Matching Up in Style

Anyone whose commute takes them past a high school with liberal dress codes might notice the striking contrast between numerous young ladies dressed to kill and numerous young men dressed to skateboard in t-shirts and dropped-crotch cutoffs. And occasionally you see young couples out on a date in which the clash in clothing styles seems incongruous. (I suspect the style-conscious young Japanese couple in the photo can match styles well when they choose to.)

While I was a professor at Arizona State University a male graduate student entered the program who was tall and handsome enough to quickly attract the admiration of the undergraduate women. He soon started dating the most stylish female graduate student in the school. Within months she had made him over from hair to shoes into as stylish a male student as you could possibly imagine. He had a teaching assistantship, and after that a few of his undergraduate female students were always trailing along asking him questions (except when his girlfriend was present).

I once complimented a stylish engaged young couple on what a handsome pair they made, and he said, “You didn’t see us before she made me over.” She was slightly embarrassed and said, “He always says that.” But given how stylish she was, I had no doubt she had offered him a few suggestions.

I have seen numerous couples out together in which the woman looked considerably more stylish than the man, but seldom the reverse. But when my wife and I talked about this topic at dinner one night, we found it interesting that most of the couples we knew were reasonably well matched in terms of style. I would be curious whether our readers feel that they pair up that way, or whether one of them has mentored the other in matters of style. I had a casual conversation about this with a woman, and she said all her efforts to remake her husband’s wardrobe had been failures. And thinking about it, I realized the two male makeovers I described happened while the couple were dating. Do any of you have tips or stories to share in this regard?

[“Stylish couple”photograph by Javi Motomachi and used under the Flickr Creative Commons license.]