Recent non-Sartorialist Looks - Page 624

Quote:

Originally Posted by viksra 


IrateCustomer - thank you for your help! Yes I am genuinely interested in having a better understanding. And you are right, I don't have much to refer to in order to make a decision on. I even went so far as getting my hands on copies of these: Andy Gilchrist - The Encyclopedia Of Men's Clothes, Details - Men's Style Manual by Daniel Peres, Dressing The Man by Alan Flusser, Off The Cuff (The Essential Style Guide for Men and the Women who Love Them) by Carson Kressley, and AskMen.com Presents: The Style Bible by James Bassil. I've gone over each of these.
Again, thank you for your help and I'll try to post things that are more conservative and in tune with this thread from now on.

I'm going to give you a syllabus.  I believe that all aesthetic pursuits, and taste, even, are fundamentally learned behaviors and have hierarchies you can boil them down to.  They also take time and open-mindedness. The below is a canonical, sledgehammer approach to your problem, but it's going to serve you better (we hope) than what the likes of GQ and Esquire are trying to peddle to you.

Books: Tutorials

Gentleman: A Timeless Guide to Fashion - Bernhard Roetzel

Dressing the Man - Alan Flusser

Eminently Suitable - Bruce Boyer

ABC of Men's Fashion - Hardy Amies

Well-Dressed Gentleman's Pocket Guide - Oscar Lenius

Handmade Shoes for Men - Laszlo Vass

Books: Essay/Academic

The Suit - Nicholas Antongiovanni

An Englishman's Suit - Hardy Amies

Men's Fashion Reader - McNeil and Karaminas

The Empire of Fashion - Dressing Modern Democracy - Gilles Lipovetsky

Books: Hagiography/Historical

History of Men's Fashion: What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing - Nicholas Storey

Henry Poole: Founders of Savile Row - Stephen Howarth

Bespoke: Savile Row Ripped and Smoothed - Richard Anderson

Icon's of Men's Style - Josh Sims

Brioni: Fifty Years of Style - Cristina Giorgetti

Rubinacci and the Story of Neapolitan Tailoring - Nick Foulkes

Magazine

Men's EX - Japanese magazine

Leon - Japanese magazine *do not attempt until you gain more experience

Blog

A Suitable Wardrobe (conservative, but this will give you a sense of the historical/geometric rationale behind proportions and things)

The Armoury Lightbox  (these chaps have a very good sense of color and texture - you may also like to watch the O'Mast documentary they are selling)

* See also the thread on this forum about recommended blogs/tumblrs

As well, consume all the images you possibly can but keep a cool, detached stance and try to avoid getting sucked into the irrational exuberance that will suspend your good judgment.  Read those tumblrs you find and let them lead you to others; the Internet is awash in images.  Don't attach to them, though, but use them to train your eyeballs in color and proportion.  Then read a forum like this one for a couple of years, lurking patiently, and comparing the images you saw against what is discussed.  Why did something seem "wrong" to you?  Why did something you thought was cool get critically panned?  Compare, contrast, and stab down to some universal principles while sussing out your own interpretations.  Above all, spend little money and study, study, study.  Get the bare essentials you know you need, but do it on the cheap.  Your knowledge will grow in leaps and bounds and you'll soon regret that vermilion waistcoat you bought. Go out into the world and look at how people dress for leisure, business, etc., and what they connote.  Go to men's clothing stores and look at everything and paw the merchandise -- don't be intimidated.  Treat them like an open-invitation museum where you can see all you want and then leave with no consequences. Lurk, lurk, lurk: read the Tailors' Thread about the fitting of tailored clothing.  The subjects discussed herein have their own uncomplicated patois and if you keep reading, you'll soon understand the insiders' lingo and handshakes.  Befriend an alterations tailor and ask them questions, letting them guide you.

Finally, keep your eyeballs wide open to art, architecture, textiles, photography, the arrangement of food, mosaics, patterns in nature, etc; if you're going to do this right, do it whole hog.  Being a single-minded clothes horse is a lonely, sordid existence.  Studying other areas will train your eyes and gut and make your clothing choices intuitive and beautiful.

Also, think twice before going for "slim" clothing!!