No Sock Look? How Long Should Socks Be? Socks Bunched Around Ankles? Let’s touch on some important points here and some not so important points. Here’s everything relating to socks.

1. Should I Try The No Sock Look?

Some could also ask should you wear socks at all, the simple answer is, if you’re employed – yes. The no sock look is great for walking around on holiday or relaxing in a park somewhere but at work, socks are an absolute must. If you insist on the no sock look then give your colleagues their right to odourless air by wearing invisible socks.

2. Whats The Deal With Stretched Out Socks?

Quality is important in every aspect of your wardrobe, from your suit to your shoes. It’s a widely accepted assumption that the more expensive the item, the better the “quality”. Since more expensive materials were used then the item must be better for the user. This may be the case in general but just because your socks cost the price of most peoples shoes doesn’t mean they are actually good quality.

Many socks lose their tightness (elasticity), thus resulting in the sock rolling down your leg and bunching up around your ankles. The sock can also bunch up in your shoe which can easily make you uncomfortable when walking. I’ve found this most commonly in cheap cotton socks but it still definitely happens with the expensive branded socks that are made cheaply.

This can be easily resolved by getting a pair of socks that are a blend of cotton and lycra. It will cost you slightly more in the short term but you will end up buying less pairs of socks thus resulting in everything balancing out.

3. How Long Should Socks Be?

Now onto the discussion of how long your socks should be. If you are going to take anything from this then let it be the following. Keep all the hair on your legs hidden at all times. When you sit, your trousers will raise and your sock should at all times prevent your lovely hair legs from being on show.

The issue of white socks is well established so I’ll mention it briefly, if you’re an Michael Jackson fan and couldn’t care less what some humans think about you, then go for it.

Regardless to how beautiful your legs are, they are not appropriate for the work place. Save them for the beach when you can really turn some heads.

Also bear in mind, none of these rules really mean anything, enjoy yourself and have fun with your socks. Trial and error is the way forward my friend.

Until we meet again,

Hamed.

A Young Man’s Guide To His First Work Outfit

Whether it’s for an interview or you managed to land yourself a good apprenticeship, we all experience going shopping for the first time for that all important first work outfit. I’ll touch on some of my experiences and then give you some advice on how to make sure you wow your new employer (in a good way.)

My Experience

I remember what it was like buying my first proper dress shirt. It was for work experience in a desk job at the councils recycling center. I had no idea what people would be wearing in the office so I went into Burton with £30 and picked up a light blue shirt and a black & gold shirt. Needless to say, this was at a time when social media was limited to MySpace and Bebo, so there wasn’t much in the way of fashion inspiration. As time went on, I learned how to dress while making horrible fashion mistakes at the same time, including the classic Michael Jackson look, black suit with white socks.

P.S – I bought at least six suits from Primark when I first started out.

When you are first starting to dress formally in suits and shirts outside of school, it can be a bit daunting, just know that it will take time but you will get there. Pay close attention to the way you dress, and build your wardrobe slowly in accordance to your income. Below are some tips to help you pick out your first work outfit.

Have A Plan

Having a clear plan before you start splashing out the cash is important, especially if your funds aren’t unlimited.

Size

When going to buy your first work outfit, I don’t recommend buying it online. Go into a few stores that you like and that are in your price range and try on as many different sizes as you can. Get a feel for what size fits you, don’t just buy the same size blazer you wore in school.

Colour

Know what colours you want, for the suit, keep it dark. Black and blue are the two best suits to buy as a beginner. They are so easy to match with things and they’re suitable for many occasions.

White shirts are always an easy start, but if you’re feeling adventurous then you can try for a light blue or a light pink shirt. Stay far away from dark colours for now – trust me.

Keep ties simple, no weird patterns or cartoon characters. Go for a colour that matches the colour of your suit.

Keep your socks black or navy blue, at least for now. Never wear white and leave your crazy colours at home. Once everyone at work knows your name and they like you, then you can wear your yellow and pink socks.

Expect To Fail

This is something you should be used to, failing. We all do it. Don’t expect to go shopping and spend £80 on your first work outfit and expect it to look like those Instagram gurus. A lot of the men on Instagram spent upwards of £2000 on their outfit and they’re in their thirties. Your time will come.

Try to limit your failures but if you do end up wearing an outrageous tie and people make you feel uncomfortable for it, don’t sweat it. We’ve all been there – on more than one occasion as well.

Dare A Little & Enjoy It

You’re young (if you’re not young then you’re young at heart right?), enjoy yourself and don’t take all this fashion stuff too seriously. It’s definitely not worth being late to work just to fix your tie. Fashion is something that’s enjoyable, I have this blog to have fun and I do enjoy it a lot. The moment you start stressing too much over what shoes to wear to the point you’re late to work, is the point you need to do a 180 degree turn and assess yourself.

Remember: Have fun with your outfit!

Educate Yourself & Copy Others

The fact you’re reading this is a great sign. When I started there weren’t many blogs around but I remember clinging to GQ Magazine. Knowledge is power and the more you learn, the better you will look.

When you’re traveling to work, waiting for someone or just sitting on the toilet – read some blogs and fashion tips. Obviously I’d recommend my own but there are loads online.

Go on Instagram or Tumblr and follow people who dress well and have great taste. Screenshot what you like and when you go shopping pull up those pictures and use them for inspiration. Forget this original nonsense, I copy the New York gents all the time and it works great for me over here in the UK.

Keep It Simple

I hope this helps a little, I wanted to keep it short and just get across the message; keep it simple and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. That’s the exact advice I would have given to myself ten years ago when I bought a £80 silver suit (cringe.)

Reinvent Yourself

There comes a time in every man’s life where he decides a change of appearance is much in order. Now may be the perfect time to reinvent yourself. Whether it’s for a new job, new love interest, or even a new year, there is usually some sort of driving force behind it. If you’re thinking about shaking up your signature look, check out our tips to rejuvenate yourself.

Look After Your Skin

Women just love skin products. If you have a woman in your life, you’ll know that their serums, lotions and potions take up most of the space in the bathroom and bedroom. Women are usually one step ahead of us men, they already know that looking and smelling good is feeling good too. We should follow suit and look after our skin too. Our skin can be even more prone to dryness and irritation than women’s. If you don’t want to dip into your other half’s strawberry puree, you could get some Nivea cream for men.

If you have thicker, dryer skin, you might find that thicker balms and creams are more effective for you and leave your skin feeling softer and more moisturized. My all time favorite cream (after Nivea) would have to be Palmer’s cocoa butter, great smell, great feeling and great value for money.

Whether you’re on a tight budget at the moment, or not, drink plenty of water and get a good nights sleep. These two things are free, and will work wonders for your skin. You won’t get dark circles and your complexion will look clear and healthy.

Choose Your Products Wisely

In order to change your look, you’ll probably need to change your approach to styling and that means trying new products.

There’s a myriad of skin and hair products for men, but choose wisely; sometimes cheaper products are more damaging to skin and do not last as long as the slightly more expensive products. No one’s saying a £50 jar of cream here, but the dubious cream from discount stores is not always worth it.

Quality products generally last longer and actually do what they say on the tin. You can find great ones online, places like Boots, Mankind, and the Body Shop.

Cut Or Restyle Your Hair

What quicker way to reinvent yourself is there other than changing your hairstyle? One of the quickest and most effective ways is to change it to something you’ve never tried before. Even if it was as simple as changing what side you part your hair on, or more drastically shaving off long locks of hair. Believe me, a good trim can make you feel like a new man.

If your hair is short, you could try growing it into a longer style, and if it’s already long, experiment with a few new styles in front of a mirror until you find something you like. You can find inspiration easily on Instagram or even Google images (old school, I know), or ask your barber for suggestions. Look up hairstyles on models who have similar face shapes, hairlines, and hair textures to you. There’s nothing worse than getting a haircut that doesn’t suit you at all.

Wardrobe

Clear out your wardrobe, get rid of those baggy jeans you’ve had since you were fifteen and invest in new ones that will last. You can find designer labels for cheap in places like Tk Maxx and in the sale section of websites and high street stores. A quick way to reinvent your look is by swapping jeans for chinos, and trainers for boots. These two items can be tweaked to look casual or smart depending on your accessories.

Developing a new signature look means not looking like every other guy out there, and bold accessories make it easy to really personalize your style.

Hats, scarves, watches, crazy socks (check out my posts on them) or bold-framed glasses: knock yourself out and make them your own.

Exercise

Getting a new body shape needs a little more work than changing your hair and clothes , but if you feel you need to size down, remind yourself of the old adage – no pain, no gain.

Exercise is free so forget extortionate gym memberships. Go walking, running, swimming or cycling. Whatever you do – stay active. Exercise releases endorphins so you’ll start feeling good and in time you’ll have a body to match.

Learn To Accept Your Body Shape

While you can exercise and slim down, your natural body shape may always remain the same. The solution to this is not to attempt to squeeze yourself into ill-fitting clothes, but identify your body type to pick clothes that compliment your shape and size well.

Find Out What Brands Work Best For You

In order to succeed when reinventing your wardrobe, you need to know what brands suit you. Topman and ASOS favour more slim fitting clothing, whereas stores like House of Fraser and John Lewis are your go-to for more classic men’s clothing.

Build Your Self Esteem

Having high self esteem affects how you see yourself and how others see you. People are drawn to charismatic, confident people. Work on your posture, slouching suggests a lack of self confidence whereas walking with straight open shoulders rather than hunched ones says a lot about you. Also, change the way you think about yourself if need be, from negative to positive. Being positive and confident is the best way to pull off great new looks.

Ask The Ladies

You can find plenty of inspiration online for a new look, but the women who matter the most in your life – your mum, wife, or sister know you and will always have some helpful, unsolicited advice on how you look, eat, dress, sleep, breathe… you get my drift!

Do your homework and see what’s trending, there’s some great free advice and product reviews all over the internet. Experiment with different looks, get creative, be active and in no time you will have reinvented your look without breaking the bank.

Reinvent yourself now and you’ll be glad you did.

Interview Tips

I’ve had a lot of people ask me for help with landing a job and I find myself pretty much saying the same few tips every time. These tips aren’t in any order and they haven’t been verified by some top CEO or anything so don’t hold me accountable, this is just what has always worked for me and actually worked well for a few others as well. Here are my best interview tips, enjoy;

Interview Tips #1 – CV

My number one interview tip is don’t stress over your CV, I have handed in my CV from when I was 16 with no experience to an employer while I was 21. This CV was crap and outdated but when they called me I was in complete control of the conversation and I got the job, which I then turned down (I know right.)

To be blunt, no one really cares what’s on your CV, 99% of the time the employer just wants to ask you questions based on your CV so they can get you talking and see what you’re really like.

Interview Tips #2 – Recommendation/Referral

If your friend has the job you want, or works in the company you would love to work for – ask for a recommendation. You might get one or two interview from fifty applications but you’ll get one interview from one referral.

It’s a no-brainer really, obviously I get that you might not know that many people but with social media nowadays, you can easily get to know someone in any company anywhere in the world. LinkedIn is the obvious one but still not many people use it, search for the company you want to work for and invite some of the people to connect with you, send them a message, get the conversation going online and before you know it you’ll be sitting down with a manager being interviewed. Don’t forget, you can even do this on Facebook/Twitter.

Interview Tips #3 – Know Who Will Be Interviewing You

This might seem a little weird but trust me it helps so much. Usually you will have a phone conversation with someone in the company before you have an interview. When on the phone, make sure you ask who it will be that will be interviewing you. If they ask why, just say it’s because you want to remember their name so you don’t forget it during the interview or any other silly excuse to get them to tell you. Once you have their name, Google them, have a look at them, see what their position is etc. Many times when I’ve asked who will be interviewing me, they just tell me everything I need to know; “Oh it’s James Allard who will be interviewing you, he’s the managing director of the company, he likes to meet all new people himself.”

Interview Tips #4 – Don’t Outshine The Person Interviewing You

Knowing what position they are will tell you how they will dress, if you find out the one interviewing you is “one of the trainers” chances are they aren’t going to be dressed that well so don’t go in your best suit and keep the colorful socks at home. If you hear it’s the Managing Director interviewing you, look sharp and on point – just minus the Rolex.

The moment you outshine the person interviewing you, the interview is in your control and they feel nervous. They’ll start to feel like you are a threat to them and chances are they will end up trying to find whatever excuse they can to not hire you. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen many times.

Interview Tips #5 – Do Your Research On The Company

What ever you do, don’t ask them to explain their company. Whoever’s interviewing will love talking about their company but they’ll hate having to explain it to you. Go on Google and write down some interesting things you have seen online about their company. Ask them about it and you’ll be in their good books. You can find out everything you need to know about the company online. The more you know, the more you can talk about their company, it will impress the interviewer and show them that you are actually really keen to get the role as opposed to someone who just wants a job.

Interview Tips #6 – Hand Shake

When you meet the person interviewing you, give them a strong firm handshake. It does not really matter if you are nervous or not, just jump up out of your seat and shake their hand with the biggest smile you can. I love handshaking people, especially if I can initiate the hand shake. If you initiate the hand shake and then do a stronger/firmer hand shake that the person interviewing you, you have now just completely asserted your dominance over that person.

Interview Tips #7 – Sit Up & Respond

Don’t slouch, I have literally not hired over 50 people simply because they slouched during their interview . Just don’t do it. Sit up straight and acknowledge what the person is saying, and if they pause for a second, speak! The more you can speak the better. When I’m being interviewed, I talk more than the person interviewing me. It shows confidence & interest. Ask as many informed questions as you can and make sure whenever they say a statement that they think is interesting for example; “After many years of struggling we finally became number 1 in the UK”, I’d respond with; “Wow, is that in the whole industry?”

Interview Tips #8 – Never Ask…

1. How Long Will This Take? – Shows you have something more important to do.
2. What Does Your Company Do? – Tells the employer that you aren’t bothered to go and research.
3. When Can I Take My Holidays? – Shows you are more interested in taking time off.
4. Did I get the job? – Puts the interviewer on the spot and makes you look impatient.
5. How Did I Do? – Shows a complete lack of confidence.
6. What is the salary for this position? – Wait until you have the job before discussing how much pay you are going to get.
7. How long would I have to wait to get promoted? – Shows you don’t care about the current job role.

Interview Tips #9 – Always Ask Assumptive Questions

Make sure when the interviewer says to you, ‘Do you have any questions for me?’ – ask something! Make sure you obviously steer clear from the above questions but probably worse than all of those questions is to not ask anything at all. I’ve seen candidates stand up before the interviews even over, it makes the interviewer feel like you are not really that interested and either don’t want the job or just want any job.

I always ask about if I’m the top performing employee, what can I earn, and if  there any bonuses or trips available for employee of the month. I also always ask what do I have to do to get into the position they are in. One of my favorite subjects to ask about is the training structure and how it works, is it a trial and error based system or a shadowing system. All of these questions show the employer that I’m confident I already have the job and that I’m interested in doing well in the role.

Interview Tips #10 – On Your Way Out

Give them another firm handshake, a smile and say,

See you soon.

Spring has finally rolled around, yet all I can think of is summer.

You can’t really blame me though, the past week here in England has been glorious in terms of sunshine, and I think all of us are dreaming of the summer holidays already. Before the beautiful weather fades away, I thought I’d write a post on sunglasses, and where they should go once you head inside again.

For example,you could always hand them to your nephew so he can clean them for you.

What else is he good for anyways? They could also go in your chest pocket or a jacket/blazer pocket like so:

Or better still, into the Pandora’s Box that is your girlfriend/wife’s handbag (that’s if you never want to see them again)

You could also put your sunglasses in between your shirt placket- the bit of fabric on your shirt that your buttons are sewn onto, or just leave them on your table if you’re at home. They could also go in your workbag or briefcase if you use one, or just on the top of your head.

Now we head to the faux pas in order of decadency, no fashion article would be complete without them:

✘ Putting an earpiece through a belt loop or waistband

✘ Putting an earpiece through a trouser pocket

✘ Putting your sunglasses inside your cargo shorts pocket (burn those ghastly things if you own a pair)

✘ Around your neck on a chain or cord, if librarians can’t get away with it then neither can you

✘ Attempting a Masaai warrior look by putting an earpiece through a gauge earring (seriously?)

✘ Keeping your sunglasses on indoors

✘ Keeping them in a fanny pack, or even having a fanny pack in the first place

✘ And finally, having them on the back or your shirt or head like this:

Figuring out what colour shirts go with what suit can get a little overwhelming sometimes. I learnt mainly through trial and error. Grey suits are fantastic and are now widely accepted as work appropriate. I remember one of my bosses many years ago advising me not to wear grey, as it was “too informal” – ridiculous.

As I stand outside, with no blazer and the sun beating down on my near bald head, I’m happy to say it’s pretty much spring. With spring comes colour, the time for dressing dull and quiet is leaving us quickly. Grey suits make us men look a lot more friendly and approachable. As with all light colours, grey suits are most appropriate when the sun’s out. This doesn’t mean you can only wear a grey suit in spring and summer, however it’s preferred. Which brings me to the colour shirt we should pair with it.

Quick side note: By “grey suit”, I intend a light grey suit, one that is fashionable and looks great like the above. Not those horrendous dark grey suits some people wear.

The grey suit is almost like the jolly cousin of the firm/strict navy suit. To keep up that joyful look, wear a friendly light colour shirt with the suit. Think of a spring colour palette, all those soft light colours. If you’re thinking, light blue, light purple or pink – you’re on the right track. These shirt colours will keep you looking young, jolly and free.

For many of us we want to be approachable, we want the world to like us and one great pathway for that is through what we wear. Get the right combination of grey suit, pink shirt, loafers & a big smile and everyone will be chatting away with you like they’ve known you for years.