Hi.
Iím Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style and today Iím going to be
talking about building an interchangeable wardrobe.
The first thing you have to understand is that clothing is an investment and this is
important to understand because we live in a society in which clothing is looked at as
disposable.
If you go to Walmart or you go to a lot of these places, they try to sell you clothing
which is poorly made, is made from cheap fabric that doesnít feel good on you.
It doesnít fit you properly and the result is, yes, we can all afford a whole lot of
clothing but we end up with closets just full of clothing but we never have anything to
wear.
The whole idea of an interchangeable wardrobe is less.
Less money youíre going to spend, less clothing thatís going to be on your closet and less
time youíre going to spend getting dressed.
So let me take a step back and what did I mean by clothing an investment.
What does it mean for something thatíd be quality?
Well when I talk about quality clothing, I talk about clothing that is made from a good
fabric.
If itís a shirt, it should be made from cotton.
If itís a jacket or a suit, it should be made from wool.
If itís a sweater, it should be made from cotton, preferably although Iím a big fan
of cashmere; itís not affordable for everyone or a finer fabric.
I guess what Iím getting at is whatever you buy, look to buy something that fits you well
that is a good solid classic style and is something that youíre going to be able to
use and get a lot of miles out of.
Itís better to have less clothing that you wear all the time again than have a closet
full of clothing that isnít interchangeable and as a result itís just causing you a lot
of headache.
I hit on a point about less.
So that, the 3 advantages of having an interchangeable wardrobe are that youíre going to in a sense
have less clothing in your closet and this is pretty big.
I mean a lot of us have very limited room.
I have friends that have these huge walking closets and I guess they can fill it up with
clothing but amazing, they actually do and maybe youíve got one of those closets that
you walk into and itís like, gosh, you just got stuff everywhere but youíre holding on
to shirts that you had in high school or shoes that you havenít worn for 5 years.
And you probably need to reevaluate and look to kind of purge that wardrobe and Iíll get
into that in a second.
So the advantage of an interchangeable wardrobe is that the clothing, you only keep the clothing
that youíre going to be wearing and works with your lifestyle.
The next part is youíre going to spend less money when you have an interchangeable wardrobe
and I donít mean youíre going to spend less money on each individual piece but as a whole,
youíre going to spend less money because youíre going to stop buying junk.
Youíre going to stop buying clothing that doesnít fit you, is made from a poor quality
fabric or that is of a style which is going to go out of fashion here very soon.
And I could go on about whatís in fashion and style but basically as a man; you want
to go with classic style.
You want items which are going to look good on you 6 months from now, 6 years from now,
ff you live long enough, 60 years from now.
Look at pictures of Carrie Grant.
Look at the Duke of Windsor, go back in time, look at some of these old books.
Look at somebody like George Clooney.
If you actually look at older pictures, the guy dressed and a lot of the stuff he wore
back 10 years ago, 15 years ago, he could wear it today and thatís what so powerful
about menís wear is that really the changes are very small as long as you donít try to
ride the whimsical winds of that, winds of fashion.
Thatís where youíre going to get burned and you need to be careful and youíre going
to spend a lot of money.
You go out and buy a designer suit which looks great for the seasons.
Got those nice thin lapels, itís the right cut, itís in color and you think youíre
in top of it and all of a sudden everything changes and that jacket needs to go in the
back and you canít even wear it anymore.
So if youíre interested in learning more about that, Iíve got a lot of other articles
on that so let me jump to the last lesson and thatís spending less time getting dressed.
So when you have an interchangeable wardrobe, itís kind of like legos.
It doesnít really, their all just going to fit together.
Their all going to work perfectly and thatís what you want.
You donít want to spend time thinking and trying to put things together.
I mean 8% of men are color blind so they canít even see how the colors match anyway.
If youíve got an interchangeable wardrobe, you can basically walk in your closet with
the lights off, grab a shirt, grab a jacket, grab a pair of trousers, grab a pair of shoes
and you know what?
You should be able to walk out with a pretty good feeling of confidence that when you throw
that together, youíre going to look good.
Okay, so Iíve talked the 3 advantagesÖ
[0:05:00] Önow, letís get into how to build an interchangeable
wardrobe.
First youíre going to want to inventory your closet.
You want to go through and break it up into 3 things.
Youíre going to want to keep items that you can work with, these are quarter pieces that
you may already own so if youíve got a pair of Oxford dress shoes, a blazer jacket that
fits you well and looks good, if you got a solid suit, those are core items.
Youíre going to get a lot of miles out of that.
In addition to undershirts or letís say some well fitted polo shirts, youíll want to keep
those things as well.
Then thereís questionable items, this is maybe a designer suit that it just, itís
a little bit out.
Donít toss it.
Are you going to be pay for storage cost?
Maybe fold it nicely, put it in a box and weíll maybe revisit that.
There maybe something you can do with that.
Then there are going to be the items which you just need to get rid of unless you want
to keep for Halloween outfit.
This is clothing that doesnít fit you at all.
If youíre over the age of 21 and youíre a man, youíre not going to grow anymore.
Well youíre going to grow maybe out but youíre not going to get any taller.
Youíre most likely youíre shoulder joint are going to grow out 2 more inches so when
you put that shirt on and itís an extra large and you really should be wearing a medium,
get rid of that clothing that doesnít fit you.
Itís never going to fit you and itís just taking up space.
Keep a little bit for work clothing, I guess around the house but no.
I mean, actually youíre work clothing should somewhat fit you because yeah, okay.
You also want to get rid of items which are just, if it looks like it belongs to the 1970ís
or it comes from maybe the 1920 zoo suit era or there are shoes that, I donít know what
clown could wear, get rid of that stuff.
If you have things in your wardrobe that you havenít worn for over a year to 2 years,
put them away and if you canít tell, a great way to do this is to simply put a lot of your
clothing into a storage unit and if you need it, guess what?
Itís there and you can go get it and bring it out.
Iím talking of storage unit in your property or in your house but if you put it out of
sight and out of mind, youíd be surprised at how youíre able to manage with the clothing
that you currently have and next thing you know it, you havenít opened that box for
2 years and youíre wife or significant other or somebody hopefully will get rid of it.
Okay so youíve inventoried your closet.
Next weíre going to start buying core pieces.
Core pieces, it depends on what that is.
Every man is different and this depends on your body build.
This depends on your career and this depends on your resources.
So let me talk about your body build.
If youíre a really large man, there are certain items which are going to look better on you
that if youíre short and stout man and I talk about that in other articles so I wonít
spend a lot of time here.
Pay attention to your career.
A lawyer is going to have very different core pieces than a carpenter.
A gentleman that works, letís say he hangs light fixtures for a living is going to have
a very different wardrobe than a gentleman thatís an international business consultant
whoís always on an airplane and therefore is going to want a lot of dress clothing thatís
also very comfortable.
Itís not saying that someone that works with their hands is blue color, doesnít need a
great suit.
I think every man needs a suit and the reason being there are just times in life when you
need to look like a million dollars and thereís nothing wrong with going after and whether
it be a target suit or whether it be an Italian suit that cost $4000.
And this probably gets the last point about resources.
Whatever it is, you want to look good in what you wear so getting back to that point, I
think every carpenter should have at least 1 suit because if heís got a daughter, heís
going to someday walk her down the aisle and you want to look great when youíre next to
your little girl and your ball in your head off.
So buy core pieces, I talk about this in other articles so I wonít spend a whole lot of
time here.
After you start buying your core pieces then you can expand out of core and when you expand
out of the core, this is when youíre paying attention to your personal style.
This is when you start going for pieces that their a little bit risky so this is going
to be pocket squares.
This is going to be hats.
This is going to be shirts that maybe are a little bit louder and donít go with every
jacket or piece of clothing in your wardrobe or youíre going to go with those white jeans
youíve been wanting to try out.
These are items which are not classic or they may be classic but their just not your cup
of tea but you still want to try and thatís where you expand out and you maybe want to
try things.
I highly advise unless youíre - a manís style is a moving target.
[0:10:00] It evolves and donít be afraid to go out
there and try new things.
So Iíve talked quite a bit about building an interchangeable wardrobe.
Again the big thing is any time you buy something for an interchangeable wardrobe, you want
it to be able to work with all the other pieces in your wardrobe because as I talk about in
the article, if you own 2 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of trousers, 2 jackets, 2 shirts,
youíve donít have 2 separate outfits.
Actually you got 2 times 2 times 2 times 2, youíve got 16 different outfits you can mix
and match and their all going to be slightly different.
If their interchangeable by having 8 pieces of clothing, Iíve given myself a wide range
of options so just imagine if you expand that up to 10 shirts, 4 jackets, 4 pairs of odd
trousers and 3 pairs of dress shoes or 4 pairs of dress shoes.
All of a sudden, you got a much larger, just a wider option and itís going to be very
easy for you to put this all together.
Antonio Centeno, I will let you get started building your interchangeable wardrobe and
I wish you the best of luck.
If you need help with more information like Iíve mentioned, here at Real Men Real Style,
Iíve got articles that are going to much greater detail on whatís a core wardrobe
and understanding whatís quality in clothing.
In addition tips that dress in different body types.
Until next time, move forward with style.
Take care.