The Art of Manliness - #398： Should a Man Care About How He Dresses？

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00:01:09.360 disease. Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of

00:01:26.300 The Art of Manliness podcast. I hear a lot of guys tell it, real men don't care about style.

00:01:31.240 Where did this idea that men don't care about their appearance come from? Has it always been

00:01:34.680 around? And is there any validity to it? I guess they argues against the idea that real men don't

00:01:38.780 care about their clothes and lays out a case for style being a valid part of masculinity. His name

00:01:43.160 is Tanner Guzzi. He's a style coach and the author of the book, The Appearance of Power,

00:01:46.920 how masculinity is expressed through aesthetics. Today, Tanner and I discuss why caring about how you dress is

00:01:51.520 typically thought of as effeminate, why men should think of clothes as an amoral tool, and how that

00:01:55.560 tool can be a valuable means towards accomplishing your desired ends. Tanner argues that rather than

00:01:59.860 focusing on the mechanics of style, for example, like what shoes go with what pant, men need to figure

00:02:04.400 out their larger goal in dressing better first, including which of the three style archetypes they

00:02:08.360 fall into. We also discuss the relationship between style and status and how to balance dressing in

00:02:12.800 line with a particular tribe you belong to with dressing for the wider world. After the show's over,

00:02:17.080 check out the show notes at aom.is slash appearance of power. And now Tanner Guzzi joins me via clearcast.io.

00:02:33.240 Tanner Guzzi, welcome to the show. Thanks, Brett. I'm excited to be here, man.

00:02:36.760 So you got a new book out, The Appearance of Power, How Masculinity is Expressed Through Aesthetics.

00:02:42.540 And what I like about this book, it's not so much like a lot of style books that talk about like,

00:02:45.720 what tie to wear with what suit, how to match your shoes to your suit. This one's more about

00:02:50.020 the overarching philosophy of style and how you can take that and shape it the way you want,

00:02:55.660 how to express yourself. But let's get to this big question because I'm sure something you've

00:03:01.520 experienced putting out style content, because we get it too. Whenever we post something out about

00:03:05.900 style, there's always this contingent of guys that say, oh, this is dumb. Who cares? Real men don't 0.99

00:03:11.540 care about clothes and stuff. Has this attitude always been around or is this something pretty

00:03:16.820 modern? It's relatively modern. In fact, if you look back at different cultures and different

00:03:22.040 traditions, especially when you look at things that are more honor-based cultures, where masculinity

00:03:27.800 is very measured out and there's very strict hierarchies, appearance is something that's always

00:03:33.860 been used by men to be able to determine where we fit within the world, who's honorable,

00:03:38.300 who's dishonorable, who's at the top of the status chain, who's at the bottom, who's been able to

00:03:43.260 accomplish feats of greatness versus those who haven't earned the right to do that yet.

00:03:47.520 And so this antipathy for style that a lot of men have now is something that's both relatively

00:03:53.620 modern and it's a little bit hypocritical because it's not actually true indifference.

00:03:59.440 It's just this idea that you're supposed to hate it. If you really didn't care,

00:04:03.600 then all these guys wouldn't end up looking the same. They would literally be wearing garbage bags

00:04:08.300 or whatever else was just available to them. But the only appropriate attitude within them

00:04:13.860 and their tribes or their ideals of what masculinity is, is to have this kind of hatred for what

00:04:19.700 appearance is, but that's still caring about it. Right. Yeah. That's the point. They care about

00:04:24.420 it. But yeah, as you said, they might not wear a suit. They might think that's dumb, but they've got

00:04:29.420 their thing they sport that they care about and they think about because they thought about it when 0.94

00:04:33.540 they bought it and they liked it. So they're showing that. Right. And all their buddies dress the same

00:04:37.300 way and all the people that they aspire to be like dress the same way. There's the fact that we,

00:04:41.940 there's no common denominator. That's the bottom of the totem pole that everybody kind of defaults to.

00:04:47.480 We all dress to fit in with the people that we, we associate with and that we want to be like. And

00:04:52.500 if that means that you have to pretend that you don't care, but only to the same extent that

00:04:56.740 everybody else acts like they don't care, you still care. Right. Well, so I mean, okay,

00:05:00.760 let's talk about the style stuff that you put out and maybe like in this minute,

00:05:03.620 the general like style men's lifestyle genre. Right. That's the stuff that guys, they think is

00:05:09.900 like a lot of guys say is like effeminate. That's wussy to, you know, worry about suits and like how

00:05:16.100 they look or how to match ties. Like, why do you think that that idea is out there that, you know,

00:05:22.300 being a real man means you don't care about suits and all that other nonsense.

00:05:25.820 I think a lot of this stems from what happened with the cultural revolution in the sixties and

00:05:30.660 the seventies with the baby boomers, because as they went through this idea of rejecting everything

00:05:35.260 that not only their parents, but even previous generations stood for, obviously appearance and

00:05:40.800 aesthetics was part of that. But at the same time, they didn't take it to the full extent that

00:05:44.720 we're seeing now where they were rejecting traditional gender roles, rejecting the idea of

00:05:49.260 what masculinity was or what it wasn't. And so it became this conflation of somewhat rejection of

00:05:55.520 the old world where status matters, hierarchy matters, these social indicators through appearance

00:06:01.960 matter. They rejected all of that, but they still very much cared about being men and being seen as

00:06:06.480 men. And so those two married together into this idea of real men don't care how they look.

00:06:12.200 Part of that is based off of the idea that how we look is only somewhat related to function,

00:06:18.160 especially as we've moved away from being an honor culture or a society where honor is an external

00:06:24.040 thing. And you've written a great series about this, where it used to be that honor was based

00:06:27.640 on your external actions. Now we've moved to a society where it's based on our internal actions.

00:06:31.720 And so the way that we dress is considered to be external. So part of it's related to that.

00:06:36.460 And part of it also is that women have never rejected this idea. And so we've seen it as something

00:06:41.500 that's only acceptable to women because at some point in time, men have rejected it.

00:06:46.380 Right. I mean, yeah, going back to, you know, we were talking about earlier,

00:06:49.860 what you were saying earlier is like, if you look back at pictures and paintings from

00:06:52.700 like the 1600s and the 1700s, like the top dogs, like males, right? The princes and kings and even

00:06:59.880 the warriors, like they wore like really fancy, frilly looking clothes, like high heels, stockings,

00:07:07.020 like silk. And you look at that and like, boy, that's really wussy. But they were some of the

00:07:13.120 fiercest warriors out there. But then like in the 1800s, the culture shifted from putting a premium

00:07:19.260 on aristocracy and these warrior values to, you know, anyone could be a gentleman based on merit

00:07:25.040 and values and virtues. And so I guess like that's when the suit, right? Like sort of the suit as we

00:07:30.780 know it today became sort of the de facto uniform for men.

00:07:34.160 Yeah. Cause we went from this, this culture of aristocracy and Lords and nobles and all of these

00:07:38.580 other things where there was a very clear demarcation and a lot of masculinity was expressed by,

00:07:43.520 yes, you had men who were very strong in battle, but one of the ways that this kind of frilly and

00:07:49.900 wimpy clothing would signal their masculinity was that they didn't have to get down in the dirt with 0.99

00:07:54.540 the rest of the plebs. You know, they were able to, to rise above and let somebody else do this 0.93

00:07:58.640 physical labor. And so it was an expression of mastery through social status and finances and

00:08:03.740 your connections. And then as we moved away from that aristocracy into a more merit-based culture

00:08:09.480 where hard work and these other Western values became more and more valued, then the suit and

00:08:14.560 its somberness became a status signal as opposed to the excess, the frivolity, all of these other

00:08:21.160 things that were status symbols from previous generations. Right. And then I said the sixties

00:08:24.940 counterculture revolution that it rejected that because they thought it was too conformist.

00:08:29.620 And so worrying about how you look in a suit, well, no, that's not what you should be doing.

00:08:34.260 You should just wear whatever you want to wear. Yeah. Even though what you want to wear is ironically

00:08:38.700 what everybody else like you also wants to wear by pure happenstance, right? Right. Right. Okay.

00:08:44.060 Well, okay. We'll get into that idea later on about status hierarchies and tribes and things like

00:08:48.080 that. But you, in your book, you encourage men to see clothes as an amoral tool. You know,

00:08:54.720 why is it important to see style as amoral? I think there's two big reasons for it. One is because

00:09:00.560 we do to some extent, and for most men, it's on a subconscious level, we recognize the power of

00:09:05.960 appearance. And that's why we don't wear dresses. We don't wear pink gorilla suits. If we represent

00:09:11.960 one part of the world, we don't dress like we live in another part of the world. We naturally default

00:09:16.360 to that. And so we see that our identity to some extent is both tied up into and represented by what

00:09:24.400 we wear. So there's that component of it too. But then there's also the understanding that it is,

00:09:30.320 it's a tool. There's nothing that it's not one of these top things. There isn't something, I mean,

00:09:35.460 aside from the ideas of modesty or other things that may have religious undertones or moral undertones

00:09:42.100 to it, there really isn't anything more or less moral about wearing a Henley and jeans or a suit

00:09:47.520 and a tie or a floral shirt with some cargo shorts or anything else. And so taking all of this identity,

00:09:54.240 all this morality and everything else out of it and looking at it as, okay, what clothing is going to

00:09:58.560 help me best accomplish my goals in my life, I'm going to pursue wearing that clothing, takes it into

00:10:04.740 the realm of it being purely functional. And I think for most men, it's a lot easier to wrap their minds

00:10:09.580 around the importance of it as soon as we see that the form does have function.

00:10:13.640 So what ends can clothes help you meet? What can you accomplish by being intentional about what you wear?

00:10:20.320 Well, what I love about it is there's so many of them, but the biggest thing that I help my own guys

00:10:25.120 understand is that it helps you see the best version of yourself. I believe in this idea of

00:10:31.880 self-optimization. I think a lot of times when we think of like self-help or self-improvement,

00:10:36.340 there's some negative connotations that come with that. It means that you're starting from a bad place,

00:10:40.460 but a lot of men who are in very good places want to continue to get better. We self-optimize

00:10:44.900 and we understand about things like the power of visualization. And if the man that is looking

00:10:50.400 back at you from the mirror doesn't look like the version of yourself that you're aspiring to become,

00:10:56.160 whether you like it or not, whether it's conscious or subconscious, to some extent that holds you back

00:11:01.560 from being able to rise to the levels that you're actually capable of doing. And so not only does it

00:11:06.380 affect your own perception of yourself, but it can either negatively or positively impact the way that

00:11:12.220 you interact with other people. Because regardless of what the world tells us now, people do judge you

00:11:16.820 by the way that you look. They do assess you based on how you look. And you can either use that to

00:11:21.360 your advantage. You can have it be used to your disadvantage. You can whine about it. You can

00:11:25.280 embrace it. But the reality of it is that those consequences are there. And so if you choose to

00:11:29.720 understand them and use them to your advantage, then you make your life easier and you see yourself

00:11:35.020 in a better context. So you win in both counts. So let's talk about that idea of perception.

00:11:40.560 You mentioned in the book, the lab code experiment, sort of highlighting the halo effect. What is that?

00:11:45.740 And what can that teach us about how clothes can modify people's perception of us?

00:11:50.680 Yeah. So I love being able to go through and find these two different studies. The lab code one

00:11:54.780 relates to this idea of enclosed cognition. And the way that that experiment was set up was there

00:12:01.120 were two researchers who were trying to understand how much power our own clothing has over our own

00:12:06.240 self-perception. So they took three different groups of people and they had them go through a different

00:12:10.760 series of mental tests to basically gauge how the clothing that they wore that they associated with

00:12:16.480 would impact them. And so the first group, they had them put on a white lab coat and they told them

00:12:20.280 that it was a doctor's coat. The second group, they had them put on the exact same coat and they told

00:12:25.500 them that it was a painter's smock. And then the third group, they had them put the lab coat on a chair

00:12:31.120 in front of them. And it was just something that was available to them as they were taking this test.

00:12:35.260 Now they factored out all these other things like time and persistence and all these other variables

00:12:39.780 that could have affected it. And what they found was that those who wore the coat and understood it

00:12:45.020 to be a lab coat got better results than those who wore it and thought that it was a painter's smock.

00:12:51.380 And those who saw it as a lab coat, but didn't actually put it on were right in between those two.

00:12:56.780 And so the power of the clothing affected their confidence, their brain recall, their own perception of

00:13:02.860 their credibility, authority, how well they could get these answers because they saw themselves

00:13:06.880 as better embodying the things that we think of when we see a doctor wearing a lab coat,

00:13:11.460 which is credible, authoritative, all these other variables.

00:13:14.280 That's crazy. So yeah, the clothes you wear can affect the way you think, basically.

00:13:19.100 100%. Yep. Because if you feel more confident, if you feel more authoritative, if you feel more

00:13:25.280 competent in what you're doing, then you're better able to recall the kinds of things that you need

00:13:31.500 to do in order to actually be more competent, more authoritative, and more competent. That doesn't

00:13:36.560 necessarily mean that it comes out of thin air. It's not like these guys could answer questions

00:13:40.640 that they wouldn't have been able to answer before. But your ability to tap into those resources is

00:13:45.080 enhanced by wearing things that make you feel like you can tap into those resources better.

00:13:49.840 All right. So what's the halo effect? What's going on there?

00:13:52.840 So the halo effect is something very similar, but it has more to do with how other people see you.

00:13:56.700 And the basic idea of it is if we see something or understand something that we like about somebody

00:14:03.120 else, then that creates a halo in which all the other negatives about them are minimized and the

00:14:09.100 positives about them are maximized. So for example, you and I, if I were to see you on the street and

00:14:15.640 not know that you were Brett from the art of manliness, I wouldn't be able to, I would be able to see

00:14:20.740 you more indifferently or more objectively than if I were to see you and recognize that you were Brett,

00:14:25.520 that you were somebody who I respected, somebody whose work I really looked up to, those kinds of

00:14:28.920 things. So regardless of what our interaction on the street would be like, regardless of how poorly

00:14:33.460 you were dressed, regardless of whether or not you were a jerk to the other people who were there, 0.92

00:14:37.240 I would see all of that through a more positive lens because I see you as Brett, somebody that I 0.96

00:14:41.640 look up to and respect versus if you were just some random guy. And so we can create that ourselves

00:14:47.780 by being able to tap into the fact that people like and respect men who are taller and are better

00:14:53.280 looking and exude more discipline and all of these other variables. And those are all things

00:14:57.440 that can be communicated through our clothing, thereby making us more likable, maximizing all

00:15:02.920 of our benefits, minimizing all of our weaknesses. Yeah. I think I've seen some studies on the halo

00:15:07.460 effect where they've done, where they've put guys in different types of clothing and they wouldn't put

00:15:12.260 them out on the street to ask for donations for some, you know, made up whatever organization

00:15:16.660 with one guy, they just had them wearing kind of grubby clothes, like, you know, just like a t-shirt,

00:15:21.060 shirt, jeans, et cetera. And then they had them go back and this time they had on, you know,

00:15:26.840 I think it was like some sort of, it was a, like a polo shirt, like an Izod polo shirt with the

00:15:31.080 alligator. Right. And when they were wearing the Izod shirt, they got more donations than when they

00:15:36.760 were looking grubby. Right. And like, I mean, that's an example of the halo effect, like for

00:15:41.220 whatever reason, whatever silly reason that stupid alligator imbues on someone like status compared 0.99

00:15:48.040 to wearing just a grubby t-shirt. Exactly. And therefore we are more, it's a fixed action 1.00

00:15:53.160 pattern. We don't consciously look at it and go, well, I objectively realized that this man might be

00:15:58.000 higher status and therefore I'm going to be more likely to, no, of course not. But it is just because

00:16:01.960 it's not conscious doesn't mean that it's not real and that there aren't real consequences as a

00:16:06.140 result of experiencing it. So how do embody cognition and the halo effect work together in a

00:16:11.520 synergistic way? Well, that's, what's so fun because when you do it right, then not only do you get

00:16:15.860 all of the benefits of increasing your confidence, tapping into your own resources and becoming a

00:16:20.220 better version of yourself, but then you're able to better exude that so that those things that you

00:16:25.020 are judged positively for end up being stronger. Your weaknesses that you're trying to minimize end

00:16:30.260 up being minimized even more. And so the halo effect has more to work with, more strengths,

00:16:35.600 fewer weaknesses. So that becomes stronger. Therefore you become more likable, more trusted,

00:16:40.880 more trustworthy. People treat you with more respect, which in turn increases your own perception

00:16:45.640 of your confidence, your competence, all of these other variables. And so it is this kind of

00:16:49.760 concentric circles going up in an effect where they feed off of each other very well and you do work

00:16:54.780 to become a better version of yourself. Right. So it creates a virtuous circle, virtuous cycle.

00:16:59.600 Well, I mean, and this is true. I mean, like this doesn't mean you have to go out and wear a suit,

00:17:03.320 right? Like it could be like, maybe you want the halo effect with like you're in a biker gang. 0.85

00:17:08.560 Yes, exactly. A suit's going to be a big drawback if you're in a biker gang. 1.00

00:17:12.300 Right. So you wear clothes that they wear and they're like, oh, I can trust this guy. He's one

00:17:15.720 of me. And they start treating you like a fellow biker gang guy, which makes you feel more like a

00:17:20.540 biker gang guy. And because you're wearing clothes that like a biker gang guy, like you feel more

00:17:24.160 like, so like, yeah, again, that synergistic effect is going on. Exactly. Well, okay. So you

00:17:29.440 mentioned earlier that our clothes can make us feel like we can dress the way we want to feel or the

00:17:36.720 man we want to be. You hear that from style experts, like, you know, dress like the man you want to

00:17:40.520 become and through embody cognition, we can get some of that benefits, but sometimes there's that

00:17:45.520 disconnect or is that cognitive dissonance. I'm wearing these clothes that are supposed to exude

00:17:50.340 power. I'm wearing a suit or whatever, but I feel like they don't, I don't feel like I feel

00:17:54.920 inauthentic in them. How do you, how do you keep that from happening? Or does, is that just going to

00:17:59.620 happen naturally? No, I think it is going to happen naturally. And I think one of the biggest things

00:18:04.080 that men can do is recognize that that's a feature and not a bug because what it should do is force 0.96

00:18:10.540 you to recognize that not only are you seeing yourself differently, you're feeling a little

00:18:13.960 bit of dissonance, but other people are also seeing you and therefore treating you differently.

00:18:18.320 And so you have to improve your actions and improve all of these other variables about you

00:18:23.200 in order to be able to rise up to this new projection of yourself. Otherwise you're either

00:18:28.080 going to maintain that dissonance or it's going to drive you so crazy that you're going to fall

00:18:32.120 back down to what your standard was before. So the first thing is to recognize that that's a good

00:18:36.680 thing. And you want a little bit of that dissonance there because it's, it demonstrates that there's

00:18:40.420 growth. But the second thing is that you also want to treat it kind of like a weightlifting principle

00:18:44.760 of progressive overload. You know, my, if my one rep max on a deadlift is three 15 and my goal is to

00:18:50.680 get it up to 500, I can't go in tomorrow and try and lift 500 pounds. It's not going to do me any good.

00:18:57.180 And if I try and do that day after day after day, I'll never see any progress and I'm going to give up

00:19:01.500 and I'm never going to, I'm never going to try again. But if I go in and I try to get two reps

00:19:06.400 at three 15 and then try and gradually improve and increase what my rep max is. And then my one rep

00:19:12.680 max and, and go into this idea of progressive overload, then yes, there's still this dissonance.

00:19:17.740 It's uncomfortable. It's, it's physically uncomfortable and even mentally a little bit

00:19:20.900 challenging to try and lift more weight every time. But I can get to that point where what was once

00:19:26.100 my one rep max or what was once my default now becomes something that I'm warming up with and I'm

00:19:30.900 getting closer and closer to that goal. Now, obviously with weightlifting, that's very

00:19:34.960 measurable and quantifiable because you're using, you know, units of measurement that are as simple

00:19:38.880 as pounds or kilos with clothing. That's more difficult, but it's still a doable process.

00:19:44.040 Well, and the other thing where this idea of, you know, dressing like the man you want to become,

00:19:47.940 the other thing you hear is like dress for the job you want, not the one you have. And like guys hear

00:19:52.140 that and they're working middle management where, you know, you wear khakis and a, you know,

00:19:56.780 maybe a button down and they start wearing a suit and that backfires on them. I mean,

00:20:01.920 what, what goes on there? Why is that bad? Like, why, why, why would that backfire on you?

00:20:05.300 Whenever like you have, there's a whole halo effect going on. Why what's going on there?

00:20:09.100 Well, the big problem with that is that most guys, when we think about style, we get caught

00:20:13.240 in the trap of thinking that in order to improve it, we need to be more formal. And that's why,

00:20:18.740 even as we've gone through this, you've mentioned suits quite a few times. Most guys,

00:20:22.220 when they find out what I do, they think, oh, well, Tanner will just dress me in a suit because

00:20:26.500 that's what we think is a suit is the best way to have style or the best way to dress well.

00:20:30.500 But really what I do with my coaching clients who are in positions like that, as I would say,

00:20:35.320 let's take the same polo and khakis and we make sure that we get the fit dialed in.

00:20:39.360 We make sure that we get it so that the colors are flattering on you. We make sure that we get it

00:20:43.220 so that there's more texture that's visually interesting. We make sure that the collar sits properly.

00:20:48.500 And so you're taking the same uniform as guys who are in middle management.

00:20:51.760 And from somebody who is not versed in style, they don't necessarily

00:20:55.400 quantify a difference, but they can see that it looks better on you because of all these other

00:21:00.700 things. And so you still get all these benefits of it communicating more discipline, communicating

00:21:06.420 more self-respect. You get all of that enclosed cognition that works for you. And you get a lot

00:21:11.160 of the halo effect that comes with it. Even though technically you're still wearing the same articles

00:21:15.240 of clothing, they're just better versions of them. All right. I think that's a good point.

00:21:18.820 Dressing well doesn't mean dressing formally. Not at all. I think that's a novice mistake a lot

00:21:23.660 of guys make. Okay. So let's get back to this idea of, of status hierarchies. Cause this, I mean,

00:21:28.600 this, we've been kind of talking about this a bit, right? If you're middle management,

00:21:31.420 there's an expectation you dress a certain way. If you're in a biker game, there's an expectation

00:21:36.500 you dress a certain way. And I would, I feel like style was probably easier 50, 60 years ago,

00:21:42.800 because again, right. It was just the suit. Like you wear a suit, you go to Brooks brothers,

00:21:46.720 you get a suit and there you go. And as we said, mentioned in the counterculture, like all these

00:21:51.940 different status hierarchies were established. So you could, you know, you can gain status in a

00:21:57.740 biker game or with an outdoor crew or with mountain climbers or with weightlifters. And they all have

00:22:02.300 their codes of how you should dress and present yourself. And you can have different, like variants,

00:22:07.540 like we've written about this in our series about status. Like you can have high status at work,

00:22:10.560 but low status somewhere else or high status somewhere and low status somewhere else.

00:22:14.780 So, I mean, with all these different status groups with differing ideas of how you should

00:22:21.460 present yourself, like, how do you balance that with, you know, trying to show your allegiance to

00:22:27.700 that? Cause it makes you feel good, but while presenting yourself to the general public,

00:22:31.100 right. You know what I'm saying? Like you have to think about, so what's your approach to that?

00:22:35.980 So the two things that I do to help guys be able to balance this is one,

00:22:40.560 work with them to help them understand which of the tribes or the subcultures that they belong

00:22:45.440 to are the ones from which they most derive their identity. For a lot of guys, that's what they do

00:22:49.560 at work. But for some of us, it's our hobbies, or we may come from a more strict religious culture

00:22:54.900 or a family culture or something else. But if you can prioritize where those different tribes are,

00:22:59.960 as far as how much your identity comes from them, then it helps you to be able to prioritize

00:23:03.920 what you're wearing and how that exudes itself within the general public versus within that tribe

00:23:09.860 itself. So for example, for me, like I dress differently at the gym than I do when I'm out

00:23:17.020 with my buddies or when I'm working with a client. And part of that is because I don't identify

00:23:22.260 primarily as someone who's a guy who goes to the gym. That's not my, that's not my main identity.

00:23:26.440 I have plenty of friends and plenty of clients who do identify most strongly as a bro or a power

00:23:33.060 lifter or a crossfitter or something else. And so they need to be able to take elements of that

00:23:38.920 and put it into their everyday wear, as opposed to having it just be what's within the gym, because

00:23:43.640 that's where their identity strongly comes from. I think another way to kind of have that go hand

00:23:48.200 in hand is you also need to recognize how much does your identity actually want to be congruent with

00:23:54.780 society in general, or how much you want to rebel against it. For me, I was into the BMX and the

00:24:00.500 punk rock scene and all that stuff when I was in high school. And it was very much a benefit that the

00:24:06.920 way that I dressed to fit in with those tribes was a giant middle finger to everybody else. So I didn't 0.98

00:24:14.020 want to have there, I didn't want there to be any kind of bleed or overlap. I wanted it to be a

00:24:19.120 rejection of anybody who wasn't part of my tribe. So you need to factor in those things. And the other

00:24:23.640 variable to consider is this idea of location, because it's very easy for most men to wrap our heads

00:24:28.620 around the idea that I don't wear the same thing when I'm going swimming that I do when I'm going in for

00:24:33.600 jury duty or a court date or something else, right? The function is very different. But what we can see

00:24:41.680 very easily from a function perspective, we often have a very difficult time being able to understand from

00:24:46.780 a communication perspective, or what it is that our clothing communicates. And so I can dress very much

00:24:52.880 like a surfer when I'm at the beach, especially if I belong to that tribe, and not have to worry about

00:24:57.440 bringing that identity in with me when I'm sitting on a jury or when I'm going in for a loan, or I'm doing

00:25:03.000 you know, my presentation on stage or anything else. And so being able to again, take the morality and the

00:25:08.700 identity out of it and be location specific with what you're wearing and being able to recognize that how you

00:25:15.640 blend things is dependent on what your overall tribes are and how important they are. Those are usually the best ways to 0.54

00:25:21.280 tackle that. We're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsors. All right, is there anything

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00:26:23.960 1-800-701-6230. Also by The Great Courses Plus. I'm always trying to learn as much as I can. I know

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00:27:25.800 slash manliness. Again, thegreatcoursesplus.com slash manliness to get a free month of unlimited

00:27:31.120 access to all of their lectures. And now back to the show. And also there's sort of a conversation

00:27:36.440 you need to have or a dialogue you need to have yourself about, you know, this idea of conformity

00:27:39.460 and individuality. So like you might, you know, align yourself with a particular tribe

00:27:43.340 and they dress a certain way, but you know, you might want to differ in a little way. So how do

00:27:47.660 you balance that conforming with the tribe and your own, you know, expressing yourself individually?

00:27:53.600 That's where the idea of tribe versus personal taste, those two are so important because you're

00:27:59.020 absolutely right. Most of us, the vast majority of us don't want to look like we're just a drone or

00:28:04.140 a lemming for any tribe, regardless of how much we may identify with that, that group or that

00:28:08.780 subculture. And so rather than taking it to the extreme of, I have to create new things or pull

00:28:15.980 out new identities. A lot of times it's just taking, if you look at it from just a purely tribal

00:28:20.360 perspective, if all I do is dress according to my gym scene, my, my preferred way of, of exercising,

00:28:26.640 then I'm a very one dimensional character. But if I pull in things from not only that,

00:28:32.320 but what my philosophical beliefs are and the music that I listened to and the things that I do

00:28:37.080 for a living and what my family heritage is and where my roots come from and all of these other

00:28:42.900 things, and you can recognize styles or appearance related cues that come from those things and you

00:28:48.320 blend them all together, then you still will look like you fit in with not only one tribe, but many

00:28:53.520 of those tribes, but you also still get your own personal taste because nobody is going to have the

00:28:58.640 same blend of all of those different cultures and subcultures that you do.

00:29:03.400 Gotcha. Well, let's talk about, you know, sort of the title of your book, The Appearance of Power.

00:29:07.320 And it's all about how, you know, masculinity is conveyed through clothing or aesthetics. So

00:29:12.460 what are those masculine attributes that you think men maybe consciously or subconsciously try to convey

00:29:19.320 with their style?

00:29:20.280 I'm a big subscriber to Jack Donovan's tactical virtues of masculinity. I love the amoral approach

00:29:27.100 to that as well. So those are courage, strength, mastery, and honor. And in the book, I actually go

00:29:32.460 through and I outline a chapter on those tactical virtues and give historic examples of how different

00:29:38.080 men in different cultures have demonstrated those things through our clothing. And some of those are

00:29:42.640 easier to do than others, especially when we look at the physical versions of them. You know,

00:29:46.960 it doesn't matter what tribe you belong to, at what point in history you've lived. If you have a guy

00:29:51.520 who shows up and he's wearing a necklace full of human ears, and it's from the people that he's

00:29:56.160 conquered over the last however many years, you're going to recognize there's some strength and some

00:30:00.200 courage there, and you're going to have a visceral response to it, right? But when we do things that are

00:30:05.920 in a modern civilized culture, and especially when we start looking at things that maybe it's not

00:30:10.980 physical courage, but it's social courage or it's moral courage. And you can look at guys who are

00:30:15.840 willing to take social risk, and so they wear things that are a little bit more trend-setting

00:30:20.740 as opposed to conservative or safe. And one of the reasons we chafe against that is because

00:30:24.560 it shines a light on the fact that we don't have the same social courage as a lot of these other

00:30:28.560 guys do. Or you can look at demonstrations of things like mastery. One of the examples that I give

00:30:34.120 is I have a brother who is a very good snowboarder, and he can dress like the pros because he is one of

00:30:40.440 them when he's up on the mountain, but I'm not good enough to dress like those guys. And so if I

00:30:44.900 were to, then I would be very quickly called out as a poser and recognize that I'm projecting

00:30:50.840 something that is not actually congruent with what my skill set is because I haven't developed

00:30:55.280 the mastery to earn the right to dress in a way that the high-status masters of that sport have.

00:31:00.780 And so we certainly see modern examples of this. It's just a matter of figuring out how that's

00:31:05.960 actually expressed and communicated through the people in your life who matter to you.

00:31:10.440 So the book's called The Appearance of Power. How do you define power? Because I think

00:31:14.020 when people hear that, they think, you know, goose-stepping, boot-jacking, whatever. So

00:31:18.760 what's your approach to power?

00:31:20.280 I would say power is simply the ability to affect change. And that can be on a personal level. That

00:31:26.340 can be on a macro level. I don't necessarily believe in the idea of every man, in order to

00:31:31.000 be powerful, has to be able to conquer and or save the world by himself. But I do think that you

00:31:36.100 should live intentionally and to the greatest extent that you can live life on your own terms. And

00:31:41.040 there's a huge amount of power in that.

00:31:42.980 Well, so let's talk about concrete tactics you can use for, in like today's modern world. Like,

00:31:47.620 you know, you said like the guy in tribal, whatever, Papua New Guinea would wear the ears of the people

00:31:51.820 he killed to display his power. What can guys do today to display these traits you've been talking

00:31:56.800 about?

00:31:57.860 So there are a few things that work kind of generally across the board, because as much as

00:32:02.280 we are not a homogenous society anymore, there's still things that kind of transcend separate

00:32:07.500 cultures. And so even things like understanding what it is that can make your body look bigger

00:32:13.340 and what it is that can help your body get the right proportions. And so those are things like

00:32:18.020 your shoulders being wider than your waist, or that you want to have a certain aesthetic

00:32:22.700 proportions that work out that way. And so understanding things about your body that may

00:32:26.480 be out of proportion. Like for example, I've got my, my arms are gorilla long, like they're way too

00:32:31.520 long for me. And so I've had to have my sleeves shortened in a way and have my J jackets lengthened

00:32:36.620 in a way that it helps to offset that kind of stuff, or even recognizing what kind of colors

00:32:41.260 work well on you so that you can know when you look healthy versus when you're wearing

00:32:45.500 the wrong colors and you end up looking a little bit sallow or sickly, or being able to recognize

00:32:51.460 within even just your work environment, what are the differences between those who are at

00:32:56.560 the top of the food chain? How did they dress compared to how the guys who are in middle

00:33:01.400 management compared to how the guys who are at the bottom of the ladder dress? And what

00:33:05.540 are ways that you can identify with that and start to incorporate that yourself? And

00:33:09.780 again, that doesn't work in a totally macro context. Somebody who works in Silicon Valley

00:33:14.820 for Facebook showing up in a suit every day, isn't going to do you any good, but being able

00:33:19.180 to wear, maybe it's a t-shirt and jeans like everybody else is doing, but instead of it being

00:33:23.420 some really crappy baby boomer, like orthopedic sneakers, you've got a good pair of vintage

00:33:28.660 new balance sneakers or some old school Nikes and your jeans are a good dark wash that more 0.56

00:33:34.200 demonstrates kind of this idea of discipline and versatility. And the fit is nice that

00:33:39.320 it actually makes your arms look a little bit bigger and it makes your shoulders look

00:33:42.600 broader. And so again, you can take the same t-shirt jeans and sneakers that everybody else

00:33:46.640 is doing, but wear it in a way that it makes you look bigger and it makes you look more

00:33:50.520 disciplined. Therefore, like you have more self mastery.

00:33:53.480 Right. So yeah, we've talked about this on the site. You know, one of the things that men

00:33:57.620 and women find attractive in men is the broad shoulders, narrow waist or that taper. And that's 0.95

00:34:02.780 why, I mean, I know like, you know, dressing up doesn't mean necessarily wearing a suit,

00:34:06.100 but like that's what's so powerful about suits because the way they're cut, they give you that

00:34:10.260 nice taper look. And the one thing that most men need to balance out with that, especially because

00:34:14.840 when most guys, they start getting into style, it's really easy to get into the pure scientific

00:34:19.200 stuff of the idea of proportions and colors and fit in those variables. And yes, those are hugely

00:34:24.880 important, but those are always overridden by what's being communicated and expressed through

00:34:30.840 your clothing. And so for example, you'll have somebody who will say, well, I have light skin

00:34:35.700 and light hair. And so wearing a really high contrast outfit, like a dark suit with a white

00:34:41.180 shirt doesn't look good on me. That may be true, but if you're going to a black tie event, you don't

00:34:47.320 show up wearing a really light tuxedo because the context of the environment and what's being

00:34:51.680 communicated with in that environment overrides the purely aesthetic value of you needing to have

00:34:56.800 something on that's lighter contrast than a black, a black tux and a white shirt.

00:35:01.540 Yeah. And I think, you know, an interesting point too, to make is that, you know, you don't necessarily

00:35:04.600 have to wear a suit to get the, you can wear just a blazer or just a very informal casual jacket and get

00:35:12.040 the same effect. Oh yeah. Or even, I mean, my daily wear is usually a pair of jeans with a Henley and

00:35:19.040 then I'll wear some sort of a jacket, whether that's a field jacket or a leather jacket or

00:35:22.960 something else, and then some classic sneakers. And because of how everything fits, because of how

00:35:28.360 well it works, because of the fact that I've got the enclosed cognition that comes with it, therefore

00:35:32.540 my body language, my posture, my confidence, and all those other variables are with it.

00:35:36.700 I still look better than 99% of guys to show up wearing a crappy suit.

00:35:41.440 Right, right, right. Well, okay. So we've been talking about how clothing or the way we dress is 0.87

00:35:47.480 going to depend on our tribe. Well, you know, by tribe, we mean here like the groups you belong to

00:35:52.000 at work, with your personal life, et cetera. But as you said, there's an element of personal style.

00:35:57.800 And in the book, you lay out that, you know, basically men's style, the personal preferences

00:36:02.380 that guys have can fall into three archetypes. Can you tell me a bit about those archetypes?

00:36:06.400 Yes, absolutely. So the three archetypes I've found are such a huge benefit because as soon as you

00:36:11.780 kind of realize that it's not just a suit, it can feel a little bit overwhelming because,

00:36:16.080 okay, then what does good style look like? And what does that look like for me?

00:36:20.120 And so the archetypes are a really good way to be able to recognize how you fit within the world

00:36:24.120 and then start moving in that direction as far as how you dress. And so the way that it's broken

00:36:29.400 down is the archetypes are rugged, refined, and rakish. And so the rugged archetype is typified by

00:36:35.460 men who primarily interact with the world through physical methods. And so that's guys who are really

00:36:40.700 big into nature. They may be blue collar workers. They may be fighters or other guys who very much

00:36:45.300 engage with the world tangibly and physically. The refined archetype are men who engage more through

00:36:50.840 the idea of network and finances and traditional hierarchies and status and those kinds of things.

00:36:56.240 These are the kind of guys who really like to play by the rules. They enjoy the idea of civilization and

00:37:01.260 they thrive in being able to understand rules and then play according to them. And then the third

00:37:07.120 archetype is rakish. And those are men who very much understand the rules, but they thrive by breaking

00:37:12.320 them. They're rebels and iconoclasts. And so those are guys who are more often than not, you know,

00:37:16.420 it's bikers or rock stars or all these other variables where they like to be out kind of on

00:37:21.360 the fringes of society or reject society in general. And so if you can get an idea of where you fit within

00:37:27.700 those, then it helps you start to get an idea of what your style should actually be other than just,

00:37:32.900 I have to dress more formally if I want to look better than I do now.

00:37:36.040 But is a man like holy one archetype or can they be a mix?

00:37:38.820 Oh yeah, absolutely. In fact, it is very, very rare that you don't get elements of all three.

00:37:45.380 And so it's being able to understand. And that's really where a lot of the power comes from. Because

00:37:48.680 again, going back to this idea of being a one dimensional character, if all you do is dress

00:37:53.100 according to a stereotypically rugged archetype or refined or anything else, then you do come across

00:37:58.740 as very one dimensional and you don't feel authentic in what you're wearing because you're

00:38:02.660 really leaning into one component of your life, but you're neglecting the others. But if you can

00:38:07.200 understand which of them is your primary, which is your secondary, which is your tertiary,

00:38:11.960 what the ratio of all three of those are, and then be able to develop your style according to that,

00:38:17.320 then you become more visually interesting, you feel more authentic, and then you're able to get

00:38:21.900 all of those benefits of that halo effect and enclose cognition even more.

00:38:25.160 Well, so let's talk about how these archetypes can guide your style decisions. So let's say

00:38:30.640 you kind of identify with the rugged archetype. So you're kind of an outdoorsy guy. So like

00:38:34.840 what kind of close, like if you were to go to the store, you're online shopping, like what kind

00:38:38.460 of stuff would you pick out? Well, and that's where in and of itself, that is not a full approach.

00:38:43.880 And that's why tribes are so important. Because for example, if you fit into the rugged archetype,

00:38:48.560 and you are somebody who is out in out on the West Coast, and you kind of enjoy hiking in the redwoods,

00:38:55.580 and you're more like a like a tech rugged guy versus a cowboy versus somebody who's a survivalist

00:39:01.480 versus somebody who's into the tactical stuff of military wear, all of those fit within that same

00:39:07.280 rugged archetype, but they're very different tribes. And so being able to understand what

00:39:11.840 kind of clothing you should wear, the archetype is a great place to start. But you do need to dive

00:39:16.940 in deeper into tribes in order to be able to better understand how that archetype manifests itself

00:39:22.000 through you.

00:39:22.800 Okay, so let's talk about like, it sounds like there's a sort of a hierarchy of style decisions.

00:39:26.020 So do you start off with archetype and then move to tribe? And then what's the final one?

00:39:30.160 So this is outlined in the book. So you start off with your body, because that those rules of

00:39:34.780 aesthetics apply everywhere all the time doesn't matter civilization or anything else. From there,

00:39:39.460 you go to archetype upon that you build with tribe. From there, you pepper in ideas of your own

00:39:45.280 personal taste and how you combine your tribes. And then you flesh those that out with the last two

00:39:49.780 steps, which are location, because you should dress differently at the gym than you do when you're

00:39:53.780 at work. And the final one is effort, because you don't want to be putting in more effort

00:39:59.440 than what you're actually getting out in results. And that's different for every man.

00:40:03.780 So yeah, speaking of effort, what's your take on the idea of sprezzatura, right? Where it's like,

00:40:07.660 your style should look effortless. Do you think that's actually a thing? Or do you think that's

00:40:13.340 not?

00:40:14.140 I do. And I think that that ties really well back into this idea of the tactical virtues and

00:40:18.480 especially mastery. Because especially when you get into circles where style is something that

00:40:23.420 matters, or you start to really be able to see the world through this lens,

00:40:26.420 you recognize that it is a skill set. And there are people who are good at dressing well. And there

00:40:31.180 are people who try to, but are really not good at dressing well. And this idea of sprezzatura,

00:40:36.100 or this kind of effortless mastery, is huge because you're able to demonstrate that you are so good

00:40:42.180 that it's effortless, or that you have so much going for you that you can afford to make a quote

00:40:48.120 unquote mistake and have it actually contribute to your style as opposed to work against it.

00:40:52.320 And so one of the reasons why it is so valued is because it's a very modern way

00:40:56.300 to demonstrate that tactical virtue of mastery.

00:40:59.760 So how do you, I mean, when you sit down with a client or say there's a guy listening to this,

00:41:03.040 how do they figure out like what their personal aesthetic is, what their archetype is? I mean,

00:41:08.560 it's like a series of questions or it's just a matter of like, you look at a picture of a guy

00:41:12.700 dressed a certain way and you're like, yeah, I relate to that. Is that kind of what it is?

00:41:16.460 It's kind of a mix of both. And one of the things that I offer for anybody who's interested,

00:41:21.440 you can go take a free quiz on my site where it'll actually tell you which is your primary

00:41:26.180 archetype so you can get started from there. But really developing true style is a matter of being

00:41:31.740 both proactive and reactive, where you want an idea of what your archetypes are. You want to be able

00:41:38.300 to understand and be able to actually quantify and break down what the aesthetic communication is

00:41:44.480 within your tribes. And then when you do find things that you like, it's being able to look

00:41:49.420 at it and go, okay, I really like this jacket. I think that looks really cool. I saw that on

00:41:53.180 somebody's Instagram feed. Okay. So I know that it works from a personal taste perspective.

00:41:58.120 Does that work with my tribes or does at least it just not work negatively within my tribes? Okay,

00:42:02.860 we're good there. And does it work as far as what my archetypes are? Okay, we're good with that.

00:42:06.960 Is the coloring good for my body? Awesome. And then I don't really, from an effort perspective,

00:42:11.940 I don't mind that I have a bunch of things that I can only wear once, or I really want things to

00:42:16.620 be super versatile. And if I'm a super versatile guy, then does it work with all the other things

00:42:21.360 that I have in my closet? If you can check all of those things off, then awesome. You found a great

00:42:25.960 piece. Go buy that jacket. But if you can't, if something falls through the cracks, then you have

00:42:30.840 to look at it and go, okay, does it matter that that fell through the cracks? Should I abandon this?

00:42:35.420 Should I find another way to be able to do it? And so it's a combination of both being proactive

00:42:39.120 and responsive to what you see around you. And we've been talking about archetypes. How do you

00:42:44.000 think guys develop their own individual taste or their own individual take on style? I mean,

00:42:50.200 is it something that's in you or does it, I don't know, I don't know what I'm trying to ask here,

00:42:55.080 but it's like some guys, they seem like they're able to just pick out things that display their

00:43:00.360 individuality and make it work seamlessly, while there's other guys who are just like, I can't do

00:43:04.960 that. So is that a skill like developing your personal preferences and taste a skill?

00:43:09.520 Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's a skill set just like anything else. And you have people who have

00:43:13.420 a natural propensity for art or expression. And so these guys may be able to best demonstrate that

00:43:19.640 through their clothing, whereas other guys are better able to demonstrate that through

00:43:23.460 the way that they speak or the music that they write or any other things, but it's definitely a

00:43:28.320 skill set. And so the best way to develop it and to get good at it is to continue to practice.

00:43:33.480 And that's why I've written the book and introduced this framework so that it takes a lot of the

00:43:38.140 muddiness and a lot of the guesswork out of what the practice should actually be and what it should

00:43:43.120 look like. Because unlike art, unlike music, unlike so many of the other things that people choose to

00:43:48.780 engage in, you have to get dressed every day. You can't just pretend that it doesn't matter.

00:43:54.020 You can't just bury your head in the sand. You're going to deal with the consequences of how you

00:43:58.380 present yourself to the world. And so you might as well actually turn it into a skill set that's

00:44:02.940 working for you as opposed to a liability that's working against you.

00:44:06.740 So one thing I've noticed over the years writing The Art of Manliness, when there's guys who are

00:44:10.600 like, I'm ready to change my life, the first thing they do is go to changing the way they dress.

00:44:16.320 Do you think that should be the first thing guys do? Or are there other things you think guys should

00:44:20.520 focus on first?

00:44:21.380 I think that it's one of the first things, if you are the kind of person who needs kind of an easy win,

00:44:27.060 because it is an easy win. You can go out and buy new clothes within a day. And if you know what

00:44:31.700 it is that you're looking for, then that's an awesome way. And it's a very easy way for you

00:44:35.640 to feel like, okay, I've made some progress. I'm actually becoming a better version of myself

00:44:39.460 because unlike trying to improve your relationships or your finances or your own self-talk or even your

00:44:46.080 physique, those are all things that are way more important than the way you dress. And I want to

00:44:51.260 make sure that I iterate that style is by no means like a primary thing that a man needs to improve,

00:44:55.840 but that doesn't mean that it's not impactful. All those other things are way more important,

00:44:59.340 but they also take more time. And so if you're the kind of person that needs some little wins to

00:45:04.500 get your victories going and to be able to maintain that momentum, then style is absolutely a great

00:45:09.240 thing to do. Now that said, there's some costs that come with that because improving your

00:45:13.880 relationships, your own self-talk, your mindset, improving your finances, those are things that can

00:45:19.260 be done very privately. And so as you go through the learning curve, as you make mistakes, as you have

00:45:24.180 small victories, nobody else is going to see you. But if you start off with your style,

00:45:29.100 that's a very visible thing. And so if you're not able to be able to deal with a lot of the

00:45:33.880 consequences, both negative and positive that come from doing this, then I would say you want to wait

00:45:39.000 until you're further along in some of your other self-development or self-optimization before you

00:45:42.960 start changing the way that you dress.

00:45:44.300 So it can be a great tool to kickstart if you're kind of in a funk.

00:45:48.280 Yes.

00:45:48.860 Yeah. I mean, I love, I don't know if you probably, I mean, maybe you watched this back in the day,

00:45:51.940 like what not to wear on TLC.

00:45:54.160 No, never saw, I mean, I know what you're talking about, but I never sat there.

00:45:56.700 Yeah. My wife was a big fan. So every time, you know, when she's watching, I sometimes watch it.

00:46:00.020 Like, it was amazing to see like the transformation, just like wearing better clothes, like hat on people.

00:46:05.480 Like they got huge, they got new jobs. They, you know, mended a relationship that was bad.

00:46:10.820 They started losing weight. I mean, I think, yeah, people downplay,

00:46:13.600 but it can be incredibly powerful.

00:46:15.260 Yep. Cause it is, it's an easy win and it's one that's very public. And so other people see you

00:46:19.620 as somebody who's making other gains in other areas. So again, that halo effect, you may not

00:46:23.900 have lost as much weight, but people will believe you that you're actually serious about losing weight

00:46:28.360 because they can see demonstrably that you were serious about improving another component of your

00:46:32.320 life.

00:46:32.760 Well, Tanner, this has been a great conversation. We had a whole conversation about men's style

00:46:35.720 without talking about how to match ties to suits.

00:46:39.360 I love it. That's the way to do it, right?

00:46:41.220 Right. Well, where can people go to learn more about your work?

00:46:44.340 So my main site is masculine-style.com. You can find stuff there. You can also take the archetype

00:46:49.940 quiz there. I'm most active when it comes to social media on Twitter and Instagram. And both of those

00:46:55.100 are at Tanner Guzzi. And then you can pick up The Appearance of Power on Amazon, on Audible. You can

00:47:00.960 check it all out through there.

00:47:02.120 Fantastic. Well, Tanner Guzzi, thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:47:04.500 Thanks, Brad. It's been a blast.

00:47:05.680 My guest today was Tanner Guzzi. He's the author of the book, The Appearance of Power. It's available

00:47:09.180 on amazon.com. You can also find out more information about his work at masculine-style.com.

00:47:13.820 Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash appearanceofpower, where you can find links to

00:47:17.980 resources where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:47:31.880 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,

00:47:36.080 make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And if you

00:47:39.300 enjoy the podcast, I'd appreciate it if you give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. Helps

00:47:42.520 out a lot. As always, thank you for your continued support. And until next time, this is Brett

00:47:45.780 McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - April 19, 2018

#398： Should a Man Care About How He Dresses？

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