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One of the most classic and versatile patterns in men's fashion, stripes are literally on everything. From shirts to neckties to shoes, stripes are relatively easy to find on anything nowadays. But they're for more than just avoiding the plain, solid colored route. Done correctly, stripes can play tricks on the mind and make you look like a whole new man.


Hiding Horizontal Challenges
If you have too much of the wrong horizontal action going on with your bod, stripes offer you a chance to change some of that, even for just an evening. The right kind of stripes in the right places might not make you thin, but will be sure to make people overlook the fact that you're not as thin as you'd like.

Stripes create illusions by drawing the eye of the observer in and making it travel up and down. Because the lines guide the eye along that vertical axis, they visually 'stretch' you our in their direction. This makes you look taller and thinner in proportion.

Vertical stripes can do much to help keep your extra inches from becoming an eyesore. Start with a shirt that has a simple solid color topped with contrasting pinstripes; a white shirt with black stripes (or vice versa) usually works well. This is a very flexible combo, as you can wear it with a multitude of ties to the office, or leave it as is to just go out.

For occasions that don't call for a tie, you could take things a couple of steps further and wear shirts with thicker stripes. You could also try stripes of slightly different colors like yellow with orange or blue with light green. Switching up the widths of the stripes will give your outfit a younger, edgier look.

Going Horizontal with Your Stripes
It's often the wider guys that get a lot of the attention, but smaller guys have about as big a problem. In terms of proportion, you're no better off when you're too thin because your body still looks a bit off. To solve this, you just take what the wider guys are doing and give it a 90-degree turn.

Horizontal stripes are great for correcting the visual proportions of too-thin guys. They follow the same logic: by guiding the eye along a particular axis, it gives the illusion that your body is particularly elongated in that direction. Used in the right way, skinnier guys can look just a little bit bulkier and better proportioned.

Casual looks can be easily infused with a little horizontal illusion. There are countless polos and tees on the market that feature all sorts of stripe widths, colors and densities. Your best bet is to get one that's striped primarily across the shoulders and chest. That kind of pattern helps create the ideal upside-down triangle silhouette for guys.

Using horizontal stripes in formal men's attire, though, can be somewhat iffy. From neckties to dress shirts, you'll be hard-pressed to find flattering clothes with sideways stripes. You'll be far better off just getting a close-fitting suit jacket and pair of pants, and then wearing them with a skinny necktie to help keep everything in the right proportions.

Stripes are great to wear not just because they help correct certain aspects of your image, but because they set you apart from a primarily plain crowd. Just remember not to mix too many different stripes together, else you'll look like a geometry project gone wrong. Keep it, at a maximum, to a striped shirt and a differently striped tie, with everything else in a sober solid color.