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keeping up with fashion trends

Five Tips for Keeping Up with Fashion Trends


This is a guest post by Alex Outlaw, Co-Founder at TheIdleMan.com

Staying on or ahead of trends can be a real headache for most men. Where do you look? How do you know what trends to follow? Are you too old to follow them? Are all just a handful of questions most men run over in their head when the subject of trends is brought up. To show you just how easy it is to get ahead of the curve without looking too try-hard, we’ve put together five essential tips. Thank us later.

people need to know about mens fashion week

1. Fashion Weeks

The first place to look is fashion weeks, just make sure it’s the men’s version. For the UK, the one to really look out for is London Collections: Men (or LCM). Here the leading figures and brands all take to the catwalk to show us what’s going to be hot in a year or two’s time. But it’s outside the event that you can get the biggest tips…

street style mens show the impression

2. Street Style

… which brings us nicely onto our second tip. All over the globe there are thousands of photographers taking to the streets to find the key looks at the moment to give us guys a valuable piece of inspiration for our own style. Every menswear publication, both online and print, will have their own photographers out there and will post them on their blogs/websites…

mr porter paperback

3. Know Your What to Read

…so you need to make sure you know what publications to head to. Not only will they have these images to work with, but they will always do their own trend report for the upcoming season. These are written with a more immediate thought than the runway shows, letting you know what you need to buy now to be on trend, rather than what you need to be buying in two years time when everyone’s caught up with the runways.

There are hundreds of men’s fashion blogs out there, so do your research and find one that you think suits you. If it’s too high-end you won’t be able to afford anything they’re talking about and it will be totally unrelatable to your lifestyle.

look around you

4. Look Around You

Your own initiative and beady eyes can also be your best friend. If you’re taking a trip to a large city, keep your eyes peeled for other guys’ outfits you like, decide what ones you think you could pull off, then just give it a go! Whatever you go for, you just need to make sure you feel comfortable in it. Talking of which…

confident men wear suit with cap

5. Be Confident

You need to be confident in yourself. If you wear something with self-doubt and you feel uncomfortable in it, you will project that feeling to your mates, passers by and that girl you’ve had your eye on in the gym the past few months. Try things on with just you and a mirror to witness at first. Like what you see? Then carry that good feeling on to when you head out to the street to meet your mates, a date or prospective employers.

You could be wearing the most up-to-date and prestigious clothing known to man but if you wear it with an air of awkwardness, you won’t pull it off. Similarly, you don’t have to spend hundreds to make something look good, just wear it with confidence and you’ll have a much better shot of pulling it off.

plain white shirt mens style

If all else fails

If you’ve tried all of the above and you still don’t feel right or just can’t keep up no matter how much you try, don’t worry, it’s really easy to look like you know a thing or two about style. This is where you wardrobe staples come in – the pieces that are the key pillars to any man’s wardrobe.

They are the more timeless pieces and these can be matched with more or less anything and still look considered. Think denim shirts, oxford shirts, plain sweatshirts, knitwear, crew neck T-Shirts, indigo and black jeans and some classic footwear like desert boots, loafers, brogues, derby shoes and plainer trainer styles. These are the cornerstone to your wardrobe and are a more failsafe way of achieving a great style.

The Idle Man

Alex Outlaw is the co-founder at TheIdleMan.com a site dedicated to young mens fashion.