Life Magazine photographer Loomis Dean didn’t document much fashion, but he did document a lot of style. Readers may be familiar with that famous 1955 portrait he shot of Noël Coward, where Coward is shown wearing a tuxedo in a stark desert, standing alone and smoking a cigarette. Ben Cosgrove once wrote of it: “[He was] standing in the broiling Nevada sun and looking for all the world like a man waiting for someone to bring him a cocktail.”
Broiling was right. In an interview with John Loengard, Dean revealed that it was 119 degrees that day and Coward arrived in his underwear. He was driven to the location in the back of a Cadillac limousine, where there was a washtub full of booze, tonic, and ice to keep him cool. He only changed into the tuxedo when it was time to shoot, and then stripped back down to his underclothes once everything was done. Supposedly, the timing of the shoot was partly Coward’s fault. During the planning stages, he told Dean: “Oh, dear boy, I don’t get up until four o’clock in the afternoon!”
In 1961, Dean also went to France to document the lives of young Parisian students as they went through their routines. Some are shown studying at cafes; others attending parties in small apartments. In some ways, they don’t seem too different from today’s students – they’re just dressed a lot better.
Christian Chensvold sometimes posts similar photos on his site Ivy Style. Except, where he shows button-down youths at American universities, these French students are dressed much more eclectically. Yes, you still see Shetland sweaters and three-button tweeds, but also an interesting mix of cowboy boots, wide brimmed hats, and workwear clothes. The images feel a lot more Bohemian in that sense – maybe something like RL Rugby meets Visvim. The thing I like most: the clothes look rumpled and lived-in, and the fuller silhouettes make them feel less studied than today’s slim-fit fashion. There’s also a nice mix of textures with the brushed wools, ribbed corduroys, and worn leather.
To go along with the photos, I’ve put up a few of my favorite 1960s French songs at the end of this post. There’s also a not-so-vintage song amusingly dubbed over a famous Jean-Luc Godard scene.
