Men's Winter [Fashion]

[IgnatiusofLoyola]

[quote name='Micah' timestamp='1290291294' post='2188252']
^
Sure Iggy, I bet you're super hip in reality. LL Bean is pretty cool in a collegiate sorta way. I haven't seen an outlet anywhere around here though, and I don't like buying anything to do with clothing online, so unfortunately I am LLbeanless.

Land's End has some sick (and by sick I mean awesome) coats, as well as some not so sick coats lol. I hear that winters in Wisconsin can get atrociously cold. Like long underwear cold. And I agree, when it gets cold (ie. Today) I could care less about how chic (or tough) I look. I was waiting outside the library today watching all the freshmen freezing in their hoodies and little black gloves. I guess they were being manly, but I'll take my fur-lined parka and leather boots over shivering like a leaf any day.

And just for the record, women can look very cute all cozied up for winter.
[/quote]

I can't pretend to be hip. I'm not the type, so I just don't try. However, when I am wearing the full "dress for success" look for a client meeting or if I'm giving a speech, I can pull off "intelligent and totally credible." Maybe not hip, but the pay is good. And, I can even give an hour speech where people don't fall asleep. Now THAT'S success.

I spent my formative years in Berkeley, where the "less is more" look was hip. Simple hair, no make-up, etc. And, I have mostly kept that look. My mother, who at 83 still looks incredible and dresses really well, taught me that you can spot truly classy clothes because they are simple. As she used to say, "You pay for the restraint." Look at the women's dresses at the awards shows. Most of the most beautiful dresses are simple, and look great because of fabric, color, and design, not because they have "doodads" all over them.

As for the fact you don't buy clothes online--why not? I HATE malls, and I can't think of the last time I bought clothing from a retail store. Give it a try sometime. The well known, online catalogs have made returns easy if you don't like what you buy. But, if you already know what kinds of clothes look good on you and which don't, catalogs are much better than retail stores, especially for simple clothes.

Catalogs aren't so good for hip, but I'm not trying for hip, so they're great for me. I'm the kind of woman who looks so clean cut that men aren't attracted to me when they first meet me. But, if they talk to me awhile, they find that my mind (etc) isn't nearly as clean cut as it would appear. Think of the librarian who pulls off her glasses, lets her hair down, and lets loose. Men who get to know me find me a complete (good) surprise. Brains are VERY sexy. (But at Mass, I will cause no man to have any impure thoughts or any woman to feel threatened.)

[CatherineM]

My husband saw a picture of me that a highschool friend posted of me in a flannel shirt. He said I looked like Elmer Fudd.

[Micah]

[quote name='IgnatiusofLoyola' timestamp='1290394455' post='2188495']
I can't pretend to be hip. I'm not the type, so I just don't try. However, when I am wearing the full "dress for success" look for a client meeting or if I'm giving a speech, I can pull off "intelligent and totally credible." Maybe not hip, but the pay is good. And, I can even give an hour speech where people don't fall asleep. Now THAT'S success.

I spent my formative years in Berkeley, where the "less is more" look was hip. Simple hair, no make-up, etc. And, I have mostly kept that look. My mother, who at 83 still looks incredible and dresses really well, taught me that you can spot truly classy clothes because they are simple. As she used to say, "You pay for the restraint." Look at the women's dresses at the awards shows. Most of the most beautiful dresses are simple, and look great because of fabric, color, and design, not because they have "doodads" all over them.

As for the fact you don't buy clothes online--why not? I HATE malls, and I can't think of the last time I bought clothing from a retail store. Give it a try sometime. The well known, online catalogs have made returns easy if you don't like what you buy. But, if you already know what kinds of clothes look good on you and which don't, catalogs are much better than retail stores, especially for simple clothes.

Catalogs aren't so good for hip, but I'm not trying for hip, so they're great for me. I'm the kind of woman who looks so clean cut that men aren't attracted to me when they first meet me. But, if they talk to me awhile, they find that my mind (etc) isn't nearly as clean cut as it would appear. Think of the librarian who pulls off her glasses, lets her hair down, and lets loose. Men who get to know me find me a complete (good) surprise. Brains are VERY sexy. (But at Mass, I will cause no man to have any impure thoughts or any woman to feel threatened.)
[/quote]


haha, I'm kinda lazy when it comes to putting stuff in the mail. If I ended up with something I didn't like I would never actually make my way down to the post office to return it. Plus I've been ripped off twice now online, and besides books I'm pretty much jaded with online business.

unlike some of the more renowned universities south of the border, we don't have any distinctive west coast look. We definitely don't have a "berkeley" look haha. But regardless, you can't go wrong with dressing down, but you can definitely go wrong with dressing up. What does clean cut look like btw? Sweater vests?

[IgnatiusofLoyola]

[quote name='Micah' timestamp='1290397584' post='2188511']
haha, I'm kinda lazy when it comes to putting stuff in the mail. If I ended up with something I didn't like I would never actually make my way down to the post office to return it. Plus I've been ripped off twice now online, and besides books I'm pretty much jaded with online business.

unlike some of the more renowned universities south of the border, we don't have any distinctive west coast look. We definitely don't have a "Berkeley" look haha. But regardless, you can't go wrong with dressing down, but you can definitely go wrong with dressing up. What does clean cut look like BTW? Sweater vests?



[/quote]

LOL Yes, there is a distinctive "Berkeley" look--or at least there used to be. Nowadays, Berkeley students dress pretty much like students everywhere (except perhaps for Brigham Young).

I don't know how to explain "clean cut." It's less the way I dress than what I look like. I look like a "soccer mom," although I have no children, and have never attended a children's soccer game. I look sort of "fresh scrubbed" and honest. (Which I am, painfully so, at times.) If I saw you drop $10,000 on the ground (not sure why you'd be carrying around $10,000 in cash), but I'd run after your car and give it all back to you, every penny, and then disappear so you couldn't thank me. ("Good deeds" for which you are thanked don't "count" as far as I am concerned.) I also apparently look friendly, approachable, and at least moderately intelligent. I think this comes from working at a reference desk as a librarian, because it happens to my mother (a former librarian, as I am) all the time, too. I can be in a city I have never visited before, or be in a new airport, and strangers come up to me and ask directions. It happens to my mother and me all the time. Somehow, although we are actually clueless, we look like someone who won't call you stupid if you ask us a question. And, it's true, we never call the person stupid, and then we genuinely try to help. I know asking a question is a technique used by pickpockets, etc. sometimes, but it's never happened to us.

Sweater vests are only if you want to look like Mr. Rogers or Beaver's dad Ward on the "Leave it to Beaver Show" from the 50's. Neither "clean cut" or "hip." Avoid them, unless that is the "look" you are seeking.

Mostly I wear jeans and a simple cotton top--no "doodads," and rarely a T-shirt, for some reason. In winter, I wear the same jeans, but with a cotton turtleneck top under a sweater. (Sometimes a sweatshirt, but that's rare--I'm just not a "sweatshirt" person, although I own several, all with the logos of colleges attended by various family members, and given to me as gifts.) In summer I wear Birkenstock ripoff sandals. In winter I wear Lands' End snow boots or snow sneakers, and a Lands' End parka. I have an assortment of jackets, parkas, etc. of varying heaviness depending on the weather. I hate hats so all my parkas have hoods. However, if I am having a bad hair day, I wear either a Berkeley cap or a University of Chicago cap (the colleges attended by my niece and nephew--I am a very loyal aunt) depending on which cap matches my parka-of-the-day.

I would call my look "invisible." Nothing to make me stand out. For reasons too deep to spend the time explaining, I don't like calling attention to myself. Yet people still come up to me all the time to ask me questions. Go figure.

I can understand about not wanting to buy things online due to being lazy about returning stuff. It's happened to me so often I am embarrassed. However, I have had very good luck with buying things online--sorry you've been ripped off.

My clothing advice to Kafka was very tongue in cheek, because I like giving him grief. If he's old enough to dress himself, he's old enough to figure out what he likes to wear, and needs no advice from me. I believe in dressing, not for fashion, but in wearing whatever it is you like to wear, and staying warm in winter (frostbite is a negative experience).

I definitely dress like a woman, but I am not a "girly girl." My "religion" forbids me from wearing hair spray or mile-high spike heels. Spike heels and pointy-toed shoes are a form of masochism and self-hatred. Guys like them, but I don't care. Guys like naked women, too, but that doesn't mean I walk around naked in public. Tanning is also against my "religion," because it causes serious wrinkles. I have tried to tell this to teenage girls, but they look at me as if I am from Mars. After all, "they" will never be 40. Guess what? Everyone who isn't dead turns 40 about 20 years sooner than they expected, and particularly if they are light-skinned (as I am), if they tan, they will have wrinkles, especially if they also smoke. (Teenage girls also don't believe me when I tell them that smoking causes wrinkles--serious wrinkles.) I worked with a woman for years who is the same age as me, and she is beautiful. But, she smoked and tanned, and when she hit 40, she was still beautiful but looked haggard. I did not look beautiful, but I still had the clear, fresh-scrubbed skin I had when I was 20.

I love rambling (as you can tell), but others find it tiresome, so I will shut up.

Be yourself, and screw what other people think. The people you care about don't care what you look like. The people who don't like you won't like you even if you look like whoever is hot right now. (It changes so quickly I don't bother to keep track.)

Edited November 23, 2010 by IgnatiusofLoyola

[Semper Catholic]

This the face I made while reading this thread. I had to watch Hamburger Hill and Blackhawk Down in order to scrub the fairy dust off of me.

[img]http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/gran-torino-trailer.jpg[/img]

Edited November 23, 2010 by Semper Catholic

[IgnatiusofLoyola]

[quote name='Semper Catholic' timestamp='1290499978' post='2188757']
This the face I made while reading this thread. I had to watch Hamburger Hill and Blackhawk Down in order to scrub the fairy dust off of me.

[img]http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/gran-torino-trailer.jpg[/img]
[/quote]

What the heck is "fairy dust?" If it is what it sounds like, that comment is totally out of line. If it's not what it sounds like then, "Meh."

In any case, if you don't like my posts, feel very free to skip them. Lots of people do. Kafka, Micah, and myself were having fun and being absurd. But, I never expect that other people will enjoy the same kinds of threads that I enjoy. That's why there are lots of different kinds of posts on Phatmass.

Edited November 23, 2010 by IgnatiusofLoyola

[Micah]

[quote name='IgnatiusofLoyola' timestamp='1290552265' post='2188883']
What the heck is "fairy dust?" If it is what it sounds like, that comment is totally out of line. If it's not what it sounds like then, "Meh."

In any case, if you don't like my posts, feel very free to skip them. Lots of people do. Kafka, Micah, and myself were having fun and being absurd. But, I never expect that other people will enjoy the same kinds of threads that I enjoy. That's why there are lots of different kinds of posts on Phatmass.
[/quote]

[img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/clap2.gif[/img]Some people just don't wanna look good right, it's all good.

[img]http://i1032.photobucket.com/albums/a409/CertifiedTroll/god-haters-gonna-hate-eagle.jpg[/img]


I finished two of my hardest finals today, and I have the next 6 days to study for some super easy first year courses (that I had skipped in my first year and require for grad). So I'm feeling pretty good (except my cat just sneezed on me, grossss). Normally I'd get myself a pack of smokes to reward myself, but since I've quit smokin I grabbed some new skate shoes [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/like.gif[/img] :

[img]http://www.robertwayne.com/prodimages/8895-default-l.jpg[/img]


They are so ridiculously amazingly fresh, and I want to go break em in, but it's raining and nasty outside. [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/cuss.gif[/img]