Let me start with this, I love flannel shirts. Whether they be real flannels, fancy flannels, rugged flannels, whatever. I love them all. With so much love for one type of clothing though, I hate when they are worn wrong.

There are only a few things you can do to make a flannel look awful (unless the flannel you chose is just hideous). Here they are:

First, wearing an extremely small or extremely large flannel (exceptions are made on the larger portion, if the flannel belongs to your significant other). Flannels should have a simple fit — nothing too tight, nothing too loose. They shouldn’t be your clothing item of choice when trying to show off your figure.

Flannels are meant for comfort; if you can hardly even move your arms the shirt is so tight, you need to move up a size. On the other side, if you could fit twelve other people in the shirt with you, you need to move down a size.

Secondly, wearing an obnoxiously colored flannel is … well, obnoxious. I know, I know; not everyone will agree with me on what’s a bad color scheme for a flannel, but no item of clothing should be bright yellow with purple, blue, and green stripes.

I totally appreciate non-traditional color schemes for flannels; you know, deep blues, greens, purples. Some stores have taken it way too far though. A lime green flannel? That’s just disgusting. Hardly anyone actually looks good in solid neon colors, so why would they look any better in a neon flannel? There are just some trends I will just never understand.

So, stick close to tradition; sometimes modernizing something so simple just ruins it.