Sharp Stylings #13: Antoine Doinel

We can learn so much from yesterday’s fashion icons.  And living in a post-Mad Men world means we can even enjoy aspects of current male fashions! Every Friday, I’d like to start your weekend off right with a little style inspiration from either then or now. Hopefully, my fellow Mod enthusiasts will find the whole or some detail of the whole to appreciate and maybe even adopt.

One more post in honor of our European vacation, with an emphasis on Paris!

One of the best films I was turned on to back in my early college days was François Truffaut's 400 Blows. As much as I liked Godard and the rest of the French New Wave, Truffaut was the #1 director for me, mainly because he placed so much emphasis on the humanity of his characters. This was shown best in 400 Blows, which featured one of my favorite film characters ever: Antoine Doinel.

When that final freeze-frame hit the screen during my first viewing of the film, I thought that was it. Fin. But a few months later, my friend Jarrod (who now writes the Le Drugstore 1968 blog) clued me in to the continuing adventures of Antoine Doinel, first with the short film segment Antoine and Collete from the anthology film Love at Twenty and then with Stolen Kisses. At that point in my life, I related completely with Doinel and his struggles with women, boy, let me tell you. But you're not here to read about how I identified with a guy having women problems! You're here to read about STYLE! So let's move on.

Winter is finally hitting us and that means it's scarf time! Sure, most Mods are already down with the scarf look thanks to various Mod bands through time that have done their part to make solid, striped, and paisley scarves look rockin'. But it wasn't any of those bands that made me want to hunt down scarves at first. Nope, it was Antoine Doinel in this scene from Stolen Kisses:

Once I saw this scene, I knew I had to rush out and find something that cool to wrap around my neck. For a time in my early-to-mid-20s, scarves were my preferred type of neckwear, even beating out ties. And now that the weather is finally getting cold again, it's time to bust out the scarves. Let Antoine Doinel show you how it's done.

Great Stolen Kisses behind-the-scenes shot with Truffaut and Claude Jade (who played Christine Darbon).

Another Stolen Kisses behind-the-scenes shot with Truffaut.

Antoine Doinel with Colette (played by Marie-France Pisier) in Antoine and Colette. Ergh! She made me so mad in this film!

Okay, okay... this isn't a shot of Antoine Doinel, but rather his alter-ego Jean-Piérre Leaud in the film Masculin-Feminin by Jean-Luc Godard.



Jean-Piérre Leaud, again, but this time much younger. This image, found on the Shadowplay blog, is from the making of a film called Boulevard, which I've not seen. 

 Alright... I'm off now to grab a scarf and plop in some Truffaut DVDs! See ya Monday!