We’ve all bought clothes that ended up in the back of our wardrobes. Sometimes it’s because the clothes looked great in the store but not on our bodies, or they just didn’t match with anything else we own. The Art of Manliness offers a three-step rubric to avoid these problems, called the Style Pyramid.
The Style Pyramid is simply three criteria to look for in a piece of clothing: fit, fabric and style. When you have all three, you can confidently buy.
- Fit sits at the top of the pyramid. Everything else comes from it. If a garment doesn’t fit well, none of its other characteristics matter — it’s not going to look good on you. Fit should always be your first stopping point when you consider a purchase.
- Fabric is key in determining the quality of a piece of clothing. If you’re not satisfied with the raw material, you’re not going to be all that satisfied with the finished product. It’s less of an absolute barrier than fit — you can have many degrees of quality, whereas fit mostly breaks down into “good” and “bad”. That said, fabric is still a crucial consideration.
- Style is about your own personal taste and the image you want to present. If something fits and is well made, but doesn’t give you the look you want, it’s still not a good purchase.
The article offers a lot of advice for all three criteria, much of which can apply to women as well as men. For example, the general guidelines for fit is to make sure the clothing isn’t too restrictively tight nor sagging or billowing (you should be able to fit one or two fingers between the clothing and your body). For fabric, look for 100 per cent (or close to 100 per cent) material, such as all cotton. For style, think about how the clothing fits into your current wardrobe and whether it improves your look.
Answering three questions — does it fit good, is the fabric decent, and does it suit your style — you can avoid wasting money on clothing that won’t look best on you.
Check out this video summarising the Style Pyramid suggestions, or hit up the link below for more details.
Save Money and Shopp Smart: Know the Style Pyramid [Art of Manliness]
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