A lot of guys hate shopping for clothes, and I would consider myself among them.
The idea of shopping for clothes is never that exciting. But today I want to give you five tips that will help make shopping weigh less traumatic and way easier for you. So why does shopping for clothes always suck for guys? Well, it designed the entire shopping experience for women. And I’m going through some generalizations here. So women enjoy the experience of shopping.
They enjoy savoring it and kind of drawing it out, really see everything that’s there. You know, seeing all the variety that’s in the store, trying different things on, to them it’s sort of pastime. So the problem is, women have been doing it all wrong. Well, maybe a better way to say it is that we’ve been following the wrong lead is guys because you know think about it when we learn how to shop we learned from our mothers, most likely. They took us to the store, they said, “Let’s go look around, let’s go shop for clothes”. And how did we like it? How did that work out for us? Not that great, we didn’t enjoy the experience that much, and we sort of taken that that baggage or that trauma with us throughout our lives and assume that’s what clothes shopping was. But the glorious news is where the ironic thing is that the best way to shop for clothes or the right way to shop for clothes, according to most style experts, actually aligns way better with how guys like to shop for clothes. You know the last thing they would do is recommend that you sort of just browsing aimlessly. Most style experts recommend that you have a calculated, disciplined approach, figure out what you need, go in and get it and get out. So now I’m going to give you five tips that will make shopping way more efficient, way easier, and way less traumatic. Let’s get on with the tips.
1. Know What You Want in Your Overall Wardrobe:
And I know this sounds scary at first but on a basic level I mean you want to think about your lifestyle, your environment, your job and what you do regularly and what clothes you want to be wearing so that you look your best and you feel your best. On another level, you want to think about interchangeability and versatility and that’s going to give you the most bang for your buck, and one of the best ways to do that is to get neutral colors for your base wardrobe. So, things like black, grey, navy, tan, you know, if you have your wardrobe in these colors most of that stuff is going to go together pretty seamlessly. And if you want more specific inspiration on building an overall wardrobe, there are a lot of great resources out there. Real Men and Real Style is a great place to look. Dappered is another great place to look, Effortless Gent, Style Girlfriend and finally, you can check out my style course over at gentlemenlookgoodlivewell.com and I’ll put it in the links below. But that will give you a kind of basic foundation of how to build a wardrobe.
2. Make a List of What You’re Going to Get:
And guys, I know it sounds simple, but this is the area where we most often fall. And if you think about it, it’s just like when you go to the grocery store. You don’t go to the grocery store and just sort of shop aimlessly. I need food! You know, because otherwise, we’ll come home with half the store. So you as Meghan Collins told me from Style Girlfriend when I have interviewed her a couple of months ago when you go shopping for clothes you don’t want to go, “Well I need new clothes for fall”. You want to go in there thinking okay I need, you know, two pairs of khakis. I need, you know, a couple of pairs of dress shirts. I need a sweater in a neutral color, have a specific list of things that you’re looking for. And that’s going to save you so much heartache and ultimately make it way faster and easier.
3. Always Go Back to Your List (AGBTYL):
I know the acronym is so catchy that it’s going to catch on like wildfire. Always go back to your list. So you’ve gone through the trouble of making a list of exactly what you’re going to get because you don’t want to waste time, right? Well, be disciplined and stick to that list because it’s easy to get distracted when you’re out in the wilds shopping. You don’t know what’s going to happen things can spring up at you like spontaneous sales, you might be tired or have low blood sugar and sort of your judgment is compromised because you’ve been walking around and suddenly things that you wouldn’t think are a good idea can seem like a good idea. You might decide that you need a colored turtleneck. That novelty pattern shirt is a kind of great idea right about now. But you’ve got to stay strong, remember why you came here. Stick to your list and then even better stick to your list and set a time limit and almost treat it like a game. How quickly can I go in and get all the stuff that I need? Can I do it in under 45 minutes because ultimately that’s going to keep your eyes on the prize and ultimately it’s going to make your shopping experience way more efficient and way less painful?
4. Only Pull the Trigger When It’s Right:
You got your list of stuff you found those khakis that you were looking for and you come across them in the store and you found them right, or did you? Are they the right khakis for you? So a couple of things. First, the fit is a super important consideration. Fit is king for looking good, so you got to make sure that they fit. So knowing your measurements are going to go a long way to help that. And getting measured by a professional is going to be super helpful here. Now the other thing though is that probably since manufacturer sizes are a very fair amount between brands, that your understanding of fit and kind of you being the judge of what fits and not, is probably even more important than the absolute measurements. So most guys are content to kind of go through life-wearing stuff that’s just way too baggy. If you’re trying on your shirt and you can comfortably hide up, you know, pineapple and a six-pack of Rolling Rock inside your shirt then it’s probably too big for you, I’m just saying, okay. So the last part of knowing when to pull the trigger is to love it in the store. So if you come across those khakis that you’ve been looking for and you don’t love them in the store. It’s very unlikely that you’re going to like them more when you get them home. So more and more with clothes and a lot of other things in life I’ve grown fond of them, “Hell Yes!” test. So basically, if you are not sure if you like something, if you can’t tell yourself but resounding, “Hell yes!” Then you should just drop it and walk away. It simplifies your decision-making, I promise.
5. Embrace the Ease and Convenience of Online Shopping:
Online shopping is like the easy button for men’s clothes shopping. I will not say I designed it for men, but I mean it eliminates all the bad parts of shopping that guys don’t like. You know, you’re often able to table sort by size, sometimes by color. It eliminates having to kind of get pestered by salespeople. People aren’t bumping into you, you’re not dealing with crowds and then you know best of all you can do this in the comfort of your own home. You can curl up on your favorite chair, on the couch, with a cocktail and, you know, calmly survey your choices and go after exactly what you need. Now the thing is, you need to be still be disciplined as we talked about earlier, going after exactly what you won’t go back to your list. AGBTYL told you that was catching, right? But the key to making online shopping work for you is getting comfortable with the logistics of online ordering and returning items. Let’s be honest, one of the big downsides of online shopping is that you can’t try the item in the store. I mean, you don’t even know really what the material feels like or even with the proper color is, until you get it out of the box, at home, right? So not everything is going to be a winner, so that means you are going to have to return some stuff. But the significant thing is, most online retailers have a great return policy, so you can pretty much return anything within reason. So, the key is getting used to what used to return stuff. So my advice is to buy some stuff online and then just plan to return one of those items. The significant thing about this is that it sort of makes you confront the unknown. You know, while back when I would order stuff online, maybe a couple of years ago. Sometimes when I had to return stuff would sit in my office for about two months because I just had a mental block against returning it, because I hadn’t done it before. I thought well I don’t know what I need to do; I need to get the box but the UPS label; I don’t even know where to take it. But if you kind of force yourself to confront that, you’ll realize just how easy it is. As Brock McGough at the modest man says, you kind of just getting into the rhythm of you know ordering and returning things online. For him, it’s become a part of his routine. You get your packages and then you go and you return them, you know, maybe once a week or something. You know where your local UPS is or your FedEx is or whatever carrier they use. And it is no big deal, and ultimately that allows you to get the most out of online shopping.
See? Clothes shopping isn’t so bad after all. You just have to unlearn what you thought you knew about it. Anyway, hope those tips helped. Once again, please read my other articles if you liked this one. Well that’s it guys, I’ll see you soon.
Comments
Post a Comment