The BAMF Behind BAMFStyle

If there has been anything close to a central philosophy on the blog, it would be to think about menswear as if it’s ~~a hobby~~ personal art (whether that’s photography or music) and to get dressed using the principles of Cinematic Dressing. It almost seems as if I’m saying to approach life as if it was a movie.

No, not in terms of going too far in Main Character Energy but to simply recognize everything as intentional choices that we have agency for, much like how every shot in a movie is full of things decided on during production. Nothing is an accident. Everything is intentional and that’s what makes this fun!

Figuring out how much this all plays together both in my head and in practice has been an interesting experience for me and my compatriots. It definitely reveals how we engage with menswear, as we’ve turned it into an exercise of expression and taste rather than to simply “not be naked”. In other words, we look at ourselves as if we were analyzing the costuming of a film.

Again, this is not a tedious undertaking. In fact, cataloging and discussing film character attire is a wonderful activity. We’ve always done it; it’s only “thanks” to the pandemic that we decided to really ramp it up and do it more (through our bonus podcasts). But we certainly weren’t the first ones to do this. There was one guy who has been analyzing wardrobes on the internet far before we were. And lucky for you, he’s the next guest on our podcast.

I can’t recall the first time I first came across BAMFStyle.com. Was it to see photos of Connery’s attire as Bond? Was it when I first heard that Gatsby was a remake and that I would be remiss if I didn’t see Redford’s RL suits? Who knows. The only thing I can remember is that almost every film that has worthwhile attire (especially if it’s an old one) has been covered by Nick on his wonderfully thorough site.

As you’ll hear in the podcast interview, Nick made sure to make this a scholarly endeavor. Each post goes into the in-universe and the meta decisions for his chosen subject, which could be a leading man to a background character. Nick tracks what pieces move from outfit to outfit, what the mindset is behind its use, and amazingly, as much costuming or production facts as he can include. A post Bond’s suits simultaneously juggles being an exercise in Cinematic Dressing, an overview vintage details, and a brief tailoring firm history all in one post. It’s clear that Nick was one of us.

I was even surprised that he wanted to come on the pod! Much like other online menswear luminaries (DW and BB to name a few) Nick doesn’t post his face on BAMFstyle, letting the words and photos he references be the star of the content. I had assumed he was a private individual but thankfully I was wrong! Nick, who might as well be a clone of Laszlo Cravensworth, was incredibly open on the pod.

He talked about how he started the blog way back in 2013 (two years before I started writing), how his taste informs what he writes, and how his own style has formed thanks to being obsessed with movie clothing. It seems that a love of movies eventually leads one to apply at least some of those principles to oneself. The interview also shows that a love of menswear mans that the content never stops. Nick revealed to us that his backlog of posts goes on for months. While it does help that he focuses on one outfit per blog post (a contrast to this blog, where I talk about the entirety of the film), the list of movies he has yet to cover is quite expansive. We may have inadvertently contributed to this list during the course of our interview.

I really hope you enjoy this episode as much as we had during the recording! I know that we don’t do interviews often, but this is what it’s all about: talking about clothes and getting dressed with the people that get it like we do. We prefer the term community rather than echo chamber.

Anyway, enjoy the pod and a selection of images from Nick, ranging from his favorite film/TV outfits to the stuff he wears himself!