Keith Richards’ Scarf-and-Ring Persona Set the Blueprint for Grunge and Johnny Depp’s Rock Star Image

The most interesting thing about Keith Richards’ look is that it wasn’t really a look — it was a side effect of staying up for days and not caring. But that unwashed, scarf-wrapped, ring-laden silhouette became the visual definition of “rock attitude” for the next thirty years. Before Richards, guitar heroes wore satin jumpsuits and posed. After him, it was cool to look like you’d just rolled out of a gutter.

Pearl Jam’s early grunge aesthetic — flannel over a T-shirt, long greasy hair, a general contempt for grooming — directly echoes the deliberate shabbiness Richards had been perfecting since the early ’70s. Eddie Vedder’s stage presence even had that same slumped, “I might fall over” energy that Richards made iconic. Meanwhile, Johnny Depp — who famously called Richards his idol —