TPG Rants: Dressing for Myself and Not Others! - THE PREP GUY | TPGSTYLE.COM - Canada's Leading Men's Fashion & Style Blog by Syed Sohail

Blazer: David C. Wigley SS15, Sweater: RW&CO, Trousers: Won Hundred, Shoes: Cole Haan, Hat: J.Lindeberg

Hello Friends! It’s TPG Rant Time! For my first time readers, this is a segment where I address people, hot-topics and other things that I find of interest.

Today’s Rant is about people that have assumed that because I am a style blogger, they can share their unsolicited & uneducated opinion on what my personal style should be like. I feel that at many times for myself or other bloggers, there is an external pressure to try be different and too fall for the perceptions of others, that are not true to our personal styles to appease them (not to be confused with constructive feedback). However if I or another blogger were to listen to their “advice”, it would come off as being fake and not being true to ourselves.

What I think has been a little bit of a hard pill to swallow is the idea that because I am “The Prep Guy,” some people have assumed that I have to be preppy at all times of my life. To be honest, The Prep Guy is just the pen name of my blog. I do not like to be categorized for my style because it limits people to their thoughts of “how I should dress”, and for myself, that is not being authentic. I like to wear what I want to wear, and I think it is unfair for outsiders to assume that because a I wear a certain thing or because of my pen name, that I should be placed into a box. This also applies to other bloggers out there… they are expected to dress a certain way due to their pen name or how people want them to dress, and it is just obnoxious. At the end of the day I find it ridiculous that people can judge a book by its cover, but would never want that to happen in return.

Here’s a direct example of a tweet I received from @ThriveryCorp who assumed that because I own a J.Lindeberg hat that I am not fitting “any preppy aesthetic” and that I am ‘pretending that I am preppy because I wear bow-ties:’

@Theprepguy dude you know you’re not preppy right? Like J Lindberg was never cool and definitely not fitting any preppy aesthetic
— SUS VAN ZANDT (@ThriveryCorp) November 1, 2014

@Theprepguy it’s cool that you’ve built a brand and everything. But let’s not pretend wearing a bowtie makes you preppy
— SUS VAN ZANDT (@ThriveryCorp) November 1, 2014

Though it is unfortunate that the person had a negative view of my personal “style” per say, I could care less about his perception of my personal style is because I would rather be genuine, and having the burden of shaping my looks around the thoughts of others would just drive me crazy.
At the end of the day I wear bow-ties because I like wearing bow-ties, I wear J. Lindeberg because I like J. Lindeberg and I wouldn’t change a single thing about it.
I know that this post is a lot wordier than my usual posts but I hope that one of my readers can take something out of it.
Be sure to share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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