5 Tips for Dressing Better: Be Confident

While there are countless aspects of sartorial style, here are five suggestions that, in my opinion, are great places to start:

#5: Know the Rules, #4: Simplify, #3: Know Your Audience

And today’s tip:

#2: Be Confident

Few traits will carry you further in life than confidence. Say what you want about Donald Trump, but the guy is nothing if not self-assured (and a billionaire).

One of the most important facets of developing a personal style is learning to dress with confidence. Much like wearing an outfit out of context, wearing an outfit without poise makes being stylish an uphill battle, at best.

Be comfortable in your clothes; welcome constructive criticism, but ignore vacuous detractions. Never be arrogant, though. No one cares that you’re in the zone, chief. Your clothes don’t make you better than anyone else.

Mad Men’s Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm, is a great model of confidence. He knows what he wants and he won’t stop until he gets it.

Draper had the stones to coax a powerful advertising executive into getting blackout drunk in order to convince him that, while inebriated, he offered Draper a job. In the scene below, he wins over a supposedly-uninterested client by radiating confidence (also, note how well dressed the men are):

When developing a sense of personal style, it’s important to approach clothing with Draper-like confidence. Boldly assert yourself. Refuse to be belittled by those who are too afraid to assert their own individuality or too pompous to respect the validity of other viewpoints. Enjoy your new look. Remember that clothing is one way to represent yourself to the world; never be ashamed of who you are.