Why Most Men Have No Style.
*Gent Z may receive a commission when you click on links to make a purchase.
I’m not here to give men a hard time for dressing poorly.
I understand why so many guys struggle to look good and dress like the man they want to be.
I understand why they instead resort to baggy t-shirts, sneakers, sweats, and baseball caps.
I want to help you if you struggle to dress well.
In this article, going to provide you with some solutions that will inspire you to dress like the best version of yourself and make it seem much easier than it currently does.
If you find my advice strikes a chord, you can book a free 15-minute style consultation with me so I can personally help you look your best.
Time
Without a doubt, the number one reason why men struggle to dress well is because of time.
Men are busy, especially a lot of the men I work with.
They are business owners, they have demanding jobs, children, a wife and a whole ton of other important responsibilities.
As a hard-working man, it’s not always easy to find the time to dress well
So it is totally understandable that style, being a non-essential, gets left to the wayside.
Busy men do not have time to scroll through Pinterest or Instagram to find outfit inspiration.
They do not have time to buy and return new clothes all the time.
And they certainly do not have the time to waste experimenting with a new style that might make them look ridiculous.
I know very well that style can quickly turn into a hobby, and some guys prefer to keep their hobbies to golf, fishing, or whatever else gives them fulfillment.
But here’s the thing - if you don’t like cleaning, or you don’t have the time to clean your home, you’d hire a cleaner right?
So ask yourself, what could you do to make sure your style and personal image don’t slip to a poor standard just because you are busy?
Feeling overwhelmed?
This brings me nicely onto my second reason why men struggle to dress well, and that is because they feel overwhelmed.
If you want to teach yourself about style there is an endless supply of information out there.
You could be watching YouTube videos like mine until the day you die and still have only scratched the surface of the menswear universe.
Frankly, it’s information overload out there.
What’s worse, some of the information is confusing, contradictory, and uses specialist terminology and jargon that isolates the average guy who just wants to look good.
It’s understandable why most men would rather just not bother than to navigate and digest all the style information out there.
And even if you did take the time to read as much as you can about style, how do you know what’s applicable to you?
For example, you could read a book like Alan Flusser’s Dressing the Man, but the style he teaches in this book might be totally irrelevant to the places you go and the way you want to look.
Books can be a great resource, but they are not always relevant to you
On the other hand, you could follow a trendy style influencer on Instagram, and try and copy his outfits, only to find out they are already out of fashion, or look totally wrong for your body type.
Mental capacity is a valuable and scarce resource just like time, so use it sparingly and protect it by delegating research and knowledge to an expert.
A big myth
There’s also this idea that some men simply ‘have style’ and others don’t.
But this is a total myth just like thinking the guy with a great body just has good genetics rather than because he trains hard and eats right, or it’s like thinking the virtuosic guitar player just has natural, god-given talent rather than the 10,000 hours of practice he put in.
Fortunately, being stylish is much easier to achieve than having a top-tier physique or learning the solo of Stairway to Heaven.
With the right guidance, you can learn everything you need to look good in just a few hours.
It took years to play the guitar. A little less to learn style.
Lacking a system
Most of the men whom I speak with have a good salary and big closets full of clothes, but they feel like they have nothing to wear. Why? Because they lack a system.
Men are logical animals and style should be a logical process too, but to make that happen, you need a system. A way to create outfits easily, step by step.
There’s no use having one shirt that only goes with one other pair of pants or a suit that doesn’t quite fit right and then 30 old T-Shirts you don’t like very much. It’s chaotic.
To develop an effective system for looking good you need to understand just a few basic principles of style.
For example, interchangeability - what makes one piece go with another, and how color, fabric, and fit all play a role in determining that.
But to learn these principles yourself and to develop an intuitive sense of how to create an outfit takes a long time, even years.
That’s why I provide my clients with simple outfit diagrams that I even laminate and mail to them so they can keep them in their closet and reference them easily.
With these, getting dressed in the morning is just as easy as ordering off a small menu at a great family restaurant.
Lack of self-worth
The fourth reason men fail to dress well is one that surprised me a lot when I first heard it but now I hear it from men more and more.
A lot of guys simply don’t feel like they ‘deserve’ to look good.
You have to decide that you deserve to dress well
It could be an insecurity about their body, but oftentimes, there’s a deep feeling of just not being worthy of dressing like a gentleman.
There’s a misconception many men hold that ‘nice things’ are for women or their kids, not for them.
Men would rather go without themselves so they can provide for their loved ones.
This is a beautiful idea and I fully respect and empathize with that.
But what if I told you that looking good and feeling good doesn’t have to be a selfish thing?
Think about how happy your wife will be when she sees you come down the stairs for date night wearing a new shirt that makes your body look better than she ever knew?
Do you want your kids to be embarrassed by the way you look or do you want them to have a cool dad they are proud of?
The choice is yours.
When will you feel ‘worth it?’
This lack of self-worth, this feeling of not-deserving, it’s a mental block that many men face.
But the truth is, you will never truly feel ‘worthy’ of looking good until you decide that you are.
Because when you know you look good on the outside, you will feel better on the inside, and that helps you project the best version of yourself out into the world.
Environment
The final reason men fail to dress well is because of their environment. And I’m not necessarily talking about a physical place like a city, but rather, the people you are around.
If you are not around other stylish men, there is no-one to take inspiration from. Perhaps your inspiration is limited to fictional characters like James Bond, whose nack for style seems as unrealistic as his stunt scenes.
But you need to have someone in your life whose style you can learn from and even emulate.
That might be someone like me, another style influencer, or a family relative.
Once you do start dressing well, however, you will realize you’re not the only one like you, no matter how small your town.
You’ll be at the supermarket and notice, hey, that’s a Brooks Brothers linen shirt! Or, that guy is wearing penny loafers!
‘Hey, nice shirt!’
You will get into conversations about clothing as people compliment your outfits, and you’ll be surprised how much people appreciate your new sense of style, not just women, but men also.
So, what to do about it?
Gentlemen, some or possibly all of the points in this article may have resonated with you.
If you consider yourself a well-dressed man already, I hope you can appreciate that it is not always an easy endeavor, and perhaps you have struggled with some of these problems in the past too.
If you are time-poor and you just don’t have the mental energy to spend on your outfits, let me invest my time into your image so you can save yours for the important things to you.
Let me use my expertise to give you personalized recommendations and easily-digestible resources that show you exactly what to wear and how to wear it.
And let me be that style mentor that you can’t find in your community, family, or industry.
Fill out the form below to register your interest for a free initial style consultation with me. During our free call, I will get to know you better, and lay out a roadmap to get you dressing well in literally just a few weeks.
It’s totally free, there’s no obligation, I just want to help you because I understand how frustrating it can be not to look as good as you wish you could.
I’m just lucky enough that I can now be generous with my time and help as many men as I can.
So fill out that form and we can be talking on the phone very soon.
