Practical approach to developing personal style?

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I thought I would try here as perhaps this is an Asperger's thing, maybe not a guy thing like some people tell me. Have people with Asperger's had difficulty with style/fashion in the past but were to overcome it to any extent?

I wear whatever is comfortable but I am thinking it may be doing me a disservice as far as connecting with others and especially (potential)dating to have a no-thought approach to style/fashion. How can I study this area with the specific intention of controlling what my style choices signal/project to others about my personal qualities/ confidence/ personality /etc. I am thinking about non-verbal cues like body language/facial expressions with the intention of controlling these for the purpose of use them to enhance my communication and ability to connect with others? But I realize that the style side is also key to this process as it will affect communication and as a result could be distorting observations I make.

I wish to utilize the non-verbal means of communication including body language, facial expression & expressions to try to highlight positive qualities as these qualities are not immediately obvious to any observer and it is always best to demonstrate these qualities through indirect means rather than direct which is basically bragging.

I would say that one's clothes must be clean, must not be wrinkly, and must be color-coordinated to some extent. And don't wear plaids with stripes LOL

One could wear a nice sweater and jeans, and look "stylish." Or a hoodie/sweatshirt with the name of a college or university. One can't go wrong with those....

I do understand the cleanliness aspect and try to avoid wrinkles but don't totally understand the color-coordination.

Or the material choices/clothing shaping for purposes of highlighting my body in positive way.
Hoodie, Sweater, sweatshirt, t-shirt with jeans are all I really wear. They are okay in a neutral sense but don't "enhance" me in the sense of making me more attractive out of 10 or making people likely to assume positive personality traits like he looks smart/interesting/cool/fun. I haven't yet gone to college/university but when I do I will get some of those for clothing and they'll be my stand-bys for just hanging around in dorm but want to be more impressive when meeting people/out in public/etc.

I don't understand if I would want to choose either plaid

Wear nice, button-down shirts with a label like Polo on them.

Or polo shirts.

Wear them both with chino pants which fit you well.

You can wear nice sweaters with chinos, too.

Girl here The biggest turn off about guys clothes is if they are ill fitted and falling off....

Wear button down shirts and jeans that actually fit (and aren't falling off you!)

And be friendly and smile a lot lol.

Good luck!

I did an edit earlier or so I had thought till I revisited this topic only to see previous comment still there.

How may I best identify those that are nice? I fear that I may be blind to the difference between nice and tacky.

Hoping to delve in depth because as someone with Aspergers I know this is an area of weakness for me and I'm hoping to work on changing it.


Can you please tell me more about what an ideal fit would be? I am 170lbs fairly lean with low to average body fat at 5'11.

What kinds of button down shirts look good? There are many button shirts that looked nerdy so it makes me unsure.

Ideal fit is hard to say from forums. If there is a high end clothing store near you, sometimes they have dressing room attendants who can help size you. I'm not saying to purchase anything from this store, but you could use it to figure out your correct size and then buy more affordable clothes elsewhere.

Disclaimer, I kind of have a thing for nerdy guys, so I may not be the best of judge of the style that you want

I would say something with a collar, no pockets, slight plaid pattern (similar to background color of shirt, so it doesn't stand out a lot, just a little). If you have light eyes, match this color to the color of your eyes as best you can, it'll look really good. If you have dark eyes, you usually want to contrast your shirt color with the color of your skintone (ex. olive or bronze skin looks really good against reds, if your skin is pale/white you can't go wrong with a black shirt, if you are deep african brown go for a white shirt).

Hopefully some of this helps. Bare in mind this is just one woman's opinion

I've been wondering for a while if it may be worth it to start a "style guide" thread. People could post pics of outfits and things that do and don't work for different situations.
I realize it's going a little off topic to make this post, but this thread brings it to mind again.

Maybe I'll work on that today.

That would be fantastic!

Only thing for me is I'm a bit paranoid as I've seen a guy be doxxed on random gaming forum. They posted an Imgur screencap of an email he received stating his name, phone number, mailing address which includes door number, etc. I think place of employment too, it might have been a work email like a pay stub or memo. Another upload had a face shot too I think. Moderators deleted it but typically it's pretty easy to still read deleted posts through google cache. Also people could ask and he'd repost the link on a dummy account.

I'm not sure how I'll do pics if I do post pics. Maybe an expiring link like on postimage you can set it to 30 days. But you never know if there's creeps who might save images. If they got your face pic saved they can do google search by image and probably pull up your facebook.


I am fairly pale, enough so that I do try to make sure I am getting sunlight at least on a semi regular basis. At least it keeps me from being shut-in too long as I figure if I did it for a couple weeks to a month I might look albino or half albino. I have grey/blue eyes so it makes it kind of hard, maybe something like navy blue as off-whites probably won't look good.

Any tricks for accounting for highly flushed cheeks/face which aren't good as it's often times an indicator for high blood pressure although mine is normal at about 120/60. It bothers me a lot as I worry I might get the red "spider veins" on my face when I am older possibly when I am in mid 30's onward. It makes me think others may think high blood pressure with high risk of heart disease/stroke. People tend to assume I'm a smoker probably because of this even though I have never smoked cigarettes in my life.

Definitely go for blue shirts! It'll draw attention to your blue eyes, which is good

On the topic of posting outfit pics, maybe just do a body shot and crop off the head? That way it displays the outfit, but doesn't betray your identity?

I think a style thread would be extremely helpful. It's one of the biggest struggles I stll face

I thought more like posting links to articles, or maybe reposting pics from image searches to get general ideas.
I might post a few pictures of basically how I'd dress for a first date, or an interview, or something. As well as maybe some opposites, examples of stuff I probably wouldn't ever wear if I was trying to dress to impress.

I don't know, I know how to look good, I just don't have the social skills or abilities to be able to do anything with it.

That would be most helpful! Actually that's largely the kind of stuff I am most hoping to see. That and the feedback like from hopelessly3, which helps me stop with fashion disasters.

Problem with AS is people say just wear whats comfortable but almost anything is comfortable for me. Only a few exceptions which are the really out there kind of clothing. In particular for me it's cozy sweaters or hoodies. But that stuff isn't very sexy.

That is really good advice! I couldn't figured out how to dress, so in my later 20s, I decided to always overdress a bit. I never wear T-shirts and wear button down shirts. I prefer shoes to sneakers. My gf thinks I dress a bit stiffly, but never inappropriately.