About damn. fire

damn. fire is an online personal styling service started and ran, independently, by me (Juan Sloan). I started damn. fire to help men who know the power of dressing well but don’t want to waste hundreds of dollars making mistakes learning how to do it. My favorite fashion blog is Die, Workwear! and my favorite book on fashion is Ametora. My permanent residence is in Michigan but I travel constantly.

My Style Journey

I first got into men’s style at the age of 17. For most of my teenage years I had been incredibly overweight. I had never even kissed a girl. One day I decided enough was enough and I dieted down and lost all of my spare weight.

Losing all of that weight was the beginning of my personal transformation. I didn’t want to stop there. I wanted to look as good as I possibly could.

Being naive, GQ was the first place I looked for fashion advice. I spent a lot of money on a lot of things I didn’t need instead of building a sustainable wardrobe. I didn’t look stylish at all. I looked like an idiot who pissed away his money on clothes.

Eventually, I stumbled upon the r/MaleFashionAdvice subreddit. This is where I learned the basics of how to “dress well.” The problem with r/MFA is that the whole userbase pretty much always follows one uniform. It’s a great template to get started with but at my age it wasn’t congruent to my personality and the look was incredibly boring. I needed more.

Style went from a means to an end to a full-on obsession. I would spend multiple hours EVERY DAY lurking forums like StyleZeitgeist, SUFU, and Styleforum. Many of the friends I use to video chat with from these communities now work in the industry.

I learned a lot about style and found myself constantly helping people who were close to me pick out clothing. I could do “fancy” stuff like properly matching patterns and balancing proportions and I knew quite a bit about clothing construction and fabrics but nowhere near what I know now.

In 2014 I turned 23 and fashion took a backseat in my life. I would still keep up with trends, dress well, and give my friends advice but my heart wasn’t in it…

…until 2 years later when the Alexander McQueen biopic was announced and I really took a look at his work.

Even though I’m not a huge fan of luxury fashion houses I always enjoyed and considered purchasing Alexander McQueen pieces. When I learned more about his life and creative genius I was captivated by fashion again. This time instead of spending all day on forums I spent my time reading and learning about sartorial and fashion history. I also somehow ended up getting super into horology (I honestly don’t remember how this happened.)

On July 2nd, 2017 I got the entrepreneurial itch and registered the domain name damnfire.com. I’ve always helped men (and women) with their style as sort of a freelancer but at that point I felt competent enough to start a full fledge business.

My mission is to make men confident in their own skin and to improve their lives by improving their appearance.

I am NOT lying when I say dressing well can change your life. It may not be fair but it’s reality. Any guy who’s ever seriously stepped up their style will agree. How you’re dressed in an interview can determine whether or not you get the job. If you’re client-facing how you’re dressed can determine whether or not you get business.

I’m not going to make any absurd claims like “dressing well will get you laid”. Of course dressing well, by itself, isn’t going to get you laid but it sure as hell helps with your sex life. Even if you’re already in a relationship why not give your girlfriend or wife a new, improved, version of yourself for her to show off?

It’s taken me 11 years, thousands of dollars and thousands of hours to get where I am. If you want to go through a similar path and have the time and money then, by all means, be my guest. But if you want to skip all of the bullshit and just dress well then I’m your guy.

Before I even started work on the actual site I made a vow to be as ethical as possible.

I will NEVER shill garbage products like MVMT watches and Indochino suits.

I will NEVER use an algorithm to recommend clothing to my clients and pocket the retail margin on top of a “stylist” fee (Gotta love the clothing box service industry huh?)

I will NEVER encourage you to buy something you don’t feel comfortable wearing.

I will always thrive to get you the most value out of your hard earned money so that I can get you as close as possible to the most attractive version of yourself.

My ideal client is someone actively interested in improving themselves.