Culture
13 May 03

Style council

Is style important? We asked six musicians, and the answer was a resounding ‘you betcha’. Step forward Maria Tecce, Jerry Fish, Gabriela, Ollie Cole, Nina Hynes and Bjorn Baillie

Every season the process begins again. Fashion designers scratch beautiful shapes into sketchpads, seamstresses squint into their stitching, and dressers scoop it up and drape it around the queens of the catwalk. The energy, time and money poured into this seasonal fashion production is huge. The most beautiful people in the world parade the most beautiful clothes in the world past us. But little of it registers in the collective memory.

The image of Freddie Mercury pounding the stage wearing only a handle-bar moustache and a white latex jumpsuit, however, will sustain. The memory of a platinum blonde, blood-lipped, cone-bustier-ed Madonna endures. And Ziggy Stardust will live forever. The timeless images of purebred style belong to the musicians. So where do the musicians of today go from here? I spoke to six Irish artists about their sense of style.

"I always buy women’s shirts in French Connection":
Ollie from Turn explains why when it comes to clothes shopping, frequently ladies is first

"I wouldn’t be a Britney Spears kind of girl. All this pink and blue I’m seeing in the shops is beginning to drive me up the wall":
film-noir cinephile Maria Tecce officially declares black the new black

"If somebody gives me something and it’s not the right shape but I really like the colour I’ll cut it up so it fits me right":
rip it up and start again, advises Nina Hynes

"I find it funny that so many bands seem to go straight to being the 1972 Rolling Stones – when it even took the Rolling Stones ten years to get there":
wise up and slow down, counsels Bjorn out of La Rocca

"There’s no democracy at all – I tell everyone to dress like they’re going to a funeral":
Jerry Fish's Mudbug Club prescription for looking dead good

"I think it’s a matter of taste. If you like to go out and be like Madonna or whatever that’s fine, but I think it has nothing to do with music. If you are a good musician, no matter if you’re naked, you’re a good musician":
Gabriela from Rodrigo y Gabriela on where style finishes and talent begins