What I Wore Twenty Five Years Ago: What Paul Weller Wore

Twenty five years ago, I was fully beneath the sway of the Style Council, a pseudo-collective of self proclaimed modernists led by one Paul Weller.  Like him, you can bet that I was frequently shod in the versatile black beefroll loafer.  I wore them with shorts.  I wore them with jeans.  I wore them with pegged chinos. Mostly without socks.  Utterly without irony I once wore them with my first purchased tuxedo, a shawl collar from Jos. Banks.  I refused to shell out for the useless patent tux slippers to go with them, and couldn't afford them anyway.

Weller started with the Jam during the first wave of punk in the late 70s.  Here he is at the close of the Jam era, dressed much like I was in a button down oxford, chinos with surcingle belt, white sox, and the aforementioned black loafers.  At least I'm about 95% certain that's what he's got on his feet, as anything below his Rickenbacker is obscured by the crowd.



I was too disconnected to be a Jam fan contemporaneously, but when Weller disbanded them for a new, more mature, jazzier and more soulful project, I was on board from the get go.  My trajectory as college punk morphing into urbane intellectual followed his.  Known as The Cappucino Kid, Weller and the rest of his councilors cultivated an air of cafe culturalism steeped in Godardist politics and style, and seasoned their records with britpop versions of soul, vocal jazz, piano jazz (Weller's collaborator at the time, Mick Talbot, was a huge piece of the puzzle), and eighties era rap.  Without a doubt the Style Council writ a blueprint followed later by groups such as Oasis and Vampire Weekend.  Now, Weller knew that I knew that he knew he was posing, but nevermind that now.  Here they are, dressed well and bringing it all together in style.



As you can see, towards the end of the video, what is Mr. Weller shuffling around in rather stylishly but a pair of beefroll loafers, probably in black to match the checks.

Anyway, in short order Weller closed up shop on the Style Council and moved on to his third act, the solo career.  He has turned out a truly monumental catalog of solo work of depth and quality, more focused than his Jam or Style Council years.  His voice too has matured and the anger of the 70s, and the flash living of the 80s, have caught up to him and thus imparting, what - more gravitas?  We should all mature as well.  Perhaps it's the black beefroll loafers he no doubt - here - pairs with his take on the 70s slim look.

What I Wore Fifteen Years Ago: the Denim Shirt

Here’s what I’m copping to: what I wore 15 years ago was a comfy blue denim shirt from Land's End. And one from Polo. And one from J. Crew. And Ruff Hewn. Paired with khaki chinos on a Friday, they were everyone’s idea of “business casual”. What is inapparent to all but the Honoluluan readership is that a denim shirt is way too formal for this city, even when the sleeves are rolled up. You see, the Aloha Shirt, is more than acceptable five days a week here, but I was unwilling to accept that until, oh, 14 years ago. I know you don’t believe me but not all Aloha Shirts are of the laughable variety, either. Now I know better.

If one had to temporarily be someone else, one could do far worse than Alain de Cadenet. Despite the fact that, as far as I can see, all he ever wears – other than racing togs – is a denim shirt and pleated chinos, even to this day (14 years after the fall of the style, in my book). There isn’t much said about Mr. de Cadenet on wikipedia and IMDB. I didn’t even know whether he was a bachelor, a OnceABachelor, or a OnceAOnceABachelor until I looked it up (he’s a OnceAOnceA). But it sure looks like it would be fun to be him for a while.

Here’s what I know about him: former Brit race car driver; collector and flier of vintage aircraft (including a WWII Spitfire); father of Amanda de Cadenet (think a 90s UK Paris Hilton); owner of an Omega Speedmaster; wearer of trad racing goggles. His current gig is to appear on various High-Def TV broadcasts to sing the praises of different classic cars, including broadcasts of the Goodwood Revival vintage car races.

His greatest run is as the host of a series on Speed Channel called Victory by Design, in which Mr. de Cadenet spends a whole season sampling all (yes all) the cars from the world’s great racing marques. Ferrari. Porsche. Maserati. Aston Martin. Lotus. Jaguar. Alfa. Ford. These hour long episodes are automotive pornography, really, featuring Mr. de Cadenet at the wheel of priceless collectible sports cars. Above is the money shot for the Jaguar XK120, sashaying around British country B roads, lovingly filmed, engines roaring. Interspersed with his barely-contained enthusiasm for the subject, and a depth of knowledge steeped in history, engineering, and even styling, this is hardly your typical NASCAR documentary about how moonshining and bootlegging gave way to oval tracking. I have the Porsche and Ferrari episodes on DVD and they are wonderful.

So he may be a decade and a half out of style in his denim shirt and Dockers, even when he’s wearing a leather A-2 and goggles, but Mr. de Cadenet’s definitely got a good gig going.

Oh, and his son's name is Bruiser.

What I Wore Twenty Five Years Ago

A long time ago, in my I Didn’t Know As Much As I Thought I Did days I was a punk rock skateboard kid of the second generation (the first generation being the wiggy hippies from the seventies, and the third being today’s mind-blowing kids with no fear). Most days, I could be found listening to the Adolescents on my Sony Walkman kitted out in skatepunk attire. That would be: plaid shorts and white Hanes t-shirts, which I hand-decorated in black indelible ink with the genre’s logos and bands. Black and white and plaid all over was my leitmotif. Without fail, I was shod in Converse Chuck Taylor hi-tops in a range of colors, from classic black or white to maroon or turquoise (hey it was the Eighties). Those were great shoes, and still are. In fact, I currently have a pair in conservative navy blue. Still goes well with everything casual that I wear, from jeans, cargo shorts, or khakis. I’m eyeing classic whites for my next.

The skateboard and hi-tops marriage is a venerable one, because of the support provided to the ankle. There were my Chucks, for sure, but others wore other basketball shoes including the original Air Jordans, and others still wore the first industry-made skateboarding shoe, Vans. I myself thought Vans were a bit “on the nose” and obvious, but I’ve got a pair now, for irony’s sake.

That’s Natas Kaupas from Venice, CA, sporting a pair of unidentifiable basketball shoes. His performance on a skateboard pretty much convinced me to give it up and helped me admit to myself that I was only ever really faking it all those years.

What I Wore Twenty Years Ago

What I wore twenty years ago was a pair of Duck Head chinos from Britches Great Outdoors, a Brooks Brothers oxford button down shirt over a turtleneck, no socks, and L.L. Bean footwear, either leather bluchers or dirty bucks. I would hold my pants up with a braided leather belt from Jos. Banks; a belt which I still have but which is now unusable because of both condition and size. If the weather was inclement, I'd wear a Bean Baxter State Parka with a tear in the back from when Rich Matic and I went tumbling through a plate glass door in front of New South Dining Hall. This uniform would work for me for about three and a half seasons in D.C. If it was sunny -- in fact, daylight was the real prerequisite, not brightness -- I'd wear a pair of gold Ray Ban aviator sunglasses, but not the kind that Tom Cruise wore in Top Gun. They were more like the glasses Dennis Quaid wore in the "who's the best pilot you ever saw" scene in the Right Stuff, my all time favorite movie.

Ah yes, the Right Stuff, an incredible movie based on an equally incredible book by chronicler of zeitgeist Tom Wolfe. A movie that was meant to be a western with pilots instead of cowboys. Take stock of the Mercury Seven, portrayed with stylized verisimilitude by Scott Glenn (Alan Sheppard), Ed Harris (John Glenn), Fred Ward (Gus Grissom), and Quaid (Gordo Cooper, the best pilot you ever saw). Throw playwright Sam Shepard in as fastest man alive Chuck Yeager, for good measure. These were men who had public personae thrust upon them, when in fact all most of them (save John Glenn and his twerpy sidekick, Scott Carpenter) wanted to do was to navigate the holy coordinates of the fighter jock: flying and drinking and drinking and driving and screwing. How can you do that when you're expected to be Buck Rogers?