Men and fashion? The well-dressed man? Just look around, and you’ll see that it’s a concept reserved for glossy magazines and red carpets, but rarely found in reality. This is true even here in the Big Apple, where people are generally pretty spiffy. Since time immemorial, women having been trying to dress men. That’s been as successful as women imploring a guy to ask for directions or to put down the toilet seat.
So what does it take to get a man to listen to fashion advice? Man’s best friend, of course: a dog. But not just any old canine. Men need Menswear Dog, who has become a megastar across all new media—Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and countless blogs—and has appeared on numerous TV shows, including Anderson Cooper Live, E! News, and The Rachael Ray Show. Now Bodhi, the Shiba Inu behind the sartorial sensation, goes old school and barks out his advice in a book, Menswear Dog Presents the New Classics: Fresh Looks for the Modern Man.
Bodhi shares style secrets and teaches men how to dress, shop, and guarantee a perfect fit for their clothing. He also serves as the handsome model. Without opposing thumbs, however, his keyboard skills are severely lacking, so his master and mistress, David Fung and Yena Kim, put his woofs into words. While there is a lot of goofing around during shoots with Bodhi, there’s nothing silly about his fashion advice.
Bodhi lays out his 10 commandments for fashion in his “Menswear Dogma.”
1. Invest now; save later.
2. Classics are timeless for a reason.
3. Find yourself a good tailor.
4. Fit trumps price every time.
5. Take care of your clothes.
6. Clothes should be fitted, never tight.
7. It’s okay to copy your fashion idols.
8. Learn how to properly tie a tie.
9. When in doubt, keep it simple.
10. If it doesn’t make you feel good, don’t wear it.
Menswear Dog will be at the Workman booth (2975), today at noon posing for “selfies,” “pawtographing” his book, and generally making you feel inferior about your fashion sense.
This article appeared in the May 30, 2015 edition of PW BookCon Daily.