There's a lot of info online about how to dress. Or how to build a simple, affordable wardrobe. I think these prescriptivist approaches are bad because they herd people into a bland, flavorless wardrobe that they don't actually end up loving.
It's easy to tell how someone should dress if they need to build a wardrobe for an office that requires suits. That's because there's a clear way that you're supposed to wear such things as a result of history.
Things are a little harder once you get into business casual. But I laid out some ideas here, if it helps:
Once you get into casualwear, it's impossible to be prescriptive. I'm a big believer that fashion is a visual language. Learning to dress well is about knowing how to speak a language.
Classic tailoring is like Received Pronunciation. Or a linga franca that everyone understands
But there are also many types of languages. Even in English, there are diff dialects and regional slang. Once you break outside of English, you may not even follow the same grammar rules.
Such aesthetics are shaped by our past and various subcultural groups.
Many brands take slices of that history and remix the aesthetic for today. Aime Leon Dore is 1990s Polo streetwear. Nigel Cabourn is British adventurer. RRL is American Southwest, workwear, and Westernwear. Savas is rock and roll. Etc etc etc.
Successful aesthetics are about knowing how to speak well within a language. That doesn't mean you have to slavishly follow rules (think of e.e cummings). But it means knowing how to express something legible to others.
Noam Chomsky is famous for the phrase "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" as an example of a sentence that is grammatically correct but makes no sense. I think guys who approach dress as a kind of art project often make this mistake, where the outfit has no cultural meaning.
"How do I build an affordable wardrobe" should start with "how do I want to dress?" This is going to be informed by your cultural identity, personality, lifestyle, etc. I can't answer those questions for you. See this post on how to develop taste
Secondly, I try to encourage people to buy things that they will LOVE WEARING, not just on day one, but in year ten. Real sustainability comes from having an emotional connection with your clothes, so you're not constantly replacing things. Read this:
So, in short, I can't tell you how to build an affordable wardrobe bc once you get out of classic, tailored clothing, it's very hard to tell someone how to dress. This is like me reading your personality; you have to figure it out yourself. You also have to find what EXCITES you.
That said, most people need to start somewhere. So years ago, I wrote this post about what I call a "springboard wardrobe." The idea is to be less prescriptive and give you a foundation that allows you to *explore* your own taste
Most of my service writing is at Put This On. Use the "Start Here" link at the top to explore the 12+ year writing archive. Nearly any question can be answered by Googling "[topic] putthison."
Most of my writing is also focused on classic or classic-adjacent aesthetics: tailoring, workwear, Americana, etc, and their slightly more fashion-forward counterparts (e.g., Japanese brands doing workwear). This is only a slice of all of menswear.
If you need some starting places for exploring casualwear, I listed some aesthetics here, along with the associated stores.
Developing a good wardrobe is a long process, but it can be fun and fulfilling. Take it as a journey instead of task to check off
Trump appeared in court today in a stained suit jacket. The stain appears to be from cosmetics. I commented on how oil-based stains, such as this, require care to remove. Some people had questions, so here's a quick thread on how to treat stains 🧵
First, some basics
1. Always consult your garment care tag. It knows best.
2. Some items should always be dry-cleaned, such as suits, sport coats, and pants that aren't jeans. These items have multiple layers of material that can shrink at diff rates if put in a wet wash
OK, now that we have some basics, let's talk about stains.
There are two types of stains:
1. Water-based stains come from things such as sweat and coffee.
2. Oil-based stains come from things such as pizza and salad dressing.
for comparison, this is how his future wife Eleanor dressed as a baby. baby clothing was gender-neutral until the 20th century. babies, including boys, wore dresses bc they weren't toilet trained. clothes were white, not pink or blue, bc the color was easier to bleach.
as the 20th century marched forward, baby clothing became increasingly gendered—blue for boys, pink for girls (even though pink was once considered a masculine color until marketers decided otherwise). now even simple things such as t-shirts have graphics to mark gender.
I know 70s tailoring has a bad reputation ("the decade taste forgot"), but you can pull some elements in a way that will look good today: slightly structured shoulder, longer jacket, flared pants. Can be colorful or muted
Low Cut T-Shirts
Affectionately called "slutty tees" on menswear forums, these can be worn with directional tailoring or certain types of casualwear (e.g. Margiela). Here you see it with E. Tautz tailoring. Be careful with washing. Delicate tees need laundry bags.
i like how the jackets aren't super tight and short. and the pants are well-proportioned to match the jacket (i.e., they're not super skinny). the result is a much more flattering and comfortable-looking silhouette.
tailoring trivia: line here is called a front dart. it's added to give the waist some shaping. most front darts terminate at the pocket. if you see a front dart extend past the pocket and reach the hem, there's a good (but not 100%) chance the suit was made in Naples, Italy
along with being beautifully written, i love how this piece interweaves multicultural history, deep references, and a genuinely good understanding of menswear (despite being written by someone who doesn't typically write about menswear). wish more menswear writing was like this
Something not explored, but I've sometimes wondered about, is how JCrew's retail footprint looked from 2005-2015-ish. IMO, the fall of Brooks Brothers is deeply tied to its real estate agreements. As the company expanded its number of retail stores and got locked into leases...
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SUIT JACKET, SPORT COAT, AND BLAZER?
A friend of mine recently emailed me to ask whether he accidentally bought a suit jacket by mistake, when he wanted a sport coat. I see this sort of thing happen often, so let's break down the differences 🧵
First, understand that a suit is just a garment where the jacket and pants have been cut from the same cloth. This distinguishes it from the frock coat, which is what "proper" gentlemen wore before suits became popular.
By the early 20th-cent, the frock coat fell out of favor and was replaced by suits and sport coats.
See how the suit on the left is made to be worn with matching pants. The sport coat on the right is made to be worn with pants cut from a different cloth.