w magazine    f e b r u a r y  1 3,  1 9 9 3

"The New Suit"
Dana Kellin

Spring's hottest men's wear is relaxed, open to interpertation -anything but stuffy. It suits Chris Isaak perfectly.

Until recently, Chris Isaak used the phrase "three-piece" to describe a musical trio. But while Levi's and a T-shirt fit the singer half of his personality just fine (a follow up to 1990's smash hit album Heart Shaped World is due on Reprise Records this spring), Isaak's latest gig calls for a somewhat different wardrobe. Now he suits up every day for his acting role as a yuppie architect in Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddha, currently shooting in Seattle.

"I like wearing suits. They make you look legitimate-like you have a job," says San Francisco based Isaak, who was so unaccustomed to the concept of career dressing that he neglected to pack one when he went to read for the part in Los Angeles last year. Luckily, fate steep in and Isaak ended up borrowing a suit from Giorgio Armani, one of Bertolucci's good friends.
"I am very self-conscious," he admits. "Then I met Bernardo and first words out of his mouth were, "Oh, nice suit. Armani?"

With his newfound taste for the sartorial high life, Isaak should find this spring's offerings to his liking. While elements of the tradtional are in evidence -a pinstripe here, a double breasted jacket there -the shapes are looser and less constructed. And there's plenty of room to add his own unique touches.

The new suits also happen to be in harmony with Isaak's surprisingly clean-cut notions of proper rock 'n' roll image.
"When we play, everyone in the band should look like they got a haircut, a bath and a suit  to match,"  he says. "Then everybody looks up at the stage and thinks, 'These guys are in a band together.' Looking at a couple of guys with different clothes on, the audience may think they wrote the songs in the car on the way over."

(EDITORIAL NOTE: this is quite possibly the worst article ever.)