The issue with fashion is that it has nothing to do with style. Males who’re involved with maintaining with style – with being seen as modern – are so typically in no way trendy.
By default, they have a tendency to seem like clones, or like clowns – for males who’re slaves to the business are additionally often unaware that not all fashions really swimsuit them, given their physique form, age or manner. Certainly, fashion is the mark of the person. Not all males need to stand out as being a person. However actual fashion invariably means going in opposition to the grain.
That’s a moderately giant caveat to the even larger query of discovering what typically will get referred to as a ‘signature fashion’: not only a sense of favor, however a way of favor that’s completely one’s personal. A lot as perfumers will discuss a signature scent – they usually advise discovering one you actually like, after which nearly by no means deviating from it, its waft then turning into a sensory calling card to your presence – so would possibly the menswear cognoscenti discuss a signature fashion: sporting a form of garment, or a garment in a specific means, such that you just come to be recognisable by it. Or, if folks had been to think about you, they think about you sporting it. It’s the other of that chameleon fashion by which individuals wouldn’t have the ability to guess what you’ll put on subsequent, such is the regularity with which you alter your look.
What Is A Signature Fashion?
Virtually by definition, a signature fashion necessitates sporting one thing that you just each actually like and that actually works for you, in purposeful phrases. It’s additionally one thing that, whatever the shifts in traits, each actually fits you and actually expresses who you’re.
To this finish, the primary battle to find a signature fashion is realizing who you’re, and what works for you. It isn’t merely about dressing up, a lot as about dressing totally as your self, with conviction.
That’s very a lot simpler stated than executed, however even looking for your signature fashion places you a good distance alongside the trail to doing so. And, arguably, it’s a aid once you do. If gurus communicate of discovering your self, reaching interior enlightenment, that is discovering your sartorial self – wardrobe enlightenment.
Icons equivalent to Messrs McQueen, Dean and Brando all developed a particular signature fashion which has seen them eternally be linked to key items inside the male wardrobe.
This fashion needn’t be dressy: a diehard dedication to sporting worn-in uncooked selvedge denims or classic sneakers would possibly show to be a signature. And whether it is dressier, it needn’t be pristine: in some circles shirts with ‘foxed’ collars (barely however visibly worn on the edges) carry a sure cachet. Nor does it have to be daring – the minimalistic is simply as efficient right here because the maximal.
And it could possibly begin with the smallest of particulars: as an alternative of a belt, Fred Astaire typically held his trousers up utilizing a tie, threaded by way of the loops and casually knotted to 1 aspect. That might be too quirky to hold off for a lot of males at present, however little question Fred Astaire was remembered for it. Apart, that’s, for being Fred Astaire, after all.
A signature fashion comes near an expression of sprezzatura: Gianni Agnelli usually wore a shirt with a button-down collar, however would at all times depart the buttons undone. However it needn’t be so self-consciously thought-about. A signature fashion might be so simple as at all times sporting a swimsuit in a selected shade, or at all times sporting monk-strap sneakers, or hardly ever being seen with out your trusted baseball cap. Or with out a severe beard.
What’s the very first thing that springs to thoughts in regards to the fashion of, say, Invoice Nighy? Most likely his heavy specs. Or Ian McKellen? His desire for a flamboyant scarf. Or the late Steve McQueen? His Harrington and bike jackets. In every case, they personal it.
Ian McKellen has turn into famend for his light-weight, patterned scarves. He’s even taken to sporting them in photoshoots, equivalent to this by The Rake.
This isn’t about actually donning the identical clothes day after day. Extra precisely, a signature fashion usually displays the look that you just do really most frequently put on, moderately than all the garments in your wardrobe that hardly ever get worn.
It brings focus, and coalesces round a theme you possibly can then play on. Because of this, discovering a signature fashion – moderately than merely sporting the identical outdated usual – does take effort and time. It’s a course of requiring some thought and somewhat experimentation with color, kind, proportion, equipment and grooming.
Tellingly, it tends to be older males who’ve most efficiently developed a signature fashion. Maybe it’s as a result of they’re much less bothered about trying modern, maybe as a result of they’ve realized to not give a rattling what folks suppose, maybe just because it takes time to experiment and discover what you want.
Why Trouble Growing A Signature Fashion?
Nicely, in a means a signature fashion is each time-saving and, maybe, somewhat lazy – it means that you can put on comparable apparel, freed from the pressures of getting to decorate a sure means. Quite, you simply costume like you.
That is one thing the likes of Steve Jobs realised. The person who at all times wore a black polo neck could not have been an exemplar of inventive dressing, however he had a signature.
It’s an concept that style designers particularly have embraced. Frequently assaulted by the modifications of style, which they play a component in bringing about, personally they typically retreat from all of it right into a uniform.
Giorgio Armani’s navy T-shirt and matching trousers isn’t, once more, spectacularly imaginative, however it’s turn into a method he’s recognized for. Ditto Alexandre Mattiussi’s pared-back monochome palette, typically punctuated by his signature pink beanie, which has even turn into a mainstay of his seasonal collections. In the meantime, Paul Smith at all times seems to be himself in a slim, lengthy line navy swimsuit.
Ami’s Alexandre Mattiussi typically sticks to a darkish, monochrome palette when dressing.
And that’s the actual level of a signature fashion. It’s a type of private branding in a branded age, and one which is more and more visible too. This helps if you happen to’re within the public eye, naturally. However there’s an argument for it being a priceless factor to have if you happen to’re Joe Common too.
For one, it’s going to imply you’re immediately rather less common – you’re your personal man. However, for 2, all of us need to be people, don’t we? All of us need that almost all in-demand of twenty first century qualities: authenticity.
And in time a signature fashion (or creating one from scratch if you happen to’re unsure you even have the beginnings of 1) is without doubt one of the clearest expressions of simply that. You’ll have by no means seemed extra such as you.