I think it goes without saying that the greatest piece of content I have written for this website is my Starter Kit Style Guide. I have been privileged to watch numerous guys take this guide and transform their presentation, morphing from boring ‘nice guys’ to men that girls would take seriously as dating prospects.
Today I want to share the style development of one guy in particular. I would consider him the poster child for taking my advice and running with it. In fact, he went beyond just following my advice.
He used the Starter Kit Style Guide exactly as it was intended: as a primer to get you understanding the basics of men’s fashion, creating a platform to go discover your own look. After following my recommendations, he then went hunting for other great pieces that expanded his options. He absolutely smashed the short, but crucial, journey of fixing your style. With his permission I am going to share some of the professional pictures he had taken in which he showed off his new look.
I will start though with some before pics of how he used to dress.
I hope this demonstrates the power of what great style can do for your dating prospects. He dialled in the fit, bought the right pieces for current times and added the appropriate amount of edge … as you will see.
His style prior to the guide:
Some of the less initiated may be looking at this and thinking, ‘this is ok to decent style.’
Let me be blunt with those of you who think that, if you present this sort of style in your online dating profiles it will not be good enough to achieve great returns. It is also not going to yield that much success on approaching girls in person.
Starting point analysis
The good: If I were looking at this as if analysing a new client’s starting point, I would notice several positives. He already understood how important fit is to dressing well. For the most part in these pictures, he found clothes that fit his measurements. He was also in great shape compared to most men, fairly lean with some muscle mass. His willingness to incorporate a watch in the last two pictures shows he was not averse to wearing some accessories. And finally, his grooming was on point, both his hair and beard were well looked after (you can sort of see this from where I’ve cropped the pictures)
The bad: This is style overall is the smarter end of ‘Mr Boyfriend’. It was not done poorly by any means, thanks to the fit and decent choice of colours. But by wearing this he faced the same problem as many men do in the dating scene today – it’s the sort of style that will see you blend into the mass of other decent looking, decently dressed men.
At this stage he was in desperate need of some edge and needed to update his style to modern trends. My guide pushes men towards a form of smart street style and with the button shirts only here he looked very one note.
Dressing up smart like this is an option you want to have but it shouldn’t be the only focus of your wardrobe. When guys in the self-improvement community ask for advice on how to dress for dating, the common advice we give is to up your edge and nail the more casual/streetwear side of things as well. Its hard to add a lot of accessories and edge to a smarter style of dress and make it work. Next, we will look at how he dresses now and see the results from following my guide.
One of the greatest things about the self-improvement forums has always been guys on their journeys logging their progress. Hugely beneficial to me as I could see guys writing posts saying they have downloaded my guide and then observe their style progression play out in the pictures they upload for feedback.
In these pics you can see the initial changes he made. He simplified everything and started wearing more black items as a base layer. The well fitted t-shirt, the slim black denim, and the low-cut white tennis shoes. This is a clean and simple, go-to set of basics that works with most outerwear. He is also trying out other t-shirts in neutral colours, like khaki green and grey.
Most importantly though, he got the memo about accessories. If you get nothing else from this article, please get this:
You need to get some accessories if you are dressing for dating.
They are compulsory, they make you stand out from all the ‘nice guys’ that make up most of the competition.
I especially like that he was experimenting with the black and silver accessories. It’s important to match the colour of your accessories, it makes the whole outfit look cleaner. The black bracelets and ring match to the colour of his top while the rest of his accessories are silver/metallic which keeps it colour consistent. The longstanding fashion rule is don’t go beyond 3 colours in an outfit and this works well as a guide most of the time.
After playing around with style and posting pictures on his log, this guy got serious and booked a professional photoshoot for the sake of his online dating. If you are serious about having success online, it really does help if you have a professional take some shots of you.
Here are a few from that photoshoot:
The dude absolutely nailed the look we are going for. The fit is dialled in, every outfit is clean and minimal, and with just the right number of touches in terms of accessories.
Loving the use of denim jackets here. General rule for denim jackets is if the denim is blue wash you don’t want to the double it up, but with black denim doubling up is ok. In the photo with ripped jeans, on the bottom left, he has mixed up the wash of the denim as well which creates a subtle contrast (the jeans are solid black while the jacket is slightly washed). I don’t typically wear ripped jeans, but they are a nice option to have in your wardrobe if you want to add a little edge to an outfit.
Low cut white sneakers here combined well with no break jeans and no-show socks – very in trend and helps the shoes noticeably pop out from the outfit.
Some notes on these as Tinder pics too: the are exactly the sort of shots you should be looking to have in your photo line-up. They are well lit, shot in portrait and the subject is filling the frame – all things a competent photographer should get right and crucial for Tinder. From a style perspective these are great as you can clearly see the accessories he is wearing in the chosen shots. That is crucial, little point wearing the accessories if they are hidden from view in your pictures.
If you are paying for a photographer do go pretty simple with the outfit choice. Great style doesn’t have to be complicated. If you really aren’t sure what you are doing then do as this guy has and pick the black denim, white sneaker combo to build around with black, white, or grey t-shirts on top and outerwear pieces you know are bankers. Make sure you take more than one outfit to the shoot, or you will be wearing the same thing in multiple Tinder photos – not the best look.
As I wrote earlier, I gives this guy big props for taking the baseline of my guide and running with it from there. He even sent me some IGs to look at via direct message which he thought fitted the same type of style we are aiming for. This guy did the work and absolutely looks the part now. Everyone can fix their style the way he has if you apply yourself.
Thanks for reading guys,
The Hatfish
1 Comment