I iron the work shirts that are at the top of the pile, then I hang them them up.

When I come to select my suit, I just pick the one I fancy wearing. A decision made in seconds.

Shoes easy, all black, cap toes.

Socks plain.

My tie takes me the longest to select, and only because I have that many of the damn things.

Pants first. I tend to wear my patterns on my pants. Typically, I have everything ready the night before. I don't want to think in the morning. I'm in get things done mode.

If it's a suit day, which is maybe one every two weeks, it's very simple. If it's a formal like thing it's either the solid navy or the solid gray. If less formal either the glen plaid or gray with lavender and pink subtle stripes.

I usually start with the shirt, or sweater when it's cold enough, and go from there.  But sometimes there may be an article I really want to wear for some reason and I'll start there, be it shoes, pants, shirt, sweater, or jacket... or gimp mask.

lulz.

Most of the stuff I have is built round blue. Seems to be a good colour for me. Cause of this I find I can buy things in greens, reds, greys, sandy colours. So it normally goes I wear dark blue trousers and the rest just gets thrown on. It seems darker skinned or haired people really get on with that orange purple and turquoise pallette. Really doesn't work for me. I also try to avoid black and white. Again they're too harsh on me.

So yeah. On an outfit I try to get a couple of things matching then one or two other colours that work but are contrasting. I don't wear scarfs or gloves or man bags so I don't really worrying about all those jazzy bits you see on men fashion blogs nowadays. Yes they can create some visually impacting outfits. But you'll always look like a tit.

The best advice I can give is look at say a pair of trousers. They'll have a highlight colour and a low light colour. You can actually see other colours in one colour. Say you had a burgundy jumper it's lowlight would be inviting of dark navy. And it's highlight might be white. So you can wear navy trousers and a white shirt. I used to do that a lot dressing windows. It's a quick way to get something that works.

No one has mentioned that (apart from work), activities and events play any part in their choices.

Last edited by Dudley Clarke (2014-01-27 06:59:29)

As has been said the activity in prospect, the venue and weather conditions all play their part. It's rarely so hot in the UK that I would go out just in shirt and trousers so I usually start with a jacket or a piece of knitwear and build around that.

Unless I'm wearing a suit, one maxim I follow is to have a contrast between the top half and the bottom half of the outfit. Therefore a light grey sports jacket or sweater would be paired with charcoal grey trousers or the other way around. I try to avoid overall darkness or worse still overall lightness, the ultimate faux pas being the dreaded head to toe 'beige effect'. I rarely wear more than one patterned item, so a plain shirt gets a patterned tie and vice versa. A bold patterned jacket means everything else is toned down.

I go through a cycle of phases, the current one being light jacket with dark shirt phase. Other phases include, checked shirt with knitted tie phase, paisley tie phase etc.