Bob Weir and His Daughters Talk About His Iconic Grateful Dead Looks

One paradox of the Grateful Dead is that while the band was, and remains, vastly influential in matters of design and fashion, the members themselves tended to be...indifferent, at best.

The exception was Bob Weir, the sole Dead member who—for good and occasionally less good—seemed interested in forging a personal style, an interest that continues today in his collaborations with designer James Perse.

And who better to cast an evaluating eye on that style through the years than his two daughters: Monet, 21, who is an actor and a senior at Chapman University; and Chloe, 17, a high school senior in Marin County and budding filmmaker, who is joining her dad on the Dead & Company tour that kicks off this week to shoot film footage of the revivified scene.

Truth be told, we may have hoped for a bit more eye-rolling filial derision when the younger Weirs joined their father on the phone for a walk down his sartorial memory lane. They are notably kind and generous daughters. Still, they were not without opinions, as you’ll see as we take a Weir family outing through 50 years of Bobby Style.

GQ: Okay, so, Weir Daughters, do we approve of this look?

Monet: Chloe is going to have a different answer than I am.

Chloe: Mo says I dress like a hippie.

Monet: She does! I respect that culture, but personally, maybe because I’m older and grew up around it more, I took a different route. I went more for normalcy.

GQ: Do you remember this day, Bob?

Bob: I remember it was hotter than the hinges of hell. We were on a bill with several other bands, and it was “the Sound of San Francisco” or something. I don’t remember who closed. Probably Jefferson Airplane. Anyway, it was our first time out on a big stage, and it was a big deal to us.

GQ: Here's another from that year.

Monet: You’re color-coordinated! The guitar matches your shirt.

Bob: I don’t think that was going through my head at the time, but it was a good guitar.

GQ: What was your approach to the Haight look, generally?

Monet: I feel like what he would do is dress kind of out-there but not exactly what his fans wore, because it created more of a separation. Like he never wears tie-dye or other classic hippie stuff. It’s almost like hippie chic.

Bob: I just wanted to be kind of elegant. People were paying good money to see us, and at the time I figured that meant we ought to dress up a bit.

GQ: This is part of a period with a lot of Western shirts.

Monet: I know my dad had an obsession with being a cowboy for a second. He survived, like, bulls or something.

Bob: I had a little ranch. Billy [Kreutzmann] had a ranch. Mickey [Hart] had a ranch at some point. We all went out and got ourselves horses and goats and stuff like that, to pursue a country lifestyle. So it was my cowboy phase because I was really doing it!

GQ: Well, here’s a different Western look.

Chloe: Oh, that’s awesome.

Monet: I really like that, actually.

Bob: We bought these at Nudie’s Custom Rodeo Tailor, in North Hollywood. I wanted phoenix birds; they didn’t come out quite as I envisioned. But it was way too hot to play in. It’s a wool suit! We wore them one time, and that was that.

Monet: I think this is the biggest fashion statement you ever made. It almost looks like something you could wear to the Met Gala.

GQ: It’s time we talk about short shorts.

Monet: This is his most iconic look.

Chloe: They call them “Bobby Shorts.”

Bob: For me, when I’m onstage, the name of the game is “beat the heat.” It’s always July under the lights, and I have something of an aversion to heat. So, short shorts made real good sense to me. It’s form following function. At the time I was sort of losing my sense of propriety. I’d been wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts and trying to look a little turned out, shall we say. But by the time I got to my late 20s…I don’t want to say that people took me seriously, but I started to feel like I could get away with more. I didn’t have to follow any trends. I could sort of start making my own.

GQ: They got shorter.

Bob: I still have these. I may actually break them out on summer tour sometime. It’ll have to be a family decision.

Chloe: That would be hilarious. Pair them with a tank top and some high white socks and white sneakers…

Monet: I would not approve of that one.

GQ: What you should really do is make John Mayer wear them.

Chloe: Except they’re not John Shorts, they’re Bobby Shorts.

GQ: The shorts often came with the polos.

Monet: I feel like this was his inner frat boy coming out.

Bob: Yup.

Chloe: Monet has the pink one of these, and I got the purple one.

Bob: The pink just stands right out, doesn’t it? Catches your eye. Again, form follows function: When we would be on the road, especially back in the ’70s, and wanted to go to a nice restaurant on a night off, you’d need to have a shirt with a collar, and the polo did the trick.

Chloe: This is hilarious!

Bob: This was the disco era, girls. Saturday Night Fever and all that stuff. This cover was my idea. The record was going to be called Go to Heaven, and when you turned it over, we would be wearing either red suits or these same suits, except all beat up, and it would be “Go to Hell.” We’d be hanging out on some door stoop with empty bottles and all that. But the guys didn’t have the patience to do the back cover. They were like, “Enough. Fuck it. We did the cover!” So all we got was this.

Monet: I think it’s fun. The fact that it wasn’t their style makes it really new and surprising.

Monet and Chloe: Awwwww.

GQ: This is your wedding to Natascha, these guys’ mom. Why a kilt?

Bob: I have Scottish heritage.

Monet: Well, his adoptive parents were Scottish.

Bob: And according to tradition, once you’re adopted into a Scottish clan, your blood is basically transformed into Scottish blood. I only plan on getting married once, so I thought I ought to honor that. I might get buried in it, too.

Chloe: Good to know!

GQ: Is there really such a thing as Bob’s clothing coming up for family discussion? Do you guys ever veto any looks?

Monet: We veto things all the time, but he’s very stubborn. We’ve tried to get him to shave the beard for years.

Chloe: At this point I think I’d be scared to see him without it. I don’t think I’d recognize him as my father. I think that these days he looks like a classy pirate—sometimes a not-so-classy pirate. He has these mid-length tan pirate pants, which he wears with a linen shirt. He has some light blazers I like. He even has a skull and crossbones on his Tesla.

Bob: I think what James Perse and I are trying to do is redefine aging surfer chic.

Monet: It’s like a pirate who got into fashion.

Monet: I love this. It’s awesome. It brings me back to the cowboy vibe.

Chloe: It’s like if Gandalf was a cowboy.

GQ: Has anyone ever tried to veto these shoes?

Chloe: I love these! We call them his “monkey shoes.”

Bob: They grip the floor well. And they pack real well. They pack flat, and they don’t take up any room because there’s no padding in them. You can’t beat that.

Monet: Total respect to anyone who wears these, but I’m not a super fan.

Originally Appeared on GQ