009 | A Conversation With Eduardo Xavier

08/21/20 • 32 min

In this episode of Dressing for Wellness, Taylor (Inherent Clothier CEO) speaks with Eduardo Xavier of European Custom Tailors. They discuss the importance of hats, how to cultivate your personal style, the importance of travel in understanding your style and communicating with other people, and more. Eduardo also shares his perspective on building your personal image, and how that has an inextricable relationship to your mental health.

3 Key Points

Exploration, whether travel or just via Instagram, is crucial to developing your personal style.
Learning to style the pieces you have is often more impactful and important than the quality of the items themselves.
Developing your personal image is a way to develop greater self confidence.

Episode Highlights:

The quality of a suit has less of an impact than overall styling does.
Eduardo’s advice to someone looking to develop their personal menswear style is to explore Instagram, but understand your body and look for models with similar bodies to yours.
Exploration is key to figuring out your style.
Styling has to do with your overall image—as you learn about yourself and what you like and what image of yourself you want to show the world, the world starts to notice and perceives you differently, which reflects back to you whether that’s the image you want to have.

Resources Mentioned:

3 Key Points

Exploration, whether travel or just via Instagram, is crucial to developing your personal style.
Learning to style the pieces you have is often more impactful and important than the quality of the items themselves.
Developing your personal image is a way to develop greater self confidence.

Episode Highlights:

The quality of a suit has less of an impact than overall styling does.
Eduardo’s advice to someone looking to develop their personal menswear style is to explore Instagram, but understand your body and look for models with similar bodies to yours.
Exploration is key to figuring out your style.
Styling has to do with your overall image—as you learn about yourself and what you like and what image of yourself you want to show the world, the world starts to notice and perceives you differently, which reflects back to you whether that’s the image you want to have.

Resources Mentioned:

Previous Episode

008 | The Importance of Conversation

In this episode of Dressing for Wellness, Taylor (Inherent Clothier CEO) and Steven (Art Director) talk to their friend Chaz about his experience as a Black man growing up in the very white area of Colorado Springs. They discuss the Black Lives Matter movement, the George Floyd protests, and the necessity of conversation around difficult subjects.

3 Key Points

Talking to people who are outside of your regular experience is crucial for understanding and empathy.
Appreciation does not equal appropriation.
One conversation may not change somebody, but maybe the second one will, or the fifth, or the seventh.

Episode Highlights:

Chaz’s biggest goal as a person of color during the Black Lives Matter movement is to have conversations with people.
As a person of color, there’s a lot of history that you feel like you need to live up to, or not, and it caused significant confusion in identity for Chaz.
There’s a difference between Black Lives Matter the movement and Black Lives Matter the organization.
In fashion, Black people didn’t have a style icon until the 1950s when Black people were first allowed on TV.
Chaz thinks appreciation tips into appropriation when there’s no recognition of where something originated and when credit is not given; for example, that Frank Sinatra’s style is inspired by Nat King Cole and that almost all popular music originated with Black artists.
If you’re having mental health struggles, talk to someone.

Resources Mentioned:

Next Episode

010 | Welcoming Janie Bryant to the Inherent Clothier Family

In this episode of Dressing for Wellness, Taylor (Inherent Clothier CEO) talks to Emmy Award Winning Costume Designer Janie Bryant (Mad Men, Deadwood, Why Women Kill), a new part-owner of Inherent Clothier. They discuss Janie’s background in costume design for film and TV and how she discovered her passion for menswear. Janie also shares her views on contemporary menswear, cultivating confidence in yourself, and more. They even share some details on their upcoming collection, which Janie and Taylor designed together! Be sure to follow Inherent Clothier on instagram to see this collection come to life.

3 Key Points

Money isn’t required to take pride in your appearance.
Modern menswear is focused on versatility and the ability to mix-and-match pieces.
Confidence is important in following your passions, but sometimes it only comes once you start.

Episode Highlights:

Janie is now a part owner of Inherent Clothier, and she has wanted to design a menswear collection for years.
As a costume designer on shows like Mad Men, Janie has seen firsthand how men realize the impact a well-fitted suit can have on their confidence.
You can take pride in your appearance no matter how much money you have.
You can turn a suit into a more casual, everyday look by wearing a t-shirt under the jacket or pairing a sport coat with jeans.
Janie believes menswear badly needed an update in the way Inherent Clothier is making it modern.
To Janie, a modern interpretation of formalwear is the flexibility to wear a dinner jacket with jeans, and to otherwise mix and match.
The Bryan Draper Capsule Collection will include formalwear, shirts, all-season suits, and you'll be able to mix and match all the pieces.
Janie studied fashion design in college and moved to France when she graduated with the dream of becoming a famous fashion designer.
Once she moved to New York, she ended up in social circles with a lot of film people and learned about costume design.
Janie was working on a music video and the director told her to believe in her choices and to believe in herself; she hadn’t even realized she was doubting herself, but that advice has stuck with her.

Tweetable Quotes:

“There’s so many combinations, and you can really turn the suit into something that used to be, in older generations, a formal thing, into just an everyday, casual thing.” –Janie Bryant
“I truly believe that enlightenment and joyfulness is optimal to live a great life. So how do you get to that place? You get to that place through great mental health.” –Janie Bryant
“Being yourself and having confidence and faith in yourself is the most magical thing you can do.” –Janie Bryant

Resources Mentioned: