What distinguishes something as an heirloom? Is it monetary value? How was something made? When my father died in the second half of 2021, I inherited two watches that couldn’t have been more dissimilar. The first is a solid gold Rolex Air King from 1954, and the second is a digital Seiko M158. I’ve realized that monetary value is only a small part of what determines how much we value something. Instead, the true value of an heirloom is found in the stories we tell about it. When an object is imbued with the owner’s story, memory, or personality traits, it transcends from something of monetary value to something irreplaceable.

The Rolex Air King

So far as I can remember, my father always wore a watch. Most of his small collection was made up of Seiko and Citizen pieces. But I remember sitting in my parents’ bedroom one day as a kid when my father pulled out his watch box. I had seen most of the pieces before, but on this day, he took out a carefully wrapped gold Rolex.

I grew up in Northern California in a small farming town. My family was not poor, but we did not have a lot of money either. We got around in a Dodge Caravan, shopped for clothes at Ross, and ate at chain restaurants. Given our modest lifestyle, I didn’t know much about luxury, so I was surprised to learn that my father owned a gold Rolex. My father told me that it belonged to my grandfather on my mother’s side and that it was made from real gold. As a child, that was enough to impress me, and I had not thought to ask more about it.

After this reveal, I began to entertain the remote possibility that I might one day be able to claim the watch as my own. Surprisingly, however, I frequently failed to remember that it existed. To begin, my dad never wore it, even on special occasions such as my graduation and wedding. Instead, he stuck to his Seikos and Citizens. 

No one in my family ever discussed mortality. The topic was uncomfortable, and the idea of requesting something made me feel like a greedy child staking a claim on someone’s possessions before they were ready to pass it on. So instead, I hoped my dad would surprise me with it one day—maybe as a present for a milestone birthday or the birth of one of my children. I imagined the ceremony, complete with a heartfelt speech detailing the watch’s backstory and a prideful smile on his face as he presented it to me.

But life doesn’t always work the way we wish. Instead, the worst happened. In July of 2021, my father was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. We were devastated and shocked. My father had already recovered from prostate cancer and routinely went to a set of specialists to monitor his health. How could this have happened? And more importantly, how long did he have left? His oncologist thought that he could prolong his life with chemotherapy, but the treatment proved to be too much for him. In less than three months, he died.

My mother, sister, and I were sitting in my parents’ bedroom two days after his death, looking through some of my father’s belongings. My sister asked for a jade necklace that my father always wore, and I asked for the Rolex, to which they both agreed. The transfer of ownership was completed, but not with the fanfare I had hoped for.

I never got the chance to ask my father about the watch. It appeared to be an Oyster Air King with the reference number 6567. So, with little else to go on, I turned to the internet, as many modern-day sleuths do.

Rolex first introduced the Oyster Air King in 1945, following World War II. The “Air” models were named after British Royal Air Force pilots who wore Oysters during the war, and the “King” was named after the 34mm case, which was considered large at the time. Around 1953, the reference was changed to 6652, and the Air King was equipped with the 1030 caliber movement.

I’ve also been fortunate to make some wonderful friends in the watch community, one of whom introduced me to well-known watch enthusiast Eric Wind. Eric was able to confirm the authenticity of the watch after studying some photos, and based on the serial, he believed it was from the early 1950s and made of solid 18K gold. He was astounded that the watch was unpolished and showed no signs of tarnishing. Even more remarkable was the fact that the watch came with its original strap and buckle, both of which were in immaculate condition.

I wanted to wear the watch immediately but resisted. For starters, the Rolex had sat unworn and unused for the past 30 years and was most likely in need of service. Second, it was incredibly valuable! All of Erik’s words were exciting and resonated in my head. Unpolished! Unworn! Immaculate! For someone who had never worn a watch that cost more than $300, this suddenly became the most valuable thing I own.

My gong gong in the center holding the drink with my mother and father standing behind him. A small bit of a watch can be seen

So, doomed to repeat history, I carefully wrapped the watch and tucked it away. I occasionally took it out to admire it, but I quickly realized that I was only appreciating it from a monetary perspective, like Gollum hunched over and staring at his precious. When I tried to feel a connection to my father or grandfather through the watch, I came up empty. Maybe if I knew more about the Rolex, I could connect to it at a deeper level. 

My maternal grandfather, or Gong Gong, died before I was born. Of the little I know about him, he was born in Tianjin’s Hebei District, where he worked in textiles. Like my family, my grandparents led a modest existence. My mother says he had good taste and focused on buying things that looked nice and were well-made so they would last. She can’t remember when or why he bought the Rolex, and the story is now lost to us. However, she believes that someone at work must have mentioned that it would be a good investment.

She also doesn’t recall him wearing it much, and based on the watch’s pristine condition, I assume he didn’t. My mother suspected that he had saved it for special occasions such as her wedding. I rummaged through her wedding album, desperate to find evidence of it. Instead, all I saw was a possible glimpse peeking out of his shirt sleeve—something worn discreetly but not on display.

I also looked through photos of my father and never saw it on him. It’s unfortunate that the history of this watch has been lost to time, but this hasn’t diminished my attachment to it. After all, it’s a valuable piece of history that I want to pass down to my children. But how strong a bond would they form with it? What distinguishes something as an heirloom?

My father’s Seiko M158, complete with the original box and papers that I found in a briefcase, along with a Pan Am deck of cards.

Seiko Pan Am

I went to see my mother a few months later and went through my father’s belongings again, looking for another watch that I knew he owned. After some digging, I discovered it tucked away in the back of one of his drawers: the Pan Am, also known as the Seiko M158.

In 1977, Seiko released the M158, its first world-time digital watch. With its iconic lemon yellow face and ability to display time in multiple time zones with a few button presses, the M158 quickly became a favorite among airline pilots, earning it the nickname “Pan Am.”

This was the watch I most recall my father wearing. As a child, I was always fascinated by its unusual and distinguishable yellow face. My father would occasionally take it off and let me play with it, and I would frequently just turn the light on and off. It was a unique feature, especially before indigo lights became popular.

Unlike the Rolex, the Seiko has significant signs of wear. Scratches adorned the face and bracelet, like badges of honor for a watch that was used on a daily basis. It was only a few years ago that I noticed it had disappeared from my father’s rotation. I assumed it was because he had purchased an Apple Watch, but after closely inspecting the M158, I discovered the true culprit: the battery coin hatch had been stripped. I imagine that after countless battery changes, my father wore down the coin groove and, unable to change the battery, he set it aside until one day he could get it fixed.

I see the Pan Am everywhere when I look through old family photo albums. Family gatherings, graduations, and just hanging out at home. I went back even further, to the early 1980s, and saw it on my father’s wrist as he held my older sister as a newborn.

While I had fond memories of this watch, similar to the Rolex, I knew nothing about its history. Fortunately, my mother knew a lot more about this piece. Her parents bought the Seiko as an engagement gift for my father—an incredibly touching detail I was unaware of, but it explains why my father must have treasured it so much and adds a new layer of sentimentalism for me.

Two different watches: both given to my father from my mother’s parents and then inherited by me. Both treasured and valued in different ways.

An heirloom does not have to be expensive; it simply needs to be made well enough to last. What truly distinguishes an heirloom is the accumulation of stories, memories, and wear. And therein lies the magic: while luxury watches will always be in a class of their own, anything can become an heirloom, and once an heirloom, it can be more valuable than anything else.

If you plan to buy or give a watch to your child, make sure you tell them the stories behind it. Tell them how and why you got it, who gave it to you, and what it meant to you. Share stories about where the watch has been, perhaps a funny story about when the time was wrong. Tell them how it got its marks, and allow them to wear it and play with it because you want them to inherit these as well.

With the two watches I inherited, I wanted to start putting my own stories in them. I took the Rolex to LA Watchworks for a full service, most likely its first. I went to a local watchmaker to replace the battery in the Seiko.

When the time comes, I want my children to cherish these items not only for their monetary value but also for the memories they hold. With the Seiko, that means carrying on my father’s legacy. With the Rolex, it means beginning a new one.

I’ve since updated the Rolex with a new strap

My father with my sister when she was several months old

My father with me when I was about two years old

My father at my sister’s college graduation

The post What Makes Something An Heirloom? appeared first on Put This On.

When I started getting into fountain pens about eight years ago, I was overwhelmed by the number of options. The world of fountain pens is full of different filing systems, nib sizes and grinds, barrel materials, and even after-market customizers who can turn your pen into something really special. Fountain pens can cost anywhere from $20 to nearly $50,000. And if you’re prepared to pay the kind of money necessary for a handmade pen from Japan, there are sometimes multi-year waiting lists.

Since I was new to this subject at the time, I found myself browsing online for various shopping guides. I simply wanted to know: “What’s the best fountain pen for my budget?” I needed someone to tell me what to buy.

When it comes to clothing, a subject where I have more footing, I really hate these sorts of guides. Clothing is so deeply tied to identity, taste, emotion, and lifestyle; no wardrobe will work for everyone. Such lists always send people down the wrong path, as they encourage them to buy things they don’t need. A few years ago, when I interviewed some stylish men about what they wear most, I was surprised to see that no one mentioned anything that can be described as an “essential.”

Yet, such lists can be helpful. Somewhere between being dictatorial and overly democratic, there’s a narrow space where you can guide someone towards better purchases. I’ve been thinking of this in terms of a “springboard wardrobe.”

A springboard wardrobe isn’t meant to be a forever wardrobe. It’s not about “Buying It For Life” or “Things Every Man Must Own.” It’s intended to give you a baseline that allows you to explore different aesthetics — a jumping-off point — so you can develop a personal sense of style. It’s possible to dress well by only ever wearing “springboard” items. At the same time, you can also use these items to explore different looks — from Italian tailoring to workwear to offbeat Japanese brands — so that you can get a better sense of what works for you.

The idea here is to build a certain baseline so that you can play around with different looks when you acquire something new. With fountain pens, I eventually found that I don’t like scratchy nibs (what some call feedback) or overly inky flex pens (wet noodles). However, to get to that place, you have to sample different things, sort of like tasting different dishes at a buffet. Here are some things that can help you build coherent outfits as you’re sampling around.

Tan Chinos or Blue Jeans

Most men are either a Chino Guy or Denim Guy, rarely both to equal degrees. Knowing where you fall can save you a bit of time and money when building a new wardrobe.

If your style leans rugged, get a pair of slim-straight jeans made from raw denim. The term raw simply means the fabric hasn’t been pre-washed or -distressed. Raw denim tends to be heavier and stiffer, and comes in a deeper, darker blue color than its washed counterparts. It also develops better and more authentic looking fades over time. You can wear raw denim jeans with almost anything that can be described as workwear or Americana: bomber jackets, trucker jackets, leather jackets, thick flannel shirts, oxford button-downs, and of course, t-shirts. Depending on the cut of your jeans and sport coats, you may even be able to dress them up with a tailored jacket (getting this combo right is tricky, but it can be done if you pay attention to some details).

On the other hand, if your style leans preppy, conservative, or refined, you may want to get chinos instead. There are three types of chinos: workwear, dressy, and what I like to call “knockaround.” For this guide, we’ll ignore workwear chinos. Dressy chinos are the cotton version of tailored trousers. They’re made with single needle side-seams, sit higher on the waist, and are designed to be worn with sport coats. You can find these from companies such as Rota or our sponsor Dapper Classics. Knockaround chinos, on the other hand, are the kind of pants you find at J. Crew. They have puckered double-needle side seams that make them look more casual. While it’s possible to wear these with sport coats, they’re often better kept to casualwear. Start with a basic chino color, such as stone or khaki. Darker chinos in colors such as gray or navy are not only harder to style, but they can look patchy over time, as cotton fades quickly and readily.

Navy Sport Coat

For most people, a suit is too formal for everyday occasions. If you’re interested in exploring tailored clothing, get a solid-colored, single-breasted navy sport coat instead. This is something you can dress up or down with a wide variety of things: tailored trousers or jeans, oxford button-downs or long-sleeved polos, leather shoes or plain white sneakers (stick to those that look like Common Projects Achilles). Depending on your environment, navy sport coats can almost disappear from view, which means you can wear them on consecutive days without anyone noticing. With brass buttons, such as you see on Tim above, it becomes a blazer. With any other kind of button, it’s just a plain navy sport coat. Most men will find the plain variety easier to wear, although a brass button blazer can look good if you’re willing to lean into a preppier or more traditional look.

Even if your style one day veers away from tailored clothing, a navy sport coat is the sort of thing you can wear to nice restaurants, important meetings, or on Mother’s Day. If you find you wear your navy sport coat often, you can get more: a brown wool-silk-linen or cream checked sport coat for summer; various tweeds for winter. But start with a navy sport coat, and you can see whether tailoring works for your lifestyle.

Gray Wool Trousers

If you have a navy sport coat in your wardrobe, you’ll obviously need some appropriate pants. Start with two or three pairs of gray trousers made from various weaves. Woolen flannel is excellent for winter; tropical wool has the breathability you’ll appreciate in summer. Mid- to light-gray works best, as charcoal doesn’t have enough contrast against dark-colored coats.

Like navy sport coats, gray pants are the sort of thing that almost disappear from view. You can wear them with sport coats in brown, olive, navy, and even citrusy colors. Gray trousers are so versatile, some say that you should never buy a sport coat that can’t be worn with them (I wouldn’t go that far, but this advice underscores the importance of having a solid rotation of gray pants). If you find that you wear gray tailored trousers often, expand into brown — tan cavalry twill and mid-brown whipcord for winter; sandy tropical wool for summer. Most men have more brown sport coats than gray, and it takes a bit of careful coordination to pair tan pants with a brown sport coat. This is why gray should be your first two or three purchases. But brown trousers are also versatile and will lend something different to a wardrobe that’s already full of gray pants.

Oxford Cloth Button Down

Men who are just starting to build a better wardrobe often make the mistake of thinking they should get a pile of white dress shirts and things in different colors for when they want to be more expressive. The truth is, white dress shirts aren’t the blank slate that people assume. They go wonderfully with suits, and in the right cloth (oxford or linen), they can be worn with slightly more casual attire. However, unless you wear suits on a regular basis, you’re better off with light blue shirts (maybe add some blue and white stripes down the road). For experimentation, I think oxford cloth is best.

Since oxford button-downs have such a long history in American style, you can wear them cohesively with everything from tailored clothing to workwear to prep. As a color, light blue looks more causal than stark white, which helps it span a wider range of things in today’s casual world. You can wear light blue oxford button-downs with everything from sport coats to olive field jackets.

If your style stays traditional and tailored, you’ll always be able to wear light blue oxford button-downs with your sport coats and suits. If you end up wearing offbeat Japanese workwear brands such as Engineered Garments, you can still wear oxford button-downs with casual jackets. Like other items on this list, light blue oxford button-downs have a certain kind of versatility that allows you to play around with different looks.

Shetland Sweaters

They’ve been a staple at Brooks Brothers for over a hundred years, but you’d be surprised at how often Shetland sweaters crop up in almost every other line (trad or otherwise). Shetland knits have been part of Aspesi’s military-inspired collections, Lemaire’s contemporary wear, Margaret Howell’s rustic British designs, Our Legacy’s minimalism, NN07’s Japanese basics, and so forth. Dries Van Noten even made a line of Shetland sweaters a few years ago with archival labels from famous British mills. Shetlands work just as well with oversized topcoats as they do with waxed cotton Barbours, slim tailored trousers or raw denim jeans, experimental outfits or stalwart classics. Their spongey texture lends visual interest to outfits, while their solid color makes them easy to wear. Aside from gray sweatshirts, few knitwear styles stretch across so many aesthetic spaces.

Shetlands also offer more bang for your buck, which is useful early on in this process since you likely have to buy many things. As a fiber, Shetland wool is hardy and durable, so it doesn’t easily pill. You can often find vintage Shetlands on eBay that look like they’ve never been worn. Plus, whereas top-end cashmere sweaters start at $400, a good Shetland tops out at around $150. Get one in a color that contrasts with the pants you wear most. If you mostly wear gray wool trousers, get a sweater in brown, olive, or navy. If you mostly wear blue jeans, then buy a Shetland in gray, beige, or brown. By choosing a contrasting color, you can easily grab your sweater in the morning without second-guessing your outfit.

Gray Sweatshirt

A sturdy cotton sweatshirt is your workhorse knit. You can wear cotton sweatshirts with olive field jackets, brown leather jackets, and blue chore coats. Like oxford button-downs, they have such a long tradition in almost every casual aesthetic, you can wear them without thinking. I like ones with the triangular guest at the neck — sometimes called The Dorito because of its shape — but it’s purely an aesthetic preference. Heathered gray is your most versatile color, but black works surprisingly well too.

Prices here can range from the basic to ultra-expensive. If you’re on a budget, focus your money on the parts of your wardrobe that will make the most impact, such as outerwear and shoes. A cheaper sweatshirt from J. Crew will work out just fine. If it ends up stretching out, you can throw it into the wash and then the dryer. Cotton fades in the dryer, but this can look charming in a sweatshirt (and in a color such as heather gray, nearly undetectable).

Three Pairs of Shoes

You should always give your shoes a day of rest between each wearing. Sweat tends to collect inside your shoes, and with enough flexing, the material can break down like wet cardboard. Additionally, having a few pairs of shoes will allow you to create more cohesive outfits. I recommend starting with three pairs.

No footwear style will do everything, but a pair of suede chukkas will do more than most. This is something you can wear in the fall and winter months with rustic, casual clothes such as Barbour jackets and five-pocket cords. Our friend Graeme in Australia used to wear unlined Alden chukkas in the summertime with olive field jackets (we also like unlined chukkas, but they give less support than lined ones, so beware). You can wear suede chukkas with sport coats and tailored trousers, or more casual ensembles such as slim-straight jeans with a topcoat. I prefer them in brown suede, as the textured material visually breaks up the expanse of leather that sits on top of your foot.

For your second pair of shoes, consider brown derbies if your style leans classic and tailored, penny loafers if you’re preppy or trad, and work boots if you gravitate towards workwear. Among derbies, I like Norwegian split toes because they’re more interesting than plain toes and less common than wingtips. Some guys wear them with jeans, but I think they look more at home with tailored trousers. You can wear these with suits or sport coats.

For penny loafers, we have an entire guide on how to choose the right pair. Subtle details such as the last, stitching, and leather type can swing a pair of loafers towards the dressy or more casual side of the spectrum. For your first pair, I recommend sticking with a classic pair of brown penny loafers that’s around the level of formality where you usually dress. Something like Rancourts if you’re primarily in jeans and knockaround chinos, Meermin for tailored trousers and sport coats, and Alden’s LHS if you want something that works across these two worlds.

For work boots, the world is your oyster. Authentic work boots from Red Wing and Wolverine have been staples in the workwear community for decades (note, Red Wings can be tough to break in). If you have a bit more money to spend, Viberg’s service boots have a certain look and shape that allows them to be worn with authentic repro workwear and even some streetwear.

Finally, most guys can use a pair of sneakers. You don’t have to go high-end here. A pair of all-white Supergas, Chuck Taylors, or Vans can work with many classic wardrobes. German Army Trainers go well with everything from Rugged Ivy to contemporary lines such as Margiela. For guys who like the look of Common Projects, but don’t want to spend all that money, Gustin makes a great alternative.

Three Casual Jackets

A good jacket or coat is both the centerpiece and finishing touch on an outfit. Without one, an outfit can often look dull, sometimes even bordering on business casual. However, it’s hard to make blanket recommendations for outerwear (even more so than the other categories). Few jackets are so bland that they work for everyone — and when they do, they also don’t look very good. But for the point of discussion, I’ll recommend three: an olive field jacket for summer, a wool topcoat for winter, and a third jacket that allows you to play around with your casual wardrobe (e.g., denim trucker jackets, chore coats, peacoats, leather jackets, waxed Barbours, and others can be wonderful additions).

You can wear an olive field jacket in the spring and summer months with jeans, chinos, casual button-up shirts, and even t-shirts. When the weather gets colder in autumn, an olive field jacket can be layered over your gray cotton sweatshirt for warmth. For winter, a heavy topcoat will give you some of the advantages of tailored clothing without the formality (although, the downside is that you are to take off the coat when indoors, so the effect is only for when you’re outside). Lightweight topcoats do well in temperatures ranging in the 50s and 60s; heavier overcoats are better for temps below. These coats usually look better when they’re layered over a thick knit, so take that into consideration.

For your third jacket, consider a chore coat or trucker jacket if your style leans rugged, a waxed cotton Barbour Bedale or Beaufort if you like prep, and brands such as Valstar, Private White VC, and Stoffa if you want a casual alternative to sport coats. Dabble here and there to find what’s right for you.

Some Other Suggestions

The springboard wardrobe mentioned above is intended to help you experiment and find your style. It also helps to keep some things in mind as you go through this process.

Focus on Fit and Then Silhouette

When you’re just starting, it’s helpful to learn some basic things about fit, such as knowing when your sleeves are too short, pants too long, and whether a coat doesn’t sit right on your neck. But these things are just the baseline. Even more important than fit is the silhouette, which is the general shape of your outfit when all the details have been taken away.

A good silhouette doesn’t always follow the rules about fit. Sometimes the shoulder seams are dropped or extended; sometimes, the sleeves are intentionally long. By paying attention to the silhouette, you’ll learn how to express yourself more creatively through clothes and find things that flatter your body. We have guides on how to think about silhouette in a traditional tailored outfit and casualwear.

Think About Resale Value

In the beginning, you will cycle in and out of a lot of clothes, as you try different things and realize they don’t work for you. Through this process, you may also end up selling a lot of stuff on sites such as eBay or Grailed (our sponsor LuxeSwap is an eBay consignor who takes all the work out of creating listings).

As such, think about resale value when you buy something. It’s easy to get sucked into the idea that you should always buy the best. The internet is littered with cliches, such as “buy it for life” or “quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.” Filson’s tagline is even “might as well have the best.”

However, for people who are just starting, the sweet spot is often at the lower or middle-tier entry points. Brands such as Meermin, Lof & Tung, and Carmina are not only more affordable than Edward Green, they won’t hurt as much when you resell your purchases and find you only get 25% to 50% of retail value. As you become more secure in your taste — a process that will be informed by many experiments — you will have better footing when buying uber-expensive items.

Be Realistic About Your Forever Wardrobe

Resist the idea that you’re currently building your Forever Wardrobe. The things that stick with you will reveal themselves over time, as they’ll be the things you reach for the most. It’s also possible — and even fine — to cycle through things once in a while, even if you have a strong sense of personal style. Be realistic about where you are in your process.

Stay Close to Basic Colors

There’s nothing wrong with buying a citrus-colored sport coat or a wild pair of purple pants down the road. But when you’re just starting, stick to basic colors such as navy, brown, gray, black, and olive. These colors can be easily combined with one another, which means you can do more with a limited wardrobe. Additionally, pay attention to color temperature. Blue can be complementary or clashing, depending on its hue.

Focus on Outfits; Don’t Fetishize Objects

It’s easy to forget this simple lesson, especially if you’re learning about clothes online. As you learn about different technical details — storm welting, canvassing, hand stitching, etc. — you’ll become curious about how these details look and feel in real life. This tension is then only resolved through experience (or shopping). There’s nothing wrong with buying new things to see how you like them, but it’s important to focus on creating stylish outfits. Be aware of how easily you can start to fetishize objects, disconnected from the rest of your wardrobe, as you learn about certain details and see them presented through carefully cropped, beautifully photographed images. When shopping and exploring, use image-heavy sites such as Instagram to see how people wear those items in stylish outfits.

Broaden Your Horizons

When you’re just starting, it can be helpful to learn some basic things about fit, proportion, and general ideas about “quality.” But as you go through this process, it also helps to not be so analytical and sterile about how you view style. Clothing is deeply tied to culture and identity. As you learn about clothes, read about historical fashion movements — the Mods of the 1960s, prep revival of the ‘80s, Armani’s tailoring, punk movements, Japanese avant-garde designers, etc. It also helps to learn about various social movements and artistic scenes, so you can see how people have expressed themselves through clothes.

We’ve long championed the idea that clothing is about language. A good outfit is not about combining random shapes and colors, like how an artist might paint on a blank canvas. Instead, it’s closer to writing a sentence. If you take a more sociological view of style, you’ll not only better appreciate how other people put together outfits, you’ll also have a larger vocabulary through which you can express yourself. Keep an open mind and expose yourself to new things.

The post The Springboard Wardrobe appeared first on Put This On.

Yet, year after year, I find myself mostly relying on the same ones: Shetlands, sweatshirts, and occasionally a patterned knit or turtleneck for specific ensembles. Building a good knitwear wardrobe requires a little about knowing how quality is determined. Sometimes there are telltale signs, such as the lack of side seams, which will suggest that the manufacturer put in a bit more time and effort into making the garment (which, in turn, may also suggest that the materials are higher quality and less likely to pill). But the quality of knitwear is mostly read off the brand’s reputation. Cheap knits from Zara will be obviously bad; higher-end Scottish knits are almost always good. The rest will be about the design and how well something works for your wardrobe. Like a lot of things regarding clothes, there’s a bit of wisdom about relying on basics, but then also some wisdom about finding unique things that simply work for you and your wardrobe.

If you’re shopping around for some knits this season, here are some that I’ve found useful, going in descending order of importance. For more basic sweater shopping tips, see our five tips on how to buy better knitwear and our post on how to spot quality.

The Very Versatile Shetland

In the far north, off the coast of Scotland, lie the Shetland Islands. These thinly populated islands have plenty of pasture, which farmers use to raise short-tailed sheep. This is where we get Shetland wool, a sturdy, lightweight, slightly prickly fiber that’s typically plucked, not shorn, and then firmly spun into yarn before being transformed into garments. Shetland tweed is known for its insulating qualities. Shetland sweaters are famous for their durability. In the old days, women here used to knit sweaters in the home, which is why Shetland sweaters often came with the strong smell of smoked fish.

Sometime around the early 1900s, Brooks Brothers imported these sweaters and sold them through their New York City store. This is how they eventually made it into the American dress canon. Classically, Shetland sweaters are paired with flat-front chinos and tweed sport coats, but in the 1970s, university students started pairing them with five-pocket cords and mountain parkas. Today, they can be worn with almost anything, so long as your outfit calls for a sweater. The only downside is that they’re quite scratchy, which is why you’ll need to layer it over a long-sleeved shirt (preferably a collared shirt).

Shetland sweaters are a great starting place for building a quality knitwear wardrobe. For one, they’re harder wearing and more affordable than cashmere. Being that they’re so lofty and textured, they’re visually more interesting than plain merinos. Most importantly, a Shetland sweater can stay in your wardrobe even as your taste evolves in unexpected directions. You can wear one with waxed cotton Barbours, heavy topcoats, French chore coats, milsurp field jackets, and offbeat workwear. That’s partly why they’ve shown up everywhere — from Brooks Brothers to Dries Van Noten, everyone can use a textured sweater. Get one in a color that contrasts with most of your trousers: blue or brown if you wear grey flannel trousers, or grey if you prefer blue jeans.

Options: Harley’s, O’Connell’s, Anglo Italian, Junior’s, J. Press, Drake’s, Jaimeson’s, Wythe, Trunk Clothiers, Anderson & Sheppard, Kingsman, Aspesi, Howlin, William Lockie, Laurence J. Smith, and Genuine Scottish Knits

A Reliable Sweatshirt

The internet is full of stylish and inspirational photos of well-dressed men walking around various fashion weeks, clothing showrooms, and far away places. Many of these men are dressed in impeccably tailored suits, avant-garde casualwear, and hard-to-find vintage. But when I think of more relatable style heroes, I think of guys like Andrew Chen, the co-founder of 3sixteen. Andrew has been in the clothing business forever. Still, he has always relied on a fairly simple uniform: heavy denim, plaid flannel shirts, white t-shirts, boots, sneakers, and sturdy cotton sweatshirts.

Andrew tells me that he likes cotton sweatshirts and hoodies partly because he finds wool knitwear too itchy against bare skin. Additionally, as a father of two young boys, cotton sweats are easy to care for, machine washable, and suit a busy lifestyle. “Except for outerwear, my clothes are things that can be thrown into the wash,” says Andrew. “The boots you see here, I don’t think I’ve wiped them down even once. The only time they’ve gotten any care was when they went in for a resoling. I don’t like babying my stuff.” This is the kind of practical clothing that our writer Pete has recommended for fathers.

When I’m in jeans, chinos, or fatigues, I often reach for something sturdy and dependable: a grey cotton sweatshirt that I know I can easily machine wash. Last year, when I found that my J. Crew sweatshirt had a small hole near the collar, I just patched it up. As Andrew notes, the key is finding clothes that fit well (having a bit of good outerwear helps, as well). If you wear jeans at all, I recommend at least getting one good cotton sweatshirt. The first one should be grey, the most versatile color, although I find collegiate colors such as pine, burgundy, navy, and black also to be useful.

Naturally, many people may be wondering what’s the difference between a ~$150 sweatshirt and something that you can find for ~$50. Some of this will be in the detailing, such as some having a loopwheeled construction (which is an older way of making these garments). Some of this will be in the quality of the materials. My Buzz Rickson sweatshirt, for example, is nice and dense, and doesn’t stretch out as easily as the one I bought from J. Crew. It also has a “vintage” fit that I like, which is slightly boxy and short. I think it goes well with the kind of boots, jeans, and jackets I like to wear. In the end, however, you just need to find something that fits you well and works for your budget. If you find that your sweatshirt stretches out easily, throw it in the wash and put it in the dryer to shrink it back to shape. The color might dull from being in the dryer so much, but … it’s a sweatshirt. These look better beat up.

Options: 3sixteen, J. Crew, Buzz Rickson, Unrecorded, Blank Expression, Levi’s Vintage Clothing, Sunspel, Reigning Champ, National Athletic Goods, RRL, Velva Sheen, Camber, Camoshita, Ikiji, The Real McCoys, Strike Gold, Todd Snyder x Champion, Lady White, Uniqlo, Ebbets Field Flannels, Aime Leon Dore, and Wythe. Also, don’t forget to check-in with vintage shops, such as Wooden Sleepers, Velour, and Raggedy Threads. They often have very cool, beat-up vintage pieces that have a lot more character (all three of those stores can take phone orders).

A Second or Third Textured Knit

To the degree there’s still a male uniform in the United States, it’s the dress shirt with a pair of dark jeans and a smooth merino knit. It’s the final outfit for men who don’t wear tailored jackets – the thing they can use to go to churches, offices, and other conservative settings without fear of drawing unwanted attention. It’s the thing your mother wanted you to wear when it came time to have your yearbook portrait taken. And likely what many men will wear next month to Thanksgiving dinner.

The uniform persists for a reason. Shallow v-necks with dress collars underneath frame the face in a way that t-shirts can’t, and the combination gives a vague sense of formality without actually being formal. The look is nearly failsafe, but it’s also devoid of personality. A finely knit sweater in plain navy or gray is about as good of a candidate as any for a menswear staple, but I find I rarely wear mine.

Instead, I think knitwear looks better when it’s textured. Along with the Shetlands mentioned earlier, there are countless options: cream-colored Arans, beautifully twisted cables, flecked Donegals, lower-gauge knits, and various designer options. You can pair these with a Barbour jacket, field coat, leather bomber, chore coat, or parka. They look great sitting above a pair of grey flannels, five-pocket cords, or jeans. And much like how a solid-colored grenadine can be worn with almost anything, I find textured sweaters to be easier to wear than patterned ones (although, those are great too). Textured sweaters lend visual interest to plain colored jackets, but help tone down the look of more complicated designs.

After you have a Shetland sweater, consider getting one or two other textured knits. The Armoury and SNS Herning offer unique basketweave and moss-stitched sweaters. Inis Meain, Colhay’s, Drake’s, and our sponsor Proper Cloth have luxurious Arans. Vintage stores and trad boutiques, such as Wooden Sleepers, Velour, and O’Connell’s, often have vintage or deadstock Arans that are a bit more textured than machine-knit varities (call to inquire). This Blurhms has a beautiful, hairy surface. One of my favorite sweaters is a cream-colored A Kind of Guise knit with a chunky zig-zag pattern. That design has been long sold out, but don’t be afraid of going a little outside the box. In staple colors such as cream, navy, and grey, a solid-colored knit should be reasonably versatile if it’s textured.

Options: Proper Cloth, Colhay’s, Genuine Scottish Knits, The Armoury, Scott & Charters, William Lockie, SNS Herning, O’Connell’s, Blurhms, Inis Meain, Glad Hand, Christian Kimber, Andersen-Andersen, 3sixteen, RRL, Inverallan, Howlin, LL Bean, Aime Leon Dore, and John Smedley

Possibly a Patterned Knit

Here’s where we get specialized. Patterned sweaters can be as classic or trendy as you desire, depending on their motifs. Certain patterns are completely unassailable and can be worn with nearly any classic ensemble. I love LL Bean’s Norweigan knit, for example, with five-pocket cords and oxford cloth button-downs. They add a bit of visual interest when layered underneath a waxed cotton Barbour. Others, such as Nordic and Fair Isles, can look great during the holiday season, whether worn with jeans or flannel trousers. Jaimeson’s makes handsome, traditional Fair Isles. J. Crew is also a good source for these sorts of things if you want something that rides the thin line between classic and contemporary.

Take a look at the photo of Jonathan Edwards above, which Jamie Ferguson shot for his wonderful book This Guy (a great holiday gift, by the way). Although Edwards has a suede cafe racer draped over his arm, you can see how much the sweater adds to his outfit. It’s a chunky Ralph Lauren turtleneck with a Southwestern pattern, which can be worn with something as simple as a baseball cap and some jeans. A plain merino crewneck just wouldn’t have the same effect. Ralph Lauren is great for these sorts of things. They have everything from Fair Isles to Polo bear knits to various iterations of their iconic flag sweater. Shortly after the attacks on September 11th, the company released a special edition sweater as a tribute to first responders and this country’s resilience.

For something a little more offbeat, our sponsor Rowing Blazers recently re-released two sweaters that Princess Diana made famous in the 1980s: a black sheep sweater and her kitschy “I’m a Luxury.” Both were made in collaboration with the knitwear designers who originally made them, Gyles & George and Warm & Wonderful’s Joanna Osborne and Sally Mui. I have a black version of this Chamula flag knit, which I wear every Fourth of July and every chance I get during an election year. And I still covet this Palace x Ralph Lauren Polo bear sweater, although the resale price is prohibitive.

Patterned knits can be dicey, and the right motif will depend on the rest of your wardrobe. These aren’t the first knits I would buy, but they can make for a fun addition down the road.

Options: Rowing Blazers, Jaimeson’s, J. Crew, Chamula, Bryceland’s, LL Bean, Drake’s, Ralph Lauren, Isabel Marant, and Aime Leon Dore

Maybe a Turtleneck

In 1996, Tom Junod wrote a piece for GQ Magazine, which was nominated for a National Magazine Award. Simply titled “My Father’s Fashion Tips,” it was about his father’s impeccable style, as well as the opinions of a man who felt strongly about clothes. The article is a wonderful read, but the best part is his father’s unwavering confidence that a turtleneck is the most flattering thing a man can wear – an inflexible and enduring axiom that, Tom writes, his father believed in more than the existence of God. “The turtleneck is the most flattering thing a man can wear because it strips a man down to himself – because it forces a man to project himself,” he wrote. “The turtleneck does not decorate, like a tie, or augment, like a sport coat, or in any way distract from what my father calls a man’s ‘presentation;’ rather, it fits a man in sharp relief and puts his face on a pedestal – first literally, then figuratively. It is about isolation, the turtleneck is; it is about essences and first causes; it is about the body and the face, and that’s all it’s about; and when worn by Lou Junod, it is about Lou Junod.”

I’m not as pro-turt as Lou Junod, but I’m a cautious fan of the style. If you want to know how the turtleneck is commonly viewed today, don’t turn to the trimly militant one Steve McQueen wore as a sleuth in the 1968 thriller Bulliet. Or ones Richard Roundtree paired with long leather coats in Shaft. Instead, look to more modern references. The turtleneck is at the center of countless comedy scenes, including ones from SNL, Seinfeld, Dinner for Smucks, and Will Ferrell’s parody of the 1970s. When hip hop star Drake danced to the beat of his own drum machine in “Hotline Bling,” he was mocked not only for his awkward dad-moves, but also the slouchy gray lambswool knit that came up to his beard.

Still, turtlenecks can be a great way to dress down a sport coat, as the raised neckline helps make up for the lack of a necktie. I also think that chunky turtlenecks look great with any outerwear that has a contrasting collar — a Lee’s Storm Rider, a bomber with a sherpa-lined collar, or even a mountain parka that shows a contrasting color on the reverse. See Peter Zottolo, George Wang, and Tony Sylvester for some great turt-inspiration. “A turtleneck is the sweater equivalent of a collared shirt; it frames your face,” says Peter. “Once you think of it that way, it’s easy to see ways to pair one. Bulky Arans or other thick knits go naturally with stout outerwear, such as a Melton topcoat or plaid Ulster. Smaller-gauge ones look fantastic with casual suits, and you can’t beat a beefy navy or grey turtleneck with a pair of jeans. I like the practicality of turtlenecks. When it’s cold, you could pop on a crewneck and scarf, but a turtleneck is both.”

The key is getting the right weight. Not only do chunky turtlenecks wear much warmer, but they have a vaguely rugged, Maine Guy attitude. By contrast, thinner turtlenecks are better for when you’re indoors and around central heating, but they also exude a certain bohemian, intelligentsia energy. Get one that suits your lifestyle, personality, and wardrobe. Mark Cho of The Armoury recommends that you can always wear a shorter turtleneck if you’re unsure of the style. “I like to roll mine as far as I can, to the point where I’m doubling over the turtleneck, and it almost looks like a mock neck,” he says. “I wear them with a shirt, such that the collar is peeking out a bit, but not so much that the collar points are popping out.” Heimat’s rollnecks work well, too.

Options: Proper Cloth, Colhay’s, Heimat, Caruso, Anglo Italian, Bryceland’s, Inis Meain, Doppiaa, Drake’s, Berg & Berg, Rubato, William Lockie, John Smedley, Full Count, Orvis, and Orgueil

A Shawl Collar Cardigan (Mostly for Home)

OK. You have a Shetland, a sweatshirt, and one or two more textured knits in staple colors such as navy, brown, or grey. You may also have a patterned knit that you wear on occasion, and a turtleneck you’re not sure about, but like to wear anyway. For a subsequent purchase, consider a chunky shawl collar cardigan.

Shawl collar cardigans can be found in almost any mall or clothing boutique nowadays. But the best ones often have a thicker collar that drapes like a wrap-around neck pillow or a doughy roll. In cashmere, they’re wildly expensive — often over $1,000. In lambswool, they hover between $250 and $500. These tend to be costly, but you’d be hard-pressed to find something so insulating and comfortable to wear around the home. You can wear one over an oxford cloth button-down, a t-shirt, or even a thin turtleneck (layering knitwear is a great move). They can be paired with everything from jeans to chinos to grey flannel trousers. You can also get slightly contemporary with it. In some of the photos above, you can see how Greg Lellouche of No Man Walks Alone pairs a dark brown Scott & Charters cardigan with brown trousers and a brown scarf. A similar NMWA lookbook photo shows a man lounging at home in a black cardigan, charcoal trousers, and a mid-gray shirt.

Chunky shawl collar cardigans are especially useful this time of year for holiday parties (at least during those years when such gatherings are safe). If you’re hosting an at-home party or going to one, you can wear a chunky shawl collar knit instead of a tailored jacket. It will look more inviting and friendly; less dressed up. At the same time, the chunky collar helps frame your face better than a standalone crewneck or v-neck sweater. I mostly wear mine at home, although Dehnen 1920, RRL, Kanata, and Chamula have hardier, denser cardigans that can be worn outside like a jacket.

Options: Rowing Blazers, The Armoury, Drake’s, Todd Snyder x Drake’s, Scott & Charters, Colhay’s, Spier & Mackay, Kent Wang, Cordings, Orgueil, Campbell’s of Beauly, Winston & Company, O’Connell’s, Dehen 1920, Chamula, Kanata, RRL, Todd Snyder, and Zanone.

The Surprisingly Useful Solid Black Sweater

In the 1959 book Try for Elegance, which centers around a men’s clothing shop based on Brooks Brothers, a man asks for a black sweater and is given a disapproving glare by the protagonist. Among Ivy Style traditionalists, black is verboten for anything beyond leather shoes and matching belts. But when asked about it in The Rake, Alan Flusser said: “Black can be very chic, and guys who are into tradition are generally not into chic.”

I’ve found black to be a tremendously useful color for knitwear, although it’s true that it plays better with contemporary wardrobes than traditional ones. Black knits are chic and sophisticated. They look better at night, when you might actually need a sweater. And they provide an excellent neutral background for coats and jackets in dusty olives, faded tans, and stone grays. In fact, you often see them use in runway shows and lookbook presentations because of how they help highlight a good piece of outerwear.

Whenever I’m not sure what kind of sweater to layer under a jacket, I usually reach for a slightly textured, black Our Legacy knit. It goes well underneath tan suede cafe racers, olive bomber jackets, French chore coats, grey topcoats, and even black leather jackets. A deep black, cotton sweatshirt goes great with any olive or brown military-style outerwear. A more refined, black cashmere crewneck sweater can be a base for smarter tonal outfits. 3sixteen has a black sweater this season made with a half cardigan stitch, which has a bit more body and a touch of texture. It would go well across a range of wardrobes. A black Shetland would also work in the same ways. 

This effect is similar to the one seen here on our friend Peter, who pairs a black Western shirt with black jeans and a tan suede Ralph Lauren trucker jacket. See how the jacket pops against the black background. Black dress shirts can be dicey, as they can make you look like a prom date or cruise ship magician. But black knitwear is surprisingly useful.

Options: Proper Cloth, Unrecorded, 3sixteen, Aime Leon Dore, Margaret Howell, Drake’s, John Smedley, Todd Snyder, J. Crew, and Jamieson’s

The post A Basic Guide To Useful Knitwear appeared first on Put This On.

About thirteen years ago, Carlo Brandelli, then-Creative Director of Kilgour, bragged to the Financial Times that his new Unstructured line felt featherlight while also retaining the elegance of British tailoring. “I wanted to wear a jacket all day at work, but the usual heavy, stiff, and fully-lined kind just isn’t comfortable,” he explained. “You need the heritage of tailoring know-how in order to do lightness with structure. It’s just that no one on Savile Row has really tried it before.”

The thing is, it has been tried before — countless times. In 1919, Frederick Scholte became the tailor to Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor. As one of the earliest menswear “influencers,” the Duke helped set the direction for men’s style over the course of the next hundred years. Scholte also trained Per Anderson, one of the founders of Anderson & Sheppard and a celebrated practitioner of the English Drape. Together, Scholte and Anderson & Sheppard dressed some of the most stylish men of their time. Since the 1990s, Anderson & Sheppard expats such as Steed of Savile Row have carried the soft-tailoring torch.

Today, soft tailoring is the default around the world. Vincenzo Attolini famously took the stuffing out of his jackets when he worked as the head cutter at Rubinacci. His innovation soon became a style signature for the region. Over in the United States, trad shops such as Brooks Brothers and J. Press are known for their hook vents and natural shoulders. And today, you can find deconstructed jackets from Boglioli (Italy), Sid Mashburn (the United States), P. Johnson (Australia), and Saman Amel (Sweden). Some of these jackets are so lightweight, they’d disappear if you removed another layer.

Sof tailoring promises to be more comfortable, casual, and modern. Many men gravitate towards it because they want tailored clothing without any of the stiff ceremony. But there are different types of soft tailoring, and not everyone looks good with a mushy shoulder line. So when is soft too soft? When would you benefit from having a bit of structure? To understand this, it helps to review how tailored clothing is made.

Unlike most casualwear, tailoring is typically made from multiple layers of material. You have the shell fabric on the outside, such as the tweed, wool flannel, or linen that you can directly see and touch. On the inside, you’ll find a canvas or fusible, which is used to stabilize the front (without this backing, the front of your jacket would hang like a loose, open shirt). Then there’s a chest piece made from haircloth or wrapped haircloth — a technical term for a stiff material made from horsetail strands — that extends from your shoulders to the bottom of your rib cage. Across the shoulder line, you may have a pad or some wadding. Finally, you have a layer of domette, which is a fluffy material used to prevent the wiry horsehair from poking through. If there are cuts in the canvas, a tailor may even put patches in these areas to give them support. In the end, that’s a lot of cloth.

When a jacket is described as soft, that means one or more of these layers has been removed. It may not have any padding, wadding, or haircloth. The canvas could also be lighter. This is what gives the jacket a softer, more casual feel.

On the other hand, a softer jacket may be challenging to fit, as the layers inside generally help “smooth” out the surface. No Man Walks Alone’s new tailoring line with Sartoria Carrara, for example, isn’t made with any shoulder padding. However, the canvas stretches over on top of the shoulder, and sitting on top of the canvas is a layer of domette felt. “When developing this line, we recognized the limitations of having zero structure from years of selling Eidos suits that only fit 25% of men,” says No Man Walks Alone co-founder Greg Lellouche. “Adding a layer of domette to the shoulder helps bring that percentage up to 80% or so. I’m shocked at how well the collar and shoulder fit on a wide array of guys, while still keeping with a very light shoulder construction.”

There’s another benefit of having some structure in a jacket: it gives the silhouette some shape. When a jacket is made with very little structure, it tends to hang like casual outerwear. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it looks like a chore coat or trucker jacket. But depending on the coat has been cut and constructed, the shoulder seams generally have to sit right at your shoulder bone. The chest may also sit close to your chest. Sometimes this can look good on certain figures — often men with broad shoulders and narrow waist. But sometimes it’s not very flattering, as it can make your torso look like a tube, or worse, a pear.

Let’s look at some softly tailored jackets with different degrees of structure inside. The above is The Armoury’s exclusive Model 3 from Ring Jacket, a tailoring factory based in Japan. The Armoury’s Model 3 is uber soft. If you picked it up, you’d think it was made from nothing but the shell fabric alone. However, inside is a lightweight canvas that extends into the shoulder line and a soft chest piece. By using just a little bit of material, The Armoury can extend the shoulder line and give the chest some structure. The result is a more flattering V-shaped figure. “We find that it fits almost any body type,” says Max Papier, The Armoury’s Content Manager and Brand Strategist. “If you have narrow shoulders, the extended shoulder line will help build that V-shape. If you have broad shoulders, your natural shoulders will fill that space.”

Here’s Simon Crompton of Permanent Style wearing a jacket from Sartoria Solito, a family-owned tailoring company based in Naples, Italy. Solito is one of the softest tailoring companies in the region. Their suit jackets and sport coats use a full canvas, lightweight chest piece, and a one-ply shoulder pad. By adding the pad, Solito can smooth out the shoulder line. On Simon’s jacket pictured above, you can see how the chest piece adds a bit of shaping. The chest looks a bit rounder and more sculpted.

Luigi Solito, the son in the family, tells me that he doesn’t like extending the shoulder line because he doesn’t feel like a one-ply shoulder pad gives enough support. On Simon’s jacket above, you can see how the shoulder seams sit closer to his natural shoulder joints. In the previous section, the man wearing The Armoury’s Model 3 is putting his hands in his pockets, which is distorting the silhouette. However, you can see how the shoulder ends droop a little because they only use a canvas (no shoulder pad). This is the trade-off if you want an uber-soft jacket with an extended shoulder line.

You can see this effect over time. The man on the left is Mariano Rubinacci, the head of the Rubinacci tailoring house in Naples. At the time this photo was taken, his tan Solaro suit was many years old. Over that period, from sheer wearing and dry cleaning, the ends of his shoulder line have started to collapse. The drooping you see is the difference between his natural shoulder (at the joint) and the end of his jacket’s shoulder (which is supported by just a soft pad). George Wang, who runs the Beijing-based menswear shop BRIO, once told me that he thinks this look charming and helps make a suit look more casual. I also don’t mind the effect, but some tailors feel it looks sloppy.

Here we have Steed, a British firm that specializes in something known as English Drape. English Drape is a form of soft tailoring, although not as soft as what you’ll find in Naples. By default, Steed uses a full canvas, a heavier chest piece, and a 1.5 ply shoulder pad. The result is something that looks a lot more shapely. Instead of conforming to your body, Steed jackets feel roomier, almost as though they’re hovering around you. The chest seems a lot more sculpted. The shoulder line is much straighter. Depending on how you want the jacket cut, the shoulder can be extended a little further without collapsing. 

You can really see that shaping on Instagram user baoweizhi99. The chest here looks much rounder and more sculpted than the other examples above. At the same time, in other IG photos, you can see how the jacket also looks very soft and relaxed. Compared to stiffer jackets from Huntsman or Richard Anderson, Steed is still very soft. But their jackets also give you the illusion of a more athletic figure.

Tom Ford is the opposite of soft tailoring. Inspired by 1970s tailoring houses such as Tommy Nutter, Tom Ford’s suits are sharp and shapely. They feature a lot more padding through the shoulder line and a ton of haircloth in the chest. As a result, you can achieve a sharper, more angular, and more sculpted silhouette. In the photo above, you can see Idris Elba wearing one of the designer’s creations, the O’Connor two-piece suit. Elba already has a natural V-shaped figure, so some of this can be attributed to his figure. But notice how rounded the chest looks. That’s thanks in part to the heavy use of haircloth. 

This isn’t to say that some people don’t look tremendous in soft shoulders. When I met up with Patrick Johnson some years ago, he handed me his jacket so I could look at the interior construction. His company makes suits and sport coats in various construction techniques, but the softest line wears almost like a shirt jacket. I think the style suits him partly because of his figure (a lean man with broader shoulders) and demeanor (there’s just something very cool and easygoing about Patrick).

Luigi Solito also wears a softer shoulder line than what he makes for many of his clients. In the photo above, it looks like he’s wearing a suit that’s thinly padded, but in some of his garments, there’s nothing but canvas and domette. Luigi tells me he prefers a softer shoulder because his natural shoulders are a bit square. Heavy padding would make him look like Frankenstein’s monster.

Over at Drake’s, you can find a fully unlined and unstructured jacket that they call their Games suit. It’s made with three patch pockets, a five-button front, and peak lapels. The jacket wears a bit short, has puckered seams, and is machine-washable. It’s a much more casual take on tailoring — perhaps better described as casualwear than anything that approaches a suit. In their lookbooks and on Jason Jules at the top of this post, it looks tremendous. But soft construction will often look better on men who have broad shoulders or a certain way about them.

No jacket construction will work for everyone. A lot depends on your body type, taste, and lifestyle. The best way to know if a jacket looks good on you is by putting it on. However, by training your eye for the nuances in a jacket’s silhouette, you can start to better judge whether you benefit from having a bit more structure in your life. 

(photos via Drake’s, Black Lapel, Jeffery Diduch, Linnégatan 2, J. Crew, The Armoury, Permanent Style, The Rake, Baoweizhi, Tom Ford, P. Johnson, and Sartoria Solito)

The post How To Tell If Soft Tailoring Is Right For You appeared first on Put This On.

Last week, Simon Crompton published a post on how he’d shop on a budget. Simon’s blog, Permanent Style, focuses on the upper-most tier of luxury men’s clothing — bespoke suits from Savile Row, accessories from Hermes, and ready-to-wear from the likes of Loro Piana. So it wasn’t that surprising to see that, on his list of “affordable” menswear, Simon suggested a relatively more modest $10,000 Cartier watch and saving up for just one bespoke overcoat, rather than splurging on three.

In my years writing about men’s clothing, I’ve learned that affordability is the third rail of blog topics. Budgets are relative, and thus contentious. If I had a dollar for every time someone sent me an angry email over something I called affordable, I could buy maybe one item on Simon’s list.

That said, Put This On has always been geared towards a broader audience. And one that, I think, hews closer to my income level (I do not own any $10k watches). So, I thought it would be worthwhile to think of how I’d shop on a budget — a budget considerably smaller than Simon’s.

Focus On Building A Base

Most guys go into this process thinking that they need to build towards some ultimate wardrobe — they need a navy suit, pair of black oxfords, ten white dress shirts, and so forth, which they assume they’ll keep forever. We think most guys need a suit, but instead of over-investing in whatever you think will be your “forever wardrobe,” build a base that allows you to develop a personal sense of style. It’s very likely that your taste will rapidly evolve over these next few years. Go into this open-minded and take the time to explore.

A pair of suede chukkas, for example, can be worn with Americana, prep, tailoring, and more forward-facing casualwear. This allows you to explore different areas without having to reinvent your wardrobe every time. In five years, you may find that you still like wearing a navy sport coat with flannel trousers, in which case you can still wear those chukkas. But if in five years, you find that you prefer Engineered Garments and Orslow, those chukkas will still work.

Build this base quickly and keep it small. Use it as a springboard to explore, and slowly develop a wardrobe over some years with considered choices. Allow yourself room to experiment — buy that strange jacket, if you’d like. Or stay close to things that you’ve found works for you. But think of this process more about honing your taste. The times I’ve interviewed well-dressed men about what they wear most, few people name the kind of “essentials” seen on every “how to dress well” guide.

Think Of Clothing As Social Language

When you’re just starting, the idea of dressing well can be somewhat nebulous. Your first set of purchases, maybe going into the first couple of years, will be full of naive and poorly informed decisions because you’re just starting to learn a kind of visual language. You may purchase a pair of purple jeans and canary yellow pants because you thought they looked colorful and fun, but later realize … they’re purple jeans and canary yellow pants. You may also run in the opposite direction, buying everything deemed classic and timeless because you assume that means they’re unimpeachable.

You’ll make mistakes, but to limit the number made, focus on developing your eye. Think of clothing as social language. There’s some art to this, and you need room for personal expression, but a lot of what makes an outfit work is about how it connects to some other part of culture — classic Italian tailoring, the 1970s rock ’n roll look, revitalized ’80s prep, and so forth. You don’t have to dress in costume, but understanding how to express yourself using already established visual language will allow you to make better shopping choices.

Also, be realistic about what works for your budget and lifestyle. There’s so much possibility when it comes to men’s style, don’t get hung up on just one aesthetic. If you want to dress like some Italian magnate, it will be hard to do that on a budget. But workwear? Pretty easy.

As you develop your sense of dress, pay attention to art, music, films, TV, history, sport, and other areas of culture. Read about Mods and preps and Armani and Helmut Lang. Learn how to think about color and how to read formality in tailored clothing. Read our guides on how to build a casual wardrobe and how to do business casual without looking like a schmuck. We also have a post on how to put together a successful outfit. Save photos that inspire you (Instagram and Pinterest can be useful resources). Our onboarding page is designed to help you get started towards building a better wardrobe.

Stick To Ready-To-Wear

Here’s where I diverge from Simon, who encourages his readers to shop for custom clothing, even if they’re on a budget. The idea is that custom-made clothing fits better than ready-to-wear, and you’d be better served by getting something good at the outset.

I have less experience with custom clothing than Simon, but I’d like to think that I have some. I’ve used big-name makers (e.g., Anderson & Sheppard, GJ Cleverley), as well as smaller firms (e.g., Steed, Napoli Su Musira, Solito, Ascot Chang, Nicholas Templeman). I enjoy getting things custom made, but I’ve also found that the bespoke process is fraught with potential pitfalls.

It’s beyond the scope fo this post, but the simple issue is that things rarely turn out the way you expect, and finding a good maker is extremely difficult (going to a big name firm doesn’t get you out of this problem). In my years writing about bespoke clothing, I find that horror stories are often hidden from public view. They’re traded privately through email, or told over dinner, rather than posted online. It may be that the tailor isn’t very good, or that the customer doesn’t like the house style. I’ll save this for another post, but suffice to say: you’re better off thinking of bespoke not as getting some magical, top-of-the-pyramid item, but like trying a restaurant. Ever step into a fancy restaurant and leave unimpressed or even disappointed? Bespoke is like that, but a lot more expensive. Sometimes things turn out great; sometimes, they don’t. Custom clothing can be very rewarding, but I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who’s thinking about budgets.

Few people can’t fit into ready-to-wear with some alterations. Plus, ready-to-wear has one tremendous advantage: you can put it back on the rack if you don’t like it. Bespoke is useful if you enjoy the process and are obsessive about specific details — and you’re willing to pay through the nose. The only exception is made-to-measure shirts, which are often easier to get right than suits and sport coats but don’t cost that much more than their ready-made counterparts.

Know Where to Splurge

The centerpiece of almost any ensemble tends to be outermost layer. It’s what people see most easily, and what covers up everything else underneath. This means, if you splurge on outerwear and knitwear, you can often get away with spending little on everything else. It’s also worth stretching the wallet a little more for good shoes. When you have good shoes, they’ll look better with wear, whereas with cheap shoes, you’ll want to bin them after a year.

If you have to cut back on one of those three, know how to make strategic decisions. A cheap grey cotton sweatshirt can be just as useful as plain merino knit, but it’s easier to wash and can be had for little money. If you can’t afford $200 Meermins, don’t get cheap, corrected grain leather shoes. Buy a pair of basic canvas sneakers — plain white Supergas, Chuck Taylors, or Jack Purcells. If you really need leather dress shoes, go for suede, which is often better on the lower end of the market than smooth calf.

The rest can be had for a lot less money. Gustin has raw denim jeans for about $70; Spier & MacKay has button-up shirts starting at $50. Uniqlo is good for almost any kind of wardrobe basic. Even after all these years, I still mostly wear Hanes’ grey socks with my casualwear. They’re like ten bucks for a pack of a billion.

Shop Used Where You Can

Look, we get it. Some people are understandably squeamish about buying second-hand clothing. If it makes you feel better, the world is full of germs, and nearly none that matter will survive a trip to the dry cleaner or a run through your washing machine. And if you buy something second-hand, you’ll want to clean it first before putting it in your closet (just in case it has moth eggs).

Not only is shopping second-hand more affordable and better for the planet, but vintage items often just look cooler. It can be hard to shop for vintage suits because of the particularities in getting the fit right. But certain things are a no-brainer: regimental ties, peacoats, milsurp, chore coats, leather belts, bags, and cufflinks are often better on the used market. Unless you’re shopping at the very high-end of the market, a beat-up, 1980s era Levi’s trucker jacket will look cooler than most things you can find brand spanking new. (Although, I prefer vintage Lee’s to Levi’s).

Check our guide for how to thrift for menswear. We also have a post on how to thrift from the comfort of your couch. Ebay, Etsy, and Grailed are among the many sites these days where you can get great clothes at a fraction of their retail price. We do two eBay roundups per week, and send out a special newsletter to subscribers.

Know What Can Be Altered

You’d be surprised what you can achieve on a budget if you have a good alterations tailor. The trick is finding a good one (we have tips). Also, know what are your particular fit issues, so you’re in a better position to figure out how to solve them.

You may find, for example, that suits and sport coats consistently exhibit a collar gap on you. Perhaps that gap is a result of your shoulders being too square or sloped, or maybe you stand with a different posture than what the coat was cut for. By figuring out your particular fit issues, you can buy better stuff off-the-rack and know what can be altered.

Check our guides on alterations. You should also review our guides on fit and silhouettes, which will give you a foundation for knowing when something is worth purchasing. Always be careful of going too slim. Be honest about what looks good on you in the end.

Shop in the Mid-Tier

I’ve learned over the years that the best purchases are the ones where you just buy the thing you want — even if it means ponying up a little more than you wanted to spend initially. You’ll often get the most value out of something if you love wearing it.

But when you’re starting and don’t yet have a strong view on things, it’s often better to shop in the mid-tier. The main difference between Meermin, Crockett & Jones, and Edward Green is about aesthetics. Until you have a strong view on brogues, chukkas, and penny loafers, however, shopping in the mid-tier allows you to make a mistake without it being finically ruinous. Plus, while quality correlates to price, it certainly doesn’t correlate to price directly. Should you decide to sell your stuff later, you’ll also get a higher percentage of your money back on mid-tier purchases. Oh, and learn how to sell your old clothes. Regular closet cleaning is a good way to minimize your expenditures.

Be Careful With Deal Hunting

The thing about good deal hunting is that you can’t think of what you’re doing as deal hunting. Don’t buy something just because it’s on sale. Don’t always look for the lowest-priced item. Beware of outlets, which these days are often just stocking lower quality lines made especially for them. It can be tough to resist that orange cashmere sweater marked from $490 to $49 – that’s 90% off. But how valuable is an orange cashmere sweater to you?

A good way to avoid lousy impulse shopping is to plan ahead. Think about what you need for the year and pay attention to what stores are carrying before things go on sale. Consider what you’ve been wearing and where you’d like to take your wardrobe. If you have to attend a wedding next year, start shopping for a suit now, rather than three months before the event. If you accept that you might not get something now, you can buy from a position of strength. As Jesse wrote years ago, “good, fast, cheap — pick two.”

Buy What’s Good

A lot of the above is to encourage you to make smarter, more financially responsible choices. Don’t immediately build out a large suit wardrobe if you haven’t yet worn suits for a while and know what works for you. Don’t feel the need to buy top-end items or even custom clothing when mid-tier ready-to-wear, and sometimes even vintage, can be better value for your money.

At the same time, know what’s good. I’ve found that sometimes the most costly items were the ones where I compromised. I bought something as a substitute for the thing I really wanted. And in the end, I just ended up buying that other thing anyway, while having to resell the original purchase at a loss. It’s also often better to have one good item that works, rather than five things that don’t work at all. Knowing what’s good is a skill — it takes time, knowledge, and experience to develop. But be intentional about it and learn what’s worth purchasing. KonMari doesn’t have to be just about tidying up; it can also be about knowing what you should acquire. Buy things that spark joy.

Start With These Basics

I hesitate to give a list since everyone has different needs, but for a generic starting wardrobe, I think it you could do worse than with the following:

A proper suit: Almost everyone needs a sincere suit. Get one in solid grey or navy, then all the things you need to wear with it, including a white spread collar shirt, white linen pocket square, and a dark tie (our sponsor Chipp sells reasonably affordable grenadines). Buy a pair of black oxfords if you wear suits often, dark brown derbies if you don’t.

Slim-straight, raw denim jeans: The foundation of most casual wardrobes these days. Raw denim often looks better over time than pre-washed or pre-distressed denim. The fading just has more character and looks more natural.

Grey sweatshirt: Inexpensive and useful. J. Crew and Camber are pretty inexpensive. Todd Snyder’s collaboration with Champion is nice, but a little more expensive. Like jeans, these are the sort of knock-around clothes that look better with wear and tear.

Light-blue, oxford-cloth button-downs: Get one with a proper collar. Brooks Brothers, J. Press, O’Connell’s, Spier & Mackay, Kamakura, Michael Spencer, and our sponsor Proper Cloth are all excellent options.

Versatile shoes: Get shoes that can do double-duty across a range of outfits. Brown derbies are on the slightly dressier side of the spectrum, but useful if you mainly find yourself in tailored clothing. Plain white sneakers are better if you find yourself mostly in casualwear. Chukkas, particularly in suede or pebble grain, sit somewhere in the middle. Avoid bright and unusual colors — tan included. Shoes are often easier to wear in subtle colors, such as dark brown for leather lace-ups or white for sneakers. We have a post on how to find affordable footwear (Meermin and searching for Ralph Lauren on eBay are among the best options).

Navy sport coat: The neti pot of tailored clothing. Most people could use a good one.

Grey flannel trousers: The navy sport coat of pants.

Shetland sweater: Possibly the most versatile sweater you can own. More textured than plain merino and more durable than cheap cashmere. In simple colors such as navy, dark brown, or mid-gray, these will work across a surprisingly wide range of outfits. Shetlands work just as well with oversized topcoats as they do with waxed cotton Barbours, slim tailored trousers or raw denim jeans, experimental outfits or stalwart classics.

Casual jacket: Get something basic at first to fill your wardrobe, then let your taste guide you. A good starting jacket could be a peacoat, an olive military surplus jacket, a waxed cotton Barbour Bedale or Beaufort, a brown cafe racer, or a wool topcoat. Some of these things can be had for fairly cheap at vintage stores, second-hand thrifts, and milsurp depots. We also have guides on affordable outerwear.

The post How To Shop On A Budget appeared first on Put This On.

In menswear, few things are hated as much as synthetics. Every time the topic comes up, someone always says how they’ll happily wear a synthetic, sweat-wicking shirt for workouts, but will shun non-natural fibers in other clothing. They know it’s irrational — synthetic fibers are obviously good for some things — but they just assume man-made fibers are a mark of poor quality.

But what are synthetics and what are they good for? In the world of artificial fibers, different materials are often used for different purposes. In fact, even if you’re a staunch natural-fiber partisan, you definitely have some synthetics in your closet. If not your outerwear (e.g. nylon raincoats, wind resistant shells, and parkas), then at least your underwear. Socks, boxers, and briefs all benefit from having a bit of stretch fiber in order to ensure they retain their shape and stay on your body.

So, here’s a rundown of the five most common synthetic fibers you’ll encounter. We cover the pros and cons of each, and end with a bit of common sense on how to judge quality in clothing.

Rayon

Of all synthetics, rayon should be the least controversial. In fact, some people don’t even consider it a true synthetic because it’s made from plant matter, but it goes through so many chemical processes, it’s often listed as artificial.

If you’re not familiar with the term rayon, you’ve definitely worn it. It’s the umbrella term for cupro, viscose, and modal. You may have also seen it in its trademarked form: Lyocell, Tencel, or, most famously, Bemberg. Those are trade names for different types of rayon, just like Kleenex is a trademarked name for a type of facial tissue.

Rayon is commonly used for linings, including those put into suits, sport coats, and tailored trousers. It’s a smooth, silky material that allows you to slide in and out of your garments easily. And it allows things such as jackets to not catch on your cotton shirts, so that the garment hangs properly. The material is so good that tailors switched out their silk linings for rayon ones generations ago. Silk linings don’t breathe well; they’re relatively delicate and expensive. Rayon, on the other hand, is affordable, doesn’t hold odors easily, and wears cool. This is why you’ll sometimes see it used for pajamas. Rayon has been favored as an alternative to silk for many cases since at least the 1920s.

When You Want Rayon: When you want the smoothness and drape of silk, but also want something that’s affordable, doesn’t hold odors easily, and wears cooler.

When You Don’t Want Rayon: Rayon can be a bit high-maintenance. Like silk, it typically requires hand-washing or dry cleaning. And you generally can’t iron it. On the upside, it sheds wrinkles easily (just hang the garment up overnight or, if you must, steam it).

Polyester

Nothing sounds worse than polyester clothing. Just the mere mention of it brings to mind all those sweaty and uncomfortable polyester suits during the 1970s (the ones in Saturday Night Fever? Yea, those were polyester).

But polyester was not always viewed with such disdain. In the period following WWII, polyester suits were considered techwear, like Nike’s ACG today. This was the era of the wash-and-wear suit, which blended man-made and natural fibers. As the story goes, one summer morning in 1946, while attending a conference in Florida, Joseph Haspel put on his suit and waded out into the Atlantic Ocean, all the way up to his neck. As stunned beachgoers looked on, Haspel returned to shore, went to his hotel room, and hung his suit up to dry. Hours later, he resurfaced as a dinner banquet wearing the same outfit, looking perfectly presentable and convincing attendees that such suits were the wave of the future.

A few years later, Dupont debuted a suit that was made of a fiber they called Dacron (which, for all intents and purposes, is a fancy name for polyester).  The suit had been worn for 67 days without a pressing. It had been dunked twice into a swimming pool and then machine washed. And to everyone’s surprise, it was still perfectly wearable. Hart Schaffner & Marx picked up the fiber in 1953 for a new line of Dacron-wool blend suits; Brooks Brothers began using the man-made fiber for shirts, soon following with suits.

All this was made possible because of polyester, which is hydrophobic (which means it repels water). It’s strong and flexible, resists wrinkling, and is machine washable. This is why you’ll often see polyester used for outerwear (Gore-Tex is an evolution of polyester). It’s also sometimes mixed with cotton to produce wrinkle-resistant shirts. And if a spinner is using a weak or fragile fiber, they’ll sometimes mix in a bit of polyester to strengthen a yarn.

At its worst, polyester clothes can look cheap and unnatural. When worn next to the skin, sometimes it’s not very breathable and can feel clammy. But technology has come a long way since polyester was first introduced, and much like fused suits — which are often said to bubble, even if modern ones rarely do — today’s version isn’t always deserving of its bad reputation. Microfibers, for example, are made from polyester and are often used in garments with great success. A lot depends on the specific yarn and how it’s used.

When You Want Polyester: Since the fiber is hydrophobic, it works great for outerwear and gym clothes. It’s water repellant and, depending the weave structure, can also be breathable. Nike’s Dri Fit fabric, for example, is made from a stretchy form of polyester. It keeps your skin dry when you’re working out, so you don’t get that clammy sensation of sweaty cotton sticking to your skin. Fleece outerwear, such as Patagonia’s Retro-X, is also made from polyester.

When You Want to Avoid Polyester: Polyester doesn’t always age that well, and depending on the fabric, it can make a garment look cheap. It’s also subject to static and mildew. Generally speaking, for men’s clothing, you should be fine with polyester if it’s in outerwear or gym clothes. If you see polyester blended with a natural fiber for something else, maybe be a bit more suspicious. It may be that they’re using the material to strength a less-than-great, short staple yarn.

Elastane

The Atlantic has a great article this month by Amanda Mull, which talks about how jean manufacturers have been smuggling spandex into their clothes and marketing them as masculine to gender-sensitive men. “For something as innocuous as slightly less restrictive pants, stretch jeans have caused a lot of hand-wringing among men’s-fashion types over the past couple of years,” she wrote. “Much of it is bound up in what constitutes an appropriate performance of manhood, and whether suffering for fashion, something long considered a feminine burden, is something masculinity requires.” An excerpt:

There are two main ways that clothing companies have chosen to rebrand sitting comfortably as an activity for men. The first is recoding stretch denim as an aid in athletic performance, even though modern fashion jeans aren’t intended to be worn for anything resembling exercise. It’s difficult to parse what kind of rapid motion Banana Republic expects its customers to undertake in Rapid Movement denim, for example, but evoking ideas of athleticism is a common tactic for brands trying to make a case to men for a historically feminine product, according to Ben Barry, the chair of the Ryerson School of Fashion. Invoking athleticism also helps conjure the comfort and ease of athleisure, which is used in other parts of men’s fashion—dress shoes with flexible, cushioned soles, for example—to promise buyers a more casual experience in disguise. […]

The other idea that marketers have invoked to bring men over to the dark side of stretch pants is comfort, which appeals to a slightly less active, slightly less aesthetically concerned conception of modern masculinity. For men who wish they could wear their sweatpants to the office, both traditional brands and upstarts like the Kickstarter darling Alday are here to give them the opportunity. In doing that, they indulge the masculine belief that men should think about how they look as little as possible. There’s clearly a market for such a product: Alday’s Kickstarter sought to raise $15,000, but it ended up with more than $67,000 in support from backers who want to try a denim product that’s knitted like pajamas.

In reality, elastane (the generic name for Lycra or spandex) has been in men’s clothing for years. Without spandex in your socks, they’d bag and fall down. Without it in your boxers or briefs, you wouldn’t be able to keep your underwear up. Elastane is strong, machine washable, wrinkle resistant, and (obviously) very stretchy, with a spring back quality that helps yarns keep their shape. On the other hand, they don’t breathe very well and, eventually, they break down. If you’ve ever heard the “click click click” sound on an old spandex waistband, that’s basically the rubber snapping. And it can’t be repaired.

When You Want Elastane: When you want a bit of stretch to a garment.

When You Want to Avoid Elastane: Elastane is only ever added to a garment when it needs to be stretchy. So the only time you’d want to avoid it is if you dislike stretchy garments.

The post Artificial Intelligence: A Guide To Synthetic Fibers appeared first on Put This On.

A couple of years ago, the luxury department store chain Barneys conducted a survey to find out how men decide on what clothes to purchase. One of the phrases that kept popping up was: “I want to know I got it right.” Whether they were getting dressed for job interviews or weddings, workplaces or the weekend, men wanted to know they were appropriately dressed for the occasion.

“Many felt there was some terrible abyss they’d fall into if they wore the wrong shirt with the wrong tie,” said Simon Doonan, the company’s Creative Ambassador. “I think it’s a function of the idea of good taste/ bad taste, which is a very 1950s thing. Except now you can compound it with the internet, where everything is thumbs up or thumbs down. It’s a horrible, peanut gallery that people are subjecting themselves to.”

The idea of “correctness” in dress can be a double-edge sword. Rules can be useful for helping a beginner find his footing, but they can also be an impediment to developing personal style. And personal style is the holy grail. Slavishly following rules can make you look like you were dressed by the internet, but recklessly ignoring them is like belting out random noises in hopes that you’re making a song. Often, personal style is about riding the line between these two worlds — knowing how to dress well within an established aesthetic, but also finding ways to personalize it so it feels more natural to you.

At the end of the day, finding your own style is about experimentation. Jian DeLon, Editorial Director of Highsnobiety, put it best when he said: “every great wardrobe is built on a foundation of expensive mistakes.” But there are also better and worse ways to experiment. Here are six suggestions for finding your own personal style without spending yourself into debt.

Think of Clothes as Language

For guys who are just starting out, one of the most common mistakes is thinking that dressing is akin to painting — you combine random shapes and colors in a way to create a pleasing effect. Dressing can be artistic, but it’s more like creative writing than painting. Think of clothes as language. Instead of combining bright red t-shirts with mauve pants and teal jackets, think of the message you’re creating with your clothes and how they fit within specific aesthetic traditions.

The best way to do this is by building a visual vocabulary. Start by finding sources of inspiration. Collect photos from brand lookbooks, fashion runways, music scenes, stylish films, or other artistic scenes. Save photos of stylish people. Images can even be non-clothing related. Ralph Lauren’s design team, for example, uses a technique known as “rigging,” where they’ll style an empty room based on the feeling they get off a small, curated selection of photos. That space – with all of its decor and vintage clothing – is then used as a jumping off point for how they’d like to design a new season’s worth of clothes. Obviously, you don’t have to rig a room to find inspiration, but you can use photos of camp sites and outdoor activities if you’re interested in a more rugged style.

You can collect these photos by using Pinterest, Tumblr, or Instagram. Or you can just save them on your computer (which is what I do).  On social media sites, you can find sources of inspiration by searching relevant tags — say, a brand name such as Engineered Garments or the name of a specific aesthetic. Keep digging for visual inspiration.

It can also help to read up on these things, so you understand what you’re looking at. Read about a designer’s intention and philosophy, a music scene or film era. In this way, you can connect the visual language of clothes to something greater, which in turn will help you understand when something visually works and when it doesn’t.

Experiment, but Slowly

The next step is to experiment. Basic pieces, such as shirts and pants, can often be used across a wide variety of outfits, allowing you to use them as springboards for other niches. A long-sleeved black t-shirt, for example, can be worn with everything from Maison Margiela leather jackets to Chimala chore coats. Plaid flannel shirts can be used with Barbour jackets or Nigel Cabourn parkas. Jeans can be worn with almost anything.

You don’t have to cheap out with basics, but you want to be frugal. Since these simpler pieces can be found almost anywhere, that means you want to take advantage of the price competition. Find things at Uniqlo or thrift stores; shop heavily on sale and dig around sites such as Grailed. If you find them to be exceptionally useful later, you can upgrade.

Then save your money for things that will make more of an impact, such as outerwear or shoes. Kapital’s Ring coat — which combines an American field jacket with a Japanese kimono t-shaped pattern — can be worn with something as simple as a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt. And it’ll give you a taste of whether you’d like to delve into more offbeat Japanese workwear or simply resell the piece. Meanwhile, those same jeans and flannels will allow you to explore other aesthetics.

Allow your taste to naturally develop and don’t go whole hog too quickly. If you really like a madras sport coat, maybe wait a while before you do the whole pastel colored ties, tassel loafers, and needlepoint belt thing. Set a sensible clothing budget each season to moderate yourself. Assume that it’ll take about five years for you to build a comfortable wardrobe. In this way, you can scrimp, save, and shop slowly, experimenting with different things until your taste naturally develops.

Far and away, the cheapest way to experiment is to visit stores and just try things on for fun — even if they, at first, don’t seem like something you’d ever wear. You might be surprised when the garment is actually on your body. Visit stores that you may have never considered before and approach things with an open mind.

Don’t Get Hung Up on Versatility

When you’re just starting to build a wardrobe, the prices and number of options available can be dizzying. Which is why we encourage readers to start by building a practical and versatile wardrobe — sport coats in navy and brown, trousers in gray, and shirts in solid white and light blue. If you’re wearing more casual clothes, blue jeans, grey sweatshirts, and Barbour jackets can be useful. In this way, you can swap things in and out throughout the week, building more outfits with fewer clothes.

Once you have a wardrobe that can comfortably carry you through three weeks of wear, however, don’t get too hung up on versatility. No one needs five navy sport coats or ten pairs of brown wingtips. Instead, buy things that strike your eye, even if you only have enough clothes to create one or two outfits with that item.

For example, a black leather jacket may only go with black jeans, but if you have enough clothes to carry you through three weeks, that can still be a great outfit that you can wear once a month. A pair of suede side-zip boots may only go with a certain bomber jacket, but if you wear the combination often enough, you can find other clothes for those boots. In this way, your closet will naturally grow from your most-worn items — which is often the best and most organic way to develop your own personal sense of taste.

That said, this doesn’t mean you have to get the wildest, least versatile items. Most of my sport coats are in basic blues, browns, and greens, but only because those are the colors I like to wear. The point is to not buy things just because they’re versatile. If you do, you’ll get hemmed up in your current wardrobe and never explore anything else. Buy something because it makes you excited about getting dressed in the morning.

Know Your Body Type

The “science” of dressing for you body type is often overstated, and not all clothes have to flatter your body in a classical way. But knowing your body type is also a useful way to understand why something works on some people, but not on you.

If you have narrow shoulders or carry a bit of weight around your stomach, for example, you may want to consider suits and sport coats with a slightly extended shoulder line. By extending the shoulders, a tailor can make the waist look slimmer by comparison. Similarly, short jackets can add visual weight to the body, whereas longer jackets elongate and make you look slimmer. Just compare these Thom Browne suits to the ones that Yves Saint Laurent used to wear.

Be honest about how you look in the mirror. Clothes are often modeled on very lean, athletic figures, but unless you have the same body type, the same clothes can look very different on you. Once you get a handle on your body type, review our guides on how to think about silhouettes in tailored clothing and casualwear. Slightly fuller jackets or rounded tops, for example, can actually hide weight depending on how you’re shaped. Consider how an outfit can be lengthening or widening, slim or full, rounded or boxy. Menswear isn’t as expressive as women’s fashion, but silhouettes intersect with bodies in the same way.

Watch Out for Trends

We don’t think everything has to be classic, but nowadays, a garment’s design is likely to give out before its construction. If something is red hot one year, there’s a good chance you’ll get tired of it once everyone has the same thing. That, in the end, is the real problem with fast fashion – if the item is being sold at Zara, the style is likely at the end of its lifecycle. It can be fun to participate in trends, and I certainly do, but beware of things you might hate in six months.

How do you know when something is a trend? Well, if everyone is talking about something out of nowhere, that’s a good indication. The other indication is if the design is easy to copy — pre-ripped jeans or basic MA-1 bomber jackets. Or narrow lapels and double monk shoes. Trends live and die as they speed through the fashion ecosystem, and once they land at fast fashion shops, they’re basically dead. The easier it is for high-street shops to copy a design, the faster a red-hot item will be considered passé by next year. There are some exceptions, of course. Genuine classics, such as light blue button-downs and cap toe oxfords, will be relevant forever.

Regularly Refresh Your Wardrobe

Finally, do some regular wardrobe refreshing. Let your taste grow organically and pare down your wardrobe every once in a while. Think about capsule wardrobes and find ways you can expand that are actually useful. Sometimes we love the idea of an item than the actual item. Don’t think of clothes in the abstract — must-have pieces and menswear essentials, ten things that every man must own. Instead, let your new purchases be guided by what you’ve found useful and areas you think you might want to explore. If you find you regularly reach for sport coats instead of suits, get derbies instead of oxfords. If you find you regularly wear contemporary leather jackets, consider side-zip boots instead of “essential” penny loafers. If you find you often need something more casual for outdoor activities, look into rugged items that fit into your lifestyle.

And let this be a continuing process. You’ll likely find that your taste rapidly changes in the first few years (reason enough to shop slowly), but it’ll eventually settle into something more stable. But even when it’s stable, it’s often ever-changing — affected by contemporary norms and trends. Sharpen your style at the edges so you always feel like the best version of yourself. And have fun with the process.

The post Six Suggestions For Developing Personal Style appeared first on Put This On.

In some ways, however, the two worlds aren’t that different at all. There’s no inherent logic to tailored clothing. The rules for classic men’s dress come out of socially embedded norms, which people once knew intuitively. Worsted suits were for the city, tweed sport coats for sport, which is why oxfords look better with the first and derbies with the second. Today, those “rules” have been made explicit, but to really understand how to wear a suit-and-tie, you have to develop a sense of when something looks “right.”

Casualwear doesn’t have the same rules, but it’s governed by the same principles. Years ago, my friend David wrote about the irrevocable power of some art dealers to discern “quality from trash, real from fake, inspired from derivative.” Such dealers call this The Eye, which is their way of saying how they can tell when something looks “right.” As David writes: “attention and exposure to a wide variety of interesting objects is what sharpens The Eye.” At the end of the day, whether you’re in jeans or a sport coat, it comes down to developing that sensibility through exposure. Knowing the general scope for an aesthetic gives you an idea for where you can start building a wardrobe — and where you can take it. By understanding the visual language, you’ll know how to play within a style’s boundaries and how to push its borders, and thus get why some combinations work and others don’t.

Last week, we covered some of the more basic and popular casualwear styles, including Americana, prep, and workwear. Today, we’ll look at more forward facing aesthetics. And again, we’ll list some things that may be useful for each niche, as well as links to relevant sites for further exploration. Find a style that speaks to you and delve in.

Reworked Classic Casualwear

Reworked Classic can seem redundant to last week’s Basic Casualwear and Rugged Workwear, but we think it’s distinct. The problem with Basic Casualwear is that it can feel a bit vanilla today, sometimes bordering on business casual. As such, the style can sometimes lack personality. Workwear, on the other hand, can feel anachronistic and overly rugged, maybe at odds with some people’s personalities. There are ways to safely modernize that look, but doing so can, at times, land you back in generic territory.

Reworked Classic is our term for a more contemporary and expressive take on classic casualwear. It draws from Americana, prep, and workwear, but has its own spin. Often times, the clothes come from Japan, where designers heavily borrow on vintage Americana, but remix it with a designer sensibility. Jackets and shirts have oddly placed pockets; trousers have either been slimmed up or made very full. The clothes have a sense of humor about them — they’re playful, offbeat, and distinctively modern.

Like with all of the styles in today’s post, there aren’t any “essentials” to speak of, but many of us here at Put This On wear Reworked Classic Casualwear when we’re not in suits and sport coats (that includes Jesse, Pete, and me). Some things we find useful:

• Tops: Oxford-cloth button-downs in solid white and light blue; chambray shirts in light blue; plaid flannels in staple colors such as navy, burgundy, and green; vacation style shirts in a variety of prints, often two-tone in color.
• Pants: Slim-straight raw denim jeans in indigo; workwear style chinos in slim and relaxed cuts; Ghurka closure shorts in tan; olive colored fatigues
• Knitwear: Chunky shawl collar cardigans; textured fisherman- and Norwegian-style sweaters in navy and grey; Shaker style sweaters; plain Shetland sweaters; stout cotton crewneck sweatshirts in marled grey.
• Outerwear: Navy Nigel Cabourn Hospital jacket; tan Kaptain Sunshine photographer jacket; navy Kaptain Sunshine Traveler coat; various military-styled field jackets in olive; Kapital Ring coat in olive; Engineered Garments Bedford jacket in navy moleskin and beige corduroy; Ten C liner; vintage Patagonia deep-pile Retro-X fleece in cream; Nigel Cabourn Canadian military bomber jacket in olive; RRL Morrow leather jacket in brown; French chore coats; Camoshita Balmacaan coat; MHL mac raincoat in navy; Engineered Garments utility vest in olive; Engineered Garments deck jacket in olive; and various vintage safari-style jackets
• Shoes: Kapital naval side-zip boots; vintage Ralph Lauren Country cookie boots; Alden boots in dark brown calfskin and shell cordovan; Viberg service boots; Pretziada shepherd boot in black; Engineered Garments x Vans slip-ons in off-white; LL Bean duck boots; and Russell Double Moccasin Bottom Birdshooter boots

Like with workwear, there’s a traditional sense of masculinity here that makes the style easy for many guys to wear. It’s geographically neutral and works well for many lifestyles. The clothes have that better-with-age quality we love. And the baseline for many of the combinations will feel intuitive. Flannel shirts go with jeans; oxford-cloth shirts with chinos. They may or may not have interesting details or silhouettes, but once you throw on a coat from this category, you instantly have a more stylish ensemble. At the same time, the clothes are distinctively modern enough to not feel like repro-wear. You’ll never look like an early 20th century train engineer in these clothes — just someone who loosely takes inspiration from that era.

The downside is that the stuff is generally expensive. You can get around this by supplementing with vintage; checking second-hand markets such as eBay, Grailed, and Marrkt (the last of which specializes in this look); and picking up the basic pieces from more affordable brands. I love chambray shirts from Chimala, but they’re $300. The ones from J. Crew’s Wallace & Barnes, however, can be had for as little as $50 on sale. And while we really like 3sixteens’ SL-100x jeans and Levi’s Vintage Clothing’s 1947 501s, you can also get great jeans from Gustin for about $70. This will leave you with a bit more money for outerwear and footwear, which are how you really bring this look into its own.

Some of our favorite brands here include Engineered Garments, Nigel Cabourn, Kaptain Sunshine, RRL, Levi’s Vintage Clothing, and Kapital. Stores such as No Man Walks Alone, Unionmade, The Bureau Belfast, Blue in Green, and Canoe Club are also worth a closer look. See this post for more ideas on how to build this sort of wardrobe.

Brands and Stores: Unionmade, The Bureau Belfast, Frans Boone, Kafka, Cultizm, Marrkt, Reliquary, Stag Provisions, End, Mr. Porter, SSENSE, Private White VC, No Man Walks Alone, Standard & Strange, Pancho & Lefty, Blue Button Shop, Blue in Green, Alpha Shadows, Haven, Superdenim, The Garbstore, Independence, Indigo & Cotton, Jack Straw, Context Clothing, 14oz, Francis May, Magasin, Mohawk General Store, Nifty Do, Oi Polloi, Aphrodite, Snake Oil Provisions, Supply & Advise, Milworks, Division Road, Unmarked, SEH Kelly, Battenwear, Nepenthes, Yuketen, BlackBlue, Monitaly, Nigel Cabourn, Snow Peak, Miloh Shop, Canoe Club, Cotton Sheep, and Trading Post

Blogs and Forums: Die, Workwear, Guillotine, GQ Style, Well Spent, Blamo, Styleforum, and Reddit Male Fashion Advice

Refined Casualwear 

It’s difficult to navigate through the narrow space between tailored clothing and casualwear. There are a lot of guys today who love the look of tailored clothing and try to transpose some of those sensibilities into more informal attire (The Rake recently asked, “is it possible to look sophisticated while wearing swimming trunks?”). It can also be something of a high wire act trying to create a more classically grounded outfit without spilling over into the Basic Casualwear territory described last week. You can find a ton of casualwear at shops such as Hackett, Loro Piana, and Brooks Brothers, but a lot of it isn’t going to look that different from the things sold at J. Crew (even if they’re made from better materials).

It’s possible to do a more refined version of casualwear, but you have to really lean into the casual side of things. Let go of traditional ideas in classic men’s dress. While it’s possible to mix your highs and lows — such as throwing a waxed cotton Barbour over a flannel suit — most guys are better off dressing coherently. Refrain from wearing neckties with casual jackets; don’t pair things such as sockless wingtips with shorts. And let go of traditional notions of how clothes should fit. Jeans shouldn’t drape like trousers (they can’t anyway, as denim is too stiff). Outerwear doesn’t need look perfectly tailored (it’s often better when it’s relaxed and slouchy, giving the wearer a more comfortable and natural look). If you’re going to go casual, go casual. Companies such a Trunk Club, Stoffa, and S.E.H. Kelly do an exceptionally good job in this category (the first image at the top of this post is from S.E.H. Kelly).

For fall and winter, this can be as simple as a waxed Barbour with a Shetland sweater, some jeans, and heavy boots. Or it can be a pair of wool trousers with a loosely cut topcoat, the second of which will give you the general appearance of tailored clothing without actually looking like businesswear. Manolo editor Andreas Weinas can be seen above wearing this sort of outfit with a chunky turtleneck sweater, which dresses things down further (he actually has a sport coat under there, but … ignore that part). Corduroy trousers, moleskins, rumply chinos, and jeans are all good alternatives to flannel trousers. And instead of pairing sleeker oxfords or derbies with these sorts of looks, again lean more into the casual side of things. Chunkier, rounder toe boots can often look more stylish in these contexts.

Spring and summer are trickier, but you can do the same with jeans and safari jackets, or chinos with citified bombers, such as a Valstarino. Again, just avoid trying to look too tailored. Safari and field jackets often benefit from having a bit of slouchiness. When the shoulder seams fall perfectly on the shoulder bone, and the body is too perfect, the jacket can look too much like a shirt, losing all of its charm and casual sensibility. Even Bruce Boyer, one of the best dressed classic menswear guys around, can be seen above in a pair of washed jeans and loosely cut navy jacket (plus a bucket hat!). Casual clothes needn’t fit so perfectly — they often look better when they don’t.

Some things I find useful:

• Tops: Oxford-cloth button-downs; slightly dressier versions of chambray or denim shirts; loosely cut popover shirts in solid white and light blue; linen shirts in solid white and light blue
• Pants: Slim-straight raw denim jeans in indigo; corduroy trousers in dark brown; tan chinos with a slightly higher rise; grey wool trousers in various weaves; moleskin trousers in mid-brown
• Knitwear: Plain Shetland sweaters in navy, brown and grey; linen sweaters from Inis Meain (they have more of a springback quality to them, making them a bit like wool, but are more breathable); Scottish cashmere cable knit sweaters in bottle green, navy, and grey; cream colored Aran sweaters; grey cotton crewneck sweatshirt in marled grey
• Outerwear: Barbour Bedale in green; Holland & Holland safari jacket in tan; Stoffa flight jacket in brown suede; Valstarinos in brown leathers; Eidos topcoat in grey herringbone tweed; Kaptain Sunshine Traveler coat in navy Melton wool; Belstaff Roadmaster; Enrico Mandelli leather bomber jackets; Aspesi military-style field jackets in olive green
• Shoes: RM Williams Craftsman boots in brown; Crockett & Jones Breacon chukka in brown pebble grain leather; JM Weston 180 penny loafer in brown; Superga 1705 in classic white; LL Bean duck boots; Alden penny loafers in suede; Alden unlined chukkas in suede

Brands and Stores: The Armoury, Trunk Clothiers, Private White VC, No Man Walks Alone, Stoffa, Timothy Everest, Cavour, Drake’s, Sunspel, Ledbury, Proper Cloth, LL Bean, O’Connell’s, Doherty Evans & Stott, Christian Kimber, Beige Habilleur, Ben Silver, Borghini, Anglo Italian, Braun Hamburg, J. Press, John Simons, John Smedley, Berg & Berg, Cordings, Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers, Stoffa, Emmett London, Loro Piana, Guideboat Company, Malford of London, Marcus Malmborg, Paul Smith, Paul Stuart, Quality Shop, S.E.H. Kelly, and Sid Mashburn

Blogs and Forums: Permanent Style, Timeless Man, The Rake, The Grey Fox, Jackal Magazine, Styleforum, Reddit Male Fashion Advice, and Manolo

Contemporary Casualwear

Finally, we have Contemporary Casualwear, which is admittedly an ill-defined category. This can include everything from techwear to streetwear to dark, art povera looks. Some are easier to wear than others, while some may require you to fully jump in. Rick Owens, for example, can look fantastic if you fully embrace the style, but be lackluster if you try to wear it in more conservative ways (sorry Jack).

We’re using the term Contemporary Casualwear here, however, to underscore the porousness of some of these styles — the ease with which you can combine things in any number of ways, including integrating them into more classic wardrobes for a modern look. And doing so can give you some versatility in a wardrobe, allowing you to create outfits that look more at-home in certain settings than strictly heritage-inspired ensembles.

For example, I often wear an oversized bomber jacket from Robert Geller with my Buzz Rickson sweatshirt and 3sixteen jeans; or pair a grey, hooded Stephen Schneider “Merino” coat with Eidos’ Shaker-style knits and grey wool trousers. My most frequently worn piece of outerwear is also a black leather jacket from Maison Margiela (pictured in the first photo above). That goes with everything from tailored trousers to raw denim, casual button-ups to white tees.

One of the nice things about Contemporary Casualwear is that you can be a bit more experimental in terms of patterns and silhouettes. Think of long, flowing topcoats thrown over textured sweaters, which have dropped shoulder seams and wider necklines. T-shirts with boxy bodies and slightly lowered chest pockets; trousers with a relaxed fit and higher rise; camp-collared shirts with unusual patterns. Depending on the pieces in your wardrobe, you can combine things in one way and get a contemporary look. Wear it another way to make it Refined Casualwear or Rugged Workwear.

Given the size of this space, it’s even harder than previous categories to recommend useful basics. A lot depends on the specific iterations you’re interested in exploring — a slightly more streetwear inspired look by combining a pair of Nikes with a French chore coat, or the kind of minimalistic, but expressive styles seen at E. Tautz and Lemaire (who often mix ’90s-era Helmut Lang with ’80s-era Armani). Some of my favorite designers in this space include Lemaire, Stephen Schneider, Evan Kinori, Our Legacy, and Maison Margiela. I also really like stores such as No Man Walks Alone, Neighbour, Totokaelo, Namu Shop, Maas & Stacks, Mohawk General Store, Magasin, and Mr. Porter. But they’re hardly the only ones worth checking out. Dig around in the links below to see if any stores or brands inspire you.

If you’re thinking about just dipping your toes into this space, however, a long and loosely cut topcoat, textured sweater in navy or grey, and slim cut jeans or chinos can be a solid springboard for getting into other niches. Feel free to be a bit more experimental and take inspiration from both the men’s and women’s side of the media aisle. Often times, some of the most interesting things here either come in from womenswear collections, but are adapted for men, or the two happen concurrently (I’ve listed some of my favorite capital-F fashion sites below). StyleForum and GQ Style are also worth following.

Brands and Stores: Namu Shop, No Man Walks Alone, Maas & Stacks, Notre Shop, Oak NYC, Neighbour, Need Supply, The Ensign, Up There Store, Slamjam Socialism, Other Shop, Bodega, Totokaelo, Haven, Mohawk General Store, Roden Gray, Matches, Martin Margiela, Lemaire, Deveaux, Le Rayon Frais, E. Tautz, East Dane, Mr. Porter, End, Far Fetch, Goodhood Store, Stephen Schneider, Dover Street Market, Second Layer, Nike Lab, Acronym, The Loit, LN-CC, Tres Bien, Magasin, Acrimony, APC, Margaret Howell, Our Legacy, Harmony, De Bonne Facture, American Rag, Oi Polloi, Oki Ni, Nitty Gritty, SSENSE, Wrong Weather, CHCM Shop, Robert Geller, and Suspension Point

Blogs and Forums: ShowStudio, Dapper Kid, Dazed, Grailed Dry Clean Only, GQ Style, Highsnobiety, Garage, Racked, The Cut, The Rosenrot, Style Bubble, Man Repeller, Vogue Runway, NYT Fashion, Wall Street Journal, Scandinavian Man, Styleforum, Fashionista, The Sartorialist, Hypebeast, Blamo, Falling Upwards, Esquire, Third Looks, and Reddit Male Fashion

The post Five Starting Places For Building A Casual Wardrobe, Part Two appeared first on Put This On.

For some guys, this can make casualwear feel messy, amorphous, and difficult to grasp. Your best bet is always to experiment, find things that speak to you and take inspiration from culture — art, film, music, history, and even fashion lookbooks. But it also helps to know where to start. Casualwear is a big field, but it has niches. The borders are porous and things aren’t always so clearly defined, but knowing the general scope for an aesthetic gives you an idea for where you can start building — and where you can take a wardrobe. By understanding the visual language, you’ll know how to play within a style’s boundaries and how to push its borders, and thus get why some combinations work and others don’t.

This week, we’ll suggest five starting places for building a casual wardrobe. Each section will cover some of the basics of the style, suggest some useful items, and then give you links to stores, brands, online forums, and blogs for more discoveries. Today we’ll cover some basic and classic styles. Later this week, we’ll cover things that are a bit more forward looking.

Basic Casualwear

J. Crew’s former designer Jenna Lyons has been described as dressing every woman in America, and the company’s other former designer Frank Muytjens has done the same for men. But J. Crew isn’t the only shop that specializes in a certain neo-prep, neo-Americana style. Shops such as Club Monaco, Ralph Lauren, and The Gap have built business empires on selling clothes that can be roughly described as basic casualwear — things that almost anyone can wear, regardless of their lifestyle. These clothes are geographically neutral. They work for weekdays and weekends. They’re ready for the office, dinner parties, and vacations. They’re basically the modern male uniform.

If you’re just looking to build a casual wardrobe, and you don’t want to stick out from the crowd, start here. Twenty years ago, you had to pay more attention to how your clothes fit since everything was so baggy. Now, many of these more popular, mainstream stores sell reasonably slim fitting clothes without crossing over into skinny territory (although, guys today are still more likely to buy clothes that are a size too small, so don’t be afraid to try a size up).

Reddit’s Male Fashion Advice is a great online forum for guys who are just learning how to build a wardrobe. They call this, tongue-firmly-in-cheek, the “basic bastard” uniform. The wardrobe includes:

• Tops: Plain crewneck tees in white and grey; oxford cloth button downs in white and light blue
• Pants: Slim-straight jeans in indigo or black; chinos in khaki or olive; plain front chino shorts in khaki
• Knitwear: Simple crewneck sweaters in neutral colors such as navy, oatmeal, or grey; then a crewneck sweatshirt in mid-gray
• Outerwear: A pea coat or parka for winter; a basic bomber jacket or Harrington for spring. Maybe a raincoat if you need one.
• Shoes: Plain white sneakers and some brown boots. Nike Killshots, Adidas Stan Smiths, Clarks Wallabees, Wolverine 1000 Mile boots are popular suggestions on Reddit MFA.

The beauty of this wardrobe is in its plug-and-play nature. The clothes can be had at almost any price point; they’re available everywhere. Any guy can look reasonably good in these clothes. In basic colors — such as khaki, navy, grey, olive, and white — you can easily combine things without worrying too much about whether you’re clashing. If you need some direction, Esquire’s Handbook of Style is a good reference book.

At the same time, the style’s universality is also its weakness. By being so versatile, they’ve become so widely adopted that they can, at times, feel like they lack individuality. You can update it a little with a pair of retro-runner sneakers; get some raw denim; maybe draw some inspiration from outdoor gear. But depending on how you style these clothes, the outfits can look a bit vanilla — at times even business casual. Not necessarily a bad thing, but possibly boring depending on how you build this wardrobe.

Brands and Stores: J. Crew, Club Monaco, Ralph Lauren, Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, Uniqlo, Guideboat Company, LL Bean, Gustin, Brooks Brothers, Epaulet, American Trench, Wolf vs. Goat, Abercrombie & Fitch, Division Road, Ball & Buck, Ka-Pok, East Dane, Norse Store, Steven Alan, Welcome Stranger, Oi Polloi, Quoddy, Rancourt, Sunspel, Todd Snyder, Albam, Harmony, APC, Trunk Clothiers, Indigo & Cotton, Taylor Stitch, and Wittmore

Blogs and Forums: Reddit Male Fashion Advice, Valet, From Squalor to Baller, Menswear Musings, Well Spent, Style Girlfriend, Dappered, Effortless Gent, Primer, Fashion Beans, Ivy Style, Oxford Cloth Button Down, and The Essential Man

Classic Workwear

In the 1970s, shortly after Japan fell in love with Ivy Style, the Japanese started noticing that American students no longer wore neckties and tweed jackets to college campuses. Instead, many repurposed outdoor brands such as Sierra Designs and Eddie Bauer for their everyday attire. Certainly, the oxford-cloth button-down remained popular, but instead of hook-vent sport coats and striped rep neckwear, students were wearing 60/ 40 parkas, Levi’s jeans, and Champion sweatshirts. The look was later coined “Rugged Ivy,” and amazingly covered in David Marx’s well-researched book Ametora. 

In many ways, that mid-century Ivy Look — from blazers and cords, to down jackets and denim — has been subsumed into a more generalized Americana style, which we’ve labeled above as Basic Casualwear. But there’s still a division today between those who want to dress “cleanly” and those are prefer styles that are a bit rougher around the edges.

Workwear is the second most easily adoptable uniform. And while all menswear, in some sense, derives from utility, here we’re using it to describe the sort of rustic styles sold at shops such as RRL and Levi’s (two tremendously good starting places if you’re looking to build a casual wardrobe). Much like Basic Casualwear, this is again geographically neutral and plays well into most people’s lifestyles. In a basic flannel shirt and pair of raw denim jeans, it can even be used as a casual work uniform. Best of all, the clothes require almost no maintenance. In fact, this stuff looks better when it’s beaten, stained, and even tattered (so, good for busy dads).

Workwear can be reworked in many different ways (later this week, we’ll cover the slightly more offbeat stuff). At its core, however, it’s about semi-classic, at times even vintage-inspired, styles. It can be as simple as a work shirt and some raw denim (I wear 3sixteen’s SL-100x often). There’s also something I call California workwear, which is basically a Levi’s ad — a pair of five-pocket cords or chinos, white tee, denim trucker jacket, and Vans sneakers. Classic workwear can even be as detailed some of the things we’ve covered at Inspiration LA., which revolve around early rock-n-roll, motorcycle, surf, rockabilly, and hot rod subcultures. You just have to fine-tune this to suit your needs, but a pair of raw denim jeans and some flannel shirts can serve as a baseline for future experimentation. Some things I’ve found useful:

• Tops: Chambray work shirts in light blue; plaid flannels in different fabric weights, mostly in staple colors such as navy, red, and green; plain cotton tees and henleys in grey or white
• Pants: Raw denim jeans in black or indigo; rugged workwear-style chinos; olive fatigues
• Knitwear: Stout crewneck sweatshirts in grey; fisherman-inspired sweaters
• Outerwear: Heavier parkas, cowhide leather jackets in either bomber or motocycle styles; military field jackets; deck jackets; denim trucker jackets; ranch jackets; French chore coats; rounded nylon bomber jackets; heavy Melton wool pea coats
• Shoes: Rugged boots in hunting or military styles (the service boot, named so because they were issued to American servicemen during WWII, is especially useful); white canvas Chuck Taylors; Red Wing’s Postman Oxfords; engineer boots; roper boots; Danner hiking boots; LL Bean boots; Russell Moccasin fishing oxford

Personally, I find workwear looks best when it incorporates a bit of vintage. You don’t have to thrift your entire outfit, but if you’re a cubicle farmer like me, having a bit of authentically well worn items can really make a look. Wooden Sleepers, a vintage menswear shop specializing in Americana and workwear, has an online store. You can also shop their Instagram if you contact them (their brick-and-mortar in Brooklyn is pictured at the top of this post). We also have a guide on how to thrift from home. And our store has some great vintage goods at reasonable prices.

Brands and Stores: Levi’s, Unionmade, Self Edge, RRL, The Bureau Belfast, Cultizm, Kafka, Frans Boone, No Man Walks Alone, Stag Provisions, Snake Oil Provisions, Standard & Strange, Bryceland’s, 3sixteen, AB Fits, Indigo & Cotton, Wooden Sleepers, Dutil, Blue Owl Workshop, Benzak, Blackhorse Lane, Clutch Cafe, Rivet & Hide, Blue in Green, Context Clothing, Viberg, Gustin, BlackBlue, Division Road, Franklin & Poe, Freeman, Freenote Cloth, Independence, Imogene + Willie, Artisan Deluxe, Raleigh, Rogue Territory, Runabout, Shockoe, Superdenim, Marrkt, Stock Mfg, Left Field, Tanner Goods, Tellason, American Trench, Best Made, Supply & Advise, The Hill Side, 14 oz, Blue Button Shop, Up There Store, Jack Straw, Pancho & Lefty, Tate & Yoko, Taylor Stitch, and J. Crew’s Wallace & Barnes

Blogs and Forums: Heddels, Reddit Raw Denim, Reddit Goodyear Welt, A Fine Tooth Comb, Archival, Loomstate, Long John, Denimbro, Vintage Engineer Boots, 10 Engines, Vintage Showroom, Selvedge Yard, Ponytail Journal, Well Spent, Workers, The Bandanna Almanac, Indigo Shrimp, and Clutch

Check back later this week for part two of this series, where we’ll cover more forward looking styles. 

The post Five Starting Places For Building A Casual Wardrobe, Part One appeared first on Put This On.

It’s crazy to think that Put This On is nearly ten years old, and while we have tons of posts aimed at people who are just starting to build a more intentional wardrobe, we’ve never written a guide on exactly how to get started.

To be sure, everyone has a wardrobe. We’ve all picked up that button-up shirt and pair of khaki chinos at the mall for a cousin’s graduation, then a dark suit for a buddy’s wedding. And there’s that pile of t-shirts slowly accumulated through different points in our lives — college days and various phases with bands. For most people, the process of building a wardrobe comes in fits and spurts, resulting in a mishmash of things that never feel quite right.

The idea of dressing intentionally means thinking though some basics of how you’d like to present yourself, then building a wardrobe around that. It’s a much more difficult and long process than some would like to admit. Online, you’ll find tons of guides on how to build a better wardrobe, but they’re often little more than shopping lists — a wardrobe of twenty business suits even though you may only need one, or a bunch of trendy “menswear essentials” that will be out of date by the time you buy them.

Dressing well takes a lot more than completing a shopping list. And for people who are just starting out, it can feel overwhelming — all the terms, fabrics, and styles (not to mention the prices!). So here’s a guide on how to get started, literally from day one when you want to transform your wardrobe.

LEARN THE BASICS OF FIT

The phrase “fit is king” is so well worn it’s become cliché, but it’s also popular for a reason. When you’re just starting to build a better wardrobe, the best thing you can do is pay closer attention to how your clothes fit.

The idea of fit is actually pretty nuanced and it’s closely tied in with something called silhouette, which roughly means the outline of your outfit once you take away all the details. And while it’s possible to be creative with how your clothes fit, for people who are just starting out, the concept is usually better when it’s more straightforward.

Ten years ago, the standard advice was to slim everything down — buy clothes a size, maybe even two, smaller. These days, however, you’re just as likely to see guys wearing clothes a size too small as those wearing a size too large. For now, focus on clothes that don’t veer towards either of these extremes. A moderate, middle-of-the-road fit — with good basics such as making sure a jacket’s collar hugs your neck — will give you a baseline off which to operate. Some things to look for:

• Broadly speaking, you want clothes that don’t pull, pucker, or bag. If you see lines across your chest or waist, or excess fabric creating folds where there shouldn’t be any, your clothes don’t fit. This is, of course, taking into account that fabric is lightweight and naturally moves. Be realistic, but make sure your clothes hang well.
• The point of clothes should be to flatter the shape of your body, not recreate it. Try different sizes and be honest with how something looks. Just because you’ve sized down on something doesn’t mean your body is actually slimmer. Tight clothes can make you look heavier than you are.
• Clothes need to fit well not just when you’re standing still, but when you’re moving around. Shirts shouldn’t be so tight that the midsection pulls when you sit; jackets can’t be so slim that you can’t comfortably move your arms. At the same time, be careful with clothes that are so baggy that they lack shape.
• Mostly, this is about constantly paying attention to things. When you see an outfit you like, notice where the seams fall, how the fabric hangs, and where things terminate. 

Here’s the hard truth: it takes years to train your eye. This is much more of an art than a science. That said, when you’re starting to build a wardrobe — more than looking at “the right brand names” or thinking about quality — the best and most impactful way you can improve your wardrobe is by thinking of fit. Before buying anything, ask yourself: “Does this fit well? Does it flatter my body?”

We have a deep archive on the subject of fit, but here are some highlights:

• How certain clothes should fit: suits jackets and sport coats, tailored trousers, and dress shirts. These articles can be helpful even if you don’t plan to wear tailored clothing.
• The concept of buttoning points, collar gaps, and trouser breaks
• How long should a tailored jacket be?
• Where should trousers sit?
• A practical checklist when purchasing tailored clothes (and a similar guide from Japan)
• How to know when your shoes fit (tip: start by getting measured on the Brannock)
• How to think about silhouette in tailored clothing. This is a bit more advanced — think of fit as the basics of whether something sits on your body well; then silhouette as the shape of the outfit.

TAKE INVENTORY — CULL, KEEP, AND ALTER

This part is the least fun. Before you go shopping, take inventory of what you already have in your wardrobe. Then decide what to cull, what to keep, and what you can alter. Taking inventory not only allows you to clear out your wardrobe, decluttering the mess in the back of your closet, but it also allows you to take the next step — making a plan.

Cull things you know you’ll never wear. Maybe they’re in too shabby of a condition, they’re out of date, or they were never good in the first place. These clothes can either be sold online if you think you can get some money for them. Or they can be donated. We have a guide on how to get rid of old clothes.

Of the things you’d like to keep, try them on and assess how they fit. Revisit our guides linked in the previous section. Many issues can be resolved with a quick trip to a tailor (trust us, they do magic). Baggy shirts can be trimmed by taking in the sides or adding what are known as darts. Overly long trousers can be hemmed; overly straight trousers can be tapered from the knee down. Coats with engulfing sleeves can be adjusted; shapeless jackets can be nipped in the waist.

The quick and dirty rule when it comes to alterations: jackets and shirts should always fit well around the shoulders and chest; trousers ought to fit well around the seat and thighs. Almost anything else can be altered.

Bringing your favorite clothes to the tailor is the quickest an easiest way to improve your current wardrobe. It’ll cost money, but it’ll be less than what you’d spend to replace the items.

Some relevant posts to help you through this process:

• How to Get Rid of Old Clothes
• How to Find a Tailor
• How Much Can My Clothes be Altered?
• How Much You Can Expect Alterations to Cost
• What to Do When Something Fits Too Slim
• What are Darts?

MAKE A PLAN

So, now that you’ve done the two steps above, it’s time to make a plan. How do you build a new wardrobe? A lot of this takes honest self-reflection.

When you’re just starting out, it can be easy to get swept up into trends or buying clothes that don’t really fit your lifestyle. Maybe the hottest thing at the moment is furry Gucci slip-ons or Italian flannel cargo pants. Or you step into this thinking that you really need a wardrobe of twenty custom suits, even though you’ve gone your whole life never wearing suits at all. Think hard about what’s actually right for your life at the moment.

You can do this by answering some basic questions. Thinking through these will help you design a wardrobe that’s actually right for you:

• What do you like about your current wardrobe? What do you not like?
• What about your current wardrobe would you like to change? The colors, fit, quality, or styles?
• What from your current wardrobe do you find you wear the most? What do you wear the least? By sheer evidence of what you actually wear, you can get a more grounded sense of what’s actually right for your lifestyle. If it’s suits and sport coats, expand into that. If it’s rugged casualwear, try that for starters.
• What’s a realistic budget for you? Note, for many people just starting out, you’ll want to adjust your sense of how much good clothes cost. You don’t need to spend your life savings, but there’s a bare minimum for some things — $500 for a suit, $200 for dress shoes, etc.
• What would you like a new wardrobe to do for you? Allow you to express yourself through clothes? Help you in your professional life? Make you simply feel better? Explore your sense of identity?

Unfortunately, there’s no easy cut-and-paste plan that works for everyone. And it can take years before you finally settle on a wardrobe. There will be some money wasted; there will be outfits you regret. A lot of this is about trial and error.

That said, there’s some good, general advice that’s useful for beginners. This isn’t to say these are universal laws — this isn’t a science — but a way to build a platform. A platform that allows you to explore different styles while also looking good throughout the process.

• Start by simplifying. Avoid clothes with logos, prints, and crazy details. Instead focus on great basics (by which, we mean basics). A white t-shirt. Light blue dress shirts. White oxford button-ups. Blue jeans. Grey wool trousers. Khaki chinos. A dark suit. Great boots. Basic shoes. Again, this isn’t to say this is the wardrobe you’ll wind up in five years, but rather, they’re solid basics that give you a baseline from which to work.
• Build a wardrobe, not a set of outfits. Make sure new purchases work with the rest of your wardrobe — shirts that can be worn with different types of pants; pants that work with different types of jackets. One of the easier ways to do this is by narrowing your color palette. Blues, grays, browns, whites, and tans will all seamlessly work with each other, allowing you to pull things from your closet every morning without putting in too much thought.
• Buy less, buy better. In today’s throwaway culture, almost anything can be had for just a few dollars. Avoid impulsive purchases and shoddily-made things sold at fast fashion stores, such as H&M and Zara. Instead, buy fewer things, but buy better things. You’ll be happier in end. Carl Richards has a nice post about this at The New York Times.
• Buy mid-tier items. That said, when you’re just starting out, it’s good to focus on mid-tier items that won’t break the bank. Again, your taste will change rapidly over the next five years, so things will eventually get replaced. Don’t worry about buying “the best” for now. Think about using solid, mid-quality purchases, carefully considered and researched, as a way to experiment.
• Manage your budget. There’s no way around it, good clothes are expensive. Focus your budget on things that will make the biggest impact — outerwear and shoes, mostly, then perhaps knitwear. We also have guides on how to thrift locally and online, and some things are just better when they’re bought second-hand. Jesse’s post about “good, fast, cheap — pick two” is also a good read. And while buying on sale is always a good idea, it’s never good to buy something just because it’s on sale. Beware of sales psychology.
• Think about the message. One of the more common mistakes people make is thinking that an outfit is just a mishmash of shapes and colors — like a painting that comes together in a pleasing way. Often, dressing well is more akin to writing — even if, at times, creative writing. A dark suit with a white shirt and dark tie, sometimes accompanied by a white pocket square, sends a very specific message in a way that changing just one element would not. Similarly, raw denim jeans and a workwear jacket send another kind of message. Think about the message you’re creating.
• Build slowly. Don’t rush this. Be practical about what works for your lifestyle, what direction you’d like your wardrobe to take, and how you can build certain looks. Learning how to dress well typically starts by figuring out who or what inspires you. Take inspiration from art and culture — music, films, or historical subcultures. Save photos of outfits you like. StyleForum and Reddit’s Male Fashion Advice are great resources. We’d like to think our blog is useful too.

We’ll have more posts in the future on how to start building an intentional wardrobe, but here are some things in our archive that are worth reading:

• Shop Like Jesse’s Mom
• Check Out the Best
• Have a Plan
• How to Think About Color
• Know When to Splurge and When to Scrimp
• Scrimp, Save, and Shop Slowly
• If I Could Speak to My Younger Self

The post A Practical Guide To Getting Started appeared first on Put This On.