The sequinned glove, the jackets, the black shoes, white socks and the hat...Michael Joseph Jackson wore his signature style better than any of his clones. Much before the fame hounds cornered him and devoured him, he was the icon to beat all icons because with his streaming curls, his reed-thin frame, his voice and the clothes he wore, he proclaimed without words from albums and magazine covers and from posters at every roadside stall, "Watch me..there is never going to be another one like me.”
And there never really was or ever will be because his style came from his understanding of his music, from the streets rife with unknown musicians who inspired him and were inspired by him. Like a lot of successful musicians, his style statements never became elitist. He wore grunge and casuals and then shockingly original and almost royal stage costumes that sent people in a frenzy of excitement. In every context though, he was the statement and the style. The clothes were just an extension of him,
Johnny Cash, the Man in Black, never performed in any colour other than, yes black. Cash began to wear all-black suits as a good luck charm and perhaps because life had been a grim tale for him for a long time.
He once said to Larry King, “I have never done a concert in anything but black. You walk into my clothes closet. It’s dark in there.”
But when he walked onto the stage and said, "Hello, I am Johnny Cash,’’ people did not see what he wore. They shut up and listened to his music that spoke of real things. Of pain, loss, love and redemption
Amy Winehouse, the lady who loved going back to black, had a Gothic sense of style and also channeled the 60s with her bouffants, dark eyes and the tattoos of course were just cries of pain etched in her skin.
Bet it Lady Gaga’s quirky and sometimes shocking style mantras or the Elvis suits that are still gyrating all over Las Vegas, stars who make it big also find their own way of saying, ‘’I wear what I am. But I am more than what I wear.”
And that is why fans can ape them all they want, but their spirit and their music remain uniquely theirs. Never to be equalled.