Number one with a Bullitt

Well, I don’t quite know what to think.

McQueen.

Back.

Inspiring multiple lines of menswear.

The WSJ reports that manufacturers from Dolce & Gabbana to J. Crew are filling retail shops with clothing “inspired” by Steve McQueen’s film attire. Evidently the marketing pitch is along the lines of, “Steve was cool. Wear what he did & you’ll be just as cool.”

Oh, as if.

Still, just thinking about it is a bit of a blast from the past. These people are right—there can’t ever have been anyone as cool as McQueen. That guy grabbed attention just walking into the shot. Put him in The Magnificent Seven, up against Yul Brynner, Charles Bronson, Eli Wallach, James Coburn, a lot of horses & the Mexican countryside—he still ate up the screen. One pink shirt throughout the whole movie.

Or The Great Escape—German uniform or cut-off-sleeved sweatshirt, tossing that baseball against the cooler wall or making moonshine for Independence Day, he delivered his lines with the quintessential American brash insouciance. ("You're crazy, you know that? You oughta be locked up!")

The Thomas Crown Affair, Le Mans, Love with the Proper Stranger, Bullitt, Sand Pebbles…it didn’t matter what clothes he sported, the coolness came from within. It was being the star who gave producers the jim-jams by doing his own stunts with fast vehicles. It was drinking too much but still making morning makeup.

I know this is nothing new, but I’m going to get a really good giggle out of seeing today’s metrosexuals thinking they’ll take on some of McQueen’s persona by wearing a bomber jacket or a pair of chinos or a watch.

It ain’t the clothes on the man, silly; it’s the man in the clothes.