How to Dress Like a Man
I’ll admit it: I do not know how to dress properly. Most of the time I can be seen in a tee-shirt and khakis. And most of my friends would say, “so what?”.
Well, I have been thinking about a future career in academics and such and this started making me think that I should dress nicer and look nicer. I have tried to read up on what exactly a man is to wear. I don’t own a suit. Before studying this I didn’t know the different between a suit coat and a sports coat. Finally I found an article over at LewRockwell that straightened me out.:
There are two general types of men’s clothing.
First, there are clothes for public consumption: clothing in which to present yourself to others and thereby convey an elevated message about yourself. These are types of clothes you wear to work, to the store, out on the town, at a wedding, at church, at parties, or wherever people are going to see you. The primary objective here is that you look presentable, that you are civilized, a gentleman and not a beast.
The other type of clothing is that which serves a pure functional purpose: that is, that which you wear for yard work, fixing your car, an evening at home, a Saturday washing the house or cleaning, or just knocking around the park with kids. Everyone knows what type of clothes these are. They can all be bought at Wal-Mart or thrift stores, and they are made of cotton.
The great dressing error of our time is to confuse the two. Or more precisely: people think that it is perfectly okay to present yourself to others in clothes which serve a purely functional purpose. They say this is fine because it is comfortable – as if the only thing that matters in life is comfort. Well, it is also comfortable not to shave and not to bathe, and we have a word for people like that: slobs. If you don’t want to be a slob, you have to live with a bit of discomfort.
If men could absorb that simple lesson, the world would be a much more beautiful place in which to live. Elevated dressing causes people to behave better. Crime might fall. Manners would begin to come back. People might clean up their language. They might listen to better music and read better books. Something resembling civilization might return.
To be honest, these sorts of thoughts have been running through my mind anyway. When I am up at school, I generally dress in a fashion that would be considered “nice” by today’s standards. Most of my male peers look as though they just got finished changing the oil. Have you ever noticed that if you run into a man who is dressed snappy, you give him a certain amount of respect? And if you meet a similarly aged man in stained shorts and a too-tight tee-shirt with a beer ad on front that you do not think as highly of him?
Well, for myself I have decided to elevate my appearance, and to stop confusing functional clothing with clothes made for public consumption. That way people will read better books and the crime rate will go down. Unfortunately for me, I am a pretty big guy and so I don’t know that I will be able to find my items in thrift stores. Oh, and in case you didn’t click the link above, here are all the clothing a man needs to dress properly:
- one or two suits in blue or grey
- a blue or black jacket or sports coat
- a jacket for summer (khaki or blue cotton or, if you want to be really fancy, seersucker)
- a tweed jacket for winter
- year-round grey wool trousers (light or dark or both)
- a few pairs of khakis
- 3 white and 3 blue shirts
- a selection of ties
Let my hunt begin!
