| 19 July 2010
For the last 2 months I've been going through a white phase. It all started out with my white Pearl Jawbone headset and was the followed by my new white Toyota Prius. Soon enough my all white trend was in full effect, having purchased a number of all white outfits including a full white linen suit and a number of white denim pants from H&M, a couple of white shoes from Aldo Shoes. Here are a couple of notes about going all white, first of all is that you need to feel confident in it. I find it odd that when I wear all white people will say that I can make it work and they aren't sure why. Well it's because I feel like I can make it work, thus it does work. Much in the same way that Cedric the Entertainer and Steve Harvey can make Fur Coats and Zuit suits work or the way Robert Downey Jr. and Kanye can make bow ties work (which coincidentally) I do as well.
The second thing is that wearing white is really a rich mans wardrobe. When you think of people wearing all white, you are reminded of a couple key scenes. First is at a country club with a preppy pastel sweater wrapped around the neck and wing tipped loafers. Second is on a yacht. I hypothesize that this isn't due to the fact that white looks good in these settings but that white is very hard to maintain. Unless you have white clothing for nearly every day of the week it's going to get dirty and dirty quick. White pants take only a day to get stain from merely sitting at a park bench. White shirts will have ring around the collar and cuffs in a matter of hours and white shoes become irreversibly scuffed the moment you operate a vehicle in them. With a white wardrobe, I find myself constantly at the dry cleaners have to wash my clothes immediately after wearing them before any stains set in. So if you want to make wearing all white a habit I'd suggest buying 2 or 3 of every piece. You may even find yourself with upwards of 5 to 10 white dress shirts.
The third thing about wearing all white is that you need to contrast that with accents of bright colors. I had originally want this blue Paul Smith Mock Croc Wallet but unfortunately the UK site wouldn't process my order so I opted for the white one as it will probably have much more long term usability. White affords you the opportunity to compliment your stark confidence with bold personality driving colors. I prefer bright fluorescents like magenta or cyan or yellow. Here in this picture I'm wearing an all white suit with a pink and white striped tee. It's key to not over do the color, just have it be a slight touch. An all pink shirt here would be over kill. Use your colors sparingly in the form of stripes or even subtler patterns.Last and final note for wearing all white is accessorize with textures. Again to juxtapose the starkness of the white, we want to compliment it with textures. For me that is reptile skins. White or black snakeskin shoes, belts and wallets are examples of textured accents. A combination of the two, such as the blue or magenta snake or croc wallet or belts are great examples of combining both texture and color as accents to an all white outfit.
