We all wore them -- the black loafers, white ankle socks, rhinestone brooches, cropped military jackets and fedoras. Michael Jackson's sartorial signatures filled our closets in the 1980s. And his passing marks the end of an era when a pop singer's individual style could leave an imprint on the critical mass of a generation.
Just try to think of any singer since the days of Jackson, Madonna, David Bowie and Boy George whose looks were so distinctive that they could take over the street.
"Michael Jackson took something simple that everyone could emulate and turned it into a signature style," says Keanan Duffty, the New York-based musician-turned-menswear designer and co-author of "Rebel, Rebel: Anti-Style," due in September. "It was a genius signature styling detail because any kid from India to the U.K. to Bali could put on a white glove and emulate Michael Jackson."
Jim Moore, creative director of GQ magazine, agrees. "He had a uniform. When I think of him, I think of that leather jacket with the sleeves pushed up that we've been seeing on runway for few seasons, the white socks and loafers that were a bit of an homage to James Dean, and the short pants long before Thom Browne was doing them. Designers are always making reference to him."
In the early 1970s through the 1980s, if you were a pop star, you cultivated an onstage, tour-driven look, says Harold Koda, co-curator of the Costume Institute at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, who organized the "Rock Style" exhibit in 1999. "An entertainer's personality was driven by creating a caricature that relied on costume."
So you had Stevie Nicks' bohemian, velvet gypsy-style dresses and high boots, Madonna's bras and vintage-looking crinolines and Adam Ant's New Romantic pirate shirts and white stripe of face paint.
For fans, getting the look was about improvising. Style couldn't be bought right off the rack, even if the pieces could be, so there was an element of fantasy that made it all the more appealing.
What changed in the 1990s was the co-opting of pop music by the fashion industry, and the rise of celebrity clothing lines and celebrity stylists. With celebrities in the media cross hairs like never before, there was a defensive shift from "Stand out!" to "Look unassailable, bland and marketable" -- and stars turned to the taste policing of stylists.
"Stylists have taken the power away from the pop star, creating a look based more on fashion than signature style," Duffty says.
