So the other day, I'm out shopping with my nephew. We walk into a department store,
and we are overwhelmed with the number of choices. We look to our left, we look to our right.
We are walking up and down these aisles. There are thousands and thousands of choices here.
Seriously, in the denim section alone, slim, straight, slim, straight, regular.
And then you got to choose the brand, the color, and the wash type. It's no wonder that most of
us would rather go to the dentist and get a root canal, then spend a day out shopping.
But what if it didn't have to be this way? What if there were simple guidelines any guy could
follow to buy the right clothing every time? So let's start things off with the triple I.
First be inspired imitate, and finally, you want to innovate. So by being inspired,
I'm talking about finding a style icon, somebody's look that you absolutely love and
basically following them. Maybe on Instagram, putting together a board over at Pinterest,
watching a movie, and keeping track about a look that you absolutely love.
On idris elba on Ryan. Gosling on. George Clooney.
Brad Pitt. Ideally, you find a guy whose colors and complexion are similar to yours,
but most importantly, you love what their clothing
represents. Maybe you've got a favorite musician whose style you absolutely love.
That is a great place to start. Next up, you're going to imitate. You're going
to take that look or pieces of that look, and you're going to work to make it yours.
You're going to maybe grab a similar jacket. You're going to stick with that color combination
that just works. And you want to replicate this in your wardrobe by creating an outfit, at least
one outfit that brings in those colors, maybe even brings in those particular style pieces.
And I know some of you guys are thinking, well, if I imitate,
everyone's going to know that I'm copying that look. No Bob Marley right here.
What do we have? A gray sweatshirt, a green fatigue jacket with blue jeans.
This combination is timeless. He made it work. And if you like this combination,
you've got a similar complexion, or if you don't, but you just simply like the combination.
There's nothing wrong with imitating this. That being said, once you started to imitate, there's
nothing wrong with taking it to the next level and starting to innovate. Maybe you really like black.
You want to dress like the man in black? Well,
guess what? You can bring in a few accessories. You can change things up,
wear your hair in a different style than Johnny Cash did, or maybe you're stealing
style inspiration from a different Johnny. Well, in this case, maybe you want to tone it down.
Maybe not go with so many accessories and lay off the savage. The point is
to find somebody that inspires you and then steal their style like an artist. Next up,
we're going to cover the style trifecta.
We've got cut, we've got Craftsmanship, and we have context. Lesson here is that you
shouldn't buy a piece of clothing unless you can check the box on all three. So with cut,
this means the clothing should fit and drape on your body and look good.
You don't want to buy clothing that doesn't fit you. Seriously, if an item is 90% off,
okay, if it's a good deal and you can resell it or fit your cousin,
grab it. But otherwise, skip on this because it doesn't matter how much money you save
unless it can be adjusted to fit your body, guys, it's never going to look good on you.
It's going to be oversized, and yet proportions just are not going to fit.
It's just not going to be a good buy. You're never going to get a good wear out of this,
because if you remember from my style theory of value, value does not equal price.
Value equals the number of wears times the way it makes you feel divided by
price. What that means number wise is that cheap pair of shoes that you spent
$50 on but you wore once was a much worse deal than yeah, those $500 shoes that you
ended up wearing almost 100 times because they look great. You got compliments.
You loved wearing them. And that takes me to the second seat,
which is Craftsmanship. Gentlemen, you want to buy the best that you can afford.
I understand some of you guys are on a tight budget, and I don't recommend a man go into
debt simply to buy clothing. But I do think if you're spending a lot of money on your education,
you should consider buying clothing. That actually sends the message.
But back to Craftsmanship, buying the best you can
afford. Look around. Understand what you're out there buying.
One of the things I recommend is going into the best menswear store in your area and
actually getting your fingers touching high Craftsmanship well made pieces of
clothing that you'll be able to see the way the buttons are sewed on, the way the fabric feels.
You can actually look at the shoes and start to understand the difference in construction.
All of this is going to enable you to buy the best quality you can with the money you have.
Quality is more important than quantity. Now, let's talk about context. Is there going to be
a situation when you buy that piece of clothing that you're going to be able to wear it? Yes.
You really like the look of a suit, but if you have no occasion to wear a suit,
you're not working in a city. You don't have an office job. You work blue collar.
I love the fact that you would want to own a suit, but you got to ask yourself,
is this the right piece at the right time with my limited budget? Because am I going to
get my miles out of this suit. So what I always tell a guy is, look at what you actually need.
If you go into your job and you don't wear a suit, but you still want to dress nice,
it's going to be more business casual clothing that you're going to want to add to your wardrobe.
Not necessarily a suit, maybe a sports jacket, maybe a casual jacket, a sweater jacket that
you can slip on. Maybe some nice shirts, dress shirts, button ups. That right there,
you're going to get a lot more mileage out of that than going too formal or too casual.
Now, let's talk about the concept of the infinite wardrobe. Many of you guys are going
to recognize this as the interchangeable wardrobe, but if you think about it,
if you had five pairs of trousers, you had five jackets, five shirts, five pairs of shoes,
how many total outfits would you have if they're 100% interchangeable? Now, if this is the first
time you're watching an Armrest video, I'll forgive you if you say five, but just do me a
favor and smash the like button. I appreciate it when you guys engage with these videos.
It lets the YouTube algorithm gods know that, hey,
this video is worth watching. But if we had 100% interchangeability gentlemen,
that's five times five times five times five. That's 625 outfits from 20 pieces of clothing.
Yes, I know, not truly infinite, but come on, that's two years,
a different outfit every day. Now, one of the keys to making that infinite wardrobe
actually work is chromatic cohesion. So this is the idea that you're using color strategically.
You're being really careful about the pieces you add to your wardrobe, making sure that your
jackets are going to work with all your shirts. All of your shirts are going to work with your
trousers, all of your trousers are going to work with your shoe. Styles? Did I say styles? Yeah.
You do want to make sure that we've got about the same level of formality. So you
would wear an ultra casual shirt with a jacket that's just mix it's oil and
water right there. You don't want to mix them unless you actually know what you're doing.
But with color cohesion, we're actually with our base items, especially trousers,
we're keeping it simple. We're going to go with solids, we're going to go with grays,
non colors that match pretty much anything with our jackets. We're going
to stick with maybe three or four colors, especially with the suits I would choose.
You're going to go down the gray line. Are you going to go down the dark blue line with your
shirts? Not really going over the top. In fact, sticking with classic colors,
white and light blues, maybe bringing in some medium blues, some dark blues,
then going variations with a few patterns here.
In fact, on the side note, I was looking through all of my shirts the other day. I've probably got
close to 200, and over 100 of them are either white, a variation of blue, or a combination
of the two in patterns. Now, some of you guys may be thinking, well, that sounds incredibly boring.
Gentlemen, systems will set you free when you don't have to worry about
things working. Guess what? That's when you could actually have fun. That's when
you've got the base down and you can start to paint with colors.
You can strategically bring in pinks, reds, oranges. All of a sudden, these
are more accent colors. You can bring them into accessories, pocket squares, neckties.
You can bring them into watches, your glasses. All of a sudden,
you're able to introduce those dashes of color. They're kind of like salt in cooking.
You just add a little bit to be able to bring out the flavor. If you add too much, what happens? All
of a sudden, it becomes unpalatable. It can be the same thing when you're putting outfits together.
Now, really quick, I want to show you something. Look at these boots
right here. What do you see? A scuffed up toe.
I can tell you these are great quality boots, but the fact that they're not polished,
the fact that they have a scuffed up toe, that's what people are going to notice. Gentlemen,
the same thing applies to you if you don't take care of your grooming. So
to get the polished manaesthetic, there are eight areas you want to focus on skincare,
hair care, facial hair, body care, oral hygiene, nailed care, fragrance, and personal hygiene.
So with skincare, keep it simple. You want to have just a morning and evening
routine. You want a face scrub that you're going to use a couple of times a week.
You want a face wash you're going to use first thing in the morning,
and you're going to use at night. And you want to have face moisturizer that you put on first thing
in the morning and before going to bed. Now, today's video, Gents, is sponsored by Vitamin.
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we've got hair care. And this one should be pretty simple, using a shampoo and conditioner.
And you do want to use a conditioner, even if you have short hair, because basically
what it's going to do is if you use too harsh of a shampoo, the conditioner should come in,
and it should actually coat the hair follicle and protect it. Again,
over at vitamin we've got are just great if you got oily hair, if you've got dry scalp,
if you've got thinning hair. We've got particular shampoos made just for you.
In any case, gents, you want to buy a shampoo that isn't going to be too
harsh. Next up, we've got facial hair grooming. So if you've got a beard,
you probably already know a lot about taking care of it.
You want to keep this trimmed. You want to keep it on point. You don't want to
be letting that thing grow wild unless I guess you're working as a real lumberjack,
not dressing this one point being is maybe look at a beard oil.
There's some great smelling ones out there. But if you are shaving your face,
one of the things I recommend is to work on your technique. A couple of quick tips here.
Use a shaving oil and then use a shaving gel on top of that. Those two layers are
going to provide more protection. In addition, check out this shaving map.
As you can see right here, your hair on your face grows in different directions.
And I highly recommend when you're shaving, to use shorter strokes. Seriously, Gents,
you don't want to have that razor going from one part all the way to the other.
Instead, take very small strokes. Guys,
follow those simple tips and you will have a lot less irritation. Next up, body care.
I am of the camp that you should shower daily. I find it just wakes me up in the morning,
but I get it. Some of you guys only shower when you get dirty.
Hopefully that's once a day. Point being is, yeah,
you want to shower and wash off the grind. Oral hygiene, guys,
brush your teeth twice a day, and I highly recommend you invest in an electric toothbrush.
I've talked about Brio, not the sponsor of today's video, but I love their electric toothbrush. In
addition, using floss and only floss the teeth you want to keep, which is hopefully all of them
once a day. And use a mouthwash before going to bed or before you're going out.
Nail care. This seems simple, but so many guys mess this up. And if you go onto Reddit, there are
entire threads dedicated to women that are talking about how, yeah, they were getting frisky with the
guy and all of a sudden they saw his nails and they're like, yeah, those are not going near me.
Guys, take care of your nails once a week. Cut them. Now you've got options.
Scissors, clippers a file. The best is filing your nails and go in one
direction. But if you're going to use scissors, that's a great option as well.
Clippers. Understand they are if they're not good quality, they're actually crushing the
nail and they're the worst for your nails. But in any case, simply cut your nails,
maybe clip them if you're going to use clippers and then go over them with a file.
And last but not least, personal hygiene and fragrance. Use a deodorant, especially
if you smell, if you sweat, you work around other people. And when it comes to fragrance,
it's better to be discovered than to announce yourself when you walk in the door.
Now, as I'm laying out these style rules, I know somebody out there is saying,
who the hell are you, Antonio, to tell me how to dress? And I get
this. I am a nobody. Except I do have a background in evolutionary biology.
I also understand men's style. I've designed thousands of wardrobes, and I've studied the
science of style. And what blows me away is how human beings like to take shortcuts.
They're making snap second decisions based off of very little information. And that very
little information, in most cases, when you meet somebody in person that you've never met before,
is visually how they look and how they dress. The point is,
I agree that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.
Yet reality is that people do this every single day, the vast majority. And I want you to be able
to use that to your advantage. That being said, when you understand these rules, you master them.
Guess what? You can transcend them. All of a sudden, you can bend them,
you can break them to your will and how you want to use these. And yeah,
then you can throw it to the wayside once you understand the rule and why it's there.
Now, this next rule is really simple, but understand that timeless is always better
than trendy. I like trendy clothing. I like fashionable clothing.
The whimsical winds of fashion. It's fun to play around with that stuff. But understand that if
you're going to spend good money on a pair of shoes, on a particular suit, on an outfit,
and you don't want it to be out of style within a year, guys, you want to go with classic style.
And a lot of people think men's classic style is boring. Not really. And I love
the fact that you can look at Carrie Grant from certain photos from the 1950s,
and he could be in modern day New York and look good.
You can look at certain outfits Ryan Gosling was wearing a decade ago,
and they still would look great if he walked into a party today. And that's
what you're looking to imitate. That's what you're looking to be inspired by.
That's what you're looking to innovate on and make yours. So this next style rule,
I think, is really important. And so many guys forget about this,
and that is, if you're going to be dressing sharp, go through the drills.
Practice dressing sharp. So as kids, we all learned about fire drills,
right? The fire department shows up to our school. They show us where the exits are.
When you fly on an airplane, they don't have you practice it, though,
because I can tell you if you had to exit a plane. Anyone that's ever gone through
an experience like that, it is chaos. Why? Because people haven't practiced it.
If you practice a drill, you're more likely to understand what to do. And there was something
we did all the time in the military with your wardrobe. You want to have certain
outfits that are your go to outfits, and you know they're your go to outfits,
and you know that they look great on you because you've worn them before.
You've gotten compliments with those outfits. You know that they
fit you well, that they feel good, that you know where they're at,
and they are ready to go. When you do this by practice, practice doesn't make perfect.
Perfect practice makes perfect. And as you say, hey, you wear that outfit,
but the shoes just don't work with it. They're not super comfortable,
even though they look good together, you know to change out those shoes.
And eventually, through that perfect practice, you're getting and you're perfecting your outfits.
You've got one outfit, two outfits, four outfits, eight fats outfits. You see where I'm going with
this? And all of a sudden, you've got a wardrobe of items that you absolutely love the look of,
and you understand how to put them together because you've put in the reps.
And now, gentlemen, perhaps the most important point in this entire video,
you ready for it. Gentlemen, if you want to dress sharp, if you want to look good,
you've got to give a damn. Seriously, if you just think that you need to dress
sharp and you're going to put an outfit together and then go with it, good luck.
Looking good versus understanding why you need to dress sharp. Well,
because I want to advance in my career. I want to be able to get that loan from the bank.
I want to be able to get my nonprofit off the ground,
and I'm going in front of an investor. When you understand your why, all of a
sudden you make this a priority. You start looking at the details.
You spend time and more attention. Maybe you don't give a damn about clothing, but what
you do care about is the way the world sees you. And that's what I talk about here on my channel.
Honestly don't care about clothing. I care about you becoming the man you know
yourself to be. And clothing is a tool to help you shine.
Like that diamond that people don't even see it's there, just barely out of the ground.
But you take that diamond, you cut it the right way, you shine it, all of a sudden,
the world sees its brilliance. Gentlemen, that diamond is you go out there and shine.
So what video to watch next gens? How about the number one rule to always look
confident? If you enjoyed today's video, you are going to love this one. Boom. Right here.
Yeah, go check it out. It's a good one.