I like this thread. I vote for style sub forum. dont flame if there already is one, haha.
But to add my two cents: I agree with OP somewhat, but not entirely, and I will tell you why.
Back in the day, like 05, 06 or so (I know Im takin it back the stone age right now!) everyone used to wear casual wear. Mostly inspired by indie rock, punk rock , what have you. Most guys you would see would wear sports jerseys, band jerseys, stuff from pac sun, old navy blandwear, pumas, basketball sneaks, faded jeans etc.
Until someone started wearing formalwear. I was one of the early adopters of this trend, and honestly it worked HUGE for me, especially on dates. When you go to class wearing a button up dress shirt, black dress shoes, maybe with jeans maybe not...people would take you seriously. I was also one of the first dudes to rock the striped shirt trend on my campus, but now that is played out to the max....but long story short, it was a good style. The attitude was "go classy" dress like you would if you were at the office, but with style. It made a big difference especially on campus where most dudes wore old navy boring gear, grunge flannel, ripped jeans and what not. You would stand out as classy because everyone else looked s****ty. And I think the big thing was, chicks thought you had money. Part of appealing to girls back then, pre recession, was to appear like you were a classy dude, with maybe some coin. this was in the bush days when greed was good, before occupy and all that.
now though, everyone wears casual business, and they wear it EVERYWHERE. Everytime I go to a bar, club, nice restaurant with a girl, or any restaurant thats not an apple bees (ss**** even dudes at apple bees wear formal wear now) I see dudes wearing button up dress shirts, nice sweaters over collared shirts like OP posted, collared shirts etc. So obviously everyone in the 18-30 set has got the memo. that classy gets you chicks.
but heres the problem: if EVERYONE dresses like this now...it no longer looks DIFFERENT, it looks ordinary, even boring! Thats the fear. You no longer look like danial craig or clive owen or bond or whatever....you look like a midlevel insurance salesman who drives a ford taurus and makes 40 grand a year and watches according to jim reruns before going to bed at 9:00 sharp...in other words, you look boring and boring is not sexy.
Remember back in the 90's if you went to any family party or other gathering in which there were a lot of middle aged men? what did they all wear? golf shirt and khakis. everyone of them. Now the uniform is button up dress shirt, slacks, dess shoes/boots. Or sweater over collared dress shirt, jeans etc.
what Im trying to say is....how do we dress now? yeah wearing graphic tees and jeans makes you look like a BOY and not a MAN but dressing like OP suggests also kind of makes you look boring...especially when everyone is dressing like that now...so whats the alternative? thats the problem yo...business casual has become the norm now....so how do you not look like every other dude in the room? thats the trick man. No one wants to be a copy of a copy of a copy. and if your trying to bag the ten's, thats not the attitude you want to go for. if your down for quality and not quantity. there's no originality anymore.
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