Vanity Fair’s The “Thriller” Diaries

It was Deborah Landis’s job to play up Jackson’s masculinity while dressing him in hip, casual clothes that were comfortable for dancing. Since the video would be shot at night in a mostly somber palette, she says, “I felt that red would really pop in front of the ghouls.” She chose the same color for both his jacket and jeans to emphasize a vertical line, making his five-foot-seven-inch, 100-pound frame appear taller. “The socks and the shoes were his own,” she says. “He took that directly from Fred Astaire, who always wore soft leather loafers to dance in, and socks. And Michael was elegant. I worked with David Bowie, who was also that same body frame, again very, very slim. Fred Astaire was a 36 regular; Michael was a 36 regular. David and Michael and Fred Astaire—you could literally put them in anything, and they would carry themselves with a distinction and with confidence and with sexuality.”