Those Devilish Details

In order to look normal and not like you just escaped an institution, you know you need to check off certain boxes when it comes to the details of your appearance. Shower. Shave once in a while. Clean clothes. Then you level up a bit. Socks match trousers. Shoes match belt. Pocket square peeking out just so.

But there are certain other details that, I find, stand out more than others when they are neglected and I never see them on “Get The Details Right”-type articles.

In my “Tips For Buying A Wedding Ring” article, I mentioned how I once worked with a guy whose wedding ring was too big for him. As in, the circumference of the ring was too large for his finger, not that the style was too large. It was always flapping around on his finger. He played with it all the time since it was too loose. I couldn’t look away from it since I was nervous it was always about to fall off. The following details are like that. Where something looks wrong about a thing that shouldn’t command much, if any, attention, but because of that, you can’t NOT see it.

Kind of like how Bill Barr’s glasses always look like when you stuff those little plastic glasses onto a Mr. Potato Head and they look like they are about to shoot off at any second.

Here are two hyper-specific details that sometimes even very stylish dressers neglect.

Shoelaces – I am amazed at the number of men I see who clearly have never given an ounce of thought to tying their shoes properly. Ever since I was six years old I thought everyone, when they tied a bow, made the two loops similar size, as well as the two ends.

I frequently see well-dressed men throw their whole look in the garbage with terribly tied shoes. Off-kilter bows. Ends dragging on the ground. It looks sloppy and childish. It looks like you don’t know how to dress yourself.

Why would you take all that time to get dressed and then phone it in when it comes to the thing we have all been doing our whole lives? Shouldn’t we be good at it by now? It makes even well-made, high-quality shoes look like trash. And forget about it if you’re doing it with cheap shoes.

And no, you don’t need to tuck your laces into your shoes. That’s just bizarre. I wouldn’t leave my kids with anyone who tucked their laces into their dress shoes.

Watch Size – Again, I am not talking about the style of the watch (like 42mm vs 36mm). I mean the size of the bracelet in relation to the circumference of one’s wrist.

This is usually only an issue with metal bracelets, as opposed to leather or fabric straps, since the metal bracelet can’t be sized quite as easily as other materials. But when a watch is too large, to the point where it is sitting on the hand when the arm is at rest, it, again, makes the wearer look childish.

It looks like he found the watch in his daddy’s drawer and is wearing it to play “businessman”. A metal bracelet (especially one that doesn’t have some sort of easy adjustment contraption) is like a suit. It requires some time in order to get sized properly. Unless you’ve practiced doing it yourself, you sometimes need to take the watch somewhere to have some links removed. That can be a pain. Also, some men feel self-conscious about the size of their wrists. It may hurt their ego to have a bunch of links removed from a watch to fit on their slender wrists. So they wear a watch that’s too large which makes their wrists look even smaller.

This one thin guy I went to college with wore a watch that was so big he could slide it over his hand without opening the clasp. It’s an extreme example, but it didn’t matter how nice the watch was since it looked so ridiculous.

If your watch fits, you look like a man. If your watch doesn’t fit, you look like a kid. It doesn’t matter what your body type is.

So yes, the devil certainly IS in the details, as they say. And I just gave you two more to worry about. Sorry about that. But it’s all in the interest of the greater good.