Welcome back to Fit Diaries, where GQ asks our favorite style lords to document a week through their outfits. Up next: LANY’s lead vocalist, Paul Klein.
Paul Klein would be the first to tell you that he idolizes Ralph Lauren. He’s obsessed with the legendary American designer: his ability to transcend “cool,” to exist beyond time and trends, and to get “better with age and wear.” “I was studying Ralph so much that I almost called our third album Ralph,” he says on a recent Zoom call from Los Angeles. “Can you imagine Ralph by LANY?”
In his condo living room, the LANY bandleader even has a tribute to the designer who helped make preppy style a cultural phenomenon: a magazine ad of Lauren in dungarees, leaning against a horse with a cigarette in hand. It’s a part of the mood board he crafted nine months ago to cover a blank wall. “What’s so amazing about him is that you could walk into a Ralph Lauren store today, and it’s not much different what’s in there than what was in there 20 years ago,” Klein says.
Flanked by Lauren is a collage of Klein’s other style inspirations: Kurt Cobain on MTV Unplugged, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. album cover, Iggy Pop and Johnny Depp (“I don’t know about his fashion taste now because it’s a little disappointing, but when he was young, he dressed really well.”) Images of gas stations, Marlboro cigarettes, The Wizard of Oz, and other homages to American culture are interspersed, too. “One thing that I’ve been able to do during quarantine is just scour the internet for visual references and inspiration,” says Klein. “I’m going to fill up the wall fully and then get some papier-mâché or something.”
Since LANY’s inception, Klein has been the artistic force behind the band, designing their merch and album art. The photos and ads on his wall helped inform the aesthetic for the band’s recent LP Mama’s Boy, which pays tribute to the band’s home state of Oklahoma. “Until we started rolling out this album, people thought we were this West Coast, California indie-pop trio,” says Klein. “But, it was cool to pay homage to where we’re from.” There’s even a song on it called “Cowboy in LA” that’s an ode to Oklahoma and the West Coast.
Klein shared his fit diary with GQ, compiling photos he took over a week as quarantine restrictions began to loosen.
Monday
