Style Icon 1

I'm going to keep rolling with the fashion theme. I recall when a highschool aquaintance and I were catching the bus home in Japan one time we were talking about fashion and style. This was my 5th year at BCC so by then my style had settled down. She was a country road girl, and though the details were sketchy, she was lamenting at how I totally pulled off my dirty hobo look and how cheap it must be for me.
Then if I recall correctly it turned into a comparison of how relatively less spoilt she was compared to her other friend also on exchange.

But yeah that was my style, and people accepted it. Many would find it hard to believe I've actually cleaned up my image in recent years, now it's pretty much a grunge look, whereas back then it quite literally was a homeless look. And it wasn't unique to me either, there were plenty of guys who sported the terry towelling, chesty bond and cut off tracksuit pants.
I was at my peak though when I settled down with my perfect pair of shorts, they were black, the right length and comfortable. They had been the first shorts I'd ever bothered to carry a wallet in, an awkward adjustment and I typically had never had any money to bother about before them.
But I was so deadset on wearing them every day that I would colour in food stains with a black permanent marker rather than subject them to the wash. I still have those shorts 'retired' somewhere.

So yes, I am somewhat cleaner and more hygenic now, my shorts will get washed around once a month, and I wear shirts that people give to me, even if they are remarkably clean and possibly even 'trendy' (I simply wear them for 9 years until they are no longer trendy, like my mambo shirts now).

But where does a man like me get his style cues from? There is no 'Bogue' magazine for bogans, Kurt Cobain has been dead for a million years and frankly was a little too stylish, too 'try hard' for my standards.

It hit upon me the other day that there is one man, one man whose style I cannot fault, and you may be surprised:

link via electricguitarplanet

I guess you could say he is the 'Marilyn Monroe' to my 'little girl'. A classic depiction of style, like the 2B pencil, Aviator Sunglasses or Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song' he has the timelessness that will never go out of style, that will always be welcomed and worshipped somewhere.

Sure there's the obvious flair, the dye job on his neck beard is a bit dandy, but his a la naturale curls draw the eye to consider the trunk that is supporting these palm fronds. Black is the colour of the singlet, sleaveless it covers the body, a man's body like a sack whilst simultaneously complimenting the hot pink beard and whatever axe he is weilding and the camo pants. The camo pants are all that is both style and utility. In a desert he would appear as an appirition existing only from the waist up. And you can't really see it, but they aren't just camo pants, they are camo shorts. Shorts say 'I can move when I have to' and 'I'm not ashamed of my socks' to the passing observer. The sweatband on the wrist is a tasteful accessory, showing Dime knows just where to draw the line.

And here we come to another gender divide. For one, I find that a large minority of men take their style cues from somebody who does something, other than think about their style, whether it be shredding guitars, dunking on rookies, kicking the ball between the big sticks (regrettably), or being president of some small country. In fact I'd argue that when you consider the influence of hip hop, metal and punk, while no single minority takes their cues from the same source it is probably the majority of male fashion with publications like GQ making up the leftover minority of men who take fashion advice and style cues from one dimensional models.

I also exclude acting from my consideration because there's bound to be confusion between character/actor. Like there are people that dress like Neo from the Matrix, precluding them from passing on their genes in Darwinian natural selection. This doesn't mean they are taking their style cues from Keanu who actually does something.

But girls in my experience and sadly even women, seem to do what 'fashion houses' tell them, be it MYER for the more mature lady, or Just Jeans for the little girls. It doesn't come from anything, doesn't mean anything. Furthermore one could argue that far more guys can successfully imitate Dimebag Darryl and do, than women have imitated any specific look from Angelina Jolie. Even though women probably more often go under the knife with a request for Angelina Lips, than men go requesting 'A Dimebag' (whatever that would be).

And lastly, let's talk about the elephant in the room, Dimebag is probably not most ladies cup of tea in the man department. As a strategy for getting laid, Dimebag probably sucks. I have met exactly 0 Pantera fans that were female, and only 5 guys in my lifetime that were professed Pantera fans. But crucially, this insistence that the function of fashion is purely to disguise what an actual disgusting and boring person you are and thus ensnare potential mates is one we collectively need to move away from. I do not begrudge those Metal chicks, for whom the thought of sleeping with them is truly horrifying, for going with the look that reflects who they are and what they dig. Rather than begrudge them, I respect them. And I mean, who the fuck are we all to expect people to make themselves attractive to us.

In Queensland a guy called Nick told me there's a clip somewhere of Pantera's where Dimebag does a shit standing up. I don't know the truth of this, but I think such an anecdote demonstrates the defiant-self reliant style that Dime encapsulates, making him an immortal of fashion even if he'll never make the cover of Vogue. It's time to democratize style icons.