The Style Council may have broken up in 1989, but Paul Weller is still dishing out fashion advice. The former frontman of the Jam has a stylized bone to pick with the looks of today’s pop stars and current bands, saying the bearded hipster lot look like they just came back from bear trapping.
Mum wasn’t the word as the always-sharp Weller made the comments to UK publication the Standard, taking aim at the casual look of today’s performers.
“I certainly wouldn’t name names but for me a lot of them look the same, like they’ve just come out of the woods and have been bear-trapping or hunting,” the “Modfather” says. “And they’re only young guys. The beards. I just don’t understand it. They look like bear trappers aged 40 or 50.”
The 57-year-old Weller was didn’t hold back towards a Standard reporter while at John Varvatos’ store in London, where he was also speaking at an event that linked rock and roll and fashion, according to WWD.
“I don’t get it and I don’t dig it,” he adds. “I’m sure some of the music is good but that puts me off straight away… The people I grew up with didn’t have stylists. Like the Small Faces — whatever they wore on stage they wore off stage too. They didn’t need a stylist to tell them how to be. That there is the major difference. Generally people dress far more casually now. And I think the bands generally dress casually too because we are symptoms of our times…. So it’s quite different. I look at a lot of bands now and I don’t get an immediate attitude or image from it, because they look like everyone else.”
Weller’s latest solo album, Saturn’s Patterns, dropped in May.