Today, I noticed that Mike was dressed especially smartly - that is to say, we were wearing the same basic outfit (blue pants, white with blue pattern shirt). We differed, however, in shoes, belt and sock combinations. Specifically, we disagreed: should the socks match the pants, or the shoes?
Naturally, I thought I heard somewhere that the socks should match your pants. But did I blog it and have a permalink to this bit of info? Of course not. Mike was pretty sure that the socks should match the shoes.
After a bit of debate on this topic, I learned that basically the rules I had been following to get dressed in the morning are essentially all wrong. Shoes.About.com has what appears to be pretty reliable advice on shoe, pants and socks combinations.
Here's some of what I learned:
| The Rule | Comments |
|---|---|
| Shoes should match the belt | Mike suggested this rule too, and is one I've been more or less following. But now I know it's set it stone. |
| Although it is a safe bet, socks do not need to match your shoes. | D'oh - I thought for sure socks needed to match your pants. This is good news: I have two colors of shoes, brown and black, so now I only need two colors of socks. |
| Shiny shoes = fancy shoes | I think I had intuitively known this, but it's still a good rule to know for sure |
| Black shoes work well with navy, grey or black pants | Whoa - wait just a minute! I thought for sure it was illegal to wear black and navy blue together. And now I find out, it's required? Dang. This is a rule that I thought I absolutely knew the answer to. Perhaps it's only that you can't wear a navy jacket and black pants - thought maybe that's OK? |
| Brown shoes are best suited to tan, brown, beige, greens, other darker earth tones | Fair enough, though I wouldn't have guessed this |
| Choose a shoe that is the same color or darker than your pants | I suppose this is the general rule. I had no idea this was the strategy you were supposed to use. |
I realize that women have their fair share of challenges (high heels, childbirth, putting up with men) - but ladies, give us this one. Getting dressed as a guy is pretty tricky stuff.
Anyone want to add to, or challenge the above rules?
Almost all of my pants are some shade of brown, so I always just wear the same brown shoes. I only own one belt, and it also happens to be brown. I've taken to wearing only white socks, because I don't care enough. Plus, my pants are always too long, anyways, because Lacey likes them that way. This means my socks are rarely seen, anyways, so I might as well wear what's comfortable and cheap--white socks.
ReplyDeleteDave - you've so got the system figured out. Essentially, you've refactored your wardrobe to be ideal - nice move.
ReplyDelete