Summer Wardrobe

Fashion Backward

I’ll admit it, I’ve never been a super stylish guy. I used to wear graphic tees and cargo shorts when I was in high school, and my hairstyle was basically non-existent. Although, as graphic tees go, they were fairly tasteful. I wasn’t the guy who wore the “Eat. Sleep. Game. Repeat.” or “I paused my game to be here!” shirts. I did try to put some thought into my outfits sometimes. One of my favorites for a while was a grey t-shirt, grey shorts, and my orange quilted Chuck Taylor All-Stars. I loved those shoes so much, and that outfit I thought was so cool cause the whole point was to make the shoes pop as much as possible. On the other hand, there was the time when I started to roll up the bottom of my jeans above my ankles cause I thought I was quirky and wanted to start a trend, but we don’t talk about that..
My other problem was I just never really felt like I could justify buying a bunch of new clothes when the ones I had still fit me. I still wear one or two things that I got in high school over 14 years ago. My frugality also caused me to wear things even when they stopped technically fitting me correctly, but that was also partially because I just didn’t know how things should properly fit. Eventually, I went through a minimalist wardrobe kick where I bought some plain white and black tees and wore those every day. I didn’t even try to enhance it with accessories. I liked the idea of not having to think about what I was putting on and not having to spend much money to maintain it, but it was boring and expressionless.
In more recent years, I’ve definitely been more conscious about my choice of clothes, but I’ve been kind of all over the place. I’ve just been picking random things that I like, but not really building toward a cohesive style. I’ll get something with an idea in mind but then in reality, it doesn’t really work with anything in my closet, or it’ll only really work with one other thing, so I’m locked into a single outfit. In the last two years, I’ve started weight lifting and have built a lot of muscle which has further dwindled the number of items in my closet that I’m comfortable wearing. All this to say, I decided to develop my personal style and have built a summer wardrobe.

Change Of Clothes

As I’ve been getting more interested in clothing and style, I’ve started watching some channels on Youtube that have been really helpful. First, The Iron Snail, who I found a year or two ago when I was trying to find the best quality t-shirts. His channel focuses on the history of clothing and what goes into making quality clothes. Second, Parker York Smith, who I found through the algorithm after I started watching The Iron Snail. His focus is more on fashion and developing personal style. He gives lots of tips on what to consider when building an outfit. So if you’re interested, check them out!
I started by searching different styles and aesthetics to get a sense of what I liked. There is minimalist, preppy, skater, grunge, dark academia, workwear, surfer, old money…just to name a few. I was immediately drawn to old money and surfer, but surfer style was too casual and I wanted a more elevated style. So I chose the old money look as my starting point. It is an understated, elegant, and classy look. My thought was, if I could do it right, people would see me and just think, “That guy dresses well.” From there, it morphed into a semi-retro beach leisure vibe, which is perfect because I’m actually going to be taking a beach vacation this summer.
Now, at this point, I was a bit lost on where to go next. I had done a bunch of research previously and collected a bunch of tips on general style theory. I learned that, apparently with my body type, I should look good in polos, soft flowing fabrics, and dark subtle tones. I also had made a list of colors I think I look good in: white, black, off-white, rose, muted green, plum, midnight blue. Luckily those fit the look I’m going for really well. So I had some sense of what to look for, but I didn’t know any brands or what specific pieces to search so I ended up using AI to help me research.
I’m not huge on AI, but I think it does really shine as a research aid, and I’ll admit it was super helpful in this project. First, I looked through pages of Google images and built out a mood board to help me establish the end goal and the look I was going for. I fed this into the AI and it gave me suggestions on the types of tops, bottoms, footwear and accessories that would fit the style. I gave it a list and description of all the pieces I already own that fit the style, and it was able to help fill in the gaps. At that point I was ready to start looking at actual products, so I had it give me a list of brands that carry these sorts of styles. I started looking through stuff from J.Crew, Abercrombie & Fitch, Percival, Alex Mill, Todd Snyder, etc. However, my favorite brand that I found, OAS, I actually heard about from an Iron Snail video. I built up a collection of things that I liked, and I added them to a canvas in Obsidian with pictures and links so I could arrange them into different outfits and see how they all worked together. I was able to narrow them down to a few essentials that would maximize versatility and let me mix and match with my existing clothes to ensure plenty of combinations. I spent so much time deliberating, half of the things I had picked out ended up being sold out of my size. But I think it might have been a blessing in disguise because I like what I ended up with better anyway.

The Haul

I ended up getting this totem terry polo and these navy striped swim trunks from OAS. The terrycloth polo was a must cause it’s such a comfy material with such a great texture. I haven’t ordered it yet, but I really want this cotton-linen polo from Ralph Lauren in dune tan. I got two slim fit ribbed tanks from H&M, one black and one white. I already had a white one and I wear it all the time. It is perfect for layering with an open or half open button-up shirt. For shorts, I went with these 7” linen shorts in ivory sand from J.Crew and for pants I picked up these super loose fit Italian linen-cotton pants in dark cypress green from Banana Republic. Linen is light, breathable and has a great texture, but it wrinkles so easily, so for the pants, where wrinkling would be the biggest problem, I went with a linen-cotton blend. They’re 60% Italian linen and 40% cotton, so they still have the nice texture and are fairly breathable, but the cotton gives it a bit more structure to avoid wrinkles and weight to help it drape better. I’m still deciding on shoes. With a wide leg pant, you need to have a substantial shoe as a base or else they will get lost under there. With a bigger, bulkier shoe, it gives a solid foundation for the pants to drape over. I’m torn between a lug-sole loafer and a leather fisherman sandal. For accessories, I got this 20” 2mm gold Connell chain from CraftdLondon. It’s understated and just adds a little something to catch the eye. I’m planning to go to some second-hand shops in search of a braided leather belt or two. I’m also already working on another project that ties into this one where I create my own jewelry, so look out for that in the near future. I’ll also probably get some kind of tote bag to replace my backpack since that would throw off the vibe pretty badly.
Yeah, all together it was a lot of money, but I’ve barely spent any money on my clothes for pretty much my whole life, so that is how I am justifying it. Also, by focusing on higher quality items, they should last me a very long time. To get the whole picture, I should note the items I already had that will fit into the wardrobe. There is a dark blue linen button-up, a lighter blue textured button-up, a black cotton button-up with off-white vertical stripes on each side in the front that looks like a 60s bowling shirt, a plain white dress shirt, and a pair of Sperry boat shoes in cream. These combined with the new stuff will give me plenty of different outfit combinations which is something I’ve never really had before.

The Concept

As you can tell, the idea with this style is to use high quality textures to add interest to otherwise neutral outfits. Usually your main source of texture would be layering, but in the summer heat, when you are limited to one or two layers, you get that texture from the materials themselves. The silhouette is also considered. Since I have a V shaped body, with wide shoulders and thinner waist, the polo tucked into the wide legged pants balances out the profile. Functionally, the linen and loose fitting pieces allow for breathability and comfort in the heat which is a must. Vibe-wise, nothing really feels too flashy or pretentious. I’m not wearing a cashmere sweater tied around my neck or a navy blazer or anything. This was something I had to be conscious about during this whole process, cause I’m not from old money and I don’t live a fancy lifestyle. This is actually one of the most important aspects of style, propriety. Is the outfit appropriate for the occasion? If you are out buying groceries, you don’t want to dress like it’s date night at a nice restaurant. You want to look casual, but elevated. So for a grocery run, I might wear the green linen pants with the white ribbed tank top, a belt and sneakers; or maybe the linen shorts, the dark blue linen shirt with the top two buttons undone, and my Sperrys if it’s a really hot day. The point is to be intentional about what you wear so that you look good without feeling like you’re sticking out too much.

Okay, yeah lets wrap this up. There’s so much more I could say and I wanted to add pictures of my outfits, but I’m like three weeks late on posting, so this’ll have to do. Maybe I’ll consider doing some self modeling as a future project. Fashion plus photography. Most likely would be pretty far down the line though. Photography is a huge iceberg that I could get lost on for a while. This summer wardrobe project ended up taking way longer than I expected and I’m still not even done. It was a lot of fun though! I’m glad I did it and I’m sure my future self will be glad too when he can look back at pictures and not be embarrassed for once.