as the eighteenth century. Influences on fashions and image While the fashion choices of some Exis had a slightly preppy or conservative quality (and, given the middle-class background of most of them, this was probably unavoidable), many sought to distance themselves from the blue-jeaned, check-shirted excesses of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's America, by projecting a somewhat darker and more introspective image. Sartre's black polo-neck sweaters and Gauloises cigarettes were the most obvious symbols. In an interview with NPR, Astrid Kirchherr described the Exi style in Hamburg as consisting of black clothes and very long scarves trailing to the floor. However some American icons of the time, such as James Dean and Marlon Brando, were, in the eyes of most middle-aged Americans of the 1950s, young rebels, rather than suitable role models for the nation's youth. Thus, they were bound to be more attractive to those adolescents, who were trying to stand out from the rest of society, than the "respectable" performers, whom parents admired. The dress of British and American rockers and bikers, the vast majority of whom had not been anywhere near Hamburg, was not vastly different from some of the Exis but to obsessive teenagers, an extra zip, here and there, can be everything and such comparisons may well have been dismissed by Exis (or Rockers), at the time. There are also similarities to jazz musicians and some of their fans but the Exis did not listen exclusively to rock and roll, that unruly mix of country and western and rhythm and blues. References Culture in Hamburg Existentialists Fashion History of the Beatles German youth culture