Wellcultured - Well Cultured is a men’s online magazine with advice and reviews on fashion, dating, finances, health, music, movies and many other topics, as well as a robust message board and the Well Cultured Guide, a freely editable community wiki.

My buddies always make fun of what i wear. when I try to do something original or unique, they act like im going overboard, even when they just wear sweats and stuff. what do i do?

Fashion is fashion- that is, you shouldn’t feel guilty or otherwise lame because you are dressed well. However, the important thing to remember is simple: the difference between legitimate fashion and costume fashion.

I define “legitimate fashion” as fashion that you can wear for a clear purpose- that is, you have an “excuse” to wear it. Coats, shirts, pants, shoes- these are the kinds of things you are fully expected to wear. This also includes clothing that is accepted as the current fashion trend (like scarves)- basically, stuff that you can “get away with”.

“Costume fashion” is stuff that requires a lot more balls to get away with. This can include anything from trilbys, fedoras, ties, vests, necklaces, rings, etc. This is where you begin to get in trouble. Essentially, the idea here is that these are the things you wear for fashion only, and they rarely serve any form of other purpose other than making you look good.

Here’s the deal- being fashionable doesn’t require you go overboard. If you are walking around dressed like a clown, you are dressed too much. Fit your fashion to the circumstance- if you are in school, you can play around, but obviously you have no reason to walk around in a suit. Similarly, if you are working and expected to wear a suit, don’t run around with an ascot or something ridiculous like a bright pink suit- keep it classy. Fashion is generally best accepted when you take something traditional and give it a modern look, not when you try to become a walking Picasso painting.

Anyway, just ignore it. So long as you aren’t going overboard, you should not care.

I recently realized that I’ve never really written an article on generic dating- that is to say, we have a whole lot of articles in our “dating” section, but I’ve somewhat ambivalently ignored the fact I’ve never really touched on how to just date straight up. This, of course, bothers me, mainly because I’m sure a hell of a lot of our readers actually do care about this and have been sitting for the last year or so waiting for an article like this.

Here it is.

Dating is, essentially, the dance of trying to get to know a girl better and start romance- it’s that simple. Be it going out to a movie theater, going to dinner, or doing something much more ostentatious, dating is simply trying to set off the spark that is romance. Ignore all those little idioms you hear from different Disney movies and Lifetime TV commercials- dating is just dating.

The first thing you need to know about dating is that, simply put, dating is an excuse to get to know your partner and to connect on an emotional level. It is, quite literally, a catch-all excuse to “hang out” with someone and do something together. Dating is not about what you are doing so much as it is who you are doing it with. Dates can be as simple as walking around a park- and while doing that alone is boring and might get you arrested, doing it with a date is considered romantic and interesting. The goal, of course, is to extract information from your partner, provide information, and then generally try to see how you like each other.

That being said, dating is not something you have to do. Really, because it is a catch-all, dating is simply the nomenclature for the process of trying to get to know each other. It’s a temporary attachment.

With that being said, keep that statement in mind. What I will generally instruct you about is the best way to handle these situations- but they are never the same. Undoubtedly, you will have to formulate your own plan to your own style- but hopefully, with my experience, I can guide you down the path that is dating. Remember, dating is all about getting to know someone- so the goal here is to be the best damn person you can be.

Oh, and before I start, relax. Dates are not as big of a deal as they need to be. I’ve said it on here before and I’ll say it again: date lots of girls and date often. Only with that will you find the girl you really like. Focusing on one single girl and obsessing over her is the recipe for emotional disaster. Be willing to be a “serial dater”- even if it’s just flingy little dinner dates like a highschooler. Don’t worry at all. Unless you’re willing to be confident and not worry incessantly, you’ll always be stuck with awkward dates.

Part One: Preparing a Date

So let’s say you met some nice girl (yes, we’re pretty much heterosexual here) you want to date. Obviously, the first thing to do is probably the biggest hurdle- getting a date.

First of all, do some light planning. It’s always best to be prepared, so try to get an idea of your date before you make any moves. Is she a theatre buff? Take her to a play. Is she into music? Try to take her to a live music club or something. Essentially, try to come up with an idea that fits her like a glove- don’t just ask her on a “dinner and a movie” date unless she’s up for it.

Of course, I said light planning, not obsessive intricate militaristic planning. Don’t get some sort of hard and fast idea in your head and push it- just get an idea of some sort. In the long run, you should be able to compose the following sentence:

“Hey ______, would you be interested in going to _______ at _________? I’d like to go, ________ (it might be fun, etc)”.

That’s really it. Don’t make a reservation, plan it already, or just do something ridiculously overdone like that. Never make it an excuse- if you want to go with someone, don’t act like you’ll take them along- make it clear you want to take them and you want to enjoy their company.

That’s all you need for pre-planning. Just ask the girl after that. You see, at this point, you should always be flexible- trust me, you are rarely going to be able to definitively guess a time when she is genuinely free, so try to be open to change.

Addendum: Asking a Girl Out

I usually get this e-mailed to me as a question, so let’s go ahead and cover this.

First off, most women absolutely hate ridiculously complex or contrived things. They also hate falsely fake things. Hell, all in all, there is only one way to do it:

Just do it.

That’s it. During a conversation, slip it in or something. This is not a marriage proposal, don’t treat it like it’s some sort of world changing event. Just ask. If she says no, move on- otherwise, be happy and keep on going. It’s really that simple. The more you worry about being awkward or strange or coming across as “geeky”, the more you actually will. As silly as it sounds, firing from the hip is usually much more effective.

Part Two: Preparing a Date Part II: Wrath of Preparing a Date

Okay, so let’s say the girl has accepted (lucky you). This is when you need to kick into planning mode- and this time, it won’t hurt to go a bit overboard in some respects.

The first rule is to know where you are going and prepare accordingly. If you are going out to dinner, know the menu (generally, menus can be found online nowadays). Know the dress code. If the restaurant is usually crowded, make a reservation as soon as you can. If it’s a production or some sort of other entertainment venue, get advance tickets.

The second rule is to clean up your act, in every applicable way. Before you go on a date, obviously, make sure you are well groomed, well dressed, and ready to go. Most girls tend to lock on to smaller things (fingernails, body hair, etc) if they are dirty, so don’t get lazy. Make sure that your place is clean (in the words of Alfie, “you never know where the day will bring you”) and ensure your car is especially clean (because even if she’s not going to go back to your place, she may need a ride home). Of course, don’t go insanely overboard (avoid being ridiculously clean, as in, don’t make it too obvious), but it’s better to be too clean rather than too dirty.

The third rule is to prepare during the day. Try to avoid doing anything that will screw up the date. Try to make sure your idiot friends won’t incessantly text message you, make sure you don’t have anything else that will interfere. In a more crude way, avoid eating anything that will kill your breath (see: onions) or give you other bodily odors (beans), unless you can handle it. Just avoid doing something incredibly stupid and you should be fine.

Part Three: During the Date

Of course, I can’t tell you what to do on the date (other than “talk when appropriate and do whatever you planned to do”), but I can tell you what will help.

First off, listen and talk and be attentive. Do not try to push conversation in certain ways. Ask questions and be genuinely interested. Don’t slide your eyes down to her cleavage, look around bored, or rant about yourself- people love talking. Trust me, you can learn a lot more by watching her eyes and listening to her words than you can staring at her breasts or looking at the floor or something- though women claim otherwise, guys can be incredibly receptive to smaller details when they want to be.

Second off, be a gentleman and keep your space. She is dating YOU, and obviously you should take advantage of it. This is not prom night, general courtesy demands you hang around with her and be as polite as possible while doing so. Open doors, keep your arm around her when moving through crowds, and generally act as the lubricant to whatever you are doing- make it painless for her. Handle monetary transactions discreetly and quickly- don’t make a big show over paying for a meal or leaving a tip (that’s actually something that should be unspoken and somewhat hidden).

Third off, be intimate without being creepy. Touching is actually a good thing. Trying to cop a feel is not. It’s entirely appropriate to brush against her or touch her hand casually (and I mean casually, DO NOT PLAN THIS)- but it is not appropriate to do it blatantly or otherwise to force the interaction. Avoid making sexual touches (i.e. touching her ass, lower stomach, breasts, upper legs, etc)- it comes off as too manwhore-y. Simultaneously, avoid being the “friend” by hanging on her or patting her on the back. Find a middle ground- and never plan to do it. Let things go naturally.

Finally, know when things get boring. Don’t overextend your welcome. Is she bored at a movie, or is she absolutely begging to go home? Don’t push it- sometimes, it’s best to have a nice short and wonderful date rather than to have a long mediocre one. Leave her wanting more, not feeling full. Of course, you don’t have to end the date if she gets bored- for example, after dinner, you can always get dessert or simply walk around town- but keep things moving. This is where planning comes handy.

Part Four: After the Date

So let’s say you had a slam dunk of a date. Everything went well, you had her interested, and you didn’t screw up (which is 95% of the work, really). What do you do then?

First off, don’t expect sex or, well, anything. Don’t ask her to “come back to your place” for obvious sex- it’s nice to invite her for a drink or something and that’s about it- don’t really expect sex even if she does come back. Don’t ask her if she wants to “fool around”. Don’t try to steal a kiss at the door. By all means, take things as they come (and enjoy them), but don’t force them. By the end of the date, you should know if such a thing is possible. Clearly, if she’s tired and basically clawing to go back to her place, you aren’t going to get anything but slapped if you go for a kiss.

Second off, if there are rules about calling girls back, I sure as hell don’t know them. God bless text messaging- nothing kicks rear like getting a “I enjoyed myself” text only hours after a date or something. Be it instant messenger or by cell phone or by carrier pidgeon, there really is no rule so long as you don’t do it too obsessively. If you don’t know what to do, at least wait one day so you don’t seem stalker-ish.

Finally, relax. You don’t need to obsess over doing a “perfect” date- if there’s anything that can be said about dating, it’s experimenting with yourself in relation to other girls. Even if you screw up, it can generally be remedied- and even if it can’t, some girls find screwups cute (I’m not sure why, but whatever).

Final Points

As many of you probably know, I love having an open spot for bullet points of miscellaneous thoughts and addendum that don’t fit into my articles. So, to close, instead of ending it with a nice little ending paragraph, I will end with some extra points- so in the future, I can always come back and add more and more as I learn more myself. You know. Because I’m lazy.

• The idea of a first date is getting to know each other, not flashing cash. If you’re spending a ridiculous amount of money on a restaurant, event, or god forbid, a LIMO, you are going overboard. Way overboard.
• If she’s coming to your place even for a second, clean it the hell up, ESPECIALLY the bathroom and kitchen. Girls tend to check the bathroom. I’m not sure why.
• In the words of a good much older friend of mine, “A lady will never sleep in an unmade bed”. Learn from him and make your damn bed.
• Dress well for a date, but not too well. Wearing a suit is ridiculous, but do dress up. Dates are fun if only because they are excuses to dress stylishly for no real reason.
• Splitting the check is really only fine in a relationship. For christ sakes, don’t appear cheap. Tip well, too.

Let me confess. I have a bad habit- I browse Craigslist. No, not because I’m off looking for some “hot chika” to bone, but because I find it absolutely fascinating. Between the poorly written lines and the sexually charged rants I find something amazing- the truth. The unbridled, honest-to-god truth. Craigslist is where you find out about the real underbelly of a community, and really get to learn what people are looking for- and frankly, it’s scary.

But there’s a lot to be learned from Craigslist, especially in the dating scene. m4w (Men for Women) posts are filled with mistakes and errors, but somehow they educate us as to what not to become- and similarly, w4m (Women for Men) posts tell us so much about what to avoid.

So, with no further introduction, I present to you a list of life lessons from Craigslist.

Life Lesson 1: Bad jobs (and kids) are deal-killers.

Yes, this sounds crude, but it’s quite honest- no matter your age, no-one wants to talk to a divorced father of three who works at Wal-Mart, even if he’s a greek god. Frankly, too many men exist in the world who are of the “bad job, bad decisions in highschool/college” demographic, and it seems like they all exist on Craigslist. You can probably find some of your own in your local hometown- just look for the guys with the photos with a Midlife Crisis-mobile (usually a Ford Mustang) and/or a hat to hide their balding hair.

The lesson here? Focus on your life more and other things improve too. Be impressive, not normal. Making good decisions in life and being a straight up normal guy will make you more attractive than being a walking mortgage with a penis. No-one says you have to be a high profile big money attorney, but be something unique- don’t become someone desperately looking for love before their geriatric years.

Life Lesson 2: Some girls are scary.

There’s always been this mistaken assumption that most women are attractive, awesome people. You can no doubt imagine forum posts talking about how “women don’t like me ;_;” or something, ranting about how all women just ignore people because they are all good looking elitests.

No.

Some girls are, frankly, scary. 45 year old married women who are looking for a boytoy are frankly a little messed up. Similarly, 20 year old drug addicts who need someone to be a stable force in their life are a little messed up. On Craigslist, if you have a fake e-mail account or two (which is fun), you can so quickly find out how those seemingly attractive asian girls who are looking for “true love” are really incarcerated nutjobs who want you to be the slave to their master as they talk about furry porn.

Of course, this doesn’t always apply. I know some great girls who use Craigslist- I’m not exactly sure why the hell they do so, but whatever. You can find a diamond in the rough. Of course, you could always theorize if you jump into the New York City Sewer system and sift through enough, you’ll find a diamond ring someone accidentally flushed down- eventually.

Life Lesson 3: It’s all about being everything but desperate.

Desperation is a major turn off- and I mean, one that makes you want to vomit. When guys are desperate, girls know- it radiates from you like bad cologne, permiating every action you make with that disgusting feeling of “he’s doing it for the chicks, and he’s doing it poorly”.

The idea here is, desperation (and, as a subset of desperation, excessive neediness, high demands, foolish presumptions, misplaced arrogance, and the like) comes off with one single message: This guy can’t get other girls, and I doubt I’d want him either. It’s as simple as that.

There’s one guy on my local Craigslist who embodies this example so well I’ve debated about linking him (but I value keeping my own privacy too much anyway, as little of that exists now since some of you internet detectives have been working). His posts are long (as in, five pages on MS Word), needlessly wordy, and scream desperate- including a list of things he “expects” from girls, nicely bulleted in poorly done HTML. On top of that, he includes photos of himself, complete with photoshopped abs after he photoshopped his head on what appears to be a Gap model.

Does that guy sound attractive? Hell no. Girls will not find him attractive. Sure, those six pack abs could be real and he could be the next great maximalist writer (I hate you James Joyce), but that won’t matter because it all combines to be something that appears totally desperate. You can almost hear the heavy breathing.

Life Lesson 4: Your body doesn’t matter much.

For the “legitimate dating sections” (i.e. that-which-is-not-the-sex-section), your body does not matter. Hell, even in the “casual encounters” (i.e. sex) section, body doesn’t matter much. So long as you are reaonably fit and healthy, you are an attractive person.

Check out your casual encounters section (if you can stomach it). RARELY do you see women who actually ask for pictures of your naked body- in fact, your face is #1. Why? Because no-one presumes (or wants) you to be Buff Slabchest, Creatine and Muscle Milk drinking extroidinaire. Most girls are turned on by intelligence and personality much quicker than they are how big you are in the pants.

Of course, there are exceptions. This rule doesn’t apply to size queens, nor does it apply to some women who just demand way too much. Of course, as I’ve said before, I never encourage dating these girls, mostly because for all the standards they posess, even if you can match them up, they rarely meet them themselves. Go for the ones that don’t realize their own good looks, it’s like a party and you’re the only one invited.

Life Lesson 5: Why so Serious?

Stop dating “for serious”. While most people on Craigslist post something to the effect of “looking for no drama/no games”, this is generally read as a sign of “I had a bad relationship and need something new”. Hell, even saying “long term relationship” seems a bit awkward. So what’s a guy to do?

Stop being so serious.

I’m quite honest, here. Stop dating “for serious”. Craigslist is the perfect example of why you should always take everything with little expectations: everyone is lying anyway.

Never expect the girl you’re dating to be “the one”. Never expect a first date to be a show-stopper. If you mess up, don’t dwell on it- just take it in your stride. With around 50% of the world populated with women, even if you make a massive ass of yourself on a date (purposefully or accidentally), you can always make it up later- taking life too seriously will just make those itmes harder to handle.

As I’ve mentioned before in “friend zone” articles, the best way to get over being serious is to just start dating different girls. One date isn’t a signature of a relationship, so give a few girls a shot and see what you like. Don’t expect sex, marriage, or life partnership- just mess around and see what you can do. It’s a good excuse to go out at night, and you always can just stop returning phone calls.

Life Lesson 6: Men are hunters. Get used to it.

No matter if you blame it on the time it takes to have children or simply society’s way of making women act standoffish, the world of dating inevitably sets up women as prey, men as hunters. It is rarely (if ever) the other way around.

That’s about it. Go check out the men-for-women sections, then the women-for-men. See the difference? You have learned. Women are rarely made to actually fight for a date, and they don’t- not on Craigslist nor in real life. Why should they fight for it when it comes straight to their door?

The lesson from this is simple: you have to be the factor that begins the relationship. Relationships rarely fall into your lap, you have to work at them. Sure, ideally, you’ll run into a girl who’s perfect for you with no planning- but hell, even this rarely works. Stack the odds, cheat the game, and get the girl- get ahead of every other guy. If Craigslist is proof, there are very few women as it is.

Life Lesson 7: The world is a very scary place.

Okay, in closing, though I enjoy it in some sense, Craigslist scares the living hell out of me.

Craigslist is a perfect example of why half the world is screwed up. Craigslist proves that if you give people semi-anonymity and a way to vent, you will see the true meaning of the world, pending you actually wanted to see it in the first place. You’ll see wrinkled old women pretend to be 19 year old girls, 40 year old men pretend to be Fabio (or alternatively, pretend to be their favorite NASCAR driver, which is somewhat homosexual in a way), and you’ll see people try to sell you stupid shit for insane prices.

If anything, Craigslist is proof that there’s a nice rotten underbelly to any city. If you find that amusing like me, you’ll find tons of things to read and laugh at- otherwise, take a look and find yourself yet another reason to install a second lock on your front door.

As a “fashion writer”, I often task myself with trying to keep up with normal style. This is never a good idea. I don’t fit well in the culture of Fashion Week, nor am I ever invited, so I typically do what everyone else does and sit twiddling my thumbs at my nice little desk waiting for New York Magazine to show me runway styles. Again, this is never a good idea.

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week is a lot like E3 back in the “good old days” where the only people who show up are industry professionals and everyone tries to make a bigger deal of it than it really is. Of course, one could also say that just like E3, you never really see what you see there anywhere else- it’s a vast masturbatory session where the world tries to see who can come up with the most ridiculous fashion to make tiny little anorexic men walk around with.

So, with no further adieu, I present to you my thoughts regarding Fashion Week. As you can probably guess by now, the name of this article is the perfect tl;dr: I have very little idea what’s going on and I’m quite lost but watch how much I can write about it.

Part One: The Designers

The first thing coming off the runway of any importance is Perry Ellis, AKA that guy who makes clothes for the “working man” in his late 20s on. I think I have some Perry Ellis shirts, I’m not sure, but I get the resounding feel that this is my field- like I’m supposed to write about somthing here. That being said, everything from the Perry Ellis line is bright freaking baby blue- like, the color of a baby blanket. Nothing is necessarily bad, but I can’t shake the feeling that this is one big eloquent joke on my part. Nonetheless, as I have expected, everything is excellently tailored- I actually like this stuff (which is a rarity for runway shows). Somehow, I feel as if despite the bright Skype-logo color (which might mean something, I’m not sure), Perry Ellis has done something good, and I like it.

Next, Duckie Brown. Most of it is very 80s or something, everyone looks like Rick Astley, and I’m not even kidding. Wayfarers, strange haircuts, and slouchy sweaters(?) abound. Of course, the tailoring is not bad, I just can’t shake the Rick Astley songs from my head.

B. Michael. Something feels very southern, like a bunch of women and men who want to go on some sort of yachting expedition in the middle of Louisiana where they sip Mint Chulips and bitch about their tans. One guy looks like he came from a very gay Castlevania.

Academy of Art. VERY SERIOUS MODELS.

Lacoste. Proving again that you can get away with anything if your label is preppy enough. Everything feels like a really bad acid trip in an incredibly preppy country club filled with hyper-skinny people who do nothing but look cool and pretend to swing golf clubs.

Rock & Republic. You can tell they are trying hard, but somehow I just don’t see the “rock” anymore. Sure, they have the tight jeans, prominent belts and leather jackets down, but somehow the overuse of glossy satin fabric really looks strange. That is to say, there’s something that I don’t hate about this collection- it’s overdone, but hell, it’s Fashion Week.

DKNY. Putting what I used to wear when I was 12 on an overpaid model is not fashion, it’s creepy, if anything. Some random things stand out as being more tailored and of better quality, but overall, I feel slightly confused. Some of this reminds me of American Apparel, just add a little bit better pants.

Sergio Davila. Finally, another designer doing something for men. Unfortunately, I can’t shake the feeling that the dressing room got messed up in the process of dressing the models. Virtually everything Davila makes is good per se, but suffers horribly from a lack of a coherent theme or feel. His work is certainly interesting and breaks a lot of “rules”, but breaking the rules is not inherently fashionable. Long story short, I’d like to see more of his work, but he’s lacking coherence in a lot of his ensembles.

Z Zegna. There is something ridiculously interesting about Z Zegna’s work, and I say that fully well knowing it’s nothing that I could ever recommend. Other than a few strange outfit choices (shorts with a suit coat?), I like his experimentation, and a lot of stuff is so bold yet so interesting it really does define itself as “cutting edge”. Hopefully this is the only proverbial handjob I give a designer in this article.

Custo. Custo must be drunk.

YIGAL AZROUËL. Again, a person who I think is trying to screw with the collective fashion world- but at least in a more subtle way. His collection is a lot of what I would consider “American Apparel” redux, meaning a lot of skinny pants, big shirts, and strange textile/pattern choices. I don’t mind it by any means, and some of his work is interesting, but jeez. Also, he’s subtly trolling the entire fashion world by making one fine gentlemen wear what appear to be panties on his head.

Part Two: Impressions

Observation One: I am not cut out for fashion week. Either I just don’t understand what’s going on here or this is a big joke. A lot of “men’s fashion” nowadays is certainly arcane or bland, but jesus talk about going overboard to try to be original. I’ve always been of the opinion that good men’s fashion is a blend of the traditional and the radically new, not the equivelant of a bad acid trip.

Observation Two: I think some designers know they aren’t cut out for fashion week too. Notice how many designers who were at fashion week aren’t listed here (like you’d give a shit)? It’s because fashion week is evidently for women’s wear, for obvious reasons. Menswear is like that annoying half brother that you let follow you around but your patronize every chance you get to make up for the fact that you have to deal with his crap.

Observation Three: This won’t really change your wardrobe. Go figure. “Wearable fashion” and “Stuff they have out at fashion week” are two different things, so this really doesn’t matter to you in any way but in a “ha ha look what they make the skinny models wear today” sort of way.

Long story short? Designers scare me.

Here at WellCultured, I talk about fashion a lot- that is to say, if I had a specialty, fashion would be it. The problem is, too often I talk about the “fun stuff” (i.e. the purchasing of new and interesting fashions from awesome dealers) and not so much the maintenence of said clothing- or even how to handle them after you buy them.

So, to alleviate this (as best I can in a short article), here I present to you a quick run-down of how to make sure what you have lasts as long as you want.

The Basics

Most people have entire wardrobes built on “easy” clothing- cotton shirts, jean fabrics, and fleece. Of course, these are the kinds of things that are easiest to buy, maintain, and clean- you can get them virtually anywhere, most do not require ironing, and cleaning them simply requires a quick toss in the wash. Nice, right?

Of course, there are “rules” of sorts. When you wash clothes, it is generally best to mix darks with darks and lights with lights, and obviously try to keep fabrics that bleed away from light colors (so you don’t turn a white shirt into a pink shirt). With the advent of “color-safe” bleach and similar oddities, most normal guys will not even need to bother bleaching clothes or using stain sticks anymore. What a wonderful world.

So, the “basics” are simple. When you change clothes, put your clothes into a basket. When you have enough clothes, wash them. That’s it. There is no special detergent. Throw them in the washer, set it to default settings, and wash. Then throw them in the dryer (unless it’s a certain type of sweater, then you just hang it up to try). That’s it.

But hey, you already know this stuff. Let’s get into the more complex things.

Maintaining Dress Shirts and Pants

Most of the time (and I mean “sometimes”, fashion is never really reducible anymore), dress shirts and dress pants are made with entirely different cloths and knits, which lends them to be weaker and somewhat “fragile”, in a sense. Traditionally, these require dry cleaning and special care above and beyond the “normal” care you have to give shirts, jeans, and “everything else”. Meaning? Dry cleaning.

Thankfully, though, most dress clothes companies have picked up on the fact that the common man cannot afford dry cleaning for every single item in their closet and have compromised in a very good way. Nowadays, you can find decent quality dress pants and dress shirts that do NOT require dry cleaning- in fact, most of them can be cleaned just like a t-shirt or a pair of jeans with no noticeable damage.

The long story short on these kinds of clothes is simple: follow the tag. There is a ridiculous amount of variation in clothing so far as cleaning is concerned, so unfortunately I can’t tell you one way or the other. Most dress shirts nowadays that I have run across are perfectly fine being run through the wash, and some (not all) pants apply as well. When you purchase clothing, obviously, you will want to know these requirements ahead of time.

Maintaining Suits

Suits are ridiculously finicky. Unlike virtually anything else you will have in your wardrobe, Suits almost always REQUIRE dry cleaning- meaning you can’t halfass it at home. Suits can’t be given a quick “touch up”, you really can’t iron them in any real sense, and it’s incredibly difficult to do something as simple as getting dust off them. So what do you do?

First, if you can, ALWAYS hang your suit on a good (i.e. wood or otherwise “thick”) hangar, and give it space. Suits are incredibly delicate and most of them very quickly pick up bad wrinkles and folds- so keep the possibility as low as possible.

Second off, be careful when wearing your suit. When wearing a suit, avoid doing anything to make it dirty or otherwise wrinkle it- in fact, theoretically, that’s the reason why the rule “unbutton your suit before you sit down” applies.

Dry clean your suit often, but not too often. I have previously mentioned a “hotel steam trick” where you can stick your suit in a bathroom and turn on a hot shower to try to help get wrinkles out of a suit- but like I mentioned then, that isn’t something that should be done regularly (i.e. it’s an emergency trick). In general, nothing will clean your suit and make it better than a good old dry cleaning. Of course, the caveat to dry cleaning is that dry cleaning slowly degrades the suit (weakening the glue inside)- so while you want to keep your suit sharp, only dry clean it once every three to four wears, depending on how long you can wear it.

A quick note- never iron ties directly. This can be incredibly damaging to good silk ties- so if you must iron them, do so with a barrier or something. The same applies to nice silk handkerchiefs.

Tips and Tricks for All Clothing

- Fold clothes right after the dryer finishes. This will keep the clothes wrinkle-free, and pending you fold them nicely, it will keep even cheap t-shirts from looking nasty. This is not a way to get around ironing button-down shirts, but it does help with cheaper stuff.

- Fix your own clothes. As unfashionable as this sounds, there’s nothing wrong with making minor fixes to clothing. If a button falls off or a hem begins to come apart, grab a cheap sewing kit and repair it- it’s easier than you think. Of course, for some things (like sleepwear), you don’t have to do anything fancy- just make it work.

- Hang clothes correctly. Shirts should hang from the yoke of the shirt (i.e. the shoulders) correctly. While there are always exceptions, properly hanging shirts have the wire (or wood) of the hangar under the very middle of the shoulder and have the shirt tag in the very middle of the hangar. Pants should be hung evenly on the pleats/creases. By ensuring that clothes hang correctly, they will hang better on you (no pun intended)- which is exactly what you want.

- Iron. Yes, this sounds feminine, but do it anyway. Ironing is extremely important- it makes shirts and pants look MUCH better. There is no excuse for not ironing.

- Wear undershirts.Seriously. Sweat can be damaging to nice clothes- especially nasty yellow-ish pit stains on white shirts. Get a nice tight undershirt or wife beater- if you get something that fits you well, it won’t even be noticeable.

Basically, I want to find a girl who is able and willing to be the ‘man’ of the relationship. Willing to swap the gender roles and enjoy it. How do I find these girls?

Well, this is difficult.

My first reaction to your question is to say that it’s very difficult to find girls who are of a specific interest like that, but the rule of thumb has always been to go where girls you like may congregate. The mantra has always been simple in this regard- if you like sporty girls, don’t look for them in libraries, look for them in athletic clubs. Similarly, while I can’t think of anything that would particularly apply in this case, if you want a girl who is more dominant, you may want to look somewhere that you may find them- I’ve always felt that more domineering girls are in stuff like Political Science or Gender Politics type groups/clubs, especialy in Highschool/College, but it may differ on where you are.

The best advice I can give you is go hunting online (yes, for the first time I’m advocating staying online rather than improving yourself online). Go to a dating site- I’ve covered the basics of this before. Go on there and take a personality test (or whatever they have) and answer the obvious questions pertaining to your interests (i.e. try to make it obvious you want a more submissive role) and see where the site takes you. Whenever you have more arcane interests, you are best suited looking online first, as I doubt there is a “league of dominant women looking for submissive men” in your community.

In any case, good luck.

We too often list off what we don’t like about fashion, leaving a large hole in our arguments: what constitutes good fashion. With no further adieu, here’s a quick list of some good styles becoming more popular in Fall 2008 that we recommend- from our staples (good sneakers) to some new ideas (racing jackets and vests).

A Quality Sweater

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Now that we're entering into the Fall season, a good sweater is even easier to get. Sweaters (especially thinner better quality ones) are very versatile and can be worn in even slightly cold weather. V-necks are in style- not only do they allow for layering, but you can even go semi-professional and wear one with a dress shirt (and even a tie), so long as it doesn't come off as too stuffy.

I’m going on a date soon. the problem is, I’m not very good at dates and stuff. The last time I went on a date, I acted the fool and looked like a idiot. What should I do to prepare for a good date?

All dates are different. No matter how many times you go on a date, they will always be something a little bit new- of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t prepare for the best and the worst of everything.

In the words of Alfie from the movie of the same name (Well, the new movie, not the Michael Caine version), “You never know where the day may take you”. I personally like to operate on this concept with dates- always prepare for the day and make sure that no matter what life throws at you, you can throw it right back faster.

First off, clean and prepare yourself. Dress well- dressing for a date is always better than street clothes, never like business clothes. Never dress too perfectly. Keep yourself clean and neat- a little bit of cologne/musk goes a long way, but you should still smell good without it. Your hair should be neat and clean (never greasy, never excessively messed with). Shave.

Second off, keep your apartment fresh and neat. Like a good friend of mine used to say, “a girl will never get into an unmade bed”. Keep your apartment clean and classy- wood should be dusted, glass should be clear and shining, and your kitchen should be sterilized and immaculate. The small details are what matter (and what jump out first)- keep the pubes off the bathroom floor (ew), keep the hair out of the sink. Your coat closet should always have one extra hanger you don’t use, and every single closet in your pad should be neatly organied. If you’re into that sort of thing, keep a few condoms on you, but not an industrial strength box. You’ll never go wrong preparing for someone to spend the night.

That being said, clean your car. If she gets in it, she will notice dirt.

Third off, prepare the date. Know ahead of time everything that can happen- think of the scene in the Japanese drama Densha Otoko where “Densha” goes to the restaurants a week in advance and tests out the food. Don’t go overboard like that, but get an idea of the cuisine of a restaurant, the movie, or any relevant information. If you have a GPS, use it, or get good directions and practice if you have to. Know what dishes are recommended by local magazines. Sometimes, it’s advantageous to have a backup for after the main event- even if it’s taking a stroll outside.

However, don’t go overboard. Seriously, avoid overpreparing. Don’t primp to “perfection” (this is actually worse than underpreparing). Don’t become excessively dominant or submissive- meaning, don’t demand she does what you want (be flexible), but don’t constantly ask her what she wants to do.

In any case, the biggest rule is to be yourself. Don’t fake it. Be the best you that you can be, but nonetheless, keep to your own standards. Dates are two way streets, so the whole goal isn’t to seduce other women- the goal is to try to find someone you like, and who likes you back.

In any case, good luck!

Occasionally, someone sends me an e-mail or a forum message with some sort of question or comment- usually based on some sort of “fashion fact” (or somthing similar) that I’m supposed to “teach” or otherwise acknowledge. Some of these (such as the whole “white before Labor Day/white after Labor Day” thing) are fine, others are not. So, with no further adieu, the Top 5 myths that were never really “fashion fact”.

Myth 5: Fashion is expensive

Admittedly I’m to blame for most of this. Fashion doesn’t need to be excessively expensive- in fact, for the most part, you can find good fashionable things at a local mall. There are exceptions, of course, but there has never been a demand for you to drop big money on clothing just to be “fashionable”. Most of the “expensive stuff” is incredibly ugly anyway. Intelligent readers will search for deals and “cheap stuff” and work with it. In fact, the most “expensive” stuff is sometimes best purchased cheap- as the saying goes, buy a $100 suit and put $500 worth of tailoring into it, not the other way around.

Myth 4: Fashion in excess is “being gay”

Absolutely not. I’ve gone over this as well- you will not instantly look gay by dressing well (unless you dress like a homosexual, in which I can’t help you). Dressing well with tailored clothing is in fact often done by homosexual men, but it doesn’t scream gay- and most who claim it does are simply trying to come up with a catch-all excuse for dressing poorly. Dressing well can get you MORE women, not less.

Also, a quick note- the whole Metrosexual deal is ridiculous and stupid. The Wikipedia Article on metrosexuality reads like a cross between a disease article and a F-deserving sociology paper, so even that is vague on the topic- no-one knows what it “is”. That being said, your sexuality does not inherently change from your personal cleanliness/style habits.

Myth 3: Fight Club’s Tyler Durden is not the pinnacle of Fashion

Let’s go ahead and get this out there: stop thinking Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden character from Fight Club is anything but a character. You should not dress like him- you can learn a few things from his style, but Tyler Durden should never be emulated, ever at all.

Tyler Durden dresses ostentatiously as a foil for the narrator’s character (without spoiling much, one can say this is really wants to be). Fight Club is built on the binary of the Narrator versus Tyler Durden, and in a very Ishmael v. Ahab way, the Narrator fluctuates back and forth TO Tyler. Tyler is meant to be a character who is wild and untamed, a kind of “super guy”- that means that he wears incredibly ostentatious clothing. You, unfortunately, are never going to be in such a clear cut position where anything you wear looks good- the movie was set up to do that.

That being said, he does have some good stylistic flair about him. Tyler’s infamous crimson jacket, with the semi-70s lapels and close tailoring, is admittedly sexy as hell. Similarly, one could get away with wearing some of Tyler’s shirts (though rarely)- and his hairstyle is fairly awesome. Still, all of those things don’t mean you should use him as some sort of idol.

Myth 2:”If I dress like _____, I will look good”

Okay, I keep saying this, and no-one listens.

Hipsters, Goths, “Nerdcore”s, Emo kids, and any other group I can’t come up with in a minute: you are not fashionable. Yes, you may adhere to the fashion of your particular in-group, but that doesn’t make you some sort of fashion king. Skinny jeans, Chuck Taylors, too-tight t-shirts and keffiehs are not fashionable- you may get attention from your in-group (and if you want that, so be it), but stop trying to put words into my mouth for your own in-group.

My job here is to provide you with an interface for the general world- that is, to dress you appropriately enough to look decent. I’m not going to start talking about how to “dress emo” or something like that- I have no experience in that sense, nor do I want to have it.

But I will say that I don’t really care if you do get into fads. In a great sense, we’re all following one fad or another (or at least falling into roles of some kind, even gender roles), so I’m not going to start pointing and laughing at any given group (though I will note some of you look so much like women I can’t help but laughing). Don’t get angry if I don’t write about it, but don’t take that as some sort of insult.

Myth 1: You have to be rail skinny to be “fashionable”

This is one thing that pisses me off about most other fashion writers, so let me set the record straight: you don’t need to starve yourself to be fashionable.

Yes, lots of models are anorexic. Yes, a lot of guys in the fashion industry starve themselves intentionally. Yes, this has become a nasty circle, as models become skinnier so designers design skinnier and they keep trying to go smaller. This does not apply to you.

Think of it this way- would you like your members of the opposite sex (or the same sex, whatever) extremely tiny, waifish, and without a shred of fat? Most guys will say that they prefer women healthy, not skinny (though there are exceptions), and girls will say the same for guys.

If you want to look good, then look good naturally- be fit, healthy, reasonably muscular, and have fun- but don’t sacrifice the aforementioned to “look good”, because it usually falls flat on your face. While we will talk about dieting and how to look good, the goal is never to become skinny or ridiculously small- the idea is to get to your healthy size and stay there.

People all over the world are watching the Olympic Games in China- so it stands to reason that we are too, and as the little fashion gurus we are/want to be, we’re always looking for good and bad trends. So, hot off the presses from last night, here’s a list of the best- and worst- fashions seen at the Olympic Opening Ceremony.

Note: All images taken from the NBC 2008 Summer Olympics Official Site

Russia

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Sure, it's a little overbearing, but it's great- the hats are a little ridiculous, but overall, it's nice and stylish, and very eye-catching. Not exactly "fashion" for the everyday, but again... it's the Olympics.