Celebrating Edward Gorey, Style Icon

Edward Gorey at the New York State Theater. “The lynx coat in this photo follows the lines of an oversized peacoat and was specified, and more or less designed at his favorite Seventh Avenue furriers (I recall a firm run by brothers one of whom was Harold), where he’d go and choose the skins he wanted before describing how he’d like his coats fashioned,” recalls Gorey’s friend, and Wall Street Journal dance critic Robert Greskovic. “He would specify no buttons or closings of any kind, but rather enough ‘double-breasted’ overlap so he could hold his coats closed when he needed to as he moved about the frigid streets of NYC. Likewise, his coats were constructed with linings made with roomy, inside breast pockets where he could keep a paperback book or some such for reading matter, say, at ballet intermissions. One rule also held fast for him when he wore his fur coats: No sitting down in them!”

Photo: Bruce Chernin. Image Provided By The Alpern Collection, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

Among the things you might not know about Edward Gorey—the cult American artist known for his moody drawings and fearsome tales of mystery and murder—is that his distinctive sense of style extended beyond the page. The man knew how to put together a look.

“He wrote it all down Zealously,” from The Glorious Nosebleed (1975).

Photo: Courtesy of © Edward Gorey Charitable Trust

The cult of Gorey, which has seeped into popular culture, influencing film directors (Tim Burton) and fashion designers (Marc Jacobs, fall 2005) alike, is linked to the artist’s work, rather than his person. The gothic appeal of his moody drawings and the sophisticated chic of the odd characters that populate his eccentric world have a base popularity that occasionally spikes, and now is one of those times. “The Telltale Bart,” a segment on The Simpsons Halloween special Treehouse of Horror, airing this Sunday, pays homage to the artist, and there’s a movie and television series in development based on Gorey’s books The Doubtful Guest (1957) and Neglected Murderesses (1980), respectively. All this activity makes it a good time to turn the magnifying glass on the man behind the macabre images.

Born in Chicago in 1925 and educated at Harvard, the bearded Gorey is remembered as a cat person, an avid reader, and the ultimate balletomane. His appearance has received less attention, but it was so striking that in 1978 the noted arbiter of style Bill Cunningham dedicated a solo New York Times column to Gorey titled “Portrait of the Artist as a Furry Creature.”

“The Raccoon Coat.”

Photo: Courtesy of © Edward Gorey Charitable Trust

The sight of Gorey, who was more than six feet tall, in a huge fur coat worn with jeans, sneakers, earrings, and many rings on many fingers was a sight—even for supposedly jaded New Yorkers. The coat plus the beard lent a bearlike aspect to his style, which was equally foppish and preppy. His white sneakers were Keds, and according to the writer of the Goreyana blog, he preferred Lee and Levi’s jeans and Brooks Brothers shirts.

Edward Gorey on the set he designed for Dracula, in 1977. He received a Tony Award for the costumes he created for the play.

Photo: Jack Mitchell / Getty Images

Gorey won a Tony Award for the costumes he designed for Dracula on Broadway (he also devised the spectacular set) and understood the importance of clothing in communicating identity and mood. When it came to dressing his characters, he stuck mostly to Victoriana, Edwardiana, and the 1920s (his fainting flapper in the opening sequence of PBS’s Mystery! series is iconic). Their neat, sometimes strict attire and placid miens were a good foil for their often scurrilous motives.

Gorey was an introvert, but his style was expressive, individualistic, and informal. Silent movies, many made during the Jazz Age, were one of his many passions (he was known to track these in his “Interesting Lists”), and his own style nodded to that era. His fur coats were like the ones popularized by Ivy League swells in the 1920s.

“Alice,” from The Curious Sofa (1961).

Photo: Courtesy of © Edward Gorey Charitable Trust

In later life he became involved in animal rights and abandoned fur. In 2010, 10 years after his death, his trust auctioned 14 of his fur coats, among them one of his own design. This is how Vogue announced Gorey’s entrance into fashion in 1979: “Edward Gorey, the invariably fur-coated illustrator, set designer for Dracula and master of ghoulish charm, has branched out from his grizzly-business stories and illustrations into the fashion business: Fur-maker Ben Kahn is so taken with Gorey’s way with furry animals that Kahn is coming out, this spring, with a complete collection of Edward Gorey fur designs. For men. . . .”

A promotional drawing for Edward Gorey’s line of fur coats for men, with Ben Kahn.

Photo: Courtesy © Edward Gorey Charitable Trust

The 1970s of Ziggy Stardust and the New York Dolls was an expansive time for men’s dressing, and Gorey was in on the act—or was he? “His whole New York City getup with the jeans and the jewelry and the fur coats and making big entrances and waving bejeweled hands around was, by his own admission, a bit of a put-on,” says a friend of Gorey’s in Mark Dery’s biography, Born to Be Posthumous. Truly, a man of many mysteries.

The artist’s home on Cape Cod, which dates to 1820, is now a museum.

Photo: Tom Herde / The Boston Globe via Getty Images