"George Clooney is a fairly useless style icon"

From The Sunday Best

Comment: George Clooney is a Fairly Useless Style Icon

1. I’m not really a fan of personal style blogs—you know, the ones [on which] these girls just shoot their outfits and all this stuff. I haven’t seen one that I really like or that draws my attention every day. The good and bad of that is that most [of] these girls only have a limited wardrobe; they don’t have many clothes to shoot and I don’t think most of them have come up with looks that are that interesting, that draw me.

- Scott Schuman, The Sartorialist

2. The internet tells us that George Clooney is a style icon. I am not here to dispute this. George Clooney is a very well-dressed man. But I feel the lessons one might learn from him are tempered by two factors: one, that he’s been blessed by essentially unlimited funds; and two, that he looks exactly like George Clooney.

3. I’m not saying that rich and handsome people have nothing to teach us but really, what’s the lesson here? That we should have more money? That we should be better looking? At some point looking to George Clooney (or Lapo Elkann or David Beckham) for style advice is about as useful as Usain Bolt telling your average track athlete, “Just run faster.”

4. Necessity is the mother of invention, and style is definitely an invention that is born from privation, not abundance. If you can buy anything you want, whenever you want, there is less impetus for you to try and arrange it creatively on your person. More to the point - if you can dress head-to-toe in Lanvin, you’re going to look good. But it’s a toss-up whether you’ll look very interesting.

5. When I was ten I went to a 50s dance party wearing white pants and a sort of silky blue and white shirt. I didn’t look very 50s, but I felt very 50s.

6. Scott Schuman is a dick.