Artwork : 4 stars
Character : 3 stars
Plot : 1 star
Storytelling : 3 stars
World building : 3 stars
3.5 stars for vol 1
This seinen manga, "If You're Gonna Dress up, Do It Like This" is a fashion guide book for men 😍. I was so excited when I accidentally found this, as I'm a fashionista/fashion enthusiast myself (although I keep hunting fashion stuffs like apparels or accessories, shoes and bag etc till now but I don't closely follow fashion trends in recent years and not even follow designer or celebrity on social media anymore , basically I view fashion as a way of expression of self.)
I think this is the first reliable and applicable how-to manga for fashion that I had encountered in my life, and it's for men! 😆 I particularly like the cool, edgy and androgynous style, although I love all style except sexy style (because I don't have curves to pull it off 😂) so of course I learned several things from this manga too.
It covers everything you need to know about fashion in practical sense (without heavy dose of history lesson of brand name which I myself don't like too), and it's starting from basic too, because well, volume 1 is a guide book for beginner. So, simplicity and safe are the keywords here.
There's real fashion advisor works together with the mangaka to create this manga, the advisor also has blog in real life so you can check his blog if you understand Japanese.
And because it's for beginner, the advisor played it too safely imo, that even our main guy here only wore monochrome (for now) because unfortunately too this isn't colorful manga, but not only that, the guy doesn't even try tartan, dots, prints etc or asymmetric. My guess is, it'll show up later like stripes shirt in vol 3 and the tiger print for bomber jacket which is very trendy last year finally made its appearance in vol 5. Slow and steady, so it's not overwhelming for beginner. Great.
I think, in fashion, before you start to hunt things to fill your wardrobe, you first choose what do you want to achieve through this makeover? Do you want to impress or express yourself? Choose one and then you can choose what style you like best. Our MC here wanted to change his sloppy look into acceptable yet quite fashionable too but not in the way that makes people turning heads or to impress people.
Along the way he found out that he likes it simple, so mature, clean, tidy, balance and simple are the best for him. His little sister is his private fashion guru here who helped him to build his new look, although I think his little sister sometimes can be pushy about her views over things. Like how men can't wear pink for example, hmph, I beg to differ, I'm a woman and love sky blue more, so why men can't love pink, huh? I saw men in real life wore blazer in soft pink, imo they are just metrosexual guys who looked very fashionable or know how to dress well. Edited : Must be my age 😓 even though I read this last month, I misremembered this pink part, it's not about gender inequality, but the vibe. So sorry MB-san (the fashion advisor) 😫. I just noticed this misapprehension after I reread this series again this month because I love it so much 😆. However, I'd still say soft pink and other colors like brown, gray, dark blue, dark green etc can give off mature vibe too. But he's right too, beginners should avoid rich color palette until they know how to combine them correctly.
But, western cowboy shirt on our MC? He looked nice in it though, and monotone is boring sometimes, you need spice and variety. 😛
Fashion is very flexible too imo, sure we need some rules especially if you dress to look acceptable or to impress, but when you dress to express, you don't really need to follow the rules to a T, it makes it boring and lack of creativity. So, because our MC wants to impress instead express, he needs to follow the rule to get the approvals.
Just like our advisor in this manga said, you don't need fashion sense to be fashionable. Observations (through magazines, people, social medias) to get inspired and recreating/copying the style, and the most important thing : trying the style and stuffs yourself at offline store so you know which fits your body, your preferred style and your personality best.
Readers might think that sometimes the advisor also contradicted himself, for example when he strongly emphasized that for norm fashion we should wear something according to our size however later he also said there's this latest trend where you also look good in loose and oversize apparel because you can hide your imperfections under that baggy clothes, and no he's not wrong at all, both advices are true, this is just how fashion it is, fluid and flexible. And again, I like that he tried to convey it later, not in the beginning so as not to overwhelm the newbies.
Put aside the 'pink is big no no for men' matter, the fashion advisor on the contrary suggested there's nothing wrong with wearing and buying stuffs from women's apparel section, like scarf or track/harem pants which have unisex look. And that's refreshing! I approved that. Actually I saw one guy in Aliexpress bought women's leather legging for himself, he even showed his photo in that legging. The point is, it's cheap but have good material and fits like gloves. Wearing high-end fashion doesn't automatically makes you fashionable, it's how you assemble them together and the fun in this, this is what the advisor firmly believes too, so I like it! 😆
I like how clean and tidy the artwork and panels in this manga, it really suits the how-to theme. Nothing is excessive here, everything is well-balanced, the MC is also not handsome and not unattractive, just ordinary guy with ordinary look, an office worker too, who later became fashion enthusiasts. However he's quite tall, and slim too, so it's not too difficult to find outfit that fits him. Imho, long legs definitely will look better in any outfit, that's why models are usually tall, right?
This manga doesn't have any plot in it, because it's a guide book, so that's why for the plot I gave it 1 star, doesn't mean it's bad, just it's perfect when there's no plot in it, and there's no romance too (for now), thank God.