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“Don't try to wear a denim jacket with your jeans. You'll look like a jerk.”

This is certainly sage advice for guys trying to improve their look while maintaining their manliness.

But the key to heeding it? All in the delivery. It isn't coming from a nagging girlfriend or a pushy salesclerk – it's from the guys at Put This On, a slick new blog and Web video series with a mission: to help clueless dudes dress like grownups.

“Thoughtfulness in the way you present yourself is a sign of not only your dandyism or self-regard, but respect for others,” co-creator Jesse Thorn, 28, says from his home in Los Angeles. “You're coming to realize, ‘When I dress up, I'm not just symbolizing that I'm the man; I'm symbolizing that I care about myself.'”

Launched this month by Thorn and his friend Adam Lisagor, 31, Put This On (putthison.com) is part praise of high-quality fashion and part educational guide for men who want to add a dash of dandy to their wardrobe but don't know how.

Put This On is one of the many how-to fashion shrines for dudes that have exploded in online popularity. Call it the Mad Men effect (did the average guy really care about tailored suits before Don Draper strolled onto the scene?) or blame a generation of late-blooming adults for breeding the desire to dress with class.

Whatever the reason, guys are flocking to the Web instead of stalking the mag racks for this stylish transformation because it's a safe place to pursue fashion tips and get credible advice, says James Bassil, the Montreal-based editor-in-chief of Askmen.com.

“The online venue is anonymous – guys don't have to reveal they're ignorant about style and fashion,” he says. “Guys seek out fashion advice like they seek out relationship advice. [They] want it, but they don't want anyone to know. … They'll say, ‘Oh, I've done this a hundred times; I'm a stud.'”

Men, he says, also want fashion instruction in a step-by-step format, something Put This On and other how-to sites deliver. “If they don't see a picture of the product or [aren't told] what size or what style to buy, guys will freak out.”

The idea for Put This On came from numerous e-mails Thorn received from fans of his nationwide public radio show, The Sound of Young America, following some of the show's live events hosted by the dapper dresser. Instead of toiling over each response, he paired with video editing whiz Lisagor, of Lonelysandwich.com blog fame, to bring Put This On to life.

“I think often men go a store and rely on [a salesperson] to tell them, ‘You need these three shirts and these three ties … and now you can go to whatever wedding or funeral you need to go to,'” Thorn says. “Any time you're feeling a little bit uncomfortable with a subject, it's nice to be able to learn in a context where there's no one judging you.”

Their first webisode examines denim, including how jeans are made and what to look for in a new pair. The guys visit Rising Sun Jeans in Pasadena, California. and fawn over $500 threads (though they later suggest denim at low, medium and high price points). The show is peppered with “rudiments,” quick hits of fashion advice such as the aforementioned warning against wearing denim jackets with jeans, also known as the “Canadian tuxedo.”

The sites also spark dialogue and a community of men who can talk about clothes from the comfort – and privacy – of their homes.

Giuseppe Timore, 32, started his blog, An Affordable Wardrobe (anaffordablewardrobe.blogspot.com), which features vintage finds and frugal-yet-stylish dress-up tips, to battle the “eternal teenager syndrome” to which many guys are prone. The Boston-based vintage aficionado often gets notes from readers asking for fashion advice.

“I'll get e-mails from some guys who'll say, ‘I'm in college and I'm tired of dressing like a kid and I don't know what to do. Your blog looks like what I'm shooting for, so what can you tell me?'”

Dan Trepanier, the Windsor, Ont.-born fashionisto behind The Style Blogger (thestyleblogger.com ), started up his advice-based site after getting numerous fashion queries from guy friends. The 22-year-old recent Columbia University grad was named Esquire's Best Dressed Real Man in America 2009 in September, reigning victorious over more than a thousand online entrants and four stylish finalists.

While his readership is broad, he says most questions come from guys trying to inject a little maturity into their dress.

“A lot of questions I get are [from] guys who are transitioning … they have a new job or they just graduated from college and they want to be taken a little more seriously in a business atmosphere,” says Trepanier, who now works as an assistant men's-wear buyer for Saks Fifth Avenue in New York.

Askmen.com's Bassil bemoans the side effect of the “cougar generation” – a response to the proliferation of older women looking for younger dudes – which he says leads guys to dress like kids well into their 20s, donning backward ball caps and baggy pants.

But social cues from the likes of Mad Men are giving dudes permission to grow up – if only through their duds.

“It allows guys to dress up and go through the same ritual their grandfather went through,” he says. “There's something appealing in that.”