The UWM Men’s Style Guide
Dress Better. Build Smarter. Feel Like Yourself.
Great style isn’t about chasing every trend. It’s about understanding fit, color, quality, and what works for you.
From putting together tomorrow’s outfit to choosing the right suit for your wedding, the UWM Style Guide gives you straightforward advice from people who know menswear.
Outfit Anchors: How to build your fit for the day
Getting dressed every day can seem like a chore for most people. Let us help to make it a little easier and a lot more enjoyable. I want to introduce you to what I call the "anchor method." At night, when your head hits your pillow, I want you to think of one item in your closet that you want to wear. Could be your favorite sport coat, a new tie, those jeans you love so much. One specific item. Then, I want you to think about what colors are in that item. Does your tie have green and blue? Does your jacket have brown, orange and rust? Is your shirt blue and white striped? From there, knowing the colors of your anchor item can really make finding the rest of the items much easier.
Let's say you start with your favorite blue and white striped shirt. It's a dressier fabric, and a dressier shirt. Now, we can put items around that shirt that work with the colors. Orange is a complimentary color to blue. Green looks fantastic with blue, purple and blue play nice in the sandbox. So, you can grab your favorite blue and white striped shirt, a solid blue blazer, and tie that has some blue and green in it and your favorite pair of medium wash blue jeans. All of the tones will work, the pop of purple adds some interest, but keeping things simple and blue themed makes your outfit look very intentional.
Let's try something a little more difficult - that Fall sportcoat you bought 6 months ago that you love but you just can't figure out how to wear it. It's a plaid with orange, brown and rust, and the base of the jacket it tan. Knowing it has orange, brown, rust and tan, you can easily find a pair of solid pants in one if those 4 colors. Let's say you're feeling bold and you pick out some rust pants. Boom, you've hit on one of the 4 colors in the jacket with your pants and broken up the plaid combo in the jacket with a solid pant. Nicely done. Now, for the shirt, same rules apply. What do you have that works with one of those 4 colors. You double check your closet and find a brown striped shirt. The stripe off sets the plaid of the jacket, the solid pants break things up nicely and BAM, you have used RUST and BROWN - two of the 4 colors in your jacket. Now, if you really want extra credit, you get your solid, rusty orange tie and add it with that striped shirt, the plaid jacket and the solid pants and people at work and incredibly impressed by the outfit you put together.
Using an anchor item and finding the colors within that item can really make the process so much easier. It's helps to look at things one at a time.
Let's try again.
Your mother in law got you a muted pink and green tie last Spring and it's been hanging in your closet ever since. You have no idea what to do with it, but you do like it. That tie is now your anchor point. You look through your closet, but you don't have any pink or green it it. What to do, what to do. Well, you could first think of other colors that compliment pink/green - and of course, the first color, the easiest color to always try is blue. Shout-out blue for always having our backs. A blue blazer, a white shirt, tan slacks with that tie would be incredible - and this time, for extra credit, you pull out that pink pocket square you got from a wedding years ago. It looks intentional, the colors work, and you built it all around a tie that you never actually saw yourself wearing.
These examples show how important it is to have a little variety in your closet. If you fill the whole thing up with 1 or 2 colors, it makes it really difficult to pair newer items. Branch out a bit. Try new things. Try colors that you didn't like before - you may fall in love with them now that you are older. If you had a green shirt, that pink/green tie would be wayy easier to pair. If you had a pink shirt - even easier. But if your entire closet is blue blue blue.... you're a mile deep and an inch wide.
Use these anchor items as your starting point, build out your closet with more that just a few colors, and try new things. With practice, it gets easier and easier every time! Of course, you can always shoot our UWM text line a question and any of the guys in the shop will be happy to break down what you are wearing and give ideas on how to make it all work!
