Three Fashion Mistakes that Make You Look Like a Douchebag

Women understand when men fail at dressing fashionably. Men aren?t groomed to dress with style the way women are, so we sympathize when you accidentally wear a graphic T-shirt best suited to someone a few years younger, or when you load up too much on gaudy accessories. You can always plead ignorance. But there are a few fashion crimes so horrible that they are beyond forgiveness.

1. Wearing a long sleeved top under a short sleeved top

Faux pas

Wearing long sleeves under short sleeves makes you appear like you are stupid and have no style. There is no logic behind putting long sleeves under short sleeves; it should be the other way around. This way, if you get too hot in your long-sleeved top, you can take it off to reveal the T-shirt underneath. The only reason I can think of for wearing a T-shirt underneath a long sleeved top is if it is a cold day and you are too poor to afford nice long sleeved tops, so you have to put your nicest T-shirt on top of your ratty long sleeved top. Poverty is generally not an alluring look.

Style-wise, there is no reason why you should ever put long sleeves under short. Doing so opens up opportunities for mismatching between the color of the protruding sleeves and the rest of your outfit. There is simply no color combination that looks good. If you choose long sleeves that are the same color as the T-shirt over it, you will look like you think the boundary between the sleeves is invisible, which it clearly is not. Neither you nor your T-shirt has invisibility powers. Even if you manage to select a color combination that usually works, you will still look like a seven-year-old kid whose mom has dressed him.

If the long sleeves under your T-shirt are from a thermal underwear top, that is even worse. There are better looking ways to keep warm- skip the thermals and wear a sweater instead.

2. 90s style spiked hair

Twenty years ago, spiked hair was the height of street fashion. In the 70s and 80s it also enjoyed popularity, snaking its way from punk culture into the mainstream. Today, guys sporting spiky hairdos look like they have escaped from the pages of a comic book.

I?m not talking the about short, small, messy spikes favoured by young men. Some subtle spiking at the front of your hair suits plenty of men and if that?s your look, keep wearing it. Just don?t make the mistake of covering the entire top of your head in liberty spikes, or you?ll look like a cartoon dinosaur.

3. Socks with sandals or flip flops

If it?s a cold enough day that you have to wear socks, you shouldn?t be wearing sandals. Socks are not the most appealing piece of clothing, being notorious for smelling bad. Nor are sandals particularly attractive footwear, so why would you advertise that you are wearing both at once? Even worse is wearing flip flops with socks, as the material from your socks bunches up at the toe strap. Surely that can?t be comfortable.

Even if you don?t understand why pairing sandals or flip flops with woolly socks is aesthetically unappealing, you can appreciate the connotations. Wearing socks and sandals marks you as either a daggy dad, or a tourist who didn?t pack appropriately, or worse: both. Every now and then, magazines and fashion gurus will try to tell you that socks with sandals is the hottest thing on the catwalk right now. Resist their assurances-you?ll look stupid trying to carry it off on the street.