Shakespeare once wrote that “fashion wears out more apparel than the man,” meaning, of course, that clothing is more likely to become outmoded than worn out.
But clothing does wear out, especially the workhorses of your business wardrobe. Sportcoats and blazers can last you for years, and good shoes can almost always be resoled and conditioned. But there are three items you should expect to wear out faster than others, and budget accordingly. In fact, it might be time to stop procrastinating, make a wardrobe inspection, and donate a bag of old clothes to your local thrift shop.
Here are the three items most likely… Continue>>
“Man jewelry” can be a tricky thing to pull off, and many purists will decry cufflinks as too ostentatious, preferring to leave the the precious stones and metals to the fair sex.
But one way get around this is to make an item of man jewelry your trademark, and there’s no item better suited to this than cufflinks.
You can be the most sober and restrained dresser, clad in a daily uniform of grey suit and white shirt, but with a different pair of cufflinks every day your style factor goes through the roof. After all, the more stylish… Continue>>
There’s a certain breed of style pundit who’s big on rules. Some pertain to style, others to appropriateness, and still other to your hair, skin tone and body type. Some of these rules have logic to them — a short, rail-thin guy might look a bit odd in a big-patterned sport jacket as only half the pattern fits on his small build — while others are just arbitrary nonsense.
Menswear author G. Bruce Boyer has an anecdote he likes to share about how so many body-type rules are hogwash.
Years ago he had the pleasure of meeting Aristotle Onassis at the studio of a Manhattan shirtmaker. “The first thing I noticed was that he was… Continue>>
There’s a certain irony to writing about wearing jeans with business clothes. Denim, after all, is 19th-century workers’ garb: It was made for Gold Rush prospectors, not modern-day gold-fund portfolio managers.
But rules today are fuzzy at best, and history’s greatest leaders of fashion — from Beau Brummell to the Duke of Windsor — always paired unexpected items together. One of the Duke’s most famous rule smashings was pairing suede lace-ups with suits. Today it’s considered ultra sophisticated, but at the time it was gauche bordering on scandalous.
So the first thing to consider when wearing jeans at the office is that it’s not technically “correct.”… Continue>>
There are certain rules — more like traditions, really — that govern menswear. Sure you’re free to wear what you want, and we’d like to think we have something for every mood or occasion, but we also think that certain gestures became traditions because they have merit.
Here are a few of them, all centered on the theme of buttons.
Double-breasted suits are making a comeback, and if you’re new to them, here are a couple of tips to keep in mind. First off, if your double-breasted suit or sportcoat has a six-button front, you’ll have the option of buttoning either one or two… Continue>>
Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in the original “Wall Street” movie is one of the great style icons to come out of the ‘80s. When future historians want to know what “power dressing” was all about during the “Masters of the Universe” era of high finance, they’ll need look no further.
Now Gekko is back in Oliver Stone’s sequel “Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps,” and he’s a changed man both inside and out — or is he?
You may not have Gekko’s magic ability to turn $100 million into $1 billion in a matter of months, but here’s how to get Gekko’s look past and present.
Adrift in the more relaxed dress codes of today, new… Continue>>
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