Style Icons: Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe

Before she was the Godmother of Punk, and before he shocked the art world with his glamorous photographs of leather boys and underground erotica, Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe were just two struggling artists trying to make it in New York City. They met during the Summer of Love, and from that point on they became permanently entwined in each others lives and work. They also, unsurprisingly, had an effect on each other's fashion-sense, which is currently my style inspiration for the summer. I could easily devote a blog entirely to them for so many reasons outside of the way they dress(ed), but for right now let's focus on their early sartorial decisions.







So let's sum up some of the key pieces that make up their look:
-White button-up shirt unbuttoned to the waist (Robert) with the ends tied at the bottom (both)
-Black mesh shirt (Robert)
-Wide headband and rolled-up linen pants (Patti)
-Black skinny jeans and DIY necklaces made with sacred little objects like rabbits' feet, silver skulls and feathers (both)
-Classic combination of a worn, white T-shirt and holey, distressed jeans (both)
-Black shoulder-less t-shirt (Patti)

Recreating this style by adding any of these pieces to your summer wardrobe will give you an androgynous bohemian air, and hopefully inspire the same kind of creativity and youthful indignation which arose from one of rock's greatest love stories (if you want to know exactly what I mean, you should definitely check out Smith's memoir, Just Kids, which documents their lives together before their careers took off).