Sean’s Blog

Rules For the Modern Man - Dylan Jones

Dylan Jones is the editor of GQ Magazine and with the book he set out to write a set of rules that is applicable to style today. To paraphrase one of his fantastic sayings, most fashion advice seems to come from either the nineteenth century, or was written on the back of a drug dealers business card five minutes ago. And commentary like that is why I loved this book.

Anyone that knows me knows that of the many words you could use to describe me, stylish is not one of them. So with my wedding coming up, I though I would give this a look over since I will need to get a new suit (and have no desire to start off married life embarrassing the wife more then necessary). After reading the introduction, I was hooked.

The book is broken up into several sections that cover, work, fashion, manners, recreation, etc… Each of these sections has short articles addressing specific questions such as:

• What is a Hollywood Black Tie Party?
• How to get a suit tailored.
• How to fire someone
• How to gamble
• How to work the room at a party

Then there are less orthodox, put still helpful sections:

• How to give a bollocking (ie chew someone out)
• How to behave at a lap dance club
• How to skin a rabbit
• How to appreciate a cigar.

Generally I find Men’s fashion (and this may be a preconceived idea) to be either stuffy or so ridiculously metrosexual that it’s almost useless. Neither of these things was true with this book. Jones is funny and very down to earth (for a man that wears white jeans ) I would totally have a beer with him although my terrible fashion sense would probably be a huge embarrassment, especially since I read his book and should know better.

Some of the book is pretty British and as an American, I had a couple head scratching moments when he would use a British TV star to illustrate a point. Aside from that though, I would highly recommend this book, if not for the style advice then for the writing which is very funny and reads very quickly.