Tips on Matching Ties and Shirts

You only get a few moments to make a solid impression at your next business meeting or interview. Ensuring that you are looking your best and read to impress will help give a leg up in closing the deal. Making sure that you are matching your clothing and dressing well can make a huge difference in getting what you want.

Colors In Tie Should Math Shirt: Times are either plain, stripped, or dotted. A few may have other patterns like crisscross or swirls. Start with the shirt first and then try and find a tie that has a matching color in the pattern. For example a blue shirt will look will look nice with a tie that has matching blue designs.

Tie Should be Darker than Shirts: Ties attract a lot of attention from the eye and should be darker than the shirt. It is standard practice to use a white shirt with a brightly colored patterned tie. As you get better at matching ties and shirts you can play around with the combinations more. You may consider trying a light pink shirt with a black and pink patterned tie.

Tie Width and Body Size Should Match: Larger people shouldn't wear skinny ties and skinny people shouldn't wear larger ties. The ties should match the approximate body type to ensure that everything looks in proper proportion. Having ties that don't match the body portions of the person wearing them can create the wrong impression making heavy people look heavier and skinny people skinnier.

Pattern Proportions: Ensure that your tie is using different pattern proportions than your shirt. For example a stripped shirt should not have the same strip size on the tie. Being to matchy-matchy detracts from the overall impression. There must be a level of contrast between the tie and the shirt to avoid over blending the two.

Belly Button Ties: Ties should reach to your belly button. In a few cases I have seen men wear ties that are shorter but this appears to be lower the overall professionalism of the image. Making sure your tie is of appropriate length helps to create the total image and impression of the person.

Dressing well may not get you everything you want in your life but human beings are highly visual and full of snap judgments. Helping those snap judgements make their way into a positive impression can go a long way in improving your chances of career success. A few short tips like the one's presented above can make a large difference in your overall image.

Men’s Style: Wearing Vests During Casual Occasions

Vests can easily dress up outfits but are often overlooked in casual clothing. Vests are most often worn in formal wear but are changing in terms of style and use. Before throwing a vest on understand a few rules for coordination that help you put your outfit together in a way that doesn’t appear messy. With professional work clothes vests follow different rules than casual wear because of the inherent traditional nature of suits.  

Casual vest are more about clashing than matching and should seek to appear quickly put together but not sloppy. Solid earth colors are easier to work with as they match most other types of shirts and trousers. More pointedly, they complement jeans better than bright slacks. 

The vest is commonly worn with dress shirts and certainly will still work with a tie. That is way too stuffy for casual occasions. A solid dress t-shirt or a polo shirt with a earth tone or neutral color like white will work well in balancing the casual with something a step up from jeans and a t-shirt.  Your outfit will be appropriate for many different occasions. 

The type of events you would wear vests are in dining situations, casual social occasions our out running errands. It is not designed for formal events or lounging around the home. It does work well in most other situations except those that require professional clothing such as work.  

Rule 1: Vests should be a little snug around the abdomen with large arm holes for comfort. The snugness ensures that you are sliming the body. 

Rule 2: The vest and the shirt should be different but complementary colors. 

Rule 3: A patterned vest should be worn with a solid shirt or a solid vest can be worn with a patterned shirt. 

Rule 4: A plain T-shirt is highly casual while a polo rests in middle ground. A dress shirt can be worn if tucked into jeans or slacks. 

Rule 5: Close your vest with dress shirts and open your vest with casual clothes. 

Rule 6: A complementary derby hat can make a 1930’s theme out of it. 

Rule 7: Make sure the shirt you wear doesn’t stick out under the vest and below the waistline or you will appear sloppy. 

A few other tips in the video:

Keeping it Stylish and Comfortable with Urban Star Jeans

The classic jean has just made a turn to something comfortable. Jeans are just jeans right? Not really. Urban Star jeans by Road Runner Apparel offers something unique for those jean lovers who want to be comfortable but still look great. Just because you are putting your old jeans back in the drawer doesn't mean you can't still enjoy denim.

Price vs. Quality

For those who love their tough and tumble classic jeans, they may be a little put off by the $14 price tag. Price is important when buying products because we associate price with quality.  But this isn’t always the case.  Quality is in the material, design, fit, stitching and only partially in its brand image. A quality brand is that which can consistently provide a high quality product.

Those under the 40 category regularly purchase jeans at $100 or more. The problem is that they are wearing the brand and not necessarily the quality, fit or look. When you’re young fitting in is the most important consideration and just like expensive shoes, cars, and electronic items the clothing becomes an expression of who you are. 

But the jeans they buy are not necessarily better than cheaper alternatives and primarily show the brand conscious nature of social behavior. Urban Star is a brand that doesn’t sell on image only but also ranks high in quality and comfort. Unless someone lifts   your shirt no one is going to know the difference so save your $85 for something else. 

Active vs. Stagnant

Consider how traditional denim stretches and eventually is loose and baggy. By the end of the day the jeans are much looser then they were when you took them out of the dryer. Not particularly flattering considering they don't hug anymore.

Urban Star is active wear which means you can bend, run, move or do anything else and is nearly as comfortable as gym clothing. The clothing bends back in place without losing the original tightness found in traditional jeans. 

Pairing Your Denim

Jeans go well with most other types of clothing. The key to pairing jeans with shirts is to complement but clash. This means that dark jeans go well with white shirts and light colored shoes. They work equally well with black shirts and black shoes. The shirt, shoes, and belt must go together.

The type of shirt and shoes will determine whether you are casual or more stylish. Tennis shoes don’t work well but Converse All Star Sneakers and a t-shirt are strong combinations. For those who are more stylish try a sports jacket and dress shoes. When it was in style you may have also put on a tie. I wouldn't try that today unless you are looking to bring back the 70's.

Fashion: Looking Great While Being Eco-Friendly

There is nothing wrong with looking great while buying products that are environmentally sustainable. Life Khacki offers a solid brand that looks modern, feels great, and retails for a reasonable $25-30. Fashion doesn’t need to be about buying products that enhance your physical image alone but can also include a new dimension on how you feel about yourself.  Few things compare to looking great while protecting the environment when wearing clothing with recycled material by Repreve.

Repreve is a recycle microfiber that uses items like plastic bottles and other waste to make a high quality material used in clothing. Because the materials are recycled there is less petroleum and greenhouse gases omitted. For example in 2012 they recycled 410 million plastic bottles. This equates to 2,934 acres of pine forest or 3.8 million gallons of gasoline.  You can also ponder on how they save enough drinking water for 52,313 people per year. 

The company’s material makes its way into everything from men’s clothing to television sets.  Think of companies like Life Khacki, Swiftwick, North Face, Haggar, Vitamin A Swimwear, Ford and American Flora Dance and Yoga Wear. In an increasingly cost conscious and environment conscience market companies are finding the benefit of including eco-friendly clothing. 

Repreve’s brand position doesn’t necessarily come from pushing sales. Instead, pushing environmentally sound behavior in the form of altruism can lead to higher levels of purchase behavior (Yeoh & Paladino, 2013). Customers don’t want to be pushed to buy a product but don’t mind being encouraged to feel good about themselves through the products they do buy.

You may be surprised to notice that many of the products that use Repreve’s microfiber are outdoor or beauty oriented.  These are the same demographics that not only enjoy the environment but also want to protect it. Nothing frustrates hikers and beach goers more than piles of garbage and entire forests cleared without significant justification. 

Clothing that is good for the environment and saves waste by recycling materials has more value than other textile products.  Contributing to recycling and avoiding the unnecessary opening of new fields or inadvertent destruction of the environment is the responsible thing to do. Companies that can take the old and build something new are not only inventive new outputs but also develop additional social capital.

http://www.repreve.com/

http://www.haggar.com/category/index.jsp?categoryId=12177899

Yeoh, M. & Paladino, A. (2013). Prestige and environmental behaviors: does branding matter? Journal of Branding Management,  20 (4).