Get Seen » At the New England Talent & Production 2013 Season Kickoff Party

On the eve of the Oscars, a crowd of actors, models, casting directors, talent scouts, and other local film and stage peeps gathered in the swanky bar at Newton's Hotel Indigo for a networking party presented by NE Actor and Model Club Inc. At a soiree packed to the gills with people who make their living standing out, we feared it might be hard to pick just one star of the show. But when we spotted a particularly fetching bowler hat across the room, we knew we'd found our leading man.

Alan White, actor

You might not know him yet - "I'm sort of like that character actor in Hollywood who you see in everything but don't know their name," he said - but Alan is a regular on Boston stages. He's also a regular on the thrifting circuit, and he counts Boomerangs, the Garment District, and the Salvation Army as favorite spots.

He picked up the black leather vest, however, at a Dress Barn, back when they used to sell men's clothes. He scored the bowler at JP haberdasher Salmagundi and said that a good hat is the one item he couldn't live without. "I started losing my hair right around 23 or 24, but I was blessed with a good-shaped head!"

Describing his style as "retro," he said "a very wise bluesman once told me that the definition of retro is that you dress detective fiction and think science fiction. So I wear clothes that hark back to around the turn of last century."

Which sounds a little steampunk. That's how he'd dress if he ever got invited to the Oscars. "Like, full-on sci-fi-con goggles, steam pipes, and everything. Just to see what the press would write about me."