket shape.

Customization Details

There are a few things on a jacket that make it appear more casual. You will want to find something with notch lapels instead of peak, a single vent instead of double, patch pockets instead of flaps, and no ticket pocket. The most casual suit will take advantage of all these details but you can mix and match them for the desired effect.

Color and Pattern

Unusual colors and/or bold patterns will dress down a suit. The exception to this is vertical stripes (pin, chalk, etc.) as they are too entrenched in the business world to appear casual. Large window-pane patterns are making a serious comeback and are a great way to embrace the nonchalant attitude of a casual suit.

Fit

On more casual suits everything is smaller. This can be slimmer fits, shorter jacket lengths, smaller lapels, shorter trouser breaks, and shorter sleeves. You don’t want to get too crazy but embracing just a bit of the too-small aesthetic will help communicate that this suit is intended for casual purposes.

Once you have the suit you can embrace more casual aspects of the rest of your wardrobe. Wear loafers or monk straps and go sockless, ditch the tie or even wear the jacket with a T-shirt, embrace louder shirts, ties, belts, and socks.

The purpose of the casual suit is to make you look like a rake. There’s nothing rugged or refined about it so you’ll need to have the go-to-hell attitude that comes with a rakish appearance. Wear the suit together or separate the jacket and pants into separates. You should be getting some serious use out of a casual suit and can wear it for something as mundane as a trip to the grocery store on Saturday morning. By getting comfortable in a casual suit, you’re communicating that your standard of dress is higher and better defined than that of the men around you.

PS. For updates and insights follow me on Twitter.

Read the intro to the series, the Rugged Man, the Refined Man, and the Rakish Man.

Now that I’ve outlined the three archetypes of masculine style, it’s fairly easy to see the similarities and differences between their strengths and weaknesses.

The average man is going to have different percentages of all three of these archetypes with only the occasional outlier being 100% one way or the other. You should see this as a good thing. Having variety and variation between the three gives you a more interesting appearance and works to the advantage of most men. In your daily clothing you can implement types of all three of these elements and change their varying degrees depending on how you visualize yourself as a man.

Ideally we would all be made up of three equal parts of these three archetypes. But that’s not always the case. If you find yourself more in the Rakish/Refined camp with very little that’s Rugged about you or your lifestyle, you will look like a fake if you try to implement too much Rugged style into your wardrobe. You may gradually introduce more Rugged elements as you develop more ruggedness into your overall masculinity, but letting the clothing precede or dictate the type of man you are is disingenuous and will create some visual dissonance.

On top of dressing to your particulars as a man, dress to the environment and occasion in which you find yourself. I enjoy having some rakish elements in my style but when I’m out hunting with my brothers in law I want the function and consistency of more Rugged clothing.

All of the disclaimers above aside, the purpose of outlining these three archetypes and their relative styles is to give you a full tool belt to pull from. There are no rules about mixing and matching the different archetypes and – even if there were – they’d be the type of rules that are better off broken anyway.

So take some time to think about yourself, your life now, and your goals of what you want to be and then start using your clothing as a tool to help communicate that.

If you liked this series and are interested in learning more about some of the principles discussed throughout, I suggest reading my Danger & Play series:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

A few months ago I started a consultation with a client who had a very unique problem – his feet measure in at 11.5 EEE. For comparison’s sake, the average size foot of a man in the US is 10.5 C (if you’re unaware, the letter measurement is for the width of your feet). Needless to say, this man has had a hard time finding shoes that fit him properly.

I spent quite a bit of time online with style forums, blogs, and websites trying to find a good solution for him. High quality companies like Alden and Allen Edmonds can accommodate his size but only insofar as their lace-ups are concerned. When it comes to casual shoes or loafers, we were at a loss.

During my search I kept reading about a relatively new company called Mantorii. They make custom shoes in Vietnam and offer a good variety of style, details, and obviously sizing options.

So naturally I reached out to the company to see if I could find out more about them and get a chance to try out their shoes. I wanted to know the quality of their leather and construction before recommending them to a client. They were happy about the prospect and said they’d hook me up with a pair to try out.

They had me go through their simple ordering process as if I were a regular customer. The first thing you do to start your order process is select your shoe type. They offer monk straps, dress boots, loafers, chukkas, and a few other options as well.

After selecting your shoe type you will be taken to a separate page wherein you can enter your foot measurements and the details of how you’d like to customize your shoe. Their measurement process was simple but does require a second person. They have you download a PDF and print it up on a piece of paper. To ensure that the scale is correct, they also have you measure and mark the dimensions of the paper. From there, you’ll measure one foot at a time, tracing the outline of your foot after placing it in the proper corner of the paper, and measuring and marking both the widest and the highest point of your foot. Repeat with the other, upload, and attach. Nice and easy.

After entering your measurement dimensions you get to play around with the details like brouging (seven options – including a custom one), leather color (ten options – including custom), shoe lining (five choices), and sole selection (four options).

At the time of my order the interior lining customization was not available but I’m excited to see that as an add on.

For my shoes I decided to try something relatively clean and simple – a brown double-monk strap with no broguing and half-rubber soles.

It took a little over three weeks from order completion to when the shoes showed up at my door. They came packaged well and with an unbranded carry bag for travel purposes.

The fit is perfect. In fact, it’s almost too perfect. I am in the habit of wearing cotton in-soles with my shoes in the summer as they allow me to go sockless. However, my Mantorii’s are made so specifically to my size that wearing them with insoles and socks makes my feet tired by the end of the day. Having to specifically add the insoles on days that I wear them without socks is a small price to pay for a great fit.

Thankfully I don’t have to worry about arch support or a lack thereof. This is not an area which is called out in the measurement process so if you are a man who needs insoles for the sake of comfortably wearing shoes, I recommend you contact Mantorii about this when placing your order. They should be able to accommodate.

As far as the appearance of the shoe is concerned, I’ve been very happy. Initially the leather looked a bit flat and cheap.

It’s a full grain so it’s not cheap but it looked that way (top). However, after three or four shines (one of which was with a black polish on the toe) I was able to add some visual depth and the shoes now look as great as they are (bottom).

The shape of the shoes is fantastic. The current style right now is to avoid anything too flat, too pointed, too long, or too bulky and Mantorii hit all of these points perfectly. The toe has a nice, gradual roundness to it that will compliment the shape of your foot and prevent it from looking too bulky or too dainty.

Their soles are goodyear welted and resoleable. I opted for the half rubber sole as I appreciate having the extra grip and water proofing in inclement weather. One cool little detail on the bottom of the sole is that they’ll monogram your shoes right beneath their logo. No one will see it, but it’s a cool reminder for you that these are custom.

I’ve had these shoes for over a month now and have worn them every other day, if not multiple days in a row. They took about a week to break in and I’ve been happy with the fit, style, and durability since.

At around $300 for starting prices they can be expensive, but the construction quality paired with the customization make them worth it. It’s a similar price to what you’d pay for a quality shoe made of full-grain leather and a goodyear welt without the ability to customize all the details or the fit. In comparison, other custom shoe companies will often start at or around $700.

All in all, this is a great product and one for which I am happy to give a positive review. Check out mantorii.com and order yourself a pair.

PS. For updates and insights follow me on Twitter.