<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" From his prison garb on Oz to the acid-washed denim jacket he wears as Dennis &amp;quot;The Beeper King&amp;quot; Duffy on 30 Rock, Dean Winters may not be the first name that comes to mind when you&amp;#039;re thinking of fashionable guys. But his own sense of style falls somewhere between Mayhem, his besuited (and beleaguered) character in all those Allstate insurance commercials, and his character on Rescue Me, Johnny Gavin. We spoke with our favorite insurance spokesman (sorry, Haysbert) \u2014 who also stars in our April fashion feature \u2014 about his love-hate relationship with style and the roles that made him (kind of) famous. ESQUIRE: Were you into fashion growing up? DEAN WINTERS: I grew up in New York and I&amp;#039;ve always been surrounded by fashion. My grandmother used to write for Vogue in the &amp;#039;50s, and my mother was a dancer and a model. ESQ: Are you are a big shopper? DW: I gotta be honest with you: It&amp;#039;s my least favorite thing about fashion. I really love Paul Smith. And Chrome Hearts. They make the most beautiful, high-end leather and outerwear and jewelry you&amp;#039;ve ever seen. But I&amp;#039;m not a big fan of shopping. I certainly am a fan of clothes and especially people that put time into the construction of them. ESQ: So getting dressed for roles by stylists must work for you. DW: I always enjoy the wardrobe. On a show like Oz, I was wearing Dickies and a cut-off shirt and a gold cross. I would just get out of my clothes and put on those prison clothes and feel like I was right in character. I have yet to do a job where I would really get to rock the great clothes. I&amp;#039;d love to do a job where I could wear Thom Browne. ESQ: You wear suits for the Allstate ads. DW: The first fitting we had, I walked into the room and it was just rows of the most beautiful clothes you&amp;#039;d ever seen. Everything from 1950s gangster suits to beautiful shoes. It was ridiculous. We ended up choosing a three-piece Ralph Lauren black pinstripe suit. I was thinking, &amp;quot;Wow, I&amp;#039;m going to look so good on television, my mom&amp;#039;s going to be so happy.&amp;quot; Then I showed up to work the first day and my suit was trashed, because I&amp;#039;m playing this character called Mayhem, and I&amp;#039;m supposed to be a disaster. ESQ: Do people recognize you from the ads? DW: When there&amp;#039;s not ten feet of snow on the ground I ride my bike down the streets of New York, and I literally hear two things out of car windows as cabs pass by me: They either yell, &amp;quot;Hey, dummy,&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Hey, Mayhem.&amp;quot; ESQ: &amp;quot;Hey, dummy,&amp;quot; being a shout-out to your 30 Rock character. People obviously feel comfortable coming up to you. DW: There are just some things you don&amp;#039;t want to hear. I&amp;#039;ve done a few jobs out there for the money and I find those jobs have come back to haunt me. I was the only white guy ever cast in a Colt 45 ad. The makers of Colt 45, they were being targeted by the NAACP for only playing to the urban crowd, so they had to make a commercial with a white guy, and that was me. The upsetting thing is that was before the Internet, before cell phones. I cannot find this thing. ESQ: You&amp;#039;re tempting fate by bringing it up. One last question: Do you have a signature article of clothing? DW: I&amp;#039;ve been wearing these Wesco boots my whole life. If I ever go onstage at the Oscars you can guarantee I&amp;#039;ll be wearing my motorcycle boots. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/style/mens-fashion/a9619/dean-winters-interview-0411/>