Street-style inspiration from some of the sharpest celebrities around.

There are few garments more versatile and wearable than the contemporary bomber jacket, a piece that’s been featured so often in MR PORTER’s seasonal trend roundups that it’s beginning to feel like something of an essential – a cornerstone of the male wardrobe that sits comfortably next to pieces such as the navy blazer and the wool overcoat. The particularly nice thing about the bomber jacket though, is that however classic it’s become, it’s also been a point of focus for innovation in recent seasons: witness the plethora of embroidered and souvenir bomber jackets that are currently on offer from the likes of Gucci and Saint Laurent; or the oversized, MA1-inspired varieties heading our way from brands such as Acne Studios and Vetements. Plenty to choose from, then. But how to wear them? Happily, there are plenty of upstanding human beings around the world that are wearing bomber jackets rather well, so you won’t have to look far for inspiration. In fact you can just scroll down, and peruse some of our favourite recent examples.

Despite originally hailing from the leafy but less-than-edgy London suburb of Barnes, Mr Robert Pattinson does a very good job of nailing the attitude of a stylish New Yorker whenever he’s spotted out there. This is rather a neat bomber jacket, but he’s given it some attitude by wearing it with a rumpled, untucked shirt and bright-coloured cords with a very rough double turn-up. The round shades are very beat poet, the sneakers are very Britpop. The whole thing, in fact, is a rather glorious transatlantic mashup.

Mr Daniel Craig always looks smart, even when he’s being casual. (We can only suppose this is a stipulation written into his perpetually self-destructing James Bond contract). The above outfit is a lesson in how to dress up jeans and a bomber jacket without looking like an off-duty financier – the key elements being the desert boots (instead of Derbies or Oxfords), the subtle fade of the denim, and the supreme crispness of the shirt. As we noted last week in our piece about dressing for your body shape, this sort of outfit is particularly good on a muscular frame: the open drape of the bomber and unbuttoned shirt collar ensures that it doesn’t look like Mr Craig is bursting out of his clothes (however much the many fans of his Casino Royale swim shorts would enjoy this).

Ever at the forefront of developments in menswear, Mr Kanye West here shows us how the oversized bomber is worn well. The broad shoulders of this particular MA1-inspired example allow for plenty of layers underneath, and he’s taken this leeway to introduce a hoodie and baggy T-shirt to the mix, while keeping his bottom half equally slouchy in a pair of track pants with on-trend piping down the side of the leg. The size of the duck boots, meanwhile, help balance out the hulking shoulders of his top half.

If your style falls more along the minimal/Scandinavian axis, you might want to take a leaf out of Mr John Legend’s book when it comes to the bomber jacket. Sticking with a cool, clean palette of black and blue, his outfit here is all about simplicity – a navy bomber, a black T-shirt and some black sneakers with a thick, graphic white sole. Look a bit closer though and you’ll notice the subtle texture on the bomber itself, which helps to give the whole thing that extra edge of sophistication.

Of course, we had to include one example from Gucci in this roundup, given that the Italian brand is producing some of the most superlative bomber jackets currently on the market. And for all those who thought you could never wear a full Gucci look off the runway, we’d like to direct your attention to Mr Jared Leto, who chose the above ensemble for Gucci’s SS17 menswear show last year and, in our opinion, pulled it off. It works because although there’s a lot of pattern and decoration going on here, the colour palette is actually fairly restrained: blue and white, with a dash of red. Sensibly, Mr Leto has not gone too crazy with his accessories either; when you’re wearing acid-bleached jeans and a silk satin bomber, a pair of black aviators is quite enough.

The celebrities featured in this story are not associated with and do not endorse MR PORTER or the products shown

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