This guide focuses on what’s available and sustainable for people in Central European.
Dressing well makes you look good, and three fundamentals matter most: fit, material and composition of your clothes. Fit and material are easy to get right. Developing taste for composition takes time and experience.
Buy Clothes That Fit You
Buying well-fitting clothes is the simplest improvement you can make. Look out for the following:
T-Shirts: The shoulder seam sits on the edge of your shoulder. Sleeves hug your arm without squeezing. The hem lands just below your belt - not halfway down your thighs. If you raise your arms, your belly shouldn’t show.
Shirts: The collar should touch your neck without choking. Cuffs should meet your wrist bone. When you lift your arms, your stomach doesn’t show. Your chest feels comfortable, not tightened by your shirt.
Pants: The waistband rests on your hips, not sag below or squeeze your stomach. The seat should hold your shape without pulling - if you need a belt to hold the pants, they’re too wide! The thighs have room to move but no billow. The hem should break once on your shoe. If they bunch, they’re too long. If they ride up, too short.
Buy high-quality materials
Choose natural materials like cotton and wool. They last for years without losing shape or feel. Clothes with synthetic fibers will wear out faster and look worse with age.
High-quality fabrics feel solid, often with texture and weight. Synthetics look “flat” and lifeless, they are homogenous. Consider these two coats: A EUR150 Boss coat, 80% wool and 20% polyamide, versus a Canali coat made of 100% wool, ten times the price.
From afar, they look similar. Up close, the Canali coat has much richer depth and texture. Imagine touching the two. Which one feels better, looks better, lasts longer?
The same effect appears outside luxury fashion. At Uniqlo, try the EUR15 Jersey T-Shirt (100% cotton, link). Go to Decathlon across the street and feel the EUR9 Domyos 500 T-Shirt made of 60% cotton and 40% synthetics.
Composition
Putting outfits together that suits your body is an art. The best way to learn is by observation - study people who dress well and copy them. For inspiration:
- Kurt Cobain
- Lemmy Kilmister
- Steve McQueen
- Ernest Hemingway
- Idris Elba
- or follow modern fashion influences whose style you admire.
Rules of thumb:
- Wearing one color makes you look larger; mixing colors balances your frame.
- Light skin tones work better with muted or cool shares (pastel, burgundy, navy) than with bright and orange or yellow - they end up looking pale. Darker skin tones can wear strong, bright colors beautifully.
- Pair wide shirts with wide pants, and slim shirts with slim pants. Break this rule once you know what you’re doing, not before.
Where to Buy
You’ll find good-quality clothes at a reasonable price here:
- Uniqlo
- Colorful Standard
- Lands end - wait for sales and only buy those
- Vinted - look for fancy clothes at stores and then buy them used
- ebay - same
- H&M - avoid synthetics, make sure materials are high quality
- C&A - avoid synthetics, make sure materials are high quality
- Marc O’Polo
- Armed Angels - sell pre-owned items directly on their website
Choose quality, be sustainable and save money by buying second hand. Then take care of what you own - read the labels and wash colors separately and at the right temperature. You’ll look good for years without buying often.
sells pre-owned items directly on their website
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- Kurt Cobain
- Lemmy Kilmister
- Steve McQueen
- Ernest Hemingway
- Idris Elba
Weird list. Only the fantastic Idris Elba is a European out of these. The others are also either dead or old. Artists, actors, also athletes, even politicians are generally good for inspiration though.
Here are some alternative recommendations of well dressed and alive European men:
- Alexander Skarsgård
- Liam Gallagher
- Charles Leclerc
- Till Lindemann
Physical build, skin, hair, and eye color play a role in what cuts and colors look good on you.
Because this is Lemmy will add Yanis Varufakis for that far left drip.
Hey, I’ve been playing around with writing a Basic Bastard guide for lemmy. This is what I came up with so far, what do you think? Any suggestions for improvement?
I like the suggested brands and the guidelines in materials.
The fit guide is maybe a bit oversimplified but obviously correct, particularly on pants and trousers that should fit without belt. I really struggled the last two years to find good fitting chinos. It’s such a “personal match” that cannot really be conveyed in a short guide.
On quality materials, I find the comparison a bit stretched? You don’t need a 1500€ luxury coat to experience nice texture imo, while I wouldn’t write off the BOSS coat as low quality only for the 20% plastic in it…
Two brands that impressed me lately are Marc’o’Polo and Armed Angels, a notch above Uniqlo prices but nice quality :) AA even sells pre-owned items directly on their website.
I do to ow whatit means for the hem to “break” or “break once”?
It can be hard to see, but the illustration for that part is correct.
If your pants don’t reach your shoes and just hang flat, then your pants are too short. It’s obvious if they pants don’t reach your shoes, but can be harder to recognize if they just brush your shoes without resting.
If your pants bunch up around your ankles with lots of folds and extra fabric, then your pants are too long. Have you ever caught your heel on your pantleg while walking? That’s too long.
Breaking once is the goldilocks zone between those. The pants reach your shoes and rest on top of them, but they don’t bunch up. Think having one small fold in your pants, just enough so the pants aren’t totally smooth when you’re standing.
I still don’t really get the verb “break” in this context? The pants are not damaged… The pants fall down to the shoes and crease in just one spot?
Yes, that’s it exactly. “Break” in this context means a disruption in the smooth pant leg. Breaking once means that you’ve got one crease or fold in an otherwise smooth pant leg.
Seems like a nice starter guide.
Couple suggestions that might help: In the fit section it might be worthwhile to mention something about getting your measurements and reading the fit guide available on the manufacturer’s website. Similarly, it could help some folks to mention that clothes from different manufacturer’s will fit a little different. That might be too basic, but it took me awhile to figure it out and I have had a much better experience with clothes since then.
Also, I hadn’t heard of Colorful Standard before and they seem right up my alley for casual clothes. Thanks for that.
