Introduction to Style for Effective Altruists

Edit (12/11/2015): Turned ‘resources’ into a reading list.

A couple years ago, I gave a presentation on Style/Fashion for Effective Altruists/aspiring rationalists, and I was quite happy with how it turned out. We recorded the first half, and you can find the slides here (short version here). We followed up the presentation with a trip to a couple of department stores, Nordstrom and Target, which turned out to be very helpful.

Follow up advice

One thing I didn’t mention during the presentation is that, it takes a while to internalize the lessons of fit and color/contrast and style, so it’s best not to rush in and spend a lot of money at first. Get a couple of simple, basic things first, try them out for a while, and gradually expand your comfort zone.

Reading list

For men, I recommend the following reading list (in reading order):

1. My intro slides on fashion. Or the recorded presentation.
2. r/malefashionadvice fit guide
3. Primer’s fit guides (index after the picture). Especially shirt and pants guides.
4. Basic wardrobe. Good as a set of Quest Items.
5. Shoes: shoe style (instead of fit) is comparatively important, and guides are especially helpful here. This guide is really good.
6. Button up shirts
7. Pants
8. Jeans
9. What are you wearing today? threads are a great source of pictures with commentary you can use to learn via reinforcement learning. Make predictions on how other people will judge each picture.
10. r/malefashionadvice has many other guides on the sidebar. Some are excellent and some are not so good.

For women: read the first three, then I suggest looking at the guides on r/femalefashionadvice (though I do not have extensive personal experience here).