It's A Formality

Some people love dressing up for formal events, but for me it sucks.  As well as the fact I have to go out looking like a penguin, I have to make small talk and be reasonably refined for an entire evening.  It’s pretty hard to relax at these things, most of all when you don’t look the part. Why not let AskBronny give a helping hand to those fellas who are dreading having to sort out a get-up for an upcoming ‘event’ with some long awaited advice of dressing formally.

I’m a huge fan of ‘simpler is better’ in what you are wearing at these things. Play it simple with your suit and let your shoes, shirt, OR tie do the talking.  But, like a room full of competing prima-donnas, just one at a time. There seems to be a tendency to think that every item of clothing has to be extravagantly audacious to differentiate yourself from the other penguins. Don’t. Be the cool penguin that is chilling comfortably against the best placed ice column. Remember, the polar bear eats the biggest, loudest penguin first.

You have to start with the usual mantra: cut, colour and cloth. Make sure whatever you are wearing has a great cut (this is when it actually fits properly) the colour suits you (red heads don’t look good in bright pink etc) and the cloth (fabric) is comfortable and isn’t some god awful polyester concoction that makes you itch or burst into flames when you stand near a heat source.

I’ve had a crack at the main formal events below, but if these don’t fit the bill and you have a particular question about something, hit the AskBronny question page and log a question. Don’t trust the missus, they want you dressed like a Ken doll…  Ahhh, that’s not a good thing either.

The Races
I’ll start with this, as it’s a hot topic right now in Australia with the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival – what to wear for a guy? I’ve heard so many different opinions over the last couple of weeks, from ‘all guys wear hats there’, ‘you can wear shorts and a tee and suit jacket’ to ‘You should wear tails and a top hat’. But I reckon, keep it simple, wear a suit (a light grey one if you have it) and go large with your shirt-tie combo.  Maybe even throw down some bad dog shoes to complete the outfit.

If there is ever an event to pimp it up then this is it. If you can handle it then go the full noise with the grey suit, top hat and all that palaver. Go huge in fact with whatever you want to wear, but remember, throwing in too many things can lead to looking stupid, rather than stylish. If you pull it all off you’ll be the man, but take it that one thing too far and you’ll be the man that everyone is looking at as a reminder of how not to dress next year.

Whatever you decide to go with remember that nothing speaks louder volumes than confidence and if you’re comfortable and relaxed in what you’re wearing, then you’re ruling it. 

Black Tie Events
Black tie is formal fella, real formal…  It essentially equates to a bow tie and tux with tails. It doesn’t actually mean you have to wear all this, but if you’re going to go safe, then this is a good bet. These sort of suits cost a bit and a wing tailed shirt is a couple of hundy – so if you’re going to be going to a few of them it’s actually cheaper to buy this sort of stuff. I’d draw the line at the cummerbund – God-awful things that have their place at only the most formal of events. You gotta have shiny patent shoes as well for a formal event and they HAVE to be clean and polished…  but you were going to do that anyway right? At real black tie events you have to get down with the Bow Tie struggle. Bow Ties really aren’t my thing; some places insist on them as the norm, others will let you away with your black tie.

Black tie optional or preferred
Some fool invented this, told all his or her friends what to wear and made it difficult for anyone else to work out was going down on the night.  It’s that horrible in-between as it’s still pretty formal. Your stable diet at these things is black pants and black shoes, but you can mix it up on the tie and jacket, maybe even a white jacket which is perfectly acceptable.

With all formal black tie optional or preferred events, you can dress like a piano and look pretty dapper.  Make sure that the shirt is cut properly and find your black tie early, as most shops don’t stock plain black ones.

Fancy Dress
Another super hard thing to work out is the fancy dress party. There is one rule and one rule only "go hard out" as there are no half-ways. I went to this fancy dress party with a lot of people I didn’t know and felt like a tool. I couldn’t be bothered with an outfit and left it to the last minute and in the end I went as ‘Merino Man - NZ’s first super-hero’ in an attempt to bump the typical kiwi-sheep comparisons that are inevitable after a few drinks. It felt like a good idea at the shop until everyone turned up dressed in really wicked costumes and I was caught short and looking like a dick trying to answer the ‘so what’s the deal with the sheep?’ questions. 

If you have to go to a fancy dress party and you DON’T know the people – go safe. Go as something people will recognise and you’ll be fine. Don’t do what I did and go half-arsed. You may feel like a fool dressing up, but you will feel like twice the fool if you aren’t.

With any event you’ve got to do some groundwork for the event. The web (obviously) is a great place to see what fashion is all about, but you normally get some pretty slanted advice: “here is what you should wear and go no further as you can buy it right here on this site”. This isn’t very objective and you may just be suckered into parting with your hard earned cash. Do your research, find out what you should wear, get the stuff early so you aren’t stressing yourself out at the last minute and then kick back and relax as much as you can.

Check the following online sites either to buy, or just get some ideas:

For Black Tie events and anything to do with suits http://www.tailor.com.au

For Fancy dress ideas http://www.party-oz.com.au/