The White Stripes have no doubt contributed to the fashion world with their red-black, red-red, black-red, red-white, white-red, black-white, and red-black-white ensembles. "They are the most powerful color combination of all time, from a Coca-Cola can to a Nazi banner," Jack White said of the color combo in 2006 Rolling Stone article. "Those colors strike chords with people. In Japan they're honorable colors. When you see a bride in a white gown you immediately see innocence in that. Red is anger and passion. It is also sexual. And black is the absence of all that."
For their new release this week, Icky Thump, the White Stripes went with the black-white combo, donning rhinestone suits that would make Elvis proud.
The inspiration for the shiny wardrobe came from a photo White saw of a Pearly Kings and Queens, the traditional cockney costume covered in mother-of-pearl, their stylist Brandy St. John revealed.
Pearly King and queen footage:
"He contacted me," St. John told NME.com of White's idea, "and asked if it would be possible to make something like that for him and Meg (White) to wear for this record. I thought it was a great idea so we sketched up ideas to see what they would look like."
The pearly suits, from the fitting process to meticulous sowing took five months to make and each required 50 hours of hand sewing. "I originally thought we would need about 3,000 buttons," St. John admitted, "and it ended up being 13,000! It was hard to commit to a design because it was kind of like getting a tattoo. Once the buttons are on you don't want to take them off."
St. John also incorporated another Jack White obsession into the frocks, the number three - three stripes on the back of his suit and on the cuff of the sleeve.
"They're colorful, wild and totally over the top!" St. John says of the suits. We couldn't agree more and hope to see the band wearing them somewhere along the tour.
