Post by Shogun on Jun 28, 2010 1:33:44 GMT -5
I consider myself to be well-dressed, and I often get compliments on having a good sense of style. Unfortunately, I seem to suck at nearly everything else, so I suppose this thread is actually the most I can contribute to this forum 
Believe it or not, I wasn't always the dapper, good looking and well dressed sexy beast you see before you today. I too, was once a sloppily dressed simpleton who had problems with girls (now, I'm a sharply dressed simpleton who has problems with girls
)! If you're curious, I'll start this post with my story: "How Shogun Found His Style". (If you wanna skip all this and skip to the good stuff, just scroll to the bottom)
-----
How Shogun Found His Style
Not sure why I typed this. Meh, got nothing better to do I suppose (my life sucks.......)
Back in 7th grade, I was literally still dressed by my mother. I was "that weird kid" that nobody really got TOO close to. I wore old clothes that I had owned for years and never really thought much of it. My wardrobe consisted mainly of clothes from *shudders* The Children's Place. My hair was long, shaggy and unruly; I probably got it cut twice that year. I had one pair of shoes: old, discolored nike tennis shoes that I wore everywhere and with anything: gym class, at home, church, even weddings!
8th grade comes around and my mom decides she's worried that I don't fit in too well with the other children. She forces me to get a buzz cut, shaving off my luxurious locks of hair, then goes over to the local Abercrombie (basically EVERYONE in my middle school wore abercrombie) and buys me a whole new wardrobe: shorts, jeans, tees, polos, everything (I still wore one pair of shoes though) and throws all my old clothes out. I didn't really mind what I wore at the time, though. Although it was admittedly awkward at first wearing these clothes (I could tell there was somewhat of an aura that I was trying too hard to "fit in" by changing my style so suddenly), I grew into the clothes and for once, I looked socially acceptable. I continued to wear these clothes throughout freshman year up through that summer.
That summer, I underwent a massive growth spurt and outgrew all of my previous clothes. My wardrobe makeover, although effective, was ultimately rendered useless by the cruel, cruel hand of puberty (I NEVER shopped for clothes at the time so my clothes stayed the same for months, that money needed to be spent on games!). My clothes were getting smaller every day, so I bit the bullet and finally bought some new clothes.
I wanted to be different, but not TOO different. Well dressed, but not TOO well dressed. Somehow this mindset led me to the Armani Exchange store. If it has the name Armani on it and it costs a lot, it HAS to be good, right? For some reason, I felt that the more expensive, the more designer the better. Sophmore year, my wardrobe essentially consisted of one pair of 200 dollar designer jeans (Seven for All Mankind), about 6 logo-emblazoned Armani Exchange tees (these could be 20-40 dollars a pop), and a pair of black penny loafers that had somehow replaced tennis shoes as my go-to pair of shoes.
Looking back, I'm quit ashamed of that phase of my life (brand whoring expensive designer logo tees), but I convinced myself and actually convinced quite a few people that I was a well-dressed individual. The black loafer shoes I always wore were different enough than the dirty sneakers that most of my classmates wore, so I got away with being the guy who wore cool shoes and expensive tee shirts and jeans.
It somehow went through my head that I had to be the best dressed person, anywhere. I read magazines like GQ and Esquire on a regular basis and began to transition from the idea that expensive clothes = good style to formal clothes = good style. The beginning of junior year, I wore button down shirts, ties, dress shoes, sweaters and ties on a regular basis, pretty much overdressing every day of school. Although it raised a few questions at first, my friends eventually got used to it and being overdressed became a regular occurrence; eventually, it actually became weird for me to wear something like a regular t-shirt and sneakers to school.
By the end of junior year, my style became more casual; I started to wear more sneakers and tee shirts, and started to look more like my peers, but I still added enough of my own touch to be considered the best-dressed person in the room. This is the stage that I am at now, and I am quite happy with the results. I constantly get compliments about the way I dress, and have a pretty good sense of that looks good to girls.
-----
What have I learned from all this? The way you dress is an art, a form of self-expression. Learning how to dress is a lot like learning game; although you might need to use canned material and follow a model, once you become a natural, you can break the rules because you have a full understanding of how things work. In the same way, when developing a sense of style, you might need to follow a few rules and guidelines, but after you are aware of how your own style works for you, you can break whatever rules you have set up for yourself.
Here are a few guidelines and staple items I believe will help anybody looking to become a well-dressed man:
SHOES
First and most importantly are the shoes. IMO, a man's shoes are the most important part of his outfit. Shoes ultimately set the underlying tone of the entire outfit. For whatever reason, women have an obsession with shoes. That's why they own so many pairs! Therefore, it's important to vary your shoes and keep them clean. Seriously, you could be wearing a cool pair of shoes, a pair of dark jeans, and a white tee and still be considered the best dressed person in the room.
I recommend that everyone have these two staple shoes: a pair of CLEAN white sneakers (I personally prefer Adidas white sneakers) and a pair of dark brown, almost black, dress shoes. These two pairs of shoes you should be able to wear with everything and anything.
Once you have these two staples, you should get a few pairs of more unique shoes. Get whatever you think looks cool. For example, I have a pair of sky blue Van's sneakers that I always get compliments on, and these cool futuristic looking Puma hightops that always draw attention.
All in all, I have about 7 pairs of shoes, including the white sneakers and dark brown dress shoes.
SOCKS
Personally, I only wear black socks. White socks look terrible under dark shoes, but black socks look fine under light shoes. Solution? Only wear black socks. Problem solved! If you're wearing shorts, for the love of god, no visible socks. Wear those short ankle socks if you have to, but it just looks like you're about to play soccer when you wear long socks with shorts.
PANTS
Once again, there are two staples here: dark blue jeans and khaki colored pants. This pair of jeans should be dark blue, none of that destructed denim nonsense, and little if any fading or whiskers. You can dress these jeans up with an oxford and a jacket, and you can dress these jeans down with a tee shirt. The khaki pants are simply an alternative to wearing the jeans, and are also slightly more formal.
On top of these staples, you can buy a few more pairs of jeans with whatever unique design you feel suits you. Color, fading, etc. should ultimately be determined by what you think goes well with whatever will match with the rest of your wardrobe.
As far as shorts go, I rarely wear em. I wear board shorts when it gets hot in the summer every now and then, but other than that, I can't help you here
BELT
You need 2 Belts:
Black leather belt, brown leather belt.
Always wear a belt. As a rule of thumb, try to match your shoe and belt color.
On top of these two, get whatever suits your fancy. One belt that gets me compliments is this white canvas belt that my friends signed with insider jokes in black permanent pen. It's unique and the pictures and writing on it add a nice personal aspect.
UNDERSHIRT
I always wear a white tee shirt whenever I feel the need for an undershirt. I never understood why people wore tanktops/wifebeaters under their clothes. The point of an undershirt is to make sure your "real" shirt doesn't get sweaty and dirty, right? But a tanktop conveniently leaves your armpits and chest, the most sweaty and dirty part of your body (other than your feet) uncovered! Still, I am probably just ranting here.
T-SHIRT
No matter what your style, you gotta gotta gotta have a white tee. Everyone needs a white tee. Not your walmart, hanes, comes in a pack of 4 white tee, I'm talking about your 12.99, quality, cotton white tee. Get yourself a nice, thick expensive one.
A few solid colored v-necks here and there never hurt anybody either. Just please don't get the "douchebag v-neck" that cuts all the way down to your belly button and exposes your man cleavage. I have actually worn v-necks a lot this summer; I have a white one, a black one, a sky blue one, and a purple one. Looks great under a jacket or a blazer.
On top of that, seriously, get whatever t-shirts you want. I have a friend that actually pulls off a Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles Restaurant tee pretty well. T-Shirts are meant to be casual, so don't worry too much about whats on em. As long as you feel like you're comfortable wearing it, Follow your heart!
POLOS
Every man should own a black polo. It's seriously the only polo I ever need, and it goes pretty well with everything.
Other than the black polo, it's good to have a white one, as well as a few other colors; whatever you want to get. Hell, you can even get some with designs or stripes of you really want to.
DRESS SHIRTS
If you don't own a white dress shirt, get one now! Seriously, by now you should have needed one at least once on your life. Keep your white dress shirt nearby you at all times.
Like most of the other items, once you've got the staple white dress shirt, feel free to get whatever else you want.
JACKETS
Personally, I'm a blazer guy. I own like 4 different blazers that I wear with everything; dress shirts, tees, v necks. I also own a leather jacket that goes pretty well with everything. In the end, I actually have a bunch of jackets. I don't really feel there is a staple jacket; the jacket thing is really all up to you, as there are hundreds of different styles out there from hoodies to trench coats.
HATS
I don't ever wear em. Wear em if you want to, I've got nothing to say here.
ACCESSORIES
Scarf, gloves, glasses, jewelery, necklace, piercings, etc. I wear a necklace from time to time. Jewelery is fine, as long as it's genuinely a part of who you are, and not just a gimmick to attract attention to yourself. I personally don't wear much. Ultimately, your accessories should not distract from the flow of your entire outfit.
SUNGLASSES
I own many pairs of sunglasses. They make you look like a badass! What more do you want?
-----
Putting together an outfit
lalalalla ill do this later
I'm getting pretty tired....this thread's not finished, but ill leave it as is for now.
Believe it or not, I wasn't always the dapper, good looking and well dressed sexy beast you see before you today. I too, was once a sloppily dressed simpleton who had problems with girls (now, I'm a sharply dressed simpleton who has problems with girls
)! If you're curious, I'll start this post with my story: "How Shogun Found His Style". (If you wanna skip all this and skip to the good stuff, just scroll to the bottom)-----
How Shogun Found His Style
Not sure why I typed this. Meh, got nothing better to do I suppose
(my life sucks.......)Back in 7th grade, I was literally still dressed by my mother. I was "that weird kid" that nobody really got TOO close to. I wore old clothes that I had owned for years and never really thought much of it. My wardrobe consisted mainly of clothes from *shudders* The Children's Place. My hair was long, shaggy and unruly; I probably got it cut twice that year. I had one pair of shoes: old, discolored nike tennis shoes that I wore everywhere and with anything: gym class, at home, church, even weddings!
8th grade comes around and my mom decides she's worried that I don't fit in too well with the other children. She forces me to get a buzz cut, shaving off my luxurious locks of hair, then goes over to the local Abercrombie (basically EVERYONE in my middle school wore abercrombie) and buys me a whole new wardrobe: shorts, jeans, tees, polos, everything (I still wore one pair of shoes though) and throws all my old clothes out. I didn't really mind what I wore at the time, though. Although it was admittedly awkward at first wearing these clothes (I could tell there was somewhat of an aura that I was trying too hard to "fit in" by changing my style so suddenly), I grew into the clothes and for once, I looked socially acceptable. I continued to wear these clothes throughout freshman year up through that summer.
That summer, I underwent a massive growth spurt and outgrew all of my previous clothes. My wardrobe makeover, although effective, was ultimately rendered useless by the cruel, cruel hand of puberty (I NEVER shopped for clothes at the time so my clothes stayed the same for months, that money needed to be spent on games!). My clothes were getting smaller every day, so I bit the bullet and finally bought some new clothes.
I wanted to be different, but not TOO different. Well dressed, but not TOO well dressed. Somehow this mindset led me to the Armani Exchange store. If it has the name Armani on it and it costs a lot, it HAS to be good, right? For some reason, I felt that the more expensive, the more designer the better. Sophmore year, my wardrobe essentially consisted of one pair of 200 dollar designer jeans (Seven for All Mankind), about 6 logo-emblazoned Armani Exchange tees (these could be 20-40 dollars a pop), and a pair of black penny loafers that had somehow replaced tennis shoes as my go-to pair of shoes.
Looking back, I'm quit ashamed of that phase of my life (brand whoring expensive designer logo tees), but I convinced myself and actually convinced quite a few people that I was a well-dressed individual. The black loafer shoes I always wore were different enough than the dirty sneakers that most of my classmates wore, so I got away with being the guy who wore cool shoes and expensive tee shirts and jeans.
It somehow went through my head that I had to be the best dressed person, anywhere. I read magazines like GQ and Esquire on a regular basis and began to transition from the idea that expensive clothes = good style to formal clothes = good style. The beginning of junior year, I wore button down shirts, ties, dress shoes, sweaters and ties on a regular basis, pretty much overdressing every day of school. Although it raised a few questions at first, my friends eventually got used to it and being overdressed became a regular occurrence; eventually, it actually became weird for me to wear something like a regular t-shirt and sneakers to school.
By the end of junior year, my style became more casual; I started to wear more sneakers and tee shirts, and started to look more like my peers, but I still added enough of my own touch to be considered the best-dressed person in the room. This is the stage that I am at now, and I am quite happy with the results. I constantly get compliments about the way I dress, and have a pretty good sense of that looks good to girls.
-----
What have I learned from all this? The way you dress is an art, a form of self-expression. Learning how to dress is a lot like learning game; although you might need to use canned material and follow a model, once you become a natural, you can break the rules because you have a full understanding of how things work. In the same way, when developing a sense of style, you might need to follow a few rules and guidelines, but after you are aware of how your own style works for you, you can break whatever rules you have set up for yourself.
Here are a few guidelines and staple items I believe will help anybody looking to become a well-dressed man:
SHOES
First and most importantly are the shoes. IMO, a man's shoes are the most important part of his outfit. Shoes ultimately set the underlying tone of the entire outfit. For whatever reason, women have an obsession with shoes. That's why they own so many pairs! Therefore, it's important to vary your shoes and keep them clean. Seriously, you could be wearing a cool pair of shoes, a pair of dark jeans, and a white tee and still be considered the best dressed person in the room.
I recommend that everyone have these two staple shoes: a pair of CLEAN white sneakers (I personally prefer Adidas white sneakers) and a pair of dark brown, almost black, dress shoes. These two pairs of shoes you should be able to wear with everything and anything.
Once you have these two staples, you should get a few pairs of more unique shoes. Get whatever you think looks cool. For example, I have a pair of sky blue Van's sneakers that I always get compliments on, and these cool futuristic looking Puma hightops that always draw attention.
All in all, I have about 7 pairs of shoes, including the white sneakers and dark brown dress shoes.
SOCKS
Personally, I only wear black socks. White socks look terrible under dark shoes, but black socks look fine under light shoes. Solution? Only wear black socks. Problem solved! If you're wearing shorts, for the love of god, no visible socks. Wear those short ankle socks if you have to, but it just looks like you're about to play soccer when you wear long socks with shorts.
PANTS
Once again, there are two staples here: dark blue jeans and khaki colored pants. This pair of jeans should be dark blue, none of that destructed denim nonsense, and little if any fading or whiskers. You can dress these jeans up with an oxford and a jacket, and you can dress these jeans down with a tee shirt. The khaki pants are simply an alternative to wearing the jeans, and are also slightly more formal.
On top of these staples, you can buy a few more pairs of jeans with whatever unique design you feel suits you. Color, fading, etc. should ultimately be determined by what you think goes well with whatever will match with the rest of your wardrobe.
As far as shorts go, I rarely wear em. I wear board shorts when it gets hot in the summer every now and then, but other than that, I can't help you here
BELT
You need 2 Belts:
Black leather belt, brown leather belt.
Always wear a belt. As a rule of thumb, try to match your shoe and belt color.
On top of these two, get whatever suits your fancy. One belt that gets me compliments is this white canvas belt that my friends signed with insider jokes in black permanent pen. It's unique and the pictures and writing on it add a nice personal aspect.
UNDERSHIRT
I always wear a white tee shirt whenever I feel the need for an undershirt. I never understood why people wore tanktops/wifebeaters under their clothes. The point of an undershirt is to make sure your "real" shirt doesn't get sweaty and dirty, right? But a tanktop conveniently leaves your armpits and chest, the most sweaty and dirty part of your body (other than your feet) uncovered! Still, I am probably just ranting here.
T-SHIRT
No matter what your style, you gotta gotta gotta have a white tee. Everyone needs a white tee. Not your walmart, hanes, comes in a pack of 4 white tee, I'm talking about your 12.99, quality, cotton white tee. Get yourself a nice, thick expensive one.
A few solid colored v-necks here and there never hurt anybody either. Just please don't get the "douchebag v-neck" that cuts all the way down to your belly button and exposes your man cleavage. I have actually worn v-necks a lot this summer; I have a white one, a black one, a sky blue one, and a purple one. Looks great under a jacket or a blazer.
On top of that, seriously, get whatever t-shirts you want. I have a friend that actually pulls off a Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles Restaurant tee pretty well. T-Shirts are meant to be casual, so don't worry too much about whats on em. As long as you feel like you're comfortable wearing it, Follow your heart!
POLOS
Every man should own a black polo. It's seriously the only polo I ever need, and it goes pretty well with everything.
Other than the black polo, it's good to have a white one, as well as a few other colors; whatever you want to get. Hell, you can even get some with designs or stripes of you really want to.
DRESS SHIRTS
If you don't own a white dress shirt, get one now! Seriously, by now you should have needed one at least once on your life. Keep your white dress shirt nearby you at all times.
Like most of the other items, once you've got the staple white dress shirt, feel free to get whatever else you want.
JACKETS
Personally, I'm a blazer guy. I own like 4 different blazers that I wear with everything; dress shirts, tees, v necks. I also own a leather jacket that goes pretty well with everything. In the end, I actually have a bunch of jackets. I don't really feel there is a staple jacket; the jacket thing is really all up to you, as there are hundreds of different styles out there from hoodies to trench coats.
HATS
I don't ever wear em. Wear em if you want to, I've got nothing to say here.
ACCESSORIES
Scarf, gloves, glasses, jewelery, necklace, piercings, etc. I wear a necklace from time to time. Jewelery is fine, as long as it's genuinely a part of who you are, and not just a gimmick to attract attention to yourself. I personally don't wear much. Ultimately, your accessories should not distract from the flow of your entire outfit.
SUNGLASSES
I own many pairs of sunglasses. They make you look like a badass! What more do you want?
-----
Putting together an outfit
lalalalla ill do this later
I'm getting pretty tired....this thread's not finished, but ill leave it as is for now.
