So why did I start a blog about men’s fashion?

...apart, that is, from the fact that my friends and relatives kept telling me that I should. Because you know, there are already plenty of great blogs out there. Do I really have anything new and valuable to contribute? I mean, I’m not an expert or anything. I don’t work for GQ; I don’t have a standing invitation to Fashion Week; I don’t take pretentious photographs of people posing on cobblestone streets beside vintage bicycles with cigarettes dangling languorously from their fingers and/or lips. And, in spite of the fact that I’m a lawyer, I don’t even have the money to buy all the lovely clothes that I want, because I’m still young and broke. So what have I got to say, really?

I think my answer is the same as a lot of bloggers: I have some things that I feel that I need to say, and I believe that other people might derive some value from hearing them. Despite the fact that my interest is amateur rather than professional, I make it my business to be well-informed; I hate to put forward an opinion about something if I haven’t first taken the trouble to educate myself about it, which hopefully means that people will learn something from me. And—perhaps because of my legal training, but probably because it’s just the kind of person I am—I take a very analytical approach to things, and I always like to know whether there are rules that ought to be followed, and then to help other people learn those rules. The great thing about men’s style is that, although there are rules, they’re not that hard to learn, even though there are a lot of them. And you do need to learn them—learn them well enough to follow them perfectly—before you can even think about bending them.

The other reason I started this blog is because we all have to face one simple truth: Clothes are important, and people judge you by them. I may wear a razor-sharp suit to work every day to impress my clients, while my programmer friend may wear whatever T-shirt happens to be on top of the pile of clean laundry, but every clothing choice that each of us makes tells the world something about us. The people we pass on the street each day don’t know our life stories. Through the things we choose to put on our backs, we influence how those people will perceive us.

As anyone who’s ever taken an English class knows, though, meaning is more often found in the eye of the beholder than in the intention of the creator. One man’s razor-sharp suit is another man’s totem of corporatist hegemony; one woman’s dreadlocks are another woman’s public health nuisance. Hence, the all-important question: Who are you trying to speak to with your clothes, and are they hearing what you want them to hear?

My goal is to make you more aware of the power that your clothes wield—both to express your identity, and indeed, to create it.

Or, to put it simply: Threads count.