Fashion for Geeks: Why bother?

It's true! When I'm with the ladies I can go on for hours about a random content generator I'm working on for fun, I can forward tons of /. links with explanations about what makes them interesting, I can call with a frequency and average message length just past the line of "creepy," I can be visibly nervous and embarrassingly insecure, and I can show up for teh love having skipped a shower and on 3 hours of sleep. But as long as I throw on a $75 hoodie, some prefaded jeans, and a pair of Pumas, my shit is tight!

Well with proper fashion, the enemy's gate is always down.<p>I just pay $12/year and subscribe to "Nylon for guys" magazine (<a href="http://guys.nylonmag.com/" rel="nofollow">http://guys.nylonmag.com/</a>) - it really does do all the work involved with "staying current" so you don't have to look like this guy: <a href="http://yogan.meinungsverstaerker.de/fun/80s1337ness.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://yogan.meinungsverstaerker.de/fun/80s1337ness.jpg</a><p>Also, I wouldn't consider the last photo of you to be "haute couture": you're just copying Steve Jobs with a little bit of hair gel.

I have a simple solution: get a girlfriend. I now wear nice shirts that apparently compliment my skin tone (who knew?), I wear layers (apparently very sexy) and I now have $300 shoes. I've never owned $300 shoes in my life.<p>Once you have a girlfriend, dressing fashionably is rather easy and mainly because I'm no longer allowed to choose except between Brown Shirt #1 and #2.

Potentially the worst article I've seen on HN. It spends several paragraphs stereotyping women, damning them for caring about looks, and then promoting the author's superiority for basically being smarter than them. (He understands the social hierarchy thing, they don't.) Then, without irony, he appeals to Natalie Portman, who is someone that is - wait for it - attractive.<p>Girls like guys who look nice for the same reason guys like girls who look nice: it's more attractive.

Hmm, I don't like the stereotype. Most of my friends that are programmers are fairly fashion forward.<p>I live in Vancouver, so maybe that is different from the valley.<p>Some of my friends are the Yaletown game developer nerds. This probably describes me. I like my Pumas and Lacoste shoes. When Douglas Coupland described the "Nikumas" in his book jPod, I almost fell over from laughing because he described the situation perfectly. The rest of the attire fits the shoes. Think Kanye West's outfit.<p>I know the Gastown web developer nerds too. They wear their Skechers and other hipster-nerd shoes. The rest of the attire matches.

Fashion != being well dressed. You can buy the most fashionable pant and still looks like a clown because it is too large or too short. But you can dress well without any clue in fashion. Just be careful about the size (that's the point when buying new clothes) and colors. Most people would go from a bad look to a decent one just by resizing their clothes to suit them correctly. And never forget : the white shirt is the best ally of men since forever.

The article would be more convincing if the "well dressed" examples were well dressed. Well, and also if it was well written. There has been no era in which a cheap white blazer over an olive drab t-shirt looked good.<p>Unfortunately, reading fashion magazines doesn't really improve a person's style unless you already look like a fashion model. San Francisco is filled with programmers who wear expensive, trendy gear and they don't look much better than the hacker slobs because it doesn't really suit their body shape or personality. In fact, they look like posers who spent $50 on a too-small t-shirt and $200 on sneakers that look like aerobic trainers from a B-movie about the future.<p>Simple, clean clothes that suit your body shape are a better bet. Most guys would be doing themselves a favor by donating their wardrobe to goodwill and spending a few hundred dollars buying some fresh basics.

Never before on hacker news have more words been said about less.<p>Launch and get funded. Then no one will care what you're wearing.

Who says the geeks on HN need fashion help, anyway?

I have that t-shirt...