His slicked-back hair, jeans, boots, white t-shirt and leather jacket or the red windbreaker from Rebel Without A Cause represented a strong contrast with both the preppy and buttoned-up style of mid-century youth, and the adult ‘Man in the Grey Flannel Suit’ type (a phrase made famous by Sloan Wilson’s 1955 novel of the same name).
His mannerisms – cigarette swinging from his mouth, the brooding glance upwards from under the eyebrows, the slouch, were all signifiers that marked him both the embodiment of cool and as a figure outside the hegemonic order.