abitofcolor

The Internet machine has been great for men’s clothing and men’s clothing sellers like me. But at the same time, it’s been a very bad thing for men’s clothing.

Beautifully staged and photographed pictures have sometimes trumped common sense (‘How can I get my linen suit to not wrinkle?’) A lot of me too-ism exists (‘Wow, that guy looks cool with the wrist beads/lapel pin/pocket square/glasses hanging out from chest pocket/scarf/pocketwatch chain on the vest/wallet chain on the pants/unbuttoned BD collar/back blade of tie showing, so let me do the same thing.’)

You need to be you. There are guys here that dress very in your face. Some get away with it, some don’t.

Your style has to be organic to you. An academic approach to dressing is fine, where the color wheel and textural discourses are brought out to the forefront, and of course we can all learn from places like this and from seeing and hearing others. But you can’t just do what everyone else does and be stylish.

Try different shit out, don’t worry about if your pocket square drops a bit in your pocket, don’t aim to look like a perfectly staged and photographed menswear blogger all day long. Clothing should come alive when you wear it, it moves with you, it wrinkles, pants get frumpy, jacket elbows wrinkle.

You should be as physically and mentally comfortable in a suit as you are in jeans and a tee.

—Ed Morel (via voxsart)