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The Brian Lehrer Show

Finding Your Style: Derek Guy on the Essentials

The Brian Lehrer Show

WNYC

Politics, News, News Commentary, Wnyc, Radio, Npr, Arts, New, Lerer, Media, Bryan, Nyc, Daily News, York, Public

4.61.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2026

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Menswear writer Derek Guy walks us through how to build a wardrobe.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Brian Laird on WNYC.

0:11.8

And now we'll wrap up our membership drive mini-series on finding your personal style.

0:17.7

And today we get practical.

0:19.3

Our guest is Derek Guy, the writer behind the blog,

0:22.7

dye workwear, or is it die workwear? I'll ask him in a second, which is also his handle

0:28.3

on Twitter and Blue Sky. And he's a contributor to the clothing-oriented site, put this on.

0:34.4

He's known for breaking down why some outfits work and others don't, often focusing

0:39.0

less on trends or brands and more on proportion, construction, drape, things like that. So in our

0:46.1

last few minutes today, we'll get some wisdom from him about how do you build a wardrobe that

0:51.1

works in real life, especially on a budget. Hey, Derek, thanks for doing this with us. Welcome to WNYC. Thank you so much for having me on. Did I say the name of your

0:59.7

blog with the right feeling? Should I be saying, die, work wear? Yes. I suppose both is fine.

1:07.1

I started that blog many, many years ago and came up with a ridiculous name that makes

1:13.3

no sense, and now I'm stuck with it. That's about men's clothing in particular, right? Yes.

1:20.0

So in many of your posts, we see that you emphasize proportion, like I said in the intro. That's like trouser rise, jacket

1:29.5

length, shoulder width, more than brands and things like that. So what should people be looking

1:36.3

for visually when they try something on that maybe not every guy thinks to look for? Well, you know,

1:43.2

the short and long of it is that I think of fashion as a kind of social language.

1:49.4

So I don't think there is, you know, one way to dress.

1:53.2

And I don't think, you know, there's only one way for pants to fit or, you know, whatnot.

1:57.8

I think if you start with the premise that dress is the type of social language,

2:02.6

and there are many different types of languages today, each shaped by history, just as we're

2:06.9

conversing right now in English in a structured manner so that we can communicate with each other,

...

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