This week (due to entirely personal and subjective reasons) I am exploring the different archetypes of Real Men. With deference to seniority and decades past we begin by honoring the Old Gent category and its standard-bearer, Porter Wagoner. The country icon just passed away, and he'll be sorely missed. Not only did he help Dolly Parton get started on his TV program (though later he sued her),  he did more for rhinestone suits and old-fashioned Nashville flash than nearly anybody else in town.

He wasn't the only one to wear them, but his lanky frame and standstill style made you really notice those sequined clouds and arrowheads on his lapels. He wrote impeccable, narrative, philosophical songs that painted whole pictures in a few verses. He seemed to have a pompadour made of Teflon: It rivaled many a woman's beehive in its complexity of masses and sweeping curls and its perfect range of bottle colors, yet never seemed out of place. Even as he got grilled with double entendres in a Borat gag, not a hair strayed.    

I know an old gent around here with a similarly lean, lean frame that gives him a preternatural grace as he moves down the aisles of a supermarket. He also sports a pompadour — silver-haired — and is never out of his Western wear. I'm trying to get a photograph of him, so I can really feature him in his boots-and-belt-buckle glory, but he's not an impulsive fellow and has to think about it. Meanwhile, I got to ask him who he considered his major style influence. He said, "I don't know about that term, style, but when I think of a snappy dresser who managed to never make a fool out of himself, I think of Porter Wagoner."

Like many a Nashville star, Wagoner believed that showmanship was part of the job: If you're going to catch the light, you'd better reflect it back as brightly as you can. He was a regular customer at Nudie's Rodeo Tailor, home of the rhinestone suit. (The one pictured here is similar to what Wagoner wore in the video of "Run That by Me Again" with Dolly Parton.) It was started by Russian émigré Jamie Nudie, whose story is meant for a ballad yet to be writ: He started out making G-strings for showgirls and just took off from there.   

When you think of a Rhinestone Cowboy, you're really thinking of a man in a Nudie suit. When I think of an Old Gent in olive-green, ostrich cowboy boots and a sky-blue suit, I think of Porter Wagoner, who leaves behind these well-cut lyrics from "A Satisfied Mind":

How many times have you heard someone say
If I had his money I could do things my way
But little they know that is so hard to find one rich man in ten with a satisfied mind
Once I was waiting in fortune and fame
Everything that I dreamed for to get a start in life's game
But suddenly it's happened I lost every dime
But I'm richer by far with a satisfied mind
[ steel ]
Money can't buy back your youth when you're old
Or a friend when you're lonely or a love that's grown cold
The wealthiest person is a proper at times compared to the man with a satisfied mind
When life has ended my time has run out
My friends and my loved ones I'll leave there's no doubt
But there's one thing for certain when it comes my time
I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind


Jana Martin is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Fashion & Design.