One Good Thing: Old Guys in Cool Jackets

Mark Hamill, Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, and more know the power of a fancy jacket.
Mark Hamil
Getty Images

All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Earlier this week, 67-year-old actor Mark Hamill attended a screening of the History Channel’s Knightfall in Los Angeles wearing an outfit so good, it merited a press release from Rag & Bone, which made his jacket. The look consisted of slim black jeans, a black tee, just-pointy-enough boots, and—the cherry on the sundae—the brand’s black leather racing jacket, which fit him like a glove. He looked fantastic. And we weren’t surprised to see it, either. As young guys have adopted baggy, dorky, practical “dad” style over the past couple of years, a good chunk of the over-55 set has gone in the exact opposite direction.

Getty Images

For example, just last month we wrote about another older gentleman looking sharp in a Rag & Bone coat and black jeans: Barack Obama at the Duke-UNC game. Like Hamill's, Obama’s look was dark in color, slim in fit, and minimalist in design. Jeff Goldblum, 66-year-old Saint Laurent superfan, understands the power of this trifecta well. He is rarely without a simple black leather jacket and slim-fit denim. And Tom Hanks, Jim Carrey, and Christian Slater have recently embraced this variety of cool-jacket minimalism. Dudes have never looked better—or dressed simpler.

Getty Images
Adrian Edwards
RB/Bauer-Griffin

The older gentlemen at the premiere of Netflix’s The Dirt this week? They took a slightly less quiet approach. The fiftysomething men of Mötley Crüe paired their cool jackets—in this case, blazers—with cool hats, cool aviator sunglasses, cool skull rings, cool pocket squares, cool raver boots, and more. They looked like rock gods, but not exactly of the 2019 variety. Hamill, several years older than all of them, at a quiet History Channel press event, wore his jacket baddest, best, and most modern. And all he had to do was...less. If five decades of style experience teach you anything, it might be this: Go straight for the top-shelf outerwear, served neat.