MR PORTER celebrates the life of the style icon.

For those who still romanticise downtown New York, and celebrate a culture that was both elevated and avant-garde, Mr Glenn O’Brien was the first among us. When the writer, editor and style icon died last week at age 70, he left a void that will not be filled. Rising to prominence in the early 1970s, and remaining at the center of downtown New York culture for more than four decades, he was a singular presence, astute and irreverent, witty and fierce, and resolutely his own man.

Mr O’Brien’s achievements give some indication of the measure of the man. In 1971, he was a young assistant to Mr Andy Warhol, who promptly put him in charge as editor of Interview magazine. At that time he was a regular at the Factory, a confidant of Mr Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ms Debbie Harry and others at the Mudd Club. It’s rumoured that he wore the white briefs on the cover of The Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers. He may well have started the rumour himself. And of course he also hosted the pioneering television show TV Party, which he said was loosely modelled after Mr Hugh Hefner’s original program Playboy’s Penthouse. That’s to say: cool people (possibly high) hanging out in front of a camera.

Mr O’Brien was born in Ohio, and attended Georgetown University, where he was a preppy who loved jazz. He was comfortable with paradoxes. Over the years he evolved into a dandy who enjoyed golf, a poet who played bridge. He wore Savile Row suits and let his collars fray (a habit he learned from the great Mr Fred Pressman of Barneys). He said his hobby was housekeeping.

He understood commerce’s place in American culture and wrote a prophetic column on advertising in Artforum from 1984 to 1990. He was the creative director who helped craft the image of Barneys in the mid-1990s when its influence was at its height. Mr O’Brien understood art and image and how they fit together. He was a classicist who was entirely modern. He loved Twitter but read the Greeks.

Mr O’Brien was an authority on dressing and decorum. As Mr Calvin Klein has said: “Glenn O’Brien is the Socrates of popular culture.” Indeed, he was the Style Guy at GQ, a column he wrote for more than 15 years. He was incredibly prolific, the author of many books, including How To Be A Man (Rizzoli). He collaborated on a book with Mr Richard Prince, he coined the term editor-at-large, when he held that position at High Times. He edited Madonna’s notorious book Sex – some suggested he wrote it.

But listing these things – and there are many more – does not fully capture a man who wrote about dandyism and viewed it in a philosophical sense. “The true dandy,” he wrote, “dresses to honor himself… and to demonstrate the superiority of the timeless to the latest.” The pursuit of style (he was sceptical of “fashion”) was a personal aesthetic, something private first and public second.

You’d visit him and he’d usually be in well-worn Belgian shoes. It seemed like he was going to retire to bed with a book, but then it turned out he would have to go conduct a phone interview his friend Ms Kate Moss. “He was a downtown renaissance man,” according to designer Mr Mark McNairy. Aside from all the theorising, as Mr Nick Wooster has said, “He possessed the rarest of qualities that very few can claim – he was just fucking cool.”

Mr O’Brien knew people. And people liked knowing him. The entrepreneur and creative director Mr Andy Spade spoke for many after he passed when he said: “Glenn inspired me more than anyone and helped shape my view of the world.” He was a friend and mentor, and had an enormous influence on a generation of younger writers and editors. “He was an American original,” said the men’s store owner and designer Mr Sid Mashburn. “You can’t recreate Glenn O’Brien.” He was also a worthwhile nemesis, who was happy to have an enemy or two.

On a personal level, when I was a contributor to Interview and Art In America, he was the best editor I’ve ever had – astute, generous and responsible for the best lines. Last year he wrote the foreword to my book, but didn’t take a fee (his were high). We agreed I owed him a favour: “Maybe you can bury a body for me one day,” he said with a mischievous gleam in his eye. He had a great poker face – friends agreed that his emotions could be hard to read – but his eyes danced with life. You knew he was thinking, usually two steps ahead.

Glenn leaves behind a legacy of accomplishment and insight. He understood a world where we would all do things if we did them well. He did so many of them, and the secret of course, which can’t be imitated, is to do them all on your own terms and, above all, to do them with style.