Building Blocks of Style

Michael Stipe, lead singer of REM, explains where he got his style principles

When I first moved from Illinois to Athens, Georgia, as a teenager in 1978, the only style I had was kind of a small-town, midwestern kid's take on punk rock, which was pretty frightening. But Athens had its own stylistic thing going on, and it was epitomized in one of the people I met there, a writer, artist, and musician named Jeremy Ayers.

Like many people in Athens on the alternative, queer, art-school, postpunk hippie scene at the time, Jeremy dressed out of a thrift store called The Potter's House. The Potter's House had a "rag room," which was filled with clothes they deemed not good enough to sell, except to be used for something like the stuffing in pillows. You could go into the rag room and fill up a bag for maybe 50 cents, so basically that's where everyone in Athens got their clothes.

Jeremy would dress in an old top hat he found in the rag room, combined with a pair of Converse tennis shoes and the only pair of black pants he could find that weren't made of polyester. They'd be maybe 3 inches too short, so he'd wear colorful striped socks with them. From time to time, he would take the stuffing out of a teddy bear and wear the teddy-bear head as a hat. Jeremy's sense of style was very much reflected in the music that was coming out of Athens back then. Certainly, the B-52s--for whom Jeremy cowrote the song "52 Girls"--took that look to more of a cartoonish place. The way he carried himself was always infused with a good bit of humor--and that's true to this day. He's an incredibly stylish man, but always elegant, and he's become a lifelong friend.

So, because of Jeremy, I started dressing myself out of The Potter's House, and that evolved into the look I had through the '80s and into the '90s. Even what I wear now is an extension of that, but as an adult, not a teenager. I walked around today in 90° heat in a Christian Dior suit jacket and a large hat. I've also been wearing a pair of Japanese jeans, my favorite article of clothing. They're dark blue and as stiff as jeans can get. I don't understand why people spend so much time trying to make a simple pair of blue jeans seem worn in. I'm so tired of that style where they dye the butt; it's like you wet your pants and no one told you. It's such a wrong look.

Another key development in my personal style came when my hair started thinning and I made the very bold move of shaving my head. It had been done before by other people. But I might have been the first person ever to admit that I shaved my head because my hair was thinning and it made me self-conscious. I don't think Telly Savalas or Yul Brynner ever said it was anything other than a stylistic choice. I believe it was Douglas Coupland, the author of Generation X, who said if you want to be remembered a hundred years from now, invent a new hairstyle. Well, I didn't invent shaving your head, but I added a new layer of honesty to it.

Finally, fashion is even more fun for me now than when I was younger. I've gained confidence in how I put myself together. I like taking chances. Basically, I dress myself to be confident and to feel good. Doing that really changes how you move through your day. It's not the only factor, but it's important to move through your day in a way that's pleasing or satisfying or even triumphant.

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