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Drum: COVER FEATURE
The
Modern
It’s been a long time coming, but when Outkast’s
the world, Richard Linstead discovered that it’s
S
tanding at the head of what has been dubbed
‘The Gentleman’s Movement’, Dre has made it
OK to dress again. He has dubbed his look ‘the
gentleman rebel’, and ranks films such as Legends of
the Fall and The Great Gatsby as his sartorial inspiration.
The inlay sleeve to his half of Outkast’s Speakerboxx /
The Love Below album is a manifesto for the gentleman rebel. A vision in tartan, pastels, and tasteful knitwear, Dre kicks the standard ‘thugged out’ hip-hop
uniform in its unattractively-baggy crotch.
Alongside him, stands former schoolmate, and pioneer of the
‘grown sexy’ look, Farnsworth Bentley (a.k.a. Cascade Cabernet,
a.k.a. Cashmere). Not nearly as well known over here, Bentley first
leapt to public attention in the States as the umbrella-wielding manservant / personal assistant / motivational coach to Sean ‘Puff
‘P.Diddy’ Daddy’ Combs, a man whose championing of the ‘ghetto
fabulous’ look did so much to damage hip-hop fashion, ‘Ghetto
fabulous’: was there ever a more needlessly overused and hopelessly oxymoronic expression? Why use five syllables to describe a
style of dress that could be quite adequately summed up in two?
‘Gau-dy’.