I have had my good and branded clothes shrink after I wash and dry them in a washer and then in a dryer. Why does it happen and what can I do to avoid it in future?

TIA.

It’s starting to get cold, and I live/travel pretty close to the Arctic Circle, so I’m putting the winter fits back together.

I’m also apparently allergic to color, as you can tell.

Curious what you guys think. The headwear is a traditional fur hat from where I’m from.

Found this jacket and pant set for $105 after discounts at Macy's. It's Hugo Boss and 55% virgin wool, 45% viscose. The listing claims it's brown, but it seems a little more purple/pinkish to me, though the color isn't too flashy.

I was mostly planning on wearing it to professional networking events (in the healthcare industry), galas, and maybe weddings. What does make me apprehensive is that the color is one shade away from being willy wonka.

Basically title. Are their full canvas suits still up to scratch today? Or have they cheapened out and resorted to using inferior materials combined with poor quality control now. I remember back in 2015 to 2020 this brand was always promoted as great bang for buck, especially if you were able to snag one in clearance.

Has Stussy's quality deteriorated? The fabric still feels premium and tight but the graphics designs have cracks , so much of them
I even flip shirts inside out when washing
What do you guys think

First off, posting a picture of myself on Reddit is horrifying, so please understand that this took an unreasonable amount of courage for a 40-year-old man wearing a Walmart T-shirt.

Be gentle. I am here to learn.

Background: I grew up dirt poor. Like, if we were buying new clothes, Walmart was the fancy option. Fortunately, life has been very good to me and I am now in a position where I can comfortably afford nicer clothes.

The problem is that nobody ever informed my wardrobe.

I am 40, married, have a gaggle of kids, and apparently still dress like I stepped out of 2005.

The outfit pictured is 100% Walmart Chic.

My current wardrobe consists of approximately:

• 10 copies of this exact size medium T-shirt in black, gray, navy, and whatever color this one is
• These pants (30Wx30L - Wrangler 5 pocket)
• One pair of jeans
• Baggy Adidas three-stripe pants that I believe were issued to me sometime during the 1st Bush Jr. administration

That's basically the whole operation.

I am not trying to become Rico Suave. I don't want anyone to look at me and think, Wow, this guy has really gotten into men's fashion lately.

I just want to look like a reasonably put-together 40-year-old man instead of a dad who got dressed in the dark before taking the kids to Home Depot.

So my wife took me to Macy's.

Apparently pants cost $70 now . . . I think I missed that memo.

Look, I can afford it, that's not really the issue. My childhood brain just cannot comprehend paying $70 for pants when Walmart will apparently cover both of my legs for $19.98.

But I am ready.

So I have two questions:

1. What is the elevated version of whatever style I am currently wearing?

I like simple. Casual. Comfortable. Masculine. Nothing flashy.

Basically, imagine my current outfit is Level 1 Dad.

I would like to unlock Level 3 Dad.

Not Level 47 Italian menswear influencer drinking espresso on a balcony in loafers with no socks.

2. Where do I buy it?

What stores? What brands?

Gap? Banana Republic? Costco? Macy's? Some mysterious store that adult men know about but nobody told me existed?

I genuinely have no idea.

Stats, in case they matter:

40M
5'10"
150 lbs
Shirt: Medium
Pants: 30W x 30L

A small shirt technically fits me perfectly, but it hugs my arms and chest enough that I immediately feel like a divorced personal trainer named Chad, so I prefer medium.

I also like a little room in my pants.

Absolute non-negotiable: I cannot do the pants that taper down into tiny little ankle openings. I have tried. I look down, see my shoes attached to two little fabric funnels, become deeply uncomfortable, and immediately want my 2004 Adidas pants back on.

Again, this took an unreasonable amount of courage on my part, so please be kind and send me in the right direction.

Thank you in advance.

I'm 33 and have been trying to up my fashion game. I'm getting fashion advice from a borderline gen Z girl friend of mine who is adamant all my pants are too slim. My older guy friends disagree.

In my quest to up my style, I'm contemplating:

1. Is it cringy to try and dress to the generation below you? (e.g. huge, swimmy pants)
2. Is it better to own your generation and nail it
3. Are slim cut pants a fashion disaster at my age?

Thoughts? Thanks all!

Edit: Since it’s come up a lot I’ll clarify: I’m short with an athletic build. Legs aren’t Sequoia redwoods by any means though.
loving the feedback, thank you everyone, reading everything!

This is a response to the recent “Dressing well isn’t a geometry exam” post, and I think the disagreement comes down to what we actually mean by “geometry.”

I agree that there is no specification sheet for looking good. There is no universally correct jacket length, button stance, trouser rise, trouser width, lapel width, or amount of break. Nobody needs to take a ruler to themselves and optimize every measurement to some supposedly perfect number.

But that is not really what geometry means in clothing.

Geometry is the relationship between all of those measurements, the body underneath them, and the rest of the outfit. A range of answers can work and it can still be a geometry problem.

Clothing has proportions, and those proportions are being placed on top of a body that already has proportions of its own. Some people have long legs and short torsos. Some have short legs and long torsos. Some have disproportionately long arms, broad shoulders relative to their waist, a long rise, or a short rise. Then you introduce jacket length, button stance, trouser rise, trouser width, hem length, shoe shape, shoulder extension, lapel scale, and everything else.

All of those things interact. That is the point.
So when we say that an inch “doesn’t really matter,” the obvious question is: an inch where, on whom, and relative to what?

An inch of jacket length does not automatically make a jacket good or bad. But it changes where the jacket terminates relative to your legs, where the buttoning point appears relative to your torso, how much trouser is visible, where the pockets visually sit, and the apparent relationship between your upper and lower body. That same inch may be almost inconsequential on one person and visually significant on another because their proportions are different.

The same applies to trousers. Rise can substantially change the apparent relationship between torso and legs. Width changes the visual weight of the lower body. The hem then has to interact with the shoe underneath it. A fuller trouser over a substantial shoe creates one relationship; the same trouser over a very small, low-profile shoe creates another. Neither is automatically wrong, but they are not visually interchangeable.

That, to me, is the useful lesson. It is not “your jacket must be exactly this long.” It is “understand what changing the jacket length actually does.”

The original post says:

“If the proportions work together and the context makes sense, that can be much more interesting than technical perfection. Clothes are supposed to leave room for creativity, not force everyone onto the same specification sheet.”

And I agree with the first sentence. But “if the proportions work together” is doing nearly all of the work there.

Nobody is asking for technical perfection, and nobody is saying everyone needs the same proportions.

You can deliberately make already-long legs look even longer. You can exaggerate the shoulders. You can wear extremely high-rise or low-rise trousers. You can wear a dramatically short jacket or a dramatically long one. You can wear enormous trousers with tiny shoes if that tension is the aesthetic you are trying to create.

That is creativity.

But creativity in proportion does not make proportion irrelevant. If anything, understanding proportion gives you more freedom because you understand what you are manipulating.

There is a meaningful difference between “I know this jacket makes my torso look shorter and my legs look absurdly long, and that is exactly the silhouette I want” and “the jacket is within an inch, so it probably doesn’t matter.”

The first person understands what the garment is doing and chooses the effect deliberately. The second person has been told that the effect is too minor to bother understanding.

Tom Ford is a good example of this. His tailoring can be extremely exaggerated: huge peak lapels, strong shoulders, aggressive waist suppression, unusual buttoning points, high rises, long trousers, wide trousers. Those choices are not evidence that geometry does not matter. They are deliberate manipulations of geometry.

Armani manipulates those relationships differently. Thom Browne manipulates them differently. Huntsman and Anderson & Sheppard manipulate them differently. They can arrive at completely different silhouettes because there is no single correct answer.

But “there is more than one good answer” and “the answer doesn’t really matter” are very different claims.

And yes, I completely accept that the average person probably will not consciously notice half of this. Your coworker is probably not going to look at you and say that your button stance should be 15mm lower. They may not know what jacket balance is, why one trouser rise changes the way your body reads, or why one shoe works better beneath a particular trouser width.

That does not make those relationships nonexistent.

More importantly, I am not sure why “most people won’t notice” should be the stopping point on r/malefashionadvice. Presumably the purpose of a fashion-advice forum is to help people learn to see these things.

Most people are not knowingly choosing proportions that work less well for the silhouette they want. They simply may not understand what those choices are doing yet. That is exactly why teaching proportion is useful.

The goal should not be to memorize a set of correct measurements. The goal should be to understand the relationships well enough to know when a difference matters, when it does not, and when you are deliberately breaking a convention for a particular effect.

That does not mean chasing perfection. It does not mean spending thousands of dollars. It does not mean everyone needs MTM or bespoke. Plenty of people happen to fit an RTW block extremely well and need very little alteration.

It just means there is value in understanding why something looks the way it does.

So no, I do not think dressing well requires technical perfection.

I do think dressing well is, to some extent, a geometry exam.

There just isn’t one answer key.

Simple tee, linen pants and sude loafers.

I kind of botched my last post, where I asked if loafers could be worn with an outdoorsy outfit. Looking ahead to summer, I'm looking to avoid shorts and sneakers 100% of the time, and really still need to break in my Grant Stone Travelers. Is this outfit too dressy for such things as neighborhood walks, coffee runs and so on?

I see almost everyone around me wearing some variant of what looks like a running shoe, and as the world moves more and more into "athleisure" I feel I'm starting to look like a sore thumb to the general public.

I’m leaning towards the red, I have no fashion sense

I have an outdoor wedding next week. It was supposed to be a warm spring evening but polar winds have hit the country and it will be between 0 and 5 celsius degrees (32-41 F). I do not own an overcoat to wear comfortably over a suit but I could get my hands on this one. I know it is big and I do not mind the bulky look but is it at least passable? I rather wear something a tad too big than to shiver like an idiot through the entire night but at the same time I do not want to look ridiculous.

Hi, I'm after a top to layer with my suit and overcoat during the colder months.

I've just spotted that (with a first order 10% off) I can get new directly from John Smedley for £145.

Before I pull the trigger is that my best option around that price, or are there any others I should be looking at?

Thanks

i have a field spec tee that i love, and i want to simplify my wardrobe my having all black and cream t shirts. i can't justify spending 60 bucks on a bunch of shirts, but the bronson looks promising. the buck mason in L and the bronson in XL look to have the same measurements, but is the bronson meant to be a take on the field spec? will they fit the same?

When you wear an outfit, ever feel like something is off? You have the exact same outfit but someone online looks better? Here is the only proportions guide you need to know. Must-Know for beginners into fashion

Slim Top + Baggy Pants : Yes
Slim Top + Slim/ Regular Fit Pants: Yes
Baggy Top + Baggy Pants: Yes
Baggy top + Slim/regular Fit Pants: NEVER

"But what If I am on the skinnier or fatter side?"

If you are skinny, you can pretty much wear anything; Baggy, Slim, Regular Fit, etc

However, if you are on the bigger side, especially with bigger glutes or thighs, I recommend never wearing slim pants, go for a relax fit or baggy fit for pants because a slim tight piece of clothing can make your worst attribute stand out

peace

Rate me or suggest what should i change about my fitl

Not quiet sure, i kinda like that 70s silloute with the Bell bottoms, but i'm not sure if they're kinda "old school,, and the Weekday Mecury's Bootcuts (Second picture) might look more appropriate for modern Fashion and might be the way to go (?)

I like those black tops with neat prints, but idk about paying 300€ for a sweater.

I’m looking to buy a new wallet and have narrowed down to Intrecciato Piccolo Bi-Fold or Livre wallet. I’m looking for long term ownership experience and would love to hear your experience and recommendations.

There are references to some close-looking Hugo Boss models, but none match them.

I've got a vacation coming up and im in dire need of some swimming shorts but I absolutely will not wear the ones with a mesh or even compression liner.

The inner lining always gets stuck in my crack, they chafe like crazy and cause blisters that look like hemroids, and i wont trust any of them Chinese brands from amazon but I dont know what brands to look for cos Google just pushes Chinese crap at me.

Wanting to do a slow rebuild of wardrobe and will mostly use eBay or Poshmark. What are other brands in the same vein as these two?

Looking for a made to measure tweed suit for my wedding this winter. Saw yoosuitan and was intrigued by the price. Does anyone have any experience with them? Saw that they may be tied to Empire outlet suits.

If the website is bunk, does anyone have recommendations for a place to purchase a dark green tweed suit that isnt too expensive?

https://yoosuitan.com/products/dark-green-herringbone-tweed-3-piece-suit?_pos=3&_sid=94084da2b&_ss=r

Looking for plain white cotton crew socks. Currently have too many Nike ones, but in search of logo-free options.

I’ve got an event coming up that requires me to dress formally.
Ive always been told I look better in vests than I do in jackets, but I’m struggling to find a vest I like that fits what I’m looking for. Unfortunately after a long time looking online I’m starting to get concerned that the style I like only exists because of AI. Every time I try to find something like this, it either doesn’t turn up anything close, is obviously ai-generated, or is completely untrustworthy.

I’ve tried going to many different stores but haven’t found anything similar so im taking my chances online. I’m not familiar with terminology so if someone could help refine my search terms or break the bad news I’d appreciate it