What should I wear today?
As mentioned in my earlier post Part 1: How to build a beginner’s wardrobe, men are generally clueless when it comes to what they should have in their wardrobe on a day to day basis that works. Here is the rest of the article. Let’s roll and enjoy.
T-shirts - these are your mainstay wears on casual days, you should have a few great fitting pieces of solid color crew neck t-shirts such as navy, black, grey and white as your basics, as it will go well with almost anything you match with. Keep prints to a minimum, you don’t want people to be reminded of the same shirt for the third time you are wearing this week even though its your favorite Yoda Star Wars shirt and you have 10 copies of it, fanboy you must not. For V neck t-shirts, it goes very well if you wear a sports coat or jacket often. Make sure your t-shirts breaks nicely just below the belt and do not ever tuck in your t-shirt, if its too long get a tailor to alter it. I personally like Topman tees but its getting too overrated in the Malaysian scene, so go for basics from GAP, Zara Men, FCUK and even Reject Shop have decent tees for a bargain.
A skinny tie makes a cool style statement
Socks - Just like shirts, for the basic wardrobe get 5 to 7 pairs from Marks & Spencer (or depends how often you go out and change, in my opinion daily so you should have a pair for each day) of solid color socks of charcoal, black and navy if you generally wear black or dark blue jeans/pants. Brown of earthly tones if you generally wear chinos or earthly colored pants. Make sure its long enough so that you don’t expose your skin when you sit down and cross your legs. Ideally socks should be 100% cotton and not too thick so that it allows your feet to breath and not develop foot odor in the Malaysian climate of ours. Socks shouldn’t be too thin till you could see your skin, it looks cheap and defeats the purpose of wearing socks which is to protect the of feet from dirt and your shoes from the moist of your feet.
Socks with no skin exposure
Ties - Ties usually add a formalness to what you are wearing, so jazz it up with a skinny tie to your shirt and leave the broad ones for work. Have a selection of basic solid ties like grey, navy and black skinny tie to go with with the rest of your basic wardrobe. For work ties, any that is dark and solid such as navy or charcoal will go well with your solid white, baby blue or cream shirts.
There you have it, your basic men’s wardrobe. There are certain style faux pas that you should be aware of and common men fashion mistakes when building your wardrobe so that you’ll avoid costly mistakes. Once you have planned out on how to build your basic wardrobe, you will need to have a shopping strategy to gather the pieces together and make it happen and I recommend my post on how to shop like a Man. Good luck and keep on stylin’. 
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I noticed you have repeatedly mentioned basic shades as opposed to colours. What would your advice be on having colours in your wardrobe (both casual and formal).
Hey Mik, thanks for your reply. The reason why I suggest basic shades is you don’t want to have too many colours when you start off your wardrobe, simply because its easier to mix and match your other pieces like pants, tie and shoes. You want to keep 3 colours to a minimum so that when you finally have a matched outfit it doesn’t look too busy. With that said, once you get the hang of mix and matching … thats where you start to experiment with other colours. Its a huge topic on its own which I will address it in a future post. But suffice to say for casual where, it depends on your skin complexion. If you are fair skinned, pastel or softer tones works best and for darker complexion, you could wear richer colours such as dark blue or deep red. Reason being the colours complements your complexion and doesn’t draw attention how fair/dark you are. For formal wear, staples are black and white, but as our society’s getting casual in terms of formal events so you can go navy, charcoal or dark brown. These are just the tip of the iceberg, again will do a write up on this. Stay tuned =)
Hi Jason! Fab blog you have here!
Quick question: Is it necessary for men to wear underwears which are matching colors with their outfits?
Not necessary, unless of course you want to blend in your shirt with your undershirt which is always a good idea. For briefs or boxers, generally nobody’s gonna see it so it doesn’t matter if the colours match. However I’d suggest you to stay away from whites though, its gives a schoolboyish feel.