Nerds, it's time to up your fashion game. | Hacker News Reader

Nerds, it's time to up your fashion game.

140stitches.com

10 pointsjordynclee33 comments

Logged in just to comment here. Whoever's behind 140---STOP. Your copy SUCKS. Your alpha-ness or cool girl-ness or whatever wannabe intimidation factor oozes off the page, and you know what? Fuck you. Being "cool" wins you no points here. And here matters, at least to you, because you've apparently chosen it as your target market.

You want to know how to win friends and influence people here? Take a page from the book of OKCupid pre-acquisition. OKTrends was amazing. That stuff is crack to your target market. Look at the data. Figure out the principles behind the stuff. Figure out the Laws of Fashion. If there aren't any, and it's completely...well...fashion-driven, then drop down to the data again, and cut your advice to, "shirt x has been selling 30% more than comparably-priced shirts, and female focus groups rated it significantly more attractive than the rest of its cohort."

Without data, you're just a fashion blogger who thinks they're among easy pickings.

My target market is any guy who wants some advice when it comes to fashion. There will be some guys on HN who do want advice, and apparently some that don't. I understand that and I'm okay with it. I would agree that OKTrends is an amazing site. However, it's not what I'm going for. I'll let them handle the data. I'll stick with what I know.

So I understand that this is the kind of copy that is frequently used to sell clothes. "Thou art insufficient! Accept my wisdom and I shall lift thee from thy ignorance!" It's just like every crappy teen movie, make-over show and magazine cover.

It's also not appealing. Your vision of "nerd" seems to be nothing but "young white guys who don't work out much": who thinks of themselves that way? It is possible to be a fashion nerd, approaching the topic from a scientific, data-driven, rules-based or technology-incorporating point of view. An article about the history of pants got a bunch of upvotes a while back. MIT has clothes that strip pollution out of the air. That's nerdy fashion.

When talking to nerds, I wouldn't don't assume the audience will be sold by being told that there is something wrong with them that you can fix. Instead, be passionate and apply a nerdy lens to whatever that topic might be. Most of us are perfectly capable of doing the research to look good, and most of us don't bother. We don't need a savior; we might use some automation to lower the effort involved.

Thanks for your input. I enjoyed your thoughts on approaching things in a "fashion nerd" sort of way and was intrigued by the ideas of date-driven and scientific research to back up a point of view. However, I'm here to give simple fashion advice to guys who are willing to take it. They are perfectly capable of doing the research to look good; my hope is they'll find 140 Stitches to give it to them.

I'm definitely interested in learning more about fashion but your copy rubs me the wrong way.

Also, linking to blogs like http://www.theurbangent.com/ is like linking a "first programming tutorial" to a CPU instruction set reference.

Things like http://www.theurbangent.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/patte... are baffling and incomprehensible to people who are not "into" fashion and are likely to make them reject the whole thing as a game for weird androgynous alien children.

As a nerd, what I would love to see is:

How to identify quality clothes - how are they made, what makes them awesome? Designer/brand name hacks - what's a huge bargain for the quality and when am I just buying a brand name?

Color/pattern theory - still not sure what colors go together and how to mix patterns.

Some sort of system for building a wardrobe where I can easily select stuff that works together when my mind is busy thinking of building stuff and not what to wear.

How things are supposed to fit. How to care for stuff so it doesn't shrink or fall apart.

Hope this helps...

Thank you so much for your great advice. You are the epitome of the guy that I want to help, because I understand you're busy building amazing products and don't have time to think about clothes. I will definitely take your advice and write posts regarding each one, so keep a look out! And for the record, I think those guys on The Urban Gentleman look awful. Please don't leave the house in that. ;)

From her about me section:

If you think I'm just your average fashion obsessed girly girl, think again. I know my fair share about the interwebs and my favorite movie is The Social Network, in which I may or may not know every line. TechCrunch is one of my daily reads and Jack Dorsey has my heart. Jack - if you're reading this - I love you.

Basically what I'm trying to say here is, I understand your language.

[end quote]

Sigh.

Dear Jordyn of 140stitches.com.

Thank you for your fashion advice! I'm one of the guys that organized the Perl 6 hackathon you so gracefully commented. I can inform you that we had absolutely no dress code requirements for this event, so your unsolicited advice is quite appreciated.

Obviously, failing to consider fashion issues when attending a Perl 6 hackathon was a mistake. We had no idea that more girls would show up to this hackathon - if we only had worn our best garments! I'm sure we'd all have Perl 6-hacking supergenius awesomely beautiful girlfriends had it not been for this single omission in our program.

You see, we've found out through several years of field testing, focus group sessions, long-form questionnaires and cross-section polls, that being "fashionable" has absolutely no effect on a practitioner's ability to write good software. If we only had known better!

We know now that we were mistaken. Thank you for enlightening us!

This is why I'd like to formally invite you to attend our next Perl 6 hackathon. I think it's reasonable that you get an opportunity to bring your expertise and garments to this venue, and show us all that your well-honed fashion sense can help us reach our (admittedly secondary) goal of bringing more girls to the Perl 6 community.

Thank you for your constructive critique, I'm looking forward to see your work at our next hackathon!

Kind regards,

- sjn (hackathon organizer)

I happen to be one of the folks on the image in the middle.

Going to a hackathon with a conference t-shirt seems to be quite appropriate to me.

And jordynclee, if you read this, please take that picture off that blog. I don't think you have permission to use it, neither from its creator, nor from the people on that image.

The author misses the point. The bad looks and ill fitting clothes are a fashion statement.

They're a huge middle finger to the status quo, like punk rock or braid (The video game.).

I don't think any of the people in those photos would tell you they looked good.

I understand that for some, the ill fitting clothes are a fashion statement, and that's great! I could talk all day about personal style and wearing clothes that make you feel good. However, there are guys out there who actually want some advice because they really don't know what to wear. That's what I'm here for. If you're one of the guys saying fuck you to the status quo, then more power to ya. :)

Am I the only one insulted by this?

> Well, because I seriously love you guys and believe your inept fashion sense is holding you back. It's holding you back from getting the girl.

I can get girls just fine with my v-neck shirt, thank you.

If you're wearing v-necks, then you don't even need my help. :)

Then I think your target audience is rather small, I can't imagine many guys wearing only hackathon t-shirts!

I can't imagine guys wearing only Hackathon shirts either; that was just an example. My target audience is any guy who wants some fashion advice.

eh. i was thinking about this the other day. about how i'd like to tell people what style is. and how hard it is to tell anyone anything about such a personal choice.

i'm a nerd. i'm also someone who ended up in a completely different culture. one where, i realised, i looked just plain stupid. i changed. now, i think, i dress pretty well.

but it was a very personal journey. and i had to think hard about a lot of very important things on the way. i didn't wear a t-shirt and jeans just because i was clueless. it was also a statement about what was important to me. which certainly didn't include brands.

balancing that and finding my own style took a lot of time. it was also very interesting. and i now enjoy thinking about clothes (in a broad sense - it's all about context and culture; it's only about money in the sense that culture and class are deeply linked).

i'm not sure how much of that you're going to get in an "advice column" format. and i'm not sure if you're expecting the kind of deep emotion behind "anti-fashion" that a lot of people have. i think you may be surprised at people's (negative) reactions...

Your comment made me very happy, as I'm sure you've noticed the negative comments that you predicted. :) I would definitely agree with you that style is a personal choice. Good job finding a style that makes you feel happy and confident! My goal here isn't to tell people that they aren't dressing well. My goal is to help those guys who truly want some fashion advice. At the end of the day, some people will love it and some will hate it. If only one guy takes my advice and appreciates honest help, I'll be a happy girl.:)

i expanded on this at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4355517 / http://www.acooke.org/cute/HowToDress0.html

> I'm here to let you in on the little secrets of fashion so people think you're more awesome than you truly are.

I hope that came out wrong, I really do.

The copy on this site comes off as pretentious and kind of annoying to me. Maybe it's just the groups I associate with, but am I the only one who thinks that the stereotype of the fashion-clueless nerd really isn't as pervasive in current reality as it once was?

I'm here to let you in on the little secrets of fashion so people think you're even more awesome than you already are.

That's how this should read. That would make unprofessional copy look like lazy professional copy, although I suppose there's a more general issue with tone throughout the post. Needless to say a lot of work still needs to be done.

As for the idea itself, I would probably try to appeal to qualities that nerds value. For example, they sure spend a great deal of time making sure their code is elegant. Maybe you could try to see how you can translate the rules of elegance as they apply to code into fashion parlance.

That's really no less objectionable, it's still suggesting self-serving dishonest manipulation of people vulnerable to it.

The intention of this blog is to give fashion advice to guys who truly want help. Of course there will be guys out there who are content with the way they dress, but there are a handful that really do want honest help and don't have a place to go. If you find value in 140 Stitches, great. If not, that's okay too.

And no doubt you will still find guys who want help, even if - in my own anecdotal experience - there's not as many of these guys around as there perhaps once was. And I wish you luck.

But what I took issue with was the tone you use in some of your writing. That sentence I quoted from your site just sounds horrible and my initial gut reaction to it is that you don't know the audience you're apparently targeting. The little secrets of fashion that will help me fool people into thinking I'm more awesome that I actually am? Yes, first impressions are important, people often judge a book by its cover, etc. etc. but ultimately, trying to keep up such charades (when not able to base things off some true aspect of who you really are) is unsatisfying, tiring and counter-productive. Ergo, I honestly hope that sentence doesn't convey what you really meant.

You say you understand our language, but I see little so far that confirms this. If I could give some subjective but hopfully constructive criticism: dial back the bravado just a little, show us some interesting research/data about your chosen topic, or just tell us an insightful story or two about fashion and nerds.

Using the word 'interwebs' and saying you liked The Social Network isn't - on its own - enough to convince me you understand my world. In relative isolation, it actually has the opposite effect to what I assume you intended, i.e. it comes off as 'try-hard' or contrived.

Thanks for the feedback. I will definitely take it into consideration for future posts. I've learned a lot through these comments and I really value everyone's opinion.

Also, my point in saying I like The Social Network, etc. meant nothing more than to explain why I've started 140 Stiches; I have a love for technology and fashion and want to give advice to guys in technology who are willing to take it.

> Also, my point in saying I like The Social Network, etc. meant nothing more than to explain why I've started 140 Stiches; I have a love for technology and fashion and want to give advice to guys in technology who are willing to take it.

OK. But you follow up the paragraph in question with 'Basically what I'm trying to say here is, I understand your language.' which implied to me that the purpose of the preceeding paragraph was largely to establish your 'geek credentials' in some manner. This (in isolation) is what rang hollow for me.

This post identifies a "problem" and then offers no solution whatsoever. Previews that offer no meaningful information at all belong in a movie theater. Not on HN. Flagged.

The intention of this post is to introduce 140 Stitches. Solutions to the problem are what you'll find by reading through previous (and future) posts: http://140stitches.com/2012/6/23/45dkoigztqz7m44e2xeach68214... and http://140stitches.com/2012/7/1/bloglovin-raises-1m. Hope this clears up any misunderstanding!

Nerds are always viewed as condescending towards "normal" people but imagine if somebody actually went and wrote on a technical subject aimed at a non-technical audience in this style.

I'm not clear on the mission of 140 Stitches. Are you just going to be blogging? Is the goal to offer consulting services? Will you be selling merchandise on the site?

The mission of 140 Stitches is to provide fashion advice to guys who are looking for it. I do provide consulting services, but the main portion will be giving information to guys who don't know a lot about clothes or fashion. For example, I wrote a post about different ways you can wear a hoodie sweatshirt. I also hope to dive into how to spot quality clothing, when it's a good time to splurge on certain items, etc. Hope this helps!

This isn't fashion advice for nerds. Becoming traditionally fashionable will render nerds un-nerdy.

There's nothing wrong with fashion blogs, but this feels like it's aimed at what the author perceives as being low-hanging fruit / easy pickings. It feels a little bit condescending.

There might be a market here, but I don't think this site has the tone quite right (yet).

"because nerds can be trendy too"

of course they can. who said they/we want to be?

"If you're relating to these pictures"

... what pictures?

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