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Nerds, it's time to up your fashion game.

140stitches.com

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Re: Nerds, it's time to up your fashion game.

#21

Post by jordynclee »

roguecoder wrote: post #19

So I understand that this is the kind of copy that is frequently used to sell clothes. "Thou art insufficient! Accept my wisdom and I shall lift thee from thy ignorance!" It's just like every crappy teen movie, make-over show and magazine cover. It's also not appealing. Your vision of "nerd" seems to be nothing but "young white guys who don't work out much": who thinks of themselves that way? It is possible to be a f…

Thanks for your input. I enjoyed your thoughts on approaching things in a "fashion nerd" sort of way and was intrigued by the ideas of date-driven and scientific research to back up a point of view. However, I'm here to give simple fashion advice to guys who are willing to take it. They are perfectly capable of doing the research to look good; my hope is they'll find 140 Stitches to give it to them.

Re: Nerds, it's time to up your fashion game.

#22

Post by jordynclee »

gaelian wrote: post #18
jordynclee wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intention of this blog is to give fashion advice to guys who truly want help. Of course there will be guys out there who are content with the way they dress, but there are a handful that really do want honest help and don't have a place to go. If you find value in 140 Stitches, great. If not, that's okay too.

And no doubt you will still find guys who want help, even if - in my own anecdotal experience - there's not as many of these guys around as there perhaps once was. And I wish you luck. But what I took issue with was the tone you use in some of your writing. That sentence I quoted from your site just sounds horrible and my initial gut reaction to it is that you don't know the audience you're apparently targeting. The…

Thanks for the feedback. I will definitely take it into consideration for future posts. I've learned a lot through these comments and I really value everyone's opinion.

Also, my point in saying I like The Social Network, etc. meant nothing more than to explain why I've started 140 Stiches; I have a love for technology and fashion and want to give advice to guys in technology who are willing to take it.

Re: Nerds, it's time to up your fashion game.

#23

Post by gaelian »

jordynclee wrote: post #22
gaelian wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no doubt you will still find guys who want help, even if - in my own anecdotal experience - there's not as many of these guys around as there perhaps once was. And I wish you luck. But what I took issue with was the tone you use in some of your writing. That sentence I quoted from your site just sounds horrible and my initial gut reaction to it is that you don't know the audience you're apparently targeting. The…

Thanks for the feedback. I will definitely take it into consideration for future posts. I've learned a lot through these comments and I really value everyone's opinion. Also, my point in saying I like The Social Network, etc. meant nothing more than to explain why I've started 140 Stiches; I have a love for technology and fashion and want to give advice to guys in technology who are willing to take it.

> Also, my point in saying I like The Social Network, etc. meant nothing more than to explain why I've started 140 Stiches; I have a love for technology and fashion and want to give advice to guys in technology who are willing to take it.

OK. But you follow up the paragraph in question with 'Basically what I'm trying to say here is, I understand your language.' which implied to me that the purpose of the preceeding paragraph was largely to establish your 'geek credentials' in some manner. This (in isolation) is what rang hollow for me.

Re: Nerds, it's time to up your fashion game.

#26

Post by punee »

gaelian wrote: post #6

> I'm here to let you in on the little secrets of fashion so people think you're more awesome than you truly are. I hope that came out wrong, I really do. The copy on this site comes off as pretentious and kind of annoying to me. Maybe it's just the groups I associate with, but am I the only one who thinks that the stereotype of the fashion-clueless nerd really isn't as pervasive in current reality as it once was?

I'm here to let you in on the little secrets of fashion so people think you're even more awesome than you already are.

That's how this should read. That would make unprofessional copy look like lazy professional copy, although I suppose there's a more general issue with tone throughout the post. Needless to say a lot of work still needs to be done.

As for the idea itself, I would probably try to appeal to qualities that nerds value. For example, they sure spend a great deal of time making sure their code is elegant. Maybe you could try to see how you can translate the rules of elegance as they apply to code into fashion parlance.

Re: Nerds, it's time to up your fashion game.

#27

Post by andrewcooke »

andrewcooke wrote: post #4

eh. i was thinking about this the other day. about how i'd like to tell people what style is. and how hard it is to tell anyone anything about such a personal choice. i'm a nerd. i'm also someone who ended up in a completely different culture. one where, i realised, i looked just plain stupid. i changed. now, i think, i dress pretty well. but it was a very personal journey. and i had to think hard about a lot of very…

i expanded on this at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4355517 / http://www.acooke.org/cute/HowToDress0.html

Re: Nerds, it's time to up your fashion game.

#28

Post by RicRoberts »

This isn't fashion advice for nerds. Becoming traditionally fashionable will render nerds un-nerdy.

There's nothing wrong with fashion blogs, but this feels like it's aimed at what the author perceives as being low-hanging fruit / easy pickings. It feels a little bit condescending.

There might be a market here, but I don't think this site has the tone quite right (yet).

Re: Nerds, it's time to up your fashion game.

#29

Post by perlgeek »

I happen to be one of the folks on the image in the middle.

Going to a hackathon with a conference t-shirt seems to be quite appropriate to me.

And jordynclee, if you read this, please take that picture off that blog. I don't think you have permission to use it, neither from its creator, nor from the people on that image.

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