In Photos: Michael Jackson’s Fashion History
A young Michael Jackson in 1979: His all-brown outfit is straight from an era when car keys got put in bowls and cheese and pineapple got put on cocktail sticks. Although it’s been a firm Prada favorite through the years, being a notoriously tricky color to wear, brown has often been out of fashion’s favor. The all-brown 70s suit featured on Gucci’s catwalk for spring/summer 2017, but not all mono-toning is murky. For spring/summer 2019, Versace’s models wore lurid all-pink and fluoro highlighter-yellow suits.
Photograph: Jim McCrary/Redferns
Same year, very different sartorial mood – Saturday Night Fever had come out the previous year and Michael Jackson clearly knew how to show it here, wearing a bow-tie and sequinned jacket. It’s an outfit that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the Saint Laurent catwalk in New York earlier this month, for Anthony Vaccarello’s spring/summer 2019 menswear show.
Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
In Amsterdam to promote Off the Wall in 1980, MJ here looks like he’s transitioned seamlessly from 70s disco-chic to 80s lounge lizard. The T-shirt under the suit feels very Wham – or Louis Vuitton spring/summer 2019.
Photograph: Sunshine/Rex/Shutterstock