Marks of Men

The chore coat. Origin: It started as French railroad workwear in the 1800s. The blue dye hid the grime. This is where the term "blue collar" comes from. Signal: Hard work. Craft. Capability. Styling: Throw it over a white tee with dark pants and honest accessories. Simple. Grounded. Done.

Gilded boy summer is the vibe we deserve.

Stop blaming countries for low quality products. Blame the companies that ordered them that way. Bangladesh makes garments for luxury houses. Vietnam builds Nike's best shoes. The country isn't the problem. The spec is.

@Catzies @dieworkwear He’s positioning. Refusing to dress for the role.

@MarksofMen @dieworkwear Yes to all that, plus more credence to the "Everyone is twelve now" theory, because he's dressing like a petulant 12 year old.

Looking like he's dressed for the Debt Gala

@Byronn4561 @UltraLinx The biggest one is cost of living. Other reasons include homelessness, crime, traffic, sanitation, etc. but those are aren’t unique to New York. The cost of housing here is completely insane.

@MarksofMen @UltraLinx Why? Never been.

New York really is the best city in the world.

@sfmcguire79 @Noahpinion

Yale has issued a new report on declining public trust in higher education. The New York Times has a great headline summing it up: This is so refreshing. The first step is admitting the problem.

@Noahpinion Into it. Can we talk about the emotional emptiness of Sears?

Yes.

@rfkenmore Looks like cotton. Sturdy. Not for me but I get it. When they start selling these, it’s over:

@MarksofMen Like these?

Alright what’s going on here

There is no "best" in men's clothing. To get the right look, choose the item that represents your taste in the clearest way.

@dieworkwear Most style rules aren't wrong. They just have a limited jurisdiction.

@MarksofMen I also think that's conditional. The outfit on the left operates within an aesthetic that requires you to match the color of your belt to your shoes. The outfits on the right don't operate under such a rule. In fact, if you wore a white belt here, you'd ruin the look.

@dieworkwear This makes me wonder how many cardinal rules survive their conditionals. Does "match your belt to your shoes" hold up, or is that another rule people follow without asking why?

🙏🙏🙏 thank you. sometimes i feel like im repeating myself

@blakeaburge Assuming good intent gives you back your power.

A cheat code for peace: Assume it’s not about you. Someone’s tone. Their mood. Their short reply. Feels like it’s aimed at you. 99% of the time, it’s not. Sometimes people are just busy. Sometimes they’re off. If you take everything personally, you’ll spend your life exhausted.

Be advised. Today is an Oxford button-down day. Act accordingly.

@Super70sSports American Airlines is TJ Maxx with wings.

Back in the 70s, American Airlines 747s had a fucking piano bar. You haven’t even experienced the miracle of flight until some drunk businessman who hates his life is plunking out Honky Cat at 35,000 feet.

@RossMackay111 Health, wealth, and relationships. That's honest luxury.

Feels like luxury has changed a lot. it used to be cars, watches, all the obvious stuff, but now it’s more about having real energy, being in great shape, and actually feeling good day to day. You see plenty of successful people with money but poor health and it’s just not that aspirational anymore, whereas the ones who have both their health and their business dialed feel like the real standard now.

@dieworkwear It starts with knowing who you are and what you want to say. Do these look good? That's the wrong question. Does this actually represent who I am? That's the question we should ask.

Most of the questions I get (e.g. "what do you think of loafers," "who makes the best jeans," "how should I dress for my body type," "who is the best tailor") can't be answered in any thoughtful way. A thoughtless, meaningless answer is something like "baggy jeans are great!" Or "they're a fad!" Unfortunately, such brief answers are the only ones possible on social media because this format does not lend itself to thoughtful discourse. Most style-related questions have to start with: "How do you want to dress?" Your sense of dress should be informed by culture. It can't be just some random, creative collection of things you found on the internet. Do you like punk style? Preppy style? Avant-garde? How do those aesthetics fit into your lifestyle and personality? What are their rules for color, silhouette, and styling? This is not a process I can do for you, especially not through social media. This is an exploratory process you have go through yourself. You have to ask yourself: "Who am I?" IMO, any style writer who doesn't contend with this very nature of self-fashioning is doing their audience a disservice. The endless shopping lists of supposed menswear essentials. The guides on how to hop on some trend. The pointless lists of "best loafers" or "best spring bags." IMO, you first have to contend with the fact that dress is a social language and there are many visual languages, each formed by culture. Nothing can be answered — "does black go with brown" or "can men wear backpacks" — without first wrestling with the sociological and semiotical nature of clothing. Baggy jeans work with some aesthetics and not others. Whether they are good or bad depends on the visual language you're operating in. If your style is inspired by 1960s English professors, then baggy jeans are bad because they make no sense in that cultural aesthetic. If you want to dress like a 1990s rapper, then they make perfect sense. A thoughtful approach always begins with culture. Those interested in this process may find this article useful. It's about how to develop a sense of taste. dieworkwear.com/2022/08/26/how…