Why Dressing Well Is About Self Respect

II remember as a kid complaining about having to wear a suit or “dress up” as my folks would put it. It was reserved for church and special occasions and quite frankly I hated it!

I also recall trying ever to bend the rules of what I wore during those occasions. Usually it was why can't I wear sneakers with this suit? Often my Mom especially would give in and say, “Fine! Wear your sneakers! You look ridiculous! And truth be told I likely did! But I was comfortable!

Honestly that's all I cared about back then. Well, comfortable and looking cool. You have to remember I grew up in the era Steve McQueen and all those other manly men who rose to occasions and performed deeds of daring on my TV every week! I was certainly a product of my era.

I think I was just a rebellious kid and honestly I still am. When I was around 12 or 13, I was pretty far in to my skateboarding phase. Incidentally that phase is still going fairly strong now! My folks took me to a company Christmas Party at Lake Hickory Country Club. We weren't members but back then it was considered one of the swankiest places to eat in Hickory North Carolina at that time. But if you were in the know back then, Lake Hickory CC also had another claim to fame that only a few people knew! They had the most perfectly shaped pool for skating that anyone in Western NC had ever seen! It was literally the stuff of skateboard legend! Perfect transitions with just the right amount of vert! That's the vertical portion of the wall of the pool for all you non skaters! And it was a storied place of only a few rumors and legends of people I knew who had ever skated it. Like most kids tales it was our Excalibur! The Holy Grail of skating!

Security Guards, fences, and they only drained it for a few months out of the year during winter! Yes winter! It was as though the skateboard gods had given me this gift! A chance to skate, if even only for a few minutes the infamous Lake Hickory CC pool! A chance to defy the odds and shred! Well more actually carve really. In other words just ride around and kick turn once in awhile!

It was the most taboo, the most elusive, and the most illegal place to skate in all the world and I wanted it bad! After all I was an outlaw skater! Or so I thought.

I had to wear a suit to this soiree you see and now that I was older and it was my Mom's company party, sneakers rather than dress shoes was not an option. But I had a plan! Stowed away in the trunk of my Dad's car were the tools of my trade! My beloved Nike high tops and my Dog Town skateboard! For all you skaters, it was the original Jim Muir Red Dog Design model! With Indy 151s and Sims Snakes wheels! So yeah I thought I was a big deal!

As the party got in to full swing I snuck out to the parking lot, slipped on those Nikes like old friends and grabbed my board! It was a mission! That pool must be skated. Like Capt. Willard in Apocalypse Now, “Everybody gets what they want.. I wanted a mission and for my sins they brought me one! Served it up like room service!” I also have a flair for the dramatic as you can see!In my horrible ill fitting brown gaberdine suit and ridiculous flared collar shirt I skated the greatest pool in the world! For about 10 glorious minutes. Being a rebel and not getting caught were my priorities that night and I had attained both! Twice actually! After I didn't get caught the first time I had to go back! I couldn't help myself! Return to the scene of the crime! I know what you're thinking but I escaped unscathed a second time!

And so I became a legend! In my adolescent mind anyway! And incidentally I still ride a Dog Town board. I'm old school like that!

My point is we all want to look cool! We all, we most, want to look like we give a shit about ourselves. And, we want to be comfortable doing it.

Now I know a lot of men will scoff at that part where I said we want to look like we give a shit. Most guys will say I don't care what I look like! We all know that's complete bullshit! You're going to tell me you just happened to pick out those 5-11 Apex pants and that Columbia shirt by total accident! You just happened to buy those Salomon boots cause they're so inexpensive?

Rest assured men give a shit about the message they send. It's just that most men are a bit fragile when it comes to admitting that they want look good. Men are quirky like that. I won't even go down that particular rabbit hole.

One of the biggest reasons I started this web site and the podcast is because there are a lot of men out there who want to look sharp, feel sharp, and be sharp, as my one of my old drill instructors used to say. They simply don't know how or assume that they can't be well dressed and comfortable at the same time. I'm here to tell you that's simply not true!

Women are a whole other story. Often women know how to dress well but don't necessarily know how apply a tactical application to their wardrobe. Especially when it comes to concealed carry. A lot of women carry off body for convenience sake. Many women don't often wear a belt. At least not nearly as much as men do. These are some of the issues I want address in this blog and on the podcast.

Dressing well is never about self importance. It's a matter of self respect. I don't care what it is you are wearing. Shorts and t shirt, jeans, or whatever really. How we dress is our brand. Our unspoken message to the world of who we are. What we like. What we do. And how we feel about ourselves. Still not convinced?

Remember back when the Iraq war kicked off? You would see images of Iraqi soldiers in fatigue pants, a knock off Adidas soccer jersey, and those weird brown flip flops many Middle Eastern men seem to love and an AK. Pair that with a US soldier or Marine in full kit. Who looked more like they were there to take care of business of war? Who looked ready to fight? Sure you can put rounds down range in that Iraqi get up but can you run in those flip flops? Where you keeping those extra mags? Who do you take more seriously? Someone dressed to do a job or the guy who shows up looking like Joe Shit the Rag Man to quote an old army phrase.

I'll take it a step further. When you go to the range, what are you wearing? Flip flops? A soccer jersey? Whenever we do pretty much anything we want to be taken seriously. We want to dress the part. We want to look cool and competent.

Conversely if you're in most Middle Eastern countries or most parts of Africa and you roll up in 5-11s, a plaid shirt, Salomons, and a pair of Oakleys you are definitely not the Grey Man! Everyone knows you're likely from the US and the odds are high that you work for the US in some capacity, either public or private. That's another blog post however.

For most of us state side how we dress speaks volumes about us. And more importantly how we carry ourselves speaks even louder. How you dress can have a huge effect on how you carry yourself.

If you're still not convinced try this little experiment. Get some ill fitting clothes. Some poorly fitting jeans, and if you're a man find yourself the weirdest t shirt you can. Lets say it has My Little Pony on it, or says Daddy's Little Princess on the front. Now head down to your favorite store. Go out to eat at restaurant. Try talking to a woman! For that last one you better come with the very best game you have!

Just imaging it you can actually feel how out of place you'd look. How self conscious you'd be. Suddenly that, I don't care how I look and I don't care what other people think, argument doesn't hold so much water!

In the coming months I'll be writing more posts about how to buy and wear clothes that are not only comfortable but stylish and functional. And best of all won't break the bank! After all, if you're like me that new Glock, Sig or AR you've been looking at isn't getting any cheaper!

So think of me as your go to resource for what works, whats comfortable, and what makes you look like a million bucks. I'm your Tactical Stylist of sorts. I'll do the work of finding clothes that are stylish, comfortable, and allow you to carry, as well as what EDC works best and what options there are! I'll tell you which holster I've found would work better with those jeans or that jacket because you and I both know you really do give a fuck!

And lastly, I'll give tips and pointers on looking sharp, yet being highly functional, without breaking the bank! Like I've always said, if your clothes aren't comfortable and reasonably priced you're not going to wear them or even buy them in the first place! And as I'm more independently poor than wealthy by a long stretch, I'm right there with you!

As the title of this post states, dressing well is not about self importance, it’s about self respect. It’s about telling the world you mean business, whatever that business may be. We are all on transmit. We want to tell others what we’re in to. What we like. What we feel about ourselves. And for both men and women alike, we want to appear capable, competent, and carry ourselves as such. And as one guest, Dr Dante Bryant, whose been on the show many times so eloquently put it, “Sometimes dressing well is in itself and act defiance.”