Just like cooking or shooting free throws, dressing well is a skill that can actually be learned.
My job as a personal stylist isn’t to buy clothes for guys and send them on their way. I teach men how to choose clothes that enhance them so they can do it on their own. If dressing well wasn’t a skill that could be taught, I’d be out of a job!
With all skills, you get better the more you practice. And unless you live in some weirdo nudist colony (I would apologize here, but if you’re a nudist reading this blog, you’re in the wrong place), you need to get dressed everyday. That means you have an opportunity to practice and nurture the skill of dressing well every single day.
WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY: Nobody is born in a perfectly tailored 3-piece suit, or with some magical intuition on how to dress well. (If you need a reminder, scroll back up and look at my high school picture again.) Realize that dressing well is a skill that can be developed through practice.
2. Develop your “eye” by identifying styles you like
Right after guys tell me that they’re just not “naturally stylish”, it’s often followed up with:
“I just don’t have an eye for putting together outfits or knowing what looks good”
Here’s what I tell them:
“Ok. Is there anyone who’s style you think looks good? Something you think ‘I’d like to dress like that’, even if you don’t think you could pull it off. Maybe it’s a celebrity, a musician, an athlete? Even a fictional character. Some of my clients have mentioned James Bond or Tony Stark before.”
The guy will then list off a ton of men he thinks dresses cool. And then I like to point out that he just debunked his own assumption that he doesn’t have an “eye”. He just showed me he can see and recognize great style!
Now, he might not know the why yet, and that’s often the reason why guys tell me they don’t have an eye. Understanding why is learnable.
But whenever you’re working on a goal, it’s important to identify and challenge stories you tell yourself. Whether it’s that you don’t have an eye for style, you’re too busy to work out, or you’re just a shy person. The stories we tell ourselves are often invisible barriers to keep us in our comfort zone.
WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY: Take 5 minutes. List out 3 or more guys who style you think looks great and that is in the direction you’d like to go. Even if you don’t think you can pull it off, list it. It could be someone you know, a celebrity, or even a fictional character from a movie.
