Best Dressed Characters

[CharlestonBows]

Note: I elected not to put this in the "movies" category because I'd like to open answers to all media, and the topic isn't really the movies, but the clothes therein.

Name your top 3 best dressed characters -- film, television, whatever -- with descriptions and why...

 

[luvthatlulu]

1. RALPH LAUREN :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap
He may no longer have the knack for getting his designs right like he did a decade or so ago, but he always gets his look right! I have never seen a picture of him in anything that didn't fit to perfection and wasn't perfectly coordinated and balanced.

2. ALAN FLUSSER :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap
Wrote the definitive book(s) on menswear and seems to follow his own advice. Too bad many men would rather pooh-pooh or quibble over his sage advice than follow it.

3. WILLIAM POWELL :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap
Just because. Perfect grooming. Perfect dress. Perfect manners. Made Myrna Loy and Louise Brooks both swoon. Heads a short list of men for those reasons alone.

- Not the Lulu

 

[Tomasso]

ALAN FLUSSER......Wrote the definitive book(s) on menswear and seems to follow his own advice.

 

[luvthatlulu]

I'm glad I said "seems"! Bill Powell just moved up a notch!
Alan's advice (even if he chooses to ignore it on occasion) is still pretty sound. At his age now, most men are starting to experiment with perfecting the "black dress socks with walking shorts-look"!

 

[Jovan]

Best dressed character on TV... Charlie Rose. He's no bland talk show host, and his clothes say the same thing. Unafraid to wear wide peaked lapels/double breasteds. Actually, he almost always wears those. Great choices in ties and shirts. Always well groomed, even going into old age with his hair getting ever more wirey. Apparently his wardrobe is by Ralph Lauren Purple Label -- it says so at the end of the show in the credits. Surprisingly the results are actually good for being provided clothing just so they get exposure. Oftentimes this is not true in such an arrangement. I'm not sure if he arranges his outfits himself from choices provided by them, or there's a handler somewhere. Either way it works out well.

I can't think of any more at this time, but I'll come up with something.

 

[imoldfashioned]

Best dressed character on TV... Charlie Rose.

Excellent choice Jovan--Rose really is a sharp dresser.

 

[Benny Holiday]

Three from the movies:

1. Jeff Bridges as preston Tucker in "Tucker: the Man and His Dream."

2. Jack Nicholson as Jake Gittes in "Chinatown."

3. Warren Beatty as Benjamin Seigel in "Bugsy."

I name these three because they're in colour and show the way colours were used together (especially "Tucker"). However, there of course tons of vintage films with Clark Gable, William Powell, Fred MacMurray, Jimmy Stewart,
Cary Grant, and so many other Golden Era actors portraying well-dressed characters.

 

[imoldfashioned]

3. Warren Beatty as Benjamin Seigel in "Bugsy."

Bugsy is such a good clothes movie, for women too but especially for the men. I went through a jag where I had that film on permanent loop but I haven't seen it for awhile.

 

[Edward]

In no particular order, the first three off the top of my head....

The Kemp twins as the Kray twins in 1990's The Krays. Of course, the real Kray twins - scary, scary boys that they were - were always impeccably dressed.

One from literature, so you'll have to imagine this, but Lucifer Box, Mark Gatiss' portrait painter by day, secret service agent by night character from novels The Vesuvius Club and The Devil in Amber, set in the first few years of the 20th Century, and the 1920s respectively. The clothes are much remarked upon throughout the books, and they sound wonderful.

Another literature character: Jay Gatsby. See the movie version with Redford - I actually did not care for Redford's portrayal of the character (the more recent, 1990s I think, television movie version was much better), but he was beautifully dressed, perfectly in accordance with the descriptions in the book, right down to tie colours.

If I can add another, less obvious choice, I really enjoyed watching Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden in Fight Club. Most of Durdens clothes are ridiculous, hideous even, some of them. But he carries them off with aplomb: it's all about confidence. Also some interesting comments made by the clothes. The film is of course all about notions of what it is to be a man in our modern world. The Durden character is in the minds of the other characters, the ultimate example of manhood, and yet much of what he wears is really rather feminine, an interesting juxtaposition. Apparently in Italy, red leather jackets (which Pitt wears through the film, different designs and shapes, but all very much red or predominantly red tinged) are considered very much a woman's thing, and it is regarded as an object of comedy, the idea of am an wearing one. I'm not sure if this was also in their thinking with choice of clothes, but it was interesting nonetheless.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

On TV: Anderson Cooper. It's not that his clothes are necessarily stupendous in themselves; it's that they suit him perfectly. Their cut, fit, colors and patterns harmonize with Cooper's frame and coloring.


.

 

[imoldfashioned]

On TV: Anderson Cooper. It's not that his clothes are necessarily stupendous in themselves; it's that they suit him perfectly. Their cut, fit, colors and patterns harmonize with Cooper's frame and coloring.

.

Agreed on all counts (slightly off topic, but was it Kathy Griffin who made that joke about him covering Hurricane Katrina...in Prada?).

I think the opposite of Cooper is Keith Olbermann who really needs to get himself to a meeting of "clashing stripes anonymous" stat.

 

[Ecuador Jim]

I think Matt Lauer does a pretty good job. I wonder sometimes if someone in wardrobe makes some of his decisions for him. Al Roker also is pretty nattily dressed. I understand the two of them take off on shopping sprees for suits. Check out the shoulder roll on their suits.

 

[Micawber]

John Bly, antiques dealer and expert who often appears in the BBC's Antiques Roadshow is invariably well turned out.

 

[Jovan]

One more to add: James Bond as portrayed by Sean Connery. Yes, once he wore a notched lapel dinner jacket, and most of his wardrobe in Diamonds Are Forever was lost on me, but overall he carried a great, no-nonsense wardrobe of greys, navys, light blues, and dark ties that we remember from the late '50s and early '60s. The way he carried off the silk knit tie inspired me to get one (which I have now, almost identical to the one in Goldfinger).

 

[dostacos]

David Niven, Pierce Brosnan, Sean Connery as Bond

 

[HadleyH]

... so many stylish people ...

Coco Chanel, an icon in the fashion world and created Chanel No 5, the perfume

... he doesn't need an introduccion, does he?

Audrey Hepburn,with her gamine charm and simple style she set the standard.:eusa_clap

 

[Diamondback]

How about this distinguished gentleman?

So much a style icon that major sections of my own personality are modeled after his.

For you who don't remember or skipped the '80s, Edward Woodward in the role of Robert McCall, The Equalizer.

 

[SamMarlowPI]

gotta go with William Powell and Robert DeNiro...

 

[luvthatlulu]

Audrey Hepburn,with her gamine charm and simple style she set the standard.:eusa_clap

Only until now, thanks to you, HadleyH!

-- Not the Lulu

 

[jgilbert]

Jeremy Britt as Sherlock Holmes and Rex Harrsion as Professor Higgins.