Who Are Your Style Icons?

[Sefton]

Alain Delon is one...

Thank you to Hemingway Jones for the help with posting images. Also thank you to Lauren. Best Regards, Sefton

 

[airfrogusmc]

Black suit white shirt skinny black tie

Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite?

 

[Lauren]

By the way, can someone kindly tell me how to get my picture posts to show as part of the body of my post. I'd like to have them appear without having to click on an address. Thanks.

You click on the pic of the mountain above where you type, then insert the address into the pop up window.

 

[scotrace]

No question

These guys.

 

[Quigley Brown]

Jake 'J.J.' Gittes...

 

[jamespowers]

These guys.

Gee, I hope you don't have false teeth like Gable.
Gable was one of my father's icons. He still holds a bit of icon status for me as well. Reagan was quite a style icon as well. he always looked like a band box when he went out. Hair perfect, tie just right and suit cut right. :cheers1:

Regards to all,

J

 

[airfrogusmc]

Jake 'J.J.' Gittes...

"Forget it Jake; its Chinatown."

 

[BellyTank]

I am pretty much my own style icon- self-styled snappy dresser- sometimes eclectic, always well clad- but in saying that, Mr. W. Powell has always had a great influence on me. I go for the somewhat off-beat, fancy, extravagant, stylin' duds from the '30s and early '40s and the everyman working attire from the same era- not at the same time though, see...

This may well be my favourite jacket of all time...

But the extravagant stuff needs to be built- it doesn't exist anymore.

I dropped the mo' it was a beast to maintain...

B
T

 

[Senator Jack]

When I was a kid I used to watch the Rat Pack movies so my first foray into vintage was a lot of razor sharp suits. But we didn't call it vintage then, they were just old clothes. Believe it or not, I was also inspired by Jerry Lewis who at one time was the best dressed man in Hollywood. Check out some of his wardrobe in Cinderfella.

I always seemed be influenced by minor characters in films rather than the protagonists: Felix Leiter in Dr. No (Jack Lord in cool as **** sunglasses) and, as I wrote in another post, the gang in The Thomas Crown Affair. Especially Yaphet Kotto in his Milano straw hat. I drew my style from 60s Motown/Stax performers too like Sam and Dave as well as the rude boys of Jamaican Ska. As I started getting into 40s clothing it was mostly Fred Astaire (if he were around today he could wear sandals, acid wash jeans, and an 8-ball jacket and I'd still think he looked good) though for an all around early 50s-60s look it was Gregory Peck.

Among others it was Patrick McGoohan in Dangerman and Robert Vaugh in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., but quite possibly my biggest influence was this guy:

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Hemingway Jones]

Great comments Senator Jack,
Patrick McGoohan was well styled in Danger Man, but lost it by the time of the Prisoner, for that deep brown jacket with white piping. Still a great show though.
Jack Lord has always been a favorite of mine and I thought he was awesome in Dr. No. He could wear black Ray Bans like no one else.

 

[Sefton]

Also these two...

Eastwood:

Sort of a Brooks Brothers look. Slim and tailored in the 70s era of flared trousers. Eastwood was effortlessly cool...


Mifune:

Dressed for summer and looking elegant in "Stray Dog".

 

[MissQueenie]

True with the hats, I guess maybe Boston found out Brookes Brothers just rerelased the Seersucker suit, a few years back.

Seersucker was high fashion this past summer, actually. I saw many, many ladies clothes done up in seersucker (suits, jackets, dresses) and several men's sportcoats in stores as ubiquitous as Banana Republic. I've also noticed an increase in the number of "old fashioned" men's hats in BR this fall. Maybe it's one of those fashion-cycle things?

~ Queenie.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Oh, boy, here goes:

I have a lot of cultural icons, some I tried to emulate, some I wanted to emulate, some I just admired.

When I was a teenager, there were two people who influenced me. The first was my adored rebel, Jimmy:

http://www.evergreen.edu/library/govdocs/ngin/james_dean6.jpg

When I saw him on screen in his red jacket, driving that black mercury, I went nuts. He was my first teen icon. I wanted to be with him, I wanted to be him, I wanted to bring him back from the dead.

By the late 50's, I had gone beyond the rebel and turned to other icons. When I saw Bell, Book and Candle, I wanted to be a witch , I wanted to be Gillian with her Pyewacket, casting spells on a befuddled intellectual. And I wanted to look like Kim Novak:

http://www.moviediva.com/MD_root/MDimages/Copy_of_kimcat.jpg

Sexy, mysterious, alluring, and that image worked in her most famous role in Vertigo, which she also made with ames Stewart.

In college, the movie Breakfast at Tiffanys hit the theatres. I wanted to be Holly Golightly. My old boyfriend in college thought I was that character, and I know I certainly wanted to look like the lovely Audrey:

http://gfx.dagbladet.no/kultur/2003/05/06/hepburn.jpg

Was anyone ever so regal and wonderful and elegant and ... slender. Twenty-five years of yo-yo dieting, wanting to look like Audrey, even though I have a mesomorphic bone structure.

Later icons were the golden era icons I discovered as I grew older: Bogart, Bergman, Astaire, the young Gary Cooper, the young Jimmy Stewart, Alec Guiness, and, yes, the other Hepburn:

http://songweaver.com/gender/images/hepburn.gif

An independent woman, no crowd-follower, admired by feminists. She could be the loveliest of ladies, regal and patrician in her bearing, but also a gender-bender. Only Tracy could tame her. Or did she tame him?

Two I would like to emulate (but can't):

http://www.morpism.com/images/recommends/film/picard/queen_garbo.pg

http://www.meaus.com/94-marlene-on-queen-mary.JPEG

The elusive, glamorous, mysterious ones, oh, yes, to be like them!!! Wouldn't it be fine? Did any woman ever wear fedoras as beautifully as they did?

Did anyone call Dietrich up on the Queen Mary? There she is....

karol

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Will try to add another photo of Jimmy as the first did not take:

http://www.theseoultimes.com/ST/dbz/images/1979-20050530123122.jpg

And Garbo:

http://www.anectdotage.com/pics/garbo/jpg


karol

 

[K.D. Lightner]

http://www.anecdotage.com/pics/garbo.jpg

I give up on the other one.

karol

 

[Sefton]

K.D. Lightner mentioned just the gentleman that I was going to also list; Sir Alec Guinness

Rather than post more pictures I'll just add: Sean Connery (mentioned by many already), Edward-Duke of Windsor (Inovative yet always within traditional style),
Patrick Macnee (John Steed-The consumate gentleman spy...sorry Bond!),James Coburn (Derek Flint-as close to an American James Bond as we're likely to see),Humphrey Bogart (especially in candid shots around family and friends. He looked elegant on board his boat 'The Santana"), Tom Wolfe (Although constantly wearing a white suit is a little bit monotonous..he still looks great), Steve McQueen (macho style icon), Jean-Paul Belmondo (check out his noir style in "Le Doulos" and of course "Breathless). All icons to me. I don't pretend to achieve those levels...but if you are going to try you might as well aim high

 

[Hemingway Jones]

I am learning so much reading these.
Karol, your post was very insightful.
You are certainly an erudite crowd.
I had forgotten how good Clint Eastwood looked as "Dirty Harry" with that Harris Tweed jacket.

Two men who expressed the perfect tuxedo look: Sean Connery

and
Humphrey Bogart:

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Thanks, Sefton, for posting the photos of Alec Guiness. He has been my favorite actor for most of my life.

My favorite actress was one I wanted to emulate in my own acting career, she has been mentioned here before by others:


http://www.meredy.com/bergman2.jpg


karol

 

[Biltmore Bob]

In all honesty I like wearing salt & pepper suits and bowties. And guess where I got the inspiration? Yup, watching the Andy Griffith Show. And that's the TRUTH! I think he had great style when he wasn't wearing his uniform.

I always thought Andy was a class act...

 

[Nick Charles]

Isn't that

I am learning so much reading these.
Karol, your post was very insightful.
You are certainly an erudite crowd.
I had forgotten how good Clint Eastwood looked as "Dirty Harry" with that Harris Tweed jacket.

Two men who expressed the perfect tuxedo look: Sean Connery

and
Humphrey Bogart:

Isn't that Robert Conti in the Man with Bogarts Face? funny movie.