GREEN & GLOVER: George in jeans

Quite a lot comes between George Will and his Calvins, it seems. The conservative commentator owns only one pair of jeans, he admitted in a column last week decrying America’s love affair with the sturdy sartorial staple.

When worn by adult postindustrial Americans, it turns out denim signifies pseudo-egalitarianism, infantile regression, reverse snobbery and an inauthentic longing for a departed agrarian golden age.

Who knew?

“Denim is the clerical vestment for the priesthood of all believers in democracy’s catechism of leveling - thou shalt not dress better than society’s most slovenly. To do so would be to commit the sin of lookism - of believing that appearance matters,” the sometimes supercilious pundit hissed. “That heresy leads to denying the universal appropriateness of everything, and then to the elitist assertion that there is good and bad taste. Denim is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances.”

Mr. Will, his column revealed, has worn jeans just once - in conformity with a strict dress code - to a 70th birthday party for former Sen. John C. Danforth where Texas troubadour Jerry Jeff Walker performed the honky-tonk anthem “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother.”

We wish we could tell you that Mr. Will himself dresses like a mortician or a savings-and-loan officer, but the truth is he wears clothes rather well - his own style of dress runs to the professorially chic.

We have a hunch that if Mr. Will only knew how good he could look in denim, he might just reconsider his aversion. With that in mind, we asked design students at the School of Fashion at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco - birthplace, may we remind you, of Levi Strauss & Co. - to put together some sketches of Mr. Will in various denim looks.

See for yourself, and vote on your favorite George-in-Jeans look. We will announce your choice - and with any luck, Mr. Will’s own - in a future column.

Fashionista to recessionista

On the subject of fashion, if there’s one person who’s around stylish people all the time, it’s celebrity hairstylist Ted Gibson.

Known for charging the most in the world ($950) for a haircut, Mr. Gibson coifs the tresses of Angelina Jolie, Anne Hathaway and Debra Messing, to name a few.

Operating out of salons in New York and Los Angeles, Mr. Gibson recently added a Washington studio to his empire to be closer to his illustrious clientele making more trips to the newly “New York chic” Washington.

“A lot of celebrities are coming to Washington these days for specific events,” Mr. Gibson explained, referring to his new location on Wisconsin Avenue in Chevy Chase.

The salon opened in January, and Mr. Gibson tells G2 he is looking forward to being in town for its official launch on May 8.

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