If you need to find the musician Harrison Patrick Smith in any room that he’s in, just look for the guy in the skinny black suit. What the pinstripes are to the Yankees, a shrunken, chauffeur driver’s black suit is for Mr. Smith, 28, who performs as the Dare. And so, on Wednesday evening in Paris, Mr. Smith sat at the Acne Studios fashion show wearing, what else? A reedy, single-breasted suit.
They’re all slightly different, he told me. I’ll take his word for it. The Acne suit he wore looked pretty much identical to every suit I’ve ever seen him in. Same slender cut. Same coal shade.
The first one, he said, was cobbled together at his local Goodwill in New York, but he now owns one by Gucci. Maybe, he hoped, Acne would let him keep this one. Mr. Smith said he could use a few more. He’s currently touring Europe, doing his sweaty one-man show.
What I thought was that he made a simple idea work. Years ago, he would have been just another guy in a suit, but men’s fashion has devolved, particularly for his baby-faced generation. Mr. Smith always sort of looks as if he’s doing something subversive. Do I even need to point out that he was the only guy in the room wearing a suit?
The Dare, would have looked less daring at the Tom Ford show an hour later. There is no American label this side of Ralph Lauren for whom the suit has mattered more. If a man hovering around middle age — Tom Brady, Jay-Z, David Beckham — made it to a best dressed list, a Tom Ford suit likely graced his shoulders. Mr. Ford has been a leading lobbyist for the meticulous suit since before Mr. Smith was born.
Let me know if you need me to add anything else!
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