“A Complete Unknown,” James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic (in theaters now), is many things: a star-making vehicle for Timothée Chalamet, a spin through a sliver of Mr. Dylan’s extended discography and, maybe most of all, a reminder that the singer born Robert Zimmerman is one of the music world’s unquestionable style icons.
In an edited conversation, members of the Styles staff — Vanessa Friedman, Stella Bugbee and Jacob Gallagher — used the release of “A Complete Unknown” as an excuse to debate their favorite Dylan looks, what was going on with all that hair and whether the Nobel Prize-winning songwriter was the original hipster.
VANESSA FRIEDMAN We tend to talk about Bowie and Jagger (and even Harry Styles) as the Great Rock Wardrobe Gods, but Dylan holds his own. He did workwear before Springsteen, Ray-Bans before Jack Nicholson and maybe even popularized boot-cut jeans?
STELLA BUGBEE I associate his style so much with his hair. There’s that wonderful Milton Glazer poster of him from 1967, which rendered his profile as a bunch of swirling, colorful shapes. If you can be turned into a kind of logo, you have achieved icon status.
JACOB GALLAGHER Looking at photos of Dylan after seeing the movie, I was taken by how many different styles he went through and how swiftly he cycled through them. When he arrived in Manhattan as a Woody Guthrie-loving teenager, he wore baggy, near-dad jeans, but within just a couple of years he swung toward skinnies. The guy was kind of trend forecasting his way through Lower Manhattan.
FRIEDMAN I thought it was telling that in the first New York Times review he ever got, for a performance at a West Village coffee shop (which is quoted in the movie), he was described as, “a cross between a choirboy and a beatnik,” with a “Huck Finn black corduroy cap.” The music and the image were already enmeshed.
GALLAGHER We have to note that for some of these fashion maneuvers Dylan was popularizing what Black musicians had done before him. Lightnin’ Hopkins was doing the dark sunglasses look years before Dylan. The flat cap that baby-faced Dylan wore on the cover of his first album looks an awful lot like one that Blind Willie McTell wore in the ’20s and ’30s. (Dylan, of course, would later write an ode to McTell.)
And I don’t think we can talk about any white musician’s style fluctuations — again from Mick Jagger to Harry Styles to yes, Bob Dylan — without crediting Little Richard as the guy who made fashion theatrics not just acceptable but expected.
BUGBEE Yes, absolutely. And I thought about the way he seems to have taken all of those influences and spun them into a kind of cool New York Rocker look that was less fussy than the Mods in London. He sort of merged the “I didn’t try too hard” aesthetic of folk with the skinny British tailoring and the glam of Little Richard to make an American Style archetype. Simple, but cool. The kind of look Hedi Slimane bases a lot of his “basics” around.
GALLAGHER I thought that too, Stella. The way he looks on the cover of “Highway 61 Revisited” — the black and pink shirt, the Triumph Motorcycles tee, his mullet-like hair — that’s the very picture of “cool” that designers still chase. And that too many people spend too much money at vintage stores trying (and failing) to recreate. The flopsy halo of curls, the black sunglasses, the skinny black jeans. Maybe it’s going too far to say this, but he kind of invented indie sleaze with that look.
FRIEDMAN Speaking of Hedi Slimane, remember that Bob Dylan appeared in one of his Celine ads in 2023 in a black leather jacket and shades? I find it fascinating that despite his seeming rejection of fame and disinterest in the celebrity system, Dylan never rejected fashion, which is often considered its most superficial, commercial expression. In a way, his hypersensitivity to style is another example of him subverting expectations.
GALLAGHER Right. I love that as his music career progressed, he kept experimenting with clothes. There wasn’t ever a single Dylan uniform. Sadly for me, the film cuts off well before my favorite chapter of Dylan style: mid-1970s vagabond clown. I still covet the blanket coat he wore on the cover of “Desire.”
BUGBEE He had a strong contrarian streak. Which is what makes Timothée Chalamet an interesting person to play him because Chalamet takes similar risks in roles and in his personal styling. See his homage to blond Dylan that caused a stir at the premiere of the movie.
GALLAGHER That was great. And was a reminder of how weird Dylan got at times!
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