One of the great debates and issues men have when dressing is how to match men's shoes and socks. You see mismatched disasters all the time with guys when looking at their pants all the way to their shoes.

We’re not going to get into patterns and argyle socks and confuse you with this article. What I’m going to do is give you some hard and fast rules that will make getting dressed for a big day really easy.

Here's the first one: when in doubt, always match your socks to your pants. Following this rule will allow you to look your best 90% of the time.

Here's the easiest way to explain it: if you’re wearing a suit, your shoes should already match your suit; your socks should be a natural bridge from your dress shoes to your pants. So if you’re wearing black pants, wear blacks socks. Brown pants? Then brown socks. I think you get the picture.

Let me explain about how to make sure your socks are a nice bridge to your pants. It means that if you veer from matching solid color socks to your pants, make sure the socks make a nice, clean transition from your shoes (or boots) right up to your pants.

You’ll see this with patterned socks and also with jeans. When I wear jeans – especially lighter blue jeans, I don’t want to wear light blue socks with them. It just doesn’t work.

I make sure that there is a nice, consistent look from shoe to pant. If I'm wearing darker blue jeans and black boots, I might wear gray socks.

That way everything is in alignment. 

Follow these simple rules and you'll have no problem matching your shoes to your socks and then your pants. And remember, just because Michael Jackson used to wear white socks with penny loafers doesn't mean you ever should.