While it can be fun looking to celebs for sartorial inspiration, it’s often more useful to simply look around you. Think: stylish friends, co-workers, even strangers on the street. That’s why we like to document the personal style of our own well-dressed pals right here on SG. Real guys we know with killer style.
Shawn Reed of Form Function Form is a longtime pal (as in, a shares his HBO GO log-in so I can watch Silicon Valley-kind of pal…which we all know is a pretty major friendship barometer).
From his Florida workshop, Shawn creates hand-crafted leather goods that are beautiful in form while still being totally functional. Get it? Form follows function…which follows form. At FFF, Shawn brings his designs to life by hand-cutting each piece until the finished product is just right.
So you could excuse Shawn for looking like an old-timey cobbler in his workshop. Leather apron, smudged and dirty clothes, the whole nine yards. But nope! Shawn dresses for the job with the same philosophy he gives to his leather goods. When you look good, you feel good. And when you feel good, you make badass artisan goods.
Below, Shawn Reed tells us about What He Wore:
Monday
shirt: Gant | jeans: Levi’s | loafers: Oak Street Bootmakers | watch: Form Function Form | sunglasses: Randolph Engineering
“For work, social events, church—pretty much everything I do all week except going to the gym—I’m wearing one of two pairs of jeans, a dark blue or a light blue. I see the shirt as changing the look up to be situationally appropriate, and the shoes as the most important bit.
95% of the time I’m wearing a FFF button-stud watchband, and lately it’s been pretty regularly this blue face chronograph that Timex recently released. As a ‘designer’, and obviously the owner of the company, I could wear whatever I want…and when the Florida temperature really starts climbing up in mid-summer in our un-air-conditioned warehouse studio, I definitely will add some chino shorts to the mix. But as much as I can, this look works well for respectability no matter who I might meet with during the day; whether they stop by our shop or I have to go to them.”
Tuesday
shirt: Todd Snyder | jeans: J.Crew | loafers: Brooks Brothers| watch: Form Function Form
“Being more into deadlifts than 10k’s, there aren’t a lot of jeans that work for me, without being too tight to allow for all of the squatting down and moving around that gets done in the studio…these pieces from J.Crew manage to fit my thighs, but then the slight bit of tailoring to get a tapered look finishes it off. This is probably one of the two poplin shirts that I own—oxford cloth is definitely my preference (and 90% of my wardrobe), but I’m a sucker for blue, and this large check is great.
Also, I have a real addiction to natural chromexcel…this week shows two of my four pairs of natural cxl shoes, and a 4/4 week is not unheard-of.”
Wednesday
shirt: Ami | jeans: Levi’s | shoes: Allen Edmonds | watch: Form Function Form
“A good oxford works for just about anything. I like wearing them in the shop, and try not to get too worried if they get dinged up a bit…I might not work with any dye while I’ve got an oxford on, but for banging out prototypes and not looking like a schlub wherever I have to go, they’re hard to beat. I had to go up to the accountant’s office today, so I classed it up a notch.”
Thursday
shirt: J.Crew | jeans: Levi’s | loafers: Billy Reid
sunglasses: Persol | watch: Form Function Form
“Have y’all heard of this new “linen” fabric? It’s kind of a big deal. In all honesty, these from J.Crew are the only ones that I’ve found that aren’t cut like a gigantic box. Also, that is definitely me ‘being creative,’ not ‘loafing’…definitely.”
Friday
shirt: Uniqlo | jeans: J.Crew | loafers: A.P.C | watch: Form Function Form
“When it gets warmer, polos will probably be 75% of my weekly wear. between Uniqlo and J.Crew (both regular and factory, all in ‘slim’), I’ve got a great stable of shirts that look 100x better than t-shirts, and are bearable in the heat, but I’m not worried about them when they get retired to the rag pile from too many burns/oil marks/mystery-shop-stains.”
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Originally published June 2015. Want more Real Guy Style on SG? Let us know! And check out other features here, here and here!
