There’s a story we once read about, telling of an occasion in which there was a charity event held for an actor who had recently been horribly injured in an accident, and his Hollywood peers had gotten together to hold a benefit in his honor to assist in paying his medical bills. It was a black tie event, and some of the highest echelons of the film industry were in attendance. Among those were actor Steve McQueen, noted badass, serial womanizer, and one of our style heroes.

Now McQueen was no stranger to black tie affairs and was not one to shy away from dressing to the nines. But on this occasion, The King of Cool showed up to the gala, hair long and unkempt, bear long and scraggly, and his attire…less than black tie, looking like a longshoreman who had just come into Cape Cod after being away at sea for months on end. Being the man he was, ol’ Steve schmoozed and enjoyed himself, rubbing elbows with friends and having a grand old time as if he was Daniel Craig in that Tom Ford suit (you know the one.)

Now, had anyone else showed up that night looking even remotely as antithetical to the stated dress code of the night (and we mean anyone, maybe even the poor bastard for whom the benefit was held,) they would’ve been tossed out onto the street quicker than you can say “Grizzly Adams.” But those are the rules for us mortals. Those rules don’t apply to a rare few, and Steve McQueen was possibly the person for whom the rules never applied, whichever rules they may be.

But that didn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen by accident. To rach that level of fuck-it-all-itude, year have to, well, earn it. McQueen earned that privilege by being…well, by being Steve McQueen; he spent years cultivating a reputation as a badass who took zero shit, sneered in the face of authority, and was the best dressed man in the room, be it a movie set or an awards show.

You, too, can reach the level of a man who can read the dress code and give it the proverbial “Fuck You,” granted you have put in the time. You don’t go from high school baseball player to The Big Show overnight. You pay your dues and put your reps in the Minor Leagues. Strike enough guys out on a Farm Team and then maybe…you can step on the mound at Wrigley. In order to do this right, remember these timeless rules so that, when the time come, you can break them:

Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert. What do we take from this? You’ll need to develop a style all your own in order to cultivate a reputation as the a man of impeccable taste. This does not happen overnight (think years.)

Know exactly what to wear and when to wear it. You’ll need to have an amost preternatural sense to dress a couple notches above what is required without coming off as pretentious, arrogant, or ostentatious. This is maybe the hardest part of the process, because finding that middle ground isn’t something that is cut and dry and take A LOT of practice and experimentation. This part is also the most frustrating.

DO NOT ABUSE YOUR POWER. Once you reach the status of a made men, i.e. you’ve risen to the level of Style God and have earned the right and the cred to break the rules, don’t overdo it. You can get away with dressing down or giving the middle finger to the rules once in a blue moon, but do it too often and you’ll end up looking like a phony and a slob. The rule to keep in mind here is “Less Is More.”

Getting to McQueenian levels of freedom in the style is a journey equal to that of Homer’s Odyssey, so you don’t want to get sucked in by the sirens and shoot the moon too quickly. Apply these rules correctly and you’ll be your own version of Grizzly McQueen before you know it.