I can understand dressing for fashion. But one must consider context in their choices. You say that Newcastle is not renowned for being fashionable and I would probably agree with you mostly. But the reason we don't dress like Sydney or melbourne is because we are not Sydney or Melbourne. Newcastle is essentially eternally casual and very much more conservative than even places like Sydney. People in Newcastle wear socks.
I guess if you had to draw a distinct fashion for the newcastle area you'd have two catagories: 'waterfront' and 'burbs' - the waterfront is semi-yuppie and due to the weather always summery - dress shirts, loose jeans, cargos, chinos, sperrys, converse and no socks
The burbs, well, use your own imagination
I'm all for projecting a personal style but a lot of the time I feel as if you simply try to replicate styles of celebrities or brand marketing irrespective of context. The outfit you just described sounds like a ralph lauren uniform. But what about you. Where's YOUR personality amongst all this replication, cannibal horse?
I feel really gay being male and having a 'style' (if I said that in high school someone would make a wanking gesture) but I do.
I come from a french background so I have slim features but with longish hair and a gorilla walk happening from the gym I can't pull off a 'tidy' image.
I approach everything with minimalism - Newcastle's hot so you never need more than a buttom up shirt with sleeves rolled up, cargos and sperrys which works for dates/ drinking with friends/ relo visits etc. I also try not to buy out of newcastle because 'one off' items look out of place.
For uni I always wear polos, chinos and sperrys cause we have a gentlemen's club, which goes down like this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0[/youtube]