Guys, I love you. I really do. Some of my closest friends are guys, and my close guy friends know that if they ask, I’ll give them an honest opinion on what they’re wearing. (Okay, sometimes if it’s heinous enough, I’ll just say something. Someone’s gotta do it.) With regard to menswear, I’ve posted on the good, and I’ve also shared the not-so-good, obvious things that the guys should absolutely steer clear of. In between, there’s this nebulous, sticky area of menswear that it seems many men are afraid of and just don’t understand. Believe me: I sympathize. There is so little room for error with regard to men’s clothing: one misplaced button or ill-proportioned logo can ruin an otherwise passable shirt. The devil’s in the details. With this in mind, here’s a few things in the world of men’s clothing that just misses the mark. Read on…

• Right clothing; wrong shoes. I once went out on a date with a guy who wore those Vibram Five Finger monkey foot shoes. We weren’t hiking or running: he wore them to dinner. Suffice it to say, there was no second date. It’s such a shame when a guy puts together an otherwise nice, perfectly acceptable ensemble, and then ruins it with terrible footwear. All-white athletic shoes are bad under any circumstance (they get dirty super fast and make a grown man look like a 13-year-old kid). Toms and the ilk are weird on women but just plain awful on men. Everything else is a matter of appropriateness for the event and cohesiveness with the rest of the ensemble. Which leads to…

• Blazers and dress shoes paired with jeans. A man throwing a blazer or suit jacket over jeans and a dress shirt, to me, is akin to me wearing yoga pants with a cardigan and declaring myself ‘work-appropriate’. My time in Corporate Land has given me some insight into the mind of the modern working male (let me tell you, there are some dark corners), and for reasons unknown to me, some guy started this look years and years ago, and other men have latched onto it as a casual Friday uniform. It’s a puzzling clash of two genres; a mix of two opposing styles that just looks… weird. It conjures up images of a youth pastor trying to be “hip” (maybe this is an image I remember from when I was a kid and has been permanently seared into my subconscious). In any case, when I see the blazer-with-jeans combo, I just see a guy who wants it all, but winds up having nothing. Be corporate or be casual, but don’t try to be both at the same time.

• Too-big dress shirts. I’ve heard the gripe from my guy friends on how difficult it is to find a good dress shirt that fits properly in all areas (neck, sleeves, and torso, with a proper length). Somehow, this issue of fit eludes even the most clever of the male species, and what happens is a guy ends up wearing a dress shirt that fits in some places, but not in others: usually a decent fit throughout the arms, but then balloons out in the chest and torso, creating an illusion that the man inside is much more rotund than he actually is. Guys: if your arms are proportionately too long for the rest of your body (mine are), slim-fit dress shirts are where it’s at. The length of a dress shirt is a separate issue, and this piece in Primer gives a comprehensive visual how-to for proper lengths of button-up shirts.
• The wrong leather jacket. When I first started writing this blog, I wrote a post that touched on this very topic, and I feel it merits another address. When I wrote on this topic over two years ago, I lived in Boise: now that I’m in Seattle, a city that is arguably much more cosmopolitan and plugged-in with regard to fashion trends and variety in clothing availability, I am still confronted with the Ugly Leather Jacket. The elastic, the bad tailoring, the horrid proportions… I’ve seen it. Guys, a tip: if you’re not sure, air on the side of conservative and don’t go there. There are many other fashionable (and Seattle climate-friendly) fabrics besides leather: a classic peacoat will do the job quite nicely.

Agree or disagree with my assessments? Have a burning style question? By all means, leave it in the comments.

Let’s hear it for the boys,

-dau