Ricardo Mon­tal­bán is unim­pressed with your efforts.

At risk of sound­ing like a pompous ass, I have style. I believe this because I get a lot of com­pli­ments on my choices in dress. Walk­ing down the street I get asked for my advice a lot, or asked where I buy things, and do I always look this way? I’ve been caught on the street a hand­ful of times by Asheville Street Style, inter­viewed by the Urban News, and reg­u­larly advise my friends on what to wear to meet For­tune 500 exec­u­tives in China or on a first date. Fine, I sur­ren­der already — I have style.

And I’m into that, I’m into what is styl­ish. But — I’m not into fash­ion. I don’t have a well thumbed copy of the Sep­tem­ber Vogue on my night stand, and though I sub­scribe to the Sun­day edi­tion of the New York times, I don’t luridly gaze at the lat­est offer­ings of the major design­ers in the Style Mag­a­zine. I don’t care what’s in or what’s out, if it’s past Labor Day or if it was recently seen being worn by Lady Gaga at Occupy Wall Street. Those are use­less ways to think about what will make you look awesome.

What’s the dif­fer­ence between style and fash­ion? Style is for­ever, fash­ion is for today. Style is acces­si­ble for every­one, fash­ion is passé by the time every­one iden­ti­fies it. Style belongs to you, fash­ion belongs to wealthy hair­less eccentrics in Milan that feed caviar to tiny inbred dogs.

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