The Fashionista Girl: The Stylings of Tom Brady

The Fashion of Tom Brady: A Retrospective

There aren’t many events that can, literally, blow up the internet.  A Karshadian sex tape (though not Rob or Khloe), a tweeted or texted “weiner,” a video of a cat on a skateboard: these are all monumental events that will immediately make the cyber-world stop and take notice.  Included within this pantheon is anything involving Tom Brady, his wife Gisele, or, most significantly, his hair.  So you can only imagine the chaos that ensued when word broke from Brady’s weekly press conference yesterday when (egads!) his famous golden locks had given way to a buzz cut…hidden by a baseball cap no less!

In honor of this historic event, I decided to take a look at the evolution of Brady’s style–prominently featuring his hair, of course–over the years.  Let’s face it, Tom Brady could look good wearing a poncho, knickers, crocs, and a fanny pack.  But let’s take a look at what’s particularly worked (and failed) for Brady over the years.

The Rookie: Here’s a shot of Brady during his first year in the league.  At this point, he was just another wide-eyed, gangly kid trying to make an NFL roster.  Little did we know he would “grow up” to become dominating force, and style icon, that he is today.  But despite the standard jock cliche’ backwards cap and t-shirt, you can see from those steely eyes and chiseled face that the potential to be more is there.

The Gateway: Once Tom hit the big time, he started to step it up in both the style and dating department.  Here he is sometime in the 2003-2006 timeframe with one-time girlfriend Bridget Moynahan.  But let’s face it: the hair, the suit, the girl…we all knew Tom could do better.

The Upgrade: Now that’s more like it!  It was only a matter of time before Tom reached his full potential, and here he is looking absolutely striking on the red carpet in a Tom Ford tuxedo with Gisele.  This was likely the pinnacle of Brady’s style: sophisticated but not pretentious; handsome but not pretty.

The Casual Sophisticate:  It’s no coincidence that once Brady hooked up with Gisele he started taking more fashion risks.  Here he is with a great jeans-tie-jacket combo that, for years, I’ve been trying to get Mr. Fashionista to adorn.  Brady definitely pulled it off.  Any time you can wear a scarf outside of the winter and not look French is a plus in my book.  Love the color coordination in this ensemble, as well as the jacket juxtaposed against the more casual ripped jeans.

The Bieber:  And then came the long hair.  I don’t know about you, but I’m happy this era is over.  I’ll take my Brady ruggedly sophisticated over pretty any day.  Again, Brady always looks good, but he’s looking like an over-the-hill former Backstreet Boys singer in this picture (or Justin Bieber in 20 years).  This is around the point where the Brady hair bubble finally burst.

The Blank Slate: And here’s Brady’s new look just yesterday morning.  It’s truly a return to his rookie roots, so only a higher power (Gisele) knows where he’ll go from here. You can see from the baseball cap that Brady himself is not quite ready to embrace his new crew cut.  And maybe we aren’t either.  Perhaps, as the 80s hairband, Cinderella, put it, we don’t know what we got ’til it’s gone.