Yes you can ... look "Forever Cool"

By Debbie Gardner PRIME Editor When does a man look his most sexy and masculine? When it comes to his clothes, award-winning costume designer and style consultant Sherrie Mathieson has the answer. The author of Forever Cool, the new style bible for Baby Boomers, went right to the source. She asked women. "Simplicity is really masculine," Mathieson told PRIME in a telephone interview from her Scottsdale, Arizona, home. "If I have a panel of women and ask them to describe a man at his sexiest they say [dressed] in a nice pair of jeans , well-fitted, and a white shirt or a blue denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up a bit, and his hair combed back." "If they don't have hair," Mathieson continued, "None of the toupee look or ponytail with three strands." "Women like their men clean and natural," she said. Clean. Simple. Classic. It's a look that, as Mathieson's book title promises, is forever cool, no matter what a guy's age. "Nowadays the fashion industry complicates life, they overdo everything," Mathieson said. "We're all victims of it unless we fight that impulse." Why a guy's style matters It's amazing how people think of [style and fashion] as a superficial subject," Mathieson told PRIME. "But it's not [really superficial] at all." She continued, "Your personal style is more relevant to looking young than plastic surgery." And with 50-something guys facing all sorts of new challenges, paying attention to one's personal style can be just the edge any guy needs. "They're out there trying to get dates, or trying to get a new job, or be competitive in their job," Mathieson pointed out as we discussed style and the Boomer man. "And there's no question that if you look modern and well-dressed you will be so much more successful on any level ... a personal level, an entrepreneurial level ... it's a win-win." And, Mathieson said, developing a personal style doesn't take a lot of work or fussing two things most men abhor. "Most of the men I work with are shocked at how simple it is," she said. Step #1 Assess "Once you're past 50, reassess. Look at yourself. Face your flaws and deal with them appropriately," Mathieson says. "Maybe your tummy isn't what it used to be, or your hair, or your feet," she said. "You have to have the right attitude about seeking your best look for the rest of your life." And your best look, she said, pivots around your basic physicality. Just as it did when a guy was younger. "Certain physicalities can get away with certain types of clothes," she said. "If you're very boyish, you can be a little more trendy." If a guy is a bit on the heavy side, well, then his style choices are a bit more limited. "And [the effect of physicality] is even doubly so as you get older ...you don't have the forgiving skin and hair that you did [when you were younger]." Her advice for meeting the physicality challenges of a 50-something or 60-something male body? "Work with it." Step #2 Purge "You have to be very tough on yourself ... tweak your look," Mathieson said. "I'm going to be 60 in June and I want to look as attractive and appropriate as I can ... but I don't want to show all inches of me!" And men, she said, are often the worst at reassessing their wardrobe as they age. "I see men that are wearing their jeans from 30 years ago ... they're tight, tapered, and hit them in the wrong places," she said. "[Fit and style] has to be reassessed on an ongoing basis." And she cited some of the other offenders she sees on men of a certain age. "Don't wear a black tee shirt with jeans, please, it's such a harsh look," she said. "Or any tee shirt with a jacket, or those Coogie [patterned ] sweaters." These looks she said are "stuck in the 1980s, and the men who do this will identify themselves [as stuck, too]." But these time-warped fashion faux pas aren't the only mistakes Boomer guys make, she pointed out. One big, big mistake come in terms of fit. "You can't wear your pants way, way below your waist and consider it a good fit," Mathieson said. Another comes as a bad definition of casual, comfortable clothes. "As people retire, they need to make a shift into casual clothes," Mathieson said. "And many seem to think casual needs to be sloppy... stretch socks and shorts are so unnecessary." A man can dress comfortably and casually, Mathieson said, and still look great. "Casualness can be extremely stylish, it just has to be done right," she said. "And stylishness doesn't have to be expensive. It's in the cut, the fabric, the color." Her pet peeve "those flowery shirts that are copies of the original Hawaiian shirt ... that heavy-duty patterned look." "Men buy it as a casual look, a look that says 'Now, I'm retired; Now, I'm relaxed," she said. "But it's just a complicated, unaesthetic look that does nothing for their masculinity." Step #3 - what to wear "I ascribe to wonderful style, hip style," Mathieson said. "I think a lot of people as they get older can be very relevant along those lines." When it comes to men's style, however, she emphasized it pays to ground your look with the classics. Spread collar dress shirts. Small patterned ties. Polo shirts. Classic shorts. Pleated or flat-front khakis cuffed for work, non-cuffed for casual. Navy blazers. A great pair of jeans. Dress slacks in shades of grey. A well-tailored business suit. A classic tux. And blue, lots of blue. "I say over and over to men, wear those blues, certain shades of green, like olive green, and a good white shirt is very nice, too," Mathieson said. "Look at Italian men, Spanish men, Mediterranean men ... they all wear shades of blue on a daily basis because they realize how handsome they look." As far as the olive green goes, she referenced the choice of that shade by the military. "They use it because it adds to a masculine look," she explained. But, as Mathieson pointed out in the portion of her book dedicated to cross-generational dressing, a look founded in classics doesn't preclude stealing style from a son or grandson. "In the cross-generational dressing [pages] I show ways that men can adapt things from their son's [wardrobe]," she said. "They can both wear the same thing, but they might wear it differently." For example, both dad and his son might wear a small-patterned casual shirt with jeans. The 50-plus dad would wear the shirt tucked into a pair of classic cut jeans, and roll the sleeves slightly. "The [teenage] boy could wear the shirt untucked over more modern-style jeans, and leave his sneakers untied," she said. Thus, she said, a guy can apply "the nuances of current fashion ... but keep the principles of style close to [his] heart." #4 - Making it work "Happily, a lot of Baby Boomers have seen a time when [style] was still relevant in our culture," Mathieson said. Thus, they have a point of reference, something the examples of "not cool" and "forever cool" wardrobe choices in Forever Cool seek to reinforce. And, though Mathieson doesn't give specific brand and store information for each example in her book, she does devote space in the back pages to advice about where to shop. And she rates the stores by price. "Get inspired at the expensive stores," Mathieson told PRIME. "Go in and look at the clothes, touch the fabric ... educate your eye." She said people don't have to spend a lot to have style, but they have to understand the principles to make stylish purchases. And those purchases can, many times, be done fairly affordably. "Target is a store that, very wisely, realized that you can have style and not be expensive," she noted. You can also glean the principles of style by observing how others dress, by reading magazines, and through travel, especially to the Mediterranean, she said. "This book tries to be interesting to someone like myself, and someone who is average in their approach to fashion, and the person who doesn't really know anything [about style]," Mathieson said of Forever Cool. "My greatest challenge was to make [Forever Cool] a bible that people can carry around and use as a guide." Forever Cool by Sherrie Mathieson (ISBN:0-9774570-0-1m Illustrated, 256-pgs, Thompson Peak Publishing), is listed at $22.95.