Why should only young women consider style?

Style choices are important clues to self-image and worldview. In a dating situation, you should mine any and all clues you can to try to understand the other person - their motives, dreams, and goals.

"No style sense" is also a clue to what the person considers important, where their mind is.

I think you're right about it being something younger women do. When I was 21, I broke up with a guy mostly because his style bothered me -- Birkenstocks, dad jeans, shirts with wolves on them (not being worn ironically -- this was several years before the "Three Wolf Moon" phenomenon). He was (and still is) an awesome, smart, kind guy and is HUGELY successful now, but my initial attraction to him just fizzled every time I'd see what he put on for a date.

My boyfriend now is also very much a t-shirt-and-jeans (or swimming trunks on weekends) guy. But he wears clothes that fit him well, and, when we go OUT, he knows how to select clothes that are attractive. Also, he's physically attractive enough (to me) to get away with some things that other people would just look sloppy in.

Personally, I don't like it when men have too much style. I find many times it's a turn off. E.g. The metrosexual, the urban cowboy, the skate boarder badass, or the dreaded thumb ring guy with the starchy collard shirts with ghetto calligraphy letters, pointy shoes and spikey gelled hair- barf.

If he guy smells like fresh laundry and soap he scores big points. I guess if he looked like he just rolled out of bed- or got stuck in a spin cycle for five hours- I may have a problem with it... But let's face it - real men don't care abt fashion.

It's also occurred to me though that men who are married are better dressed. Something to think about if ladies are using this criteria to score a mate... They may take kindly to a little help- but maybe that gets negotiated after they are married? If that is what you are looking for then you may need to change up your game...

Both my wife and I agree that multiple tattoos would put us off. We are in our mid to late 50's, so that may be a generational thing.

I don't like to see women wearing tight clothes unless they are in shape. I saw a rather large woman wearing spandex head to toe and I could see the lines of her bra and panties and the bulges in between. She looked like the Michelin man.

I had a girlfriend who kept buying me T-shirts and sweatshirts with big designs on them. These were nature scenes and the like. The worst was when she bought us matching sweatshirts. I ended that by telling her that her next birthday present would be a football or hockey T-shirt and I would expect her to wear it frequently.

I can't understand why you would find someone you want to date and then start trying to change them.

"Would you be put off by use of emoticons in an email?"

No! What puts me off is when someone uses and exclamation point at the end of every sentence! Or sometimes two!! Or three!!!

:)

The occasional use of an emoticon is quite alright, especially when there's sarcasm or other verbal subtlety going on. One in every paragraph makes me think I'm talking to a teenage girl.

"I can't understand why you would find someone you want to date and then start trying to change them."

Well, we have this friend...
He's hot. He's an engineer. He's still wearing the same clothes he wore in college in the mid-90's.

A typical outfit for this guy: A 15-year-old Metallica shirt, pale blue Levis that used to be dark blue, redwing boots with a hole in the toe, and backwards baseball cap. (The man's 37 years old and is working on a Doctorate.) His attempts at dressing up (for weddings, etc.) were especially amusing.

Now he's got a girlfriend, and she helps him with his wardrobe. He's still pretty casual, but now it's a polo-style shirt and jeans/boots without holes... and she helped him pick out a new suit.

I've been out of the dating pool so long I don't know what would disqualify a guy for me. Man-jewelry and super-stylized hair come to mind. Looking like a complete slob- or dirty- would also be a dealbreaker

that's the thing ahw... he doesn't CARE about clothes. They just keep him from being naked. fortunately a girl that found him looked past that. If she wants him to wear other clothes, it's prolly fine by him. there are other girls that didn't look past that, and missed out. :shrug: it's the way it goes...

OTOH if you are seeking someone? You should make yourself appealing to them. In other words not as much what you yourself want, but what they are looking for. After they find out more about you, they might be able to appreciate your style too.

"I can't understand why you would find someone you want to date and then start trying to change them."

My perspective on this is coloured by the situation that I mentioned where a woman was buying me shirts as presents that I wouldn't want to wear in public. I think she saw me as "raw material" that she was going to make into her idea of what a boyfriend should be. On the other hand, if a woman makes suggestions on clothing and he likes the idea, it's a win/win.

One style choice that turns me off are socks with sandals, although it's not a deal breaker by any means. Tattoos and piercings don't necessarily bother me and can be quite hot on the right individual. I probably wouldn't be attracted to a guy infatuated with western wear unless he was an actual cowboy.

I was married for 10 years to a guy who refused to wear a suit, and although he had a corporate job he would wear the same nasty worn out polos and pants and shoes day after day. This didn't deteriorate my attraction for him, but it did bother me that he wouldn't shop for new clothes given the nature of his job. Then I started talking to wives, who apparently bought their husbands' clothes. I realized his shoddy appearance was as much a reflection on me as it was on him, and so I learned to buy clothes he was willing to wear (nice polos and dockers) and simply weed out the nasty ones without his knowledge.

There seems to be a presumption that women know what is stylish and many men do not. I see a lot of women who look like they got dressed in the dark by pulling random items from the back of their closets. Take a look at the peopleofwalmart site for some extreme examples.

Have any of the guys here tried to change how your girlfriends/wives dress and have any of the women had boyfriends/husbands that tried to change you?

that's the thing ahw... he doesn't CARE about clothes. They just keep him from being naked.

The nerd fantasy is no fashion. Everyone wears a uniform a la Star Trek - despite the fact that this makes us all look like we work for a fast food franchise instead of a galaxy-dominating militarisic socialist cabal.

"I think eventually fashion won't exist. I think someday we'll all wear the same thing. Because anytime I see a movie or a TV show where there are people from the future or another planet, they're all wearing the same outfit." - Jerry Seinfeld

And yet, when that day comes, you'll still have fashion. The tilt of a hat, the fit of a shirt, the drape of the slacks - these things will tell us who's "cool" and who's not.

I can't recall my husband ever trying to get me to change my overall style, but there have been a few things he's told me he doesn't like. Most recently there was a dress he didn't want me to wear to an event because it didn't show off my clevage to his liking.

"Then I started talking to wives, who apparently bought their husbands' clothes." Yep. I think that, in general, if a guy is wearing a t-shirt from the Kappa Alpha Luau Party, 1996, it's not because he thinks it looks good, it's because it was clean and either convieniently hung up or at the top of the drawer. A wife or girlfriend who cares more about what her man wears than he does just has to make sure the clothes most readily available to him when he's getting dressed in the morning are the ones she's picked. I don't think most men care.
@steamer: "The worst was when she bought us matching sweatshirts." I don't think that's normal. I'd only do that as a joke. (My husband has, more than once, brought home some fugly crap and tried to convince me that he thought I'd like it- just to try to get me to wear something stupid.)

Elmore Leonard on style (from Get Shorty):

Ninety-nine percent of the people in L.A. did not know shit about how to dress or seem to care. Nobody wore a necktie. They’d wear a suit and leave the shirt open. Or the thing now, they’d button the shirt collar, wearing it with a suit but no tie, and look like they’d just come off the fucking reservation. Ronnie Wingate, not knowing shit either, said, “Why wear a tie if you don’t have to?” Like not wearing it was getting away with something. He had told Ronnie one time, “I used to dress just like you when I was a child and didn’t know better.” Living in migrant camps, moving from Florida to Texas to Colorado to Michigan, out here to California, the whole family doing stoop labor in hand-me-down clothes. - Bo Catlett

- AND -

Catlett liked to watch people going by, all the different shapes and sizes in all different kinds of clothes, wondering, when they got up in the morning if they gave two seconds to what they were going to wear, or they just got dressed, took it off a chair or reached in the closet and put it on. He could pick out the ones who had given it some thought. They weren’t necessarily the ones all dressed up, either.

I take input about an outfit or style from bf/spouse/etc pretty seriously. Ex-husband commented on a top he hated because it looked like a pajama top, and I never wore it again. He also hated my t-shirts untucked (I rarely wear them, but when I do I guess I'm really going for the undone look :)) and I tried to keep them tucked in. The final decision is ultimately mine, but I would rather look appealing to the world, and not like one of those People of Wal-Mart shots.

And regarding style, my ex-husband didn't lack the ability to style so much as he lacked the motivation to give a shit about it.

I have to ask Conan, how could he be sure he'd picked out the right ones?

Did he go up to them and ask?

Bo knows style.

Distinguish "stylish" and "personal style." I would say that if a person is always outfitted in the most current style, whatever it happens to be at present, they really don't have much other than a strong desire to appear to be one with the herd.

A pesonal style, on the other hand, attempts to communicate something other than conformity, even if it isn't successful at communicating an intended message. For example, if you see a guy wearing a kilt while shopping for groceries, he thinks he is communicating that he is a man who is so comfortable in his masculinity that he can wear a kilt with confidence. In fact, he is signalling that he is a dipshit of the highest order.

If he guy smells like fresh laundry and soap he scores big points. I guess if he looked like he just rolled out of bed- or got stuck in a spin cycle for five hours- I may have a problem with it... But let's face it - real men don't care abt fashion.

Bingo Feebie. I don't worry much about fashion (I'm pretty much the engineer ahw described above, minus the baseball cap, and probably not so hot). But clean, shaved, *not* reeking of aftershave gets you 90% of the way there in my experience. If a woman likes the way you smell, the rest is negotiable.

Not to say I won't wear the nice new stuff she buys me, or complain *too* much when my favourite but completely worn out shirts disappear.

I won't do V-neck sweaters though. Sticking to that one.

"I think eventually fashion won't exist. I think someday we'll all wear the same thing. Because anytime I see a movie or a TV show where there are people from the future or another planet, they're all wearing the same outfit." - Jerry Seinfeld

Serenity. Blade Runner. Next?

"In fact, he is signalling that he is a dipshit of the highest order."

Where does this come from?

HEY! I LIKE a man in a kilt! So THERE, Walt!

That said, I wouldn't want him to wear a kilt every damn day, but on occasion, I'd be really alright with it.

Metrosexual guys bother me. If a guy spends more time on his hair and clothes than I do, that just might be a deal breaker. And socks with sandals?? BARF. Those guys tend to be really nerdy anyway. I like guys in nice, clean tee shirts and jeans, with maybe a flannel or denim shirt over the tee, if it's chilly. I like a guy who looks good in a suit; some guys just look awkward. I'm really not too picky about what my guy wears, as long as it's clean. Oh and he can keep his camo outside, thanks! When he puts that stuff on, and the stinkum that he thinks masks his scent from the deer, he can stay outside too!

o.O

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. -- Thomas Jefferson

My personal style is jeans, a polo or button down, cowboy hat and cowboy boots. I usually won't leave the house without a shower. I might skip the shave on a weekend.

My last job I substituted Docker type pants during the day. I actually took the Dockers off on my taxes as a uniform. But beyond that I roughly worry that the colors match, but don't care much otherwise.

I did worry a little about my ex-gf's style. But that was because she was hot to start with but had a tendency to frump. She had a pair of shoes that looked like kid's Buster Browns. She finally got rid of them. At the end, she could catch any guy's eye.

Oh and I wear a kilt during my ren fest weekends, but have no problem going into a store or restaurant before or after to get something.

I'm entirely a 'jeans and t-shirt' guy. If you catch me wearing anything else, it's pretty much a special occasion of some sort.

I (and the clothes) are always clean and intact (no holes, no stains, no 'cute' graphics, etc.). Shoes are usually good sneakers or topsiders.

On the occasions when I need to actually go into the office (rather than work from home), I have the usual 'business casual' dockers and polo shirts, and decent leather shoes.

I wear an actual suit to the opera or when otherwise indicated.

My girlfriend doesn't have an issue with this (she is, however, entirely okay with telling me to dress better for some of our outings, and I'm also okay with that).

(wore a kilt once. Greenpeace tried to pull me back out into the ocean).

As far as who I date (though I've been out of the pool for a while), all I really care about is that they aren't dressed in rags, and that it's appropriate for the context (which is what I'll also do).

My girlfriend likes to dress up (for the most part), so it's not like I've had to settle for 'canvas bag girl'.

But, when we met, she was basically in jeans and (a female style) t shirt, and was still pretty damn hot. :)

In a recent magazine interview, Jim Brown was asked what item of clothing every man should own. His reply? A pair of pants.

That's a man who knows fashion.

Interesting. I thought that I appreciated my man's style when I met him. Later I found out - not so much.

It turns out that he felt the same way about me!

When I met him, he looked like a cute casual college student in jeans and a polo shirt with a private golf club emblem. When he got his apartment, he decorated it in a quirky, casual style using the items that he had. I thought the deer but in his room and the row of baseball caps encircling his room were clever ways to decorate without a budget.

I had been to his parents home and had been appalled by their style: vinyl, velvet, and duck tape.

As a teenager, I saved for months to buy a print from my favorite artist. I couldn't afford a television, computer, or stereo, but I loved my sleek, elegant decor.

I guess I should have known when he tried to get me to buy a men's cut t-shirt and sloppy jeans that we didn't mesh, but I was too thick.

It was not until we married and I found out that he decorates by sentimentality rather than by line and design that our problems started. Trophies, dirty hats, and deer butts in the living room. What!?

I also assumed that the casual clothing would become a weekend thing. Instead, he started his own law firm and wears sweats to work.

It's funny. Didn't he notice that I was out in a dress and high heeled pumps? I guess we should have noticed all the clues to a style clash, but I thought his only hindrance to style was a lack of funds. How wrong I was!

"Don't give a shit about what I'm wearing" is fine; "put a lot of effort and still came out looking like this," (nerdy, dorky, overly metro, etc) not so much. IE I'd rather date someone with no style than someone with a style that I hated. I think most guys look pretty good in jeans and a t-shirt and it seems pretty hard to mess that up.

What a great question...a friend and I used to joke about the shoe compatibility test - as in, the person who lives in Tevas and the one who lives in Jimmy Choos probably aren't going to mesh well.

I've never made any negative comments about what someone I dated wore, and I wouldn't. That's just rude. However, I really dislike those guys (and girls, although I'd say to a lesser extent) who pitch a fit about having to go somewhere where they have to dress nicely, as though their absolute comfort at all times totally supercedes being a gracious guest.

the question I've always had Choika, is: do they have to buy special clothes just to be a gracious guest?

Example. I don't own a suit. Haven't had any need to wear one in at least 15 years, the last time I actually NEEDED one was my wedding 19 years ago. So I had a nice double breasted black suit, that actually didn't look all bad. Which is saying a LOT with my bodytype. [Shaped like a gorilla, large chest and shoulders] But all that is long out of style, and I have no need for such things...

so should I run right out and get a suit, just in case? Even if I may NEVER wear it?

Why would you need to run out and get a suit, especially if you don't think you'll ever use it? That would be silly.

If you get invited to something like a black-tie wedding or similarly fancy event, it is rude to show up in jeans. It signals that you didn't care about the specialness of the event. And frankly, it seems like the kind of thing a disgruntled teenager would do (fine, I'll go, but I'm wearing grubby clothes!)

I don't own an evening gown, but if I were invited to an event that called for one, I'd get one (or borrow one from Amy...except I think she's a foot taller than I am!). If the idea of putting on an evening gown for a few hours was just so incredibly distasteful, I'd decline.

A manly man who knows how to dress is, as far as I'm concerned, the perfect storm of sexiness.

To me it projects strength. And intelligence. He's aware that his appearance is part of his public image, and chooses to enhance it. He likes looking good and having some nice things, but isn't preoccupied with it. Mmmm... yes, I am lucky to have a specific, very dear man in mind as I write this.

It find that kind of manly style quite different from being metrosexual. Guys I consider metrosexual seem fussy about how they look. They project a kind of nervous vanity. Unmanly.

Guys who ONLY wear T-shirts and jeans and don't know or care enough to dress up a bit for going out, etc. don't tend to excite me (in any sense). And I do not want to choose clothes for a grown man. But that's just me...

I thought of one "personal style" thing that would absolutely ruin an otherwise very good looking man for me: Facial Hair. Especially "ironic hipster" facial hair. A man under the age of 65 should not have a handle-bar mustache. Nasty, ungroomed wild-man beards are just as bad. Bleh. HATE facial hair. Guys, you look SO much better without it!

Fashion dealbreaker? A woman with no sense of lingerie.

I've taken lingerie-challenged women to a nice high-end store, enlisted the hot young saleslady, made a few "yummy" noises toward the stuff I liked, and left them alone with my credit card. I was happy with the results.

If they'd chosen granny panties and an armored Playtex support bra, that would've been the end.

"an armored Playtex support bra"

THAT. Required a spew warning.

On the upside I can prolly still remove one, one-handed. Which is a trick, since they have 4 clasps.