It's more important to dress congruently than to dress well.

First I want to thank Howtodresswell for his work in creating the "how to dress well thread" for sedditors. I have been following style and fashion blogs for a couple years now (including reddit's own MFA), and his thread provoked a torrent of thoughts about how the worlds of men's fashion and pickup are related.

Why does spending time and thought on style and fashion attract women?

Fashion and style are a language. Women are attracted to someone who shows a familiarity with the language (indicates a high social cognition), and the confidence to play with it. Some women are also attracted to clothing as a symbol of access to resources.

I noticed a few commentators in the original thread disagreeing with the OP, saying that even the recommendations of what the OP considers universal "men's basics" would be inappropriate for their situation and context.

I say both OP and the disagreeing commenter are right - whilst there are items of clothing that are commonly agreed upon in the fashion world as foundational building blocks of an adult male's wardrobe, these items may not be appropriate for all contexts in which one would seek to be successful women. Most of the writers of the style blogs recommended in r/MFA also stress the important of dressing to the occasion.

How do we synthesize these two views into a pithy tip for sedditors?

I say it's not as important to dress well as it is to dress congruently.

Dressing congruently (congruent as Tyler Durden defines it in the Blueprint Decoded) means dressing in a way that emphasizes the best parts of your personality that show through in your behavior that attract women.

"Dressing well" will mean one thing to a college student, another to a businessman, and still yet another to an artist, or to a male of a culture that isn't western, etc. Dressing congruently applies to all.

Dressing congruently means knowing how to speak the language of style and fashion in way that communicates the attributes to want to display to the world and the experiences that make you unique and interesting.

Dressing congruently also can describe the effectiveness of peacocking whereas "dressing well" does not. Peacocking when used congruently represents the daring, risk taking personality attribute you are trying to portray to women - but I don't think many men's fashion and style icons would describe the costumes that Mystery pulls off as "well dressed".

I think this is an interesting and relevant topic of discussion for seddit. What are your thoughts?