Rules 2, 5, 17

There are certain words that work so well together, cellar door, hot tub, angry lesbians.  Other words should never sit closely together, vegan poet, rural juror, vaginal burp.  Smart casual never sits well together.  You should be one or the other, consistency my dear friends, is important. 

The Rules

16/03

2. Your collar shapes your face. You’re looking for balance here. If you have a face that looks like it’s been hit hit with a spade, try to steer clear of wide cut collars. Likewise, if you’ve got a face like a horse, avoid tall thin collars. The whole point of putting clothes on is to bring the eye up to the face. Strong structured collars make you look important; small soft collars make you look like you shop at Asda.

5. Two fingers are always better than one. Take two fingers and see if they slide in nice and comfortably. Clearly I am taking here about your collar. Do the top buttons up, and see if two fingers fit in easily. Do this or choke to death when you put a tie on. If you can get three fingers in it is clearly unpleasant.

17.You’ve got Olive skin. You need to work towards cooler colours; this will make you look more tanned. Shift towards the warm colours and you’ll look hotter than a blind puff in a hot dog factory.

Modern workplaces insist on this oxymoron for dress codes, so we must adapt and overcome.  Using smart details around the suit breaks up the formality and stops you looking like you work in a phone shop.

I love monk-strap shoes, especially brown ones with a toe cap.  In a sea of brogues, this shows you’re astute to the details.  The strong coat collar frames the face drawing the eye up to the most important part of the outfit your face!

A textured tie is another subtle detail that softens the formality of a suit, and by mirroring a high contrast shirt and tie with the high contrast of the hair to face, the look ties together.  The cool blue of the shirt compliments the warm hue of the skin.  This cool colored shirt on a pasty so and so, would wash the wearer out.

His flat fronted trousers work well with his slim frame; pleated trousers would have swamped him and would have plumped him out like a French duke.

Rules 16, 45, 50

This style guide breaks the rules to show you how to dress like a fucking man.  Rule 50 doesn't come out much, but here it makes it's first appearance. 

Soho

13/03

Rules

16. You’re Pasty.  You’re so pale, it looks like you've just been told Sarah Palin’s your real Mom?  Work with warmer colours, you’ll look more alive.

45. Socks. If you’re not sure, go black. If you feel confident, a bright colours always looks good, if you want to look like a school boy wear white.

50. Break the rules. You see, once you've mastered the rules, it’s time to break them. Only a subservient, winey, bitch would always follow the rules. If you really want to tell the world you’re a fucking man, break the rules, and don’t worry about the consequences.

I will tell you not to wear trainers, not to do all your buttons up on a jacket, wear yer jeans fitted and not baggy, and then somebody goes along, breaks the lot, and looks cool.  Bastard, but you’ve got to love him.  Nice socks by the way.

Rules 9, 12, 44

I've been stalking this deer for quite some time and finally I got him.


Savile Row 

09/03

12. Buy your wardrobe like a record collection. If you run out and buy a whole collection straight away, you’ll end up next year, with a lot of unstylish clothes. Aim to buy stuff that has a classic feel to it, and - fucking shit the bed -, you might just start looking a bit more classic.


9. Up at the back, down at the front. If there is excess baggage around your ass it will do one of two things: it will make you look like you’ve shit yourself; or women will not see your ass, and will assume you’ve shit yourself. The added advantage of this rule is that it also shows off your junk. Trust me on this one, they are looking.

44. Big feet need structure. Look for toe caps, brogues and more structured shapes or you’ll look like you have clown feet.

To be fair I've know this guy for quite sometime and he was one of the reasons I started this blog.  Dressing like a fucking man isn't about trying to look like a extra from a Frankie goes to Hollywood video, overt and flamboyant, it’s about having a tool-kit of knowledge to let you go to the pub and, at a minimum, not get ridiculed by your mates for looking like a kiddy fiddler (ironically this was taken behind Savile row...too soon?), but at a push, get a genuine compliment from an admirer.  Our kid here gets it right, repeatedly.

This look is all about the jacket.  It’s from a classic British institution and is a investment piece (basically it was fucking expensive), but it will last for years (hence it’s an investment).  He’s made it the centre piece of his outfit and nothing else is fighting for your attention.  The simple detailing of the collar, which frames the face brilliantly, the cuff detail and the rugged cloth make it a great item.  The warm colour compliments his pale skin and medium contrast between his face and hair is reflected in the contrast between blue top and jacket.

I’ll leave this post with the wise words of Coco Channel:

“Dress shabbily, they notice the dress. Dress impeccably, they notice the woman."

Rules 19, 42, 18

I am going to go on about colours until I am blue in the face (at which point I will start using warmer colours to give my pale, lifeless skin a bit more verve!).  Get the colours right and you are most of the way to dressing like a fucking man

Hoxton

02/03

The Rules

19. Create a highlight. Move away from just black, blue and grey clothes. I know, sometimes it’s nice to hold onto what you think is safe; safe is nice, you look into your wardrobe and it’s a sea of nice safe blacks, greys and blues. Fuck that you winey little girl. I’m not suggesting you start buying suits that would scare Jonathan Ross circa 2001, but a bright corner pocket, socks or scarf will make you look like you’ve thought about it, and you’ve got the chops to have a go.

42. No Trainers. You are not a fucking B boy, if you are, run along now, there’s nothing here for you to see.

18. Work with your palette. Unless you’re a black and white minstrel, or you want to look like a French man, you’ll have to start picking out tones in your face to work with: Eye colour, ruddiness of your cheeks, hair colour. The big advantage of building a wardrobe based on your pallet palette is that more and more clothes will fit together, and you’ll get more combinations of clothes.

He has taken the simplest streak in his hair, and mirrored it in his scarf, thingy (I’m actually not what that thing is, but it’s cool), and made it his..thing.  Now he’s interesting, he could have masked his streak, or drawn attention away from it, but he has taken a detail and made it his point of difference.  I’ll say it again, women’s fashion is all about overt, large gestures.  Men’s fashion is all about subtle, understated details which raise the minor to the intriguing.

Throw in a rich green, double breasted jacket, which not only works with his lighter skin tones, a retro pair of driving gloves (again another cool little detail) and a pair of well fitted jeans, the whole thing is a great mixture of small, subtle details working together, not over powering the great colours.

My only complaint, get a proper bike man, you look like a fucking tourist.  The bus drivers aim for the out-of-towners.

This style guide uses some rules on how to dress like a fucking man.   That’s not an umbrella he’s got, that’s a shitty stick for beating off the ladies!

Mayfair 

02 / 03

Rules

2. Your collar shapes your face. You’re looking for balance here. If you have a face that looks like it’s been hit hit with a spade, try to steer clear of wide cut collars. Likewise, if you’ve got a face like a horse, avoid tall thin collars. The whole point of putting clothes on is to bring the eye up to the face. Strong structured collars make you look important; small soft collars make you look like you shop at Asda.

10. No turn ups. This excludes jeans, but if you want to foreshorten your leg, making your body appear longer, and in turn making you look like an extra from Willow, go ahead, be my guest, you fucking weirdo.

23. Be consistent. Pick one style at a time and stick to it. You will not look a bit zany, if you put trainers on with a tux, you will look like a prick.

34. Your jacket lapels effect your body shape.  By the shape of your lapels will exaggerate the shape of your body.  By moving the points, shape and size of the lapels you can enhance, or play down body shapes.  If you’re tall and thin, lower wider points will exaggerate the upside down triangle.  If your short, raising the points and bringing them in will imply height.

I like to have 3 rules to help explain my incoherent rants.  It kind of keeps me on track, gives the piece a little structure.  This guy made it very difficult, I seriously could have picked over 30 rules that could have been relevant.  Pay attention boys, this is man is very well dressed!

Let’s start at the top.  A medium contrast face to hair colour, so further down there are medium contrasts through out his outfit; the contrast in colour and texture in his jacket lapels, the contrast between shirt and tie and the difference between jacket and trousers.  Contrasts don’t just have to be in colour, texture can also create the difference.   

The collar detail makes you look at his face (as we’ve discussed before, the most important part of any outfit).  It is great because it frames his face, the detailoing is subtle and different.  This guy’s height meant he wasn’t going to start for the Celtics or the Lakers, but by having a high wide collar it gives him a bit extra height, then by having the jacket pull in a bit round the waist it gives him shoulders and creates the upside down triangle.  Throw on some straight trousers that barely break, his legs look longer and leaner.  

Go on, look at him and think of what sentence he may be saying right now.  It’s probably has words like; cuba, consignment, succulent, harem, voluptuous in it.  Now look at yourself, what words would be in your sentence; Slough, box, chicken, balaclava, Brian?  You can’t judge a book by it’s cover, but you can tell if it’s a comic or a thriller.