What makes the perfect man?

I recently read some research that’s been pulled together by Ladbrokes about what makes the perfect man according to a survey done of women in the UK, and was asked to get Ben all dressed up as my “ideal” man. You all know how much Ben loves getting involved in the blog (or not!), but I managed to coerce him into getting some clothes on (he was lounging around in his dressing gown after an afternoon out shopping with me (literally the first time I’d managed to drag him into a city centre in about 3 years!!).

The survey says that most people prefer their man to be over 6 foot tall with blue eyes, suited and booted Don Draper-style, and a David Beckham lookalike – bit of a clash of styles going on there in opinion, and we’re a little bit limited too clothes-wise on making that happen! While Ben might not be 6 foot tall, he’s apparently in the most popular height category between 5’10 and 6 foot – at least I think he is, I know he’s definitely at least a few inches taller than my 5’7(ish!). And while I’d be perfectly happy with him being suited and booted in a retro 50s look to match mine, he most definitely wouldn’t be – so instead I picked out a few things from his wardrobe that I know he likes to wear and that I like him wearing too: his ever favourite “shumper” – a term which he and my dad can’t agree on who coined, they both think they did! He usually wears chinos nowadays to look slightly smarter than jeans for a daily basis for work, but with his shumper, I chose a pair of comfortable but well fitting jeans. And apparently I know nothing about men’s style because I picked a pair of “smart” shoes to go with the jeans, which I’ve only recently discovered (via a bit of research for work actually!) is apparently a big no-no in the male fashion world – oops! Well, I like it anyway, and since when was I one to follow the rules of fashion in the first place?

While going through the list of preferences people had expressed for their perfect man with Ben, I think he was quite surprised at a few things he didn’t even really know existed, for example, the “Mun” (the Man Bun) – he turned his nose up at that, as did the majority of survey respondents too, despite them being all the rage over on Buzzfeed recently! Hairwise though, I wasn’t particularly pleased with Ben in these pictures – he usually uses some sort of hair setting stuff (I would say gel, but it’s more that clay sort of stuff) to get his hair into a bit of a quiff which I don’t like. Unfortunately, he’d done his hair in that style that morning and couldn’t get it to look different, even when I tried to force it down with my hands, unless he washed it and the light was fading, so, alas, I was stuck with quiff-hair! Apparently 90% of people actually agreed that they didn’t like the quiff, even though it’s pretty much the most popular choice for men to wear.

Anyway, this is all a bit of fun – in the end, only 1 in 10 people actually considered looks to be important, most preferring to base their perception of a man on personality. But it’s always fun to get the chance to dress your man up in a style that you prefer for once, even if I would have liked him to be in a proper well-fitting suit, apparently those are only reserved for weddings and funerals for Ben!