How to Dress Well

Here are the basic rules about clothes:

First and foremost, clothes must fit well! It doesn’t matter how great a shirt is if it looks ill-fitting. It doesn’t matter how much a pair of pants has been marked down if it pulls into a pronounced “starfish” shape where the legs meet the crotch. Simple clothing that fits well is far better than fancier clothing that just “doesn’t look right.”

If you are interested in pursuing a casual ragged, torn-up clothing look, proper fitting is the difference between looking sexy and looking like a slob. Next time you see a man or a woman who looks great in the torn-up style, notice how well the clothes fit them. You’ll notice they fit perfectly, which is why the style works.

Some clothing stores are better for the average man than are others. If you are a bit overweight, some of the more hip and upscale stores may not have clothes that fit you well. Keep shopping around to different clothing stores. Very often one store will have an entire line of pants, for instance, that don’t fit you right. It’s just the way their clothes are cut. Another store, on the other hand, might have a wide variety of pants that fit you. It’s a good idea to keep shopping around until you find a store where the clothes fit, they look good, and the salespeople help you expand your style.

How do you know when clothes don’t fit well? Often, the salespeople will tell you, though you can’t count on that. If you are shopping with a friend, he or she can also tell you. The bottom line is simply this: if you don’t feel like the clothes fit, they don’t. Don’t waste your money, and move on to the next piece.

The second rule of clothing is that clothes must be clean! Because most men are “clothes blind,” and can’t seem to tell when clothes need laundering, let’s briefly go over how you know when it’s time to wash something. If it’s underwear, and you’ve worn it, wash it. With shirts
and pants, you can be more discriminating. To tell if shirts and pants are dirty, look at them under bright light. Are there any spots or stains? If there are, rub the spot with stain remover (buy it where you buy detergent), and wash. Pants also need laundering when they start to
get baggy and wrinkled. Blue jeans are especially susceptible to stretching and getting baggy. When this happens, it’s time to wash them.

The third rule of clothing is that clothes shouldn’t be wrinkled! Yes, you might have to iron your shirts and pants, or have them ironed. Cargo pants, for instance, are very popular now, and often have pockets with flaps that stick up and look ridiculous if they aren’t ironed.

The fourth rule of clothing is that you must keep clothing in good repair! Look under “Seamstress” in the local yellow pages, and get buttons sewed back on, holes patched and rips mended right away.

Wearing clean, well-fitting, ironed clothes that are in good repair has multiple benefits. Not only do you look good, you also feel good. Your style of dressing will naturally send out the message to women that you are attractive, together, and of interest to her.

If you are like most men (and you probably are, right?) you aren’t going to be able to transform your style of dressing without help. Look at getting help from:

1. Stylish Men. Who do you know who has a great sense of style? Approach stylish men you know, and ask them for advice. Ask them where they shop for clothes, and where they get their hair cut. Then go to those places and ask the sales clerks to help you with a “new look.” They’ll often suggest clothing you wouldn’t normally get for yourself, but that your style could “grow into.”

2. Women. Another intelligent way to shop is to find a stylish woman who you are not interested in sexually, and ask her to go shopping with you. One of our students had a tremendous experience the first time hedid this. He went to Cindy, and asked her to go shopping with him. He knew she had an extraordinary sense of style, but also wasn’t interested in her sexually, so it wouldn’t matter if they became friends. She had only one requirement: he must promise to buy everything she told him to until the three hundred dollars he’d set aside for clothing was gone. It turned out she gave him great advice, and some of the hardest purchases to make, such as spending fifty dollars on a tie, turned out to be some of the best. For months he got compliments from women on how great he looked, all because he was willing to commit himself to looking good. “It was hard at first,” he said later. “A lot of the clothes she told me to buy, I didn’t really want. But it turned out to be great, and did a lot to help me create my personal style.”

3. Male Friends. It’s good to go clothes shopping with other men who are also developing their personal style. The right men friends can help encourage you take fashion risks, and look even more attractive to women.

In time you will develop relationships with stores you like, where you know you can trust the clerks to suggest new style ideas that will both express your true self and make you even more attractive to women. One of our students who often wears a cowboy hat that looks great on him got the hat that way. “I’d never considered a hat like that before,” he says. “But when the clerk brought it over and set it on my head, it looked great. I knew right away it was right for me, and I never would have found it by myself.” As you buy more clothes, you will discover
what you really like, and what kinds of clothes really make the kind of statement you want to make to women.