Guide to Classy

Author: The Editors

  • How to Always Look Polished

    You have started showing up in rooms where everyone seems to have just stepped out of something — a good meeting, a good lunch, a good life — and you cannot quite figure out what they are doing that you are not. It is not that they are better dressed than you. Sometimes they are… Read more

  • What to Wear to a Gallery Opening (And What You’re Actually Being Judged On)

    You’ve been invited to a gallery opening. Not a museum gala — a gallery opening. Someone handed you a small card, or sent a digital invite with very little information on it, and now you’re standing in front of your wardrobe wondering whether to wear the black dress that works for everything or the interesting… Read more

  • What No One Tells You About Wine at a Formal Dinner Table

    You’ve been seated at a proper dinner — the kind with more glasses than you expected — and the sommelier is moving toward you. Or someone is about to hand you the bottle to inspect before they pour. You know enough to know that something is expected of you in this moment. You do not… Read more

  • How to Talk to Wealthy People

    You are at a dinner, a fundraiser, a golf club, or someone’s house in the country, and the person next to you is very, very rich. Not comfortable. Not successful. Rich. The kind of rich where they have a person who handles things. And you are aware, somewhere in the back of your throat, that… Read more

  • How to Win Over Your Mother-in-Law

    You are marrying into a family that already has its own internal culture, its own jokes, its own way of loading a dishwasher, and its own quietly held opinion about who should have ended up with her child. That last part is the one nobody says out loud. But you have felt it — in… Read more

  • What to Wear to a Charity Gala

    You’ve received the invitation. It says “black tie optional” or possibly just “black tie,” and now you’re staring at those three words wondering whether they mean what they say, whether everyone else will take them literally, and whether showing up in the wrong thing will mark you as someone who doesn’t quite belong in this… Read more

  • What to Wear to a Polo Match

    You have been invited to a polo match — probably by someone you are trying to impress — and you have just realized that you have absolutely no idea what the dress code actually means. “Smart casual” or “garden party attire” covers a lot of ground, and you cannot afford to be the person who… Read more

  • Things That Make You Look You Don’t Belong to the Circle Without Realizing

    You have worked hard to get here. The salary is real, the address is respectable, and you have put genuine thought into how you present yourself. And yet something is slightly off — you can feel it in the room, even if you cannot name it. Someone who grew up with money looks at you… Read more

  • How to Make Friends When Everone Seems to Have Enough Friends

    You have moved to a new city, or changed industries, or simply looked up one day and realized that the people you used to call friends have drifted into their own lives — and you are starting from nothing. You are not shy. You are not boring. You are, by any measure, someone worth knowing.… Read more

  • Is Club Monaco Worth It

    You are standing in a Club Monaco store — or more likely, hovering on their website at midnight — and you are asking yourself whether this is the brand that finally closes the gap. The clothes look right. The price is not embarrassing but not trivial either. And the question underneath the question is: will… Read more