Released at the dawn of the 1980s, American Gigolo proved prophetic. As Christopher Laverty of Clothes on Film put it, “American Gigolo is not even about its protagonist, it is about what he wears. American Gigolo is about Armani.” This idea set the precedent for an entire decade. In the height of the materialistic '80s, the adage “the clothes make the man,” was pushevd even further—suddenly, a man was his clothes

Reflecting on the film decades later, director Paul Schrader told GQ, “to me, the clothes and the character were the same. I mean, this is a guy who does a line of coke in order to get dressed.”

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