James Dean: Legendary True Trendsetter

“The only greatness for man is immortality”. – James Dean

James Dean today, 8 February 2012, He would have been 81 años. Much has been said, written and published in the American actor born in Marion (Indiana) en 1931, much of his life as his tragic death at 24 years in car accident. This blog deals moda, trends and style; and so we will talk about how it influenced fashion and unlike Dean, its contribution to clothing, that still persists.

The first images that we know of James Dean are a dull boy to some extent – with the typical appearance of a teenager half century. V-neck pullovers, light pleated pants… This image is immediately changed by a more disheveled way of dressing: broken jerseys, pelo despeinado, boots and glasses graded (It was shortsighted) who does not hide in photographs. They correspond to his student days at the Actor's Studio in New York.

It is at this time that is influenced by men's fashion european existentialist, philosophical thinking and championed by Jean Paul Sartre with the particularity that most of his followers wore black rigorous. Other actors of the time – It is not clear if it was fashion or that they were taken seriously (or both) – they did not hesitate to appear with this styling black.

The James Dean this time appears with an air of intellectuality, photographing modeling clay, Read your camera or photos hanging neck and thus revealing their inner rebel and nonconformist that at all was a pose. Style that he transferred to Hollywood when he started shooting his first films and became a star of the cine. He kept join, your way, some trends that broke schemes imposed dress at that time; actors like Brando, Clift and others had already begun to show their dislike of cross-suit jacket.

But with the filming of Giant, his latest film, again change his style of dress. Spend the cowboy style: jeans, hat, Sendra Boots, vests and wide belts. He moves his character in fiction to everyday life. So we see in photographs of the last stage of his life: dressed as a cowboy ¡But beware! he creates a cowboy leading to his land; when we compared with the gunmen who had shown films and exhibited at that time, We see that Dean brings contemporary, what we now call trend, away from the folklore or disguise.

It is Dean who elevates altars imperishably fashion jeans with white shirt combined with jackets. This cowboy model would immediately thousands of followers. Looking at the West series late 50 and we shall see that the canon Dean cowboy is imitated ad nauseam by Steve Macqueen , Clint Eastwood , Guy Madison, Clint Walker, Michael Landon and many other. But not only he imitated in films or television but resulted in a hyper masculine archetype with erotic reminiscences in advertising or illustration (for example the "Marlboro Man").

The short life of James Dean was no more. An awkward actor tuxedo and at ease with a broken jersey. The holes and stains from your jersey would be symbols of his dissent that also translated into his eyes , Painful, pain for something that will be very difficult for us to get to know… maybe those cigarette burns all over his body that were discovered after he was dead give us some clue.