Martorial elegance # 36

De La were wrong : you can't do anything; You've always gotta know your limits. Rollins proved as much back in his Flag days with his delusions of grandeur, brought about by successfully pulling off items of clothing you'd generally associate with the moustacioed member of Frankie Goes To Hollywood like painted on short-shorts and teabag-vests, which came to a sudden halt when he hit the plated glass ceiling awaiting the more adventurous dresser with an almighty thud and took a Boba Fett styled tumble into the Great Pit Of What-Was-I-Thinking? Carkoon as he attempted The Cowell :



It's a look which has seen many a fly mahfucker fall on their sartorial sword, as it conjures up images of the Care-In-The-Community goobers usually found using the internet in public libraries and the potential serial killers with flasks seen loitering around provincial railway stations, but it's also a look which a select few have managed to come correct with. O - u mad they styled on u, Henry???

Willie in Stranger Than Paradise :



The logical continuation of the Johnny-Boy, John Lurie was the coolest white man on the planet with his high-waisted kecks, leather and trilby outfit in Jim Jarmusch's 1984 debut feature. Alas, 20 odd years later the look was bastardised by Pete Doherty and then had the nails hammered squarely into its coffin by fucking Blake Civil Poncey Cunt.

Ice-T :



Ice-Tracy was so cool back in the eighties and early nineties that, not only could he get away with having a girls name, but he could've sported a Dudley "Booger" Dawson get-up and he'd have still had white guys from the UK dreaming of hittin' their high school end of term disco decked out in a JJB Sports bought variation of the outfit.

Terry Hall :



Any member of The Specials would have done here, but Terry was just that tad cooler than his bandmates and his successful wearing of The Cowell was all the more remarkable given that he was the lankiest guy in the group.

Sport in Taxi Driver :



Harvey Keitel as Sport walks into a bar and sez "the highballs are on me". *Rim shot*. Scientists are still working on how Harvey Keitel's Sport had the audacity to tell De Niro's Travis that he didn't "look hip" given that Travis was a doyen of understated Americana cool, but Sport somehow manages to the rock the whole Ayo, money - did Arnold Schwarzenegger pull your pants up for you? extreme Cowell look with pure macked-out street swag.

Anybody in a Jamel Shabazz, Martha Cooper or Henry Chalfant photo :



Man, dudes in seventies NYC were all poor as fuck so they lived on some a solitary cheese sandwich a day type rationing. Consequently, they were so skinny they looked incredible in any item of gear no matter how they wore it. Is poverty and starvation a decent tradeoff for sartorial-nirvana? I 'unno, but you gotta admit you'd probably sell non vital bodyparts to look this cool.

Daisy Duke :



Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. Or, in this instance, a hastily typed paragraph of babble since collating this post took way longer than I expected and seeing Catherine Bach all Daisyed-out here has given me a raging stiffy I need to satiate before my lift arrives to go see Saw VI in ten minutes. Toodles.