When I started What My Boyfriend Wore, I created Fancy Friday as a way to get guys to stick their middle fingers up to dressing down for the end of the work week. It was an excuse to stick out of the crowd!
Now, It’s probably just timing or the general zeitgeist of the time, but it looks like there are generally a lot more gentlemen on the roads these days, so Fancy Friday must of worked 🙂
I personally have been a little slack at going full fancy myself, and by that I mean every detail and accessory meticulously paired into what I like to think is a perfect combo. I’ve been dressing down a bit and taking stuff a little more casual lately, not because I think Fancy Friday should die, but mostly because we’ve had an endless summer here in Cape Town and it’s just been too damn hot!
So lets take a look at how to approach multiple patterns and textures and pull it all together. As always the key is scale, keep your textures and patterns largely different from one another and it generally does the trick. Sometimes you can even get away with the same size pattern / texture if the colour is different – like the blazer and trousers with a fairly similar sized pattern.
When it came to the shirt and tie, it was a question of scale, the diagonal stripes on the tie are a strong contrast to the thin shirt stripes, so they never fight one one another. Small details like matching the pocket square to both the shirt and tie and allowing the lapel flower to bring out the blue in the shirt eventually end up bringing everything together.
Lastly and always important, match your leathers and match your metals as i’ve done with the watch, cufflinks and tie bar.
If you like what you see above, let me help you put it together:
Sunglasses from Rayban
Blazer from Topman
Shirt from TM Lewin
Pocket Square from Bows N Ties
Tie from Bows N Ties
Pants from Markham
Shoes from Zara
Watch from Vodrich
Bracelet from Vodrich
Okay. Stay fancy.
