Bryan Ferry, musician and dandy: ‘Rock and roll is not just jeans and T-shirts’

The English singer celebrates 50 years of making music with a retrospective of his career. ‘Roxy Music was a great band, with unique characters, so being part of it was a real pleasure,’ he tells EL PAÍS

Bryan Ferry doesn’t know how many blazers he keeps in his closet. “Too many,” he shrugs. More than 100? “I have no idea. You can only wear one at a time, so you don’t need that many.” He then looks down at the light blue shirt he’s wearing this afternoon, with the top two buttons undone… and no jacket. He laughs: “Today, I’m going casual.”

Ferry, 79, is well known for both the music he plays with his band — Roxy Music — and as a soloist. There’s a dogged elegance about him: he cultivates a distinctly dandy esthetic, sometimes donning a suit and tie, or even a tuxedo, which is what he wore on the cover of his 1974 album, Another Time, Another Place. In 2020, the British edition of GQ magazine defined him as “the master of menswear.”

“Clothes are fun,” he explains. “When I was young, while studying, I used to work on Saturdays in a tailor’s shop. That got me interested in knowing the different ways of designing a suit.” His gentlemanly look is timeless. “I like old Hollywood movies, with Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Robert Mitchum… they were always well-dressed, they even wore hats. I miss that kind of thing.”

The English singer-songwriter sees music as an art form. In fact, he founded Roxy Music while studying Fine Arts at Newcastle University. Image has played a prominent role in his work. This is common to many other artists, but the difference is that Bryan Ferry has been proclaiming — for more than 50 years — that rock is compatible with class and refinement. “Rock and roll isn’t just jeans and T-shirts. If you look at people like Little Richard, he looked incredible. Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Booker T. Jones… they went out to play in very elegant suits, with different colors. It was something that inspired me a lot at the beginning of my career,” he affirms, during his interview with El PAÍS via video call.