Gilberto Gil's many Looks

In 1966, he showed up wearing a tuxedo for one of his appearances on O Fino da Bossa, the TV show Regina hosted with Jair Rodrigues. And the singer-songwriter that appeared on the cover of his 1967 album Louvação was a chubby young man in a dress shirt, playing the guitar. 

For Gil's appearance at TV Globo's 3rd International Song Festival (Festival Internacional da Canção) that same year, he opted for a hippie outfit, which went well with his hair, beard, and mustache.

Wearing a floral print tunic and loads of bead necklaces, Gil performed Questão de Ordem with the Argentinian rock band Beat Boys. Caetano Veloso also took the stage, wearing a hippie chic look to sing "É Proibido Proibir" with Os Mutantes. 

On stage, he would often appear shirtless;

 or even wearing a tight shirt, as was the fashion at the time. 

At the time of the 1976 Doces Bárbaros tour with Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso, and Maria Bethânia, he took to wearing a long white leotard.

In his "Re" phase, spanning albums including Refavela (1977) and Realce (1979), Gil had a fairly relaxed look and a keen interest in African fashion, which he had acquired on a trip to Nigeria.

White was always one of Gilberto Gil's favorite colors and, incidentally, one of the colors of Ogum, his Candomblé orixá or deity.

Gil defined white as the color that "brings all the colors of the rainbow together into one that promotes peace, because unity brings peace and harmony." In the music video for A Gente Precisa Ver o Luar (shown on the Brazilian TV newsmagazine Fantástico in 1981), the singer wore an all-white jacket, shirt, and pants. 

Other videos of Gil at this time, which can now be found on YouTube, show the singer mixing colors but always including at least one item that was white. For an appearance on TV Globo's Geração 80, Gil sang Palco dressed in a white jacket, black shirt, and printed pants.

Prints would make a reappearance at other moments in Gil's career, like around the time of his 1982 album Um Banda Um.

Or for his Extra album in 1983, when he wore animal prints. Also in 1982, he was photographed wearing a very see-through outfit at the As Aventuras da Blitz album launch party.

Prints also started to feature in his stage wardrobe

During one of the more pop phases of his career, Gilberto Gil appeared on stage at the first Rock in Rio festival, in 1985, wearing a look that included a colorful jacket and several necklaces. 

"I performed in full make-up, with my hair in a quiff. That was the time when we were doing our version of glitter rock, with a pop-rock style that was all about the look...

 I did dabble with those things, but I never got caught up in the fads of the time," Gil recalled in an interview published with the CD version of his Raça Humana album that was released as part of the Palco box set, in 2000. 

Soon after the festival, Gil adopted a more restrained look, wearing a white buttoned shirt on the cover of his 1985 album Dia Dorim Noite Neon. He started alternating between more formal clothes and laid-back outfits. 

When Gilberto Gil became culture minister in Lula's government in 2003, he began to opt for more formal clothes, including suit jackets, which he would wear on stage, as well as for government meetings.

A short while before that, he had already started wearing more serious outfits, like the long-sleeved shirt he wore at some of the concerts on his 1995 Quanta album tour. At that time, his laid-back look was limited to the leather sandals on his feet. 

 He stepped down from his ministerial post in 2008, but continued to wear suit jackets on stage, as he did on his Banda Larga Cordel album tour that same year. Since the 2000s, Gil has generally been seen wearing more formal clothes, often favoring the color white.