Hello guys! Today we’re answering some questions you’ve asked in our stories. Most of them are from this guy: “Hi Keith, I have an event coming up and I need to look stylish.
What should I buy?” Shirt, pants, hoodie, shoes… Doesn’t matter what the event is. Wedding. Job interview.
First date. It’s the same damn question every time. “Hey Keith, what should I buy to look awesome?
Budget is $300.” Let me tell you, these used to infuriate me.
Not only because they ignored the obvious answer – you should buy nothing, hit the gym, and shave your head into a fuzz – but because they completely missed the point. These guys thought that style was about what you bought. They felt that if they could only find the holy grail of wardrobe pieces – be it that new Supreme drop or lucky thrift store find – they would magically start looking like those guys in the photos they bought them from.
Around two years ago I had a wardrobe epiphany. While cleansing my closet of its spring fever garments I caught myself doing a full audit of every hoodie I owned. Probably forty in total.
Fat Crews from FOG. Stussy puffers I swear were half my damn rent. Thrifted gems.
High – low mixes I proudly spent three hundred dollars on Grailed. Something clicked as I scanned my hoodie collection. Half of them I wore once or twice and promptly forgot they existed.
Other half though? Completely indistinguishable. Despite the massive difference in price-tags my $400 Fear of God piece looked almost identical to my $60 Champion reverse weave.
Only problem was, in my gut I knew I looked better wearing the Champion. Suddenly it dawned on me…stop watering the plants that didn’t need watering and prune the damn bushes. For years I cared so much about obtaining hype items that I forgot the ultimate goal wasn’t having cool stuff… it was looking good.
What’s the point of having a 17/20 style weekday if you can’t actually wear your best pieces out? This reminded me of my best friend in high school. Every summer he would save his lawn-mowing money for the whole summer so he could buy a limited pair of Jordans come release day.
Well one year he finally copped them. Walked out of Foot Locker and onto the school bus wearing them for the first time. We all laughed because my friend was trying so hard not to crease his new shoes that he literally walked on the tips of his toes for the rest of the school bus ride.
Pair of shoes looked incredible, but my friend looked silly. Same way I looked in half my closet. “Too good” to wear. It was time to start studying people I thought looked good, and ask them what they did differently.
Yes, there were obvious differences. Those guys weren’t wearing $100 oatmeal sweats from Target. They had insane layers of freshly dropped garments that would make me drool.
But something else was different. I realized that most of mystyle icons weren’t wearing that pricey. They just wore what they had exceptionally well.
Take my friend Carlos. He works at Starbucks. No way he’s making Jordan-brand salary over there.
But any time I see him someone asks about his fit. Why? Because he knows how to wear clothes.
Literally every item of clothing he owns is tailored perfectly to his body. How did he do it? Simple.
Carlos goes to this old Vietnamese guy’s tailor shop down the street from the laundromat his family owns. $12 to hem your jeans. $15 to take in your shirt. Carlos will buy a plain black t-shirt from Target and spend more on tailoring it than the shirt itself costs. But the end result looks expensive because it’s tailored to fit his body’s unique shape.
Skeptical? I was too, cuz tailoring = grandpa things right? But I took one of my baggiest hoodies to Carlos’ tailor guy and he magically transformed it.
Took thirty minutes and fourteen dollars. Same hoodie, new fit. Now it actually fits my body’s shape instead of looking like a trash bag with sleeves.
Fit wasn’t the only thing I learned from my style masters though. Once I started really looking at how people moved something else became crystal clear. Posture.
Men who dressed best didn’t just own and wear awesome clothes…they carried themselves differently. They had natural confidence and stood up straight. I couldn’t believe I didn’t notice this before.
Truth is I sucked at posture. Always had. Computer programmer life will do that to you.
Even my physical therapist told me I had great shoulders after she helped me correct my posture. And out of nowhere Emma told me I lost weight. She had never mentioned my posture before, but immediately after I started working on it my whole upper body looked completely different.
If your shoes and jacket aren’t blowing up your look good posture can fix that. Posture is annoying because it’s something you have to consciously maintain. Shoehorning a new hoodie into your wardrobe is easy.
Training yourself to stand up straight all the time? Not so much. Every day try to roll your shoulders back and keep your head held high.
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Don’t hunch over your computer. We live tecnology obsessed lives but that doesn’t mean we have to act like wet noodles trying to hide from society. Trust me, it takes effort.
But when you correct your posture, even your worst fitting clothes look better. Lastly I’ll say care. How you care for your clothes matters more than you think.
I used to buy a shirt and wear it once or twice before tossing it in my laundry pile at the end of the week. Now my friend Derek has a few basic unisex shirts from Uniqlo he loves. But unlike my beaten up pieces his look amazing.
Why? He irons them. Takes the time to hang them up instead of throwing them in a drawer.
Fixes buttons before they pop off. Simple things like that keep his shirt looking new, while my starts to lookrinkled with missing buttons. Same thing with shoes.
I didn’t take care of my shoes. Bought a pair of Jordans and wore them out in the rain, just to watch them lose their new shoe smell after a month. Now I clean my shoes regularly.
Use spray protectant. Allow shoes to fully dry between wears by rotating my wardrobe. My older kicks that used to look “washed out” are looking new thanks to shoe care, and my new shoes are staying fresh longer than ever.
But most importantly I actually figured out what colors look good on me. I used to wear whatever colors I liked and not think twice about it. Bought this bright orange Golf Wang hoodie and lived in it for two years.
Always kinda knew something looked off about it but figured I just didn’t know any better. Friend of mine does styling for other people and was over at my house one day. Couldn’t believe I was wearing orange to her.
Said orange was cancelling out all my skin tones and making me look sickly. She sat me down and helped me pick out colors I didn’t know I looked good in. Surprise surprise; they weren’t bright oranges and reds.
More earth tones. Forest greens, blues, and grays. Less loud colors but everything went together SO much better.
The better you become at picking out colors that suit you, the better you’ll notice how weird some colors can make you look. I look back at photos and can spot outfits that made me look sick vs outfits that made me look healthy. Same damn person.
Different color stories. It also extends to how you color match your whole outfit. Used to just wear random clothes that looked cool without thinking about how they pair together.
Camo pants, tie dye shirt, red sneakers. All great individually but wore together it looked ridiculous. Now I try to have some semblance of matching in my outfits.
Are the colors fighting each other? Does one item completely steal the show? I ask myself these questions every time I buy something now.
Instead of throwing together my wardrobe with every single trendy item I liked I only bought things I knew would fit what I already owned. Best way to guarantee you always look good? Own EVERYTHING in your wardrobe.
One big thing I had to realize is you have to be comfortable in what you’re wearing. I used to wear clothes that were just a little too tight because I liked how it looked slim on me. But at what cost?
If you have to adjust your clothes every five seconds because they don’t fit right, you’re not going to look put together. You’ll constantly be fidgeting and adjusting instead of enjoying yourself. Be honest with yourself about what fits your body.
It’s okay to accept your size and buy things that fit you perfectly. Trust me you’ll look better in a medium that fits great than a small that makes you look like the Stay Puft marshmallow man. The craziest part about all this is once I stopped caring about what garments were the most hype and started throwing on whatever I owned – and wearing it well – I got more compliments on my style than ever before.
Not from fellow hype beasts who just wanna talk about the brands we wear. But from normal people. Emma’s mom asked me where I shop.
My Barista started asking me about my outfits. These people have no idea what I wear. But they know a put together dude when they see one.
And if they compliment your style, that’s all that matters. So how did I do it? Aside from dropping way too much money on shoes?
Literally nothing. Tailoring clothes. Fixing my posture.
Taking better care of my garments.
Figure out what colors work for you. All of this cost me $0.00.
The only thing I spent money on was unlearning my previous hype beast mindset that was holding me back from realizing style doesn’t care about what you wear. It just cares about how you wear it. Love brands with great fits?
Buy that designer shirt. Got plenty of nice clothes but don’t feel like yourself in them? There’s always thrifting.
Hell buy that $100 oatmeal sweater if it makes you feel good. Just wear what you got well and own it. You’ll look better than 99% of hype beasts with exclusive drops hanging in their closets.
