Frank Taylor Wright, the best-dressed man wherever he happened to be, died Monday at 90.

Chapel Hill has enjoyed a long line of colorful characters. Wright was, literally, the most colorful of them all.

He got up six mornings a week and came to Franklin Street, where he strolled the sidewalks and sat on the benches and greeted his friends and passersby.

If you ever saw him -- and if you spent any time at all downtown you surely did -- you never forgot him. He was, without fail, immaculately attired in a suit from his vast collection of outfits.

They came in every color you could think of, and some that probably had never occurred to you. Crimson, emerald, cerulean, lavender. Solid colors one day, pinstripes the next, checkerboard the day after that.

And everything -- from the top of his hat to the toes of his shoes, from his perfectly knotted tie to his socks, from his pocket handkerchief to his rolled umbrella -- was color- and pattern-coordinated down to the finest detail.

Alexander Julian, who knows a little something about style, pegged it when he said the word he would use to describe Wright's look was "exuberance."

It was that, all right, and it was infectious. Wright's greatest joy in his later years was "brushing and shining" himself up and making the rounds on Franklin Street.

And in his daily sojourns he spread a bit of his own joy to those who crossed his path. For those who are downtown daily or nearly so, there was always a little anticipation: What look will Mr. Wright be sporting today?

We're going to miss that. Wherever he is now, we're pretty sure he's the sharpest-looking guy in the place.