The Deities of Men’s Style

The Deities of Men’s Style
Whenever men’s wear designers find themselves in need of inspiration,
they turn to the pantheon: Cary Grant, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.
Though roughly 330 million deities populate the Hindu heavens, there are only a handful most people worship daily and know by name. Similarly, though there are about 330 billion images of celebrity divinities floating around the web empyrean at any given moment, when it comes down to it we seem inevitably to worship the same group of guys. This is meant in terms of style.

One hardly needs name them. Just utter the words “male style icon” and images inevitably form of celestial beings like Cary Grant, Paul Newman or Steve McQueen.

At least they do among that segment of the population that came of age before all manner of visual information was streamed directly onto the cerebral cortex by way of Instagram. That group would, of course, include most men’s wear designers, never in any case a culturally progressive group and less so when it comes to frame of reference — or, as image theft is often euphemized in fashion, “inspiration.”

“A lot of designers latch on to the same handful of guys,” the designer Michael Bastian noted recently, declining to point any fingers, both for diplomacy and because he himself has made frequent withdrawals from the familiar image bank. “It’s Steve McQueen, it’s Paul Newman, it’s Cary Grant and Fred Astaire, all done to utter death,” Mr. Bastian said.

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Cary Grant (shown in Paris in 1956) helped define the term “fashion icon.” Credit RDA/Getty Images
It is probably worth pointing out that there are good reasons why the same small group of men continues to exert a disproportionate influence on what we here at Men’s Style think of as men’s style.

Not only were Steve McQueen, Paul Newman and Cary Grant uncommonly handsome humans, they were also possessed of that certain ineffable quality we categorize as cool. They looked great in clothes seemingly no matter what they wore. In part, this was because they looked as if they gave clothes and fashion not a moment’s thought.

“Perhaps the first thing I learned about style was that if something makes you feel good, chances are you look good,” Remo Rufini — the 54-year-old Italian billionaire who made his fortune by restoring cool to Moncler, a fusty and largely forgotten ski-wear label — said during the recent New York Fashion Week. “I think what makes people ‘icons’ is the confidence they give off wearing whatever it is they love to wear.”

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Preternatural confidence is a signal quality of the male icons under discussion. And it is, to be sure, a highly limited group, lacking altogether in racial and social and gender diversity. “So few black leaders have been allowed to shine forth,” and find an enduring place in the style pantheon, said Horace D. Ballard Jr., an essayist on black style and curator of education at the Birmingham Museum of Art. “Where is Marvin Gaye or Paul Robeson?”

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Marvin Gaye in 1970. His style has transcended generations but has been largely ignored by the fashion elite, according to Horace D. Ballard Jr., an essayist on African-American style. Credit Afro American Newspapers/Gado, via Getty Images
The available images of each of those men, no less than those of Newman, McQueen and Grant, convey a powerful sense of the difference between wearing one’s clothes and having them wear you. And in this they are all starkly unlike the dress-up dolls turned out in borrowed tuxedos at the Emmy Awards or any of the now ubiquitous and wholly purgatorial red carpet events.

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“The distinction between then and now is this idea that celebrities, the supposed role models, tend to be styled,” Josh Sims, author of “Icons of Men’s Style,” said by telephone from London. “They have assistants and their look is a professional, very deliberate creation of a team.”

That is not to suggest that the male Hollywood stars of the last century were unconcerned about image, he added. It is well established that Steve McQueen required that his bluejeans were tailored in such a way that one of his favorite assets, his behind, was well accentuated.

The care McQueen took with his off-screen appearance was also mirrored in the stylish cut of the clothes he wore in some of the films that seem to play in an infinite rerun loop in the imaginations of many men’s wear designers — classics like “Bullitt” and “The Thomas Crowne Affair.”

“Even the khakis he wears in ‘The Great Escape’ were not in any way accurate to the period,” Mr. Sims said. Standard-issue trousers for members of the Allied forces during World War II would have been wide legged and with a high-waist, ample in the rear. “McQueen had his cut to a ’60s proportion” for the film, Mr. Sims said. “They were much slenderer and much more fitted than the traditional trouser cut.”

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Steve McQueen, considered one of the godfathers of modern men’s style. Credit John Dominis/The LIFE Picture Collection, via Getty Images
The Italians have a handy term — sprezzatura — for sartorial gracefulness achieved through artful nonchalance. The concept behind sprezzatura was first codified by Baldessare Castiglione in his 1528 treatise, “The Book of the Courtier.” In it he steered young Renaissance gentlemen away from dangerous shoals of artifice and affectation, guiding them toward the safe haven of a public comportment predicated on making all a man does or wears “seem uncontrived and effortless.”

Naturally, sprezzatura is abused all the time in modern practice.

Think of a necktie deliberately knotted that slight bit wrong. Think of the absurdity of a half-tucked T-shirt. Think of shoes without laces or sneakers with suits. Think of the overwrought pocket square. The great cinematic icons would never have been caught dead betraying the amount of care that went into transforming, say, Paul Newman — a middle-class kid from suburban Shaker Heights, Ohio — into the quintessential sexy rebel or the archetypal cowboy of “Hud.”

“The personas stars created fulfilled a particular need of the times,” said G. Bruce Boyer, a men's wear expert and the author of the recently published “True Style.” “In ’30s stars, what was needed was an overt sex appeal and an extrovert personality necessary to cope with the Depression. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was expressions of rebellion against corporate consumerism, but safely and acceptably.”

It hardly matters that often the great style gods portraying rebels and adventurers and sportsmen were putting on a performance. What counts is that they kept us from noticing it all was an act.

“The best thing in style is a man who pulls off wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt perfectly,” Gert Jonkers, the co-editor of the influential men’s wear bible, Fantastic Man, said by phone from Amsterdam.. “That is almost the ambition everybody has. Every fashion designer you ever speak to says: ‘Oh, men shouldn’t wear fashion. Men should wear just jeans and a crew neck sweater.’ These style icons are the ones that did that first.”

And the gorgeously offhand photographs of them racing sports cars or riding motorcycles or popping open a beer were not necessarily the products of a candid camera. Almost all but the semi-nudes and stoner snapshots the photographer William Claxton took of his good friend Mr. McQueen were to some extent staged.

The photographic quality and rarity of those images adds to their potency and timelessness, Mr. Jonkers said. “It’s not like today’s celebrities, where there are so many bad images of them,” he said. “It’s great to look at Ryan Gosling until you see that picture of him running to the supermarket to get a carton of milk.”
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Several women that meet weekly at Denver United Methodist Church

Several women that meet weekly at Denver United Methodist Church have made a global impact with their sewing machines.
Church members Faye Helton, Jean Durham, Connie Berry, Wanda Reynolds, Judy Martin and Margaret Reep came together in May of 2011 after seeing a dress

pattern on a television show. With that dress pattern, they’ve impacted men, women and children in the countries of Haiti, Armenia, China, Belize, India,

Peru, Honduras and Guatemala and in various countries in Africa.
“There’s a show on television called ‘Nancy’s Notions,’” Reynolds said. “And they were talking about these little dresses. So we got the pattern and
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started making the dresses.”
“We did pillow cases for another group,” Helton said.
The small sewing group gets the fabric for the dresses mainly from donations, although some of the trim and incidental sewing needs that are required to

complete the dresses are out-of-pocket expenses. To date, the ladies of Denver United Methodist Church have sewn 47 shirts, 60 pants and 1,650 dresses. The

dresses are donated for mission trips for various churches in Lincoln County and the surrounding area.
“If we hear of someone going on a mission trip,” Reynolds said, “not necessarily from our church, then Faye talks to them or we talk to them and tell them

that we have these little dresses that we will give to them for no charge.”
The standard number of dresses any group takes usually runs between 20 and 25, but there are large orders.
“We’ve sent out up to 100,” Helton said.
The group has an efficient assembly line. One woman cuts the pattern while another irons the fabric to prepare the dress for sewing. Another woman adds trim

and yet another laces the elastic. Dress sizes run small, medium and large.
“The large can fit a small adult,” Durham said. “And we’ve made special requests before.”
The women are passionate about their work and have gone to great lengths to make sure their mission remains intact.
Helton and Reynolds have traversed through large containers full of bolts of fabric and the entire group will pay out of pocket to make sure all of the items

required to make the dresses are available. The church donates finances to the cause and they have a few patrons, but the women are always on the lookout for

any help they can get to help the little girls around the world that wear their dresses.
The group meets on Mondays from 9 a.m.–noon at Denver United Methodist Church at 3910 Highway 16 in Denver.
Donations of fabric, materials or finances should be sent to the church.

Weddings are special days for couples tying the knot. But even the most

Weddings are special days for couples tying the knot. But even the most carefully planned wedding requires some patience and perseverance.

For brides-to-be, finding the right gown is one element of wedding planning that calls for patience and persistence. Trial and error is often part of the

process as women look for the perfect wedding gown. Brides-to-be who have a specific style in mind may find that their dream gown doesn't always live up to

expectations, while another style of dress they never imagined wearing turns out to be a stunner.

Another challenge many women face when gown shopping is that many wedding gowns are styled and geared toward women with slender figures, making the process

of selecting a gown for a curvier bride a bit more difficult. But any bride, regardless of size or figure, can find the ideal dress, especially when she

employs the following tips.

* Sample sizes fit a select few. Bridal shops carry a range of dresses but may only stock one or two sample dresses. For economy, these samples are a median

size intended to fit as many shoppers as possible. Such gowns are usually in the neighborhood of a size 10.  Most women, whether petite or plus-size, will

not fit into the sample, so do not get discouraged.

* Visit large retail chains. Popular wedding dress chains, such as David's Bridal, may have a wider selection of sample dresses in larger sizes. Department

stores as well as designers who specialize in plus-size gowns also make good resources.

* Call bridal stores in advance to schedule your visits. Your time is precious, so call bridal shops prior to visiting and explain to them your size and what

you are looking for in a gown. This will ensure you aren't wasting your time driving to stores that can't provide what you want.

* Select the right fabrics. Heavier fabrics like taffeta, silk dupioni and satin may conceal better than others and can be ruched to camouflage areas you

want to minimize.

* Use salespeople as a resource. The right salesperson can make wedding shopping much easier and far more pleasant. Don't rest until you find someone who is

excited to work with you and will give you his or her honest opinion and recommendations.

* Dresses can be altered. Every bride needs some alterations made to her dress to achieve the perfect fit. Plus-sized brides may need a few extras. A dress

is unlikely to meet all of your needs right off the rack, so find a good seamstress who can alter your dress to meet your needs. Sleeves can be put on,

dresses can be shortened, support can be added, and many customizations can be done to a gown post-production.

* Find a flattering shape. Choose a gown with a full-skirt or an A-line skirt with an empire or a dropped-waist seam that will elongate your midriff and flow

away from your hips. Curvier brides typically avoid strapless gowns, as such dresses have a tendency to make a woman's shoulders and arms look wider.

* Don't get stuck on size. Sizes vary widely depending on the manufacturer. Wedding gowns tend to be labeled with couture sizes, which are much smaller than

street sizes. A good salesperson should have a reasonable conversion chart or will choose sizes based on your measurements alone. Ignore the size on the tag

and go for the gown that fits.

* Never settle for less. Whether it's a gown that's not flattering or a salesperson who is rude or chastises you for not being the ideal size, do not settle

for anything less than a great gown and attentive service. Bridal stores compete for business, so if a given shop does not meet your expectations, don't

hesitate to work with another store.