As editor in chief of the leading men’s fashion trade magazine for the past 17 years, I’ve made it a habit to study men. Waiting among Wall Street execs at my suburban train station, partying at nightclubs in South Beach, shopping for fantasy yachts at boat shows, rushing to and from my office on Madison Avenue—wherever I go, whatever I do, I’m always talking to guys about how they dress (under the banner of market research, of course…)

So here’s what I’ve learned: 1)Few American men dress well (including those with lots of money, including those in the fashion industry); 2)Most men hate to shop; 3)While few guys admit to caring about clothes, most would like to look better if it were possible. And easy. Guess what? It’s possible! And not all that difficult. So at the risk of sounding simplistic, here’s my list of ten fashion mistakes guys often make and some simple solutions.

1) Wearing clothes that are too tight. Yes we know you plan to lose the weight but in the meantime, why not buy a few things that fit? You can always have them taken in later.

2) Not dressing for the weather. Few things make me crazier than seeing guys in July and August running around the city wearing dark, heavy-weight suits, the sweat pouring down. Yes we know you’re an executive but suits come in cotton, linen, seersucker and some very lightweight wools, not to mention colors other than black, navy and charcoal.

3) Wearing light khaki pants with dark dress belts. It’s just a personal peeve, probably because my husband is guilty of this transgression, but casual pants need a casual belt and lightweight light colored trousers generally look better with a less clunky belt. Particularly on guys with a few extra pounds, that dark horizontal line encircling the waist is far from flattering.

4) Great suit/beat-up briefcase or wallet. How easy it is to forget the accessories, but these are the details that speak volumes about your sense of style. Invest in them!

5) Dressing too safe. We know there are rules (we’re giving you ten right now) but how boring if we all dressed from the rule books! Don’t be afraid to add something slightly quirky now and then, like funky sneakers or colorful eyewear. It could become your signature.

6) Dressing too neutral. Speaking of color, most guys look great in it. If nothing else, add a bold tie or pocket square to brighten your look (and your outlook!)

7) Dressing too cheap. While there’s not always a direct correlation between quality and price, there usually is.

8) Keeping things too long. With the exception of quality accessories (fine leather often improves with age, a vintage watch is always classy), most clothes wear out and styles evolve. Even if it’s not threadbare, your suit from five years ago is likely to be too baggy and/or too constructed for today. Buy a new one.

9) Pattern mixing. Striped suit, checked shirt, paisley tie. It can look great if you’ve got a sense of color, scale and proportion but most guys don’t, so keep it simple.

10) Not asking for help. Rather than read fashion tips like these, why not take advantage of all the talented sales associates hanging around better specialty stores in your city. They’re trained to coordinate clothes and understand fashion nuances. (Plus they’d much rather talk to you than fold those piles of sweaters.)

Still don’t get this whole fashion thing? Not to worry: confidence, kindness and a sense of humor are far more important in the end. (Just don’t quote me on that, please!)

Karen Alberg Grossman is editor in chief of MR Magazine, a Business Journals publication that she launched with Stu Nifoussi in 1990. She is also editor in chief of Forum magazine and Accent magazine, both luxury lifestyle publications custom-designed for upscale independent stores. Prior to this, Karen was senior editor of Accessories magazine and women’s apparel editor for Retail Week magazine. She started her career as an executive trainee for Bloomingdale’s and then as a market rep for May Merchandising. Karen graduated from Syracuse University with a dual degree in French education and philosophy. A frequent moderator of industry panels and seminars and guest lecturer at fashion schools, she is known for her insightful editorials, personality-revealing profiles and provocative industry roundtables. She also admits to spending hours studying men under the guise of “market research.”

When he’s not crooning to sold-out crowds, Andy Williams regularly tees up on one of the championship golf courses that dot the countryside outside his Ozarks home. A hundred miles to the east, on a wooded lake peninsula, artist Al Denninger created weather vanes that grace the Disneyworld train stations in Orlando and Tokyo. To the south, high tech mountain bikers test their mettle on one of the U.S.’s acknowledged top trails.

And the list goes on. This breathtaking land of water and wilderness has long been a Mecca for creative people and iconoclasts seeking a refuge from the bustle of the larger world. In recent years, the beauty of the Ozarks has lured a new generation – high stakes entrepreneurs who have built the largest retail firm in the world, nationally known musicians and performers playing to sold-out crowds, AIA Award-winning architects, top chefs, and others entranced by the countryside but also engaged by the breadth of opportunity here.

The spectacular beauty of the old hills, rocky bluffs, deep valleys, gravel-bottomed rivers, clear springs, and mild climate is luring all kinds of people to the Ozarks – couples searching for a laid back lifestyle, adventurers seeking an outdoor experience, families looking for a great vacation, and lovers after a romantic hideaway.

New communities dot the landscape. Log cabins no longer are hand-hewn one room affairs chinked together with river mud on the edge of gravel tracks, but multimillion dollar homes overlooking sweeping vistas. Airstrip communities give aircraft owners a chance to keep their planes in the “garage” next to the house, and dozens of golf communities offer the best of the Ozarks combined with one of America’s favorite pastimes.

All year long, visitors flock into the Ozarks to canoe, hike, camp, boat, and fish. But they also come for fine dining, shopping, and golf in Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missouri towns of Bentonville, Rogers, Branson, and Springfield.

Music lovers have always found their favorite melodies in the Ozarks. They can choose between Eureka Springs’ nationally-acclaimed Opera in the Ozarks; a host of blues sites, and, in the packed theatres of Branson, pick from an array of pop favorites to new break-through talent headlining in the Grand Palace.

Soon, people will also come here for fine art. Now under construction, the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, promises to become home of the nation’s finest collection of American art, thanks to its Walton family benefactor.

In the center of it all, the old mountain community of Eureka Springs has seen the world come and go. The 19th Century spa town once was a healing site for Indian tribes and later a health resort for Victorian ladies and gentlemen. Today it’s an arts community, festival center, vacation resort, and one of the nation’s top wedding destinations, a place where people can dine on fresh-caught trout in a gourmet restaurant and the next morning, dip a warm croissant in a frothy cappuccino.

This is a place where people come to vacation, live, and work, confident that they can have the best of the Ozarks, yet stay in touch with what’s important in our larger society.

It is in this green and graceful environment that Martin Dingman Leathergoods has grown up, and it is from this rich and varied mosaic that we take our inspiration.

Susan Kirkpatrick lives in the Missouri Ozarks, where she founded and is editor of Ozarks Magazine. She is also the award-winning author of “Route 66, the Highway and its People,” (University of Oklahoma Press), several textbook chapters, and many magazine articles.

When the discussion involves golf, names like Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Bobby Jones come to mind. But let me tell you about the man, who I consider the most important in the game when it comes to sartorial musings. With a dashing style in play and the finest threads money could buy, “The Haig” as he was referred to, ruled the fairways like no one ever had and to this point no one ever has. His famous line: “I never wanted to be a millionaire. I just want to live like one.” has made it in not only the vocabulary of golfers but our populace at large.

At age five Walter began playing the game in the family’s cow pasture. “I would herd the cows all in one spot where I made the hole, so they could eat the grass and make a close putting surface.” One wonders if this was the reason he became known as the greatest pressure putter of his era. Hagen developed his taste for the finest things in life at the exclusive country clubs where he would caddy. Tall and handsome with sleek black hair, he was always nattily attired in an individual manner only Walter could pull off. His expertise at golf allowed him to mingle with the elite on the course, but in those days golfers were not allowed entry in the clubs themselves, especially in England.

When Hagen made his first trip to The British Open in 1920, he shocked the elite by having champagne delivered to his Rolls Royce limousine parked in the club’s driveway. In those days professional golfers were only allowed in the side or back door, so Hagen made a point of not going into the clubhouse at all. His clashes with the establishment on both sides of the Atlantic were legendary, but it elevated the game of Golf and it’s best players to a new level. His unrivaled flamboyance and colorful personality attracted increased sponsorship dollars to the game, eliciting Hagen’s great friend and fierce rival Gene Sarazen to comment: “ All the players who stretch a check between their fingers, should say a silent prayer to Walter Hagen. It was Walter who made professional golf what it is.” His tailored look with the finest wools and cashmeres, plus-fours and two tone spectators made Walter Hagen a recognizable sports icon on both sides of the Atlantic. The golf fans in Great Britain took a great liking to the man, who single handedly brought a sense of style, color and elegance to the great game of golf. A stark contrast to the English country clothes in drab browns and gray, considered the appropriate uniform for the game. Walter Hagen backed up his flamboyant appearance with a game feared by his opponents, especially in match play. He won 11 major golf Championships, of which 5 PGA Championships in a time when it was contested in the match play format. Hagen was a crooked driver of the ball, but owned a short game that forced this irritated statement from Bobby Jones: “When a man misses his drive, then misses his second shot and then wins the hole with a birdie, it get’s my goat.” It came after Hagen delivered Jones’ most lopsided defeat in a 72-hole “World Championship” on Florida in 1926. Hagen called it: “My greatest thrill in golf.”

The legacy Walter Hagen leaves behind, can be best illustrated with some heartfelt comments of the greatest of his contemporaries from the world of golf and the world of life.

Former President Dwight Eisenhower: “Your achievements at home and in Great Britain have earned you both the PGA’s Hall of Fame and an enduring place in the affection of all for your stout heart and great talent.”

Ben Hogan: “Without you, golf would not be what it is today. I give you my deepest thanks.”

But the current King of golf Arnold Palmer said it best: “The biggest thrill I got when I set a British Open record of 276 strokes at Troon, was to have Walter Hagen phone me from Traverse City to congratulate me. I didn’t even know The Haig knew I was alive until then.”

Arnold Palmer paid the ultimate tribute to Hagen, by being one of his pall bearers after his death on October 6th 1969.

May we give Sir Walter his rightful place in the golf conversation today.......One of the greatest players of all time, but most definitely the greatest dresser of all time.

Auke Hempenius is Vice President of Style and Creative Services for Golf Marketing Services in Orlando, he can be reached at auke@golfmarketinginc.com. Auke is the Host and Creative director of www.Aukesphere.com and for his weekly trend blogs on the world of Style & Fashion in Golf visit www.aukesphere.blogspot.com

Born in Iowa, raised in Southern Missouri, Martin spent his summers on horseback working the family’s herd of Black Angus cattle and watching his grandfather repairing saddles and bridles that seemed to be a hundred years old. Plush green alfalfa fields, weathered barns, and plaid Woolrich shirt jackets are just a few of the icons permanently imprinted in the marrow of his bones. Since 1985, in one form or another, these memories have all found their way into his elegant and fashionable collections. Yet one may ask how can a man with such deep American roots possess such an international sensibility? That’s Martin’s sixth sense. Martin refers to this uncanny ability as his “gift from God.”

From the beginning, he recognized that elegance, and sophistication with a continental flair were missing from the American marketplace. “Our customers longed for shoes and accessories that made them feel special, refined but not over the top,” says Martin. It seemed as though the choice was either basic American or fast-forward Italian. I offer looks that are new and fresh, yet are so timeless and elegant they can be passed down from one generation to the next.” And that blend of two worlds makes Martin Dingman unique in the domain of luxury leathergoods.

Each new collection benefits from his three decades of experience working in menswear, extensive travels throughout the U.S. and Europe, and his intimate working relationships with fine retailers.

Martin began his career at the wonderful old-line family department store Stix, Baer and Fuller in St. Louis where he got a first-hand look at men’s haberdashery. Since then, his career has taken him to a series of men’s apparel and accessories companies where he has learned every aspect of the menswear industry, including running his first business Rainbow Neckwear, which he started with wife Gay.

Fast forward to today. Martin continues to travel the world in search of the best leathers, exotic skins and the most ingenious hardware. Says Martin: “While I get design inspiration from everywhere, buckles from vintage door plates in Arkansas or iron grates in Florence, my ultimate goal is to create a timeless product that would make the Duke of Windsor feel as though he were living on the edge, at least for a second!”

And while Martin Dingman Leathergoods continue to be created the traditional European way, handmade one piece at a time both in the U.S. and abroad, his ideas and inspirations still come to life in that small studio in the Ozarks.

“I hope that every man who wears a pair of Martin Dingman shoes, carries my wallet or slips on one of my belts can feel the heart and soul of the distinct American legacy inherent in each design.”

At Martin Dingman the story is told in every wallet, belt strap and shoe. It does not begin with raw materials, but with ideals that have been Martin's for a lifetime, ideals that express themselves in every stitch on every piece.

On most days we find Martin traveling a rural winding road to his studio in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. And we wonder ... Doesn't a man who spends his day creating magnificent leathergoods belong in New York, Paris, or even Milan? Possibly, but a man has to go where his story takes him, and Martin's story has always carried him home to his wife, his children and to the heartland of America, where he spent his boyhood years.

In 1985, after driving the entire country, launching the upstart Rainbow Neckwear, Martin began a second venture, this time in leathergoods. During the next five years he built a leather accessory business for a highly recognized American luxury brand. However, five years of corporate bureaucracy and pacifying accountants reawakened Martin's insatiable desire to once again create the very best.

In July 1990, Martin Dingman Leathergoods was born. Since that day Martin continues to travel the world, relentlessly in search of premier skins and refined hardware to build his handmade collections of exquisite footwear and accessories. He is highly passionate and committed to nothing less. If creating the finest means selling less, then Martin's ultimate goal is to create one piece so fine, that when the man who originally owned it has finally gone, his son can merely hold it and feel his father's presence.