[MrXY]

Anywhere game is discussed, one of the recurring subjects is peacocking. How,where, when to do it and arguments over whether it’s effective or detrimental to the player. Based on my own experience and observations, peacocking does work and is highly effective when done correctly, but can be counterproductive when not executed well.
When men familiar with game think of peacocking, images that come to mind are of crazy hats, glow in the dark jewelry, tattoos, big rings and bracelets, glitter, silly graphic t shirts, rock star type get ups, and other extreme looks associated with high energy nightclubs or certain subcultures. These are not the subject of this discussion

What I am going to cover in this multipart series of posts is how to peacock within the context of Classic Men’s Style (CMS). This style of peacocking is much more widely acceptable in a variety of social situations and much more amenable to a broader range of personalities and game skills than is the more extreme peacocking. It also has a much greater utility for men over the age of 25; after a certain age women start expecting a man to grow up and wear clothes that are more age appropriate. For a mature man, attempting to look excessively youthful or crazy just comes off as try-hard and status lowering.

Classic Mens Style can be divided into three types: Conservative Business Dress (CBD), Classic Casual Style and what I will call GQ Style, which is still within CMS boundaries although somewhat more fashion-y , but without going to designer runway collection lengths. Some peacocking can be done with CBD, but mostly we will be covering CCS and GQ looks.

If you don’t’ understand the basic rules and styles of CMS and don’t have a basic wardrobe yet, you need to get that handled before you even think about peacocking with CMS. You have to understand how to play within the rules before you push the boundaries of the rules; if you don’t you will just end up looking bad and women will think you are unaware of how to dress properly, which is a DLV. A psychological study on dressing differently confirmed this:

Quote:

There are boundaries to the benefits of looking different, the Harvard work showed. If an individual was viewed as accidentally out of sync with everyone else, such as mistakenly wearing a red bow tie rather than black at a formal event, that erased positive feelings about him among those surveyed. Those opinions only improved when the survey group believed their contrarian acted differently on purpose.
“In order to think that the person’s a big shot, you have to understand that the person is willingly engaging in this nonconforming conduct,” Ms. Bellezza says.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10...78088.html

You must know the rules, before you can break the rules in an appealing manner. Peacocking works because it is a demonstrating that a man has the confidence and status to break social rule of dress and is both inviting and can handle with aplomb any criticism and challenges his flouting of the rules invites. In fact one of the functions of peacocking is to deliberately provoke such challenges so that he can demonstrate his ability to fend them off with an attitude of amused mastery. If your dress is merely bad or inappropriate and you don’t know what you're doing, your lack of confidence will leak out and you will not be able to respond well to comments and approaches regarding your dress.

What do I mean by the basic rules? Below is a sample rules list from http://putthison.com/post/10127535876/tw...dge-so-you

This is just a very basic list but nevertheless I see most of them violated regularly:



• Unbutton the bottom button of your jacket. It’s not intended to be buttoned.
• Same goes for your vest.
• Remove the tags on the sleeves of your jacket before you wear it.
• Jackets sometimes come with white basting thread on their shoulders or holding closed their vents. Remove this thread before wearing the jacket.
• Jacket pockets are intended to be opened. Use a small scissor or seam ripper.
• More than three jacket buttons is never appropriate for anything.
• On a three-button coat, buttoning the top button is optional, and some lapels are rolled so as to make the top button ornamental. In other words: if buttoning the top button seems wrong, it is.
• Brown shoes, brown belt. Black shoes, black belt.
• Belt or suspenders. Never belt and suspenders.
• Your jacket sleeve should be short enough to show some shirt cuff - about half an inch.
• Your pants should end at your shoes without puddling. A slight or half break means that there is one modest inflection point in the front crease. If your pants break both front and back or if they break on the sides, they’re too long.
• Your coat should follow and flatter the lines of your upper body, not pool around them. You should be able to slip a hand in to get to your inside breast pocket, but if the jacket’s closed and you can pound your heart with your fist, it’s too big.
• When you buy a suit or sportcoat, it should be altered to fit by a tailor. This will cost between $25 and $100.
• Your tie should reach your belt line - it shouldn’t end above your belt or below it.
• Your tie knot should have a dimple.
• Only wear a tie if you’re also wearing a suit or sportcoat (or, very casually, a sweater). Shirt, tie and no jacket is the wedding uniform of a nine-year-old.
• The only men who should wear black suits during the day are priests, undertakers, secret agents, funerals attendees and yokels.
• Cell phone holsters are horrible.
• So are square-toed shoes.
• Never wear visible socks with shorts.
• Or any socks with sandals.
• If your shirt is tucked in, you should be wearing a belt (or suspenders, if you’re wearing a jacket as well, or your trousers should have side adjusters and no belt loops).
• Flip flops are great for the pool and the beach and not great for anything else. (Some say this is a matter of taste. We agree. If you have any taste, you will only wear flip-flops at the beach or pool.)
• Long ties are not appropriate with a tuxedo.
• Never wear polyester outside of the gym or theme parties.

If these rules are mostly unfamiliar to you, your style needs some work. There are many such list of rules and suggestions online; read through them and put together a good basic wardrobe before you move on to peacocking and you will have a solid foundation to build on and the confidence to play with the rules.


Pocket Squares

We’ll start with the pocket square. There’s a good reason why pocket squares are iconic with better dressed players-they are inexpensive, easy to wear and attract attention from women. The pocket square gives you a lot of bang for your buck. Look at this photo:



Your eye is first drawn to the woman in front in the wedding dress; but then where does it go and keep returning to? To the man in the blue jacket with the pocket square- that little dab of white attracts your eye all out of proportion to its size and cost.

The basic pocket square is the white linen:








A wide variety of other solids colors are available:


http://cdn.styleforum.net/b/bc/200x200px...1_500.jpeg

[MrXY]

A nice variation on the solid is a solid with a contrasting border:




http://cdn.styleforum.net/2/29/200x200px...e_2_3.jpeg






Paisley is a very popular design and the variety of colors in one square make them versatile:

[MrXY]

Another basic type is the small polka dot:











Larger polka dots are playful and casual:



Stripes are edgier and harder to wear but look dashing when you can pull them off

[MrXY]

Ginghams and plaids are good for casual looks:

[MrXY]

The choice of art designs is huge:























In the next post I’ll discuss how to build a pocket square collection and how to use them effectively .

[Deluge]

Looking forward to this series. This peacock-GQ kinda style is how I want to dress when I get older. Keep it coming.

[not_dead_yet]

(09-19-2014 10:26 PM)Deluge Wrote:  

Looking forward to this series. This peacock-GQ kinda style is how I want to dress when I get older. Keep it coming.

Now that GQ has hired Lindy West, I think we should be omitting all references to GQ and referring to other men's magazines like Esquire instead.

[Vaun]

I am trying to get toward this style. Its all about a light unstrustructured jacket and I havent been able to find one. Suitsupply had one that was perfect but they are sold out from summer. I could wear an unstructured jacket all year, even in winter, the heavy tweads for me seem way too warm.

[MrXY]

Living in Florida, I own a range of unstructured sport coats and wear them a lot Spring through Fall because they are cooler and more comfortable in the heat and humidity. They are also available in a wider variety of colors than more formal suits and sport coats since they are considered more casual and sportier.

Check out two of Corneliani's lines , the CC Collection and Corneliani ID. The CC Collection is an entry level, lower price point line for younger buyers and has a lot of unstructured fashiony sport coats and jackets. The ID line is the "sporty" line with a lot of unstructured sport coats in brighter colors

Cantarelli is another maker who also makes some nice casual sport coats.

Try searching online using the terms "jersey blazer", "field blazer" and "safari blazer", especially on Ebay. These are terms that refer to specific styles of casual sport coats.

Try Yoox.com. This is a gold mine of discounted European, mostly Italian, clothing. Plenty of casual sport coats on there at reasonable prices by credible makers such as Boglioli and Piombo.

[Deluge]

(09-20-2014 06:48 AM)not_dead_yet Wrote:  

(09-19-2014 10:26 PM)Deluge Wrote:  

Looking forward to this series. This peacock-GQ kinda style is how I want to dress when I get older. Keep it coming.

Now that GQ has hired Lindy West, I think we should be omitting all references to GQ and referring to other men's magazines like Esquire instead.

Wait what?

[UnW]

(09-20-2014 09:49 PM)Deluge Wrote:  

(09-20-2014 06:48 AM)not_dead_yet Wrote:  

(09-19-2014 10:26 PM)Deluge Wrote:  

Looking forward to this series. This peacock-GQ kinda style is how I want to dress when I get older. Keep it coming.

Now that GQ has hired Lindy West, I think we should be omitting all references to GQ and referring to other men's magazines like Esquire instead.

Wait what?

Ah yes, came across this recently: http://www.thewrap.com/jezebel-writer-li...re-writer/

[MongolianAbroad]

(09-19-2014 06:07 PM)MrXY Wrote:  

We’ll start with the pocket square. There’s a good reason why pocket squares are iconic with better dressed players-they are inexpensive, easy to wear and attract attention from women. The pocket square gives you a lot of bang for your buck. Look at this photo:



Your eye is first drawn to the woman in front in the wedding dress; but then where does it go and keep returning to? To the man in the blue jacket with the pocket square- that little dab of white attracts your eye all out of proportion to its size and cost.

Wait, wait, in the white wedding dress, that's...a woman? With ripped biceps and shoulders, a taught chest, and wielding an AK 47 in "her" white-gloved left hand?

[germanico]

Well thats the last time Im reading GQ.

Altough this:

Quote:

She's also FUN TO READ and can make a defense of writing in all caps sound urgent and funny. She's going to be GREAT AT GQ!”

Sounds just too trollish to be serious.

Well, anywhoo, lets all collectively abandon GQ and turn to threads like this one for all our male style needs.

[Deluge]

Apparently she already wrote for them from 2010-2012, so if you want to boycott it's a little too late... Who even reads GQ for their Culture section anyway?