Put on the glitz with a showman’s wardrobe
As Elton John takes the stage for a farewell tour, Stephen Doig learns from his showman style
There’s a new style tribe amongst millennials; the “Scumbro”. This fellow, typified by Justin Bieber and Youtube star Cameron Dallas, adopts a look – deliberately, I might add – of hopeless dishevelment, as if the spoils of a skip outside Donatella Versace’s had been foraged through and snaffled.
That isn’t to say the clothes are shabby – the crucial thing is to wear key streetwear pieces from cult labels – but they are slung together in a haphazard way; oversized hoodies, slashed jeans, inexplicable boots all looking like they’ve been sneezed on.
The degree of personal
grooming is something akin to “fresher student waking up with Pot Noodle tub as underwear”.
Which I raise because it couldn’t be more at odds with the elder statesman of great music, Elton John, as he kicks off his farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in a blaze of glitter, feathers, sequins, embroidery, chinoiserie and Somewhere
Over the Rainbow style magic, putting an effort in to every nuance where others look like they’ve slept in a hedge.
Over the top? Definitely, but that has always been Sir Elton’s USP; in a sea of Bob Dylan brown leather in the Seventies, his peacock finery stood out magnificently (all those feathers and that was before he was out).
John turned to the razzmatazz of Bob Mackie – the same costume designer who helped create Cher’s high camp persona in the same decade – from pink velvet rhinestonestudded numbers to glistening silver plumage, and for a long time was a fan – and close friend – of Gianni Versace’s gold gilt opulence.
But his new tour is designed entirely by Gucci, a happy sartorial marriage since Alessandro Michele, the Italian house’s creative director, has long been inspired by both the romanticism of the Seventies and theatrical maximalism.
Yes, it’s stage costume, but it’s a showmanship style of dress that informs his off-duty attire too, be it an incredible 3D floral jacket at his Argento Ball this summer (in the grounds of his Windsor estate) or holidaying with his husband David Furnish and children in the south of France in August (wearing Gucci once again, this time primary bright polo shirts.
Why are the rococo froths and Liberace frills of John relevant? Because men’s style has reached a rather stagnant state of affairs of late, from Normcore (distinctly “don’t-look-at-me”) to TED talk tech bro attire (cashmere polo, designer jeans, Apple watch) to its current iteration in the aforementioned chip grease slicked Scumbro.
So it’s rather welcome that Elton John continues to showcase his signature fabulousness in such unashamed style, particularly at a time when a man in his seventies might tow a more sensible line. And while the encrusted blazers might be a tad much for the golf club annual dinner, there’s a sense of joyous frivolity that we all could do well to embrace from time to time, whether it’s a gleaming pair of slippers with a patrician evening suit, a shirt with decorative touches in place of a standard checks and a refusal to shy away in greiges as you reach a certain age.
He’s still standing, and his style has stood the test of time all along the way.