A Date with Datyelian
- tophandher
- Aug 22, 2016
- 5 min read
everything was going smoothly. the cerritos sun was cooling down and the steak fries just landed on our table. it was going to be good, until it was ruined by buzz the freaking bee. instead of minding his own business with the 'honey nut cheerios' empire, he wanted in with the fries. hells no. i grabbed the fries and bolted. looking back, i realized that in a time of crisis, people tend to grab what truly matters to them. looking over at andre, i saw that he grabbed his sunglasses, phone and wallet. looking at myself, i left my belongings to buzz, and grabbed french fries. it was way too clear where our priorities were at. maybe i can learn a lesson or two from datyelian.
you're a smart guy. but we know there's more to you than brains, so who really is datyelian?
datyelian. d-d-datyelian. a man of many wonders. i'm a modern day renaissance man you could say. no, i toot my own horn too much. who's andre? andre is a guy who lives by his humor. i try to express my humor freehand all the time when i'm just talking to friends, then I go in and improve it through improv and stand up and writing and you know, waking up in the middle of the night to write a joke... “ just had a nightmare - gotta wake up and right that!”
when you're not doing comedy, what are you normally up to?
past comedy, it goes more into sports. i love football. i play a lot of fantasy football. beyond that i like to play soccer, basketball and work out. i also like to play ping pong! played ping-pong at 'ucr' [college]! i'm also a businessman, but not like that corporate fat cat kind of guy.
a man with a sense of humor and style. we want to know. we have to know! what is datyelian's signature?
plain up top. i prefer a quality t-shirt though. i'm not just going and getting a six pack of 'hanes.' i like it to fit on the shoulders, but don't like it to be too tight on the waist, so a looser, longer shirt. also a comfort guy, so i love joggers, cause they give me the tightness on the bottom. i love my shoes! spend too much on my shoes, but that's why i get the joggers- they they show off the shoe. my style can come off plain, but it's a focused “plainness” to it. it's very targeted. i don't do everything everywhere. i put attention in certain places.
have you always been stylish? like, since you stepped foot on this earth?
no i didn’t! not at all! tell you this much, there was one time in high school i bought an orange sweater with camouflage on some parts of it and i thought that was a cool sweater. let me tell you, it was not cool. i look back and i'm like "what were you thinking andre?!” there was a time i was a billboard in middle school. i bought those 'echo' shirts just because everyone had the rhino so, i had to have the rhino, you know? it wasn't a purpose of fashion. although, funny thing, i was voted best dressed in middle school.
looks like 'echo' paid off?
yeah it paid off i guess! it started in college. music was a big influence. i like a lot of different types of music whether it's indie punk rock or hip hop. i take things I like from a lot of these musical artists’ style and put it together. in college i started following these things more closely, rather than before it would be a general complete look i would steal. now it became more, "oh wow i saw the cover of gq. kobe was wearing this grey suit" and I was like, "oh wow, that's really nice and it’s kind of different, so i want to wear that suit.” i felt more comfortable dressing how i wanted to dress instead of dressing how everyone else dressed.
you mentioned that music had an influence on your style. care to share some of your style idols?
i like donald glover's [childish gambino] simplicity. he wears a lot of simple clothes. what I stole from him was the whole loose white t-shirt kind of thing. in terms of shoes, i'd have to say it's actually my friend, manin- he's a sneakerhead. so I see what shoes he buys and he gets the whole collection and then I see which ones I like and pick from there. I also like what kanye west does. he wears everything oversized which i would prefer not to do because it would just make me look shorter, but I took a lot of his layering. he's just so huge. i think he's influenced so much already that it's such an easy choice to say kanye. i think people dress exactly like him. i try not to do that. i'd say i'm kanye west if you left him in the dryer for too long- he's all cotton. he shrunk.
for all the ladies reading this, what do you think is a must have for every woman?
sundresses and rompers. it looks so nice, and any woman can pull it off. you just gotta get the right color for yourself, cause we all look good in different colors. every woman can pull off a dress, but i think a sundress, no matter what the body type, it accentuates anything.
you definitely know style, so if you were to give advice on stepping up the style game, what would it be?
i consider myself diverse in my dressing. stores are becoming more diverse for people. if you go to 'h&m', it's a really easy place to start. i like 'zara.' shoes, you can go to a place like 'aldo' or 'nordstrom rack.' it's creating a focus on your outfits. what i'm wearing right now, i can mix and match with three other t-shirts or two other joggers or pants or two or three other shoes that i have. it's the same outfit but diversified. find what look you want and build around that. that's crucial.
we've talked about men's style, women's style, idols, and the list goes on. so, if we wanted to throw some datyelian into our style, where would we start?
it's going to be a lot of plain shirts. i like kind of a granite look sometimes with my grey shirts, or a not so in-your-face pattern- a light pattern. i'm wearing a plain white shirt, but you know, not everyone is born to be the "plain white tees." sometimes you have to add a little bit. you're want to get comfortable pants but also want them to look good. i love joggers because they're comfortable and they show off my shoes, but you want to be specific with your colors- two favorite joggers are cream and olive. they're great colors and they still look like pants even though their joggers. some nice comfortable shoes also. 'nike' has a lot of nice free runs that recently came out, flyknit, roshe's. they have a lot of good and affordable options. mix in things that can help you step up from your base. you can start with a casual base and then buy some boots that you can mix in and then build up from there. what i'm picturing right now is that evolution picture of the gorilla turning into man and basically it's starting with the casual being the gorilla, joggers and the plain shirt, and then turning into the final point where you're dressed up completely.
for more, you can follow funnyman andre on instagram and twitter.