Week Four: T.G.I.F.

Dressing to kill for the office all week doesn't necessarily buy one the right to revert/descend to slobbiness come Friday and go lax on one's normally conscientious and scrupulous dress and grooming habits - remember, you will never "rock" the "just-rolled-out-of-bed-look," ever. period.

Unless you have an explicit understanding with Nike to endorse the brand, don't show up at the office with a ratty T-shirt with their familiar logo and painfully cliche "Just Do It" catchphrase right beneath it emblazoned across your beefy chest (in which case you probably wouldn't be pencil-pushing anyways!). Just cease and desist, uh, don't do it! Ok, that was unforgivably cheesy, but really even a markedly subtler polo shirt and dockers emsemble is still better strictly confined (from tomorrow until Sunday) to the course or the range.

This is how you do casual business Friday:



Above is just for the purpose of illustration. It's actually a teaser from the Brunello Cucinelli Spring/Summer 2011 collection. The sports jacket is 100% luxurious cashmere (as is almost everything else Brunello Cucinelli!) treated to be water-proof and is out of our, the masses,' price range. But the layering is superb. One can easily simulate and achieve this look with more reasonably priced pieces, comprised of:

a.) A classic shirt.
b.) A polished sports jacket.
c.) A nice pair of pants e.g. jeans (must be a dark-wash) or for a fun departure from the usual, try cargos, as seen in the pic provided they are straight-leg & streamlined.
d.) A smart pair of shoes.

*Optional (but definitely adds tasteful gravitas) accessories: pocket square and scarf. Below is Kumar's version, 11-ounce corduroy sports jacket in navy. A bold purple and white gingham shirt, and jeans:



(I know the picture might look a bit staged and contrived, but, no, Kumar wasn't posing. He wasn't even aware that I took this!)