Men's Clothes Guide O

Welcome to the O section of the Men's Clothes Guide - a small letter with an unusually long reach. Its seven topics run from the lightest garment in the wardrobe to the heaviest: two t-shirts at one end, Obama t-shirts and organic t-shirts, and at the other the long wool overcoat and the leather Oxford shoe, with the whole weatherproof world of outdoor apparel and outerwear and the working bib of overalls in between.

Are there more clothing categories that start with the letter O? Well, the answer is probably yes - please keep in mind that we are only human. If you know other men's apparel categories that you think should be listed in this directory, please do not hesitate to contact us with your suggestions.

The Seven O Topics

The two tees could hardly differ more in what they sell. The Obama t-shirts guide is about a design: the campaign and commemorative prints of the 44th President, how to read print quality, and when a shirt is clothing and when it has become a collectible. The organic t-shirts guide is about a certification: what USDA's National Organic Program does and does not guarantee, what GOTS adds from fiber to finish, and how organic cotton behaves in the wash. Then the letter turns to weather. Outdoor apparel treats clothing as a layering system for fishing, hunting, hiking and snow; outerwear maps the outermost layer itself, every coat and jacket family and the job each does, and overcoats takes the longest and most tailored of those families apart - overcoat against topcoat, style by style. Overalls covers the bib-and-brace work garment of farmers and railroad workers, and Oxford shoes closes the letter at ground level with the closed-lacing definition that separates an Oxford from a Derby. The grid below lists all seven topics exactly once, in alphabetical order.

How to Use These Guides

Read O as three short courses. The t-shirt pair teaches the two ways a simple garment earns a premium: meaning and material - a print people remember, or a fiber grown to a standard - and both guides insist on the same discipline of checking the actual shirt (its print registration, its certification scope, its shrinkage) rather than the story around it. The weather trio teaches a system and its map: outdoor apparel shows how base, insulation and shell divide a day's work among layers, outerwear names every outermost garment that can play the shell's role in town or country, and overcoats slows down on the one family where tailoring rules - cloth weight, canvassing, length below the knee - still decide quality more than any technical membrane does. The last two guides teach definition by construction: overalls are their bib and straps, Oxfords are their lacing, and in both cases the guide shows how one structural decision dictates fit, use and care for the life of the piece.

All seven guides share the house rules of this directory: fit is given in measurements and movements rather than adjectives, fabrics are judged by the weather and wash cycles they must survive, and care is written for the garment you actually bought. Where a topic reaches into a neighboring letter - t-shirts into T and N, cashmere overcoats into C, shoes into S and D - the guide says so and links onward, because the alphabet is an index, not a set of walls. If you arrived here from the wider Men's Clothes Guide, the alphabet bar above returns you to any other letter; if you arrived from a search engine, the seven guides below are the whole of O, complete in one short list.

From Campaign Trail to Knee-Length Wool

Few letters span as much of a man's life as this one. The Obama tee is the wardrobe's souvenir of a political moment; the organic tee is its argument about how cotton should be farmed; the outdoor system and the outerwear map are its answer to weather; the overall is its oldest work uniform; the overcoat is its most formal warmth; and the Oxford is the shoe it wears to weddings, interviews and funerals. Seven topics, one initial - and a fair cross-section of everything menswear is asked to do.

The Letter O Invitation

Are there more clothing categories that start with the letter “O”? Well, the answer is probably yes — please keep in mind that we are only human. If you know other men’s apparel categories that you think should be listed in this directory, please do not hesitate to contact us with your suggestions. The seven topics — Obama t-shirts, organic t-shirts, outdoor apparel, outerwear, overalls, overcoats and Oxford shoes — are the guides in the grid below.