An Open Letter To Dwyane Wade

Mr. Wade,

Please allow me to begin this letter by commending your talents as a professional basketball player. Being a guard for the Miami Heat for the past decade has brought you fame and fortune, and you certainly deserve it; two world championships and your scoring 2386 points in the 2008-09 season are superlative to say the least. You're one of the best of your time, an Olympian, and clearly a great guy whose involvement in philanthropy is as selfless as it is profoundly generous.

With that out of the way, I'd like to ask you what you were thinking when you put these pants on:

It's tough to tell whether you had your pants hemmed at this length or if you just rolled them up, but either way I respectfully question your sartorial judgement on this one. Rolling them up, while not a bad thought in the summertime (and something I do myself), makes no sense when you're a) indoors, and b) wearing a not just a jacket, but a double-breasted one. If you had them hemmed this short, well, I don't really know what to say except, "Please don't do that again."

While I appreciate the fact that you avoided the four-button single-breasted trap that so many of your fellow players fall into and went with a 6x2 double-breasted jacket, I humbly remind you that a double-breasted suit is arguably the dressiest of all suits and it isn't done proper justice when worn with what appear to be ladies' capri pants.

Plus, they just look silly.

My professional opinion is to have you throw on some matching full-length pants. Jeans or chinos will also do, assuming that they, too, are full-length. If you don't have anything that fits the bill, I cordially invite you to stop by my showroom the next time you're in town playing the Sixers to have a drink and talk pants.

Yours in style,

Mike

Style Profile: Justin Timberlake

I've been doing a great job of pissing off my girlfriend, friends, and co-workers in the past couple of weeks because I keep singing Justin Timberlake's "Suit & Tie" like this:

As long as I've got my suit and tie
I'ma leave it all on the floor tonight
Beda duh dah dah what you like
Lemme show you a few things

All dressed up in black and white
And you're dressed in that dress I like
Herpa derp derp derp derp-a-die
Lemme show you a few things

Being a high school guy in the late 90's and early 2000's when N'Sync was a thing, it was basically against Massachusetts state law to like them. Justin Timberlake was the de facto leader of the group, so being a fan of his was particularly off limits.

Times certainly have changed.

As far as his image is concerned, the Justin Timberlake of 2013 is vastly different from that of 2001, and the dude is killing it musically and sartorially. He's transformed from a teenybopping pop star to a talented, respectable song-and-dance man. If Frank Sinatra had grown up listening to hip-hop and soul, he would have been 2013 Justin Timberlake. Check out this live performance, for example:

The band is tight, his voice is on point, and the back-up dancers are talented and fun. But let's break down the clothes:

• The jacket: See the lapels on that baby? These are not your trendy, narrow-ass lapels you see splashed on the pages of GQ. These are a much more classic width -rather wide, even- and it gives him the air of a confident, grown man instead of a childish pretender to the throne.
• The bow tie: He's wearing a bow tie. It looks like he tied it himself. This is awesome.
• The shirt: I'm actually not doing backflips over this. It doesn't look bad per se, but I question the color choice, and it seems that the sleeves are a bit too long in relation to the jacket sleeves. 
• The shoes: I am doing backflips over these bad boys. Black and white saddle shoes with an otherwise formal get-up? This is an excellent way for him to draw attention to his feet, and his influence for it comes from one of the best-dressed men in American history, Fred Astaire:

• The back-up dancers' white socks: White socks and black shoes? Talk about a direct nod to Michael Jackson:

Having tapped into these kinds of influences, I'm excited to see what Mr. Timberlake does in the future. For now, he's evolved into one of the best-dressed male entertainers of our time. Kudos to him.