Monday, November 23rd, 2009...2:41 pm
Larry David, Style Icon?
Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Seinfeld Reunion finale may have attracted 98 percent of the viewers in the uncoveted 45 and over demographic. I was watching, though I couldn’t exactly tell you what happened or even whether the episode was any good. I was too busy checking out Larry David’s clothes.
That’s right: Larry David is my style icon. LD may seem an unlikely fashion inspiration, but I think he dresses in a way any middle-aged person, male or female, would do well to emulate: casual yet not scruffy, comfortable but never sloppy, easy-fitting yet not baggy, formal but not uptight, stylish but no slave to fashion. He almost always puts together an interesting blend of neutral layers, with a round necked tee shirt under a high-vee sweater with a loose hem, under an unstructured sport coat, over chinos that are not always chino=colored, worn with leather or suede sneakers. He’s got nice simple round glasses and hair that’s just the right length. (Note to men: Women don’t care about baldness, at least not nearly as much as men fear they do.)
More to the point, LD’s style has an ageless quality: He doesn’t dress like a kid, he doesn’t dress like an old man, he simply dresses like some timeless version of himself. Over the seasons of Curb, his style has morphed a bit. He used to wear more vintage-looking shirts and more overshirts with collars, which I’m glad he left behind.
The problem is that Larry David Style doesn’t really look good on me. I’m too curvy, too, well, female, while Larry has that lanky, supple-looking (could he possible do yoga?) figure.
But it’s easier to find older guys whose style you want to imitate than it is to find great-looking women style icons, at least in contemporary life. Period films sometimes prove inspirational in terms of fashion. One recent movie that launched me into a brief black and white period was Coco Before Chanel.
And Jane Campion’s Bright Star was gorgeous, as were Abbie Cornish’s clothes, which made me, for a day or two, want to dress only in dusty blues and pinks.
I wish there was a grownup woman in the movies or on television who looked not like a Super-Cougar nor a Super-Mom nor a dowdy granny nor a crazy person. A woman who looked like the female equivalent of Larry David. Until then, I’ll have to keep dressing Larry-style.
12 Comments
November 24th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Hmmm. How about Katherine Hepburn? She’s one I’d like to emulate. Or Diane Keaton? Both of them favored a casually-classy layered look that could also be customized a bit more to one’s own style.
Female Larry-Davidesque enough? Not that I would want to run that comparison by either one of those ladies.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Too right!
Finding a style gestalt anywhere in middle age that seems contemporary without kiddishness is amazingly hard.
How can that be in the land of the malls, where “apparel” stores are stacked three deep in every exurb? Easy; they all have the same unappealing, unrealistic, or unexciting junk. Plus, the same idiot sizing “system” that makes fit a crap shoot.
What a strange notion of women’s lives these designers and merchants must have! If they just took time to know a little about us, they could triple their sales.
The reason there’s a “Larry David look” is because guys just won’t stand for being costumed for a life they don’t live.
November 27th, 2009 at 7:42 am
I only shop at Talbots. Perfect fit every time. Classy not trendy and every once in a while something really special. They’re now on the bankruptcy watch-list however and I’m dreading a return to mall shopping.
November 27th, 2009 at 10:16 am
I picked your site to be today’s blog of the day at my site. Very much enjoyed reading your book. It even gave me ideas for fun comments to make during Thanksgiving dinner and got the entire table laughing — except for my 5 year old son. His name is really Zane, so he is young and hip and did not get what was so funny.
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
This post just reminded me that Christmas is around the cornor! Time to break out the Winter clodths!
December 3rd, 2009 at 10:31 pm
You know, I never pay attention to what men are wearing–their clothes all look the same to me. But I always notice what L.D. has on. You hit the nail on the head with this one! Larry David is the coolest.
December 5th, 2009 at 3:53 am
Ellen Degeneres wears a female equivalent of this most of the time. I have long envied her ability to wear sneakers stylishly. I always look like I’m stuck in 1982 when I try to pair up my beloved leather court shoes with… well… pretty much anything. But I think it helps if they’re in some color other than white, or if they have that probably-not-trendy-anymore low back that I always walk right out of, leaving my half-shoe on the sidewalk.
December 5th, 2009 at 6:38 am
You’re absolutely right, though somehow I never aspire to look like Ellen Degeneres. I did buy a pair of custom Chuck Taylors in gray leather but I keep forgetting I own them. Too youthfully pretentious.
December 13th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
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February 19th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Audrey Hepburn.
February 19th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Fantastic idea, Anita, and totally doable, once I lose 80 or 90 pounds.
March 6th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Don’t act so ‘white’ You had me until that one, Are you serious ? You would not dare say ‘don’t act so black,’ would you ? While I can appreciate the poor attempt at humor, sorry, this one is not really funny. It’s actually sad. This is typical – throwing out everything the previous generations have struggled for, simply to appear more trendy. We don’t have to mock an entire race to be ‘cool’ do
we ? And if that’s the case, then I’m happy to be old.
I thought it was cool now to just be proud of who you are, and where you come from ! Sorry- but that includes white people too. Maybe it’s the cool young people who need to get over their hypocrisy and double standards.
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