Man and Jewelry

Male Jewelry Guide – How to Buy Cufflinks – Watches – Rings – Tiebars – Style Advice for Men

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Hi. I’m Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style. Today, we’re going to be talking about men and jewelry.

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Okay. So, men and jewelry. It’s one of those things that I always think less as more and understated is better than going over the top. That’s my personal appearance – my personal opinion. And it all – but it depends on where you’re at in the world because many of you probably know, I’m married to a Ukrainian and going over to that part of the world, I see a lot more jewelry, a lot more necklaces, rings, it’s accepted more and it’s not seeing as a bad thing. It’s not seeing as a cheaper goddy thing. It’s just a cultural thing. So, be very aware of that.

And give – people over the slack. I mean, simply because the way you dress and if you’re really conservative and you don’t think you already has any place, that doesn’t mean that your opinion is the only one that counts. So, be very attuned that there’s a whole big world out there. And that there are many countries where men wear a lot more jewelry and it seem is a very normal thing.

Now, most of you all – this is a North American English speaking audience down in Australia, down over in the U.K. and, you know, if you’re from anywhere else in the world and you really like my videos there, make sure to leave a comment and I’ll always try to address, you know, say hi to you guys but let’s talk about watches.

I actually don’t really wear watch. I’ve got an iPhone so I guess everything – I just checked the phone normally, but watches – and that’s probably why classifying them as jewelry because they use to be more of a functional piece. Nowadays, you see everyone’s got a cell phone and they can check the time there so watches are kind of fallen more, I think, into jewelry.

Now when it comes to being a piece of jewelry, you have the really goddy pieces, I mean, the one – the huge watch pieces that stand out. For men, you usually see the sports watch and if it’s a sports watch, leave it for sport seriously. I mean, yes, that’s really cool that you can dive 100 meters and it’s going to be able withstand the pressure but you don’t want to be wearing that with a suit.

So if it’s a big and goddy – in addition, if it’s a big gold, even if it’s a Rolex but big and gold or silver and goddy, you don’t need to be sporting that. That is something that I think it brings down – it makes a bit more casual when it’s really a large piece. The simpler with watches, the better. Something with a leather band, a small time piece with Roman numerals or just right little numbers. That is going to be your most formal watch.

And in fact, if you wear anything with a black tie, with a tuxedo, it would be a watch like that. Although technically, you shouldn’t actually wear a watch with black tie because you’re there to enjoy the moment not to pay attention to times; there’s a little tip for you. But, again, the simpler, the better, make sure in addition, proportions are correct. So if you have a smaller wrist, go for a smaller watch. If you got, I don’t know, a nine-inch wrist, go for a bigger watch, you can pull it off.

All right. Cufflinks, one of my favorite pieces of men’s jewelry. In fact, I’ve got a good friend down in Austin, Texas [0:04:09] [Inaudible] the shirts I make for him. He wants cufflinks on. Even though he doesn’t necessarily wear them with jackets, he just likes that style to small little detail.

In addition, I’ve got another client, all of his shirts, we don’t put any buttons on them. He sends them out to the cleaners and he got tired of the cleaners basically losing and breaking his buttons. And so he’s like, “Hey, I’ll just send them shirts with no buttons at all,” and he actually uses studs and cufflinks to basically hold the shirt together. So there is a very strong functional component to cufflinks. But for most of us, they’re going to be jewelry. It’s going to be something that brings an accent to what we normally wear.

Now, when you’re looking at cufflinks, again, I’m a big fan of going with something understated and simple. You don’t want cufflinks that are only one-sided unless that’s all you can afford and there are…

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…some descent-looking ones out there but you want to – instead look for cufflinks that are double sided. They don’t have anything mechanical and they’re not going to move and these are the ideal type of cufflinks because they’re going to look good from both sides. I also like the simple knots. I think that’s a great alternative. If you’re perhaps in the industry that cufflinks aren’t – well, most of the time I see the big gold or the high precious metal cufflinks that’s going to be in the finance, banking industry, some lawyers wear them as well. But perhaps you want to have a more understated, a more approachable type of cufflink and look at a simple knot. And this is just, you know, made from fabric and these work really well. But whenever you get these knots, pay attention, make sure that it actually fits into your cufflinks. I’ve had it so that, you know, you need to – actually you have to sometimes a little bit bigger of a hole although if you end up getting these and you want to wear them with your – with your shirts, you could actually, you know, you can always make that hole smaller or larger, just take it to a seamstress or learn how to – sew a little bit yourself. It’s a very easy fix.

All right. Necktie accessories. Now, there’s three major types of necktie accessories. Overall necktie accessories are pretty rare. You know, I’ve actually got a link over here Real Men Real Style to Men’s Metals. He sells some great necktie accessories. My favorite one is going to be the tie clip. I like this and the appropriate – the reason you want to wear a tie clip – I think it’s – as much of a functional piece as it is a jewelry piece.

And perhaps you’re going to be heated and you don’t want your tie literally to fall into your suit. That’s where a tie clip works perfectly. And you want to put it at a point – I like to go – it depends on whether or not you’re wearing a jacket. If I’m not wearing a jacket, I like to wear it a point literally where it’s serving a function, you don’t want to have it too low because when you go too low one, it draws attention to your stomach area; and the other one being that – if it’s too low, it just – isn’t going to look proportional.

Now, the tie chain functions very similar to the tie clip except it attaches to one of your buttons and it actually puts a chain around. That’s pretty rare. I don’t see them very often. I think they’re perfectly fine.

Now, the tie pin. I only recommend tie pins because they’re going to be piercing the tie to be using with loosely woven ties so if you’ve got a tie that can bounce back in the sense that it will open up no problem and be able to accept that pin without damaging the tie, then they’re perfectly fine.

But if you’re going to be putting this into a tightly net soak tie, I don’t advice that. Over time, it’s going to damage the tie. I’m not a big fan of, you know, I mean, especially if you’re spending $100 on a necktie, you don’t want to be damaging that with tie pin.

Rings. Okay. Wedding rings, always appropriate. See? I wear mine. And many of you probably wonder why do I wear on the right hand. Well, I was married in the Eastern Orthodox Church to a beautiful Ukrainian woman and over there, they wear it on the right hand side. So, I keep it over here.

In the United States, most western countries are going to see it over here on the left hand side. Although we did get married in the Drive-Thru in Vegas as well so I guess I could get another ring here but I just haven’t gotten around to it.

The other one, class rings, you know, if you’re a mason or if you graduated from – let’s say from Texas A&M, a naval academy, West Point, a lot of these guys have class rings. Well, I think those are situational depended. If you’re in Houston, Texas and you’re applying for a job in the oil and gas industry, wear your Texas A&M ring. It’s going to probably open more doors than shut them although be careful because – blowing horns, I don’t really think they execute too much hate towards the aggies. I think it’s the aggies that just – just hate those damn lowing horns.

If you know anything about me, you’ll know why that’s kind of funny. But – okay, so, but when it comes to other types of rings, I mean, be attune that somebody may look at that as a bit goddy and it may actually, I mean, if you got – you graduated from Harvard and your sport in that ring, some people may just look at that as, “Wow, this guy is really showing off.” He’s not going to fit in our company.”

So pay attention to those types of details. Now, when it comes to all the other types of rings that you can wear though, you know, the big gold, goddy ones, I don’t know, maybe you’re a big fan of sending out letters and having one that’s got your official seal so you could wax, seal at them.

Basically, you don’t want to look like a gangster but this comes back to what I said earlier. Jewelry is very – you need to pay attention to the culture because if you’re from let’s say Bulgaria or you’re a Russian gangster or you’re from a part of the world where rings are much more acceptable then go ahead and wear it and represent your culture but be understand that if you’re stepping outside of your culture that it may be taken as…

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…just something that’s really – well, it’s not seen as very class so just understand that outside of the circles where it’s accepted, you need to pay attention to the visual – visual meeting of this jewelry.

Okay. That’s all I’ve got. Again, if you’d like to stay in touch or learn more, make sure to subscribe to our – to our email subscription [0:10:23] [Inaudible] we put out the best information. If you want to get in touch on a more – you know, you don’t want to get the emails, check at our Facebook. We’ve got a great Facebook page and I interact with people over there.

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All right. Antonio Centeno with Real Men Real Style. Thank you and look for more for us – more from us soon. Take care. Bye-bye.

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