I’m a huge advocate of investing the money required to buy quality pieces, but no man should be a price snob.
The shoes I’m wearing were lovingly crafted and painted, by hand, by an old cobbler in Italy who has probably made more shoes than I’ve lived weeks.
The suit I have on took longer to create than my body needed to completely reknit a broken collarbone when I was 14.
The tie?
It was a gift from a friend and I’m pretty sure he paid ten bucks for it. And it’s not like it was some incredible thrifting find. I bet it’s only worth that $10.
Sure doesn’t ruin the ensemble though. No it’s not as nice as my other ties. It doesn’t drape as well and the weight leaves a lot to be desired.
But man do I like the colors and it ties a killer knot.
So don’t immediately write something off just because it’s cheap. You may miss a lot of great finds.
A quick comment on the importance of proportion. It really is a necessary component of dialing in your appearance – especially when it comes to suiting.
One key area is the balance between the tie width, lapel size, and shirt collar height. As the sartorial world is moving away from the razor thin lapels circa 2010, the rest of the ensemble need to keep up.
Of the three, collar height is the least important, but if you haven’t worn a tall collar, you’re really missing out. The substantial size is more flattering with a bigger tie (especially if it’s made from a heavier material like this wool). It’s also more prone to stand properly when worn without a tie. Smaller collars want to “pancake” under the jacket’s lapel.
Getting it “wrong” isn’t going to ruin a look. In fact, I rock a regular collar with big lapels plenty of days. But knowing more makes it much easier to use all of the guidelines to your advantage. You can follow or break the rules at your leisure.
Want to learn more about the right proportions for you build? Check out the Style Profile for personalized advice and coaching.
It was raining again when I left the house this morning. So I decided to lace up my dress boots. (Allen Edmonds Daltons)
These are great for the upcoming seasons because they keep my feet warm and protected, without sacrificing the Refined aesthetic I need from my footwear.
If you live in a temperate climate and spend any time dressed up, dress boots are a worthwhile investment.
They also do an excellent job of dressing up a more casual look. I can throw them on with jeans, an OCBD, and a f/w sportcoat (all Staples btw) and have something that’s more Refined than workboots or more dressed up than chukkas.
This is not a new concept and I certainly won’t pretend I’m the one to have created it. However, I’d never heard it given a term before.
Anchoring is using a more subtle piece of one’s wardrobe in order to tie everything else down and prevent it from getting out of hand.
I’ve been experimenting with this quite a bit this summer. Most of my suiting commissions this season were items that definitely did not function as anchors – massive windowpanes, double-breasted suits, yellow jackets, and others.
In order to properly subdue these bolder pieces, I wore primarily white and blue solid shirts and almost exclusively one solid, navy knit tie. It works with everything I own and is very subtle – thereby anchoring the rest of what I wear.
Anchoring is a valid concept for men because we want people to pay attention to our faces, not the just the clothes we wear.
A man in a navy suit, white shirt, and solid tie will have a face that is much more interesting than his ensemble. Same goes for the guy in dark jeans and a white T-shirt.
However, take those same men and put the first in a loud glenn plaid suit with a bold windowpane, a gingham shirt, and a garish foulard tie; then put the second in a pair of moss green jeans and an Affliction T-shirt. All of a sudden their faces aren’t that interesting and become the least noticeable parts of their appearance.
Anchoring is typically accomplished with larger, more commonly worn, more expensive, and more versatile items – which makes sense because these items provide the most bang for an anchor’s buck.
It’s why the first suits a man should buy are navy and grey and why solid T-shirts are more preferable than their screen-printed counterparts.
In fact, when a man starts to build his wardrobe by procuring the Staples, I recommend each of them be purchases in a color and pattern that makes it an anchor.
There’s nothing wrong and nearly everything right with having an entire wardrobe that consists of nothing but anchoring items. However, some men (especially those who lean towards the Rakish Archetype) like to embrace a fuller, more vibrant wardrobe and will begin to purchase items which are not anchorable.
The best way to move beyond the basics is to choose louder, more memorable colors and patterns in smaller and cheaper items. Shoes, ties, pocket squares, watch bands, shoe laces, jewelry, and myriad other pieces can make a big difference in subtle ways.
Moving up from there would be items like shirts, pants, and jackets.
And the granddaddy of all would be moving to complete head-to-toe items like suits in more memorable and colorful variations.
Regardless of how bold any particular item is, a complete outfit should always have some anchoring. Hence my simple shirts and ties for my bolder jackets and suits.
Play around with it, experiment, and have some fun.
I’ve been hitting on this a lot lately, but it’s a topic that continues to come up. Oddly enough, it’s never actually directed at me or on the site. I just read about it on friends’ sites or other forums that link to me. Don’t know why that is, but these keyboard warriors never actually come here to tell me their uniform is the only acceptable way for a man to dress.
There are two “hate facts” that men everywhere need to accept.
1. People judge you
It doesn’t matter if they should or shouldn’t. They do. We are always being sized up, evaluated, judged, and treated accordingly. We’re judged for threat we do or don’t pose, the respect we do or don’t command, the attraction we do or don’t build… whatever value we can offer to other people is constantly being assessed.
2. People judge you according to your appearance
The human brain likes efficiency. Because of this efficiency it creates shortcuts. That’s where stereotypes and other surface assessments come from. Our brains recognize patters, and then safely assume that most people fall within recognizable patterns.
This isn’t good or bad, it just is.
Coincidentally, the men who try to tell you that concern for appearance is unmanly are the ones who judge most harshly according to appearance.
To them, there’s only one acceptable masculine appearance – indifferent utility. Anything that appears to be beyond that uniform is considered to be flamboyant, gay, effeminate, shallow, or any other negative term they can come up with.
However, this assessment is based entirely on a failure to adhere to their standard of an acceptably masculine appearance. This strict judgment doesn’t come from men who are equally comfortable in any article of clothing – only those who profess that their uniform is the most masculine.
And that’s why they immediately lose any semblance of credibility. When a man can honestly wear whatever is placed in front of him, not have it affect the way he carries himself, and not have it affect the way in which he interacts with other people, only then can that man say that clothing and appearance don’t matter.
We never hear of men like that because they don’t exist. As soon as we start to move out of our aesthetic comfort zones, we quickly realize that our appearance has a significant impact on how we carry ourselves and how other people treat us. Period.
Men have always used their clothing as a way to signal status. We use it to show allegiance to tribe and distinction from other tribes. We use it communicate strength, wealth, courage, refinement, mastery, and honor.
It’s not limited to a particular culture or a particular period of time. As long as men are dependent on each other, we will use communicative shortcuts in attempts to display our worth to the tribe.
The error occurs when it’s taken too far, and again this is where aesthetic critics fail to understand the importance of style.
They believe, because men like me preach the importance of appearance, that we believe appearance is the most important aspect of being a man. When the truth is that it’s far from it.
Clothing, grooming, and other aesthetic cues are simply the medium. They don’t make the man. A refusal to say they are at the bottom of the hierarchy of masculine value doesn’t automatically require they are at the top. Appearance can be valuable without being the most valuable.
It’s all a sour-grapes approach. The men who chaff the most at the importance of appearance are usually the ones in whose favor it doesn’t work. It’s akin to wimpy academics saying strength doesn’t matter or idiot strongmen saying intelligence doesn’t matter. Both are threatened by a masculinity that requires excellence in an area in which they lack – so they reject that definition of masculinity and choose to double down on another.
