Hubert de Givenchy
Fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy first made his name turning out brisk, modern collections. But he did it, as he once said, with the soul of a classicist. At six feet six, impeccably mannered and militantly self-disciplined, Givenchy christened the notion of the fashion uniform: He would wear his signature white linen work smock over his dark suits with an ever present gold pinkie ring. According to his muse Bettina Graziani, he was “very chic but didn’t like to show off.” Longtime confidante Audrey Hepburn, who faithfully wore Givenchy’s clothes in films like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, used to phone the designer just to tell him she loved him. Now 80 years old, Givenchy has softened his outlook a bit. “As you get older, clothes don’t have the same importance. You see things differently,” he admits, before adding that “the most comfortable thing is a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.” Doesn’t get any more classic than that.
• Underdressing is the only sin. You should never be afraid to be the best-dressed man in the room.
Photo: Sygma/Corbis
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Of all the elements that make up Jean-Paul Belmondo’s inimitable style, clothes are perhaps the least important; with his cocky walk and bruising good looks, he could’ve made a powder blue tux cool. The Frenchman saw no contradiction between his fondness for fat, unfiltered Gauloise cigarettes and being sportif: He was an amateur welterweight boxer, a goalie for the soccer team he co-owned; once he even scaled all twenty-six stories of a Hong Kong Hilton—for kicks. When Belmondo brought this intense physicality and easy, unforced beauty to the screen, the effect was startling. With his breakout role as the Bogart-and-jazz-loving outlaw Michel in Godard’s Breathless, Belmondo fundamentally altered film audiences’ expectations of how a male lead should look and act. He was slangy, irreverent, and utterly modern—the perfect embodiment of the iconoclastic French New Wave spirit. And he looked pretty good in a suit, too.
• The driving shoe is always chic. Nothing transports you to the Côte d’Azur more quickly.
Photo: Benainous-Marchetti/Gamma/Eyedea
Peter O’Toole
If the Academy gave out Oscars for personal style, Peter Seamus O’Toole would surely have snared one for his first major picture, a little project called Lawrence of Arabia. Instead, he’s been nominated—but never won—eight times for acting performances that have so often embodied the roguish gentleman who looks as good crossing the desert on a camel as he does at high tea in his Plaza suite, smoking cigarettes through a trademark black holder. Now 75, he is as famous for his languid, elegant ease as for the high-proof hell-raising of his early days. O’Toole embodies an intersection of styles that might be considered contradictory were he not so great. “Booze is an outrageous drug,” he once told an interviewer. “But I don’t regret one drop.” And neither do we.
• Buy at least one real black bow tie and learn how to tie it. There’s no excuse for wearing a clip-on with your tux.
Photo: Globe Photos
Arnold Palmer
In the early 1960s, Arnold Palmer was more than a golfer: He was a superstar—the Elvis Presley of sports. With his horde of fans (Arnie’s Army) and his pomaded pompadour, Palmer brought golf to the masses. He could dress, too, favoring flat-front gabardine pants with a heavy crease and wool cardigans. And those fitted golf shirts: “There was some talk that maybe my muscles were too big for the shirts,” Palmer admits today. But sportswriter Frank Deford has testified that Palmer’s cool came from those L&M’s: “All America had this image of Palmer taking a cigarette out of his mouth, throwing it on the green to putt, and then sticking it back in his mouth. It was golf’s equivalent of Bogart and Bacall. It’s odd to think of a cigarette as an athletic totem, but back then it was sexy. Palmer with a cigarette was like those old convertible ads with a beautiful woman sitting in the front seat and her scarf blowing in the wind.”
• A polo shirt should be formfitting. Its sleeves should hug your biceps, and its body should fit snugly around your torso.
Photo: James Drake/Sports Illustrated
The Kennedy Brothers
After campaigning with Jack and Bobby Kennedy in 1960, in a move to emulate the president, Lyndon Johnson ordered six custom suits from Savile Row tailors Carr, Son & Woor. Typically, LBJ missed the point. Yes, the Kennedys wore expensive tailor-made suits (always dark, always two-button). And sure, they had a fondness for Brooks Brothers oxford shirts and striped ties, and even their casualwear was conservative (preppy staples like crewneck sweaters and cotton khakis). But it wasn’t the clothes that made these men. It was the subtlety and simplicity with which they wore them, says designer Thom Browne, whose modern takes on the Kennedy look currently outfit the latest generation of JFK acolytes. “For the past fifty years, whenever fashion has gotten away from the Kennedy look,” Browne notes, “it’s been a mistake.”
• Tweed jackets carry that Kennedy pedigree, but they look great on everyone. Just pick your favorite one and wear it your way—with khakis, with jeans, with a polo shirt, with a V-neck sweater…
Photo: The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston
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