8 Fashion Mistakes Men Should Avoid

Men struggle with fashion. That’s a plain fact you can prove for yourself just by going to a sports bar. But with some simple guidelines we can all dress better and maybe attract a few more women in the process.

I’m not talking about something like 12 mistakes men make when dressing. When women write these things they get caught up in the minutiae that women may understand, but complaints like “too many fabrics” and “length of t-shirt” are a little fine for many of us to really absorb (unless you’re wearing a belly-t-shirt, dude — that’s just wrong).

No, when an average kind of guy writes a piece like this it turns out more like Asylum’s Top 8 Men’s Fashion Mistakes to Avoid, by Brad Adam, who for the most part nails it:

Worrying too much about what your buddies will think. This is usually an excuse for dressing down rather than dressing up. Just worry about looking good and let your buddies catch up, which they’ll do sometime around the third girl who flirts with you.

Not spending where it counts. Find some really nice basic pieces, and spend most of your fashion dollars there. You can wear an awesome jacket with a $8 t-shirt and look great, but the reverse is almost never true. I do differ from Brad here: if you don’t wear a watch in the first place, don’t start just for fashion. But if you’re wearing a plastic digital impulse buy from the drug store, then yeah, upgrade.

Wearing a dark dress shirt with a suit. This is close to cutting it fine, but dark-on-dark is advanced fashion and even some celebrities do it wrong.

Wearing dirty clothes. You know that “dot” of dried chili sauce on the pocket that you can “barely see”? Everyone sees it, they’re just too polite to mention it. And Brad didn’t mention the smell factor: even a clean-looking shirt shouldn’t be worn in public if you had to run 10 blocks to the bus last time you wore it.

Wearing clothes that are too large. At best, you’ll look 20 years out of date. At worst, your friends will ask when you’re due.

Mistaking expensive clothes for good-looking clothes. The Ed Hardy t-shirt era ended when Jon Gosselin started showing up in tabloids wearing them. Instead, find something cool at BustedTees, or better yet, a nice-fitting solid colored t-shirt and save yourself money and your friends nausea.

Trying to be too fashion-forward. You know what the new thing is? Skirts for men. That ought to keep you from straying far.
Not dressing to the occasion. Again, find a look that works for you, but also remember to adapt to the situation. Jeans to a funeral are always wrong, even if they’re black jeans.
The list could go farther, including “Being a mortal enemy of the ironing board” and “Wearing anything with ‘TapouT’ or ‘Affliction’ written on it” but we’ll let it rest there for now. Now I have to go purge my memory of Jon Gosselin again. With hard liquor.
Source: Leadership