Satisfaction

I've wanted to show this to you, but it took me forever to find a photo of it, for some reason.

Here we have Mick Jagger (that's Sir Mick, thankyouverymuch) at the Bafta Awards in London last month looking extremely smart. It's not a tuxedo, but it is a very nice double-breasted jacket, which I have a fondness for. I would, of course, hem the pants and I'm not completely sold on those shoes, which look like some sort of paddock boot, buuuuut... On the whole, he looks marvelous. Check out the video (Mick doesn't appear until about 30 seconds in) and watch him stride across the stage at the awards show looking very urbane for a full-on Rock God. L'Wren Scott is having a good influence on him.



Of course, Mick has always been a snappy dresser, as has been his fellow Rolling Stone, Keith Richards.

Say what you will about Keith -- his drug escapades and all the wild tales that have been told about him for the last several decades -- I'd like to meet him. He sounds like a cool guy. He's been married to the same woman for 25 years (no mean feat for someone as famous as him) and has four children who are evidently devoted to him. And he's an icon. His visual presentation is as recognizable as his guitar playing.

So stylish and distinctive that no less a label than Louis Vuitton chose to make him a model in their recent campaign. I find it fascinating to see what someone like Richards chooses to do style-wise over the course of a long career in the public eye. The guy's obviously got more money than God and could wear whatever he wanted to, but he seems to almost always go with some riff on the lounge-y suit thing. Sort of Beau Brummel meets the Rat Pack and has a baby with Charles Bukowski. Lost of sparkly scarves and satin lapels and skinny, skinny pants. Rumpled, yet cool. It's no three-piece bespoke suit (that's always been more Charlie Watts' territory), mind you, but there's something about a man who chooses to put on a jacket -- no matter how outrageous or gaudy -- instead of just tossing on an ironic slogan t-shirt and shredded blue jeans that appeals to me. (Witness my growing fondness for Mickey Rourke in his current incarnation.) It signifies to me that he A) gives a shit and B) likes clothes & thinks about them enough that the ironic t-shirt isn't enough.

(See? Once upon a time, he was cute. Damn cute, as a matter of fact.)

(I mean, come on. How do you not love a guy having that much fun in a leopard-print jacket? Irresistible, is what that is. And damned cool.)

I'm going somewhere, here, I promise. I've been thinking about Keith because of this suit:

It's Jovovich-Hawk. It's sharp as hell, and when I Googled the words "jovovich-hawk red black striped suit" I got results that indicated it was known as the "Keith Richards suit." And why was I Googling? you ask with an arched brow.



Um, yeah. So much for the No Buy. But bear with me, folks, because I didn't mess up as much as you think I did. I was out shopping a couple of weekends ago and I don't feel bad about that because I was out shopping for bras and as far as I'm concerned proper Support Mechanisms barely qualify as shopping so ppffffffffttt to everyone who's tsk-tsk-ing me.

They didn't have the bra I wanted at Macy's or Neiman's, and so to console myself (or from force of habit, pick one) I wandered in & out of the various retail establishments at the Domain shopping center here in Austin. I went into one place that I almost never enter, mostly because it's usually full of hipper-than-thou Identigirl kit and high priced nail polishes, neither of which I'm particularly interested in, but because I had time on my hands I did. The sale racks were at the back, and there, hanging on a rack that bore a hand-lettered sign reading "On A Budget? This Rack's For You!" was this:



Mmmmmmmmm. Sharp jacket. Red & black stripes. Style Spy approves. Style Spy checks price tag. Price tag reads original retail $780, sale price $40.

Nope. Not kidding.

Attached to this hanger is a matching pair of pants. I shrug out of my own cardigan and try on the jacket over my shirt and whoa, nelly, does it fit. Trying on the pants is going to require considerably more effort than just pulling on the jacket, so I want to make sure that the price point is such that it makes it worth it for me, because frankly, I think I can live with this $40 jacket on its own quite happily. There's no price tag that I can find on the pants, so I take the ensemble to a helpful SA to find out how much they are. She tosses one end of her required-by-law Hip Girl fringed rayon scarf back over her shoulder (dear lord, is there a woman under 30 who is NOT wearing these with everything right now?), waves the tag in front of the magical scanner thingie and then pronounces, "Oh, it's a set. It's $40 for both of them."

Dude. I didn't even try on the pants, I just bought 'em. At that point, I didn't even care if they fit, and if they didn't I knew I could find some sort of good home for them. Lucky me, they fit.

As my dear friend Tim Gunn says, it is a lot of look, that suit. And I've already worn the jacket on its own (with my perfectly perfect wide-legged cuffed chalk-white Philip Lim trousers that make me feel like Kate Hepburn but with even better shoes) and a great little argyle sweater

(comme ça)

but I do like having the suit option. I have a party to attend next month where the dress code is "Rat Pack chic" and I'm definitely doing the suit. The pants of course, need hemming, even with these


which is how I plan on wearing them. I think I'm not only going to hem the pants but narrow them. As they are they're a very wide boot cut, almost a bell bottom, and I think I'm going to narrow them down to a straight leg. My feeling is that this will be more versatile over a longer period of time -- the bell leg makes the suit almost a little costume-y, whereas a straight leg will make it a little more classic. I'm also looking for another blouse to wear under it, because I definitely plan on including this piece



which I already had -- I did not buy it to go with the suit, it just happens to be perfect. I'm thinking plain black charmeuse blouse or possibly a black charmeuse camisole. Whaddya think? It definitely needs something with a fairly deep v-neck.

(Completely random interruption -- why does not the Blogspot spell-check recognize the word "charmeuse"????? I use it often, and it ALWAYS gets the little red line underneath it and every time I have a little crisis of confidence, thinking I've done it wrong. Yo, Blogspot!!! Charmeuse is a real word!!!

And now I'm laughing my head off because I've also got a little red line under "Blogspot." HAH!)


At any rate, jacket and vest put together are kinda perfect because they both have a peaked hem and when the jacket is buttoned up you get this:

Which I'm kah-razy about. I've had the sleeves on the jacket shorted, as well, and they hang perfectly now. I kept the cuff. I love the cuff.

I'm not a very suit-y person -- this is actually the first suit I've owned in aaaages. I never even look at suiting, because I don't have a use for it -- my life is not one that requires this kind of mufti, and if I need to look conservative I have separates I can combine in that way. But this suit is a whole 'nother ballgame -- this is the kind of suit I'm happy to have. Keith or Mick, whichever Glimmer Twin you prefer... this outfit makes me feel like a rock star.

Photos: virginmedia.com, paulparksphotography.com, corbis.com, style.com, Style Spy