****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
There have been several complaints about the color scheme of this book. To be clear, this manual is NOT Black and White. It's an intelligently designed, carefully grayscale, with forest green and mint green as the two accent colors. Yes, the pictures are in grayscale. Yes, the text is a fairly dark grey. The headers and such are not--they are a forest green. Mint and forest green appear throughout the book most often for layout or diagram purposes.Note that I comment on the intelligently designed aspect of this. This book is not designed to tell a man exactly how to dress. It is not designed to be a bible of style and followed religiously. This book is a "road map"--as the authors refer to it--for a man to interpret then decide for himself which aspects to implement.Thus, the book is a reasonably compact guide with pictures in grey scale adequate for its intended purpose. It's much less visually distracting--which enables the reader to more carefully analyze the details they generally would ignore: for example, the the pattern guide and the shoe-lace guide would seem "busy" visually if color pictures were to be included--they'd detract from the comparison that is being focused upon. Of course, they could simply include color pictures, but then that renders the book stylistically inconstant--something a style guide would, of course, avoid. The purpose of the guide is to communicate a concept to the reader with minimal confusion. Color pictures would undermine that.This book operates on the perspective that it's audience is intelligent, capable of visualization or at least capable of using modern technology. (Anyone seeing this, or attempting to order this online is of course, in possession of one of those qualities. Brick-and-mortar bound purchasers may not be.) If you want a kindergarten-style hand-in-hand shopping guide, pass this guide on to your mother then have her shop for you. (To be clear, this is more or less what I'm doing for my baby brother--he recently turned 15. Judge for yourself at what age it is inappropriate for a female relative--not a significant other--to do the entirety of your shopping for you.)Just be flattered that the guide has high-expectations of its reader's basic mental abilities. If all else fails, either pass this to a trusted friend or family member, then have them guide you through it. Or, if you prefer to understand men's style, start with a simpler, more visual-focused guide with an introduction of the basics then proceed to this guide. On that note, Detail's eponymous style guide would be a good pick. It's a slightly more expensive and physically larger volume with good color photographs and a reduced amount of text (and a corresponding reduced amount of information). It will, however, more than adequately cover the basics, offer more hard-and-fast "rules" and require less intelligent thought on the part of the reader. The choice is yours.
