Welcome to part one of my Affordable Gentleman series! I'm distinctly excited to start helping any of you gents who would care to lend an ear to the advice I have to offer.
Now, I'd planned to start with something entirely different for this first official segment in my menswear advice column. However, a perfect example of exactly the kind of price-gouging I referred to in my introduction quite literally fell into my lap several days ago, and I just have to share it.
As you probably know, ads will often be strategically arranged and placed on the margins of certain websites based on their theme and content. When I looked back at my article after it had been published, I noticed an ad placed right at the bottom from gilt.com, a higher-end online shopping outlet. This is the ad that was placed there:
Now, I'm going to take this ad as a perfect example of the pros and cons of online menswear shopping and menswear shopping in general.
A large part of knowing your stuff in this department comes from knowing appropriate price ranges for specific items, as well as keeping an eye on sales for those items to enter those sweet spots. This ad is an extremely mixed bag of good, mediocre and absurdly overpriced finds. For example, the tapered tan jeans featured on the bottom left are definitely worth it. If you find a pair of well-made jeans in a style and fit that you like that's priced between 20 and $30 buy them. That is an excellent price for quality denim, and it is usually not worth it to spend more than $35 on the high end for jeans. Keep in mind that Abercrombie and Fitch consider $39 jeans from them to be a steal.
When it comes to the tuxedos featured here, I do have to admit - when buying a tux, keep in mind that while you will only be wearing it for a small handful of specific events, those events are the times you will want to look so good, Daniel Craig might get jealous...might. Therefore, what you pay for is quite often what you get. As I've observed, $500 is a fairly well-rounded price range for a tuxedo, albeit a high one, especially from the college graduate's perspective and budget. Also, it's highly doubtful that you'll need a tux for some time after graduating. A solid, reliable suit would be a much wiser investment, and I will be dedicating much more time to suit shopping and sizing in future articles.
However, I will say that the wool sportcoat featured on the middle right of the ad is ridiculously overpriced. Keep in mind that a sportcoat or blazer is meant to be worn as a complementary piece to a potentially dressed-down or more casual outfit. It's supposed to be a versatile piece that can be worn in many different formal and informal ways--so the presumption of charging $479 for a single sportcoat is nothing short of insulting to the buyer's intelligence.
If you'll look directly above where the sportcoat is displayed, a whole tuxedo suit is advertised for $399, a solid $80 cheaper than the separate sportcoat. As my first gesture of goodwill towards helping to upgrade your wardrobe on a budget, H&M provides a comparable wool sportcoat for a drastically reduced price to the one advertised by Gilt. To put things into further perspective, by waiting for good sales and coupons online and by carefully picking my way through sales racks, I was able to find a sportcoat from H&M nearly identical to this one for a mere $30 -- one of the best deals I've ever found. I really hope this goes to show just how much money you can save in the quest to look good by knowing when, where and how to look.
Now, as for the green crewneck sweater featured on the bottom right of the ad, here we find another case of overpricing, though perhaps not as extreme as the sportcoat. An identical sweater to this one can be found here, once again at H&M, for a much better price. I will tell you that I will be referencing and recommending H&M quite a lot in the future, as they are a versatile and well-rounded source of good pieces and good deals for men. I have purchased from them many times before, and I can vouch for their overall quality of products and materials.
Finally, we come to the leather tote featured at the top left corner of the ad. While a quality leather bag is something every gentleman should consider investing in, you should never have to shell out nearly $1,100 for one. Ever. That is designer full price, and if there is one rule that I rarely, if ever, disobey, it's this: never pay full price if you can help it.
Unless an item is already at a great price for its quality and availability, wait. Wait for sales and discounts to build up to bring down the price. I promise you, the wait will almost always be worth it. Now, the fact is that genuine leather is expensive, plain and simple. However, it does not have to be that expensive. Both H&M and Frank & Oak provide more affordable bags of equal quality. On top of that, if you're not quite ready to invest in a good leather bag, H&M is your go-to source for good-looking faux leather and alternative material bags.
Well, thank you for indulging my little example here. This concludes part one of my Affordable Gentleman series, and I truly do hope this can begin to benefit all you gents.
Same time next week, shall we?
