It is now almost a year since I started my campaign to dress better. It has been a long road costing way too much money (compared to what i spent on clothes before). I had help though. Nicole put together a great wiki page with stuff I needed to get. Steve gave me advice (though with his purple shoes, I don’t believe a lot of it.) Amy, John, Megan, Maggie, Cara, Tvu, Josh, Candice and Alanna, all actually went shopping with me. And by “with”, I really mean “for” as I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. So, after a year, what have I actually learned?
Sweaters are your friend.
So sweaters are a little annoying in some ways. Some of them do itch. They require special treatment when you do your laundry. They are pretty expensive as far as I’m concerned. That being said, there is some very great things about them. For whatever reason, they are considered being well dressed. The best part of course, is that they require almost no upkeep. Unlike button down shirts, I do not need to iron them. Instead, if I feel lazy but also feel like i should be dressed better, I can just throw on a sweater like I’d throw on a hoodie or pullover.
Everyone but me likes Argyle.
I am pretty sure it is completely inexplicable, but for whatever reason, normal human beings actually like the look these crazy diamonds on the front of your sweater. No matter how I look at them, they still seem horrendous looking, but I have yet to have someone say it looks bad. In fact, if anything, there are compliments given for wearing argyle. Maybe it is just a mass hypnosis or something that occurred to the public.
Layering is good.
I actually still don’t really know what this means, or really how to do it, but everyone is in agreement. When you wear a lot of different clothes together, the sum is greater than the individual parts. What this means is, “dressing well” actually ends up occurring more often in the winter than the summer. In the summer, you can’t really layer, but in the winter, it is all about the layers. Its actually amazing. You can take how I used to dress (t-shirt and hoodie), and as soon as you throw a blazer on top of it, it is considered dressing well. Quite frankly, it makes no sense to me, but one day, I took my t-shirt and hoodie, threw on the blazer, and all day people thought I was going on a date. That was the point when I truly understood that “layering” is the trick to dressing well.
I have no clue about glasses.
I cannot tell the difference between various glasses. It would seem though, my old round glasses are horrendous, and my new glasses are significantly better. Everyone is in absolute agreement on this, but I have no clue the explanation of why. Glasses though aren’t even remotely as bad as …
I will never have a clue about shoes.
There is a magical part to shoes that not only eludes me. It eludes me unlike that of sweaters or blazers or pretty much anything else about dress. I believe that I can understand all of those once I have more experience and help. Shoes, on the other hand, are completely over my head. I have been told my normal shoes are complete crap, but when I am pointed to other shoes, I cannot tell the difference. I know this isn’t just a personal taste sort of thing because the reaction has been universal. Even when I have gotten seperate opinions on shoes, there is a definite correlation between the choices of the various people. Yet, I still see absolutely none of that. I still can’t understand which are good looking shoes and which are bad. I have resigned myself to never understanding shoes and instead requiring other people to always help me with them.
Jeans
Jeans requires its own post. Coming soon.
