Pitti Uomo GQ video - style inspiration for the older man

A little over a year ago I began to wonder what middle-age had to offer me as a man in terms of fashion and style. Was I really heading for a life of grey Velcro strap shoes, non-iron shirts and nylon jumpers?

Idly I Googled and found a few fashion sites and blogs. Of these, The Sartorialist stood out and it was his photographs of men of my age at something called Pitti Uomo that gave me ideas of how I could begin to search for a style of my own. Men of all ages can look well-dressed; youth offers no great advantages as the GQ video, linked below, of this year's Pitti Uomo illustrates so well.

The Sartorialist - Pitti Uomo

The Sartorialist

The Sartorialist

The Sartorialist

 I'm still don't know much about Pitti Uomo, although it's obviously a show where fashion designers and retailers show their wares. I know little about this side of fashion. My possibly inaccurate view of this world is of one where everyone has to look devastatingly gorgeous and where models have starve themselves to find work, so what's refreshing about The Sartorialist's photos and those on the GQ slide show is that they show people who are not models and are therefore relatively normal-looking but stylishly-dressed. This means that it is easier to see how clothes affect their style, something not easy on the sterile and unrealistic backdrop of a professional model.

Here is a link to GQ's excellent slide show of this year's Pitti Uomo, just finished. It's interesting how classical many of the styles are, or maybe laymen like me just assume wrongly that fashion people all wear wild and wacky styles. The more classical the style the more it suits an older man (in my view).

Tommy Ton's Street Style: Pitti Uomo Style: GQ.com

Above and below are some of The Sartorialist's pictures that had me thinking a year or so ago -