My Boyfriend Is Ready for a Makeover. What Do I Do?

A reader, whose significant other is ready for a new wardrobe, asks for guidance in searching for staples for men.

This is like “The Princess Diaries,” but with a different gender and without the pomp and circumstance. Or maybe a real-life version of the Ryan Gosling revamp of Steve Carell in “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” only with a different starting point. We tend to focus on women when it comes to makeovers or wardrobe updates, in part because men’s wear always seems so proscribed, but there’s a long (if subtle) history in male makeovers too.

In fact, between the end of the suit as the default male dress code, the rise of working from home and the general blurring of boundaries when it comes to gender expectations, my guess is that the male makeover may become more and more of a thing. There’s a reason “She’s All That,” the high school makeover movie of 1999, just got its own makeover as “He’s All That.” It’s in the air.

Besides, it doesn’t take a lot to update a wardrobe — just some key pieces and a slight change in perspective so that clothes are seen as investments in self over the long term. To that end, some general points to keep in mind: