{"id":8110,"date":"2011-07-07T13:06:35","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T17:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=8110"},"modified":"2011-07-07T13:06:35","modified_gmt":"2011-07-07T17:06:35","slug":"could-jimi-hendrix-rocks-teflon-fashion-plate-have-withstood-the-stylistic-landmines-of-the-1980s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/could-jimi-hendrix-rocks-teflon-fashion-plate-have-withstood-the-stylistic-landmines-of-the-1980s\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Jimi Hendrix, Rock’s Teflon Fashion Plate, Have Withstood the Stylistic Landmines of the 1980s?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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"Go ahead, try to mock my sense of fashion!"<\/p><\/div>\n

As Townsman junkintheyard<\/strong> hinted at in response to a recent piece by E. Pluribus Gergely<\/strong> and RTH Labs<\/strong> on the profound weakness of any man wearing an earring<\/a>, Jimi Hendrix <\/strong>may have been immune to not only the debillitating effects of the earring<\/a> but a host of questionable rock fashion choices.<\/p>\n

Think about it. Hendrix may be the only rocker to get a pass for wearing a headband<\/a>. It’s debatable whether fringe<\/a> was ever cool, but no one calls bullshit on Hendrix for wearing it<\/a>. You wanna cut up on bare-chested rockers<\/a> wearing vests<\/a>? Leave Jimi<\/a> out of it. The kimono<\/a>? Kimono Jimi’s house<\/a>! I\u00a0have not yet located a photo, but I\u00a0bet\u00a0Hendrix in a pancho<\/a> would\u00a0settle all debates over the potential coolness of that item of clothing.<\/p>\n

Rock dudes bedazzled in jewelry<\/a>? Jimi<\/a> made it work. Floppy hats<\/a> posed no hazards<\/a> for the man. I bet the inside of that bad boy had been soaked in acid!<\/p>\n

A Stars and Stripes jumpsuit for anyone not named Evel<\/a>? Not even Elvis could pull that one off.<\/p>\n

Sure, Jimi was black, but not even black guys are assured of pulling off the dashiki<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In terms of avoiding fashion faux pas Jimi had the good fortune to die young, and to die before the 1970s got underway. Jimi had already eclipsed the new decade’s attempts at achieving a larger-than-life Rock God\u00a0persona<\/a>. Similarly, Sly Stone, Miles Davis,\u00a0and then Funkadelic would spend the decade chasing\u00a0the man’s Psychedelic Pimp Look.\u00a0Might he have flirted with\u00a0asexual space-age glam fashions<\/a>? Probably, and he probably would have picked up some cool backing singers<\/a>\u00a0along the way. Would Jimi have surprised us and opted for\u00a0the down-to-earth denim ensemble of a singer-songwriter<\/a>? Would he eventually identify himself with the punks<\/a> and new wavers<\/a> who owed something to him? Eventually Jimi would have been confronted with the satin siren\u00a0call of disco<\/a>. Although trecherous, somehow<\/a> I think he would have made it work.<\/p>\n

As a Rock Dandy who likely would have stayed that path, Jimi would have strutted a treacherous path as the decade came to a close and led into the 1980s. The long-term prospects of a Rock Dandy\u00a0are fraught with pitfalls. For instance,\u00a0black<\/a> or white<\/a> there’s only so much that can be done with long hair on a dude before he looks like he should be excitedly checking underneath his seat in the audience for a taping of Oprah<\/em>. Could Jimi have found a way around Miles’ eventual downfall<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide…<\/p>\n

Jimi’s eventual downfall, had he lived long enough, would probably have been at the mercy of one of two unfortunate designs: 1) the brightly colored leather jumpsuit with diagonal zipper and padded sleeves topped off by jheri curled hair with a string bandana or 2) this<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Townsman junkintheyard hinted at in response to a recent piece by E. Pluribus Gergely and RTH Labs on the profound weakness of any man wearing an earring, Jimi Hendrix may have been immune to not only the debillitating effects of the earring but a host of questionable rock fashion choices. Think about it. Hendrix […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342,344],"tags":[332,59,77],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}