Master Mismatcher

Mismatching clothes don’t have to be unfashionable.

The key to mismatching successfully is maintaining intentionality and coherence. What are these rogue terms?

Intentionality (in this non-philosophical context) effectively means “on purpose”. One of the key parts of a successful outfit is the impression that it is a collection of pieces of clothing that you brought together with thought and purpose. When someone compliments your outfit, they aren’t complimenting the cloth (which is very bad at tactfully receiving praise), they are complimenting your choices (both selecting the individual pieces and the organization and interactions you’ve created with them).

Coherence refers to something contributing and meshing with an overall theme. Mismatching needs a purpose; flowers mixed with checks mixed with polka dots can have only one purpose; comedy (and sometimes this is the perfect choice). But for fashion prowess, have a goal in mind. Wearing a vertically striped jacket over a horizontally striped shirt creates tension, gridlock, crosshairs (therefore it works better within the context of a dark, aggressive color scheme, say black, red and silver).

Keep these concepts in mind, and you can throw the matching rules out the window.

Matchbox:
How do you like to mismatch? Socks? Ties on a shirt with no collar? Do you pour ketchup on your shirts (hey, it’s better than eating the crap)?

Bonus:

The invention of the Mobius Melt, my new favorite mathematical sandwich.