Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ suit is back to honour milestone

Madonna might not have been the only style-changing pop star to turn 60 in August. Michael Jackson would have reached that milestone last Wednesday.

In honour of that birthday, Hugo Boss, the German label behind the white suit that Jackson wore on the cover of “Thriller,” the 1982 album that is one of the bestselling records of all time, is updating and reissuing the suit.

Jackson, who died in 2009, is often referenced as one of the great musical trendsetters of his generation, vocally and visually — see, for example, the current exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, “Michael Jackson: On the Wall,” which explores his influence on the art world.

But the focus, at least when it comes to his image, is generally on his most sparkly, extreme incarnations: the gem-encrusted shirts and socks, the motorcycle and military jackets embellished with gleaming hardware and ribbons. The unsettling facial changes.

Amid all that, the white suit stands out as a beacon of calm, a nod to the heritage of Fred Astaire, and a representation of the wide-ranging layers and references of Jackson’s sartorial vocabulary. He may have given us the single glove as signifier, but he also understood the power of a wellplaced pleat— especially before he began disappearing into the world of his own imagination.

To that end, the new version of the suit has a narrower silhouette, but it still has two pleats on the pants and three mother-of-pearl buttons on the jacket cuffs. Only 100 are being made; each suit is numbered and will sell for $1,195.