3 Style Tips For Tall Thin Men - Tim Francis Interview
Antonio: Hey, guys!
Antonio from Real Men Real Style.
I've got Tim Francis here again.
Actually, he didn’t leave.
We're just shooting a video right after the last one, but I said, "Tim, I need to get
some tips from you.
You are a tall, thin gentleman and you're dressing sharp, and you've probably got some
tips for the readers, for the listeners, for the viewers out there who are in the same
situation as you, who are taller, thinner, and in a sense, they want to look more proportioned.
They want to look a little bit more built."
So the first thing, I'm looking at you and you're really rocking your hair.
You're wearing a jacket.
Your clothing overall fits you pretty well.
You're pulling off those glasses.
You have just got some tricks.
And so, can you start to talk about -- I think the biggest thing I see whenever I see you
is your hair.
Whenever I was looking for Tim in a conference, I'm looking around and there are 2000 people
walking around.
I'm like, "Where's the fro?"
You've got a good story in the sense of you didn’t even know you had curly hair for
the longest time, so tell me a little bit about your hair and how you use it for your
personal style.
Tim: Great!
Yeah, so for the longest time, I just dressed according to what my mom thought.
Do you know what I mean?
And also the circle of friends because I was a hockey player and there's always a code.
The emo kids are one way; the hockey kids, another way; the football kids, another way,
right?
Antonio: Yeah.
Tim: And so, I was just so worried about not being different than anybody else.
I didn’t even know that I had curly hair.
It was always so short.
Remember in the '90s, there was the little snowboard jump at the front or whatever?
Antonio: Yeah.
Tim: Oh my goodness!
So it was one of those things that I didn’t even know I had it, and then I started realizing
-- I got some feedback once that I looked like a college kid behind the drums, and there
is no credibility in that when you're rocking out behind the drums.
I'm not a drummer anymore, but it really forced me to do a little bit of soul-searching, and
I had to break away from -- well, I didn’t have to, but I chose to break away from that
mold.
The reaction that I got as soon as I had just a little bit of peacocking was amazing.
In the last video, I talked about feather boas and all that kind of crazy stuff like
that in the club, but even in a business conference like this, how many guys have long hair like
this?
Antonio: Very few.
Tim: Very few.
Antonio: Yeah.
Tim: And how many people have the confidence to just go and do it?
Antonio: Well, I think you see some guys with long hair and they've got the long hair pulled
back in a ponytail, and nothing against that, but it's more of like a hippie, older man
look.
This is something that still is pretty professional.
It's not super long and it stands out.
And in marketing, from what I hear, standing out is oftentimes a good thing.
Tim: Yeah.
Absolutely!
So there are a few elements of peacocking, if you will, that I've got going on.
One is my hair.
Now, there's the pocket square, and as if this isn't one of the highest return on investment
items that I've ever purchased as far as fashion.
Antonio: Okay.
Stop right here.
Pocket square, I told you guys, if you've got a breast pocket on your jacket, rock it
with a pocket square.
Okay.
Tim: And guess what?
What else I discovered with pocket square -- maybe you've covered this in another video
-- but this is actually the wrong side of the pocket square.
This is the back side.
This is the proper side.
It's got black and paisley and all the rest, but that's a little bit loud against all this.
This is like we striped in all the rest.
So I wanted something, especially in a business conference, to be a little bit more subdued,
less pattern, and so just fold it up three times like so.
It's actually the back side of the pocket square.
It's a single color, silver, just like that in there, spread it out.
It's a little bit messy because I'm doing this quickly.
All of a sudden, now it pops.
How many other guys are wearing pocket square?
What was this, like eight bucks or something like that?
Amazing!
Antonio: Now let's talk about your glasses.
Tim: Okay.
Antonio: You could be wearing contacts.
How come you decide to wear glasses?
Tim: That's a good question.
Frankly, right now I don't need contacts.
I'm not in any contact sports.
When I work out, I go to CrossFit.
There's no hitting or anything like that, so there's no need for contact lenses.
I pick business-style glasses because that's my area of work.
And you'd think that at some point, I'd like to actually get LASIK or laser eye surgery
so that it becomes more of a choice like more of an option, and I just realized that when
I take a look at what is the general sphere of people that I'm working with that glasses
in fact in the business setting can be quite smart and can give a certain impression that
I've got important things to say.
Antonio: Now, we're focusing in on the tall and thin men, so I'm going to skip.
He talks about in our other video about why he wears earrings and the reaction he got
with the earrings, but let's go ahead and talk about this jacket.
Why don't you just simply wear a shirt around here?
Why are you pulling off this jacket?
Tim: Oh!
I think we'll need you to give the science breakdown, but all I know is when I put it
on, it's like fit and finished.
It's like I'm here in its presence.
It gets such a reaction like I know the feeling.
It just it feels right.
It feels good.
It's the right complement to everything else that goes on and it kind of has presence to
say, "Here I am," like the V-shape of the shirt, the tailoring in the waist and everything.
It definitely gives a presence.
And the number of people that I just see a reaction when I'm walking along and they double-take
a little bit, it's like okay, that's interesting, I didn’t get that reaction in the past before
I started wearing jackets and pocket squares and those kinds of things.
Maybe in your opinion, what's your breakdown of things?
Antonio: Well, usually what we talk about with the tall and thin gentleman, the reason
he wants to wear the jacket is it's going to build out the shoulders.
It's going to make the waist a bit smaller, but the tall and thin gentleman, he doesn’t
really have an issue with the waist needing to look smaller, but what he doesn’t want
is the waist to look big or for him to look like a big square.
So in this case, you've got a good fit here in the shoulders.
You want to focus on that.
It doesn’t build you up too much now like a linebacker and it just gives you a more
masculine, more built look, and it works well because a lot of tall, thin gentlemen look
like they have smaller shoulders.
And remember, with tall, thin gentlemen, and we'll get back to why was the hair so important,
the reason the hair was so important is because usually with tall -- and this is across the
board with tall or thinner gentlemen is that usually their head in proportion to the rest
of their body appears to be a little bit smaller than a man who's a bit short.
And usually, short men have the complete opposite problem.
Their head looks bigger in proportion to the rest of their body and that makes them look
like a baby and cute and you don't want to go down that route, so you have the problem
of you don't want to look like a giant.
Your hair actually makes your head look a little bit bigger, which makes you look more
proportioned.
Getting back to the jacket, now we're talking about the overall fit.
One thing I like about your jacket is that it's actually long enough.
Tall men want to avoid wearing clothing that if it's too short on you, either get the sleeve
lengthened or do not wear it because if you wear clothing and you're tall and it's too
small on you, it's just going to make you look odd.
It's going to make you look bigger.
You're going to go from looking tall to looking leggy and out of place.
Now, how is it for you shopping?
You had a shirt on the other day that was a great fit, and you got that, where?
Express, you said?
Tim: Yeah, Express, yeah.
Antonio: And what did you feel?
What was so great about that shirt?
Tim: It just makes my chest look big.
That's one of my favorite things.
Now, the thing is why that happens is because of the fit of it.
If you go to just standard men's wear stores like what you would go to for a wedding or
something like that, they're pretty boxy.
The shirts are just cut and they're kind of baggy around here, whereas as soon as I put
that shirt on, I immediately knew.
The armpit holes were a little bit higher, a little bit tailored in at the waist.
Again, you'd be able to break it down better, but there's something about the collar that
was just a nice presence, not big.
Man, I've seen some venture capitalists with just disgusting, huge collars.
They just look like D-bags.
I just think it looks disgusting.
Antonio: Hopefully, mine is not.
Tim: No.
Yours is great.
Antonio: I'm not a VC looking guy here.
Tim: Yeah.
Antonio: I've been mistaken for a VC.
I was walking through Austin, Texas, and somebody saw I was wearing a jacket into an event,
and they asked if I was an investor over VC, so it could happen, but --
Tim: Well, yeah.
This is my personal preference, big, like huge collar like this, and then like four
buttons down.
It's just like, "What are we doing here?"
Anyway, this particular shirt, just something with the collar, it just sat nicely.
Antonio: Yeah.
Well, good!
And last thing, let's talk about -- guys, I know you can't see the jeans, you can't
see the shoes, but as a taller gentleman, what do you find with your pants, with your
jeans, with your trousers?
Is it hard to find a good fit or is it pretty easy for you?
Tim: I would say that I don't need to go to the big and tall stores, so I'm still able
to stay with pretty standard sizes, but for me, it's one of those things where you put
it on and I just know.
I used to hide behind baggier clothes and there's something about something that fits
a little bit tighter in the legs.
It's just better tailored that immediately, it -- I'm having a tough time putting it into
words, but I just know.
I put it on and it's like, "Okay, that looks good."
Antonio: Okay.
Well, if you find a great pair of fitting pants, gentlemen, you're not going to be able
to explain it because Tim is one of the smartest guys I know here.
Check out Tim over at timfrancis.com, Tim Francis Marketing.
Just do a quick Google search on him.
He's also got a pretty good iTunes channel, which I did an interview with him as well.
We talked about YouTube marketing.
Tim, thank you very much for your insights.
Guys, I have some great tips.
I hope you go back and learn some of this.
Let me know by giving this a like or leaving some comments down below what you think of
the series I'm doing with men I'm meeting.
I think I have some good style and I can give you guys tips, real tips from guys that are
out there, living, breathing, working, and making these things happen.
Tim: And I know that when we rolled in to some of the sessions today, the marketing
thing, there are a few people that kind of went, "Oh!" and they didn’t even know we
did just based on how we're dressing.
Thank you.
It's an honor to be here.
Be sure to keep following Antonio because you've got some good stuff, man.
Antonio: Okay.
And if you guys want more on men's style, you know where to go, realmenrealstyle.com,
check out my free 47-page e-book.
I have a link to it right down below.
I've got lots of great information.
I could be charging for this.
I don't know how much I could charge, but definitely it is good, it's solid.
That's about it.
See you guys in the next video.
Take care.