Stylish Movies: Rockwell

In this new series we get different contributors to name the movies which have most influenced their wardrobe choices. Rockwell is Vice UK's underground metal fiend, Vice Style production guy, serious collector of Nike footwear, Speedo fan, and viking lookalike.

WILD AT HEART (1990)

For me, David Lynch's Wild At Heart is his greatest feat after or on a level with Twin Peaks. It appeals on so many levels it's alarming, from the recurring thrash sounds of Powermad's "Slaughterhouse", to Sherliyn Fenn's car crash death cameo, WiIlem Dafoe's character… it is an endless list. The styling of the movie is very important, as with all of Lynch's flicks, and when Sailor—the ever-chameleon Nicolas Cage—gets out of jail at the beginning his girlfriend Lula—a very hot Laura Dern—presents him with his grail, a snakeskin jacket, which he proclaims to be "a symbol of my individuality, and my belief in personal freedom". Hell, I am not gonna argue with Cage, are you? All in the name of Elvis, too. Dern looks insanely hot throughout and in her leather bra tops and lace dresses looks more like the girlfriend of Tommy Lee than Cage. Oh, and Isabella Rosselini made monobrows an object for perverse attraction for the first time in my life. Sorry, Ms. Kahlo, but I'd never heard of you back then.

BOXING HELENA (1991)

Jennifer Chambers Lynch—yep, daughter of the man himself—served up this treat. Sherilyn Fenn features again as a bitchy slut with whom Dr. Nick Cavanaugh, played excellently by Julian Sands, is maniacally infatuated. Long story short, she is involved in an accident, so he decides to amputate her legs and then when she tries to escape from his warped clutches, her arms. The film was universally panned. Yes, it has a dumb ending, but overlooking that it is as good a story on the conflicts between a man obsessed and a woman with no interest in the obsession as they come. Dr. Cavanaugh's obsessive amputee pedestal and its flower arrangement is something that stays with you long after the movie's done. It's really only Ms. Fenn's outfits that are extraordinary. I am guessing this contrast was a calculated move in order to make Dr. Cavanaugh's obsession more obvious or plausible. His outfits are blatantly bland but he does rock a nice Nike wifebeater and windbreaker at the beginning.

WHERE THE DAY TAKES YOU (1992)

For some reason, not a lot of people seem to have seen this flick about street kids living rough in San Francisco in the early 90s, looking to get high and stay alive. Now, when I say "street kids", I am talking about actors like Sean Astin, Lara Flynn-Boyle, Baltazhar Getty, Rikki Lake, Will Smith, plus Agent Cooper akaKyle MacLachlan as a smack dealer. Where the Day… begins with almost seven mesmerizing minutes of film of San Francisco's real punks, metalheads, crackheads, and hookers just hanging out, hustling. If you are or are tempted to reference any of these looks currently, please memorize this clip so you stop getting it so completely wrong. As for the cast's wardrobe, I can't decide which is more impressive—dread extensions on a white guy, or David Arquette's cropped tee.

MI VIDA LOCA (1993)

Everything I miss about early 90s girls seems present in this chola flick. We're talking BIG-ass hair, complete with mucho hairspray, think lip liner, baggier hoodies than you'd see on Rick Ross, oversized plaid shirts, cheap gold jewelry, and the all important nylon Nike Cortez. Yup, this ticks all the boxes, plus, there's even a cameo by the insanely hardbodied Salma Hayek. The movie kinda sucks though, but hey.

TRUE ROMANCE (1993)

Yeah, yeah, I know, you've seen this years ago and are long bored about talking about how amazing it is and agree that it is clearly the best script Tarantino ever wrote. Slater's obsession with Elvis is almost on a par with Cage's in the aforementioned Wild At Heart, but his style is way more kitsch. In 93 the trash equals cool thing was still something a lot of people didn't get. But it is relevant. Take his persistent wearing of those gold-framed 70s fat-Elvis shades, for instance. Slater wears them with both pride and conviction. Unfortunately, the film helped to eventually make this sort of styling so popular that you only ever see glasses like his on the sort of men who do things "for a laugh". Outside of the main characters, you have Gary Oldman as a Hawaii shirt-wearing rasta, Christopher Walken as a sharp-suited Mafia boss with a particularly nice scarf, Dennis Hopper as a cop, and Brad Pitt as the ultimate stoner. In fact, I can't help but want to adopt nearly every look worn by everyone in this movie and I reckon that's only a little to do with them being total badasses.

THE DOOM GENERATION (1995)

I guess everyone is going Gregg Araki crazy right around now. Some idiots even try and loosely align interest in the guy with the "grunge revival", which is weird really, as grunge never actually existed… Anyways, there is more than enough here to keep your average fashion student's fanny fizzing. In the beginning, James Duvall looks pretty hot in his torn-almost-to-the-waist sleeveless Ministry t-shirt, whilst Rose MCGowan looks pretty much like the American Apparel chick prototype, in her small black dress and black Dr. Martens. Enter the so-fucking-hot-he-could-turn-straight-guys Xavier, played ever-so nonchalantly by Johnathon Schaech, but is unfortunately rocking one of those nowadays really obvious D.A.R.E. tees. Their best outfits come when they play dress-up—well, that's how it looks—at a thrift store after they murder a neon-overall wearing, mask wearng, sex pest they encountered at the drive-thru. Rose McGowan looks incredible in her 50s-style shades and transparent mac a la Blade Runner, James Duvall opts for some kind of skate teen look, and Schaech rocks a faux-cowboy outfit complete with holographic rodeo belt buckle.

CRASH (1996)

This movie is more talked about than it is watched, perhaps like many of Cronenberg's movies. Back in 1996, it was actually banned by London's Westminster council. The premise of the movie is basically people who get off on car crashes. This character's attire is never really explained in the movie but she's always covered up with some weird-ass body armor and these leg stabilizers, presumably to realign her boy from numerous car crashes. In a word, hot. In two, really hot. In three, really fucking hot. Everyone else seems to be in yuppie mode in expensive-looking suits and dresses. It is worth noting that nobody at any point seems to have heard of underwear. Well, OK, there's a bra in the trailer. I guess when you are wedged in a car wreck and all you wanna do is fuck, taking off underwear is a bit of a drag.

GUMMO (1997)

Wardrobe for Harmony Korrine's directorial debut was apparently styled by some chick called Chloë Sevigny. She looks pretty smoking throughout and before this I had never been so attracted to someone with such—bleached—blonde eyebrows. The trampoline and pool scene still resonate in my head to this day. Everyone else in it, however, looks really authentically redneck and outside of the women in this, I can't really believe anyone else was styled. There is huge emphasis on thrift store fashion, which, shortly after this movie came out, became known by the diabolical term 'vintage'.

MACHETE (2011)

Lets include Machete just to prove I do watch movies made in the last decade, but in a movie where there's a shower scene with Jessica Alba and a nudie pool scene with Lindsay Lohan I am sorry to say that the chinos, wifebeater, and braces combo of a couple of chola mechanics turned killers really do it for me. Look at that face, phwoar.