Women don’t quite like the concept of dressing down because it implies that they’re making a little bit less of an effort to look their best, but it tends to be shunned by men for different reasons. Lads tend to think of dressing down as somewhat of a non-event because we really just like to be as comfortable as we can be in the clothes we wear, making no real effort to stick to some or other trend to govern the process.
It is however a very delicate art that of dressing down and it can be very easy to get it horribly wrong.
Go Easy on the Colour-Matching
This is somewhat of a fundamental element of the delicate art of dressing down and if you get this right you’ve pretty much nailed it. So you should go easy on trying to match the colours, which means that if you do indeed match up then it should look like it was by pure coincidence. You don’t want to come across as having made too much effort when you’re dressing down so that should be represented in your outfit.
How do you achieve this?
Well firstly to get the obvious out of the way, this would mean that your top (likely a t-shirt) doesn’t necessarily have to match with your trousers (likely some short pants), but only in colour. These can match somewhat by way of their general design, such as how you might wear a plain t-shirt that’s a lighter shade of grey than your shorts for example.
Now, to get into the meat of anti-colour matching, it’s all about comfort. You should look like you’d be very comfortable getting some work done in your outfit. Plain t-shirts are the name of the game, but not too plain. The best way to ‘bring it’ by way of dressing down is a plain t-shirt which has some sort of subtle print design or shading, with various shades of grey usually working very well.
The Spotlight is on Your Surroundings
The final nail in the coffin of getting it right with dressing down, so to say, is that of focussing on an appearance that makes you look like you’re taking the spotlight away from yourself and putting it onto your surroundings. You don’t want to stand out, so to say, so there’s no need for too much of a focus on keeping up with the latest trends.
Those formal shorts you bought five years ago will do just fine, for example and you won’t even have to match your belt with your shoes.
Keeping in mind the concept of dressing down and just how much of a delicate art it actually is, when trying to source some gifts for guys, remember to look beyond the actual clothing to be worn. A man-bag as somewhat of an accessory does well to add some spice to an otherwise very basic outfit for example, so too something like a fresh fruit gift basket in the case of rocking something like a designer gym outfit – this of course if you’re mostly just hanging out.
