ICONS OF STYLE..

Pop stars come and go, and so do fashions, and of course music styles, but some things are eternal, like the uneven canter of an old Harley-Davidson panhead, or my fascination with retrobush, or the smell of napalm in the morning. Alvin Stardust is another such entity, skirting the fine line between fantasy and reality, between yesterday's past and tomorrow's future, and yes, dancing on the razor thin line between twilight and a new dawn.



Alvin, a star of the early 70s British glam rock scene, is that rare gem, a diamond, glittering in the haze of yesterday's memory, shining from among the dirt and gravel and stones, who even as we gaze through the mists of time, still sparkles as brightly now as he first did over 35 years ago. With a mean 50's rock and roll style, and titles as "My Coo Ca Joo", and "Angel from Hamburger Heaven", he had seven top ten hits, not to mention an entire "prior career" as rocker Shane Fenton, and numerous other show-biz credits. But it was all this, combined with his PERSONAL STYLE that allows consideration here.

Almost never seen wearing a smile, unless helping young girls cross the street, and rarely seen wearing any thing but head to toe black, (unless combined with possibly a pink scarf, cutting through the blackness like a neon sign in the city night), Alvin knew that no outfit was complete without matching gloves. Nobody's fool, he wouldn't let this get in the way of wearing large, strange, bulbous, rings - so he wore them ON TOP of his gloves. And with a towering 70's blow-dried pompadour that could only be described as SUPERB, he surely stood out amongst the hippies du jour.



Gordon Webster once saw him performing live on Hasting's Pier and described him as "On a par with Marc Bolan, way ahead of his
time."





Alvin once sang "Good Love Can Never Die", but he might as well have been referring to rock and roll, because despite MTV's best efforts, it's still alive and kicking, and here at the L.A.S. Offices that is something we have a mild sympathy for, as you may have noticed, and that's one more reason why Alvin Stardust is this week's ICON OF STYLE.

-KM