“What looked good on the Cary Grant in the 1950s still looks more or less good today.”

Actually, it goes back much longer than that. One of Flusser’s tenets is that the rules for men’s fashions were pretty much codified in the 1930s. You can see that in action in the illustrations and photos from that era in Flusser’s books.

If you ever get your hands on Men In Style, edited by Woody Hochswender, a mid-1990s collection of illustrations from Esquire in the 1930s and ’40s (it’s a bear to find, I ended up paying a pretty healthy sum from an online book dealer), you can really see what I mean: with only a few exceptions, all of the duds–especially the suits from that era–would still look perfectly current today. About the only thing that’s changed today (for the worse) is the near absence of hats.

This is can be a tremendous relief to your wallet as well: pick styles that have stood the test of time for over 50 years, and you’ll get years and years of service from them. Pick something because today’s Esquire or GQ is touting it as this year’s Big New Thing, and chances are, in about six months, you’ll be sorry.