He’s probably not the household name here in The States that he is in Europe, but Vincent Cassel is the quintessential European style icon of our time. Much like Serge Gainsbourg was fifty years ago, Cassel isn’t traditionally good-looking, as was the case with Gainsbourg. In fact, if you were to look at either man, even in their youth, you would likely flat out call them ugly, or at best say that Gainsbourg resembles a drunken frog and that Cassel resembles Coldplay’s Chris Martin who’s started to let himself go.

But one thing that was and remains true for both of these men is that, despite their aesthetic blessings, they had two things that so many man covet: impeccable style and the ability to woo not just beautiful women, but iconic, all-time beauties. For Serge, it was Jane Birkin. and Brigitte Bardot. For Cassel, it was former wife and Bond Girl Monica bellucci, as well as current wife, the twenty-two year-old Tina Kunakey, a beautiful French actress thirty years his junior.

But the reason these two gentlemen boast the resume they have is not because of natural-born attributes, but in spite of them. For every guy with a chiseled jaw and six pack abs who makes the ladies swoon, there’s a thousand guys who weren’t born lucky and have to get by on their wits, brain, and personality, and those guys are always a hell of a lot more interesting. If you disagree, watch any one of the films in Cassel’s extensive filmography (and not just the Ocean’s movies, which he absolutely kills it in,) or read up on Serge Gainsbourg’s life, which would give any Sinatra, Rubirosa, or Kennedy biography a run for its money.

To drive the point home, we don’t wanna just tell you why Vincent Cassel is an unquestionable style icon, but we of course know it makes more sense to show you, which, if you did see his portrayal of Francois Touleur in Ocean’s 12 & 13, you already knew.

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