DIY Fashion Tips

DIY Fashion Tips. Here are my favorite fashion tips for guys from Russell Smith’s Men’s Style – The Thinking Man’s Guide to Dress.

Fashion Tips for Men

A jacket will always make you feel more confident than a sweater.
A beautiful shirt and tie make a bigger first impression than an expensive suit does.
If you are spending more on your car audio components than on your clothes, your invitations to fabulous parties are probably limited.
If in doubt about the formality of a social occasion, dress down. You will feel sillier as the only man in a dinner jacket than as the only man in a suit.

Casual does not mean ugly.
Black is still the coolest color for casual wear, despite what anyone who lives in a gated suburb tells you.
Minimize the keys in your pocket.
If you are losing your hair, cut it shorter.
T-shirts given to you for your participation in some event – a folk festival, a fun run, a training seminar, a television studio audience – make excellent paint rags and car-wax buffers.

A shorts jacket and tie is less formal than a suit and tie. A suit with no tie is less formal than a sports jacket with tie.
A suit and tie require leather shoes with leather soles.
A white shirt is more formal than a colored or patterned shirt. It is also more boring. If you wear a navy suit with a whit shirt and a red tie, you will be mistaken for a Midwestern congressman.
Increase the spread in your collar and you will suddenly look a little more dashing.
Nothing rust-colored looks good.
Tennis hats look hip and urban on twenty-year-olds. On anyone over forty, they look exactly like Tilley hats, made for gardening in and around your bed-and-breakfast.
French cuffs are the poor man’s sports car, a stellar luxury for a small price. They make you feel rich and powerful, even when you are not.

Make sure your shoelaces are parallel, not criss-cross.
When in doubt about the tastefulness of a new trend, avoid it. When in doubt about your own taste, buy expensive and conservative – and dressy. If is much easier to go wrong with casual clothes.

Stop feeling guilty about vanity. A sensual pleasure in surfaces is a sign of artistic sensitivity.