Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion

by Alan Flusser

Dressing the Man is the definitive guide to what men need to know in order to dress well and look stylish without becoming fashion victims.

Alan Flusser's name is synonymous with taste and style. With his new book, he combines his encyclopedic knowledge of men's clothes with his signature wit and elegance to address the fundamental paradox of modern men's fashion: Why, after men today have spent more money on clothes than in any other period of history, are there fewer well-dressed men than at any time ever before?

According to Flusser, dressing well is not all that difficult, the real challenge lies in being able to acquire the right personalized instruction. Dressing well pivots on two pillars -- proportion and color. Flusser believes that "Permanent Fashionability," both his promise and goal for the reader, starts by being accountable to a personal set of physical trademarks and not to any kind of random, seasonally served-up collection of fashion flashes.

Unlike fashion, which is obliged to change each season, the face's shape, the neck's height, the shoulder's width, the arm's length, the torso's structure, and the foot's size remain fairly constant over time. Once a man learns how to adapt the fundamentals of permanent fashion to his physique and complexion, he's halfway home.

Taking the reader through each major clothing classification step-by-step, this user-friendly guide helps you apply your own specifics to a series of dressing options, from business casual and formalwear to pattern-on-pattern coordination, or how to choose the most flattering clothing silhouette for your body type and shirt collar for your face.

A man's physical traits represent his individual road map, and the quickest route toward forging an enduring style of dress is through exposure to the legendary practitioners of this rare masculine art. Flusser has assembled the largest andmost diverse collection of stylishly mantled men ever found in one book. Many never-before-seen vintage photographs from the era of Cary Grant, Tyrone Power, and Fred Astaire are employed to help illustrate the range and diversity of authentic men's fashion. Dressing the Man's sheer magnitude of options will enable the reader to expand both the grammar and verbiage of his permanent-fashion vocabulary.

For those men hoping to find sartorial fulfillment somewhere down the road, tethering their journey to the mind-set of permanent fashion will deliver them earlier rather than later in life.

Genres: Fashion, Nonfiction, Self Help, Reference, Art, Coffee Table Books, Design

308 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2002

Reviews

[Jared Woods · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of all the life hacks I've learned to execute in my life, none have proven quite as powerful as the “solve my issues by reading self-help books” technique. By utilising this approach, I’ve tightened up a wide array of weaknesses, from dealing with anxiety to 100% mastering my finances to quitting smoking to understanding tax as a freelancer to whatever… you name it, there’s a book for that. Hence why, when I awoke the other morning in a cold sweat, suddenly acutely aware that I knew nothing about fashion, I promptly leapt upon the Amazon machine and clicked the button for this book, listed as one of the most popular titles available on the topic. Whew!

It arrived and, besides the monumentally daunting size of the damn thing, the most striking element that came with it was the knowledge that smart male attire has changed very little over the years. This fact stands particularly true in regards to the suit, which is all this (impressively proficient) author cares about anyway. And it makes sense! Because when you wear a suit, things get done. People listen to you, and that is the position held strong by this book throughout, as it spends half of its time preaching a history lesson on the suit’s slow development, then the other half demonstrating how to use this style of dress-up as an illusionary trick, deceiving people into thinking that you’re taller/thinner/heavier by selecting clever patterns and colours and size ratios. Hey, man. Why not be yourself?

It didn't take many pages before I realised that I was reading to the wrong book. It was miles away from what my interest whiskers whispered and my expanding boredoms yawned me into queasiness. The shapes of pockets, the number of sleeve buttons, the height of your collar, the ideal fabrics to wear for what season… my God, who decided any of this was so important? Hey, did you know you can fill eight pages about the correct way to display a handkerchief in your front pocket? Have you ever wanted to know the best suit to wear whilst horseriding? How much serious thought have you given to the length of your waistcoat? Truthfully, the only saving grace I found within this onslaught of materialistic fashion customs was the frequent reminders of the dialogue featured in American Psycho. I sometimes pretended I was reading that book instead. Much more entertaining! Far more dangerous.

So did I learn anything? Anything at all? Yes. I learned that suits are no joke. But besides that, I did pick up one very valuable tip: that all clothing should be treated as an extension of your body. Match the material to yourself in an attempt to always bring the focus back to your face. That's literally it. Wear colours that harmonise with your hair to frame your head. Never don accessories which detract attention from your features. Always opt for items that replicate the colour of your eyes or skin's hue or your rosy cheeks or whatever. Pop your natural assets. Contrast or complement, that is the entire nutshell key. This information totalled about a page of good advice which has since blessed me with at least one thing to think about. I shall be reevaluating my wardrobe accordingly, thanks.

In the end, I’m just going to accept that this side of style is not for me. The exact amount of centimetres between the trouser leg and the shoe buckle is not something I'm inspired by. I hate patterns. I like jeans and Converse. It all seems very expensive, doesn't it? Truth be told, I have zero eyes for this anyway. Even when the guide spelt it out with a before and after shot, I had no fucking idea what I was looking at. And while I can’t fault the thoroughness of this text whatsoever (it's too thorough) and while it’s certainly a good idea to train the mind to keep your presentation circulating, I honestly reckon I’ve learned more about my preferred type of fashion from Billie Eilish music videos. I tell you that I've read this book but it ultimately became an exercise in speed reading. And I can't speed read for shit.

[Jordan B Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

It lives up to the hype. A helpful and practical guide for men who want to dress well. Highly recommended.

[Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

- Fit is very important

- Neck tie should be proportional to the size of the jacket's lapel

- (Interesting history) the Great Depression didn't kill off fashion. Rather, those with wealth in tact continued men's fashion scene

- Hair is dark but skin is light: you have a contrast complexion. Compared to the muted counterpart (light/lite hair w/ light skin), contrast complexion should have fuller range of color coordination to contrast the already contrasted feature

- Repetition of the hair color with clothing (jacket, glasses, scarfs, vest etc) can enhance the image of face

- Jacket shoulder should be more natural. Avoid any sharp sloped artificial padding

- Jacket length should be long enough to cover the buttocks but giving the leg as long as a line as possible

- Trouser should be worn on waist, not hip. Trouser bottom should cover about two-third of the shoe

- Pocket square is important, and the best one are ones that doesn't draw attention to itself

- A tall person can pull of any lapel size

- When in doubt, over dress: you can always remove a piece of clothing later

- Always dress in line with the superior but never more casually than your subordinates

- Options of dressing down: shirt top unbuttoned, t-shirt inside of jacket, sweater inside of jacket

[James Marwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb book on how a man should dress. Covers the basics extremely well, although with a slight US bias (Such as wing collars with black tie, when in the UK and Europe they are reserved for white tie).

He has a lovely turn of phrase as well, which keeps the book floating along.

The best part though are the photos. Hundreds of wonderful shots of classic and modern mens clothes, with dos and don'ts clearly illustrated.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last night I watched Casablanca and I saw that the men in this 1942 movie were much better dressed then we are now. The answer is not so much fashion ( which is ephemeral) but style which is not. This book lays out the elements of what is stylish and what is not.

[Michael Navarrete · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a highly informative book on men’s style. I felt the shoe section a bit lacking. I was also slightly put off by the ornate writing style. However, I would still highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn about men’s style.

[Spats and Hats · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very useful and applicable guide. A few minor parts seem subjective but on the whole it is a worthwhile and informative read.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this guy is a snazzy (if too traditional) dresser, his writing could use some work

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever wondered what makes up that distinguished air of a man that has deferred from the modern jeans to the traditional, more elegant apparel?
The book is truly astonishing because it takes you through the whole major aspects of male fashion. I can easily say that it can be used as a referenced guide for the gentleman that aspires to be in control of his wardrobe.
Although it is an interesting read I have to be honest and tell you that it is a very difficult book to read. This does not arise from the author's style of writing but from the multitude of technical terms which you have to spend a lot of time researching if you want to get a basic knowledge of men's clothing. My favorite thing about the book is that you can gaze a little bit into the history of male fashion as the author explains the current style and evolution of clothes from a historical perspective too. The examples and illustrations also offer an easier understanding of the topic and are a powerful visual aid for those looking to sediment their style knowledge.
To conclude, I highly recommend this book for the gentlemen that is looking for some strong and reliable guidelines regarding male adornment.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went to look at the glossary when I finished this book and the first word in it was "Alpaca"

[Deni Jegeni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Does adress few basic concepts, but fails to adress "Permanent fashion" which is a universal law of combining elements that should transcend cultures and style definitions. It also fails to adapt to nowadays fashion. Almost obsolete. 2 stars.

[Abhishek Anbazhagan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Expectation is the ingredient for disappointment. For people, people always disappoint. Like the average mid-20 yr-old who has too much time on his hands and is bored and doesnt like his closet, I spent a non insignificant amount of time reading through advice on r/malefashionadvice and religiously nipped at all the lures that Mr. Porter put out on Youtube.

By the end of my 29th year, I think I was certain as to what I liked and how to present myself in the manner I aspired to be. It is laughable for I think most people learn this early in their life and if you saw pictures of me from earlier in my life, they look like that of someone born in a middle-class home - Buy what your father asks you to buy and have the odd nice pair of clothes that your mother picked for you. I think in my own personal history, I was a canvas for everything my father didn't want to wear and hence ended up looking like a messed up paint box of a 5-yr old.

So, you see why I had a desire, nay, a need to figure out my “style” or rather develop taste. So in reading several blogs by balding men with too much discretionary income, poor taste and a few decent items on clothing, I ended up with a decent wardrobe but it still seemed unfocused and erratic. A friend of mine used to say that my closet was rather boring but I like to call it the c-word: Conservative.

So when Dressing the man was suggested by everyone as the bible in learning “How to dress well”, I added it to my list and largely forgot about it. During the recent doldrums of a rather uninspiring day, I decided to go through this book and boy was it disappointing.

The book is largely a “rule book” and offers some suggestions on how to choose colors for your skin, how to emphasize your head (?!) by shaping the padding on the shoulder, and the likes. However, it provided nothing new or more helpful than my two years of reading menswear blogs on the internet and the disturbingly over-zealous comment section of r/malefashionadvice.

It contained no philosophical musings about why we dress the way we do or pontificate over the associations of being interested in dressing with vanity. It was dull and boring. The highlight was that it took less than 2hrs to finish.

I would nonetheless like to read an exploration about the internet subculture around fashion and all its sycophantic idiot-savants. I cannot help but roll my eyes over the obsession with the right thread count and weave type for knitwear, suits, and even underwear.

I am sure there are lunatics who get their underwear tailored as well. Constantly aping to recreate an image from the latest catalog of Drakes, Aime Leon Door not realizing “why” they want to look that way and even if they are successful, they will never reproduce the “essence” of that picture because when you are in your clothes, you don't inhabit a moment like the photo you just copied. A picture is that perfect encapsulation of light, expression, and aura. You are not going to project “British country gentleman” in your Drake’s jacket while waiting in line for the loo at your local Pizza place.

I am intrigued at how I have swindled myself for I do hold that the fashion industry is largely duplicitous and I always felt I would never beach my ships to that siren song but here I am. I think wearing clothes that fit you is important and dressing for the occasion is important. Being overly obsessed about your clothing is, however, not.

So, spend some time and learn how to wear the clothes and what to look for in them when you want to buy something that will last. Learn the rules and discard them with abandon. Wear brown loafers with your black suit, Unbutton your double-breasted jacket but make sure they fit you and learn how proportions affect how you look. You are better off learning about principles in design - Emphasis, Balance and Alignment, Contrast, Repetition, Proportion, Movement, and White Space and use that to build your wardrobe rather than this “bibe of menswear”. (If you figure out how to use white space, let me know). Between that and montages of Queer Eye, you can learn more about dressing well than in this book. Enter the cesspool but don’t dwell in there. Practice moderation and you’ll look better than the geniuses spending $500 on a plain white t-shirt.

A better discussion on taste: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaRu4...
Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

[Elton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Authoritative guide to formal male dress, emphasis on formal

This is a solid read. Personally, I'm a reader starting from ground zero who wants to learn the grammar and guidelines for male dress. This book was instructional and provided a handy overview of the history behind why some clothing items are constructed or named the way they are. That was my favorite part. The book is large and replete with plenty of pictures to illustrate the author's point.

This book is wonderfully well-written. Flusser has a way with words, and once you get over his generous use of the word "sartorial," you appreciate the refinement and personality of how he crafts his sentences. The book is intelligently structured with dedicated chapters for dress shirts, suits, trousers, shoes, etc. Within each section, Flusser provides a brief history of the article alongside guidelines on how it should fit, and how it should relate to other items/colors/patterns in the outfit. The most important chapters are in the beginning, where he carefully describes how the most important role of male dress is to guide the viewer's eyes to the face and how the color scheme of each article should carefully pair with the wearer's face structure and colors. There are no shortage of pictures throughout, each tastefully chosen. As a foundational book for what the upper-bound of male dress should look like, there is no equal.

As a note to the reader, sometimes the book oscillates between history book and guidebook. I understand how history underpins the guide, but sometimes pages were dedicated to niche items where the author then indicates that they're extinct or have been superseded by other clothing articles. I also appreciate the careful selection of examples and how many dress practices today descend from English aristocracy, but there was a point 100 pages in where I genuinely couldn't care less about how some English Duke in the 20th century changed dress with a new tie knot or shoe design. While still recognizing the heritage of formal Western dress, it was sometimes an exercise in patience to work through dozens of pages featuring (white) trans-Atlantic socialites in suits -- particularly important if your color scheme is different for fashion. Some of the information, while not wrong, is useless for anyone who's not a diplomat; I haven't seen a pleated white shirt with a bowtie in my life. As a benchmark, the chapter on "business casual" still describes how to wear a sports coat over a shirt! Many of the guidelines felt so aristocratic as to be useless to any 99%er (and even billionaires don't dress like this anymore), but I assume they're still important fundamentals to understand.

It's worth your time to understand the fundamentals of male dress. I don't think much of it is *practical* anymore, especially as an American, but the concepts are worth a study, the writing is entertaining, and the pictures are nice.

[Adrian Santiago · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like a 3.75

We don't have a lot of books about the "art" of dressing as a man. Sure, there's plenty of "how to wear and how to dress", but this one even starts with the explanationf of the differences between Style and Fashion.

The book has a good balance between text and pictures. Also, every chapter starts with a summary of the topics and some storical points about the dressing codes and things like that.

My complains, althought it might be interesting if you are not a tailor or really into all the topics of the book, it might get a little boring reading the differences between the five primary types of dress shirts, hats and blazers.

Also, the book doesn't conclude as solid as it could. The final topics and chapters feel a like left out without much explanation (which goes more into the different types of casual dressing instead of examples).

By the final pages of the book we get a very useful glosary of terms.
And, seriously, most of the images and pictures are very well proportioned and ilustrative about the topics.

[Richard Anthony Lupena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flusser presents a very interesting premise - bind men's fashion (something that flows with the crests and troughs of time) to a timeless code - and accomplishes it.
Dressing the Man's approach is very systemic - identifying which factors a man should focus on like suits, shirts, and formalwear - and provides a great topline view on recommendations. He introduces the reader chronologically through the evolution of a particular garment or style while providing exemplars. He stabilizes these tours with very concrete rules and prescriptions: X must not be worn with Y, Z must be 2 inches above your limb, etc. Finally, he provides a classic recommendation (while sometimes taking into account non-Adonis body types).
Fascinating read. Flusser's language is on point but not didactic, prescriptive but not judgemental, and most of all, just a good time. To properly catch up with the discussion, maximize the glossary at the back or be sure to Google the terms.

[Σταύρος Μέγγος · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Explains things from zero to ten. Starts with the absolutely basic principles of men's dressing, like color selections and faces complexions and proportions and ends up to absolutely formal dressing (white/black tie- tuxedos). I loved the fact that gave a tone of historical informations about each clothe/style and the rules of them! Fabrics patterns etc are also part of the equation. The other thing i loved is the quality and the quantity of the pictures. They put the knowledge straight to your head, really! Now, one characteristic that it made it difficult for me to read, is the way of writing. English is not my first language, and metaphors or/and long sentences just gave me a little bit of trouble, but in the end helped me to speak and understand English better! A mjust have for men's dressingnot 5/5---> 6/5

[Mor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The books don't cover every single thing a gentleman should know,fabric types ,what alternations could and couldn't be made,how to get the most out of your tailor and so many more important subjects. But for one book Alan Flusser has decided what topics are the foundation of gentleman's style and explained them in a way no one else could,deep yet easy to understand. This book is a pleasure to read and to look at and i recommend it to every single man, even those who escaped sartorial mediocrity already.

[Nick]

A fairly comprehensive, if slightly outdated, exploration of the history and the cultural signifiers of menswear. "The rules", if you will. The book even goes into some basic complexion/colour theory.

The authour has obvious appreciation and knowledge on this subject, and is willing to impart quite a lot of detail into the subliminal aspects of what these clothes communicate to the viewer, along with technical information on material, style, and pairings. The writing style is also genuinely funny- Flusser obviously had a lot of fun writing this.

[Toni Marić · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Bible of Classic Men’s style!

If you want to understand how to dress for the occasion, improve your image and progress in your professional life this is THE only book that you need.

From the style, sizing, fit and everything else that stylish men needs to know you will find it in this book in very fun and comprehensive way.

Big thank you to the author for writing this amazing book!

[Everett Darden · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good resource for how men's fashion started back in the 19th century to the writing of this book. It has a ton of great photos of clothing and the people who were pioneers in wearing them. Would recommend to young and old alike.

[Aristidis Marousas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outdated on a few of the recommendations and rules, but overall an interesting read into the history and guidelines for male fashion.

Would love for a new addition that takes into accounts the styles of today and how classic and modern can be mixed.

[Nikolai · Rating 2 out of 5]

A hopelessly outdated guide to jackets from the 20s and 50s that no one wears today and I don't want to. I only took a couple insights from the book about color and trousers wearing. Not worth reading

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good starting point for those who want to improve their wardrobe. Flusser not only provides helpful tips but also the history behind the traditions of menswear.

[Carter Reads Classics · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s a pedantic lesson on fashion. Don’t waste your time reading through it. Get what you can get out of it and put it down.

[Ryan Carignan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is NOT the definitive guide to men's style, unless you are rich, that is. God bless and have a great day!

[Sandeep Tripathi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well written for hoi polloi.

[Jason Xia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clothes are expensive

[Zan Stankovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterpiece

[Taylor Franchuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read but mostly pointless if you aren't planning (or budgeting) to have a made to measure tailored wardrobe which most of us aren't.

[Álex Zavershynskyy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely detailed guide. A “must” for menswear aficionados.