Geekover Number 1: Incyr

CHANGE IS GOOD!

So, in the first of (hopefully) many makeover articles, we take Ian through the trials and tribulations of finding a new wardrobe. I learned something in this, picking out clothes for someone else is a lot harder than picking out clothes for yourself, but sometimes, happy accidents occur. Autumn is much better at color and skin tones than I, as I don't wear makeup, so she was instrumental in helping us pick out the right things.

So to begin, Ian threw on an average outfit that he'd wear on a weekend:

Yeah, not exactly what you'd call 'couture'.

Our first stop... Target. (well, after Starbucks of course)

Here we see Autumn explaining why pink ISN'T Ian's color.

After some deliberation, and lots and lots of trying things on, we returned triumphant with the first haul of the day.

Yes, that's just the Target collection. The great thing about Target, is that at any other store, this cart would have cost at least twice what it did.

Our second destination was The Potomac Mills Mall. A very interesting place. In addition to the standard stores found at any other mall in America, there were a large collection of outlet style stores intermixed throughout. Our favorite store was actually the Lego outlet, but the pursuit of fashion restricted our time there.


Here we are scanning the racks at Marshall's. By this point, Ian was really into it, and began to pick out some great stuff for himself. Marshall's is an interesting store, in that its just a huge collection of close-out items from other stores. Many of the items are just one-offs, so its really hard to predict what they'll have. In addition, the organization tends to be somewhat lacking, so it really does become a search for good clothes. But we found some great stuff. Ian snagged an awesome purple shirt, and I got him a rockin' dark brown blazer.


Here are the spoils of war. At the end of the day, Ian had 4 new casual shirts, 2 pairs of shoes, 3 sweaters, a polo shirt that actually looks GOOD, some colored t-shirts for layering, a new belt, a new dress shirt and tie, 2 pairs of pants, a bunch of socks that weren't white or black, and a casual blazer. Compared to his clothing collection just a few hours earlier, this was practically a whole new wardrobe.


Here's Ian just before we went out to dinner that night. The jeans were already his, but everything else was brand new. We think he looks great.

Not everything we found worked of course. Check out the hall of shame:
Tommy Hilfiger, WTF were you thinking?
Elf shoes for that +9 kicking ability.
Worst. Shirt. Evar!

A Geek Reborn

This weekend a beautiful thing happened.

After a day's worth of hard shopping, we rescued one lone geek from his fashion sins.

Taking a sad fashion freak (this was AFTER the Trenchcoat Talk(tm))


to Chic Geek.

CJ will regale you with the tale of transformation soon.

One geek at a time

We're leaving for DC tonight.

Tonight will begin the transformation of InCyr from geek to chic.

What this site is not

$blog = "Chic Geek"
$stupidity = "silly pretentious crap"

if ($blog != $stupidity) {
print "w00tage!"
}

output:
w00tage!

There's a lot of men's style advice out there. Some of it is useful, some of it is mind-numbingly painful to read. Like an article that explains the intricate details of when and where you can wear a button-down shirt opposed to an Oxford. Honestly, you think anyone would really be offended if you wore one to a wedding? Other tips tell you that you need a 400 dollar sweater!!! I've seen nicer looking sweaters at target for 30 bucks. Or even more ridiculously, ugly-ass 300 dollar swim trunks!

The truth is, a lot of that advice is pretty much crap in the real world. Send it to dev/null, won't you? Looking good does not have to be complicated, and does NOT have to be expensive. Save your money for the important things in life, like video games, computer hardware, or BSG season box sets.

What I'm trying to do is get us geeks a little more respect. We have some now, people defer to us when their PC's break or the network goes down, but they might be snickering at us as we leave their cubicle. What I want, is for that cute intern to think "wow... he's a pretty cool IT guy" when you walk away. Dress better, and you'll have more confidence, and asking out the girl whom you see at Starbucks every morning will be a lot easier. And who knows, maybe she'll actually say yes.

In the next few weeks, I want to cover the basics; get you guys to stop relying on fracking polo shirts so much, have you buy a nice pair of pants or two, and make you be a little more conscientious when it comes to making your next t-shirt purchase.

Oh, and just one little rule to start off with, never, ever, EVER wear the free t-shirts that they give out at trade shows. Well, maybe if you're doing yard work or washing your car... come to think of it, those 'Microsoft .net world tour' shirts would be perfect to wipe the bugs and tar off the front of your grill.

Introduction

Greetings!

So as the resident male geek here, I thought a formal introduction should be in order. You've already met my lovely wife. My name is CoffeeJedi, and I'm a geek.

I too was once like you brother, despondent, adrift in a sea of screen printed t-shirts, big glasses, and leather trench coats. But now I have come to show you the way my brothers! Well, ok, I'm just here to help out and give you a few pointers. But the fact remains that it took me a quite a while to learn how to dress well for the right occasion.

Back in high school, I pretty much had a 'uniform' that I wore every day. A denim shirt tucked into light blue (or black) jeans, hiking boots, and my big brown Indiana Jones jacket. In my mind I looked adventurous, in real life, I just looked like a dork. On some days I'd wear my Star-Trek t-shirts, other days my "Save the Earth" shirts. Most days I wore my glasses, large cobalt blue ones with an over-the-nose crossbridge, and lenses that changed color in the sun. But it was high school, I was in the marching band, and we drummers didn't exactly put "fashion" at the top of our list.

My first year at college, I kept things pretty much the same as high school. But I eventually learned that my wardrobe simply wouldn't do. Now I was thrust into a world of day classes, night classes, extra curricular meetings, departmental dinners, guest speakers, parties, get-togethers, and nights out at the bar. I needed a wardrobe that would get me noticed, and make people think "hey, that guy seems to have his stuff together".

Out went (some of) the denim shirts, the pale jeans, the black jeans, and my big puffy leather coat. I had some relapses though, in 1999 after The Matrix came out, i thought, Hey! Those guys look cool, maybe I'll look cool too!. I didn't realize that the movies presented a rather distorted view of fashion, and for about a month, I'd hear people behind my back say "Oh, there goes that Matrix guy again". I kept the black trench coat though, they have their place (a 9:00am class in nice weather isn't that place though- again - it took me a little while to figure that)

But as styles changed, I refined and trimmed and added to my wardrobe piece by piece until finally in my senior year I had a pretty complete set of clothes. Finally gone were the big honkin' glasses, replaced with a slimmer, designer pair. I actually started going to the mall for stores other than EB Games, Radio Shack, KB Toys, and the bookstore (I still made sure to hit at least one every visit though) and got geekily excited when a new line of shirts appeared at my favorite store. It finally dawned on me too, that I was buying large and extra large out of habit, when I was actually a pretty skinny guy, so mediums (and even a few smalls) took their place.

Recently, I've came out of my retro "bowling and hot-rod shirt" phase. You know, the shirts from Hot Topic adorned with flames and skulls and martini glasses and playing cards. They too have their place (but the style is waning now). In the last couple of years, I've come to realize that their time and place is becoming increasingly limited.

So as you can see, I'm still learning myself. So this blog will be as much about my own experiences trying to look like a better geek, as it is for fashion and makeovers. I'll make sure to post links to anything interesting that I find. We're not fashion-nazis here, don't worry, you can still have your ThinkGeek t-shirts (I'm rather fond of a few myself)! I just want to help you guys dress for dates, parties (regular and LAN), interviews, casual dinners, fancy dinners, and everything else in between. However, you're on your own at the anime convention's cos-play competition.

Sound good?

Next: Fashion basics, and a more thorough explanation of the site

More to it then that

There's more to geek fashion then t-shirts from ThinkGeek.com.

No matter if your 9-5 is spent elbow deep in code or hardware, you still have to wear clothes. (Unless, of course, you work from home - but keep your naked coding to yourself.) Preferably clothes that are clean, comfortable, and make you look good. That's what fashion is really about: feeling and looking good.

And, now we're here to help.

Trust us, if you're anything like the geeks I grew up with, or the ones we know now, you could use a little help - maybe a lot.

So welcome to the world of the chic geek.