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GQ creative director Jim Moore, who’s shaped men’s fashion for 40 years, to speak at DIA

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GQ creative director Jim Moore, who’s shaped men’s fashion for 40 years, to speak at DIA

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Calling all fashion heads!

Detroit men’s fashion enthusiasts have the opportunity to learn some major life lessons this Thursday evening, when longtime GQ Magazine Creative Director at Large Jim Moore delivers a free, public lecture at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Moore, an industry titan who’s been with the magazine for 40 years, will share lessons and highlights from his legendary career as well as pointers every man can use to improve his own personal style.

Moore spoke at length with the Detroit Free Press ahead of his visit to share some of the wisdom he’s gained after half a lifetime shaping the destiny of the art form of menswear.

Detroit Free Press: One of the things you’re known for is breaking boundaries in men’s fashion. What are some looks that you helped usher into the mainstream over the decades that people would recognize or say, “I’ve worn that?“

Jim Moore: “When I was a young editor in the ‘80s, everything was kind of pinstripes and suspenders and ‘Wall Street’ and all of that. I got the opportunity to work with a young (photography) star at the time named Steven Meisel, and he kind of poked fun at my fashion rebel spirit. We did portfolios that pushed against all of the shoulder padding and the rigidness. I like to think I’ve always been a modernist, but it certainly took mentors and other creatives around me to kind of help me develop that.

“I remember coming back with shoots where I had a guy in a pair of baggy white pants with black lace-ups and no socks. My editor-in-chief was like, ‘You can’t wear lace-ups without socks!’ and I said, ‘Well, this is GQ. We need to disrupt things a little bit.’ So there was a specific image, which is a guy in a great suit with a great T-shirt and a pair of loafers and no socks. You look at that now and you think, ‘That’s just how people dress,’ but in those days, putting a T-shirt under a suit or putting sneakers with a suit …

“Whether you call it rough or refined, putting activewear with tailored, or rugged clothes with refined clothes, much the way some designers like Ralph Lauren do it — that’s always been my touch. I like the fact that when you look at clothes, you don’t just feel the personality of the clothes, you feel the person in them, and you feel that it’s their personal style that’s been brought to the forefront.”

Q. How can the average man find his style and begin building a solid wardrobe?

A. “People who recognize me will stop me on the street and say, ‘Hey, Mr. GQ, do you like the way I’m wearing this camel coat?’ or, ‘Should I be wearing colored socks?’ Even young people with a bit of style, they still want a little bit of guidance. Women … can experiment, and they feel good about changing their personality with their clothes and their hair. I think guys are a little more like, ‘What is my style?’ If they even know that exists, they can find their style.

“When guys say, ‘I want great style (but) I don’t know how to do it,’ there’s two really good tricks. One is to look at the style of an Italian gentleman. Whether it’s a movie from the 1960s or just pictures of guys walking down the streets in Milan, you’ll learn so much from a guy who nonchalantly puts clothes together in a very simple and beautiful and elegant way. And they’re pretty ageless, pretty timeless. They’ll wear their suits with a sneaker and a down vest underneath and a scarf, and they have a certain panache.

“The other thing is, if you can’t find your style, then pick and recreate your own style icons. Who do you love? Do you love Brad Pitt? Do you love Lebron James? Whose style do you love? Just kind of emulate it. Take some cues from the way they dress. And, you know, I would say that’s kind of my secret to telling guys how to get style, more than spending too much time on blogs and learning how to be a dandy or learning how to wear streetwear.”

Q. What should women know about the way men dress?

A. Men want to dress themselves. Working this business for 45 years — 40 years at GQ — and having really studied the buying habits of men and how they shop, it’s really exciting to see. Now, guys will shop with their friends, or guys will shop alone, or guys will shop with their significant other whether they’re male or female, and there’s nothing wrong with a woman giving her opinion.

“I spent some time in the retail stores, and a lot of guys come in with their partners and, in the case of a woman, (they might say), ‘I love when you wear those Polos.’ And, you know, that’s a great thing for a guy to hear because it builds confidence, but then that actually opens him up to be able to say, ‘I love when I wear my Polos. Maybe there’s a Polo alternative, or maybe there’s a Polo that has a little more decoration on it.’

“So, I think women can guide men and help with their insecurity about style. But, I think what women should know is that they need to give men a long leash to find out what their own style is. And I think it’s wrong for anybody to try to change someone’s style completely, because that’s who they are. But we can all use an upgrade, and I think wherever that comes from can be helpful.”

Q. What place does high fashion have among everyday wear? Because I think that’s something a lot of people wonder about.

A. “High fashion is kind of at the pinnacle of creativity. It is what moves the culture in a lot of ways. Fashion will determine the colors of interior design. It’s responsible for how stores look, or how they’re merchandised. And you can poo-poo high fashion and say, ‘Oh, that’s just a lot of crazy clothes on a runway,’ but at the end of the day — we know this from ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ — there’s that trickle-down effect.

“It’s so nice to see that the stores, in winter, are not all filled with black and gray merchandise anymore. There are so many creative designers out there working with fall fabrics in color for men, and it gives men the confidence to want to wear a teal green outerwear coat or a bolder plaid blazer or whatever it could be.

“So I think high fashion does dictate. It takes a while to reach people sometimes, especially if they’re not interested in fashion, but they should always know in the back of their mind it’s coming from that source. And because there’s so much fast fashion out there now. I think fast fashion can live with high fashion, and high fashion can come into stores within six months (of its influences appearing on the runway).”

Q. What’s been the most rewarding part of your journey so far?

JM: “GQ really schooled me on how to do a magazine every three-and-a-half weeks, whose vision was really pointed directly at the reader. We never did GQ for our contemporaries or the fashion business, or the advertisers — we always did GQ for the readers. And we’d have long talks about, ‘Okay, skinny ties are cool, but does the guy know that if you wear a skinny tie, that he has to wear that with a skinny suit with a skinny lapel and small collar? Let’s teach that!’

“One of my clients is Uniqlo, and they call me The Professor because I don’t think they do enough storytelling. So I’m like, ‘If you want to grab that male customer that doesn’t just perceive Uniqlo as a replacement to get socks and T-shirts and underwear, then you have to tell stories. You have to show them how they can buy a suit at Uniqlo, or how they can buy a cashmere turtleneck with a pair of pleated pants and look totally cool. I love working with actors and NBA players and doing covers and big projects like that, but that’s the most rewarding thing for me, talking directly to the guys. And the most fun.”

Q. What’s next?

A. “Next is what I’m in right now — I call it my Chapter Two. Having been at GQ since I was 19, and really being built for that ‘Every three-and-a-half-weeks, let’s make a new magazine’ life, I was excited about a pivot to freelancing, to be able to work with different brands, to not necessarily have to manage people. All of a sudden, I’m a free agent.

“Todd Snyder was the first one who (approached), and I said yes. We’ve kind of helped him creatively to build his empire visually. He has incredible point of view, and he’s an incredible designer, so it’s really great working alongside people like that. I’d have to say this chapter is as exciting as my last chapter, because I get to make a difference in these companies and it’s not that much different than what I did before.

“I’m still in photo shoots. I’m still as opinionated as ever about what I think about clothes and fashion, and still standing up for that guy who lives out there and is interested in fashion but he wants to know, ‘How do I stand out but still fit in at the same time?’”

Q. I love that you’re doing this talk at an art museum. Can you speak a little bit about fashion as an art form, and where that form is headed?

A. “Up until pretty recently, I was pretty much of the mindset of, ‘Fashion is a commercial endeavor.’ Doing a magazine is a commercial endeavor. Working with companies like Hugo Boss is a commercial endeavor. But what I do love about this new crop of designers — Pharrell or JW Anderson, Matthieu (Blazy) at Bottega — they’re creative, and you almost need to address them as artists, in a way, because they’re pushing the boundaries and they’re pushing the silhouettes of things, and they’re using fabrics that you would never use for a jacket or a dress.

“But they’re also interested in the culture of craftsmanship, and they’re not afraid to dip into wells of creativity of people who are wise and have been around for a while, or grab kids right out of school. And I think that kind of spirit has created a new genre of fashion where fashion can be seen as an art form.

“I mean, The Met has been doing it for years (with Met Gala); they’ve been doing a costume exhibit where fashion is art. My only thing about The Met is, like, when are we doing a menswear show? I had to talk to Anna (Wintour, global content advisor of Condé Nast, which owns GQ), (because) I feel like menswear is always considered the stepchild.

“So, not to get off track, but I do feel that … there is an interest in art that kind of permeates the fabric of the clothes. More and more, we’re going to have incredible archives of clothes that can be shown in fine art museums thanks to these more modern, more futurist designers that don’t try to separate church and state. The artisan culture is alive, and I think it’s being celebrated right now by a lot of designers, and I think that makes it museum-worthy.”

Q. What can people expect when they come to see you at the museum?

A. “If it was up to me, I would just make it a big question-and-answer fest. I hope I can tell people my story and maybe get people excited about my world and fashion and coming from a small town in the Midwest, putting my blinders on and going after something that I really wanted. And hopefully we can have a really good, challenging conversation. I’m going to bring some beautiful visuals. I’m going to tell people some things they might not know about the magazine industry, some things that I have done that have kind of disrupted the culture of menswear.

“Get ready for a little film I put together, which has some humor to it. Humor is my number one. Style secrets and a sense of humor, because the fashion industry is a very serious industry, and I like to add a little bit of humor. If you look at the pages over 40 years that I did at GQ, they’re joyful and they’re brash and they’re colorful and they’re in-your-face.

“I hope people in Detroit are interested in fashion and menswear, because that’s what I specialize in, and I really feel so blessed and honored to be coming there. And I can’t wait to see the museum. Everyone says it’s the best in the country, and I believe them.”

Q. Do we have time for one more question?

A. “Of course!”

Q. What is one essential item every man should have in his wardrobe?

A. “A well-fitting, tailored jacket. Call it a blazer, call it a sport jacket, call it a suit jacket — my feeling is, especially with the casualization of America, there always has to be a tailored piece that’s within reach, because at any moment, you’re going to have to meet someone in the corner office. You’re going to have to have a meeting somewhere, and it doesn’t matter if that blazer is from ZARA or it’s from Ralph Lauren, you’re going to get a compliment on that.

“People are going to notice that you’re wearing a piece of tailored clothing. If you show up in a Polo shirt, they’re not going to say anything. If you show up in a hoodie, they’re not going to say anything. If you take the time to put on a tailored jacket — you don’t even have to pay a lot of money for it, don’t even have to have it perfectly tailored — it shows that you are respecting yourself and the situation, and the person will always, automatically have more respect for you because you’re a little more dressed up than they are.”

Jim Moore will speak at the Detroit Institute of Arts’ Detroit Film Theatre (5200 Woodward Ave.) from 6 – 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. Attendance is free with advance registration; register at dia.org.

Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at dbeddingfield@freepress.com.

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