Style Icons: Male »Kansai Yamamoto

Bold Designer

I’ve learned while going through photos of Kansai Yamamoto‘s awesome work that it is indeed possible to salivate over amazing costume! He’s the man responsible for the wardrobe for David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust Tour and currently produces something called Super Show that is at once fascinating, inscrutable and over the top. I am dying to attend.

There have been two retrospectives in Tokyo and Philadelphia so heres to hoping one comes to New York. Oh, and wouldn’t a chain store collaboration be simply amazing?! I’d do just about anything for one of his patchwork kimono dresses.

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Posted on January 11, 2011

Style Icons: Male »Best of 2010 Male Style Icons

Great Men

It was a tough year for loss. My favorites in the fields of art, fashion, and literature passed away this year. They rank among the best male style icons of my 2010:

1. Frank Frazetta

2. Alexander McQueen

3. JD Salinger

4. Malick Sidibe

5. Danilo Donati

6. Hipgnosis

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Posted on January 1, 2011

Style Icons: Male »Hipgnosis

Album Artists

If you can remember the image of an album cover from the seventies and eighties that’s got a touch or more of photo surrealism then Storm Thorgerson, Aubrey Powell, and Peter Christopherson, aka Hipgnosis was probably behind it. The British design group basically dictated what the enduring face of rock and roll would look like for a decade.

Not only were they behind iconic albums like The Dark Side of the Moon and Houses of the Holy but some of my personal favorites – Scorpions’ Lovedrive and 10cc’s How Dare You! (favorites in album art only – The Scorpions cold never live up to their controversial covers).

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Posted on December 30, 2010

Style Icons: Male »Captain Beefheart

R.I.P.

Even though I try to never repeat in this blog (he was a previous style icon), and am still working through my own understanding of his music, I wanted to mention Captain Beefheart again today, on the day of his passing. Deemed “too weird for the hippies” he was a true original who inspired everyone that ever “got” him. He was 69 and unlike anyone else.

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Posted on December 17, 2010

Style Icons: Male »David Johansen

New York Doll

Rock and roll icon and Staten Island native David Johansen was way ahead of his time both with his sound and style when he fronted the now legendary band, The New York Dolls. Even today they inspire and seem cutting edge.

Johansen went on to create the boozing wild man crooner Buster Poindexter in the 80’s, which is where I was first introduced to the man as a kid and today both tours with the dolls and continues to make unpredictable music making songs for soundtracks and even going country with his band The Harry Smiths.

With an incredibly unique career in music, he’s also an actor and his immense charm can be seen on the NYC episode of  No Reservations, where he shows Anthony the best of Staten Island, including the Jade Island tiki bar I am itching to go to.

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Posted on December 13, 2010

Style Icons: Male »Syd Mead

Visual Futurist

It  might take a while before I see Bar Basque and Foodparc, the new city eateries designed in part by Syd Mead, futurist and awesome man, but in the mean time, I can be happy looking at his work.

After browsing his illustratrations – that often are of ultra cool automobiles surrounded by swanky, rich swingers who populate the future people imagined back in the decades when the future seemed a more optimistic place.

Of course, one can spend a great, fantastic night learning about the career of Mr. Mead by watching the movies his vision helped make: Star Trek, Blade Runner, 2010, Aliens, TRON, and Short Circuit (take a lunch break during this one).

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Posted on December 1, 2010

Style Icons: Male »Roy Orbinson

Singer Songwriter

If one had to demonstrate what a “voice like velvet” was, they’d only need to play a song by Roy Orbison. Personally, I’d opt for “In Dreams“, which has since it’s crooner beginnings, become a soundtrack forever associated with the best creepy imaginings of David Lynch.

Not only was Orbison’s music legendary and beautiful, one has to give credit to the man’s style. Working with what was given him, admittedly algebra teacher looks with a Frank Sinatra siren song, Orbison made the most of it with a simple pair of dark glasses, an equally dark and well tailored wardrobe, and a stage persona that was at once vulnerable and mysterious in it’s stillness.

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Posted on November 27, 2010

Style Icons: Male »Mick Foley

Mankind

If there’s a villain in pro Wrestling, it’s the evil genius Vince McMahon – owner of the WWE and husband to failed Senate candidate. If there’s a sad man in pro-wrestling, it’s Jake “The Snake” Roberts, drug addict and fallen hero. But if there’s a hero of the sport, it’s the teddy bear who cloaked himself in a veil of insanity and blood, Mick Foley, aka Mankind, aka Dude Love, aka Cactus Jack, aka The Most Polite Man in Wrestling.

I used to be a major wrestling fan in college – I bet I’m one of the only local moms who can boast that she’s seen The People’s Elbow live in person – twice. It was a good time for the sport: with not only The Rock (creator of the people’s elbow), but Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Chyna, and the wholly unique character of Mankind.

He was a giant mad man that would shriek insanely, wore a mangled face mask, tore his own hair out, took more brutality than any other wrestler, was often soaked in blood and would take a dirty sock, named Mr. Socko from his pants and choke opponents with it. In short, it was a lunatic thing of genius.

Mick Foley, the man behind the mask couldn’t be more different than his creation. A family man with a heart of gold, Foley not only seems like a completely kind and likable soul, but is a huge advocate for victims of domestic violence and abuse, donating 50% of his advanced royalties of his latest book to Tori Amos’ RAINN.

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Posted on November 15, 2010

Style Icons: Male »Gregory Parkinson

Luxe Bohemia Designer

The designs of Gregory Parkinson are a dream meeting of the asthetics of the Diane Freis 1970’s California (where he resides and works) and the England of Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark (where he was born and schooled). His vibrant, print heavy mix and match outfits are what Annie Hall would end up wearing if Paul Simon had whisked her away to London for a long summer. Even when he dips into weird yarn art lady territory it somehow works. Crafty has rarely felt so romantic.

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Posted on October 31, 2010

Style Icons: Male »David Downton

Fashion Illustrator

If you’re a fashion lover, the sketches of David Downton are likely familiar even if you don’t know the name. One of the most inspiring and visible fashion illustrators working today, Downton is going to become more well known with his new lovely looking book, Masters of Fashion Illustration (which features many other illustrators as well).

A hard working freelance graphic artist for years, who according to his biography was “wagging (his) tail when the phone rang”, he eventually found a niche in the fashion world that has resulted in some of the most beautiful modern portraits of the world’s most beautiful women.

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Posted on October 16, 2010