A book that begins with a David Bowie quote already has an advantage in winning me over. “Ageing is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been” is a fitting introduction to a collection celebrating stylish men of a certain age: those over 50. “This may seem like an arbitrary choice of age,” author David Sims writes, “but it is a milestone in our lives. It is an age that undoubtedly sounds ‘ancient’ to the young, but with our greater longevity is increasingly pitched as being barely middle-aged.” Gentlemen of Style includes 60 profiles of men from all time periods and parts of the world. There are iconic figures like designer Giorgio Armani and dancer Fred Astaire and also a handful of well-known men who are rarely celebrated as style icons. For example, Samuel Beckett, the famous playwright whose Waiting for Godot is a postmodern classic, dressed in workwear-style anoraks like a modernist version of one of Oasis’ Gallagher brothers. Each profile begins with bold, marquee-style lettering announcing its subject, followed by a single, distilled quote from the essay ahead—a line that captures the gentleman’s style in its purest form. Legendary trumpeter Miles Davis is defined by ‘Psychedelic show-stopping style,’ while songwriter Bob Dylan is ‘Deeply rooted in American folklore.’ What distinguishes the book isn’t merely its parade of celebrity style icons, but its attention to age. From Prince to Brad Pitt to Bowie himself, many of these men have been admired for their fashion throughout their lives. Yet Gentlemen of Style, in focusing on their post-50 sensibilities, makes a quiet, persuasive case for aging as aspiration.
