David Hockney, Who’s Now 80, Has Always Been a Style Icon

In celebration of his 80th birthday today, the British painter David Hockney‘s hometown of Bradford, England, is honoring him with his very own permanent gallery filled with the artist’s early sketchbooks, family photo albums, and plenty of work from his art school days. At the opening this week, inflatable versions of Hockney’s loyal dachshunds buoyed the space, but the artist was nowhere to be found. Instead, he was across the pond at his other home, in Los Angeles—probably painting on his iPad—which isn’t too much of a surprise given the international recognition Hockney has already won this year, namely opening a massive retrospective at the Tate Britain that ended up being the most popular solo exhibition across all of the Tate museums to date. The blockbuster show, which is now open in Paris at the Centre Pompidou, will also travel to the Met in New York this fall. Since his steamy shower scenes of the early ’60s and his early self-portraits, it feels like none of his work has aged a bit. And neither, it seems, has the painter’s distinctive sense of style, which has stayed true over the decades to a few signatures: goggle-like glasses; broad, goofy ties; button-ups under wooly cardigans and lived-in sweaters; a perfectly disheveled mop of bleach blonde hair; and one of his beloved dachshunds in tow. Take a look back at Hockney’s style from his beginnings in the ’60s and ’70s to his octogenarian present, here.