Master Everyday Style: How to Dress Well Without Effort

So really quick, gents, how would you describe this flower? Most of us would say it's red. Maybe we talk about some of the other colors there. Maybe we would actually count and describe the shape and the number of petals. Well, it's safe to say if you knew more about the subject matter, you could probably describe it in more detail. The same thing applies to cars, right? This is a red, fast-looking car. Now I know some of you guys are cringing cuz you're like, "Antonio, that's not just a car. That is a Ferrari." Not just any Ferrari, that's a 250 GTO. Again, we're all looking at the same thing, but people with a deeper understanding have a deeper appreciation. And they can

describe it and they can talk about it in a lot more detail. The same thing, gentlemen, applies to style. If I start dropping the words bespoke, silhouette, tailored, lapel, cufflinks, darts, loafers, blazers, herringbone, paisley, seersucker, wingtips, cardigans, selvage denim, houndstooth, argyle, tweed, monk strap. 15 years ago, I didn't know jack about style, but I started reading books. I started delving into the information, the knowledge base that was out there at the time. Because I realized if I was going to succeed in this industry, I needed to understand the terminology so that I could better communicate with not only you all the audience, but when I initially started

my journey, I owned a custom clothier. To be able to talk to people about style, I had to have a style lexicon. Now how to actually improve your vocabulary? There are tons of other great style channels out there. You got my friend Raphael over at The Gentleman's Gazette. You've got Kirby Allison over at kirbyallison.com. My good friend and business partner Aaron Marino over at Alpha M. You've got stand-up Alex Costa who also have great information on men's hair. You want to mix in a bit of business, check out Jose Zuniga. If you're a smaller guy, check out Brock over at The Modest Man. If you're in the city, check out my friend Vladimir Ricci. He's putting together some great stuff, especially on shoes.

You want someone that's going to tell you how it is, straight up, check out Jeff over at The Style OG, salute. You want more of a lookbook type style, check out Marcel Floruss over at One Dapper Street. And for great cinematography and ideas, check out Tim Dessaint. And of course, I better not forget Hugo and Sonia over at Priince and Gentleman. And speaking of books, of course we can't leave out Alan Flusser and his magnum opus Dressing the Man, Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion. I'd have to say that book, along with Gentleman, The Ultimate Companion to the Elegant Man by Bernhard Roetzel, those two books were my start, what got me into menswear, and I love them both.

Gents, if you pick up any of these tomes, all of a sudden you're going to have more than enough information to get you started. Now the next step to leveling up your daily wear, the outfits you put together every single day, is to understand proportions. Now over the years, I've talked about body types, and I will link to my body type video down in the description of today's video. But I do want to say the big thing with understanding your body type is how to wear proportions that work with that body type. And let me be clear, I'm all about body positivity. If you are a thin guy, if you're a little bit of a bigger guy, and then you've been working for years, but just simply you can't lose

that weight cuz it's the way you're you're built, I get it. You want to wear clothing though that is going to accentuate your strengths, not accentuate your weaknesses. And by weaknesses, let's look at the proportions. So if you're 5'4, in general, your head, in proportion to your body, is going to be a little bit larger than for a man that's 6'4. And what this can do is it makes you look cute. It makes you look uh childish. That's not what we're going for. We want to make sure you're wearing clothing that helps to offset the larger proportions that we see, you know, in this case with your head. If you're a really skinny guy, understanding your body type and the type of patterns and cuts are going to work for you means

that we want to add a little bit of weight to you. We don't want you to wear clothing that is going to make you look even skinnier. The same thing with big guys. If you're a little bit bigger around the waist, we want you to look large and in charge, not fat and sloppy, and not draw attention to that midsection area by going for a really bright colored belt. Instead, let's go for more of a monochromatic look that allows the eyes to go up and down. We'll spend a little bit more time looking at your shoes, looking at the accessories you got on the, you know, in the ends of your arms and these type of points. That's where we want to draw them up and actually draw people's attention up to

your face, up to your eyes because that's where we want them to stay focused. In general, what we're looking to do with clothing is to build up your weaker areas and to strengthen and to show off the areas that you've put the work into. Cuz if you've gone to the gym, why in the world would you wear a suit that is cut square, that doesn't bring in and show that you've got this masculine cut silhouette? Something that would have natural, you know, natural cut right here on the shoulders. You don't need a whole bunch of padding, which that's kind of more 1980s anyway. But you want to be able to wear a jacket that actually is going to be a little bit more trim around the torso so that

you can show off your drop, which is the distance or basically the difference between your waist area and the chest. We want to be able to show that V because it's a very masculine look. That being said, if you're a bigger guy, we do want to build up the shoulders a bit. It's not going to make you look thin, but that V right here cut in with the shoulders right there, that's going to make you look a little bit more square, which is a much better look than a round circle. What we're trying to hit on here is you understanding how proportions play into this. There's a whole mathematics, a whole science to proportions. Do the research. Tons of information out there from the rule of thirds, if anyone understands

photography, from being able to understand the golden circle. You bring this stuff into your clothing, all of a sudden you're able to put together outfits, you're able to put together looks that really just work for your build, your body type, and your overall, you know, your body. Now at this point, gents, I have dropped a lot of knowledge. Yes, I don't have a Ferrari behind me, but I will tell you that guys, if knowledge was power, librarians would rule the world. Come on, I mean they don't because you got to take action on the information. You got to know exactly what information and then what exactly to take action on. And the reality is watching, if you've watched

10, 20, 30 YouTube videos on style, improving yourself, have you actually become better? Some of you guys, great. But I think a lot of us, we need a bit of motivation. We need, you know, accountability. We need to know exactly what actions to take in the order to take them so that we're efficient, we're effective. Guys, that is my style system. If you haven't seen this before, this is my go-to course in which we focus in on accountability. We focus in on action. Yes, information's great, but I focus in on the 4%, that 20% of the 20% that's going to yield you that big return. We help you take that action step by step in the order that you need to take it so that you don't waste time,

and within 30 days you're walking into a room and you are the best-dressed man. Not only that, you've got the confidence, you've got the knowledge, you've got it all put together cuz you've put in the reps, you've put in the practice, and you wear this clothing with confidence and just simply knowing that you are the man. So gents, if you're tired of being invisible, if you want to know for sure how to step up your style, check out The Style System. I'm linking to it down in the description of today's video. For me personally, I don't wear t-shirts. Yes, I have athletic shirts that I wear when I go to the gym, but pretty much even all my casual shirts have a collar.

Straight up, my default shirt is a performance polo. I find that it works pretty much in any situation that I find myself in as a busy dad. I've got dark-colored heavier jeans I wear during the winter, but during most of the summer and spring and fall, I've got performance pants. Shoes, I just talked about this in another video, I really lean towards loafers, especially during the summer. But when I'm wearing the jeans and the polos, you know, during the winter, when I'm layering up, then I'll wear just slip-on boots like Chelseas. I don't normally wear a hat, but if I'm going to be outside all day, I have a couple Panamas I can rotate through and a performance trilby, which

is a nice-looking hat, especially when I'm traveling. Now again, this is my default. It works for me in my work situation. I can walk in here, film a video. I can just simply throw a sports jacket over that performance polo, boom, get the job done. What's going to work for you? Only you can define that. You got to look at your job requirements, you got to look at your personal wants, your needs. What kind of style do you want to bring in? What message do you want to send? But to really make it a default, it needs to be a no-brainer. When you wake up, get dressed in the morning, the items that I just talked about for me are very easy to find. I've always got plenty of those performance polos, plenty of those

performance pants. Anything I need to be able to bring that outfit together, I can do it. And then you need to purchase the basic items for at least one outfit. Again, you keep it simple, you get it interchangeable. All of a sudden you got three shirts, two pairs of trousers, that's six outfits. Maybe four pairs of trousers, eight shirts, they're all very similar. All of a sudden, boom, what do you have right there? 32 different outfits. That's what I love about the interchangeable wardrobe. Keep it simple, but make sure that you start with one outfit and then start upgrading everything else. On a side note here, if you having trouble letting go of

clothing, you're like, "I don't know about this." Simply put the clothing in a box, put a date on it, and put it at the back of your closet. If you really say, you know, "This isn't for me." after a month, if you need to get to that clothing, you simply open up the box. But when you find you haven't opened that box for a year, you can safely donate the items. So now let's take a step back to practicality. How to actually improve your day-to-day style. We've been talking a lot about information, but I want you to go ahead and take everything out of your closet. What you want to do is create three piles. You have your love, you have your like, and you have your loose pile. Now

the goal here is to eventually have a closet full of items that you love so that everything you're putting on, whether it's your socks, your underwear, your trousers, yeah, they don't get a lot of attention, but you know what, you love the fit, you love the feel, you just love putting these items on. But for most people, that's a ways out. Let's look at what you have in the like. So is there any way for you to take anything in the like and actually get it upgraded? So you've got these shirts that you like, but they're way too large. Okay. So we talked about, we used the word darting a little bit earlier.

You're going to take it to a tailor. Because you can speak the language, you're going to explain exactly what you want. I want a couple darts in the back. They're relatively inexpensive. All of a sudden the shirt is going to look better on you. Next up, let's look at how all these items work together and where are you dangerously low? Most likely you do have maybe trousers. You got two pairs of jeans that you go to. And one of them dress-up jeans, the other one are really your tear-up casual jeans. You've only got one pair of good-looking jeans, so you rarely ever wear them cuz you want to keep them looking nice. How about you

actually spend a little bit of money, get two more pairs, maybe slightly different colors, maybe go with the same thing. Point being is you identify the weak areas where you can bring in more pieces. Could be shirts, it could be you've got no casual jackets, you don't have a fatigue jacket, you don't have a denim jacket, you have no sports jackets. The point is once you've identified where this weakness is, all of a sudden you can direct resources to this key area. And I'm not saying you're going to go out there and even spend money. And all this, gentlemen, leads to higher levels of confidence. And that's my end goal here at Real Men Real Style is for you to become the man you know

yourself to be. Clothing is nice, but what I really care about is how you use it as a tool to get what you want out of life. So guys, if you want to learn how to dress with more confidence, well, come on. I've got you covered, you know, with another video right here. Specifically, how to dress with confidence. Boom, got you that video right here. Go check out this video right there. Boom.