Throughline: a connecting plot or theme; an invisible thread that binds your story together.

When pairing outfits, many guys smash things together and wonder why it doesn't look good. It helps to try and figure out how things go together so that you're never stuck wondering how to create a great-looking outfit.

When pairing two pieces of clothing together, you want to make sure they're connected somehow. The easiest way to do this is to think about what the item was originally designed for, and then pair it with similar items.

When choosing dinner, you typically pick a type of food to eat, say, Mexican food. When you're cooking Mexican food, you're typically using ingredients/elements you commonly see in Mexican food - chorizo (my personal favorite), poblano peppers, etc.

When making Mexican food, you're typically not going to add anything too far outside of the realm of what we'd consider a Mexican ingredient.

How weird would it be to start throwing Asian or Scottish culinary elements into your taco? But guys do the equivalent with their outfits all the time.

Let's use an example with clothing, pairing two items I commonly see mistakenly worn together... Jeans and running shoes. You likely know this doesn't work, even just by looking at it. Why? Let's dissect it further.

Jeans were invented by Levi Strauss in the late 1800s, to be used for miners digging for gold during the gold rush. They appear tough and rugged.

Running shoes are meant for, well, running. They serve a specific function, to make you move quicker and with as much comfort as possible.

These items were developed for two very different reasons. It's no shock they don't pair together.

When pairing items, try to find things that work well together by thinking about what the item was originally designed for.

Let's go back to our blue jeans example before, but let's now change the footwear. Instead of running shoes, let's swap that for a pair of boots.

Boots, much like jeans, were developed for outdoor work. Much like jeans, they look tough and rugged.

And as you probably already know, boots and jeans go together swimmingly.

These were two easy examples. What you want to do is take this exercise and extrapolate it out to all your items when pairing things together.

We want this invisible throughline that binds your outfit together, making everything look cohesive.

If you are ever wearing an outfit and you think, "something off here", it is always one of these things...

1) Fit

2) Color

3) Style (throughline) of the outfit

This throughline is the hardest to detect, so this is where guys usually get stuck. Train yourself to think through it and create these invisible threads when you're putting two items together.

When pairing an item, think...

What was this item originally intended to do? Was it for outdoor/tough/rugged activities? Or was it meant to be worn sipping tea at the yacht club? ... These two will look weird together.

What type of fabric is this? What type of fabric should it be worn together with?... A heavy winter flannel looks funny with a lightweight summer seersucker.

To sum it up: A good outfit needs a running throughline. Make sure you have that invisible thread running through it.

To take it to a pro-level, it's best if you have this binding throughline through your entire closet, this way everything you own is interconnected.

Then, you never have to think about pairing - you know all your stuff is connected. And that's what I do for my clients here.

To learn more about outfit pairing and outfit congruency, read this and this.

Much Love,

Patrick