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.

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

The Rake is a man who is socially masculine. He influences individual people to his will by means of his attitude, his charisma, and his disdain for following the rules of society and being beholden to another man. While he is capable of using direct elements to accomplish his goals, he lives largely in a subtle world and is always thinking two or three steps ahead of the people around him. He is constantly adapting to new situations and thrives in his ability to do so. He is the playboy, the rock star, the outlaw, and the vigilante.

Of all the lifestyles young men who are newly aware of their masculinity aspire to, the Rake is the most common. Also known as the player, the international playboy, and the Cassanova, the Rake is the irreverent son of the refined man. He has no concern for money, nature, or other men unless they hamper or improve his ability to travel where he wants, bed whom he wants, or experience what he wants. He is not competitive with other men directly so much as he is competitive with the indirect ideals of masculinity and how he personally gauges his success.

A Rake can be a starving artist, a rock star, a freelance writer, a construction worker, a trust-fund baby, or even unemployed. His status and influence doesn’t come from his influence on other men but from his influence on women. He is the man who has taken the time to learn what makes women tick and how to use that to his and her mutual benefit – most of the time.

As Western society continues to decay, as movement in any direction is heralded as progress, as the bonds that created civilization continue to be hacked at, more and more men will embrace the selfishness and nihilism of the Rake and find themselves sitting poolside while the rest of the world reverts to chaos. Sadly, as men and masculinity are more and more maligned in media, schools, and work environments, the number of men who will forgo the Rugged and Refined archetypes in favor of the relative ease and freedom of the Rake will continue to increase.

In a thriving civilization the number of Rakes who can fully embrace this archetype are few and far between. However, they thrive and multiply when societies start the slow march to ruin. Therefore, a good indicator of the health of a given society is the degree of allowance, tolerance, or adoration given to the Rakes.

This is not to say that Rakes are inherently bad or evil. They are simply men who can only thrive under a certain set of circumstances. And even if a man is not a full-on Rake, we would do well to embrace a bit of the social disregard and irreverence they epitomize.

The Style

A Rakish style is all about attention and peacocking. From a Danger and Play perspective, it is almost entirely Play. A Rake’s clothing may sacrifice function for the sake of form because he knows that form has a function in and of itself. It is a style that is on top of trends without being trendy and is not concerned about the origins of the clothing. A rake will buy something that is lavishly expensive or insanely cheap for the very same reason – he likes the way it looks. His clothing:

• Is always blurring the lines. It is either a bit too skinny or a bit too baggy without ever going into extremes.
• Is a constant mix of High/Low, not because there is concern for being able to fit in, but because the Rake wears what he likes, regardless of how formal or casual it is.
• Is a constant mix of different eras, genres, origins, and patterns for the same reason he embraces casual and formal clothing.
• Shows more skin than the Rugged or Refined man. Rake style is epitomized by the exposed chest and can also be seen in higher shorts, sandals, or tank tops.
• Utilizes pieces or materials that are considered to be more feminine. Things like jewelry, silk, and even lace can all be used effectively to curate a wardrobe that accomplishes the Rake’s desired ends.
• Embraces loud colors, bold patterns, and irreverent details.

The Tricks

Focus on both quality and quantity with a deference to quantity. Everything you own should have a story. If it doesn’t, make one up. Each ring on your finger should have an adventure behind it; each patch in your pants should be the result of a fight or an escape; each material should come from a different part of the world that you (claim to) have personally visited.

Younger Rakes can tweak with fits and cuts. Wear your pants cuffed too high and too tight. Have jackets and coats that barely come past your waist instead of all the way to the bottom of your cheeks. Throw on the occasional pair of too-baggy pants. The key is knowing what looks good and then tweaking the rules. You can’t look like a Rake if you don’t understand the principles of fit.

Older men should focus on classic fits but play with pattern and color. If an older man looks too bohemian, his masculine credibility is compromised and so is his ability to accomplish his goals. Older men should focus on classic fits but embrace colors, patterns, and materials that are outside the norm.

Learn to wear jewelry. You don’t have to adorn yourself with stacked bracelets, multiple necklaces, and a ring on each finger, but embracing jewelry and the masculinity it expresses in non-Western cultures will make you appear well-travelled, slightly rebellious, and nebulously masculine.

Show some skin. Ditch all of your crewneck T’s for deep V-necks and henleys. I normally advocate leaving two buttons undone on button-up shirts but Rakes can get away with three or more.

Repair instead of replacing old and worn out clothing. Clothing scars are almost as interesting and compelling as those on your skin. They will imply stories of adventures and conquests that other people will want you to tell them.

Look to famous Rakes like Johnny Depp for style cues and inspiration. Avoid going to the costumed-extremes of Pick-Up Artists like Mystery. They take this principle to its logical extreme.

While there is a Bohemian aspect to world-travelled Rakes, there are other methods of this as well. The classic Americana preppy with loud colors and lobster-printed pants is a Rake in his own right.

The Risks

Because Rake style embraces masculine queues from other cultures, you will risking looking effeminate, androgynous, or gay to those who are steeped in and embrace Western culture. A Bohemian Rake will not fair well at a country bar in Texas or at a beach party in the Hamptons. The Rake’s style has the most limited audience of the three archetypes and will polarize you from your audience.

To the above point, both the Rugged and Refined styles will earn you the respect of men and women. The Rakish style will only build your success with women. Yes other impressionable men and boys will want to emulate you and your success, but well-established, masculine men will you see you as a symptom of their failing efforts. If you exist and are successful in your existence, it is because the world they have created is starting to decay. Expect resentment, ostracizing, and outright hatred from men who will see you as their enemies.

Many people will not take you seriously, as a result the normal script of going to college, getting a job, getting married, and starting a family won’t work for you – which is fine for most men who aspire to be Rake’s anyway. You will have to get creative when it comes to making money or establishing any semblance of permanency in the world.

Like the other two archetypes, there needs to be consistency between your attitude, your self perception, and the way you dress. If you really do want to settle down with a wife and kids, embracing too much Rake will hurt your ability to do so. If you can’t walk into a room and command it with complete disregard for the comfort of others, you will be a disingenuous mannequin, not a Rake who can back up the social risks he takes by wearing such attention-getting clothing.

The Rewards

If your attitude and clothing are consistent you will have license to experience parts of the world Rugged and Refined men will never know. The largest reward for the Rake is variety. Variety in food, variety in culture, variety in women, and variety in experience. You will have more freedom to go and do what you will than most men ever imagine. You will see cities, experience danger, and participate in activities that the rest of the Western world only reads about it books or sees on TV.

Below is a gallery of photos showcasing different elements of Rakish Style. Not every man in every shot is going to epitomize masculinity but all of them have elements of a Rakish Style.

For the rest of the series see:

Rugged Man

Refined Man

Conclusion

PS – Whenever you’re ready, I have three different ways I can help you improve your style.

If you want the easiest approach that tells you exactly what you should be wearing, check out my Effortless Style program.

If you want to better understand how to use your appearance to better communicate with others and build your own confidence and mindset, pick up my book The Appearance of Power.

And lastly, if you really want to get this dialed in without going through a ton of trial and error, you may be a great fit for my 1-on-1 coaching and can schedule a call with me to learn more about it HERE.