From a fan standpoint that is the easiest way to know what era and album he was doing. This goes for Michael and madonna down to janet and Rihanna. Bowie too! Its an artistic statement!!!

paisleypark4 said:

From a fan standpoint that is the easiest way to know what era and album he was doing. This goes for Michael and madonna down to janet and Rihanna. Bowie too! Its an artistic statement!!!

Yes, the music and the look went hand in hand.

But I noticed as he strayed from the 1978-1989 'Purple Music' sound/style, the periods in the 90s and 2000s were more blurred.
Like Diamonds & Pearls - Love Symbol - Come(1991-1994) are almost indistinguishable

the Gold Experience era stands out.

the Chaos & Disorder / Emancipation / New Power Soul have certain things that stand out that tells us it is a different period, but they do blur into each other

New Power into Rave blurs into each other, But then Rave Unto the Joy Fantastic is very defining in his style.

the 2001-2008 look is the longest he had a very same hairstyle and the clothing only changed slightly, but that was the period of the suites mostly.

On a side note to "why", just how cool was it that he actually did change his looks for almost every album?!

Some were evolutionary (DM/Controversy/1999/PR) but some were distinctly different to never be repeated again (Parade). A personal favorite of mine, and maybe the last true distinct look, was Rave.

You're not going to see that anymore in music to the extent that Prince did it.

soladeo1 said:

Do you think his puffy shirt, Edwardian fop look was in honor of Mozart and the Romantic Era composers?

Genesia? Can you respond 2 this one?

It's rock n roll people. Welcome to it.

He wanted his look to represent the new music.

Thanks for all the the pics! I loved that he changed his look all the time, it kept things interesting and it never got boring. I bet he had alot of fun changing it up. He may have borrowed this from David Bowie, but yet made it all his own. You never knew what he would look like next, always kept us guessing.

[Edited 4/8/17 14:21pm]

Brown Mark: The hairstyles always tipped off the change. [Laughter] At least in all the years that I knew him. When the hairstyle changed, you knew something was coming -- and then the clothes changed.