Share Your "Hip Tips" Here

In My Humble Opinion
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While I have been thoroughly enjoying the TV show Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, I will freely admit that I watch more for the witty wisecracks and the eye candy than for any actual self-improvement tips. (Of course, I am a straight gal, so maybe I’m just not the target audience here.)

At any rate, it occurs to me that the accumulated wisdom of the Teeming Millions surely surpasses that of the Fab Five. Plus we’re easily as cute as they are. For those of you who eschew TV, the show is basically five gay guys giving a straight guy tips on how to be hipper. The areas they cover are grooming, food & wine, interiors (home), culture and clothing.

If someone were to ask your advice for ways to improve oneself in these areas, what would you say? (If advice is gender specific, please say so.) I’ll start:

Grooming – For men: a combover is never ever ever a good look. You’re not fooling anyone, and you need to know that people are mocking you behind your back. Totally not hip. Cut whatever’s left of your hair short and tidy and go bravely into the world. For women: The lipliner thing? It’s tricky, and if you screw it up you look like trash. Keep that lipliner pencil sharp and lightly sketch the outline of your lips - it’s OK to go over the line if you want fuller-looking lips, but it’s awfully easy to go way too far over the line. PRACTICE. And for heaven’s sake, make the lipliner color match the lipstick as closely as you can - there’s nothing tackier than lips outlined in brown and filled in with pink!

Food & Wine – I know exactly diddly about wine, so I will not even venture to give advice here except to say that everyone I have ever served Yellow Tail Shiraz to has complimented me on my selection. Food - learn how to make one very tasty appetizer, one awesome salad, one decent main dish with a vegetable and a starch side, and one dessert with eye appeal as well as tastiness. Cookbooks can be found in the checkout line of most major supermarkets - if you can read, you can cook well enough not to look like a complete goon.

Interiors – Don’t be afraid of color. Paint your walls, or if you live in an apartment that will not allow painting, hang up some colorful posters. Artwork should hang at eye level to the “average” viewer – not six feet from the floor. If you’re badly style-impaired, go to Target and check out the linens department - everything matches.

Culture – if you’re going to be out and among other humans, at LEAST read the front page of the newspaper every day. And treat yourself to new music every now and then - buy a CD from a new band you’ve never heard of and learn a little bit about the band or the music style.

Clothing – I have only one thing to say here: I don’t care how everyone else dresses, your underwear goes UNDER your clothing and should not be visible unless you’re a Frederick’s of Hollywood model.

Your turn!!

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Grooming essentials: Have clean teeth and fresh breath. (They make Tic Tacs for a reason, people!) Wash your face every morning with a cleanser suited to your skin type. For goodness sake, moisturize! Always check the back of your hair (if you have it) with a hand mirror before leaving the house. Lint roller=Good.

Clothing: Few people have the money for a whole new wardrobe every season, so stick with the basics as a foundation and add just a few trendy pieces when you can afford it. Accessories are the best way to update: Belts, shoes (they don’t have to be expensive), one or two simple pieces of jewelry, and a purse or two for the ladies can add a lot of flavor to your oufit choices.

Culture (Well, not really culture, but Social Interaction.): Engage others in converstion about their favorite books, movies, tv shows, plays, etc. Find out if they have hobbies or collect anything. People love to talk about themselves, so ask questions and really listen to the answers.

Food (I don’t know about wine): Buy a crockpot and experiment with recipes for it. Simpler is better, IMO, and it doesn’t get much simpler than a slow-cooker. And absolutely learn how to make an attractive green salad. Try out different kinds of greens and find out what you like and what you don’t. Iceburg lettuce is not your friend.

Interiors: Keep it clean. If your couch looks like a dog’s bed, get a freakin’ slipcover already. If your couch is a dog’s bed, get a slipcover and get your dog it’s own bed. De-clutter. (Dear Abby’s (or is it Ann Landers’?) rule is, “When in doubt, throw it out.” This is some of the best advice ever.) Check out art exhibits at small galleries and coffee houses and invest in a piece or two that catches your eye.

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**Grooming: **

Men -

  • DO pluck your eyebrows, and trim them with manicure scissors. Unplucked/untrimmed eyebrows add you decades!
  • Take care of your ear and nose hair!
  • Nailbuffers are your friends, and exist for a reason.

Women -

  • Reds can be blue and orange. Only one can be used in your makeup at a time.
  • Dark nailpolish is better left off to teens. Once your hands become more like a woman’s (i.e. less underskin fat, blue veins start to show), leave black nail polish alone.
  • If you can’t smell your own perfume, it does not mean everyone else can’t smell it either.
    Clothing

Men -

  • Ironing does wonders for most clothes. But. Don’t ever try to iron suit jackets, you’ll almost certainly spoil them.
  • When a white T-shirt goes yellow, it’s time to toss it.
  • The slimmer is the leg of the pant, the longer your legs look.
  • If you are wearing a short-sleeve shirt, make sure the sleeve is tapered to your arm. (That’s why they keep zhuzhing shirts on the show.)

Women

  • V-necks look good on all.
  • Pleats look good on no one.
  • When you’re buying a bag, put it on your shoulder and look at yourself in the mirror from the side: all problem areas should ideally be covered.
  • The closer the heel of the shoe to the middle of your foot, the more comfortable it will be.
  • You can get a heel as high as you want, as long as:
  1. the tip of the shoe does not pinch your toes;
  2. you have an ankle strap

  • 3 inches is the cut-off height for the heel: anything higher will kill you eventually; anything lower is comfortable enough for you to not even notice you’re wearing heels.
    Culture

  • Subscribe to magazines like “New Yorker” or “Time Out New York” or whatever is hot in your region. You will never EVER have to wonder what to do on your spare time from then on.
    Food

  • When cooking meat it’s very important to

  1. Unfreeze it properly (otherwise it’ll become rubbery)
  2. Not to overcook it (it’ll dry out).
    Interiors
  • Don’t overdo it with brights and darks. Steer towards neutrals. Neutrals are beige, white, olive, khaki.
  • Navy goes surprisingly well with cognac brown and cream.
  • You probably want all the wooden accents in a room to match.
  • Study Feng Shui. A lot of it is just good old common sense that frequently gets forgotten.
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I wouldn’t dare give tips to women, so I’m gonna take a pass on that side. :wink:

Grooming

Guys, lose the hair gel. It looks shiny and silly and if you’re getting up close and personal your partner is going to want to touch it. No one wants to run their hands through hard gelled hair. Use a more modern hair product – get a decent hair wax or mud (be prepared to pay more for a quality product) – that will look more natural.

Also, pay for an expensive hair cut at a salon at least once, if just to see the difference. Maybe your $10 cut is just as good, or maybe you’ll find out that your new cut is worth the money.

Clothing

Don’t wear athletic shoes unless you’re actually exercising or en route to exercise. Lose the t-shirts with sporting brand logos, unless you’re actually playing, you know, sport (or kicking around the house).

Dressing like you’re sponsored by Nike or Adidas won’t improve your athleticism, but it will make you look like an overgrown child.

Oh, and buy nice shoes. Be prepared to pay more for shoes that will look good, feel comfortable, and last. Women (and business people) notice good quality shoes.

Culture

Turn off that top 40 commercial radio and listen to something a bit more daring. There are plenty of decent radio stations out there, you just have to seek them out (try webcasts, even). See as much live music as you can (original artists only; cover bands don’t count sorry).

There’s an amazing amount of fresh talent out there; it takes some looking to find it, but it’s worth it. Plus you meet new friends: concert people are good people!

Food

Even the most hardened bachelor can learn to cook a good stir fry. Buy a wok – an ultra-cheap one from your Chinese grocery story can be perfect since they’re light and thin (they heat very quickly and evenly). Learn to marinate thin strips of meat. Embrace the veggies! Cooked quickly they will retain their crunchiness and nutritional value and taste great. Cut everything into small pieces (except for your leafy veggies) and cook (southern) Chinese style-- very quickly, over high heat and keep everything moving around. Keep it simple, keep it quick.

Also, buy a rice cooker. They’re not expensive and provide a (almost) fool-proof way of cooking rice. Rice itself is healthy, filling and cheap. With a wok and a rice cooker even the busiest man can whip up dinner within 20 minutes, if you prepare your meat beforehand.

Wine: chardonnay is so late-90s. Get on the semillon sauvignon blanc bandwagon, dahling. :stuck_out_tongue:

Interiors

It can’t be stressed enough: lose the clutter. Throw away the crap you haven’t used in 6 months. Hide the rest. Don’t hoard.

Match your photo frames. A hodge-podge of different styles looks crap. Visitors are always picking up photos and handing them around, so you’ll get some mileage out of nice frames.

Oh, and clean your bathroom and toilet. A woman may put up with your ugly couch and Spiderman bedspread, but she’s going to be wigged out by having to sit on your stained, pube-laden toilet and use your toothpaste-splattered mirror and vanity. The bathroom really isn’t that hard to clean–you can splash water nearly everywhere while doing it! Plus you can clean the shower by stripping off and scrubbing it while naked under the hot water! Fun!
Jervoise

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I’ve been waiting ages and ages for somewhere to post this:

LADIES! White shirt? FLESH COLORED BRA!!! A white shirt over a white bra results in a freakishly glowing “ghost breasts” phenomenon.

Men:

I know they show it sometimes in GQ, but please do not wear brown shoes with black or grey slacks; it looks really really stupid. Black or grey slacks: black shoes. Brown/Khaki or Olive pants: brown shoes. Navy pants you have to take on a case-by-case basis. You can sometimes get away with black or brown shoes depending on the style of the outfit and shoe. Don’t worry about matching your shoes and your belt because who looks at a belt?!?! If your belt matches your pants it’s close enough.

For everyone:

LOOK IN THE MIRROR BEFORE YOU GO OUT! If you think your low-rise jeans look so sharp on you, please turn around and get a load of the pooches of back fat spilling over the top. ::brrrrr::

Don’t have favorite clothes based on what they look like on the hanger (I love this print!) or an advertisement (that’s sexy on her!), have favorite clothes based on how they look and feel on YOU (My ass looks great in this!)

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Grooming

Men: What everyone else has said. Also, if you are thinning on top, keeping your hair cut will actually make it look lots better. Long hair weighs itself down and shows that spot worse. A corollary: don’t purposely wear long hair if you are thinning. It looks horrible.

Women: If your bangs defy gravity and/or look like a pom-pom placed on your forehead, it’s time to move on to a different hairstyle.

Clothing

Men: Don’t wear sweats in public. Ever. Your dangly bits are on display when you do.

Women: You might get a psychological boost from sausaging yourself into clothes two sizes too small—and I understand that; I really do—but it just doesn’t look good. And I know low-cut jeans are the It thing now. Calling it “butt cleavage,” however, does not make your crack look any cuter.

Culture

Turn off your TV. Doing so will have the overall effect of making you more cultured because you will probably be interacting more with actual, real live people.

Food

Relax and have fun with it. It’s just food. You’ll get better with practice. Oh, thawing chicken breasts in the microwave turns them to rubber.

Interiors

If you don’t want to mess with decorating, go with classic styles (try Mission and Bauhaus furniture) in neutral colors. You can then safely ignore the “hot colors,” etc., and you’ll still be fine for years to come. A bit of black in a room (picture frames, sculpture, etc.), adds interest and sophistication. Try to arrange your living room in conversation groupings. (If your living room is really small, just put a couch, a few chairs, and a coffee table in there, and you’ll have a conversation grouping. :)) Except for the newer, sleek ones (check out Pottery Barn or Restoration Hardware for those), recliners = yuck.

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Oh, I forgot something (which fits right in with voguevixen’s comments). Men, when you wear a suit, here is how it should fit.

Jacket: The suit jacket should be neither snug nor too big. It should skim your torso when buttoned with no bulges anywhere. (Be sure to check out your rear view.) With your arms hanging down, fold your fingers up. You should just be able to grasp the sleeve hem with your fingertips.

Pants: When standing in shoes, your pants should break once at the front cuff and not at all in the back.

Accessories: Match your socks to your shoes. Wear a belt or suspenders, not both. When standing, the tip of your tie should come between the top of your belt and halfway down your belt.

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Underwear on the INSIDE of your pants.

Just trust me on this one.

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I just need to say that I love the word “backfat.”

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** Straight eye for the straight guy: **

** Grooming **

Guys - if you cut your hair really short, you don’t even need to comb it in the morning. Similarly, you can get away without washing it as often, because most people won’t even be able to tell that it’s greasy.

When you wear stuff off the floor, and aren’t sure about how clean it is, just hit it with aftershave.

** Food and wine **

Okay - so you’re having chicks over to your apartment. The key here, is that you can look refined without actually having to have a clue. First off, make sure your refrigerator is well stocked, with more than just beer. Get non perishable items that can sit in there for months. You don’t actually have to touch the stuff, but if she glances in the fridge while you are grabbing beer, you look like you can cook. Buy a bunch of cheap cookbooks and leave them lying around your kitchen.

With the wine, you need to make an initial investment of about six decent bottles of different types of wine - keep them in a wine rack in a visible place. Keep the grog you actually drink hidden in a cupboard somewhere.

** Interiors **

Buy yourself a big antique cabinet with lots of internal space, and doors that lock. When you need to entertain at the last minute, collect everything off the floor and heave it in, then lock the door to avoid prying eyes.

Get yourself a large posterboard the same colour as your wall. Put all of your car and nudie posters on one side, and some “art” on the other. That way, when you have company you only have one thing to flip over.

** Culture **

Buy a whole bunch of used books and display them on highly visible bookshelves to look well-read. Textbooks are good (you can buy these cheap from poor university students), as are a couple of large coffee-table books. Steal these from your gay friends.

Withdraw magazines on art, wine and other esoteric nonsense from your local library. Fan them out on the table in a manner that covers the library label. The top one you can just steal from a gay friend.

** Clothing **

This is a lot easier than it seems. Match your socks to your pants, and own a jacket. Everything else can be fudged.

If the bottom of your shirt is ripped, tuck it in. If you are missing buttons or have a big pizza stain on your chest, wear a sweater. If you refuse to cut your hair short and it looks bad, wear a hat. All common sense stuff.

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If you insist on wearing a shoulder holster, get your suit coats and sportscoats tailored so you don’t look deformed. Inside the waistband carry does less to ruin the lines of your clothes, but still requires you to buy appropriately sized trousers.
Polish your shoes.
Fedoras and other real hats should be brushed often and blocked from time to time.
Use a glass and a coaster.
Own a real dress watch.
Get (or give yourself) a manicure. Shitty looking nails are shitty looking.
Get a good leather dress belt and a good casual belt. Cheap belts make even good clothing look cheap.
Don’t shove the fucking napkin down the front of your fucking collar when you eat, Jethro!
Don’t carry around a giant ring of keys or clip same to a belt loop. Unless you are a janitor and then only on the job.

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Here’s a tip - Fedoras and sholder holster’s belong on circa 1940 private detectives.
PIMPS

Buy a new (as in completely new style, not another color of plaid shirt or sweatshirt) outfit at least once a year. Have a woman or gay friend help you. That way you will avoid falling into the time-warp who’s event horizon lies somwhere about 2 years after you graduate college.

Wear something other than cotton Dockers and Oxford shirts. They make you look stiff and dorky.

For clubbing/going out - loud flashy shirt / dark = subdued pants or jeans. I prefer solid shirts with subtle prints or textures.

When going out - Bring cash. Bring your driver’s license. Dress approprately (ie don’t wear cargo pants or jeans if the place you’re going has a dress code).

Loose the baseball cap. The BC student look is fine in Boston, not in Manhattan after 9:00 pm.
HOS

Watch your weight

Big perm hair is out and makes you look B&T (Bridge & Tunnel - IOW, Jersey, provincial, unsophistimacated)

Animal prints are fine for the bedroom or 42nd street, circa 1975.

BOTH

Clean your shit up!! My girlfriend unfortunately suffers from her family’s “clutter gene”. Basically, stuff is left out and stays out forever as if there is no place to actually put it. It makes the place look like you either just moved in or are about to move out.

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Here’s a tip- lots of people really do carry guns whether for a living or self-protection. You did note that I was recommending IWB carry, didn’t you, as less destructive to a good appearance? I’m sure you did, you just wanted to get that crack about 1940’s detectives off.

You also noted, I would suppose, that I said fedoras and other real hats (as opposed to baseball caps)? Yes, I just know you did, but you felt so dreadfully clever with that whole detective thingy that you just HAD to post it…

Loud flashy shirt? Please. You want some gold chains to go with that?

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For both sexes:

No sweatpants! They are hideous and belong only in the comfort of your home. Nothing shows that you don’t care about your looks like a pair of sweatpants.

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I see great potential for conflict in this thread.:slight_smile:

scrambles out, clutching her meager shreds of hipness

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Here’s another for people like my husband:

Just because something is “still good” or “like new” does NOT mean it fits you or is in style! My husband has golf shirts he got as a gift some 15-20 years ago that he’s never worn. I’m talking the tags are still on and they’re from stores that no longer exist. They’ve been folded and sitting on the shelf so long that when you unfold them there’s a faded square in the middle. They are scratchy polyester and are 3 sizes too small, yet every time I try to edge them closer to the Goodwill box: “Hey, that’s shirt’s still good! I never even wore it!” Then he will insist on wearing it so I can’t say he doesn’t need it. Oy!

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Guns and no sense of humor…always a winning combination. Sorry, I’m not up on all the Soldier of Fortune lingo. What does IWB mean?

Here’s a hip tip for you gun owners, leave the piece at home. We Yankees here in the Northeast generally assume someone carrying a gun in public is a nut-job.

And what the freakin ho is a “real hat”? The only hats that people wear these days are baseball hats, knited winter caps, religeous or professional head gear or no hat.

As I said, Fedoras, top hats, sombraros, fezes, Admirals caps, colonial 3-pointed hats, napoleanic hats, conical straw Vietnamese hats, and Pith helmets should generally not be worn as they will make you appear old fashioned, out of style or outright ridiculous. 90% of the time, cowboy hats can also be added to that list.

You might get away with the Fedora at a Big Bad Voodoo Daddies reunion concert or maybe an Indiana Jones film festival. I’m not one to judge.

Wooo…good one.:rolleyes: If you are going out someplace trendy, one generally wears a trendy shirt that attracts attention. One does not add large amounts of gold chains, however, unless they want to look like a roid-head from Jersey.

Personally, if I am going for a Miami Vice / Grand Theft Auto look, I generally go with a loose Hawaiian shirt, white pants, and a revolver tucked in the waste band.

For a more sophisticated look, it’s an Armani suit with a Glock on a shoulder holster.

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I can’t help myself… more tips!

Fashion

Both: unless you’re a tradesman, never clip your cell phone to your belt, particularly if it’s in a leather case. If it’s too shamefully brick-like to slip into a pocket (without creating a big bulge) or purse, leave it at home.

Men: before you go out for a big night, empty all the spare change and old receipts out of your wallet. An enormous bulging wallet in your pants will never be mistaken for a plus-sized genitals; rather, there is the danger that you look like you’ve taken a dump in your pants.

Men: only a vanishingly small percentage of men can get away with the pale pink business shirt/purple tie combination. You’re probably not one of them–in fact, you’re probably don’t want to be one either. Your wife may think it’s cute and hip, but everyone else thinks you like a git.

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To be fair, msith537: yes, real hats on men are bit retro. However, if I met a man who had the self-confidence and panache to carry off a fedora (or similar hat), the only thing that would keep me from swooning at that man’s feet is the fact that I am a married woman.

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[hijack]

… and that said dump tried valiantly to escape from the tidy whitey chamber of horrors, but sadly only made it to your butt cheek before succumbing.

I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. Carry on.

[/hijack]