All fashion icons display two important traits: a unique and personal sense of style and the ability to make this appear completely effortless. David Hockney is one such icon.
Hockney is always smart and well dressed. From his preppy schoolboy days as part of ‘the Bradford art mafia’ in the 1950s he has underpinned his dress with the staple suit, shirt and tie, the trench; classic elements of menswear. Yet Hockney breaks the mould of generic male dressing and exercises a style that is completely original. Ordinary cardigans, chinos, flat caps and plain suit pieces are made pop art cool with bursts of colour that seem perfectly measured and composed, like one of his candy coloured paintings. He is synonymous with polka dot scarves, humorous bow ties, intensely coloured cable knit jumpers, nerdy white plimsolls, bright braces, striped ties and rugby shirts. Coupled with his iconic shock of peroxide hair and dark rimmed round glasses, Hockney has a look that defines his personality, an extension of his work.
He manages to achieve this in a way that isn’t self-conscious, pretentious or contrived. That is, you would never see his style contained or reproduced in Topman (well not successfully anyway). It is as much about the way he wears his clothes as the individual choices he makes. Hockney is refreshingly not styled, he has an almost slap dash approach to dressing choosing clothes that are often oversized and eclectic mixes of patterns, colours and textures. It is easy to imagine him rummaging in a charity shop despite influencing designers such as Christopher Bailey. The overall result is one of good fun and creativity, a quirky English eccentric.
“Style is something you can use, and you can be like a magpie, just taking what you want. The idea of rigid style seemed to me, something you needn’t concern yourself with, it would trap you.”
–David Hockney
David Hockney’s ‘A Bigger Picture’ is showing at The Royal Academy of Arts from 21st January to 9th April.
First two images by Cecil Beaton