Style Icon: Jean-Michel Basquiat

Kiera Finn-Oluonye

It’s a Wednesday. Around 1:15pm. I’m standing in the Gagosian Gallery, admiring the works of Avedon and Warhol and attempting to dispel the myth that my generation has lost all sense of culture.

That’s when I happen upon it. There just before the doorway, hangs the 1982 Warhol portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat. I’m in awe. Excitedly I hold my phone up ready to get a snap of the work of art, only to be politely told that “this painting cannot be photographed.” Disheartened, I put my phone away and turn to my friend.

“He looks like The Weeknd.” She says nonchalantly, probably in reference to his hairstyle (that I aptly refer to as ‘The Basquiat’).

“He’s my favourite artist” is all I can muster in response.

 Jean-Michel Basquiat. The name is synonymous with the 1980 contemporary art scene of New York. Like his counterparts (namely, the aforementioned Warhol) Basquiat’s works are just as, if not more, celebrated today as they were when he was alive. But the artist, infamous for his politically charged paintings, had another influence on ‘the scene’: his style.

If you were, today, to place Basquiat on the streets of Shoreditch or Williamsburg, you can guarantee the hipsters will look up from their overpriced bowl of quinoa and tofu and take notice.

Basquiat managed, what many before (and after), him have failed. He was able to find the perfect balance of street and classic.  Armani was his poison. He reportedly even painted in his $800 Armani suits before sporting them, paint-splattered, out on the streets of New York. His aesthetic was that of ‘thrift-shop trust-fund kid’- pairing a tailored suit jacket, with an old and worn Adidas t-shirt. He was obscenely, almost painfully, cool.

Basquiat had a rare gift of making even the most ragged clothing, look expensive. He had an air of aristocracy about him. It’s undoubtedly what made him so likeable, so cool. A Basquiat outfit looks as though it has been thrown together with so little thought, yet so much at the same time. It was effortless. It was original.

Patterned shirts, matched with tweed suits and floral ties. Oversized cardigans worn alongside baggy jeans. Basquiat’s style, just like his art, went against the norm. There’s an ease to Basquiat’s work, and that’s also seen in his style. It’s like he just knew what to do, what works and, even if it didn’t, how to pull it off so that it would work.

Basquiat’s style was his second art form, a subtle protest to tradition in itself. Basquiat mixed old with new, and did it with so much ease that it seemed innovatively normal. His style was the most aesthetically-pleasing oxymoron.

There was no one cooler than Jean-Michel Basquiat. And there probably never will be.