Who Had Style in 1985?

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Who had style in 1985? The editors of the now-defunct M: the Civilized Man thought they knew. They named their January 1985 issue with just that question. The cover story was written by John Burr Fairchild, who at the time went by the nom de plume W. Rushton Chatsworth III. An excerpt:

For some people, style is everything.

Those people – and there are a lot of them – have no style, never will, and are completely irrelevant to this discussion. 

Real style is indeed a rare commodity, especially in these times, and can only be possessed by those who hold it lightly, virtually unaware. The key to it is maintaining your individuality in all your various lives, without imposing your personal tastes – exquisitely evolved as they may be – on others. One must be distinctive without being boorish about it. 

For example, if I wear my dark blue velvet slippers when Cynthia and I entertain at home, it is because I am the kind of man who can wear them with as little affectation as a farmer wears his overalls. […] However, if I wore my slippers to a party at your house, I would have to renounce all claim to having any style at all. Which is why I promise that if you invite me to dinner, I will not wear my slippers. 

Fairchild’s essay never really defined style in the end – “capricious stuff, this old duende,” he wrote – but it’s easy to get the gist when you see who the editors selected for their cover story. The honorees came from business, politics, academia, and the arts. There was even a section for who didn’t have style, where Tom Wolfe and Peter Sellers were surprisingly lumped in with Jesse Helms and “most top Hollywood execs.” I didn’t photograph that section, but the men pictured looked better than most of the men deemed stylish today. 

Of course, the irony is that none of the men they selected would have read a magazine about who had style in 1985. Which maybe says something about the person who decided to blog about it 2016. 

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