Fashion Icons

Choose your style icons carefully, warns Jamie Osborne

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so they say. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, say others. So which is it to be? Everybody, at some stage in their life, has been told they look a lot like someone. Often this is a form a simple flattery, meant to make someonefeel a bit special, or an effective tool used to pull someone who after 17 shots of aftershock in a darkened room looked like they could pass for Eva Herzigova.
Sometimes, when we’re told we look like someone potentially fanciable, we subconsciously start to adjust our behaviour to make ourselves as much like them as possible. OK, I’ll go out on a limb here – over the years I have been told that I looked like quite a few people, Beaker from the Muppets and Damien from Home and Away (tall, skinny, utterly repellent) to name but two, but the one that stood out for me as slightly less of an insult was Chandler Bing from Friends. Now I was delighted with this, thinking he was quite funny, so I’d play along with it, have the same haircut, similar mannerisms – “oh, you’re SO Chandler” the girls would giggle. I even had people come up to me in the street and ask if I really was him - 1 – 0 Osborne I thought, until years later when I realised that he was the one that no one thought was cool. By then it was all too late. I was rechristened Bing, and to this day there are people who genuinely believe my name is Jamie Bing. Really.
So the lesson here is – Style Icons. Choose carefully* *Actual results not guaranteed
However, one of the easiest ways to improve your look is to take some tips from the guys who do it best. So let’s have a look at some of our modern day style icons and see what we can take from them (while making their look our own, of course).

Classic
Believe it or not, the ex-Mr Madonna, Guy Richie, was voted best dressed male in the latest GQ poll; with his penchant for tweed and flat caps he personifies the classic English gent. Even if he is new money (yes, I know I’m a snob). Tom Ford also does this, in his more American way – with his sharp black suits and clean cut appearance, the ex head of Gucci certainly knows his glad rags from his shopping bags.

Retro
Mark Ronson. I’m pretty sure that this man can do no wrong. Coming from Rock Cool royalty, everything he wears, every image he tries looks and feels authentic. Perfect hair, great face for glasses, aristocratic friends, and effortlessly cool. Git. He takes the best trends from the past 50 years and mixes them without
looking like he’s really trying, which he most certainly is. This is what we can learn from the boy with the silver spoon – make it your own, and mean it!

Rock
Alex Turner, Arctic Monkey, master songwriter and man with that rare, rare breed – an intelligent model girlfriend. He gives hope to us all - shy and awkward, but detached and cool. Not an archetypal handsome man, but one with real charisma (no, I’m not on the turn). He mixes old school rock with modern indie postmodernism – long hair, tight jeans and stonewash denim jackets are cool again. I knew I shouldn’t have thrown that ClockHouse number away in 1989.For the American take on this classic unwashed rock boy look, see any of Kings of Leon’s Followill brothers.

Cool
David Beckham. Shock! Horror! “Wow, Jamie, however did you come up with David Beckham for this list? You’re sooo original.” He’s well dressed, get over it.

Modern
Two examples here of how to do it right and how to do it wrong: Henry Holland is the luminous broguewearing postmodernist, who brings an elegant and exciting twist to classic pieces. Lightspeed Champion is an idiot who probably got bullied at school for not being cool – “see everyone, I’m the coooolerest person in the world now, look at all my wacky clothes!” No, you look like Timmy Mallet at a rave.

Quirky
Jarvis Cocker – geek; Johnny Depp – Handsome geek
Quirky is the refuge for the unhinged and gangly. It’s the safe house for those of you with asthma and braces on their teeth in your late 20s. It’s where you can buy a pair of trousers, shirt, used underwear and a nylon jacket from Dr Barnardo’s and pass yourself off as Ironic (not the awful R&B singer, the good kind).

Icon – but not one to copy: Jim Morrison
“...But his poetry really speaks to me he writes about lizards and everything. He’s like so deep, and those leather trousers.....” Yes, those leather trousers probably stank. He was a drunk, and his poetry was like a 10 year old wrote it on a Speak and Spell and sent it in to Tony Harts ‘HartBeat’ gallery. Some people still think he was cool, and this is a poignant reminder that style is very much in the eye of the beholder. Although, if I’m really honest, if someone told me I looked even a little bit like him, I’d probably book myself in for a perm, talc my legs in preparation for some leather and rip all the buttons of my shirt.... Until next time, copy, but copy wisely. Take from the best and make up the rest!