I often get very frustrated responses when people come to me for design feedback and I respond with things like “well, I think this website is communicating that you are a kind of 90s CS professor? Is that what you want?”
I know you (literally and explicitly, in similar words) say it, but this is also true of fashion and fashion advice; you are choosing what message to convey, not whether to convey one.
In the post it says:
Of course, there are lots of other options besides literally just a leather jacket. As a general rule, any outfit which makes people ask “are you in a band?” signals coolness. Personally, I usually wear all black, including suit pants and jacket from a tailor in Shanghai, Converse sneakers, a black hat, and sunglasses.
I have nothing against John and am not commenting on John. However, there were multiple kids at my highschool who thought they would dress like they were in a band and then they’d be cool. We thought these kids were losers, because they acted like aliens with self-esteem issues looking for hacks that would make them cool.
A different way to think about fashion is to ask “What do I want people to think of me?” and “Who do I think of that way, and how do they dress?”. If you want to look cool, you should be thinking of people who are cool and how they pick their clothes, not wearing sunglasses at night[1].
Just like how websites can choose to look like Facebook or like Youtube or a ’90s computer science professor, in fashion there are a thousand ways to look cool and you need to select the appropriate style. Don’t dress up in a snazzy suit to volunteer washing oil off of ducks, don’t wear your leather jacket to a wedding, and maybe throw some faux-minimalism on your website if you’re trying to make it look trendy.
You have to find your niche though! The explicit moral of this comment is have an intended message.
Personally, I would always recommend dressing in high quality clothing[2] that is conspicuously not trendy (not bad looking, just not stuff that signals having just been bought) and that fits you well. This would be really bad advice for some subcultures!
Note: “coolness”, specifically, in fashion often comes from violating some rule, which means anyone wearing Standard Cool Garb looks more like a James Dean wannabe than anything else
Don’t complain about it being expensive just yet: if you’re in the US, somewhere a mile away from you, a resale store is hanging up clothes amounting to hundreds of dollars in sticker price and charging dozens of dollars for it.
I know you (literally and explicitly, in similar words) say it, but this is also true of fashion and fashion advice; you are choosing what message to convey, not whether to convey one.
In the post it says:
I have nothing against John and am not commenting on John. However, there were multiple kids at my highschool who thought they would dress like they were in a band and then they’d be cool. We thought these kids were losers, because they acted like aliens with self-esteem issues looking for hacks that would make them cool.
A different way to think about fashion is to ask “What do I want people to think of me?” and “Who do I think of that way, and how do they dress?”. If you want to look cool, you should be thinking of people who are cool and how they pick their clothes, not wearing sunglasses at night[1].
Just like how websites can choose to look like Facebook or like Youtube or a ’90s computer science professor, in fashion there are a thousand ways to look cool and you need to select the appropriate style. Don’t dress up in a snazzy suit to volunteer washing oil off of ducks, don’t wear your leather jacket to a wedding, and maybe throw some faux-minimalism on your website if you’re trying to make it look trendy.
You have to find your niche though! The explicit moral of this comment is have an intended message.
Personally, I would always recommend dressing in high quality clothing[2] that is conspicuously not trendy (not bad looking, just not stuff that signals having just been bought) and that fits you well. This would be really bad advice for some subcultures!
Note: “coolness”, specifically, in fashion often comes from violating some rule, which means anyone wearing Standard Cool Garb looks more like a James Dean wannabe than anything else
Don’t complain about it being expensive just yet: if you’re in the US, somewhere a mile away from you, a resale store is hanging up clothes amounting to hundreds of dollars in sticker price and charging dozens of dollars for it.