Reddit mentions: The best mens grooming books

How much money do you have to spend on clothes right now? Take that money and spend half of it on a good, comfortable, nice-looking pair of shoes. If you don't have hundreds of dollars, go to a second-hand store or a vintage clothing store or something, but try to buy new shoes. You can buy cheap stuff for every other article of clothing if you like, but don't skimp on the shoes; they are the most important aspect of your wardrobe. A pair of black oxfords would be versatile.

Next, get a button-down shirt (or some shirts) which fit you well in the shoulders and waist. You want your shirt to fit like a second skin. Try to find something that is long enough that you can bring the front and back together at the crotch (more or less). Check the shirt(s) for mother-of-pearl buttons, good stitching, and, if patterned, check to see if the pattern lines up from shoulder to arm. Look up the word "gusset" and try to get shirts with gussets. These are some general marks of a quality shirt. You don't need all these things, but they are signs of quality.

Trousers: make sure they look good in the butt. No frumpy ass for you; no pucker either. Length: around the ankles...no flood, no bunch up at the bottom. Try to get something simple; some nice denim goes well with a dress shirt, a blazer or sport coat and a tie.

Check out the following books:

Dressing the Man

Gentleman: A Timeless Guide to Fashion

Esquire Handbook of Style

The Affected Provincial's Companion--this one is about fashion to an extent, but it transcends it and puts it into a decorum and lifestyle aspect. In fact, also check out Glen O'Brien's new book, How to be a Man if you're interested in a more lifestyle-oriented reason to look nice.

I honestly think the last two books would be a good start for you. Due to your description of yourself, I'd maybe start with How to be a Man. The first few paragraphs are shit, but it gets really good, especially by the time it gets to "How to be sexual". It seems like you need a much better reason to dress nicely than the reasons you've suggested. I think this book could really help you develop a better ethos regarding style, and maybe even help you with decorum (if you need help with that).

Check out this quick video for a great introduction to O'Brien.

Good luck.

edit: clarification

How about a book on how to dress well and just be a man in general? Glenn O'Brien over at GQ penned an excellent book called How to be a Man. It is a great primer on how to dress and act like a mature gentleman. Now, it does have chapters on smoking and drinking etiquette... And Christmas seems to be more of a time for "fun" gifts that engenders happiness and joy rather than "meaningful" ones that always come with a lecture/speech/story (reserved for important birthdays or occasions). So it's your call, dad. My favorite Christmas gift from my parents has always been video games because I love that shit.

Boy it's hard to be a dad nowadays. I salute you good sir.

EDIT: I see that people are suggesting pocket knives. To be honest, the pocket knife I got from my father on my 16th birthday was arguably one of the best gifts I have ever gotten. And I think a pocket knife makes for the greatest gift for boys of any type, not just the outdoorsy ones. Because every man should carry a pocket knife with him. But again it falls under the "meaningful" category for me. It's a rite of passage, really. It's a great opportunity to teach a boy something about maturity/responsibility and power, respect and appreciation for risk and danger, etc. that kind of thing.

Hi mate,

Completely understand where you're coming from, as this is the situation that most of my clients are in as well. As a starting point, I hate to be "that guy", but my book was written with guys like you in mind and goes into specific detail about how to find clothes that fit your body, how to put together outfits and even how to choose stores, what to do when you walk inside them and how to deal with sales assistants. Link is here:

http://amazon.com/The-Fundamentals-Style-Well-Dressed-ebook/dp/B007O3167C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332671978&sr=8-1

With that out of the way, the first thing that jumps out at me from your question is that you're not trying clothes on before you buy them. This is incredibly risky, especially if you're not well-versed in dressing well and might not know how to tell if clothes truly fit or not.

Far and away, most overweight guys tend to buy clothes that are far too big for them. Especially pants. They see themselves as 'big' and think "ok, I'll get an XL or an XXL, that'll fit". But this is often not the case at all.

Portly gents need to draw attention up towards their shoulders and away from their waists. Instead of that old, hackneyed, "I made a blog post about fashion!" advice of "don't wear horizontal lines", I suggest you start thinking about straight lines versus curved lines. Overweight men have curves, and you need to offset this by wearing clothes that have strength and structure to them. Most commonly you'll find that you look far, far better in a sport coat or blazer (which has a strong, padded shoulder) than you will in a hoodie or jumper (which has no structure and conforms to your body shape, which makes you look curved).

There's so much more I could say but to prevent this becoming an essay, I strongly suggest that you check out /r/malefashionadvice and use it as a starting point to feeling and looking good. Dressing well really isn't as difficult as it sounds - armed with a couple of hundred bucks, a little bit of knowledge and an afternoon, a man can completely transform the way he looks.

For young people, certain things just look like you’re trying too damn hard: bowties, pocket squares, French cuffs, white collars on a colored shirt, suspenders, wide-spread collars, vested suit (sometimes), etc.

It’s easy to blame other people, but your clothes are prompting their reaction. I don’t know you and I don’t know the way you dress. But perhaps you should think about trying to be more subtle: buying nice clothes that aren’t at all ostentatious. Don’t wear bowties if, when you wear one, people make comments.

In my opinion, the majority of advice on MFA will make a high school or college students look good for other high school or college students. If I wore my pants below my natural waste or if I wore wingtips or a bow tie, the men at my work would think I was an immature, insecure, hipster douche bag. There is nothing wrong with those things, but dress to your audience. Being stylish, being able to express your own, personal style, within the bounds of what’s acceptable to your peers is a true and worthy challenge. An artist is limited by the artistic media he chooses to work with. So to, you are limited by your lifestyle, income, peer group, profession, region, etc. Strive to be stylish and express yourself within you lifestyle’s bounds. Then you will look good without looking like you’re wearing a costume to try to look good.

If following the advice on this forum is getting criticism, I’d like to suggest some alternative sources for advice:

http://www.amazon.com/Dressing-Man-Mastering-Permanent-Fashion/dp/0060191449/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344004043&sr=8-1&keywords=allan+flusser

http://www.amazon.com/Clothes-Man-Principles-Fine-Dress/dp/0394546237/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344004043&sr=8-2&keywords=allan+flusser

http://www.amazon.com/GENTLEMAN-TIMELESS-GUIDE-FASHION-Ullmann/dp/3833152702/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

http://www.amazon.com/The-Suit-Machiavellian-Approach-Style/dp/0060891866/ref=pd_sim_b_7 (especially the chapter for “young” persons)

http://www.amazon.com/Elegance-Menswear-G-Bruce-Boyer/dp/0393304388/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344004086&sr=1-1&keywords=bruce+boyer

http://www.amazon.com/Eminently-Suitable-G-Bruce-Boyer/dp/0393028771/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344004086&sr=1-3&keywords=bruce+boyer

Your library should have these, as they are menswear “classics.” The books are well-written and, though older than something like “Esquire The Handbook of Style,” the advice is better. How to dress well is a timeless art.

I've been doing them myself. What got me started with massaging was a book I read in February (https://www.amazon.com/TRUTH-about-Hair-Loss-Prevention-ebook/dp/B07BTKM35N). I've also incorporated the inversion techinique I've seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNICEYoSKUc.

There are other things I'm also doing, like changing my diet incorporating anti-inflammatory foods. I've also recently got a new scalp massager that I've been using that I like a lot: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RRNFW3T. This one I think is good not only to massage and increase blood flow, but it also helps in removing dandruff (which I can greatly benefit from, since I have seborreic dermatitis too, which certainly adds to the hair loss).

What a shame. As a kid, I was an avid fan of his public access cable show TV Party where I learned about artists like Walter Stedding, Tuxedomoon, Klaus Nomi, and Basquiat, and had a chance to see musicians like Mick Jones, Chris Stein, and Debbie Harry, whose music I was already into, in a whole new context. The shows are on YouTube and were, at the time, subversive yet endearingly ramshackle and amateur. I continued to enjoy his writing on manners and style, and would seek out his Style Guy columns in GQ, which to me were less about matching your socks with your shirt, and more about individuality and being your own person.

If you are a fan of his, it's worth tracking down his Tea at the Beatrice interview series on Made 2 Measure. Many of the subjects were friends of his, and that comes through in each episode's loose, informal structure. I especially enjoyed his interviews with Chris Blackwell and Nan Goldin, though while watching the latter I remarked to my spouse that Glenn seemed quite ill.

Read "How to be a Man" by Glenn O'Brien. Not only will it help in a basic understanding of bodily care, but also how to dress and how to act in certain situations. I wasn't taught these things either, but managed to learn on my own eventually. Acting nice > Looking nice, but both are important.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Man-Behavior-Gentleman/dp/0847835472/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321023038&sr=8-1

I see what you mean, but I don't have the knowledge to apply this to my wardrobe in general to manipulate proportion in a successful manner. I found this though which seems to have some good information on the topic.

I wouldn't say that someone that "keeps looking at magazines" is someone who has no interest in improving their appearance.

But instead of magazines who are made to push always the latest and greatest fad, how about a book whose purpose is to introduce you to the fundamentals of style?

Random example: http://www.amazon.com/The-Fundamentals-Style-illustrated-ebook/dp/B007O3167C

As someone who worked in clothes and tennis stores as a teenager, I can assure you the shop assistants just want a sale. This much is true. But if you go out of rush hours, they will be bored out of their minds. Just go talk to them, try different things. Never feel sorry for saying "this is out of my price range". And don't take home anything you think you might use. Just like the girls rejecting you, reject anything that you put on and that doesn't click.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

Read this book. As well as this book. Watch this movie.

Take lessons from these. But most importantly, be passionate about something. That's how you begin to discover yourself (in a good way).

Beyond Soap, Water and Comb: A Man's Guide to Good Grooming and Fitness is the best resource I've seen on this subject. While apparently people quibble over any aspect of grooming, I don't find its advice nearly as littered with really objectionable stuff as this chart.

How To Be a Man: A Guide To Style and Behavior For The Modern Gentleman by the late Glenn O’Brien is also good. He was the former style guy for GQ, and was just an all around great dude. For instance, the coolest piece of clothing he owned was a motorcycle jacket that Basquiat drew on the back of.

Okay, you're not going to fit it into a single book. This is a good place to start:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Gentleman-Timeless-Manners/dp/1401603351/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280113263&sr=8-1

I quite like this one for clothes:

http://www.amazon.com/Gentleman-Timeless-Fashion-Bernhard-Roetzel/dp/0841601623/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

Get him a copy of "How to be a Gentleman". The book is small, compact, and teaches essential manners in large, bold type. It is appropriate for all ages, though it admittedly skews more towards adulthood than young adulthood.

No one is going to care what you look like if you have boorish manners.

The first two months I did 30-60 minutes of cardio every other day and started eating less knowing absolutely nothing about fitness and nutrition.

Then i bought this book and some other books about a healthy diet. I followed the routine for 60 days, started counting calories (2000calories, then 2500, now 3000). Today I had my third workout at the gym, looking to get some of that muscle back (I'm as strong as I was with 13 years, ouch)

Ines de la Fressange wrote a book about men’s style tips called The Parisian Field Guide to Men's Style, however I didn’t really like it that much because it mainly focused on menswear and seemed incredibly limiting outside of that. It basically made it seem like style rules can’t be broken in a sense.

There’s also Massimo Osti’s, the creator of Stone Island and pioneer of modern day technical clothing, book Ideas From Massimo Osti, which I think focuses on his legacy and where Stone Island is now.

Edit: And of course you can’t forget the legendary Anthology of a Decade by Hedi Slimane.

Edit 2: I'm also forgetting the famous How To Be a Man by the late GQ legend Glenn O'Brien, as well as Men and Manners and Men and Style by David Coggins.

The Looks Men Love by Vincent Roppatte and Sherry Suib Cohen

i'm sorry, i thought that challenge was very popular.

you do a lot of body-weight exercises for all body parts like 3-4 times a week. in most of the sessions, the time between the excercises is limited to keep the pauses as short as possible. every week there is an evaluation session where you can test your skills and might move up to a harder "level" of the exercise.

This is the book: https://www.amazon.com/90-Day-Bodyweight-Challenge-Men/dp/3868837736

Speak with class

look fancy doing it

and

...

Dress with style and sophistication

...

How to play the part

and

also

I thought that sentence was going to end "clearly you haven't seen what I shave".


Whew!


I see last year's Xmas gift has produced some dividends.

UK link if anyone needs it :)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007O3167C

That's it! $5.97 on Amazon, and you directly support a MFA regular.

G Bruce Boyer's Elegance is a good one.

A good rule of thumb for this is "don't do anything your grandfather wouldn't approve of".

There's also a book:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Gentleman-Revised-Updated-Gentlemanners/dp/B00CVDMEP8

I've literally been on the lookout for something like this, so thank you!


It's also available in the UK, for my fellow British redditors.

Style for Fat Guys highly recommended.

Hm. Picking the food on the ground is nice. Tipping big is very good. Stacking the plates, tough, is bad etiquette.

Source : How to be a gentleman, a timely guide for timeless manners

No, you can also purchase that book. The focus is straight-razor shaving. It has some reader reviews, if those are of interest.

According to [How to Be a Gentleman: A Timely Guide to Timeless Manners](http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Gentleman-Timeless-Manners/dp/1401603351/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252680779&sr=8-1 "A book which I regard as an essential reference") the crotch is the polite way to go. At least you are facing the person. Also in that section is the mandate not to apologize when moving through such an aisle; after all you are doing nothing wrong. "Excuse me" is appropriate, however.

Maybe this

Paired with this

It's a book by Mark Lauren, there's one for men and women on German Amazon, unfortunately only the male version in the US for some reason:

http://www.amazon.com/90-Day-Bodyweight-Challenge-Men/dp/3868837736/

There's this one however, for women: http://www.amazon.com/Body-You-Guide-Womens-Fitness/dp/0345528972/