How to be one of the best dressed men in Kenya.

Does your fashion mindset as a man, go something like this? “I don’t particularly care about how I dress for special occasions. It’s just not that important. that saying that says clothes make the man, that’s rubbish. I believe that some men buy expensive clothes simply to boast about it.” If it does, then this post is not for you.

This post is for the men out there who are more like me. Men with a desire to be one of the best dressed men in Kenya. Men who have worn both cheap and common clothing in the past yet prefer the strong reactions they received to the more unique, expensive pieces. Men who have never hidden their desire to look stunning and outshine their fellow men in the fashion department.  Men who understand that you can get business deals that change your life simply by dressing extremely well. Men, who understand that if you happen to be single and still searching, the easiest way to get the show on the road is to dress exceptionally well, then walk your ass into an event or occasion and let it flow from there. And it will flow. Boy oh, boy will it flow.

As you can probably tell by now, I’m writing this post from the point of view of a man who likes to look tremendous during special occasions and outings.

There’s something all of us men who like to dress up in lavish, unique pieces of clothing all truly understand. It helps all other aspects of one’s life as well. Owning an awesome designer blazer is a bit like owning a fancy new Range Rover. You may have purchased it for yourself as a reward for some lofty goal you finally accomplished. To most outsiders however, it will look like you are trying to brag. If it were up to them, you would’ve bought a cheaper car and saved the money instead.

You don’t see it that way. You’ve worked hard, you deserve it. It’s never been in your nature to suppress your desires and ambitions simply because someone you don’t really know doesn’t like it. You didn’t achieve the success you have that way. I totally feel you.

I’ve already taken a look at the psychology of men who don’t care about how they dress. Lest I sound too judgemental, please note, I too was one of those men in the past. I believe maybe we all were that man at some point in our lives before we eventually grow in our style journey.

So this post, as arrogant as it may end up sounding to some, was not written with that intent. I wrote it simply to show you the mindset behind why some men choose to go the route of pricy designer clothing. My intention is to highlight for you what their/our true inner desires and motivations are. Why? Well, if you happen to have 1-2 of these men in your life as a husband, boyfriend, brother or father, you’ll understand them better. At the very least you’ll know exactly which way to go when gifting him a clothing item as a birthday present.

So without further ado, here’s the psychology of the best-dressed men in Kenya and what often drives them in their fashion game.

I’d like you to take a look at both of the blazers below.

If you googled white blazer for men with shawl collar, you are very likely to stumble across the blazer on the left. If you go deeper into the search, you may eventually land on the one on the right. Now, to some guys, the above two are more or less the same blazer. It’s white with a little, or a lot of black on the lapel. Same thing they’d say. For the men I’m referring to, however, as well as a lot of the women, these 2 blazers are as different as night and day.

I personally would never wear the one on the left. It’s too common and there’s just nothing special about it. The one on the right, however, wow. I personally feel that the large toggle front closure is a bit too much, but the fabric is exquisite. When I, and men like me, wear a blazer and go out for an event, we want to feel special immediately we slip on the jacket. The feeling I’m referring to is felt at home, in front of the mirror, before we’ve even left the house. Before our wives/girlfriends/friends have even seen us in it and began to toss us compliments.  When it’s just I and my mirror, I’ve got to feel very good about it.

Now, a few of the men I’m talking about in the best-dressed men category may say that the one on the right is not their taste. And that’s fine. Tastes will vary. My point is that if you’re already the type of gentleman that likes to dress up, it may be very difficult to achieve the feeling in question with the one on the left. It’s just way too common. You are more likely to achieve it with some version of the one on the right, depending on your tastes and preferences.

In the last example, we googled the 2 images right? In this instance, tell me what you’d google in order to easily land on the following blazer.

If you’re scratching your head, you’re not alone. There are some things you’d have to see first before you are able to find the words to describe them. They are truly unique. I know the word unique gets thrown around a lot as a sales tactic. I’m talking truly unique here. Men like us like to look truly unique. I know some men who wouldn’t wear either one of the blazers in the previous example simply because of how common that monochromatic look has become. Unless of course, he’s having a wedding. Then he’d go with the one on the right.

Men are competitive by nature, so some of us extend our competitive nature to our style game. Let’s take a look at both of the tuxedos below.

Both formal, both black. Right? Yet that’s where the similarities end. The one on the right has details such as leather trim and front Swarovski crystal closure. The one on the left is a plain tux that I can get my local tailor to stitch for me fairly cheaply.

You see, here’s my rationale. If the occasion is a gala dinner or black-tie event that restricts all of us to a black tuxedo, well then, my tuxedo is going to outdo yours. If I’m going to be forced to swim in a sea of black formal tuxedos, then let me be the guy with the most stylish black formal tuxedo at the gala. The most stylish fish in the sea so to speak.

I wrote an entire post here about the difference between being felt and being seen. So I won’t get into it again in too much detail here. I’ll just touch on it a little. Let’s examine the following image.

There’s a huge difference between being seen and being felt, and the above image pretty much sums it up. Some men like to inspire a strong positive reaction in others with their outfits. We want eyes to widen and jaws to drop. We want the desire in our wives/girlfriends to shoot up and the compliments as well as look of respect from strangers to come gushing forth like a river who’s impeding dam has just been destroyed. It’s just who we are. It’s in our DNA.

Here’s the thing, I’m a businessman. As a businessman, I meet a range of clients practically every day.  I need my clients to give me money for the value I provide for them. And for them to do that, they need to trust me as an individual before we even get into the discussion about my offering. I used to believe that the way you dressed as a businessman didn’t matter, as long as you offered something of value to the client. I came to find out the hard way that it really does matter. So much so that sometimes the amount of money you make has a direct correlation with how well you are dressing.

Look cheap, your customer will assume you’re not doing well and therefore the value in your offering might not be real. Look sophisticated, your customer assumes if you can take the time and effort to dress that well, then you will probably apply the same level of commitment to your offering.

Please note, since your customer doesn’t really know you, they have to use visual cues such as your sense of style to give them a clue on your character. They can then determine how to deal with that character going forward. Or if they even want to deal with that type of character in the first place. It’s not wrong, it’s human. Women and men do it to each other as they are sizing each other up in their initial interactions before eventually entering romantic relationships.

So nowadays I always try to maintain a certain standard with my dress code. And it’s developed into a consistent habit over time, so much so that now I don’t even think about it. It comes automatically like driving a car after a while.

I want to clarify something just in case it did not stand out clearly enough during the course of this post. This post is not about dressing sharply versus dressing poorly. As I said, I already did a post on that. This post is about the different filters a very specific group of men pass their thoughts through before the make an eventual decision on what type of clothes they will eventually wear. And those filters are the reason they end up going for designer wear as opposed to basic stuff. Let me attempt to drive that point home with the use of an example. Let’s take a look at the 2 blazers below.

If I’m simply looking for something in brown, then I’ll go ahead with the one on the left. However, if I’m the type of guy we’ve been discussing this entire article, I want to look unique, to feel special, to be felt and not just seen, to have eyes widening and jaws dropping, then I’m a lot more likely to go with the blazer on the right.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the one on the left. The guy on the left still looks good right? But there’s a big difference between good and exceptional. And the type of gentlemen that tend to fall in the best-dressed men in Kenya category will always seek out the exceptional.

Every. Single. Time.

Designer jackets exclusive to King Sidney.