Miles Davis always shunned the stale and the hackneyed — what he called “warmed-over turkey.” This artistic integrity, this determination to be unpredictable, to stand for the new and to take risks, is key to understanding Davis’s chameleon-like role as a style icon.
Davis had the ability to turn commonplace clothing items to artistic expressions in their own right. In the ‘50s he redefined fashion’s epicentre of cool, particularly in the jazz circuit by dressing in jackets of English Tweed with natural shoulders. Although music was the central component, Davis a trailblazer of jazz – crafted his own individual style in sync with his pioneering musical genius. It was not long before Davis donned a varied selection of European cut suits, that seamlessly stood out when accompanied with his thick-framed tinted sunglasses, neck ties and hats. Other icons of the time were wearing similar tailoring but it was his unique interpretations of how to wear these cuts which made him stand out with effortless charm.
