Style History: The Beastie Boys

Image via Complex Original

Where: New York City
When: 1982
Notable Styles: Beat-Up Doc Martens; Unbuttoned newsboy cap; NYHC swag

Back in 1982, the Beastie Boys were a teenage band on New York's emerging hardcore scene. Ad-Rock wasn't even a member yet - he was guitarist for fellow-fresh-faced hardcore quartet The Young and The Useless (second from right). Ricky Powell, who went to school with Ad-Rock at Greenwich Village's P.S. 41, remembers him having a certain something all the way back then.

"I seen Adam grow up, like 'Hey, you little squirt, what up?'" he recalls. "I used to see him on the street and think, 'That kid really has some fucking dope style.' He had the baseball cap with the bill turned up and his hair coming out, walking up and down Bleecker Street."

Where: Danceteria, New York
When: Unknown
Notable Styles: Budweiser T-shirt (ironic); Schoolly D T-shirt (non-ironic); Dr. Dre, later from Yo! MTV Raps, on the turntables

The Beasties were living in Manhattan's Chinatown at the time, and their fashion sense showed a downtown delinquent aesthetic.

"It was the way that a lot of kids dressed downtown at the time: baseball caps, high-tops with the tongue sticking out," Adams says. Former close Beastie associate and photographer, perennial downtown cool guy and long-time Greenwich Village resident Ricky Powell agrees. "Their style was kind of like me-baseball cap, loose pants, T-shirt," he says. "It's comfortable clothing; I'm not going to suffer to look good."

Where: New York City
When: 1985
Notable Styles: Matching Puma tracksuits (with off-brand kicks); Du-rags; Custom Graffiti hats, designed by Cey Adams

When Russell Simmons joined the Def Jam fold around 1985, the Beasties, looking for credibility, tried to dress the hip-hop part. But, in an early sign of his music-biz genius, Russ steered them in the opposite direction.

"When Russell first encountered them, they were trying to dress hip hop, wearing matching track suits," says Light. "He said, 'You know, that's not gonna work. What you need to do is be yourselves; don't copy another look.'"

Where: Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles
When: 1985
Notable Styles: Graffiti hat; Boom Box; Oki-Dog hat from L.A. hot dog chain, a famous punk-rocker hangout in early' 80s

The result of Russell's advice can be seen in this photograph, shot by Glen Friedman in L.A. during the Beastie Boys tour opening for Madonna. The boombox, white kicks and custom graf hats stayed, but that's it.

"When I shot them, they dressed like themselves," Friedman says. "There was no stylist. The only thing that was premeditated was Rick Rubin said, 'Mike D's gotta wear sunglasses.' I think he thought they made him look cooler. But Mike didn't have his sunglasses. Rick was really bummed out, but they ended up using the photos anyway."

Where: Outside Stromboli Pizza, New York City
When: 1987
Notable Styles: Three-finger ring; Beeper; VW necklace; Maroon Def Jam jacket

With Russell giving them the freedom to be themselves, the Beasties began honing their individual looks. Mike D broke out his signature jewelry, a Volkswagen hood ornament on a chain. The look set off a trend, with kids nationwide stealing hood ornaments from parked cars.

"That was something Mikey started, and that was a testament to how big the guys would become," Adams says. "It was them poking fun at the gold chains, and all the excessive expensive jewelry. They were never about those things. They'd find ways to humor themselves, and made fun of that lifestyle; in doing so, they created a new lifestyle."

Where: Unknown
When: Unknown
Notable Styles: Fuzzy pimp hat; Green leisure suit; Exposed bird chest

Whether it was a VW necklace or a bleach-blonde Caesar, Mike D's style was always the most outlandish and comical of the three.

"I think Mike D has always been the sex symbol of the group," Adams says with a laugh. "Mike tended to have the most outrageous outfits all the time. The other two guys would egg him on—that's why you'd see him wearing a captain suit, or dressed like a pirate."

Where: Grammy Awards, Los Angeles
When: 1987
Notable Styles: Duck-billed Mets cap (1986 champs, baby!); College T-shirt with sleeves cut-off; Goofball grill

Ad-Rock, meanwhile, went for a tongue-in-cheek take on jock/frat-boy burnout, with random school shirts and trucker hats-predicting early-2000s ironic hipster fashion by almost two decades.

"I gave him that shirt!" Powell remembers. "I played ball one year for Hunter, but I didn't get no runs, so I quit."

Where: Capitol Records offices, Los Angeles
When: 1992
Notable Styles: X-Large hat; "Screaming Target" T-shirt for Jamaican deejay Big Youth's debut album; Baggy jeans

In November 1991, Mike D partnered with Eli Bonerz and Adam Silverman to found pioneering streetwear brand X-Large, opening a storefront on Vermont Avenue in L.A. Though it wasn't the Beastie Boys' official brand, the group was closely associated with it, and X-Large helped disseminate their early '90s fashion aesthetic, a mix of hip hop and Socal skater styles (they were living in L.A. at the time).

"We were the first brand that started without a connection to skate or surf," Bonerz says. "Stussy started a surf brand and moved into street. But we were a streetwear brand, and that's what we were. Before there wasn't anything like that. There wasn't underground streetwear as a category; it was affiliated with surf or skate."

Where: Los Angeles
When: 1992
Notable Styles: Champion hoody; Workwear button-down, worn cholo style; Retro Adidas and Pumas

X-Large and the Beasties were some of the first prominent pushers of the retro sneaker craze that still grips streetwear enthusiasts to this day. At Mike's urging, the brand's stores sold old and out-of-print collectible kicks, particularly suede Adidas Campuses, Puma Clydes and Converse, at a time when Jordans, Nike Air Maxes, Reebok Pumps and other new styles were dominating.

"We knew where to get old Adidas shelltoes, but Mike said, 'We need to get those and sell them,'" Bonerz recalls. "No one was doing that. You take it for granted now, that there's a retro-sneaker culture."

Where: Los Angeles
When: 1992
Notable Styles: Ben Davis work shirt; Bowling shirt; Retro Adidas Campus

Living in L.A. and hanging out at X-Large, the Beasties were steeped in SoCal skate life and the nascent years of streetwear culture. During Check Your Head and Ill Communication, they soaked up the local style, put their own twist on it and broadcast it worldwide.

"I think the Beasties popularized it, but they definitely didn't invent it," says Friedman, who shot the simple but iconic cover for the crew's landmark third album, Check Your Head. "The styles weren't theirs, they got that stuff from other people. But the Beasties had a lot of charisma and they definitely had their finger on the pulse of a lot of cool things; they were a vehicle for cool things to get exposure."

Where: Unknown
When: Unknown
Notable Styles: All plaid everything; Dyed hair; Skullies

Rocking oversize lumberjack shirts, baggy pants and skullies, the Beasties set the blueprint for protypical skater fashion in the '90s. But the style also took hold with grunge-heads and alt-rockers, demographics that the Beasties were tapping into musically with the live instrumentation and distorted rock sounds of Check Your Head and its 1994 follow-up, Ill Communication.

"They set a tone in music and the looks," Powell says. "It was a cousin of the grunge look up the coast in Seattle: plaid shirts, chinos, Converse."

Where: Unknown
When: Unknown
Notable Styles: Retro Adidas; XL baseball cap; Carhartt work jacket

The Beasties and X-Large also played a key role in popularizing the trend of workwear brands-such as Dickies, Carhartt and Ben Davis-worn as a fashion statement.

"I had already started wearing Ben Davis, but not ever thinking of it as anything other than a work shirt," Bonerz says. "Mike had a way of fetishizing things, and making them unique."

Where: New York City
When: 1998
Notable Styles: Gigantic jumpsuits; Snap-backs

For their fifth album, Hello Nasty, the Beasties took on a new look, wearing bright jumpsuits and industrial workwear in the album's visuals, videos and tour.

"They were thinking about the everyman outfit," Adams says. "There was something special about the uniforms for the UPS guy and the FedEx guy. Simple clothing that for most people signifies one thing: work. They look like part air-traffic controller, part NYC B-boy."

Where: Tibetan Freedom Concert
When: 1998
Notable Styles: Lab coats; Blue Dickies pants

The Beasties carried the look through their performances and public appearances that year, sometimes with a twist, like this lab-coat look at MCA's Tibetan Freedom Concert.

"It was a utilitarian approach for some mad sceientists of sound," Light says. "They were looking to Japanese sci-fi for inspiration, as you can see in the video for 'Intergalactic."

Where: New York City
When: 2004
Notable Styles: Hoodies; Parkas; Massive headphones; Nerd glasses

The Beasties' sixth album, 2004's To the 5 Boroughs, was a back-to-basics tribute to their hometown after 9-11, and their accompanying look was appropriately straightforward, simple and East Coast to its core, with dark-colored bubbles coats, hoodies and parkas.

"To the 5 Boroughs" was the return to a straight-up, old-school hip-hop approach," Light says. "It was really a love letter to the city that raised them and gave birth to this music. The look they went with was a reflection of that-not an L.A. influenced skate look or a Japanese uniform, but simple NYC street wear." 

Where: Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! premiere
When: 2006
Notable Styles: Suits; Trenchcoats; Dad beard

In the mid-2000s, around the time they released the innovative MCA-directed concert film, Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!, the Beasties frequently began appearing in dapper suits. It was a far cry from the skater/B-boy blend they were known for, but Adams says the crew always liked playing dress up.

"In 1986, they implemented this thing called Suit Night," he recalls. "We'd be in a given city, and we would all put on suits. This was way before rappers were doing that. The only rappers doing that were Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. As they got older, it had more to do with the fact they wanted to look like grown men, family men-they have wives and kids."

Where: Wembley Stadium, U.K.
When: 2007
Notable Styles: Mod, forest-green suits; Wraparound shades; Moxie

The Beasties stayed on their suit and tie shit through much of the mid- to late 2000s. But they sometimes wore their suits with a funky mod twist.

"They come from punk, ska reggae roots, and that style was always big," Adams says. "That always influenced the way they thought about fashion-sharkskin suits, skinny ties. That was some of the inspiration for that."

It's yet another example of the trio's biggest gift, whether fashion or music: combining far-flung, obscure bytes into their own, undeniably Beastie mash-up.

"They were translators," Bonerz says. "They saw things that were not necessarily popular within their group, recognized them, appropriated them, incorporated them and did it in a way that was believable."

And after twenty years of rapidly evolving styles and wardrobes, the Beasties's style translation is still speaking to people today."

Where: Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, Ohio
When: 2012
Notable Styles: Form-fitting; black two-button suits

There was no trace of stylistic satire or irony when Ad-Rock and Mike D appeared onstage together on April 14, 2012, at the Beastie Boys' induction Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. MCA had been admitted to New York–Presbyterian hospital the same day, in what would be his last round of a three-year battle with salivary-gland cancer. On May 2, MCA passed away at the age of 47. The Beasties as we knew and loved them may be no more, but their legacy lives on as strong as ever-through their music, their families, their charity and activism work. However, their deep impact on fashion can't be overlooked.

"Look at their influence on brands like Supreme, Stüssy and Undefeated," Adams says. "They made the hoodie and old-school sneakers popular again. They made these things staples, and they were doing it back in the '80s. The look stayed the same. I'm not saying that they invented it, but they certainly owned it."