I love Flashioning Backward through UI’s archives. One never knows what one will find; it’s like the haunted house version of Googling. Today, we’ve lucked into The Last Shadow Puppets’ box. Let’s see what gilded, stylish paths these nice boys lead us down.
Appropriately, the Last Shadow Puppets seem to enjoy Flashioning Backward themselves: Their aesthetic is early ’60s era Beatles floppy (but not yet scandalous) ’dos, velvet and pop-art-era smart suit silhouettes. Somehow, they maintain enough retro-mod stylistic tension to prevent themselves from looking like sad also-rans in desperate need of an E! Entertainment style intervention.
Their “spellbindingly elegant pop songs” on The Age of Understatement seem like the product of a full-time, totally cohesive, decades long effort, despite the fact that it’s really just a side project between Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner and The Rascals’ Miles Kane. While many expected the album to be a one-time, beautifully warbled swan song, rumor has it they’re working on a new album. I just hope they employ the same brilliant writing techniques.
Below, see how these non-ironically retro (but totally modern) gentleman managed to produce their last album…while skating downhill. You know, as one does!
TOPICS: Flashion Backward, Kathleen Willcox