Dressing for Success (Clothing Blog)

These are a couple pictures with sunglasses.



This is without sunglasses.



This is what I would call a "style" of dressing. A good style should consist of a variety of colors that play the same or similar role. If you notice all of the colors on his shirts, they are all white/light blue. This falls into the color range of bright subtle colors. They don't draw your eyes to the shirt. Instead, they help compliment the overall appearance of him. What then, is the first thing that your eyes are attracted to when you look at the picture and form a first impression? Well for me it's certainly his face. His clothing doesn't draw attention and as you can see it is used as a background blend for his face area. I use a similar style, where my clothes are not what attracts attention and so it compliments my face and helps me "pop" because I have my own unique style.

Although he has different haircuts, he has sunglasses on, sunglasses off, and different outfits on every time, there is always an overall underlying "theme" that is projected when you look at him which makes him stand apart, in a good way. It's basically pea-cocking in a subtle way.

It is the truth when I say the best clothes are made in Europe. They are the most expensive, use the finest materials, and the quality is beyond amazing. When you buy from places like Dolce & Gabana, Prada, and Armani, this is pretty much the top of the line clothes that you can aquire. Simple shirts and t-shirts easy cost a couple hundred euros and coats, especially fur and cashmere will be more than 1,000 dollars.

If you click on all the websites, there are already models from each brand that display "European Styles". If you compare it to the American style with the example of Brad Pitt, you will notice that there are differences that create alternate feelings when you look and get your first impression.

For me, I notice the design of the glasses and on the dress of the woman on the Prada website. There is no doubt in my mind that she is wearing a $1000+ outfit. Where is all the money put into? It is put into all the fine details and the quality of clothing. First off, the quality of the clothing directly affects the texture and the visual feel of the clothes. You are exposed to material such as micromodal, viscose, cashmere, wool, and the list goes on. Most of this stuff is dry clean only because you will ruin the material (cashmere and wool clothes) if you put it in the wash with your other clothes. I can't really describe the texture, but basically different material combinations with stuff like micromodal and viscose compared to 100% cotton or polyester/cotton create a more vibrant feeling when you are wearing them.

Here is a cotton t-shirt vs a micromodal t-shirt
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All clothes, but especially European clothes are essentially pieces of art that you can wear around. However, unlike paintings, this kind of art is customizable, easy to move around, and feels better! More on this later though because I want to talk about the $$$ issue now.

Of course, we all would like to save money so this is going to be an explanation of finding bargains. These bargains are usually better quality for less money and so score really high on the price to quality ratio. Where do we find these bargains? Well there are two ways of shopping, there are stores and there are online stores.

For regular stores, to save money on designer brands, hit up the local Marshalls, Macys, or Burlington Coat Factory. These are the three most popular department store chains that I can think of where you can find some really high quality clothes for a good price. Although you are still paying around 50$ for a good shirt, the original price is usually a lot more so you save up to 40-50% or more if they are on a clearance sale. The only problem is, if you live in the middle of nowhere these department stores will be non-existent or they will have a very very limited selection. In order to get a better selection, always try to hit up the populated areas like a local mall or stores in the city. I have found good clothes 50% off for 25$ instead of the original 50$+ price. That is a pretty standard, even a bit high price to pay per clothing at one of these department stores.

For online stores, the sky is the limit. You can buy stuff from anywhere in the world basically because the internet is awesome. You get a better selection and have a better chance at finding great deals. Here are a couple websites that I have bookmarked. (I like nice clothes. I will pay more money for better clothes 9 times out of 10. Quality>quantity but I am just using these websites as examples for what a clothing website looks like)
http://www.julesb.co.uk/
http://www.raffaello-network.com/raffties/
http://www.bluefly.com/
http://www.macys.com/ (I can always find some great sales on the Macys website and shipping is cheaper too. Although they have a lot of variety, I just don't like a lot what they have so I don't really go there a lot, but that's just my personal tastes)
One huge pro is that these websites often have sales sections so if you are trying to find bargains, you can just go straight to the sale, organize from lowest price to highest, and now the entire inventory is organized.

For me, I live in the USA. I like European clothes. Since I don't near a major city, the only way that I can buy European clothing is through online shopping. Unfortunately, that means that global shipping costs apply. If you order from Europe to the USA, expect to pay 15-20$ extra just for shipping. USA to USA delivery is cheaper though and shipping costs is usually half that of Europe to USA. I still find great clothes though so I don't mind paying a little extra for shipping to be able to wear something that almost no one else wears. I am probably the only kid in my college that wears Hugo Boss on a daily basis.

The last tip that I have for online shopping is that unless price is not a problem (for example you just won MLG so you got a little bit of money to spend), or you really really want a particular piece of clothing from a certain designer, you should NEVER buy from the actual website. All of the designer websites that I have listed in this blog so far are very expensive. When fashion season comes though for the winter/summer clothes, the newest stuff is always the hottest and therefore the most expensive. You get a little price decrease if you buy out of season clothes, but it is still generally not what I would consider a bargain.

Instead, those 3 websites that I use to shop are better alternatives to find clothes for better sales. Websites like Jules B and Raffaello are basically like online Macys and Marshalls. In fact, I know that Jules B has chain stores in the UK too. These websites operate differently compared to the designer brand websites. Designer brand websites participate in fashion shows and lead the fashion industry. Outlet websites hold clothes in their inventory from a plethora of brands. This gives you better selection unless you are looking for a specific brand and also allows you to find better sales because these websites lose money the longer an item is taking up inventory space. Therefore it is in their better interest to lower the price even more to move the item rather than keep a higher price and wait a while to sell the item.

The clothes you wear should reflect who you are as a person. For me, I am a very calm person in real life and I wear darker colors most of the time such as navy blue, black, and grey. I have a bunch of brightly colored summer undershirts though that I can also wear in the summer. So when I am wearing something, I usually have this bright color flair of clothes underneath calm, darker color clothes. That would be how I describe what I wear physically and what my "overall theme" is in my style. Sometimes I even wear all black. I don't look emo though, I just look like a badass from "Men in Black" because that is the kind of personality I have and that is the kind of feeling that is emitted from me wearing black compared to an emo person wearing black.

Basically the point that I'm trying to make is that the same color means different things to different people. That's what makes your style individualistic and 'you' and that's why often copying other people's styles makes you sort of a douche bag because you have no originality in what you are wearing and remember, clothing is a mobile piece of art that you can wear around. Why copy someone else's painting when you can create your own painting that better suits you?