What do Patsy Cline, Aerosmith, Gnarls Barkley, and Seal all have in common? If you said, “They all do a song called ‘Crazy’” you are both correct and unbelievably predictable. If you are willing to be a little flexible about the naming, you can even include Britney Spears with (You Drive Me) Crazy (don’t forget to whisper the part in parentheses), Ricky Martin’s Livin’ La Vida Loca, or the entire ouvre of Meshuggah. It might be more accurate to talk about the artists who never did a song (or named their band) about being “crazy” as having something in common as they’ve bucked the trend.

I’m not hear to talk about craziness, however, unless you count crazy clothes (which, honestly, why wouldn’t you?). Since this blog rebooted it’s only been updated on Mondays. As a result, some of the old “daily” features have fallen by the wayside. Today, I want to return to one whose name always brings a smile to my face: Sartorial Sursday. That series was not actually about tailoring for the most part (with one notable exception) and it actually took place on Thursday, instead of the traditional nordic holiday of Sursday.

Regardless, I’ve decided to dust off the old mothballs (is that the saying?) and bring Sartorial Sursday back for the occasional Monday stroll.

The reason, is this jewel of a gem - Crazy by Seal:

It opens with a man dressed all in white sitting in a white room.

Suddenly, a group of bestockinged women run out, as if coming from inside his body.

Then, we get our first great outfit of the video. He appears to be wearing a jacket with bumpy sleeves.

It’s hard to tell if they are supposed to be spikes in the manner of the road warriors, or if they are just meant to be texture in the way that a cable knit sweater has texture.

Then we get a head on shot of Seal in his white cloak.

In case you can’t tell, yes, he is wearing very high waisted pants with a tanktop with a very low v neck. The v is so deep cut it hasn’t met in the middle yet before it gets below the waist of the pants. A very bold choice.

Also, what is the deal with the thing he is holding in his hand? He’s holding it frequently throughout the video, so if feel like it must be a thing but it is not a thing I understand.

Get ready for a full view of that bumpy jacket:

I’m not sure what’s happening with the belt there, but I admire the way it stridently extends on both sides of his body.

Next, we see him in the same deep v tank top, but now underneath a truly enormous leather coat.

According to a search for the phrase “how tall is seal”, Seal is 6’ 4”, so I’m pretty sure that coat took 4 cows, minimum.

We even get a shot of Seal sans coat, this time playing what appears to be a bass.

To further the nonexistent plot hinted at in the opening of the video, we get more shots of the bestockinged women.

They must have blown all of the clothing budget on Seal’s clothes since they couldn’t afford to fix those huge rips.

The video ends with Seal inexplicably holding a dove in the snow.

I want to emphasize that he does not release the dove at the end of the video. That’s wouldn’t necessarily make sense per se, but it would at least seem symbolic in some way. Instead, we just get a man holding a dove in the snow. Which I guess is symbolic for something else: a kiss from a rose.

-PTD