DRESSING INTENTIONALLY: How to be Thoughtful About Your Appearance Without Being Overdressed

You don’t have to wear a suit, or even a shirt with a collar in order to dress intentionally.

All it requires is a little thought and care. First and foremost, it’s making sure your clothing fits right. After that, it’s understanding what message your clothing is communicating to the world.

Being “put together” suggests a level of credibility and self-confidence that can be beneficial in daily life. It can also portray a level of control and authority that may help deselect you from criminal targeting, and if not, it can help ensure that you’re perceived as the “good guy” by bystanders.

Nobody’s saying you have to live your life in a necktie, or even that you have to spend hours a week planning your outfits. But once you have an understanding of your own personal style, you can curate your wardrobe so that your clothing reflects who you are, regardless if you’re in jeans or a full suit.

The Suited Shootist
Alex Sansone took his first formal pistol class in 2009, and has since accumulated almost 500 total hours of open enrollment training from many of the nation's top instructors including Massad Ayoob, Craig Douglas, Tom Givens, Gabe White, Cecil Burch, Chuck Haggard, Darryl Bolke, and many others. Spending his professional life in the corporate world, Alex quickly realized incongruities between "best practices" in the defensive world, and the practical realities of his professional and social limitations. "I've never carried a gun professionally. I'm just a yuppie suburbanite that happens to live an armed lifestyle. Having worked in the corporate arena for the last decade, I've discovered that a lot of the "requirements" and norms of gun carriers at large aren't necessarily compatible with that professional environment. I also have a pretty diverse social background, having grown up in the Northeast, and there are many people in my life that are either gun-agnostic or uncomfortable with the idea of private gun ownership. This has afforded me not only insights into how we are perceived by different subcultures, but how to manage and interact with people that may not share your point of view without coming across as combative or antisocial. This is why my focus is the overlooked social aspects of the armed lifestyle."