What do men want?

GQ Australia editorial

This is the question many of us girls ask ourselves when there our boyfriends, husbands birthday, anniversary or another special occasion is coming up. If we step away from the obvious: food, water, sex, car and a shelter, we will choose the gift based on how long and how well we know this man and how much we care about him. Naturally, gift will also depend upon our disposable budget.

Since one of my girlfriends recently asked me to help her find a gift for her boyfriend, I investigated a bit among my male friends and my boyfriend (since I don't consider myself to be the one who chooses the best gifts ever for men) and put together this post based on my findings.

PRACTICAL GIFTS

GQ Australia editorial

Many guys said they would love to get a practical gift for their birthday for example if they travel a lot then new earphones or a nice cosmetic bag or laptop case. 

You can find great earphones on Urban Outfiters or Top Men websites.

SURPRISE GIFTS

GQ Australia editorial

Many said they would like their girlfriends to make them a surprise dinner and welcome them dressed in sexy lingerie. One of my girlfriends Nina has recently made a surprise party for her boyfriend who is an athlete. She organized a surprise dinner in their favorite restaurant, invited all of his friends from in and out of the city and order-made him a cake in the shape of the basketball.

SPECIAL INTEREST GIFTS

My boyfriend likes to read, so for special occasions I get him a bigger gift box and inside I put together many small gifts, some personal like couple of books of his favorite authors, boxers - I found a glow in the dark boxers in Diesel. Some men collect watches, like jewelry or sunglasses so you might decide to get him a nice wooden box to store his collectibles. Special interest gifts can also be a tickets to that one very important match of your boyfriends favorite soccer or other sports team or even a yearly ticket to watch his favorite team.

Leather and metal bracelets

Wrist watch storage box with the key

Brown wrist watch storage box with the key

Sunglasses case - fits 3 pairs

PERSONAL GIFTS

Often not so expensive but always the dearest are those personal gifts we make ourselves. Again, depending on how long yo guys know each other it is always great to frame your best photo together as a gift or if you know each other longer and you can create a scrap book with your memories and photos with tickets to the movies you watched together or small stickers or postcards from your vacations this is even better. 

   For my boyfriends last birthday since he lives on his own I made a cookbook with his favorite dishes, very simply put together, each recipe in 5 steps with various meals from breakfast to dinner. I added the photos of us cooking together, at the beginning of the cookbook I put a list of basic groceries he can tear our when going grocery store and added some lyrics I wrote about our relationship at the end.

„You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.“  

5 Fashion tips for vertically gifted men

Since I am quite tall (six-two) and my boyfriend is also very tall I have a compassion and emotional reason why I have investigated, experienced and put together what I learned about where to find, how and where to look for and how to go about finding appropriate and right fitting clothing for tall men (meaning: above six feet tall).

Challenges most tall man experience are finding pants that are not too short, shirts which are not too tight or too short in the waist, shoes of appropriate size as well as the right size dress clothing... in order not to keep walking around in sportswear all of the time.

Most common mistake tall man do is that they just buy the biggest sizes of everything and don’t try stuff on in the store before buying them.

So, here are some of the things I have learned:

1. Have confidence in your look.

Being tall is gorgeous and attractive. Statistics show that tall people have better chances of getting  a job then the shorter people, they are better paid and girls prefer tall man as they look more protective and stronger J So, accept the fact that you are tall, be confident, don’t slouch, stand proud and tall and put some effort into your look and into choice of your clothing.

2. Custom order key pieces.

By key pieces I mean basics in your closet which never go out of style. These are investment pieces in which you should invest some money in and which you can wear many, many times so they will definitely pay themselves of if we look at the price per wear ratio.

Put some time into finding a good tailor who will measure you and custom make your key pieces according to your body size and type. This way you will get some key pieces you can always turn to like:

- Black wool suite for winter

- Black silk or satin suite for summer 

- White & black dress shirts

- Black woolen winter coat

3. Don’t go over the top.

Ok, so, you are tall. You WILL get noticed, so don’t go over the top with mixing too many colors and prints. If you are wearing a suite, don’t be afraid of wearing a more fitted, solid color dark one and choose an interesting tie as a trendy detail.

4. Know tall people friendly casual wear brands 
(and remember or write down your size in each brand as these my vary)

According to my boyfriends experience and my research, bellow are some of the brands that have appropriate sizes of jeans, t-shirts and sweaters for tall muscular and long and lanky built men :


- JeansShop in NY– jeans
- John Varvatos – pants, shirts, suites, shoes
- Ralph Lauren – shirts, pants, belts
- G-star  Raw / G-star on Asos.com– T-shirts, jeans and sweaters
- Diesel– jeans
- Mustang- jeans
- Review – jackets, scarves
- Converse – t-shirts
- True Religion

5. Invest in comfortable shoes.

It is so very important to choose a comfortable, right size shoes if you are tall. Especially if you are an athlete and you workout every single day and carry some old injuries around – in this case choice of the footwear is crucial!

Here are some multi brand sites holding cool shoes of big sizes.


- Big Shoes
- Oddball
- Bigman
- Mr. Porter
- Large Feet

“So long and lanky, my suit it should thank me.” 

Jay Z