Style Lessons I Wish I Knew In My 20s [0:00:00]
Now, gentlemen, you may find this hard to believe, but there was a time when I wasn’t
this good looking. Yeah. There was a whole lot decade when Antonio didn’t know [bleeping
sound] about style. Here’s a picture from my sister’s wedding.
Look at that shirt, a short-sleeved shirt with a necktie. Oh, and what a necktie that
is? And here is me with my beautiful Triumph motorcycle.
What is up with that ugly oversized orange vest?
And, look at this outfit I put together. I can tell you Lady Liberty is not pleased to
be in this photo with me. In today’s video, gents, style lessons I
wish I would have known sooner. Lesson number one, oversized clothing does
not make you look good. Look at this picture here. I look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow
Man, yet I’m 5’9” and weigh 160 lbs. And, the funniest part is I genuinely thought
I wore size extra large for my build. For my body though, I wear a size medium.
Why do so many guys gravitate towards these extra large, extra extra large sizes? Because
they mistakenly believe that a loose cut that all these excess fabric is going to give them
a more comfortable fit is going to give them more freedom of movement.
That’s not the case. It’s actually going to be the style, the cut, and the brand that’s
making that garment and how it fits on your body. Because when you look at a shirt, it’s
not about having a bunch of excess material around the waist, it’s actually having maybe
a higher armhole. Why? Because when you have a higher armhole
on a shirt or a jacket, when you raise your arms up, that jacket isn’t going to bunch
up, it’s also not going to raise as much, so your shirt won’t come untucked.
When you look at jeans, if you go for something that’s a really loose fit jean, what you’re
going to notice is the inseam is oftentimes going to be cut lower. This basically shortens
the leg line. Just think about with your inseam, if you got a short leg line, you’re not
going to be able to move much. But, if you want jeans that are functional, you want to
have higher on the inseam, therefore a higher crotch area.
You find something that fits you well. And, I’m not talking about tight, I’m talking
about something that just fits you well. And all of a sudden, you’re going to have more
freedom of movement because you’re going to have a longer leg line.
The next mistake that I like to turn back the clock and change, I went cheap on my foundational
pieces. So, I had to put together suit, I’m doing some interviews and I remember it, I’m
going to talk about this suit, I went really cheap there. But, I went incredibly cheap
with the shoes. I’ve talked about this before. Your shoes are the foundation of your outfit.
I do think it is something that you should save up and go for shoes that are stitched
together either a Blake stitch or Goodyear welt. I bought glued shoes, and sure enough
within six months they started falling apart, they had fake leather on the top. They just
never looked good to begin with. Now, I know what you’re thinking, Antonio,
I don’t have a wallet full of hundreds, I have a wallet full of 5s. How do I build
a wardrobe? How do I grab these foundational pieces when I don’t have much money?
The answer is you leverage the power of technology. One of my favorite examples, ShopTagr. I’ve
talked about this app before, they’re the sponsor of today’s video. And, what I love
about this, guys, it’s a free app that you go download.
You first create your wish list, then you go through and you start to tag items. And
by the way, this works with over four thousand stores. We’re talking Amazon, Nordstrom,
Target, JCrew, Neiman Marcus, Adidas, Levi’s, Dr. Martens, JCPenney, Ralph Lauren, American
Apparel, Thursday Boots, L.L. Bean, Tommy Hilfiger, and more.
So, you’re going through all these stores creating a wish list tagging all these items.
The best part is whenever it’s in your size, whenever it’s back in stock, whenever they’ve
got the item that you want at the price you’re willing to pay because you actually can put
on there a notification. When it goes on sale, boom! You’re notified, you can go grab the
item and when you go to check out, they also make sure to apply the best discount code
out there. Guys, if you’re not shopping with ShopTagr,
you’re just wasting money. Gents, this one’s a no-brainer, save money shop smart, use ShopTagr.
I’m linking to them down in the description, absolutely free app, amazing app, highly recommended.
Use the link down in the description. Go grab it.
Next up, we’ve got graphic tees. This one right here, I wore it during a presentation
in college and to this day, a friend of mine’s wife who was in that class still remembers
it and brings it up. And, I get it graphic tees are funny, they’re entertaining, they
can bring up interesting questions. But, as you start to dress better as you start
to dress as a professional, you go out there and you get a job, you need to realize that
the statement on your shirt actually people could take the wrong way and it makes you
look immature. I’m not saying you got to throw them all
out, but I am saying be careful when you wear them. And understand that the clothing you
wear everything you put on your body, it’s a reflection of you and your goals and where
you’re going in life. The next style lesson I wish I would have
learned earlier, spending more money going for a name brand does not guarantee high quality.
In fact, it could be something where that brand is resting on its laurels, that brand
maybe you buy a counterfeit. The point is, buyer, beware. You need to understand
quality. So, how do you understand quality? Going to be best menswear store in your area
inspect a $2,000 suit. Look at an $800 sports jacket. Go try on a pair of $500 shoes. You
may not be able to afford it, you may not even right now be in the market for this.
The thing is, once you start to spot quality, once you start to understand it, once you
build up your reference to what is out there, all of a sudden you’re going to be able
to better see it. You’re going to be able to look at the stitching, you’re going to
be able to look at the construction, you’re going to be able to look at the fabric, and
you felt it, you know what great shoes feel like what they look like.
[0:05:07] And so, when you talk to a salesman who doesn’t
know his head from his backside, you’re able to look at this and say, you know what?
I’ll skip on this or, wow, this is a great deal, I’m going to jump on it.
The next lesson, the most expensive clothing you’ll ever own is the clothing you don’t
wear. So, let’s go back to that orange vest. Now, this one I remember. This was the only
time I ever wore that orange vest, but you know what? I got it at 80% off. It was I think
a brand Nautica. And here is the thing is I was drawn to the
brand. I really liked – I didn’t like the color, I didn’t like the fit, but you
know what? I wanted to buy it because it was on sale. That was the most expensive vest
because I wore it, I didn’t even feel comfortable. I think I took it off and put in one of the
side pouches on my motorcycle. The point is, items that you don’t wear
really aren’t worth anything and you might as well – I mean you wasted your money.
So, it’s better to spend $1000 on a suit and wear it two hundred times and absolutely
love that suit, you feel like a million bucks than to spend $200 on a suit that you wear
once and you felt like it was a box and you never wore it again because you were embarrassed
by that suit. Now, a lot of people, oh, that’s a $200
cheap suit, you got a better deal. No, you didn’t. You spent $200 per wear versus the
other suit that you wore two hundred times, it was $5 per wear. And every time you wore
it, you felt like – they felt like a million bucks. That’s what you want to do. Save
up for those foundational pieces. And, when you get them when you know that this is actually
the right choice, then you go ahead and you wear it and you wear it until it falls apart
and, to me, that’s a great deal. Now, the next mistake that I made is the mistaken
belief that fashion is only for snubs. And if you care about style and image, you are
a shallow person. Guess what? We are all shallow human beings. We’re human beings, we make
snap second decisions based off of what we see. And, I know that we strive to be good
people. If you’re watching my channel, I know that
you’ve got big ambitions. You want to start that company, you want to get that nonprofit
off the ground. You want to get there and change the world. But, when you understand
that most people’s brains are incredibly lazy, the lizard brain. We get back to the
fight or flight, we make a snap judgment. We see somebody and if they meet our vision
of success, we give them a little bit of extra time ‘til they disprove they’re not that
person. If someone looks like they’re going to rob
us, someone looks like they’re going to attack us, we react. And, when you understand
that we are very visual and that we fall into these shortcuts, our brain does this to save
energy and to protect us. There’s a long history behind this. All of a sudden you realize,
wow, actually fashion and image and style, this is all about simply using presentation
to my advantage, so that I can go out there and be successful.
It’s not about that fashion is for snubs, it’s about smart men who want to achieve
greatness realize that you could leverage it to get what you want out of life.
The next style lesson I wish I would have learned earlier is that your style will evolve,
your taste will change, and you don’t have to dress the way other people expect you to
unless you are regulated. Because when I was an officer of the marines, whenever we would
go out whenever you had to actually wear a certain types of clothing, there were regulations
for even when you’re in your off time that you had to represent the United States Marine
Corps. And, that really programmed me to have a certain
type of haircut, to have a certain type of style, to always look a certain way. And it
took me a while to get out of that even after I left the Marine Corps and I went off, you
know, started my first company and started traveling around the world and lived abroad,
it was something that I thought I will set as to who I was going to be.
And, the first time and this actually takes me to the next point is only buy your clothing
piece by piece because I remember going out there and buying my first set of suits when
I thought I was going go to business school, and I did go to business school. But, I bought
like three or four of them at the same time and they were all similar style, similar cut.
And, what’s funny is I don’t have any of those, I gave them all away because the
suit cut was so wide, it was so big, I thought that that’s what I wanted to go with and
that’s who I was. And then, a couple of years in all of a sudden I realized, you know
I want something that fits a little bit closer to the body. I want to actually maybe grow
my hair out a bit. I want to change up my style.
And, understand, guys that style can evolve over time. Your taste can change as you age
as you learn more. All of this is perfectly fine. And, make sure when you’re buying
clothing, you buy it piece by piece. Now, understand some people when they need
to go and they need to build a wardrobe they need to build it fast. And, maybe you spent
a lot of time researching, you’ve been studying style maybe on or off for ten years, so you
kind of know what you’re doing. But, for most men, you only want to buy piece by piece
by piece. So, I know a lot of custom clothiers like
sell these package deals. If you’re just getting started, don’t buy one of those
package deals. You want to just buy and build it up piecemeal if you have the time.
Now, these next three I’m going to lump them together because they play off each other
and that is spend cash, be careful of store credit cards, and never walk into a sale.
[0:09:58] So, let’s talk about spending cash. When
you spend cash or maybe a debit card, the point is is that you’re seeing that money
come out immediately. I highly recommend though you spend cash when you’re just starting
off. I know not possible on the web all the time. But, the point is when you spend that
hard-earned cash, you feel it. It hurts. And, I want you to be careful when you’re just
getting started. I would rather you spend more time thinking,
looking, doing research than you know just go blindly out there and spending money because
when you use a credit card, you don’t feel the pain as much. And studies have shown that
you’re more likely, oh, it’s $900, but I can get this for an extra hundred. Yeah,
let’s just go for an even thousand. Guys, that’s a lot of money, so be careful when
you’re out there spending money and try to spend cash.
Now, let’s talk about the store credit cards. These look like a great deal sometimes, oh,
wow, I spend a lot of money and I can save 20% if I grab the store credit card today.
First up, do you have a good credit score? If you don’t know your credit score, then
don’t grab one of these cards because this is going to ping your credit score. They can
negatively affect it. But more importantly, look at the terms and
conditions. Are they charging you 20% interest? Guys, that’s a rip-off. You know go with
a – there are many better credit cards out there. And I know, okay, if you’re going
to do it because let’s say you’re going to spend $2000 and that’s 20% off less,
$400 I can save today. I get that, but make sure that you pay that
credit card off immediately. And, be very careful about the terms. Make sure that you
don’t fall into the trap of getting too much credit. So many Americans, so many people
out there in the world have credit issues. And, let’s talk about falling into a sale.
This is when you buy something that’s unplanned. Gentlemen, if you’re building your core
wardrobe, if you’re building your interchangeable wardrobe, you want to go out shopping with
a list. You don’t want to go in and just say, hey,
I’m going to look around and see if I find anything. That means you’re going to fall
into the trap of, oh, wow, normally $300, it’s on sale for $200. I will save $100.
No, you’re still going to spend $200. Be careful, gentlemen of just falling into sales
and buying things you don’t need. So, I’ve been talking about foundational
pieces, but what do I mean? Gentlemen, find out in this video right here where I break
out the foundational pieces that every man should consider buying. I go into a lot of
detail and I think if you’re out there looking to build your interchangeable wardrobe, you’re
going to want to check out this video. I will also link to it down in the description.
[0:12:11] End of audio