Wearing one glove, he influenced an entire generation. Michael Jackson, style icon, had us copying his military badges, white ankle socks and black loafers as often as his moonwalk.
At the height of his career in the mid-1980s, he was a fresh representation of how a male pop singer could look, with his perfectly chiseled face, long curls, white T-shirt, black pegged pants, white socks and black loafers. Reminiscent of a dancer's costume, the graphic black and white enhanced his unbelievable moves.
His style was his own, and it kept evolving. The red leather, zippers and Jheri curls of "Thriller," then the more regal look that was in keeping with his reputation as the King of Pop. Embellished jackets became his uniform, festooned with gold braiding, brass buttons, even forks and knives.
The men behind the Man in the Mirror were Los Angeles-based costume designers Michael Bush and Dennis Tompkins. They quietly designed most of Jackson's personal and concert tour wardrobes, tens of thousands of pieces, many with military details, working from a Michael mannequin in their studio, built to the singer's exact measurements.
One jacket — worn in a 1990 L.A. Gear ad campaign — was black suede and covered in miniature gold license plates. The pop star's directive was always, "This is what the world's wearing — top it," the designers said in 2005.
Costume designer Deborah Landis designed the iconic red leather "Thriller" jacket.
"I knew because I had spoken to the production designer, the director and Michael that there would be a huge dance with ghouls. And the ghouls would be very ragged and coming from dust," she said recently. "So I thought, what would make Michael pop? I went through the palette and came up with red."
Jackson was a model for how to be a pop star for a lifetime, reinventing his look often. He understood the power of costume on and off the stage — and even in court. His oddly styled courthouse get-ups (the famous pajama bottoms and armbands) created a template for a kind of kooky celeb-goes-on-trial look.
And the never-ending speculation about his rhinoplasties fueled our cultural obsession with plastic surgery. Jackson pursued an ideal of beauty that for him was always just out of reach.
It's almost as if the fashion industry knew it was time for a Jackson tribute. The pop singer's influence was everywhere on the runway this last season, in the crystal-studded jackets at Balmain and the sequined gloves at Louis Vuitton.
Swarovski had been tapped to bedazzle the costumes for Jackson's comeback tour beginning in July in London. It would have been a fashion spectacle for the ages.
Moore is the Times' fashion critic.
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