Who Are Your Style Icons?

[MK]

?

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

What movie is that from?

 

[BellyTank]

'Le Samurai'-

-I think.

B
T

 

[MK]

Mine

When I was a kid:

When I was a teenager:

My twenties & thirties:

These days:

In some ways I have come full circle.

 

[Quigley Brown]

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

I just bought the Criterion DVD last week. Haven't sat down to watch it yet. I'm starting up a foreign film club with some friends and I may make this the premiere film.

 

[Veronica Parra]

My icons for Golden Era men's style are a father-son team: Douglas Fairbanks. Sr. and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Here's why ...


-- Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was the first movie superstar to set clothing styles for men. He was ahead of his time: by 1925, he was wearing fashions that others wouldn't catch up to until the '30s. Fairbanks was one of the first to wear "English blade" (or "drape") suits; he was the first to sport a suntan; he was the first to wear sportcoats with open-neck shirts and no tie; he was one of the first to wear sportshirts at public appearances; and he was the first to considerably "bulk up" at the gym for a role (that of the shirtless "Thief" in 1924's The Thief of Bagdad, which he also screenwrote and produced). Fairbanks, Sr. dressed like Astaire before Astaire did.

(He looks like Sam Neill here)

***************************************************


-- Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. inherited his father's love for English sartorial style with an American twist: he dressed impeccably, and most importantly,
he never stopped wearing Golden Age fashions. I saw an interview with him a year or two before his death in May, 2000. Fairbanks, Jr. was wearing a '30 style double-breasted suit, a spread collar shirt, a royal blue satin tie with a windsor knot, a carnation in his lapel, and a rakish handkerchief in his breast pocket. He still had slicked back hair and a moustache, and he was very tan. It was as if the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s had never touched the man. He was firmly and eternally Golden Era.

(He looks like Harry Connick, Jr. here)

 

[Hemingway Jones]

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

I think you're right! Well done! Don't I feel silly. I was going through pages of images trying to find the right one. Oh well, if indeed it is, use your imagination.

 

[Sefton]

MK, here's another one for you...

Alain Delon in Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Samourai" (1967):

Delon plays Jef Costello, a hired killer and man of few words. Melville was in love with the era of Bogart, Mitchum et.al. I highly recomend this film which is now widely available thanks to 'The Criterion Collection'. Another great Melville film is "Le Doulous" starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. French film noir at it's best.

Melville characteristically dressed in Bogart style trenchcoat and an Stetson open road. Our kind of guy! Best Regards, Sefton

 

[K.D. Lightner]

When I was a budding young actress I once asked my mother what she would like to do if I someday made it big and she visited me in Hollywood.

She said, "I would like to dance with Fred Astaire."

http://www.nndb.com/people/372/000026294/astaire-sized.jpg


karol

 

[Jokerswild7]

great thread!
For me its always been

James Cagney- He just reeked of coolness in all his films.Ever since I saw "Angels with Dirty faces" I started to look to Cagney for his sense of style and toughness.

Gregory Peck- One of my all-time favorite actors. The man was so calm, cool, and classy.

Jimmy Stewart- Another great actor, I always liked him.

and of course, everyones favorite man in a hat.
Indiana Jones- NOT Harrison Ford. Im talking about the leather jacket and fedora. When I first saw Raiders I wanted to look like Indy. I still try to get an Indy-ish look whenever I travel.

Glenn

 

[MudInYerEye]

I have been a fan of "the golden era" since I was a kid watching Bogart or Fonda movies on PBS, but where most of my peers in this interest have seemed to cultivate and garner a dressier interpretation of what people wore back then, I was always more interested in how the common man on the street was attired. Throughout the nineties I attended swing events in the city dressed to less than the nines tho I always wore period clothing. Rarely did I wear a suit (tho not because I didn't have them). This was much to the annoyance of some of my dandy friends. After a while I learned to ignor their comments and just stared at the girls.
My biggest influence style-wise has come from the way some prizefighters of the mid 20's to early 40's skirted the line between proletariat and snappy. Guys like Mickey Walker, Harry Greb, Jack Sharkey, or Barney Ross could be spotted in a newsboy cap, turtleneck sweater. leather cossack. dirty boots, and bluejeans in one day and a three piece suit, spats, and fifty dollar fedora the next. It seemed like tho these guys had come into some hefty bucks they still couldn't let go of what was ingrained, comfortable, or familiar to them for long. No matter they were wearing they projected supreme confidence and (for the most part) a sense of grizzled class. Nat Fleischer's Pictorial History of Boxing was my fashion bible for years.
Besides that I have spent a lot of time examing how people dressed in old WPA photos as well as photographs of barnstorming aviators of the 20's and 30's.

 

[Veronica Parra]

I was always more interested in how the common man on the street was attired ...

Well, as we all know, the common man and woman won. It was they who took jeans ("dungarees"), sneakers, t-shirts and khakis out of their functional niches (the farms and ranches, the playing fields, the army barracks) and brought them to city streets, schools and suburbs.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

My biggest influence style-wise has come from the way some prizefighters of the mid 20's to early 40's skirted the line between proletariat and snappy. Guys like Mickey Walker, Harry Greb, Jack Sharkey, or Barney Ross could be spotted in a newsboy cap, turtleneck sweater. leather cossack. dirty boots, and bluejeans in one day and a three piece suit, spats, and fifty dollar fedora the next. It seemed like tho these guys had come into some hefty bucks they still couldn't let go of what was ingrained, comfortable, or familiar to them for long. No matter they were wearing they projected supreme confidence and (for the most part) a sense of grizzled class. Nat Fleischer's Pictorial History of Boxing was my fashion bible for years.
Besides that I have spent a lot of time examing how people dressed in old WPA photos as well as photographs of barnstorming aviators of the 20's and 30's.

That's very interesting about the prizefighters and quite descriptive. I love the barnstorming look. This is a new influence on me as of late. -Great comments.

 

[MudInYerEye]

Well, as we all know, the common man and woman won. It was they who took jeans ("dungarees"), sneakers, t-shirts and khakis out of their functional niches (the farms and ranches, the playing fields, the army barracks) and brought them to city streets, schools and suburbs.

I see your point, tho I don't entirely agree with you. Looking at "golden era" photographs (or Victorian photographs for that matter) of big cities you'll seen plenty of folks young and old in functional sporting or work clothing as everyday wear. Obviously I don't mean photos of the Stork Club on a Friday night or Midtown at lunchtime where people would predominantly be wearing suits and ties but working/middle class residential neighborhoods.
Granted today's "casual" clothing is unspeakably horrid. America has been boiled down to a nation of slobs, but this happened for a slew of reasons. I'd point the main finger at the hippie youth culture of the 1960's as the beginning of the end and not your everyday working class Joe.
The "common man" look I was attempting to describe is anything but sloppy or slobbish, at least in my opinion. It is stylish, compact, neat, and utterly functional.

 

[Veronica Parra]

Looking at "golden era" photographs (or Victorian photographs for that matter) of big cities you'll seen plenty of folks young and old in functional sporting or work clothing as everyday wear.

Exactly right.

I'd point the main finger at the hippie youth culture of the 1960's as the beginning of the end and not your everyday working class Joe..

I'd go about ten years further back in time. The 1950s brought dungarees to the fore. City school officials didn't like jeans, but "juvenile delinquents" (or were they "greaser hoodlums"?) wore them anyway. So did bikers, motorhead WWII vets with wanderlust and a taste for combat adrenaline. (Country boys, of course, had always worn jeans, even to school. Not for fashion, though; they just didn't have other types of everyday pants.) Military service in WWII gave the '50s common man a taste for t-shirts and khakis, just as WWI vets acquired a taste for collar-attached dress shirts. (Uniforms have often influenced civilian styles.)

The "common man" look I was attempting to describe is anything but sloppy or slobbish, at least in my opinion. It is stylish, compact, neat, and utterly functional.

Agreed. The only thing I don't like about Golden Era workwear is the overall bagginess and shapelessness of the pants. Other than that, the chambray shirts, denim jackets, hobnail boots and 8-point caps of the time look terrific.

 

[MudInYerEye]

I'd go about ten years further back in time. The 1950s brought dungarees to the fore. City school officials didn't like jeans, but "juvenile delinquents" (or were they "greaser hoodlums"?) wore them anyway. So did bikers, motorhead WWII vets with wanderlust and a taste for combat adrenaline. (Country boys, of course, had always worn jeans, even to school. Not for fashion, though; they just didn't have other types of everyday pants.) Military service in WWII gave the '50s common man a taste for t-shirts and khakis, just as WWI vets acquired a taste for collar-attached dress shirts. (Uniforms have often influenced civilian styles.)

You are dead-on correct concerning the emergence of bluejeans and t-shirts emering from the WWII generation into the general mainstream culture, tho die hard young motorcyclists had adopted the prototype of this look by the mid to late 1930's when they discarded wool norfolk jackets, leather breeches, and puttees for "w"-collar leather "aviator" jackets, heavy bluejeans, and engineer's boots (I wholeheartedly recommend Rin Tanaka's books on vintage motocycle jackets are a fantastic source of biker fashions of the 20's-40's). But to me, even the juvenile delinquent Blackboard Jungle look of the 1950's was a cool, well defined, neat look that was fastidiously put together. Those greasy punks cared deeply about their apperance whereas the hippies rejected anything natty as square and oppressive. At the same time I see your point, the 50's brought about a gradual easing of the rules which unfortunately may have helped foster the totally ungroovy hippie style (which of course eventualy seeped into the general mainstream and ruined everything for everybody).

 

[Sefton]

But to me, even the juvenile delinquent Blackboard Jungle look of the 1950's was a cool, well defined, neat look that was fastidiously put together. Those greasy punks cared deeply about their apperance whereas the hippies rejected anything natty as square and oppressive.

That's a good point about the fastidiousness...it's a great look and really classic American. I can't say the same for the hippie look...

At the same time I see your point, the 50's brought about a gradual easing of the rules which unfortunately may have helped foster the totally ungroovy hippie style (which of course eventualy seeped into the general mainstream and ruined everything for everybody).

"and ruined everything for everybody". I laughed when I read that. You put it perfectly. Best regards, Sefton

 

[Senator Jack]

I don't know. I think there can be a cool, neat, hippie look. I don't think that anyone can refute that Peter Fonda looked cool in Easy Rider. If people just dressed as well as that I'd be happy. I have a friend who always says "Always dressed perfectly as usual,' to me, and I say the same to him. This, despite our diffences in preferred era. But he's got the early seventies hippie look down, and he's neat about it. Buttoned down quiana shirts, denim jacket and jeans. Some sort of medallion about his chest.

I think what makes people look slobby is not so much their clothes sometimes as that they have no sense of how to put it all together. Pinstripe jackets over t-shirts with pre-stressed denim jeans. And Good Lord, you should have seen the shoes I saw on a guy on the subway yesterday. Some sort of two tone brown suede bowling shoes, with little G's for Gucci all over them and then three brown and green stripes along the sides. I wasn't able to sleep last night knowing they were lurking about this world.

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[airfrogusmc]

The Wild One Very cool

 

[MrBern]

If you thought hippies Looked cool, you never smelled one!

 

[Veronica Parra]

Beatniks smelled worse !

(How come no one has referred to them yet?)