Guy Wheatley is a cinephile, aesthete and projectionist. He is often described by his friends as a “man out of time.” He can be found at Tower Theatre offering context and suggestions for how to best appreciate the world of cinema.
Special thanks to the Salt Lake Film Society and Tower Theatre, who hosted this month’s SLUG Style in their beautiful, classic lobby and auditorium.
Every month, SLUG Style features a distinct and unique member of the community and asks them why they do what they do. Exploring more than just clothing, SLUG Style is an attempt to feature the people who give Salt Lake City flavor through personality and panache.
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“I’ve always been attracted to classical styles throughout history,” says Wheatley. “You look at old movies made in the mid-century by directors such as Howard Hawks and Billy Wilder, and all the actors are always so clean and crisp: linen and woolen sports coats and pressed chinos, not a wrinkle in them—snappy polo shirts, things like that.”
Photo: @clancycoop
“I’ve always believed in aestheticism,” says Wheatley. “In fact, I don’t think I can have a single discussion about art or music or film without using the word ‘aesthetics.’ You could turn a drinking game into it, I’m sure. Yes, I kind of feel like you’re out in the world, and you’re presenting yourself, so why not take pride in your personal aesthetic, the way it coalesces together, your own personal finishing touches? … I kind of believe what Coco Chanel had to say: ‘You should always endeavor to dress your best, because you never know when you’ll meet that person who will change your life.’ You might say aestheticism is very important to me.”
Photo: @clancycoop
“Albert Camus has a great line about dandyism, in which he says it’s kind of a form of nihilism that treats aestheticism as a living religion. Whereas I think he took it as a damning indictment, for me, it’s actually a lot more positive,” says Wheatley. “You see, you live for the mirror, even though you have to buck up against the mirror, and the dandy, he plays at life because he cannot live life. Again, it’s kind of damning, but I always appreciated a good barb, even if it’s at my own expense. God, that was the long and the short of it, wasn’t it?”
Photo: @clancycoop
“I mostly draw upon a lot of eras,” says Wheatley. “If I had to be honest with myself, it probably started in childhood, seeing a lot of old Doctor Who reruns on PBS, actually. So you see all the long jackets, all the overcoats, all the multitude of ruffled dandy jackets, all the velvet and all the vests and all the tweedy things that go through all those incarnations. I think it might have seeded something in my mind early on that kind of fertilized this sense of style.”
Photo: @clancycoop
“My favorite films, kind of as a general rule, have always been genre films and period films, whether they be from the Victorian era, or … Edwardian or the rolling ’20’s or mid-century America,” says Wheatley. “Films by people like Todd Haynes, and films like Far From Heaven, or Carol—but I can crib anything from a particular film—films as diverse as Mona Lisa Smile or Beautiful Mind or Quiz Show or Goodfellas. These films may seem like they have nothing in common, except they’re all set [in] about the mid-twentieth century, and so you’ll have men in sports coats and herringbone pants and suits, and if they’re professorial, a vest, which is a garment I’ve always loved. Vests and scarves: I feel like I have one for every single outfit I have, and I can pair it thus.”
Photo: @clancycoop
“I’ll have to give a shoutout to the greatest dandy of them all, Oscar Wilde, and then an honorary trophy probably goes to Charles Baudelaire, a poet and opium fiend who kind of tramped in 1840s Paris for a good deal of his life,” says Wheatley. “Mean lodgings, they would call it back then—a phrase that I hope returns to fashion.”
Photo: @clancycoop
“If I had to blame JFK for one thing, which is quite a shock for a good, green liberal such as myself, it would be [that] he caused hats to go utterly out of fashion,” says Wheatley. “He was the first president who wasn’t seen in public wearing one on his head. Undoubtedly, he wanted to show off that shock of full Irish hair as a result. I’ve always loved hats, because they’ve been such a huge part of men’s fashion throughout the century, whether they be a Hamburg, or whether they be a fedora, or whether they be Gatsby caps, flap caps, golf caps; a fiddler’s cap—I’m actually wearing one right now. Actually, you can see a lot of those, on Irish immigrants and the like.”
Photo: @clancycoop
Of his favorite films and directors, Wheatley says, “I very much believe in the auteur theory, in which I believe in the director’s vision, both behind the camera and the actors—the ensemble. … I’ll just go by a few directors who are my absolute favorite. Whit Stillman is probably my favorite director, and he was kind of the missing link in between Woody Allen and Noah Baumbach. … He did a trio of films, which is informally called the doomed bourgeois in love trilogy, and it’s kind of these overeducated neurotic wasps who are always fretting about their place in the world, and it’s some of the wittiest and most urbane movies I’ve ever seen. When I saw Metropolitan as a youth, it probably epitomized the life that I wanted to lead.”
Photo: @clancycoop
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!["My favorite films, kind of as a general rule, have always been genre films and period films, whether they be from the Victorian era, or ... Edwardian or the rolling '20's or mid-century America," says Wheatley. "Films by people like Todd Haynes, and films like Far From Heaven, or Carol—but I can crib anything from a particular film—films as diverse as Mona Lisa Smile or Beautiful Mind or Quiz Show or Goodfellas. These films may seem like they have nothing in common, except they're all set [in] about the mid-twentieth century, and so you'll have men in sports coats and herringbone pants and suits, and if they're professorial, a vest, which is a garment I've always loved. Vests and scarves: I feel like I have one for every single outfit I have, and I can pair it thus." Photo: @clancycoop](https://www.slugmag.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Call-SLUG-Style-Guy-8.jpg)
!["If I had to blame JFK for one thing, which is quite a shock for a good, green liberal such as myself, it would be [that] he caused hats to go utterly out of fashion," says Wheatley. "He was the first president who wasn't seen in public wearing one on his head. Undoubtedly, he wanted to show off that shock of full Irish hair as a result. I've always loved hats, because they've been such a huge part of men's fashion throughout the century, whether they be a Hamburg, or whether they be a fedora, or whether they be Gatsby caps, flap caps, golf caps; a fiddler's cap—I'm actually wearing one right now. Actually, you can see a lot of those, on Irish immigrants and the like." Photo: @clancycoop](https://www.slugmag.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Call-SLUG-Style-Guy-3.jpg)
