Tech CEOs are hot now, so workers are hiring $500-an-hour fashion consultants
sfstandard.com
sfstandard.com
https://www.youtube.com/@MensFashioner
She's a celebrity menswear stylist:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/fashion/the-woman-who-dre...
I started watching her videos out of curiosity, and then was really surprised to realize that dressing well is a skill like any other. And that it's not about spending a lot of money, but mostly about learning to pick colors and types of clothing that work well together and work for your specific skin tone and body type, and that are appropriate for the season and setting.
Some of the videos can be a bit clickbaity ("10 things you should NEVER wear!"), but she has a lot of videos that just cover the basics that are really genuinely valuable -- she clearly really cares about trying to help guys dress better. It's a lot of advice that I really wish I'd had someone teach me growing up.
Not at all. Check out https://x.com/dieworkwear. He talks extensively about this.
Having better posture means making better impressions.
Making better impressions is the whole purpose of dressing nice.
You don't have to be a macho with bulging biceps and a ripped six pack, but you can't be a fat couch potato made of blubber either.
Some bullet points from my career.
1] Get in shape, theres a reason why models exist and they can wear anything and make it look good
2] Wear clothes that fit/ get your clothes tailored
3] Clothes are costumes. if you want to fit in, wear what everyone else is wearing, if you want to stand out be bold
4] Be true to your self and your style will show through. Aesthetics emerge as a result of small choices that add up
It would be different if the entire fashion and clothing industry weren't completely terrible about exploiting labor and doing stupid things like selling ripped T-shirts for hundreds of dollars.
I look forward to never judging anyone based on the clothes they were just so I can justify my own purchases and insecurity.
Cheap jeans and T-shirts for life.
Do you believe marketing towards this segment won't be as predatory as possible and predicated upon profiteering off their insecurities, like fashion tends to do for all segments anyways?
Yes.
> Do you believe marketing towards this segment...
Motte...
> like fashion tends to do for all segments anyways?
...meet bailey. What I held, and you claim to be arguing.
The claim I'm arguing is that fashion marketing targeted towards any segment is predatory anyways.
There's no false conflation. If what I'm claiming is true, it follows that this marketing agenda is also predatory: because it's fashion marketing targeted towards a pretty particular segment.
Another way of interpreting my question was: "do you really believe fashion marketing targets everyone but IT people with predatory marketing?"
Let the insecurity continue
Fix the person not the clothes
At a glance, I couldn’t tell which was the before and which was the after. The shoes are the most telling, only because no ‘before’ guy would have bought yellow shoes. I’ll admit that black and navy (before) don’t look good together, but the after photo doesn’t look great either. I wonder if it was more or less than a thousand dollars between the clothes and the consultant’s fee.
I imagine this market will be disrupted by an AI-based app that costs much, much less (and only occasionally hallucinates that you look good in something that actually looks awful).
GenAI can't even distinguish between "good" code and "bad" code, which should be much simpler. Believing it's anywhere close to magically developing fashion taste is "AI is magic pixie dust" wishful thinking territory.
Besides, most of the good/bad is based on factors that AI "safety" is scrambling to avoid. If you're a flabby 250lbs 5'10" you have to dress much differently than someone who's an in-shape 180 6'2" in order to look "respectable". But try encoding that into a GenAI product without getting the media jumping down your throat.
On the other hand, a fashion advisor GenAI that can't tell good fashion from bad fashion is worthless because the whole point is to tell good from bad. If the AI agent is going to pick out stuff which looks bad anyway, why wouldn't I just do it myself and save the $15/month that whatever idiot SF tech app is charging me?
The headline also talks about a $500 an hour service, but the hourly consultation service was $300 with "plans" increase to $500. The $500 service they mentioned was for a consultation followed by a 3-hour shopping trip, so not an hourly charge.
Just doing my part to counteract the "tech workers are actually attractive" myth this article is peddling by revealing how unattractive pedantic dorks really are.
Funny that the article focuses on the men. I'll guess its not supposed to be surprising that women will spend large amounts of money on fashion consultants.
Honestly I've always thought that men had it easy. Suite or sports jacket or t shirt. There's dozens of stores out there that will take your measurements and order something non-offensive.
I've never been good with clothes and being a woman it tech makes it no easier. I don't have a feel for what good professional clothing looks like for women. Not too feminine, not too masculine. Not too revealing, not too covered up. Not too colorful/not too dull. If I found myself scheduled to give a presentation at a tech conference I probably would hire a consultant.
> Suite or sports jacket or t shirt
Suit (or dress) or tailored shirt (maybe similarly with jacket but not suit trousers) or blouse.
Bear in mind you probably care about it more than anyone looking at you, especially if you're giving 'a presentation at a tech conference'.
So long as you are meeting the minimum standards of hygiene, decency, formality, and (if applicable) conformity of your environment, nothing else matters. Who cares? It's a free world for most of us.
Now I’ve gone full dragon programmer mode. My beard is out of control. I work from home and wear basketball shorts and a beefy-T 99% of the time. I wear barefoot shoes and don’t care about style whatsoever. My wife hates it. I feel free. Time to go recompile a kernel.
I think the trend in tech fashion is high-quality, custom-fitted, non-plastic, basics. It tends to be "quiet luxury" but more for basics - such as high-end jeans. Absolutely no logos.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScGeTKSIZh0rhCceGE0...
That said, if I spent 500 dollars for a one-hour consultation and the result was a flannel long-sleeve shirt, nondescript jeans, and some van's oldskools, well, I'd politely ask for my money back.
That's been a standard look for 25 years, likely more. Plus, the fit; not loose enough for more modern fashion sensibilities and not form-fitting enough to look hip 15 years ago. And don't get me started on the color palette (the yellow of the shoes are a nice touch, to be fair).
Disclaimer: I'm getting dangerously close to 40, so it is overwhelmingly likely that I'm missing something. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a windmill I need to yell at.
Lots of tech bros and ceo's I see rocking the classic black turtle neck like jobs, the expensive vest jacket, and then their are the folks who wear patterns on work shirts and sweaters.
Side note: looking back at those clips of the EX Microsoft guy yelling about developers....his color of blue shirt always stood out to me
It’s possible, but kinda hard to mess up. At least if your point of comparison is a t-shirt and jeans.