Who was cooler: Steve McQueen or James Dean?
Words: Alex Woodhall
Cool, of irritating teenage slang origin, has become a serious currency in today’s world; however indefinable, we all crave to be labelled and lavished with it. The icons of style we regularly place on a pedestal – McQueen, Dean, Newman et al – all had it, whatever it is. A roguish masculinity perhaps? The ability to be the best-dressed man in the room whilst wearing just a white t-shirt and jeans? A gift of being able to seduce any woman alive? An impeccable taste in cars and an impressively unflappable manner behind the wheel? All rank highly in any theoretical scoring system.
In the pantheon of cool, Steve McQueen and James Dean are cast in marble, standing taller than most, but who stands the highest? Today’s shower thought, in written form, gentlemen is just that. In a Royal Rumble of cool, mano a mano, who emerges unscathed, sunglasses intact, not a hair out of place, McQueen or Dean?
The case for James Dean
A pinup for teenage disillusionment and archetype for disobedience through his iconic role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause, James Dean is far more than the embodiment of sullen adolescence.
Ranked as one of the best actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age, despite only taking a starring turn in three features, he was also the first to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. The legend of Dean though is cemented in his tragic early death, just 24 years of age. His youth thus preserved in a myriad of iconic photos, his cheekbones forever chiseled, eyes eternally squinted and wardrobe perpetually on point.
Dean’s iconoclastic nature is symbolic of his time. Post war, teenagers became liberated influencers and Dean was the leader of the clan. His style broke the mould, it was rebellious yet he never once looked off-kilter. The tousled quiff, the Harrington, the white t-shirt: they remain relevant and well, cool, today – over half a century since his passing.
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