Transcription
This isn't a video to convince you guys to care about fashion, okay? Fashion—it's a scary, confusing place full of people who make fun of each other, much like card games. But you can, and should, care about how you look. It's healthy, and part of that is dressing well. This isn't about attracting other people; this is about expressing yourself and presenting an accurate representation of who you think you are. Having the world see you as you want to be seen is just good for mental health; it makes you feel good. A barista told me I dress well two years ago, and I'm bringing it up in this video—it feels so good, you guys, and I want that for you. And that is what this video is: just a few very easy-to-remember things that will help you know, for a fact, that what you have on doesn't look bad.
If you're a guy who wants to look normal for once in your life, life number one: color is like hot sauce—use it wisely. Color is like hot sauce: the right amount can take your burrito from mid to amazing, but too much can ruin it. A little pop of color can turn an otherwise boring outfit into something interesting, but using color in the wrong way can make you look like a clown. We're all familiar with the color wheel. Colors on the opposite side of the wheel from each other are complimentary. Now, theoretically, these colors complement each other, and you could put together a fire fit using these colors. It's risky though, and you could very easily end up looking like you really, really, really, really like the dolphins. That is a lot of hot sauce, so maybe go a little simpler.
Analogous colors live next to each other on the color wheel. Pairing these together creates a harmonious, less shocking look. Or you can do what I do a lot and go even simpler: you choose one color and pair varying shades together to create a monochromatic look. It's a respectable look—like an off-duty Power Ranger. By no means do I want you guys to be afraid of color; we want to embrace color, but we just need to understand color. Again, color is like hot sauce. A surefire way to create a cohesive, balanced outfit is to build a base using neutral colors and add one statement piece—that is a very nice dab of hot sauce.
Now, in addition to which colors you choose, it's important where you decide to place them. Basically, you want to match the top to the bottom and place a different color in between: black shirt, black pants, white shoes. Now this looks fine, but if I throw a little white into the mix up top, it relaxes the eye; it pulls focus from the white shoes and creates more cohesion. You can also use accessories to create your sandwich: light up top, dark in the middle, light on the bottom; dark up top, light in the middle, dark on the bottom. The sandwich method is easy, and it works—much like a sandwich, it's easy, but it works. The last thing that I'm going to say about color is that different colors look good with different complexions; different colors look good on different people. My skin has a lot of red undertones—it's unfortunate. Warm colors can amplify that redness, making my skin look overly flushed or irritated, and highly saturated cool colors can create too much contrast, making the redness stand out even more. So I tend to look better in more neutral, muted earth tones: navy, dark green, brown, natural cotton. It's not the most fun palette, but it's the hand I was dealt, so I do my best to make it work. Look in the mirror, take some pictures, figure out what colors match your complexion, your eyes, your hair; build from there. There's a ton of resources on the internet—too many, really—so don't get overwhelmed; they're frustrating. Uh, what colors are you, dude? And look, if you really like the color yellow, I'm not telling you you can't wear the color yellow, but maybe don't wear like all yellow. I would love to dress like Suge Knight and wear an all-red fit, and I could—there's no law against it yet. This is just a good foundation. Again, style is very subjective, and there are going to be exceptions to every single one of these rules. This is a starting point, the very first step in your style journey.
Our next guideline: shape over everything. All right, quick definition of terms: silhouette is the basic shape that your entire outfit and body makes; silhouette proportion is the balance between different elements in your outfit and different parts of your body. Silhouette, proportion, shape. The shape of your clothes is very easy to overlook and is potentially the most important part of how your clothes will look on you. If you think about it, pretty much the only difference between a denim jacket and a pair of jeans is their shape. This is a big-brain tier. You can use the size and shape of your clothes to highlight the good attributes and draw attention away from your less flattering ones. For example, I have a broad torso and long, skinny legs and a tiny little butt. So if I wear skinny pants and a big shirt, I look shorter, fatter, and overall kind of goofy—like a turkey leg at a renaissance fair. But if I wear a smaller shirt and some baggier pants, it works to even out the shape of my outline, so my silhouette goes from this to this. When I was dressing like this, I lived in an apartment and I was single, and now that I dress like this, I live in a house and I'm engaged. But I was employed when I dressed like this, and now I'm unemployed.
One basic rule of proportion that you can generally adhere to is the rule of thirds. You may have heard about a similar rule in architecture or film, the idea being that placing important elements off-center creates a more visually interesting and appealing image. Unsurprisingly, the same goes for an outfit. Chop your body from the top of your shoulders to the bottom of your feet into three equal parts. The top third should be your shirt, and the bottom two-thirds should be your pants. Now look, if you split it 50/50—not as flattering. Again, obvious exceptions. Here's a guy wearing a long coat, and it looks awesome. I'm speaking from experience. It might feel weird, but pull your pants up further than you think you should. And this is coming from a guy who dedicated an entire summer to the summer of sag—you guys remember that? I think you were in Paris. I had a whole summer; I was like, dude, this whole summer we're sagging.
This one's for the bigger guys. A lot of bigger guys have the tendency to want to hide their torso with a larger size, therefore longer shirt. I understand the rationale behind this—you want to hide it—but it can have the opposite effect: it lengthens your torso, shortens your legs, and makes you basically look like one shape. We want to accentuate the waist, gentlemen. So if you wear a wider and shorter shirt, pull your pants up more towards your natural waist; it'll give you the illusion of length, and it'll appear more flattering overall. Check out my man Matty Mat right here—dude wears short-ass shirts; he's not tall, and he's very fat. If you're a shorter guy, higher pants with a longer inseam will make your legs look longer; baggy pants that sit lower will make you look shorter. If you're a taller guy, make sure your clothes fit you proportionally. If your clothes are too tight, it'll make you seem like a kid going through a gross spurt whose mom won't buy him any new clothes. Again, there are a ton of exceptions to these rules, and I encourage you to push boundaries and play with both the proportion and shape of your clothes. We all have different body types; some of us have different body types within the course of a lifetime. So do some research into your specific build and find what silhouettes and proportions look best on you. There's, again, a ton of information out there; try not to get overwhelmed.
Also, real quick, I think it's a scary time for pants width these days. Everyone's wondering, oh, we were wearing skinny jeans forever; now we're wearing baggy jeans. They're telling me skinny jeans might come back. I just threw mine in the incinerator. What do I do? Do I buy baggies or skinnies? I think if you want to go for a timeless vibe, it's something in the middle. By all means, participate in trends. I thought I was going to wear skinny black jeans for my entire life, but I gave them up. Levi's 501s and Levi's 505s never go out of style, so get some jeans now if you want them, but just know that in four years it's going to be the equivalent of this: where if you wear something in the middle, you can look like this 60 years later—that looks great. But online, you don't want people knowing what you look like at all; you want to look like this—just mysterious, anonymous, well-dressed pair of pants. That's where today's sponsor, InCog, comes in. You know those endless spam calls? That's because data brokers are collecting and selling your personal info—your name, your phone number, your address, even financial data—to whoever wants it. But worse than spam calls, health insurance companies have been caught buying this data, tracking what you buy, where you shop, even what kind of clothes you wear to decide if you're a risk and adjust your rates. If you buy plus-size clothing, they can assume that you're unhealthy; if you buy food delivery too often, they could see that as bad lifestyle choices. It's insane and completely, completely flawless. That's why InCog exists. They reach out to these data brokers on your behalf, handle the back and forth, and get them to delete your personal info for good. I've been using InCog, and it's wild how many places had my info. Protect yourself from the ridiculous shenanigans happening on the internet right now. Go to incog.docomo and use code SPEED for 60% off their annual plan. That's incog.docomo/speed. And now back to the show.
Next guideline: shoes are 50% of your outfit. Shoes have the ability to completely blow an otherwise great outfit; they can also make a pretty normal outfit really cool-looking. Rick Owens once said, "Hair and shoes say it all; everything in between is forgivable as long as you keep it simple," and I 100% wholeheartedly agree with this. Here is my take on shoes: clean white canvas shoes always look good; dirty white canvas shoes look good most of the time. Chucks, Sperry's, Vans Authentics are all really cheap, timeless examples. They look good with jeans, they look good with chinos, they look good with shorts, they look good with swimsuits. A nice pair of white canvas shoes suggests that you're having a good summer, no matter what month it is. This is one of the reasons that they're so cool: they're effortless; they're just shoes. White canvas shoes are simultaneously old-money aesthetic and punk-rock aesthetic; they are the great unifier; they look good on everybody—boys, girls, men, women. White canvas shoes: always have a dirty pair, always have a clean pair. But it's versatile and just generally awesome-looking as a pair of white canvas shoes are. I'd also challenge you guys to find a pair of casual shoes that you can wear every day that are not sneakers. All right, it's time to grow up a little bit. Could be boots, could be loafers, chukkas, a nice Derby, leather, suede, something similar to that—just find one that feels really good to you. Hell, find one that doesn't feel good to you yet and wear it until it does. I've been doing this in my own life. I've recently decided, hey, I'm a grown man; I should wear shoes that aren't sneakers, and I've done it. I got a brown pair, and I got a black pair, and sometimes I'm not super confident wearing them, but I'm pushing myself and I'm becoming more comfortable and confident working them into my outfits. Again, these are all guidelines, and I don't like to be an absolutist about anything, but I think it's fair advice to say: don't wear sneakers with a suit. There's a 1% chance that it could work, so if you think that you're part of that 1%, go for it, but chances are you're probably not, though. Wearing sneakers with a suit used to be a fun thing, but it's increasingly rare to be in a situation where wearing a suit is required, so leaning into it and going full-in is the fun option. Now, use the excuse to play dress-up; use the excuse to look like James Bond or Don Draper for once in your life. We live in a world where you can wear sneakers to like literally every situation—wear appropriate shoes every once in a while. How many wedding pictures have been absolutely ruined because the groom and his buddies couldn't leave the Chucks or Jordans at home and wear a pair of appropriate shoes? And expensive shoes doesn't mean nice shoes—it's like, well, these sneakers are $1,200; they're nice. Well, they still look like sneakers with a suit, dude, so don't wear them. I'm not trying to be a hater, but a suit usually means a special occasion, and it's usually not worth the risk. And I'm a big fan of showing respect to the situation.
Next guideline: personal style takes a while. Now you might feel like personal style isn't something that applies to you or that you ever think about. You may have found yourself saying something like, "I can't wear that; that's not my style." You also might be completely overwhelmed by the idea of, "What is my personal style?" Well, I'm here to tell you that the concept of personal style is misinterpreted and given way too much credit, especially online these days, and at its core it can feel like a scam to trick people into buying a bunch of stuff, as your personal style shifts with the latest trend. So here's the thing: everyone has personal style, and no one has personal style. Very few people can actually define their personal style, because defining things is incredibly hard. Take this channel, for example. Now I stand by the fact that every video that we put out is something that I'm proud of, but if you asked me to define what this channel is, I'd have a really hard time, because it's too early. Our approach is to make a bunch of stuff and let the definition present itself, because if you define something too early, you limit what it could be. And it's the same with personal style; it's the same with the clothes you wear. Wear a bunch of outfits; put a bunch of stuff on; try things out—what works, what doesn't. Focus on dressing well instead of dressing uniquely; dress with intention, not for attention. Try to recreate outfits that you see online; find a bunch of dudes that you think dress really well and start a freaking Pinterest. If you have good style, the fact that you are the one wearing the clothes is the thing that makes it personal; it's like your voice or your handwriting. I'm not telling you to go out and buy a bunch of new clothes; in fact, I want to encourage the opposite: don't go out and buy a bunch of new clothes. Look in your closet and figure out stuff that you have now and how you can look at those items in new ways. When you do buy new stuff, think of certain situations that you would wear those outfits in instead of seasons that you would wear them in: I need pants to wear to a nice restaurant versus I need new pants for spring. Eventually, your personal style will present itself; it's like a nickname—you can't really give one to yourself; it just kind of shows up one day. This video is not telling you to go out and buy a bunch of new clothes; save your money, buy vintage. And plus, if it's old, then you don't worry about messing it up.
When you're in the garage, speaking of garages—you want to buy your garage an outfit? Go to speed. because we now [Music] have speed flags now available at speed. It's like an outfit for your garage, or your bedroom wall, or your dorm room wall, or any flat space. If you hang this thing on an actual flagpole, extra points if it's at some university somewhere, or if you hang it off the back of a pickup truck—send me a photo, and I'll do something for you. We didn't want to tell you to buy art or clothes in a video about how to dress, so we made a t-shirt for your wall; it's called a flag. Check it out at speed. And now back to the show.
Finally, the fifth and final piece of advice: health is the best accessory. No matter what you have on, it will look better if you look healthier. And I'm not just talking about being in shape; I'm talking about being healthy—physically, mentally, emotionally, well-hydrated, well-adjusted, well-rested, hell, well-moisturized. It is very possible to dress well and still look like absolute dog—ask me how I know. The inverse is also true: a healthy-looking lad or lass can look extremely stylish rocking very simple garb. Dressing well is intriguing because it suggests a more interesting lifestyle beyond the clothes—is that guy a poet? An explorer? A doctor with a podcast? Now, taking care of yourself takes that concept and increases it tenfold; it suggests that you got a lot figured out. I wonder what time that guy wakes up; I wonder what his skincare routine is; that dude must journal. I think this whole video and a lot of the things on this channel are to encourage you guys to try: drive a cool car, get your head right, take care of your body, wash your face, get a haircut, trim your beard, go to the dentist, put on a nice outfit. The world is absolutely wild these days; it's easy to get overwhelmed and to feel helpless—that's how I feel sometimes—but I do believe that doing everything that we can do to make us feel good about ourselves is the first line of defense. And I want you guys to notice that I said feel good about ourselves, not just feel good, because feeling good all the time is impossible, but you can feel good about yourself even when you're not feeling particularly good. If we do everything that we can to feel good about ourselves, then we eliminate a number of elements that could be making us feel bad, and we're able to focus on the actionable items that can make a real difference. And once you feel good about yourself, magically you're in a position to encourage other people to feel good about themselves. So basically, I want you guys to try, and encourage other people to try. Dressing well is just one way. I love you. Bye. [Music]