In vogue … Hockney wears a rugby shirt as he lounges on a sofa in his studio and apartment in London in 1972. Photograph: John Hedgecoe/Popperfoto/Getty Images
Peroxide mop, statement specs, tweed suits and quirky Crocs: David Hockney’s genius for fashion. With his trademark glasses, his bleached hair and a thrillingly haphazard approach to colour, the artist’s signature style evolved and captivated decade after decade. If artist style is now a well-trodden path in fashion, there are some examples that stand out. David Hockney – with his trademark glasses, rugby shirts, trenchcoats and quirks like wearing a pair of yellow Crocs to meet King Charles in 2022 – might have been top of that list.
His flair for style was there from the start: a self-portrait of Hockney at 16 shows him dressed in a blue coat, red scarf and yellow tie, already with strong statement specs. As time went on, he developed his trademark look. The peroxide mop came in the early 60s, after he saw an advert for Clairol proclaiming “blondes have more fun” and his signature round spectacles replaced his NHS specs by the middle of the decade.
Quirky … David Hockney wears yellow Crocs at the Order of Merit luncheon at Buckingham Palace in 2022. Photograph: Reuters
As the 70s and 80s unfolded, the signature clothing arrived: rugby shirts, brightly coloured suits and perfectly crumpled trenchcoats. Much like Pablo Picasso in his Breton, Andy Warhol in his fright wig or Georgia O’Keeffe in her white blouse, “he became an artwork himself,” wrote Vogue in 2025. This panache was quickly noted – he appeared on Vanity Fair’s Best Dressed List in 1986.
The artist documented his outfits himself, of course, creating more than 300 self-portraits. These included him in red braces, in a flat cap, a checked shirt and a tweed suit, quite often with either a paintbrush or his other trademark accessory, a cigarette.
Inevitably, Hockney became a reference for fashion designers. His seemingly haphazard artistic approach to wearing colour – so central to his work – was a big part of the appeal. People who think about clothes a lot were fascinated by a man who could look striking without looking perfect. As the Guardian wrote in 2014, “his clothes never look new or overly styled or even thought out but are somehow simultaneously a total ‘look.’”
Christopher Bailey designed a collection inspired by Hockney while at Burberry in 2013. Speaking backstage, Bailey said: “I once saw David Hockney on Jermyn Street, wearing a cream linen suit with a perfect green paint smudge on it. I love the way Hockney wears colour, so that you’re never completely sure how deliberately the look is put together.”
‘A total look’ … in London, circa 1965. Photograph: Tony Evans/Timelapse Library Ltd./Getty Images
Paul Smith, who designed a collection inspired by Hockney in 2008, echoed this sentiment almost exactly when speaking to Vogue in 2017. “I remember once bumping into him in town, and he had a pinstripe suit on, but in an interesting shade of blue, and he wore it with a teal shirt and an emerald-green tie,” he said, “very tonal colours that fought each other and looked very feisty together.”
Hockney was an icon of 60s and 70s bohemia and hedonism, friends with people such as Warhol, Ossie Clark, Manolo Blahnik and Cecil Beaton. Smith recalled an anecdote from his wife, Pauline Denyer, who was at the Royal College of Art with Hockney: “[She] remembers him graduating, and causing an absolute outrage because instead of wearing the mortar board and gown he had a gold lamé jacket on and had dyed his hair blond.” In an era where outfits worn by those in the public eye are chosen with great care by teams of stylists, his unconsidered and spontaneous take on fashion is like catnip.
Trademark accessories … Hockney in 2023. Photograph: Dave Benett/Getty Images
The artist was photographed during this period by his friend and sometime lover, Peter Schlesinger, wearing those now familiar items: the suits, the glasses, the too-long scarves. These images, and others of Hockney in his studio in a paint-splattered sweatshirt, have gone beyond fashion designers’ mood boards to become familiar style references on social media as this analogue era of abandon seems further and further away. A dupe of Hockney’s Coney Island sweatshirt can now be bought on Etsy for £40, and the current vogue for the rugby shirt can, at least in part, be traced back to Hockney.
Happily, Hockney lived and worked for many more decades, and his style evolved as he did, always keeping that flair for the unexpected. In his later years, he stuck to suits – often made by a tailor in Cannes, with the same ones worn for both painting and private views – set off with colourful knitwear. The Crocs at the Order of Merit luncheon performed the same visual function, if on the feet. King Charles, for one, was charmed. “Your yellow galoshes!” he remarked. “Beautifully chosen.”
