Customer Reviews

Details Men's Style Manual: The Ultimate Guide for Making Your Clothes Work for You

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The main reason I purchased this item was for its numerous illustrations. Just about every page has a full color picture of clothes. From a glance I can tell just how long a blazer should be. Or perhaps how long a sweater's sleeves should fall when wearing it over top of a collared shirt.

I use this book as a reference manual on how clothes should fit. Need to buy a new tuxedo? Turn to the formal wear section and read up! It also gives you a few basic ideas on how to wear things. For instance, how to match a shirt and tie with jeans and a blazer. It won't tell you exactly how to wear things but just offer you guidelines with some great pictures.

For the $20 this book costs you get a free 1 year subscription to Details Magazine ($10 value) along w/ a ton of up to date information (Published October of 2007) so it's definitely worth it.

This book should become standard issue for every man after college, if not high school. While style and fashion is a very personal and very individual process, it pays to understand men's clothing.

Chapters are broken down by article of clothing, from shirts, pants, jeans and polos to coats, gloves, hats and leather, everything is covered. And it is all explained in a very direct, excuse me ladies, but man's kind of way, like reading a car manual - almost. It is as good a read all the way through as it is a quick reference guide. In fact, it's as a reference guide that this book really shines. When dressing for any occasion, a quick flip through the book can help you choose the appropriate attire for any event, while feeling both confident in your look and comfortable in your attire.

All in all, men and the women who shop for men's clothing should check this out - especially if you want to start filling your closet with a wardrobe that is ready for anything. Great job, Details.

Covers the basics very well, and gives quite a few ideas on how to change things up. Also includes a card for a free year (or year extention) to a Details subscription. Worth the money.

EDIT: Just went back through parts of the book again, and forgot to mention one key item. There are several points in the book where they suggest a new way/item to try, with 3 different levels of "difficulty", for example, wearing a sport coat with a tie, then a sport coat with jeans, etc. Something I hadn't seen mentioned before, even in their mag, and it's a great idea.

Like most other guys, I'm an imbecile when it comes to fashion. Luckily, I realized this recently and started trying to correct the problem. The Details Manual is a book I picked up, seeing that ratings-wise, it was the best selection. I'm really impressed with it. The book contains guides and models on what should be a mans closet; it touches on most subjects regarding a mans wardrobe options: Jeans, Shirts, Blazers, Suits, etc. The book gives you the basic parts of clothes, and how they should fit. I'll use the first chapter (shirts) as an example; first is shirt basics (parts of the shirt: cuffs, collars, etc.), it goes on to shirt options giving a few examples of decently nice shirts, after examples it tells you the characteristics of a perfect fit like how it should feel like when sitting down, from here it goes to collar types, dressing options, a kind of challenge for the chapter (challenges are on every chapter), and finally ends with the don'ts of shirts (EX. Don't unbutton your shirt too far, and it tells you why). I don't really agree with the person who said this book is for 20 to 30 year olds, I think this is a great, standard manual so to speak, for a man at any age, thats my opinion though.

I recently made a resolution to stop dressing like I'm in college and to start dressing my age, so I picked this book up on recommendation of a friend. The best thing about this book are the excellent photos showing different outfits. I passed up buying some of the "classic" style guides that didn't have good photos. Not all of their recommendations are "me", but it has been very helpful in establishing a good baseline for beginning to build a wardrobe.

As something of a men's fashion neophyte, I bought this book on the recommendation of several friends. It delivers exactly what it promises. It explains the basic articles of clothing a man might own or wear to various functions; what the various qualities denote; how to determine when it's worth it to splurge or not; mini-interviews with famed clothing designers about their personal stylistics; and much more, including a free one-year subscription to Details magazine.

The book is written very much like a manual, but the writing style is more of the energetic, upbeat style one would expect to find in Details magazine. I would definitely recommend this to anyone else who is clueless about fashion and trying to change that.

The best part of this book is the visual support for each style suggestion. Not of all of the advice is mind-blowing; I have been keeping up on my men's style mags for about two years and I could have written 80% of this book. The other 20%, however, is thought provoking--especially the sections on three levels of difficulty with a "look" (such as white pants). If you enjoy reading Details/Esquire/GQ, then I would anticipate that you will enjoy having this condensed reference. As noted in other reviews, this book aims to cover everything from trendy to timeless, so if you already know that you want to look like Cary Grant or Andre 3000, then you may want to find a more tailored book.

People say I dress very well and I make every effort to look my best but I wanted to learn how to create a wardrobe, learn about how clothes should fit, timeless styles, and items to avoid. I had my eye on this book for a while and I bought it used for a better price. This book is excellent and more than I expected. The best part is the large, colorful pictures which clearly demonstrate what the author is trying to convey. For example when he discusses how you should wear a pant, there is a huge picture of how the pant should fit the waist and how it should fall over your shoe. I am on the shorter side at 5'7" so I work a little harder to pull off certain looks because I have a shorter torso. I wish this book talked a little bit more about people with different body types. I mean it has tips like how cuffs give the illusion of shorter legs, etc., but in the chapter on shirts, it says to tuck in your polo shirts so they form to your body. That won't necessarily work for someone like me. I always have to give my polo shirts a little slack over my belt to give the illusion of a longer torso. I wish the book talked about some things like that because not everybody is tall or looks like a model. People who are 5'10" - 6'1" will always look the best no matter what they wear; there is just no way around that fact. I think when designers design clothes, they have this body type in mind. Anybody, however, can pull off the looks in this book. The key is buying clothes that FIT YOU and work for you and compliment each other. Some minor tweaking is all that is required for different body types. You can't just wear something because you saw someone else wear it. What works for someone else might not work for you.

This book looks big but the pictures take up most of the space. You can flip through this in 10-15 minutes. If this book were intended for a certain age demographic, I would say college grad to maybe some guys who still got it at 40-45. Don't expect advice here on how to incorporate flip flops into your wardrobe. The author tells you to leave the flip flops at the beach. If you like wearing flip flops with your jeans and other styles like that, this book is not for you. I found the styles to be a little more conservative than what I am used to from DETAILS magazine. The wardrobe doesn't have to cost you thousands of dollars. The book does not recommend certain brands, it talks about certain styles and tells you to buy good quality.

I bought this book with the Esquire Handbook of Style. I recommend buying them together because I believe they compliment each other. Even though the Details Style Manual is a great book, it still is pretty basic. It will give you the advice and tips to construct a fundamental wardrobe and some basic do's and dont's. After reading this book, you will gradually build on this advice by reading magazines and just keeping up with trends. The purpose of this book, I think, is to build a foundation.


All in all, I am happy with this book and I will be using many of the suggestions to update my wardrobe. Never underestimate the power of how you dress. Some people initially judge you on how you dress and this book will help you make the ideal first impression in that respect.

I'm not sure why one reviewer said this book is just for younger people. That's not at all what I got from it. Instead of focusing on the latest trends this book focuses on the "classics." That is, clothing that never goes out of style. For example, "the perfect shirt" is a plain, white, custom tailored one; "the perfect pants" are neutral gray. Instead of something like "pin strips are in this season" the authors lay out exactly what is known to work. I find that's helpful for those of us who are completely clueless.

Instead of leaving it at that (which would be boring) the authors show different variations for that piece of clothing and show you how to pull them off successful, and what you should NEVER do. They also explain the details of each piece of clothing so you don't buy stuff that will not flatter you. Each chapter focuses on a different article of clothing (shirt, pants, jeans, ties, etc.) and shows you what to look for so you know if it fits your body. There's also a list of "classics you should already own" which is useful. I think the goal of the book is to show you what works and then give you the confidence to experiment so you'll develop your own unique taste and style.

The only complaint is that the book sometimes introduces words and assumes you know what it means. For example, when the book was talking about "pleats" on pants I had no idea what that was. I had to search Google to find out what pleats even looked like. A glossary of terms (with pictures) would be nice!

Overall, this book has been very useful to me (I look good dammit!) so I definitely think it was worth the money. The confidence boost I got far outweighs the relatively low price.

I think this is a good book. What I really like about this one is it's all in color. I purchased this one and the askmen.com Style Bible. I like this one better because it has the color pages and shows examples of what goes together and even what doesn't go. Over all, I do recommend this book but I have to give it 4 stars because I think it could have been better. I wanted to see more explanations and different combinations. The book covers everything including formal wear, jeans, ties & how to fold them (two different ways), shoes, jewelry, tshirts, fitting of clothes, mixing and matching, designs that go together or clash, etc. Another thing I thought was cool was with each chapter it shows a picture of a well known designer with their opinion about things related to style.