How do I help my man with his fashion?

Beauty And The Beast, a weekly dating advice column with Kendra Cunningham and John Powers

Fan Mail Question of The Week:

Dear Kendra & John,

I want to share a small issue about my boyfriend. He is not good at picking the right clothes for any occasion because he is 8 yrs older than me so expect an old fashion type of a guy. I tried to accept and slowly gave him some advices but it never works. I am just wondering if you can give me an advice about my problem.

Thanks,

Felicity

Beauty:  Kendra Cunningham

If you don’t like your man’s style, buy him the clothes you want him to wear. Tell him he’ll look sexy in them. Or hot. Or youthful. Use an adjective that will be the most mouthwatering for him. Don’t bring him shopping with you. Don’t talk to him about it. If this guy isn’t naturally stylish, a good old fashioned conversation is not going to change that. You are going to have to single handedly infiltrate his unfashionable gray matter. Start with one item. Nothing major, a shirt. Now here’s the thing, once you buy him the shirt you can’t simply expect him to wear it. You then have to say “why don’t you wear the shirt I gave you to Bob and Mary’s poker party Saturday?”  If he shows up with it on, you got yourself a new wardrobe to buy.

If he doesn’t wear it and you ask, kindly “what happened to the shirt I bought you?”

And he doesn’t answer or says he forgot, you may have a man with makeover resistance on your hands.

I had one of those guys once. He enjoyed dressing cheap. I told him “you can be cheap and stylish”. He didn’t want to. He liked acting, being and looking cheap.

You can’t change that.

Which brings me to my next point, if you have a makeover resistor, his “style” may be representative of more than just poor taste in clothes. Your guy dresses old? Maybe he is old. Maybe he feels old. He acts old. Here’s the clincher, maybe he LIKES all these things about himself. Guys don’t change unless they want to. They aren’t like women who are willing to pretend to change until the man becomes emotionally dependent on them, then revert back to their real selves. If a guy doesn’t want to change, he won’t.

Then you have to decide, can you live with a man with no style? More importantly, can you live with a man who won’t change for you? I mean don’t you want to rule the roost?

You may be in for an eternal power struggle.

The only other manipulative solution I can think of is, change YOUR style to something he can’t stand. He doesn’t like flannels on women? Suddenly you want to be a lumber jack. You see where I’m going with this? Then you’re in a position to negotiate.

Start with buying the shirt though.

Leave the tags on it.

Unless of course, you have a back up to give it to.

Thanks for listening!

Kisses-

Kendra

Kendra is a stand up comic living in Brooklyn where she owns a super comfortable bed. She spends most of her time wondering where the hell her sugar daddy is and hoping he didn’t settle.

www.kendracunningham.com                   

www.blondelogicblog.com

The Beast: John Powers

The older we get, the less flexible we become. Our habits are locked in and we like what we like. Your dude is 8 years older… I’m not good at math, but that’s nearly a decade.

I’m not surprised his fashion sense is different than yours. You grew up in a different era. Do you ever wonder why old men wear those powder blue jeans pulled up to their chests? That was the style in the 50′s…

Let’s take a moment to consider the differences between the 80′s and 90′s…

In the 80′s people wore neon, parachute pants, backwards clothes, and had curly, frizzy hair. They listened to Paula Abdul, MC Hammer, Bon Jovi, and Cindy Lauper. It was a strange time… we should have noticed something was amiss sooner.

In the 90′s it was plaid shirts, acid-washed jeans, weird hats, and long hair with blond streaks. We listened to Pearl Jam, LL Cool J, Nirvana, and Shaggy. If someone walked into a party in the 90′s dressed like 1987, it would have been cause for ridicule.

The way I see it you have 3 options. You can helpfully suggest some new(er) fashion ideas to your old man, love him for who he is… or find a guy your own age. You might simply be more hip than your antique gentleman. Try to take him shopping… and casually pick out something a bit more edgy than he’s used to. See how he responds. Be subtle and use language from his generation. That would be groovy.

… if that doesn’t work, wait for your High School reunion.

LIKE US on Facebook: HERE

Download The Comedy Point for FREE

on iTunes Click HERE