Rebel without a Cause (1955)

Writing about 'the James Dean look' on movies like Badlands and Flyboys, I had to cover and show where this ideal image originates from. The popularity of James Dean was immense at the time and some say this was the reason for Warner Bros. to order director Nicholas Ray to re-shoot the movie in color. As originally the film was to be shot in black and white.

The rebellious character of Jim Stark seems of course to have been written for James Dean, who was known for his love of cars and any sorts of racing. However 'the James Dean look' has got nothing to do with cars, but is all about the indifferent, bored but cool expression on his face, his white tee combined with the iconic Lee 101 Riders jeans and the red Harrington jacket completes this look. Nicolas Ray did research on contemporary L.A. gangs for the characters in this movie and this resulted in lots of selvage jeans, probably most of them big E 501's, leather jackets and cowboy-style boots.

Badlands (1973)

Badlands is the first feature-film of one of my favorite directors: Terrence Malick. He wrote some scripts for features before but they were never shot the way he had in mind. With Badlands he directed his own script in a brilliantly way, the same he would do with his next three features.

The story was inspired on the Starkweather-Fugate incident in the late '50's. The 18-year old Starkweather ran away with his 14-year old girlfriend and they let a trail of murders behind. Starkweather was deeply intrigued by the 'Rebel without a Cause' image of James Dean, and wanted to look and act like him.

Certainly Malick made a good choice with Martin Sheen, who's got the James Dean look all the way. A movie for the true vintage denim fans, Martin Sheen wears his white tee with double denim: Levi's 501xx jeans and a Levi's 507xx denim jacket (which is priceless these days). Another great detail is the voice-o-graph booth, where you can record your song or text that is immediately pressed on a 7" vinyl record.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1992)

The real rural American life depicted in this movie is pretty poignant, set in a simple small village setting and brings to us social difficulties that can be universally extended. Gilbert tries to escape this environment in where he has to deal with his handicapped brother (played by a superb young DiCaprio) and his mother struggling with overweight.

I had some dilemma about whether I could appoint What's Eating Gilbert Grape to a whole post or not. The problem is that there isn't so much to see in the movie except for the character of Johnny Depp, whose style is simply exquisite during all of the movie. He rocks his brown trucker jacket all day long, with different longsleeves or striped shirts underneath it, accompanied by his light-blue Levi's 501 denim and his pair of Red Wing 8181 shoes. I love it. Although there's the handyman played by John C. Reilly, dressed up as a the typically truckdriver, who's pretty cool here: trucker cap, worn out Levi's jacket and another pair of Red Wings.