millionaire75
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Throw Out the "Go-Out" Shirt
What makes you think a loud shirt that's inappropriate by day will look cool unbottoned after hours? Plus: Watch the video escapades of real-life fashion offenders; and sound off about this troubling style trend in the comment section.
-By Katherine Wheelock
Photos: WireImage.com (10), INF (2), Photofest (1), Corbis (1), Getty (1)
No doubt you've earned a night out. All week you rose at a painfully early hour, dutifully tied a four-in-hand, and headed off to an airless office. You deserve to let loose. There's a cocktail for that. There is not, contrary to what guys streaming into velvet-roped clubs on Saturday nights seem to think, a shirt for that.
"You can tell it's the shirt the guy saves for the weekends," designer John Bartlett says. "You get the feeling it has hair gel stains on it from the last time he went out."
You can spot this article of clothing through whiskey goggles from 50 yards away. It's a button-down shirt, usually untucked and always in a print"”multicolored stripes, paisley, florals"”or a solid color with a slight sheen. If it could speak, the Go-Out Shirt would say what the man wearing it is burning to blurt out"”"Yes, I sell mutual funds for a living, but I'm a really fun guy!"
"There's nothing more repulsive than a shirt that's supposed to say 'I'm fun,'" says Paul Stura, a New York stylist who's dressed Heath Ledger and Daniel Craig. "And it always looks like it's a 'blouse of the week' from a chain like Mexx or Cignal."
"A 'Friday-night shirt' is usually worn by somebody really young," says Jeffrey Kalinsky, owner of Jeffrey in New York and Atlanta. "They're also worn by someone older who's trying to look young"”someone who just got out of a relationship."
If you see nothing embarrassing about laying naked your enthusiasm"”your desperation, really"”for a night that ends in cherry bombs and a good groping, then by all means, keep reserving one shirt in your closet for after 8 p.m., an eggplant one with shiny pinstripes, even. Go ahead and walk home from work humming "Everybody's workin' for the weekend" and pumping your fists in the air while you're at it.
But know that admitting you draw an imaginary line in your closet between your "work" clothes and your "play" clothes or your "business" shirts and your "dress" shirts is like announcing that Mommy laid out your clothes for you. You're not a parochial-school kid forced to button himself into a uniform every day. You're a grown man who knows very well that there's a vast middle ground between an outfit appropriate for a meeting with Sumner Redstone and one suited for happy hour.
"The lines have been so blurred between work and weekend," Bartlett says. "I don't make a big distinction between my everyday clothes and my going-out clothes." That's not a lament about sloppiness; it's an encouraging appraisal of men's fashion. What you wear to work, you can go out in without looking like a stiff. Undo a button. Take off the jacket. Change into jeans. Just don't put on a shirt flattered only by the rosy neon glow of club lights. You're going to look awfully silly when no one's up for Red Bulls and vodka after dinner anyway.
http://men.style.com/details/blogs/t...he_g.html#more
What makes you think a loud shirt that's inappropriate by day will look cool unbottoned after hours? Plus: Watch the video escapades of real-life fashion offenders; and sound off about this troubling style trend in the comment section.
-By Katherine Wheelock
Photos: WireImage.com (10), INF (2), Photofest (1), Corbis (1), Getty (1)
No doubt you've earned a night out. All week you rose at a painfully early hour, dutifully tied a four-in-hand, and headed off to an airless office. You deserve to let loose. There's a cocktail for that. There is not, contrary to what guys streaming into velvet-roped clubs on Saturday nights seem to think, a shirt for that.
"You can tell it's the shirt the guy saves for the weekends," designer John Bartlett says. "You get the feeling it has hair gel stains on it from the last time he went out."
You can spot this article of clothing through whiskey goggles from 50 yards away. It's a button-down shirt, usually untucked and always in a print"”multicolored stripes, paisley, florals"”or a solid color with a slight sheen. If it could speak, the Go-Out Shirt would say what the man wearing it is burning to blurt out"”"Yes, I sell mutual funds for a living, but I'm a really fun guy!"
"There's nothing more repulsive than a shirt that's supposed to say 'I'm fun,'" says Paul Stura, a New York stylist who's dressed Heath Ledger and Daniel Craig. "And it always looks like it's a 'blouse of the week' from a chain like Mexx or Cignal."
"A 'Friday-night shirt' is usually worn by somebody really young," says Jeffrey Kalinsky, owner of Jeffrey in New York and Atlanta. "They're also worn by someone older who's trying to look young"”someone who just got out of a relationship."
If you see nothing embarrassing about laying naked your enthusiasm"”your desperation, really"”for a night that ends in cherry bombs and a good groping, then by all means, keep reserving one shirt in your closet for after 8 p.m., an eggplant one with shiny pinstripes, even. Go ahead and walk home from work humming "Everybody's workin' for the weekend" and pumping your fists in the air while you're at it.
But know that admitting you draw an imaginary line in your closet between your "work" clothes and your "play" clothes or your "business" shirts and your "dress" shirts is like announcing that Mommy laid out your clothes for you. You're not a parochial-school kid forced to button himself into a uniform every day. You're a grown man who knows very well that there's a vast middle ground between an outfit appropriate for a meeting with Sumner Redstone and one suited for happy hour.
"The lines have been so blurred between work and weekend," Bartlett says. "I don't make a big distinction between my everyday clothes and my going-out clothes." That's not a lament about sloppiness; it's an encouraging appraisal of men's fashion. What you wear to work, you can go out in without looking like a stiff. Undo a button. Take off the jacket. Change into jeans. Just don't put on a shirt flattered only by the rosy neon glow of club lights. You're going to look awfully silly when no one's up for Red Bulls and vodka after dinner anyway.
http://men.style.com/details/blogs/t...he_g.html#more
, I selected a fairly subdued grey with a diamond design.
