The Impossible Cool is basically a litany of all the Heroes of Cool that have come and gone (some, thankfully, still remain with us). The list of black and white portraits include style luminaries like Mies Van der Rohe, Thelonious Monk, Toshiro Mifune, Joe Strummer, Sophia Loren, Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Hunter S Thompson, Marilyn Monroe, Miles Davis, Ian Curtis, Francois Truffaut, John Coltrane, Brigitte Bardot…need we say more? What is best about this site is its clean structure and simplicity; it’s not so much a style blog but a sort of Hall of Fame for people who’s entire existence transcended cool, and ever trying to be cool.

To make the point, some pithy quotes break up the imagery and sort of punctuate the essence of the site. Some of my favorites:

“Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.” Christopher Lasch

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn.” Gore Vidal

“Choose your corner, pick away at it carefully, intensely and to the best of your ability and that way you might change the world.” Charles Eames

“Looking good and dressing well is a necessity. Having a purpose in life is not.” Oscar Wilde

“There is nothing more frightful than imagination without taste.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“You should feel that, under the right conditions, all women would be available” Helmut Newton

“Beauty and the devil are the same thing.” Robert Mapplethorpe