Oh man, this is a convo that could go on for days. In the end, if you're looking at developing a "style" for yourself, you just need to develop your own tastes, but that takes time + money. You've looked at the MFA subreddit, and they have their "basic uniform" thing for a reason: it gives you some solid choices real quick and several pricing options for those things. All the stuff they talk about is pretty safe and won't "go bad" in terms of style, it's just boring as shit. The most fun way of getting into dressing yourself is actually dressing yourself and trying on different looks. Don't throw down a bunch of money initially, because you will change your mind about exactly how you want to look. I would suggest this: 1) Look around. Pay attention to how people dress and how it affects the way you perceive them. Once you become aware of this stuff, it becomes more and more obvious. Check out inspiration albums or Lookbook. For lookbook, just sort by Guy's->most popular and just see what people are doing. Ignore the fact that everyone on there looks like a goddamn model. A lot of these people don't do anything but this all day, but you just need to scrape from their lessons and build something solid for yourself and move along with your life. Don't feel the need to recreate anything you see to a T, just feel lucky you're a guy and there's simply some rotating common themes that you can focus on that a lot of people use for many different looks. Namely: Outerwear (jackets, sweaters), shirting (t-shirts, button-downs), bottoms (jeans, pants), and shoes (dress, boots, sneakers). 2) Build something basic The most productive thing you can do for yourself, is think about your clothes less. You want to make sure most of the stuff in your closet works together and you can throw something on and look cooler than most people around you. I suggest the following to get you started: -buy a decent pair of jeans. Dark blue jeans go with everything. Levi's are fine. You're a smaller dude like me, and the thing on fit with jeans is they need to follow your contours closely, but (unless that's what you're going for) don't need to be skin tight. Levi's 511 will probably be perfect. Later on, buy a pair of black jeans. After that, upgrade each of those per your acquired tastes. Don't get any that are pre-faded. -Get some button-downs. This is a lil more complicated, but really, they just need to fit right, and not be too business-y. Patterned stuff is good, but don't lose your mind (yet). Check out Urban Outfitters, they have a lot of stuff that are safer takes on very popular styles. Some of their stuff tends to billow out, if you can pull the shirt more than 5 inches out from your navel, don't even bother. If you can afford it, buy some stuff on sale at J Crew, in their slim fit. They always fit me perfectly (Xsmall) and they are pretty safe, style-wise. Solid blue button-downs are pretty business-casual, go for solid grays, blacks, and patterned. This bad boy is the go-to, for a reason, it's simple, versatile and safe as fuck. -Get a denim jacket. Again, Levi's is the go-to. Again, dark wash. It goes with everything and it's never gonna get cold enough in Tejas for you to bundle much more than a denim jacket + sweater. - or a Bomber jacket. Black or green. -Merona t-shirts are fine. keep it simple. I have a $150 tee from rag and bone and you know what it doesn't have? branding or screenprinting. avoid like the plague. chest pockets are cool right now, too. -Get some decent sneakers. Tigers, Nike running shoes, pretty much anything that looks like this in black, grey or white. If you buy something with a lot of color, you can't wear them every damn day. Well, you can, but just be confident, yo. -DO NOT BUY A BLAZER/SPORTCOAT YET. They are too easy to do wrong.
3) Start branching out After that, you can start to add stuff in that is more specific for what you want to go for, or for different outfits for different occasions. The best sort of "looks", which can all be drawn from, are the #Menswear thing (try to look like either a businessman or a sartorial laborer), streetwear (easier to find, fit not quite as important, think pharrell or 20-something urban asian-american male), techwear (always look like you're about to go for a run inside the world of a dystopian anime) or scandanavian minimalism (so clean. grow a beard.). There's a lot of overlap, so just do what strikes your fancy, nowaypablo has the right idea, look around at a few brands, you'll get a good idea of what to look for and how it can fit together. I'm sure there's a Buffalo Exchange or similar store nearby you, go there a couple times a week and browse, try stuff on,. You don't have to spend forever, just look for like 30 minutes and see if anything strikes your fancy. Piece of advice: if you aren't quite sure that you want to buy it when trying it on, don't buy it. you'll most likely end up regretting it.
Recap and Addendums Remember: Do all this so you can think about clothes less. optimize the (time spent preparing)/(time spent looking good) ratio You live in texas. There is a boot shop nearby with impeccable and cheap boots for sale. Only buy lace-up, none of that cowboy nonsense. Do not buy cheap boots. DO NOT BUY CHEAP BOOTS. DO NOT BUY CHEAP JEANS. Don't buy H&M, it's junk. Uniqlo really is great, I wish they had more brick and mortar places everywhere, they even freakin' tailor their clothes for you. It's ridiculous. Throw away your polos.