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Settle a debate for me: is wearing all dark clothes bad? What if I wear black pants with a dark top and black shoes?

The answer is somewhere in the middle. Wearing all dark clothing is not bad, but it can go awry quickly- and even done right, it’s often quite boring.

First off, let me approach the most obvious: Yes, you can wear all dark clothing and still look good. Still, this can come of as not only insanely geeky and somewhat depressing, but also sometimes can be rather boring. There’s a strange tendency for a lot of geeks to try to pull off the “Matrix” thing- that is, nothing but black and darker shades- and it’s generally not flattering whatsoever.

I always advise that guys try to avoid wearing dark dress shirts unless very very casually and very very rarely. Do not buy generic guido-style pinstriped shirts unless you must- while they can look good in some situations, they are too often worn as “clubwear”, which is stupid. If you do buy new shirts, experiment with bright and interesting, but still masculine colors- yes, even bright pink counts.

If you do wear dark clothing, do so sparingly. The “gothninja” thing looks good only in photographs. If you do wear a dark top, experiment with wearing lighter pants, or at least trying to throw in a splash of lighter color (or at least a splash of color) into the outfit itself. For example, even the most canonical “dark” outfit (a black suit with a black tie) is accented by light color (a white shirt). Going all-black is tacky.

So, I hate to say it, but you lose this round.

Tags: clothing, dark, outfits