Of all the arts, the movies are the ones that most fully make use of the world around us, that most richly give us the sights and sounds of life, most completely show us how people act and look.
And, of course, how they dress.
That rule applies most famously to the carefully designed and created style of the great female stars. But also to the fashions of the men.
Can you imagine Buster Keaton without his porkpie hat? Fred Astaire without his white tie and tails? Marlon Brando without his T-shirt or leather jacket? Sean Connery without his Bond tuxedo? John Travolta without his white disco suit?
In turn, those stars and their colleagues influenced how millions of American men — and countless others around the world — polished up their own images. Unlike the female stars, whose carefully planned wardrobes were executed by designers like Edith Head, Orry-Kelly and Adrian, fashion-conscious male stars in the studios’ Golden Age could assemble their own wardrobes, often from the tony clothiers of Britain’s Savile Row. If Hollywood’s male fashion look was usually a matter of borrowing, it was cribbing with style.
Throughout the 20th Century, film has left its imprint on how we dress. From the beginning, with the Lumiere Brothers in 1895 Paris, audiences perused moving pictures to see the world and then to watch the people. Eventually, when the star system came in full force (with America’s pinafored darling Mary Pickford and France’s comic fashion plate Max Linder), the public began developing crushes on the stars and the clothes they wore.
In the 1900s and 1910s those audiences were largely working class, and the stars weren’t known by name. But, by the 1920s, with the rise of dashing swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin, the gentleman tramp, the personalities and style of the big movie stars were indelibly printed on the world’s imagination. People began to copy them. Rudolph Valentino set a new style in gaucho garb, sheik chic and brilliantined hair, and John Barrymore showcased his great profile in starched uniforms and black tie.
The 1930s introduced the proletarian swagger of Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Jimmy Cagney, with snap-brim hats and casual suits. And we admired haute couture from the impishly impeccable Cary Grant and Fred Astaire, the daredevil hedonist Errol Flynn, “Super-duper” Gary Cooper and crisp-cut gentlemen William Powell and Ronald Colman.
In the ’40s we got dour-faced heavy-turned-hero Humphrey Bogart with his trench coats, fedoras and omnipresent cigarettes; Gregory Peck, with white shirts and wide trousers; trimly impeccable Joseph Cotten; and madcap road-to-leisure guys Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.
The T-shirt-and-jeans rebel persona of Marlon Brando and Jimmy Dean moved center stage in the 1950s. And with it came the swinger-gasser high-style cool of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, the button-down young-exec flippancy of Jack Lemmon and the what-the-hell-guys machismo of John Wayne (Stetson and suspenders), Robert Mitchum (man in black), Kirk Douglas (dimpled con artist) and Burt Lancaster (modern swashbuckler).
In the ’60s, when rock ‘n’ roll and protest began to set male fashion trends as much as the movies did, the Beatles softened the male image and made it more youthful and playful. Paul Newman and Steve McQueen made Western or racing outfits sing, and roguish spies Sean Connery (as James Bond), Michael Caine (as Harry Palmer), Dean Martin (as Matt Helm) and James Coburn (as Derek Flint) made male style edgier and courtship blunter.
Italian-American tough guy chic barreled in during the 1970s with Robert de Niro and his raging wardrobe, Al Pacino and his Mafia closets. Sundanced Robert Redford and squinting Clint Eastwood defined the outdoors, while Warren Beatty and Travolta took care of indoor sports. (With his worn serape, black hat and chewed cheroot, Eastwood virtually defined anti-fashion — in westerns, at least.)
In the ’80s, when high school tastes ruled, we got Tom Cruise and his prom-king garb and smile; Harrison Ford and his Indiana Jones action gear; Mickey Rourke and slob chic; James Spader and the smirking preppie look; Eddie Murphy and jeans and letter-jacket combos; and Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson and the rest of the guys in that look-fast-or-it’s-gone fashion-and culture-phenomenon, the Brat Pack. For the slightly older, there were Richard Gere and his full-to-bursting “American Gigolo” Armani closets and Michael Douglas with his “Wall Street” power suits.
Finally, in the ’90s, Brad Pitt reincarnated Jimmy Dean in a cooler, less wounded package, and Anthony Hopkins made butlers or bankers romantic. Keanu Reeves became king of the laid-back surfers. Nicolas Cage redefined Hollywood looks.
Throughout all these styles and looks, the goal was the same: to create an image so stunning, so sexy, so irresistibly warm and winning that woman would be gripped with desire and men seized with envy.
A lot of the time, it worked.
Hollywood’s imprimatur, of course, was more than national. These heavily calculated looks and wardrobes spread around the world. If occasionally a foreign masculine style captured imaginations — the maverick alienation of a Jean Gabin, the casual whimsy of a Marcello Mastroianni, the somber pretty-boy glare of an Alain Delon — American imagery still reigned supreme. And, if the Hollywood female icons tended to be defined by glossy auras and stylized glamor and sexiness, the male image was more varied, ranging all the way from the rugged range duds of a John Wayne to the chic and nimble tread of a Fred Astaire.
So, are all these Hollywood trends, tumbling down the years one after the other, the hallmarks and signposts of nothing much more than a century-long pageant of come-ons and conspicuous consumption? Do all these changes and permutations in masculine image and male clothes tell us anything important about our culture and psyche? Of course.
Consider the incredible reaction in 1934 when raffish “It Happened One Night” reporter Clark Gable doffed his shirt, showed a bare chest and sent undershirt sales plummeting. Or the revolutionary effect on the ’50s of Brando’s black leather jacket in “The Wild One,” James Dean’s red windbreaker in “Rebel Without a Cause” or Elvis Presley’s greased ducktail in “Jailhouse Rock.” Consider the way hair lengthened after the Beatles and shortened after Cruise.
Thanks to the VCR, revival houses, cable TV — and the fashion designers who frequently draw on past decades to create current looks — we can see or live it all again whenever we want, which makes our electronic magpie age a little different from all the others. All movie fashion streams flow down toward us and real-life fashion streams back to film; everything is at our disposal. Especially this fall.
In the end, it is the movies that, more than anything else, determine the sexual and clothes styles of a certain period. If all fashion can look somewhat ridiculous in or out of its own time, it can also gain power and nostalgia as the years pass, as fashions wane and return . . . as time goes by.
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Resources
COVER:
Bad guy No. 1 (foreground): Donna Karan cashmere overcoat, $2,495, at Barneys New York, Chicago; Gucci black pants, $490, at Gucci, Chicago; black sunglasses available at Nordstrom. The naive innocent (left, on scooter): Club Monaco cotton/nylon hooded jacket, $159, at Club Monaco, Chicago; Banana Republic merino jersey polo sweater, $59, at Banana Republic; Theory gray wool stretch pants, $240, at Neiman Marcus; Kavu Haul bag, $40, at Uncle Dan’s Outfitters, Chicago. Bad guy No. 2 (far background): Helmut Lang black leather jacket, $3,085, and black leather pants, $2,370 (store information at www.helmutlang.com); Banana Republic black button-up shirt, $45, at Banana Republic.
CONTENTS:
Pg. 6: Sulka ivory cashmere vest, $695, at Sulka, Chicago; J.Crew yellow button-up shirt, $49.50, at J. Crew stores and catalog; Jean Paul Gaultier full plain-front trousers, $692, at Saks Fifth Avenue and Marshall Field’s; Dries Van Noten shoes, $435, at Blake, Chicago; vintage Caldwell watch with alligator band, $4,300, at Polo Ralph Lauren, Chicago.
LEADING MEN:
Pg. 9: Paul Stuart gray double-breasted pinstriped suit, $964, and white cotton pocket square, $6.50, at Paul Stuart, Chicago; Sulka blue striped shirt, $155, and burgundy silk tie, $135, at Sulka, Chicago.
Pp. 10-11: The boy next door (top): J. Crew blue V-neck sweater, $60, and flat-front khaki pants, $49.50, at J. Crew stores and catalog; Club Monaco classic white shirt, $59, at Club Monaco, Chicago; vintage stainless-steel Rolex, $2,300, at Polo Ralph Lauren, Chicago. The rebel (bottom): Tom of Finland black leather motorcycle jacket, $478, and “flex” jeans, $83, at Flashy Trash, Chicago; Hermes silver bracelet, $875, at Hermes, Chicago.
Pg. 12: Alessandro dell’Aqua black cashmere overcoat, $1,195, at Barneys New York, Chicago; Dolce & Gabbana white dress shirt, $211, at Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue; Dries Van Noten gray wool pants, $350, at Blake, Chicago. Hat not available.
Pg. 13: BCBG gray wool stretch jacket, $342, and gray wool stretch flat-front pants, $142, at BCBG boutiques (additional store information at 888-636-BCBG); Dolce & Gabbana white dress shirt, $211, at Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue; Jil Sander skinny black tie, $95, at Jil Sander, Chicago.
Pp. 14-15: Jean Paul Gaultier tan wool pinstriped jacket, $1,060, and pants, $372, and wool striped shirt with tie, $425, at Marshall Field’s and Saks Fifth Avenue.
Pp. 16-17: See Cover, above.
