Someone else has done the debating for us this week, as legendary movie star Cary Grant was crowned the greatest ever male style icon in a recent poll, beating out competition from modern-day stars such as David Beckham (who finished 2nd) and Jonny Depp (3rd), as well as someone we've previously examined in this feature, Steve McQueen (a non-to-shabby 4th).

So, instead of weighing up the pros and cons of his style, we're simply going to concede that, yes, the man most certainly was a style icon and pay tribute to his signature look...

Harking from a time when women wore dresses and men wore suits, it's no surprise that a good two-piece was the foundation of his signature style. And, damn, how he wore them! Suits became more than just clothes in Grant, and became part of his identity - the identity of not just a man, but a gentleman too, complete with a champagne glass in hand and a beautiful woman on his arm (as below with Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman).

And it's precisely this gentlemanly nature that has no doubt elevated Grant - now dead for over 20 years, let's not forget - to style icon status. His style encompassed everything that "being a gentleman" meant in the romantic, old-school use of the term. From the crewneck knit, Italian trousers and tan deck shoes he wore as John Robie at home in To Catch a Thief (arguably his finest role) to the perfectly pressed suit he sported as he fled a pursuing aeroplane, tie flapping in the wind, in Hitchcock's North By Northwest (check out The Sartorialist's rave review of his clothes in this film), he never looked anything less than 'dressed'.

Grant's style may not be something that most men nowadays necessarily "get", but when they do it becomes more than a way of dressing - it becomes a lifestyle. And we'll raise a glass to that.

Comments

[Aaron]

I agree! Cary IS an icon and legend. Did you hear that his only daughter Jennifer had her first child? A little boy named Cary Benjamin. Sound familar? Maybe he will be a icon in his own way? Let's hope so. http://thebiz.fancast.com/2008/08/actress_jennifer_grant_gives_b.html