2010: Roger Stone's Best and Worst Dressed List

The third edition of my best and worst dressed list

Originally published January 5th, 2011.

Every year Hollywood designer and arbiter of fashion, Mr. Richard Blackwell, published his list of the ten best and worst dressed people in the demimonde. Mr. Blackwell has since gone to his maker, but the STONEzone refuses to let this fine tradition die. In 2008 we published our first 10 BEST AND WORST DRESSED PEOPLE in the world. It was well received. 2009 got more notice.

Our goal is to sort out those who are merely fashionable from those who possess real style, for fashion is fleeting and style endures. That’s why you won’t find Justin Timberlake or Gwen Stefani on our list. Fashion is about fads and what is “in” now, while style is a personal factor that can not be “learned”- you either have it or you don’t.

You will notice that our TEN BEST AND WORST dressed list contains liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. The STONEzone may lean right, and I personally dress right, but our style choices are completely non-ideological. Great style knows no ideology. We don’t take politics into consideration and in 2009 gave a posthumous listing to Ted Kennedy who continued the all- American ‘trad” based style of his brothers. This year former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown wins the Stonezone’s lifetime achievement award. While I don’t share Willie’s politics I share his love of the finest tailoring in America.

Frankly this column get harder and harder to write each year.The dressing of our citizenry hasn’t improved much in 2009. Finding finely frocked ladies is no problem. Few men care about the how they are adorned and it shows. There are no Fred Astaires, who mixed formality with a casual look seemingly without effort or Gary Cooper who favored an broad-shouldered American look with European touches he learned from an Italian sugar-mama he shacked up with before fame arrived. Washington has no Dean Acheson, an anglophile rarely seen without a proper fitting waistcoat, instead we have John Boehner, a son of the mid-west who dresses like an aluminum siding salesman.

The Zone has compiled it’s official list of the BEST and WORST dressed men and women of 2010. However, first a few more words regarding the sorry state of fashion in America, and the very few who can plausibly claim to be true possessors of style.

Americans cared deeply about proper dressing in the 1930s, 40s and even the 50s. The 60′s, a decade fashion forgot, also began a trend of informality that devolved over time from slovenliness in the 90s to dishevelment in the 2000′s. No matter how many times Details tells you to wear white sneakers with a tux……. don’t do it. The sheer number of men who will go out in public in a wife-beater is staggering. Very few can look like a young Marlon Brando but men still crowd casinos, bars, malls and sport events in this “outfit.” Women in “hoodies” and baggy sweat-pants with a Victoria Secret slogan on the ass seem to be ubiquitous

The task of then sifting the real dandies from our society-the men and women, who think about dressing without ever appearing to think about dressing, is more difficult than it appears. This nonchalance, this insouciant nature of dress must look effortless – like you “threw” it together, yet be tasteful, interesting and correct.