The World's Best Dressed Rockstars

What do clothes say about you? Everything of course. Our choices explain our personalities to the world at large, whether we like it or not. Do you remember that Les Paul quote about how “people listen with their eyes”? He wasn’t wrong, and with that in mind, I’ve gathered a little list today of ten of the best-dressed rockstars ever. 

Ten’s not many, but it’s enough to put forward the notion that we admire these people at least partly for how they present themselves. It’s all part of the aura, and the story, of these fascinating people. For proof that a scruffy AC/DC t-shirt and manky jeans are not good enough for rockstar attire, check out this lot…

Best dressed musician ever? When did this man ever look anything other than sensational? David Bowie had a whole room full of personalities throughout his life, and they all dressed perfectly, with attitude and character. Whether your favourite Bowie is Ziggy, The Thin White Duke, Aladdin Sane or even Jareth the Goblin King, you know the outfits were on point.

Even in everyday life, Bowie was a massive fashionista who loved a well-cut suit, right up until his final couple of days. And hey, back in the 70s when he introduced middle England to the notion of androgyny? You simply cannot pull off that mission without first looking brilliant at all times.

Otherwise known as ‘the original Johnny Depp’, Rolling Stone Richards has made an artform out of the elegantly crumpled look. Before he literally became a buccaneer in the 800th Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Keef liked to dress as a partial pirate: scruffy, bohemian, slightly jagged and with the notion that the carefree nature of it all was actually deeply considered. Also, his mid-1970s hairdo has been the Holy Grail barnet for all self-conscious rockstars since. Add a scarf, adopt a cackling smile and you’ll nail the Captain Jack - I mean, Keith Richards - vibe.

Stevie Nicks is the blueprint model for all moderately witchy women looking to borrow an air of the bohemian in their own personal style. Nicks nailed that important middle ground between suggesting a New Age mysteriousness, without fully falling down that rabbit hole into parodic post-Woodstock pantomime.

Stevie Nicks has the confidence to rock the top hat, the flowing silks and the multiple skirts, and she has the breezy grace to make it look like no second thought was attached to her wardrobe at all.

The Band’s laid back drummer/vocalist (and only American member) Levon Helm was coolness personified. Even in a group as sartorially well-sussed as these guys, Helm stood out for both fashion and charisma. A pioneer in the championing of workwear, Helm made an artform of denim, hobnail boots and outgrown beards. As they say, it’s not what you wear as much as how you wear it, and Helm wore it better than most.

The jazz overlord pioneered many things, and not least in his list would be his dress sense. Beating even the Godfather of Soul James Brown, Miles Davis took the wild lapels, shoulders, shoe shapes and shades and put together an outer-space look that felt natural and correct. Everybody else copied, but none carried it like Miles.

The award for the best-dressed punk goes easily to Paul Simonon. His sharp look was constructed from mismatching pinstripe suits and waistcoats that hung off his frame perfectly. He knew how to tilt a fedora without it looking too much, and he could mix and match without it looking premeditated. Also, massive extra bonus points for his latter day wearing of his P-Bass on his right shoulder instead of his left. It’s a level of ineffable coolness that hardly ever works in real life.

Another class fedora wearer is Los Angeles wildman Tom Waits. In his early 30s, he reinvented his former alleycat crooner vibe for something altogether more interesting, blending 30s gangster-era fashion with 50s Coney Island sideshows, forming a new style sensibility in the process. It’s a look he’s developed in the decades since, moving more into workwear as his persona becomes more rugged, but that old-school twinkle is always there.

A restlessly inventive visual artist, Madonna’s style is so prominent in culture that her wardrobe decisions cause seismic shocks. As chameleonic as Bowie, and easily as subversive, Madonna's constant reinventions are bold, interesting, creative and provocative. With anybody who pushes against the grain so much, she inevitably has made the odd sartorial misfire, but people only notice because they are always paying such close attention to her. Truly iconic.

He’s come a long way from his wildly feral ways in The Birthday Party, but there’s still a good touch of the fire-and-brimstone preacher in latter day Nick Cave. Always turned out in an immaculately tailored suit, Cave understands the power of the silhouette. Most 68 year old men cannot publicly get away with jet black hair dye over a hair transplant, but for Cave? Well, we’d be disappointed if he wore anything else. Indeed, a phase in the late noughties when he donned a moustache and wore t-shirts is now firmly in the past and best forgotten. Our dark prince of romantic yearning and gothic melodrama needs to appear as vampirically Saville Row as possible.

If any one artist taught the world how powerful it was to dress in monotones, it was the original Man in Black. His vibe was simple, but it was something that could work for anybody: keep the lines clean, make a feature of the hair, and make the most of subtle accessories. Do not wear trainers. Iron your shirt. Job done!

Lady Gaga is a fearlessly inventive dresser who seems to revel in an almost surreal sense of style. There’s a huge dose of humour in her outfits, and an amount of heavy metal sneaking into her vibe in increasing ways, but never at the expense of her overall ‘Haus of Gaga’ persona. Like all great rockstars, there is no real clarity about who the woman behind Gaga -Stefani Germanotta - really is, but what she chooses to give us is sensational, fun and super-dramatic. Surely that’s better than the ‘reality’?

These ten rockstars (okay, eleven!) have all shown us that we are intrinsically linked to what we wear. It’s how we silently communicate with the world, and what we wear is what we are choosing to tell people about ourselves. There is no alternative, I’m afraid: opting out and wearing non-statement clothing merely tells the world that you don’t have any opinions about anything. Why not send the world a message about yourself via your wardrobe, and take these fabulously dressed artists as your initial inspiration? Again, there were too many great dressers to include, so here are some honourable mentions:

• Jimi Hendrix
• Rihanna
• Gwen Stefani
• Bob Dylan
• Bryan Ferry
• James Brown
• Prince
• Jim Morrison