Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

Vitals

Brad Pitt as John Smith, suburban assassin

New York City, Fall 2004

Film: Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Release Date: June 10, 2005
Director: Doug Liman
Costume Designer: Michael Kaplan
Pitt’s Costumer: Myron Baker

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

There have been quite a few requests from readers hoping to see some of Brad Pitt’s sharp attire from Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and I think enough time has passed since his notorious divorce from Angelina Jolie last fall that a post featuring the very movie that brought them together won’t look too opportunistic… although being posted a week after Valentine’s Day may look suspicious!

Mr. & Mrs. Smith stars Pitt and Jolie as the titular couple, a seemingly banal set of suburbanites shielding their secret side careers as professional contract killers from each other. When the two are assigned to kill each other, an escalated series of attempted assassinations leads to restaurant confrontation filmed at Cicada in downtown L.A., followed by a firearms, fisticuffs, and fornication as the two rekindle their feelings and decide to team up.

What’d He Wear?

The slick black suit that Brad Pitt wore for this climactic sequence was only featured on the film’s official poster and most promotional artwork. Unlike the outfits worn by Pitt’s flashier characters in films like Fight Club and the Ocean’s Eleven series, John Smith’s clothing tends to be practical and accessible… just like one would expect from the suburban middle-class manager that John pretends to be.

Solid black suits do not have much of a place in the business world, considered better for events like weddings, funerals, or a night on the town. John Smith ably wears his tailored black wool two-piece suit for the latter, paired with a white dress shirt and gray tie.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith head for the dance floor.

The single-breasted suit jacket has slim notch lapels that roll to the two-button stance, which John wears open throughout his time on screen. The jacket has a welted breast pocket, flapped hip pockets, and a long back vent.

The shoulders are padded, and the long sleeves extend from heavily roped heads at the shoulders to four functional buttons at the end of each slightly flared cuff.

The flat front trousers have a low rise, contributing to John’s laidback look as he glides out onto the dance floor with Jane. There is a straight pocket along each side seam and each jetted back pocket closes with a button. The plain-hemmed bottoms are left long, breaking well over his shoes.

John wears a black leather edge-stitched belt. The closed buckle is polished steel with black horizontal embossing on the plate, perhaps signifying the belt’s maker.

Anto Beverly Hills, a favorite of Brad Pitt in real life, likely made the white dress shirt that he wears in Mr. & Mrs. Smith. It has a narrow point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and back side darts. The rounded barrel cuffs have two buttons for an adjustable fit; when the sleeves aren’t rolled up to his elbow, Pitt wears the edge buttons fastened for a slightly larger fit around his wrists.

John’s nice “night on the town” attire takes quite a beating once he gets home.

Smith’s solid gray silk necktie was also likely made by Anto Beverly Hills, although the black back loop has no visible logo or manufacturer.

They appear to have made up…

All of John’s footwear is solid black, from his patent leather cap-toe bluchers and dress socks to the holster on his left ankle that holds his NAA Guardian backup pistol.

In a way, Jane’s doing him a favor as having more than a pound of steel strapped to your ankle has to get in the way while dancing.

When John first arrives at the restaurant, he shows up at Jane’s table wearing a black wool single-breasted overcoat with slim peak lapels and 5-button cuffs, but he quickly discards it.

John surprises an aloof Jane with a refill of Dom Pérignon.

After their brawl, John and Jane find themselves in their underwear for breakfast the next morning. Jane takes a Risky Business approach by wearing John’s white dress shirt from the previous evening, leaving John in only his white cotton v-neck undershirt and plain white cotton boxers.

Some people just aren’t ready for life in the suburbs.

John’s wristwatch is an IWC Pilot Chronograph IW3706 with a stainless 39mm case on a stainless 20mm bracelet. The watch has a black dial with white Arabic numerals, a 3:00 day-date window, and three black sub-dials. If you’ve got around $3,000 handy, you can pick one up for yourself online.

With a fancy IWC wristwatch, you’d think John would be more focused on precision.

Having removed his wedding ring, John’s only jewelry is the fancy gold cross that he wears on a thin gold chain around his neck. As he wears it under his clothes, the cross necklace is only visible when he and Jane answer their front door in the buff.

Brad Pitt, dressed in black suit and armed with a Colt XSE, as featured in much of Mr. & Mrs. Smith’s promotional materials.

How to Get the Look

I’m sure it goes without saying that a black suit and silver tie ain’t gonna turn you into Brad Pitt… but a well-tailored suit with coordinated and correctly fitting accoutrements will certainly help you turn a few heads.

• Black wool tailored suit, consisting of:
  • Single-breasted 2-button suit jacket with slim notch lapels, welted breast pocket, flapped hip pockets, functional 4-button slightly flared cuffs, and long single back vent
  • Flat front low-rise trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, button-through jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White dress shirt with narrow point collar, front placket, breast pocket, back side darts, and adjustable-button rounded cuffs
• Gray silk tie
• Black edge-stitched leather belt with polished steel black-embossed buckle plate
• Black patent leather cap-toe bluchers/derby shoes
• Black dress socks
• Black ankle holster, for subcompact pistol, worn on left ankle
• White cotton v-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• White cotton boxer shorts with elasticized waistband
• Gold cross necklace on thin gold chain
• IWC Pilot Chronograph IW3706 with a stainless 39mm case, black dial (with day-date window and 3 black sub-dials), and stainless bracelet

The Guns

Mr. & Mrs. Smith has a hell of a lot of guns in it, with each assassin owning a veritable arsenal of everything from subcompact .22 revolvers to customized AR-15 variants.

When the time comes for their showdown, John races home to discover that Jane has cleaned out his arsenal. Like an alcoholic with that one old bottle stored away, however, John retrieves a game of Battleship and pulls from behind it… a customized stainless steel Colt XSE semi-automatic pistol, complete with sound suppressor.

John finds tactical use for random household objects.

The Colt XSE is a modern variant of Colt’s venerable M1911 pistol, evolved from the “Enhanced” Series 80 model. Like its generational predecessors, the Colt XSE is chambered for the powerful .45 ACP cartridge and weighs just over two pounds with a full-size 5″ barrel.

Elements of the original M1911 pistol – a long trigger and flat mainspring housing – join modern developments like an eight-round magazine, skeleton hammer, three-hole aluminum trigger, beavertail grip safety, extended ambidextrous thumb safety, and slanted front and rear slide serrations.

The actual Colt XSE carried by Brad Pitt in Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
(Source: IMFDB)

You’d expect John to be armed and ready for a showdown when he confronts Jane in the restaurant, but she took advantage of his distractedness while dancing to remove the NAA Guardian semi-automatic pistol from his ankle holster.

The NAA Guardian is available in a variety of small calibers, and John opts for a custom blued .380 ACP model with white mother-of-pearl grips. Despite its diminutive size – less than 5″ long with a 2.5″ barrel – the all-steel NAA Guardian weighs in at well over a pound. The trigger system is double-action only, and like many .380 pocket pistols, the NAA Guardian has a six-round single-stack magazine.

The actual NAA Guardian carried by Brad Pitt in Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
(Source: IMFDB)

North American Arms offers Guardian pocket pistols through its site, with a standard stainless steel .380 model currently available for $456.

Jane also carried her own NAA Guardian, albeit with black grips. For more information about the weaponry used in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, check out IMFDB’s well-researched page, which I used to find the above images of the guns actually featured on screen.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

The new curtains are hideous.

Henry Cavill as Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

Vitals

Henry Cavill as Napoleon Solo, smooth CIA operative

Berlin and Rome, Spring 1963

Film: The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Release Date: August 2, 2015
Director: Guy Ritchie
Costume Designer: Joanna Johnston

Background

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is one of the more stylish films released in recent years, transporting audiences back to the oft-romanticized height of Cold War spying in mid-’60s Europe. The movie reboot serves as a prequel for the popular TV show, which starred Robert Vaughn and David McCallum as American spy Napoleon Solo and KGB operative Illya Kuryakin, respectively.

Henry Cavill’s interpretation of Solo retains much of the easygoing efficiency and sophistication originated by Vaughn in the role, and I left the theater wishing I was heading directly to the shop of Timothy Everest, who tailored Cavill’s distinctive and debonair suits for the film.

For my inaugural Solo post, in response to requests from readers Noel and Andrew, I am choosing to focus on a flashy suit that gets plenty of screen time.

What’d He Wear?

Blue and gray are often considered to be very conservative color options for suits, but the interesting suiting of Napoleon Solo’s exclusively blue and gray-toned suits throughout The Man from U.N.C.L.E. illustrate that a well-designed wardrobe in the hands of a talented tailor remove limitations to creativity.

Solo actually wears two different blue-toned windowpane suits; the first is a darker navy double-breasted suit briefly seen under his raincoat during a fight with Illya in a Berlin bathroom. The second blue windowpane suit, which Timothy Everest’s site describes as “a teal check suit” gets far more screen time, beginning with a shopping expedition in Berlin through the team’s arrival in Rome to the sunny final shot on the hotel balcony.

Alicia Vikander, Armie Hammer, and Henry Cavill. Hammer’s brown suede jacket, turtleneck, and gray trousers have been covered in a previous post.

Costume designer Joanna Johnston described her process to Charles Thorp of Men’s Journal at the time of the film’s release, explaining that she took inspiration from Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair and provided “fine Italian fabrics” for Timothy Everest to tailor each suit, particularly to fit Cavill’s broad shoulders that were enhanced by his role as Superman. Everest noted Johnston’s desire for British inspiration in Solo’s wardrobe; as Esquire notes: “Despite his character’s American roots, Cavill’s inspiration comes from across the pond. Nothing says ‘British gentleman’ like a windowpane suit.”

The wool suiting consists of a light blue and dark navy wide-scaled windowpane plaid on a bold teal blue ground. The navy windowpane is more muted while the lighter blue windowpane check’s shadow bordering gives it a more pronounced “pop”.

Solo wears a tri-tone blue check suit in several scenes.

The detailing of the three-piece suit – from the covered buttons on the jacket and waistcoat to the trouser waist tabs – proudly indicate its bespoke nature. “We were referencing the latter part of the 1960s rather than the early years, with details including covered buttons and squared off front edge,” explains Timothy Everest’s site. “We needed to create confident looks for someone debonair, suave and dashing.”

The somewhat boxy “swinging London” suit is a different take than Vaughn’s more American wardrobe, but there’s no denying that it works for Cavill. The single-breasted jacket has notch lapels that end high over the three-button front, of which Solo often wears the top two fastened. The padded shoulders slope down Cavill’s muscular shoulders to very roped sleeveheads. The functional 4-button “surgeon’s cuffs” at the end of each sleeve are covered to match the three buttons on the front.

Solo’s suit jacket has straight flapped pockets on the hips, including a ticket pocket above the right that adds an additional touch of traditional British tailoring. The jacket has a welted pocket, where Solo rakishly wears his silk display kerchief of light blue dots on a navy ground. Johnston explained to Men’s Journal that she “grabbed armfuls of different options” during a visit to the Turnbull & Asser store on Jermyn Street. “It’s important not to be too matchy,” she stated, seemingly agreeing with Illya Kuryakin’s approach to clothing…

Solo: It won’t match.
Kuryakin: It doesn’t have to match.

Solo consults with Gaby during her fitting session.

The single-breasted waistcoat has five covered buttons down to the straight-cut bottom, one of the more obvious elements lifted from McQueen’s Thomas Crown suits. This vest has two lower welted pockets and a dark brocade satin back with an adjustable strap. A short notch on each side of the waistcoat separates the windowpane-suited front from the satin back.

Solo takes in the air on his Rome hotel balcony.

Solo’s flat front suit trousers have no belt loops, instead fitting around the waist with buckle-tab adjusters on each side of the waistband. There is a straight pocket on each side and a jetted back pocket on the right (none on the left!) The narrow leg tapers down to the plain-hemmed bottoms.

Solo packs his things at the end of the team’s mission.

The pale blue dress shirt provides a gentle, flattering contrast to the bold blue suit without overwhelming like a white shirt. The shirt has a narrow point collar, plain front, and side darts on the upper back. Solo wears black-faced silver cuff links in the shirt’s rounded double (French) cuffs.

Solo kicks back in his suite.

Unlike James Bond, who seemingly wore only solid ties throughout the 1960s, Solo often sports more complexly patterned ties with shades that flatter his suits and shirts. Both ties that he wears with this blue windowpane suit are foulard silk ties with varying degrees of blue present.

For the shopping trip in Berlin and the balcony finale in Rome, Solo wears a blue-on-lighter blue foulard silk tie.

All blue!

For the team’s arrival in Rome, Solo wears another foulard tie with small light blue-on-navy spots connected over a maroon ground.

A touch of red.

A snappy dresser like Napoleon Solo would naturally know that the finest suit can be ruined by bad shoes, so Joanna Johnston collaborated with venerable English shoemaker Crockett & Jones to keep her sharp American spy looking fashionably British. Solo seems to exclusively wear Crockett & Jones “Courtenay” oxfords in dark brown calf leather with his suits. These five-eyelet subtly punched shoes have single leather bark-tanned soles. The plain toe is soft and round, characteristic of Crockett & Jones’ 363 last. The Crockett & Jones site prices these Courtenay oxfords at $860.

Solo appropriately always wears blue socks when wearing this suit. He nicely matches the suit with a pair of dark navy dress socks in Rome, but – evidently feeling more jaunty – he wears a pair of powder blue dress socks in Berlin that provides a flash of contrast between his trouser legs and brown shoes.

The short break of Solo’s trousers give his shoes and socks plenty of time to shine in a Berlin boutique.

Henry Cavill is an Omega watch wearer in real life, so it’s no surprise that he sports a timepiece from that venerable brand associated with spies, presidents, and astronauts as Napoleon Solo. According to Men’s Journal, Johnston delved into Omega’s expansive archives to find the vintage gold chronograph that Cavill wears on screen.

In a nice touch of consistency, some of Solo’s other clothes that he wore in the film can be seen when he is packing his suitcase in Rome.

Finally, Solo wears a gold signet ring on his left pinky that was custom made for the production.

How to Get the Look

Henry Cavill on set during production of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

Real life spies tend to fly under the radar, but fashionable agents like Napoleon Solo are more than comfortable showing the fruits of their profession with bold, beautifully tailored three-piece suits and luxury accessories.

• Blue multi-toned windowpane wool tailored three-piece suit, tailored by Timothy Everest and consisting of:
  • Single-breasted 3-button suit jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets and ticket pocket, functional 4-button cuffs, long single vent, and covered buttons
  • Single-breasted 5-button waistcoat/vest with two lower welted pockets, straight-cut bottom, and dark brocade satin back with adjustable strap
  • trousers
• Pale blue dress shirt with narrow point collar, plain front, side darts, and double/French cuffs
  • Silver-edged black rectangular cuff links
• Blue-on-blue foulard silk tie
• Dark brown calf leather Crockett & Jones “Courtenay” five-eyelet plain-toe oxfords/balmorals
• Blue dress socks
• Gold vintage Omega chronograph wristwatch with round white dial (with 3:00 and 9:00 sub-dials) on black leather strap
• Gold signet ring

The Gun

Solo’s sidearm of choice is a Browning Hi-Power, although it doesn’t get much use in these scenes beyond a brief (but very clear!) shot of it in his suitcase toward the end. After decades in design, the Hi-Power was introduced in 1935 as a high-capacity response to John Browning’s 1911 pistol. It is a single-action semi-automatic pistol that carries a 13-round magazine of 9x19mm Parabellum ammunition.

Solo considers whether he will need his Hi-Power one last time…

The “Fabrique Nationale Herstal” printed on the slide indicates that this is a Belgian-made Hi-Power with a classic pre-1973 ring hammer.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie, and check out the original series too!

You can read more about the Timothy Everest connection on their site and more about the Crockett & Jones collaboration on their site.

The Quote

Take it like a pussy.

Sean Connery as Jim Malone in The Untouchables (1987)

Vitals

Sean Connery as Jim Malone, tough and honest Chicago beat cop

Chicago, September 1930

Film: The Untouchables
Release Date: June 3, 1987
Director: Brian De Palma
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

The Untouchables is a highly entertaining – yet highly fictionalized – saga of the successful legal campaign to bring down Al Capone’s criminal enterprise that terrorized Chicago through the 1920s with an all-star cast including Robert De Niro as Capone himself.

Eliot Ness had made a name for himself in the final years of Chicago’s beer wars as a relentless Prohibition agent, and he would use his fame decades later to pen The Untouchables, a memoir in which he credits himself with practically single-handedly sending Capone to prison. In real life, Ness’ raids were indeed disruptive, but it was the work of modest investigators U.S. Attorney George E.Q. Johnson and IRS agent Frank Wilson that eventually led to the charges that successfully convicted Capone.

Yet, Ness’s legend lives on thanks to his book that was quickly turned into an ABC television series starring Robert Stack as the no-nonsense gangbuster with his team of “untouchable” agents. The series was initially aired in 1959 as a two-part TV film called The Scarface Mob, showcasing Neville Brand as Al “Dr. Evil” Capone, but the popularity led to four additional seasons of Ness and his crack team taking down a different gangster each week, including Ma Barker’s gang… despite the fact that Ness had absolutely nothing to do with the Barker-Karpis gang and was just beginning his controversial role as Cleveland’s director of public safety when Ma Barker was slain next to her criminal son Fred in a Florida bungalow in 1935. But I digress…

In 1987, Brian De Palma helmed The Untouchables, reinvigorating interest in Ness’ self-promoted campaign against Capone. Essentially a reboot of the spirit of the TV show rather than a straight retelling of the actual facts, the film starred Kevin Costner as the bright-eyed and earnest Eliot Ness, hapless in the face of Chicago’s corrupt legal system that allows – if not encourages – Capone to succeed. Ness encounters tired old Irish beat cop Jim Malone (Sean Connery), who thoroughly impresses him as the last uncorruptible figure in the city’s law enforcement structure. Malone binds Ness into a “blood oath” to bring down Capone – it was Connery’s idea to film this scene in a church – and the two form the nexus of the four-person Untouchables that are unbribable and unstoppable as they bust Capone’s illegal liquor industry and build their case with plenty of bullets and blood along the way.

What’d He Wear?

As a cynical old-timer, Malone sports a scrappier look than the sharp Armani suits worn by Kevin Costner’s ambitious Eliot Ness. In fact, costuming informs plenty about the characters of The Untouchables. Ruthless mob enforcer and death-dealer Frank Nitti wears a white suit that recalls the “pale horse” of Revelations as hell follows him through Chicago; treasury agents Ness and Wallace wears gray business suits as they go about their jobs while honest cops Stone and Malone are grounded in earth tones.

The Untouchables: George Stone (Andy Garcia), Jim Malone (Sean Connery), Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner), and Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith).

Malone’s base outfit is a thin-waled corduroy jacket, pale shirt buttoned to the neck, odd vest, brown wool trousers, ankle boots, and tweed newsboy cap, all in various earth tones that evoke his ruggedness.

The Norfolk-inspired sport jacket is constructed of pale brown corduroy cotton. The soft, uneven texture of the jacket leads many to speculate that it is tweed, but close-ups, production stills, and auction photos verify that it is indeed corduroy, albeit a very fine needlecord.

Malone isn’t above injecting some racism into his job interviews to see how applicants respond to ethnic slurs. It’s effective but not recommended.

The jacket’s notch lapels roll just over the top button of the closely-spaced three-button front stance. All of the jacket’s buttons – the three on the front, the three smaller ones on each cuff, and each pocket flap button – are brown woven leather. The shoulders are softly padded with minimal roping at the sleeveheads; the position of the sleeveheads just off the shoulder indicates that the jacket is slightly oversized.

About to give the Capone organization its first black eye in quite some time,..

The three outer pockets are patch-style pockets with an open-top, rounded-bottom breast pocket and pointed flaps that button to close each of the large hip pockets.

While lacking details like the front box pleats and full belt, Malone’s jacket takes some inspiration from traditional Norfolk jackets and hunting coats, appropriate for an old-school cop who certainly knows his way around a mahaska. The back shoulder yoke comes to a point in the center, just above an inverted box pleat that adds a few extra inches to Malone’s range of motion. The ventless back is half-belted, with the center pleat traveling the entire length between the pointed yoke and the belt.

Stone’s recruitment doesn’t go quite as Ness would have expected, but as long as Malone is happy, that’s all that really matters.

Malone’s light brown tick-checked wool vest is single-breasted with long low-gorge notch lapels and six closely-spaced buttons down to the notched bottom, which ends high on his waist to accentuate Connery’s leg length without lengthening or drawing attention to his torso. There are two welted pockets at the hips, and he wears his silver chain with his call-box key and his medallion of St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, clipped to the left pocket. The tan sateen back has an adjustable strap.

Malone in repose.

Malone’s usual shirt is a pale green cotton shirt from R&O Hawick (not “Harwick” as misspelled in an auction listing) with a large semi-spread collar and rounded cuffs with clear plastic buttons that match those down the wide edge-stitched front placket. When not wearing a tie, Malone typically wears his shirt buttoned up to the neck.

A moment of trepidation before the raid… followed by exuberance and celebration after its success.

The only time he does wear a tie is his celebratory dinner with Ness, Wallace, and Stone after their first successful raid, when he sports an olive-and-tan large-scale plaid tie with tonal overchecking, tied in a small four-in-hand knot with the wide, ’30s-style blade hanging free.

Note the suspenders and belt… apparently Malone’s trousers need a good deal of help staying up!

During this dinner and several other early scenes in The Untouchables, Malone wears a brick red Aran knit wool sleeveless cardigan sweater with five dark corozo buttons, a notched bottom, and two welted pockets at the hips, wearing his silver chain similarly clipped to the left pocket.

Shotgun in hand, Malone leads his raiders.

For his final day on screen, Malone appears to be wearing a pale blue shirt, similarly styled to the pale green shirt with its large semi-spread collar, but with double (French) cuffs where he wears a set of plain gold square links.

Malone’s final moments with fellow Untouchables.

Malone wears a pair of double reverse-pleated brown herringbone wool trousers that rise high under his waistcoat. They have a button fly and straight pockets along the side seams but no back pockets. The bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

A rough night for Malone…

Evidently, Malone requires both a belt and suspenders to hold up his trousers. His belt is plain black leather with a simple steel single-prong buckle. Malone often opts for varieties of blue and gray striped braces, but his best-seen (and final) suspenders consist of two gray stripes on a duller blue cloth, with each gray stripe bisected by a thin scarlet red stripe. The suspenders button to the inside of his trouser waistband with black leather double-ears.

A “boots on the ground” man of action like Malone naturally wears a pair of ankle boots consistent with his ruggedly urban outfit. The dark brown leather cap-toe boots have derby-style open lacing with one lace from each boot tied around the throat to keep them secured over his ankles, further signifying that Malone is an old-timer who knows (and does) what works for him specifically. Malone wears black socks with his boots.

It takes more than the entire fifty-round drum of a Thompson submachine gun to keep Malone down… at least in the short term.

The auctioned boots were described as having an “Aventura Label”, but I haven’t been able to find any information about Aventura beyond certain stores selling boots in the area of Aventura, Florida. Some brands specifically make boots to be “back-laced” like this, such as these John Varvatos Brixton Welder boots. (It’s worth noting that Malone would surely scoff at paying $700 for footwear, however.)

Malone tops off his modest attire with that most earthy of 1930s headgear, a wool newsboy cap. The mixed dark brown tweed cap reflects the earth tones of the rest of his outfit, and it is differentiated as a newsboy cap (rather than a standard flat cap) with the eight panels connected under a tweed-covered top button. The auctioned cap is listed as an “AKERI Sportsman Extra Quality” snap cap, but – like the boots – I haven’t been able to learn more information about this manufacturer.

Malone meets “the next chief of police.”

As I’ve mentioned throughout this post, most of Malone’s costume was auctioned in December 2005 by Profiles in History, as found here. Evidently, the clothing had traveled through several auctions, including an original Paramount auction in 1990 by Christie’s East.

The auction listing describes the clothing:

This civilian ensemble consists of a light brown textured corduroy jacket with woven leather buttons and two front pockets;a pair of brown textured wool trousers with button front closure, handwritten in the waistband “Malone-A”; a pale green cotton shirt with R&O Harwick [sic] label; a textured brown wool vest; tweed wool snap cap marked “AKERI Sportsman Extra Quality” and a pair of brown leather ankle boots with perforated detailing and Aventura Label.

Originally offered at the 1990 Christie’s East sale of Hollywood memorabilia featuring items from Paramount Pictures.

An image of the auctioned outfit, sourced from PropArchives.com, can be seen on the right.

It’s been suggested that Sean Connery eschewed the Armani clothing sported by other characters in the film, instead opting for his personal tailor to create much of the clothing he wears in The Untouchables. As no labels are described in any of the tailored items that were auctioned – jacket, waistcoat, and trousers – it’s more than likely that these were indeed custom-made for Connery.

How to Get the Look

Early in the film, Malone bemoans to Ness that he is “just a poor beat cop,” and he certainly dresses the part with a functional mishmash of earth tones in rugged fabrics like corduroy, tweed, and textured wool.

Sean Connery and Kevin Costner on set filming The Untouchables (1987)

• Pale brown pinwale corduroy cotton single-breasted 3-roll-2-button sport jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, button-down flapped hip patch pockets, 3-button cuffs, and half-belted ventless back with inverted box pleat center
• Pale green cotton shirt with large semi-spread collar, wide front placket, and rounded button cuffs
• Light brown tick-checked wool single-breasted 6-button vest with low notch lapels, notched bottom, two lower welted pockets, and tan sateen back with adjustable strap
• Brown herringbone wool double reverse-pleated high-rise trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Blue-and-gray striped cloth suspenders with black leather ears
• Black leather belt with steel single-prong buckle
• Dark brown leather shortwing cap-toe derby-laced ankle boots
• Black socks
• Dark brown tweed newsboy cap

For fancy occasions, maybe a dinner out with fellow gun-toting liquor raiders, Malone wears a brick red sleeveless cardigan sweater with a plaid tie.

The Gun

You carry a badge? Carry a gun.

It’s no surprise that Malone is so eager to thrust a gun into Oscar Wallace’s inexperienced hands as Malone is certainly an expert when it comes to firearms and using them as an effective tool in law enforcement.

Malone’s preferred sidearm is a Smith & Wesson Model 10 – then known simply as a Smith & Wesson “Military & Police” revolver – in .38 Special. The Model 10, renamed in the late 1950s when Smith & Wesson standardized its numbered model system, was the police revolver throughout the 20th century. He carries a standard blued model with a four-inch barrel and walnut grips, usually tucked into the left side of his waistband.

The fact that the Chicago Police Department issued a Colt Police Positive during this era and Malone’s questionable use of the weapon – both to shoot a dead gangster in the mouth and to threaten his own captain – suggest the possibility that the Smith & Wesson is Malone’s personal handgun.

Malone finds plenty of opportunities to draw his service revolver… even on his own corrupt captain.

When a raid is in order, Malone doesn’t hestitate before reaching into Ness’ office weapons cabinet to issue Winchester Model 1897 riot shotguns to the team. Introduced in 1897 (as you may have guessed), the Winchester Model 1897 was the first successful pump-action shotgun, designed by John Browning as a tougher improvement on his earlier Winchester Model 1893 as well as the Spencer pump shotgun developed in the 1880s. The trench model, essentially a riot-length Model 1897 with a bayonet leg, found success in the hands of American troops during World War I, where its devastating impact and six-shot capacity led to an unsuccessful attempt by the Germans to have it outlawed in combat.

A distinctive feature of the Winchester Model 1897 that differentiates it from the later Winchester Model 1912 is the Model 1897’s external hammer system and lack of a trigger disconnector, which allows a user to hold the trigger down while cycling the shotgun to fire the shotgun each time the action is returned to battery… similar to fanning the hammer of a single-action revolver.

Available in 12-gauge and 16-gauge, the Model 1897 was continually produced for sixty years until hammerless shotguns like the Model 1912 and Remington Model 870 superseded its popularity.

Malone delivers a 12-gauge message to the Capone organization.

Malone also made an impression on screen with the brutal-looking lupara kept in his phonograph cabinet for home defense. Thanks to IMFDB, we know that this short-barreled 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun was a Rossi Overland and had been built for Ellis Mercantile by the late gunsmith Branko Wohlfahrt. Ellis Mercantile supplied weaponry for The Untouchables and thus Malone found himself frequently armed with this sawed-off shotgun.

In a twist of irony, Malone makes a disparaging remark about the Italian assassin ostensibly “bringing a knife to a gunfight” while himself armed with a lupara. The lupara was traditionally associated with the “old world” Cosa Nostra for its frequent use in Sicilian vendettas, gaining particular attention in the United States after the 1890 murder of New Orleans police chief David Hennessy was widely reported at the time to have been committed by shotgun-wielding mafioso and led to intense anti-Italian sentiment and the largest reported mass lynching in American history.

Malone knows that a gun is the only appropriate weapon for a gunfight.

The Rossi Overland wasn’t manufactured until 1978, but it is cosmetically similar enough to shotguns of the late 19th century that this would hardly define it as an anachronism and it has also found use in period productions like Mobsters and Deadwood.

No Prohibition-era gangland epic set in The Windy City would be complete without extended use of the Thompson submachine gun, the .45-caliber weapon that gained a reputation as “the gun that made the twenties roar.” Of the Untouchables, only Malone and Stone make use of the “Chicago typewriter” which, despite its nickname, is most frequently handled by the men during their mission on the Canadian border.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way!

Pierce Brosnan as James Bond in The World is Not Enough (1999)

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Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, sophisticated British secret agent

London, November 1999

Film: The World is Not Enough
Release Date: November 8, 1999
Director: Michael Apted
Costume Designer: Lindy Hemming

Background

February 27 is National Cigar Day according to some, and – while it may not be recognized universally – it’s always nice to have an extra reason to relax with your favorite cigar.

Like Roger Moore before him, Pierce Brosnan eschewed the cigarettes favored by the literary (and, at one point, cinematic) James Bond in favor of cigars. Both actors preferred cigars in real life as well, and it’s been recorded that Moore frequently received several thousand pounds worth of Montecristo cigars during his outings as 007.

In The World is Not Enough, Brosnan’s Bond returns from his action-packed trip to Bilbao for what should be a quiet day at the office that begins, as usual, by casually flirting with Miss Moneypenny (Samantha Bond).

Moneypenny: James! Have you brought me a souvenir from your trip? Chocolates? An engagement ring?
Bond: I thought you might enjoy one of these…

Bond hands Moneypenny a Romeo y Julieta Churchill tube, one of the ones he picked up from the aptly nicknamed “Cigar Girl” in Bilbao. Even the screenplay describes it as “a large phallic TUBE.”

Moneypenny: How romantic. I know exactly where to put that. (tosses it in the trash)
Bond: Oh Moneypenny, the story of our relationship; close, but no cigar.

Gliding into M’s office on his cheeky wit, Bond’s day takes an unexpected turn when a glass of Scotch tips him to eminent danger in the building. The danger comes to fruition in the form of an explosion that leads to 007 “borrowing” Q’s latest contraption – a state-of-the-art “fishing boat” with a full weapons system and dive capabilities – as he faces off against “Cigar Girl” herself, in actuality an assassin named Giulietta da Vinci (Maria Grazia Cucinotta, who had a memorable role on The Sopranos that same year.)

The exciting action sequence to follow concluded the longest pre-title sequence in the Bond series to date, wrapping up after nearly 14 whopping action-packed minutes that found Bond in two continents (and two sharp charcoal Brioni suits!)

What’d He Wear?

The opening scene featured Brosnan’s Bond moving through the streets and skies of Bilbao in a solid charcoal two-piece suit with a rich blue shirt and patterned tie. 007 arrives at MI6 headquarters in the following scene wearing a different charcoal suit, this one a three-piece with a subtle gray pinstripe and unique details like the jacket’s single-button closure and the countrified waistcoat with lapels and pocket flaps.

Constructed from worsted wool, this Brioni suit features the strongly structured Roman shoulder that was a hallmark of Brosnan’s Brioni suits, although the suit shoulders in The World is Not Enough are not quite as wide as they had been in GoldenEye, four years earlier.

The suit jacket’s notch lapels elegantly roll to the single button, located at Brosnan’s waist and in line with the bottom of the ticket pocket flap and the fifth button of his waistcoat. The flapped pockets on the hips sit slightly angled toward the back. The jacket has long double vents and “kissing” four-button cuffs at the end of each sleeve.

Bond finds time for both business and leisure at the office.

Bond’s gray silk display kerchief, worn puffed into his jacket’s breast pocket here, nicely calls out the gray pinstripe of his suiting while also drawing out the gray in his tie. This is the last appearance of a pocket square for Brosnan’s Bond, and 007 wouldn’t wear another one until Daniel Craig revived it in Quantum of Solace when also wearing a dark charcoal suit in London’s MI6 office.

The distinctive touches of Bond’s matching waistcoat can easily fly under the radar as the drape of his jacket keeps it covered through most of his non-action scenes, but his adventures that find him landing on the roof of the Millennium Dome reveal its interesting details: notch lapels and flapped pockets. The six-button vest properly has the lowest button over the notched bottom.

Despite a variety of colors and fabrics, Bond’s suits are styled with relative consistency throughout The World is Not Enough with one exception: some suits have pleated trousers while some are flat-fronted but shaped with darts. This suit is the latter, with belt loops, slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and cuffed bottoms.

Bond’s black leather belt, which would normally be covered by his waistcoat, makes a prominent cameo as he slides down the roof of the Millennium Dome as the rectangular steel single-prong buckle pokes out under the waistcoat’s notched bottom. It is for this unsightly reason that three-piece suit wearers often abstain from belts in favor of suspenders or trousers fitted with side adjusters. The belt also has two metal loops positioned directly left of the buckle to further secure it in place.

After a landing like that, I’m sure 007 is in no mood to hear about his frequent sartorial faux pas of wearing a belt with a three-piece suit.

Turnbull & Asser provided the shirts and ties for Pierce Brosnan in his latter three Bond films, including The World is Not Enough. His white poplin shirt in this scene has a spread collar and front placket. The squared double (French) cuffs are fastened by a set of distinctive Dunhill cuff links that he wears with all of his business suits in The World is Not Enough, resembling two white gold rings connected by a short yellow gold bar.

More information about the Dunhill cuff links can be found at James Bond Lifestyle.

Dangling over the Thames is no place for expensive cufflinks… let alone a made-to-measure Italian suit!

The geometric-patterned Turnbull & Asser tie contributed to The World is Not Enough‘s definitive “crowning moment of badass” when he uses his brief submersion in Q’s “fishing boat” to adjust his tie knot, supposedly a moment suggested by Brosnan himself.

The pattern consists of intersecting red, silver, and gold double-lined squares on a dark gray ground. Turnbull & Asser advertises that the tie is approximately 57″ long with a 3.75″ blade, all constructed from its “high-density 350-end woven jacquard silk” with a wool mix inner lining. In its excellent post about the tie, James Bond Lifestyle goes on to describe: “This silk has more warp and weft yarns per square inch than is customary, making the fabric denser and more substantial in both weight and feel.”

Bond deploys his powers of seduction…which fail miserably.

“The World is Not Enough Silk Tie”, $190, Turnbull & Asser

Turnbull & Asser wisely still offers the tie for sale, and interested buyers can use product code MTIE001-Z05501 or check out this link to purchase for yourself. As of February 2017, the price is $190.

If $190 is a bit steep for you, Magnoli Clothiers has produced a beautifully similar replica of Brosnan’s Turnbull & Asser tie, appropriately named the “Thames Tie”, highly recommended by several reviewers and available for $60 from their site and on Amazon.

Bond wears a fair amount of monk shoes from Church’s in black and brown leather all throughout The World is Not Enough, but he sports a more traditional pair of black wingtip brogues for his return to the office and subsequent dive into the Thames. The shoes are likely also from Church’s, possibly the same Church’s Diplomat half brogues worn in GoldenEye, and are worn with black socks.

The laces are the first hint that Bond isn’t wearing the monk shoes that serve him so well elsewhere in The World is Not Enough.

Pierce Brosnan’s tenure as James Bond came with the added responsibility of being a brand ambassador for Omega, 007’s watch of choice from GoldenEye onward. In his last three Bond outings, including The World is Not Enough, Brosnan wore an Omega Seamaster Professional 2531.80.00 chronometer with a blue dial, blue rotating bezel, and stainless bracelet. The watch has an automatic movement – rather than the quartz movement of his 2541.80.00 worn in GoldenEye – and a power reserve of 44 hours. More information can be found at James Bond Lifestyle.

Luckily for Bond, his stainless steel dive watch is water-resistant to 300 meters…although that depth would have certainly tested the limits of Q’s modest watercraft.

The presence of Bond’s trusty Walther P99 semi-automatic pistol signifies that he is likely wearing his equally trusty Galco Executive shoulder holster, positioned under his left arm with a fully lined Italian calf leather harness designed to fit a number of full-size and compact handguns.

For more information about this suit and to read other excellent posts about 007’s sartorial style, check out Matt Spaiser’s definitive blog The Suits of James Bond.

What to Imbibe

It’s hard to beat Scotch and a cigar… especially when you can work it into your work day.

Bond’s aborted attempt at innuendo involved a Romeo y Julieta Churchill cigar, obtained during his travels in Bilbao. If only Moneypenny had accepted the gift, she would have enjoyed a smooth, flavorful, and ultimately luxurious smoke.

As James Bond Lifestyle points out, The World is Not Enough wasn’t the first association of Romeo y Julieta cigars in the Bond universe; Sean Connery’s 007 had previously been given just the cigar’s aluminum cigar tube to store his underwater breather in “a convenient pocket.”

007 makes his way into M’s office where she is enjoying a libation with Sir Robert King. Following Sir Robert’s departure, M offers Bond a glass of 10-year-old single malt Scotch, namely Talisker. Talisker is a significantly peaty, seaweedy whisky from the Talisker distillery, which was founded in 1830 and to this day the only distillery on the Isle of Skye.

Bond wisely accepts a dram of M’s Talisker.

Bond drinks his Talisker on the rocks (come on, James…), and the chemical reaction of his skin to the ice cubes tips him off that disaster is about to strike the absent Sir Robert…

How to Get the Look

When in London, Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond dresses like the Romans do with a sharply tailored Brioni suit, but his English identity is well reflected through the suit’s details and the heritage of his shirt, tie, and shoes.

• Charcoal gray-pinstripe worsted wool tailored Brioni suit, consisting of:
  • Single-breasted 1-button suit jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, slightly slanted flapped hip pockets, flapped ticket pocket, 4-button cuffs, and double vents
  • Single-breasted 6-button waistcoat with notch lapels, flapped pockets, and notched bottom
  • Darted-front trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, button-through jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton poplin Turnbull & Asser dress shirt with spread collar, front placket, and squared double/French cuffs
  • Gold double-ring Dunhill cuff links
• Jacquard woven dark gray silk Turnbull & Asser tie with an intersecting red, silver, and gold geometric square pattern
• Black leather belt with rectangular steel single-prong buckle
• Black leather Church’s half brogues
• Black dress socks
• Galco Executive black leather right-hand-draw shoulder holster, for Walther P99 semi-automatic pistol
• Omega Seamaster Professional 2531.80.00 stainless steel wristwatch with blue dial, blue bezel, and stainless bracelet

007 nicely calls out the suit’s gray striping and the dual gray tones in the tie by wearing a gray silk display kerchief in his breast pocket.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

Footnote

Need something to pep you up during your morning commute? The techno-flavored variation of the James Bond Theme, “Come in 007, Your Time is Up,” will make your Camry on the parkway feel like a spy boat on the Thames.

Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006)

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Daniel Craig as James Bond, swaggering and brash British government agent

Madagascar, July 2006

Film: Casino Royale
Release Date: November 14, 2006
Director: Martin Campbell
Costume Designer: Lindy Hemming

Background

To celebrate Daniel Craig’s 49th birthday today, BAMF Style is looking back to his “birth” in the Bond franchise in Casino Royale, exploring the scrappy summer attire during the dangerous first mission that Craig’s Bond took as a 00 agent.

After the globe-trotting double kills that led to James Bond’s eligibility for 00 status, Bond finds himself in Madagascar, working with bright-eyed and bushy-tailed MI6 agent named Carter (Joseph Millson) as they conduct surveillance on a bombmaker named Mollaka. The eager Carter’s inability to fit in compromises their identities, and Bond is forced to chase after Mollaka while Carter languishes in a mongoose pit.

Unfortunately for 007, Mollaka is played by French freerunner Sébastien Foucan, a parkour pioneer who sees the various cranes, walls, and heights as no obstruction to his getaway. Unfortunately for Mollaka, this Bond doesn’t rely on an arched eyebrow or a well-timed witticism to get the job done…this Bond runs through walls, dammit!

Daniel Craig, Professional Wallbuster.

The chase leads to an African embassy, where Bond storms in, steals the ambassador’s pistol, and “violated the only absolutely inviolate rule of international relationships” by killing Mollaka when cornered.

The pre-credits sequence of 007 coolly killing a double agent while reclining in the man’s office was pure classic Bond, but this… this was something we haven’t seen before.

Daniel Craig on set.

What’d He Wear?

Bond’s Madagascar outfit has received plenty of criticism from fans used to seeing their favorite agent in expensive tailored suits or subdued, fitted casual wear. While I agree that this isn’t the first ensemble I’d pull out of my closet for an evening out, I think Bond’s choice here indicates the franchise’s renewed focus on realism. Casino Royale was on the heels of four Brosnan films where our hero was rarely more informal than a Brioni suit and tie; indeed, his only deviation from a suit in The World is Not Enough was a brown skiing outfit.

In Madagascar, Bond and Carter are surveilling Mollaka at a public fight between a mongoose and a cobra…surrounded by the kind of people who would bet on a fight between a mongoose and a cobra. Even a casual polo and jeans would have immediately pegged Bond as an outsider, compromising the mission before it would even begin. If Mollaka could be tipped off by Carter touching his earpiece, he would surely take notice of a clean-cut Englishman sporting clean, tailored clothing rather than the considerably unfashionable garb here that ultimately serves its purpose.

Bond’s floral-printed cotton sport shirt is short-sleeved with short button tabs at the end of each sleeve to adjust the fit over his biceps as needed. The edge-stitched point collar is fashionably large for 2006, although that may be all that one could call truly “fashionable” about the shirt. The shirt also has a breast pocket on the left and a short vent on each side of the straight hem.

The shirt has seven white buttons down the front placket, but Bond only wears the third button up from the bottom fastened. This may be a sloppy look, but it keeps him airy in the warm climate while preventing the shirt from flapping about too much and impeding his movement during his parkour pursuit.

The floral print consists of abstract light gray ferns on a beige ground, overlaid with sketched brick red floral designs.

Just as the Casino Royale Bond doesn’t give a damn if his martini is shaken or stirred, he couldn’t care less what you think about his shirt.

The original shirt was made by Academy Costumes in London, according to the digital portfolio on their site. Although it was custom made for the product, Bond fans have no need to fret… Iconic Alternatives has some excellent suggestions for channeling the shirt, including Magnoli Clothiers’ spot-on replica “Madagascar Shirt”, priced at $165.

Bond’s decision to wear a visible undershirt also seems to divide fans watching with a sartorial eye, but it strikes me as a practical decision to catch the abundance of sweat that a situation like this would create. For better or worse, the t-shirt also evokes Bond’s youth and athleticism that have yet to be refined as his character matures.

The fitted t-shirt is light gray heathered cotton with a wide crew neck and very short fitted sleeves with multi-striped bands. The stripes, seen only in set photos since Bond wears his shirt covering them throughout the scene, consist of a series of four bright red stripes in the center, bordered on the top and bottom by a maroon stripe, a gap, and then a thinner maroon stripe. Even if they do go unseen, the colored bands nicely call out the colors in his tropical shirt.

Daniel Craig on set, showing off lesser seen elements of his Madagascar outfit like the t-shirt’s striped sleeves, his web belt, and beige socks.

According to The Undershirt Guy, sourcing images from The Bond Experience, it’s reasonable to speculate that Daniel Craig was wearing a Diesel brand t-shirt for these scenes. Unseen in the film, the back yoke is printed with a stylized black “777” crowned in an ornate black design. The “lucky 777” imagery might be a little too on-the-nose for Casino Royale, but credit is due to the shirt detectives for doing this homework!

Magnoli again comes to the rescue, this time with a $45 replica “Madagascar T Shirt” that nails everything from the fit to the color of the distinctive sleeve bands. Magnoli describes its replica as having “a decorative print design on the upper back” to reflect the Diesel shirt.

Bond’s tan linen trousers are one of the simplest elements of the outfit. The loose fit is ideal for avoiding sticky sweat in Madagascar’s warm tropical climate. These pants have a very casual drawstring waist rather than belt loops or side adjusters and two back patch pockets.

Bond’s five star frog splash technique could use some work…

A more refined Bond might have opted for chinos or cream jeans similar to the ones he would later wear in the Bahamas or in Haiti during Quantum of Solace, both appropriate for the climate and context of this scene.

Many retailers like H&M offer similar and affordable ultra-casual linen pants like this pair in the summer, just in time to provide the perfect lightweight layer for a trip to the beach. Cubavera also offers an affordable linen/rayon blend designed more for a day in paradise than a day chasing terrorists.

The unstructured, lightweight trouser waistband would provide little of the needed support for Bond to holster his 22-ounce Walther P99, so he wears a wide black web belt with a flat steel slider-style buckle, fastened tightly enough around his waist to secure the holster in place despite not fitting in congress with his trousers. Perhaps the slipping belt taught 007 a lesson about wearing better-fitted trousers in the future…

The production swapped in a rubber Walther P99 replica prop for scenes like this that could have severely damaged the blank-firing P99.

This is the first appearance of Bond’s “cognac” brown suede Vega IB339 holster, a right-hand-draw IWB holster meant to be worn inside the waistband (in case you couldn’t tell what IWB stood for…) In fact, Casino Royale marks the cinematic Bond’s first use of any holster except the variety of shoulder rigs that followed him from the first few books through Dr. No up to Die Another Day. You can read more about the Vega IWB holsters worn by Craig’s 007 at James Bond Lifestyle.

A modest gentleman like Bond tends to keep his choice of undergarments an onscreen mystery, but this more brazen, unpolished 007 chasing down a terrorist on a hot summer day is prone to slipping up. Or, at least, his trousers are prone to slipping down a bit, revealing what appears to be white cotton underwear.

Nothing kills a badass action scene like plumber’s crack. Props to Bond for not going commando despite the heat.

Apropos his ostensible cover in Madagascar, most of Bond’s clothing looks like he could’ve cobbled it together from a bargain bin. However, he put some investment into his footwear, as one should during a set-piece that calls for extensive running and jumping. Bond clearly wears a pair of Converse Jack Purcell OTR shoes in a shade of russet brown leather that Converse calls “chocolate and paprika”, worn with beige socks.

The shoes are an intriguing cross between ankle boots and the active-focused sneakers that Converse is known for, with the “OTR” designation standing for “On the Road”. The soles are black rubber, including the rubber toe bumper and external heel cup, which the wardrobe team seemingly modified to conceal orange accents. They lace up with brown laces through eight brass eyelets, extending down onto toe cap for a narrower fit over the bridge.

More information and helpful reviews can be found at James Bond Lifestyle, where “Brendan” commented: “They’re a bit warm for the summer (Craig must have been dying in his scenes) and require a bit of breaking in.” The eagle-eyed team at Iconic Alternatives has identified several pairs of brown leather ankle boots and sneakers that reflect the look and spirit of Craig’s Converse footwear from the Madagascar sequence, and I highly recommend checking out their suggestions for channeling this now-discontinued shoe.

Bond may typically wear Crockett & Jones, but there are few shoes better for kicking ass (and kicking levers) on a hot, dusty construction site than tried-and-true Converses.

Bond may have been concerned about Carter blowing their cover, but his decision to wear a big, brand new Omega wristwatch would have also drawn some suspicious eyes. Through these early, action-oriented scenes of Casino Royale, Daniel Craig wears an Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean “Big Size” 2900.50.91 chronometer on a black rubber strap, a sportier alternative to the blue-dialed Seamaster Professional that he would wear with his suits and formalwear.

Bond’s Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean has a 45.5mm stainless steel case, black bezel, and a black dial under domed anti-reflective, scratch-resistant sapphire crystal. The actual watch worn by Craig, no. 81084716, was auctioned by Antiquorum in April 2007, fetching $213,000.

On his definitive blog exploring clothing of the Bond films (and beyond), The Suits of James Bond, blogger Matt Spaiser offers his own takes on this outfit.

How to Get the Look

In a final defense of this outfit, this is James Bond’s first mission as a 00-agent. He’s a rough and tough Bond who’s up for the job, not yet mastering the balance between sophisticated sartorialism and carrying out his tasks as his style continues to evolve. Most importantly, Daniel Craig is able to pull it off!

• Gray-and-red-on-beige floral-printed cotton sport shirt with large edge-stitched point collar, front placket, breast pocket, straight hem with side vents, and button-tab adjustable short sleeves
• Light gray melange cotton crew-neck short-sleeve t-shirt with red multi-striped arm bands
• Tan linen loose-fitting trousers with drawstring, back patch pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black web belt with flat steel slider buckle
• Converse Jack Purcell “OTR” brown leather ankle boot-sneakers with eight brass eyelets and black rubber soles
• Beige socks
• White cotton underwear
• Vega IB339 suede cognac IWB holster for Walther P99 pistol
• Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean “Big Size” 2900.50.91 on a large black rubber strap

Iconic Alternatives included affordable options for channeling this outfit, as well as three others made famous by 007, in the July 2016 feature article: “4 Ways to Wear the James Bond Linen Trousers”

The Guns

The Madagascar sequence involves plenty of gunplay, although the first prominent instance of 007 handling a firearm is the incredibly cool scene where Mollaka runs out of ammunition in his Heckler & Koch USP Compact. The gun clicks empty just when he would’ve had Bond dead to rights. Out of bullets and any other feasible option, he tosses the pound and a half of steel at Bond, but our hero deftly manages to not only duck out of the way, but also catches the pistol in his right hand… and tosses it right back at him… all while on top of a crane!

Possibly the world’s most dangerous game of catch.

The chase eventually leads to the embassy of the fictional nation Nambutu, ostensibly Mollaka’s home country. Non-Nambutian that he is, Bond is forced to sneak in using the effective espionage method of leaping over a wall.

Once inside, 007 storms through the passageways until he finds Mollaka finding sanctuary in the office of a Nambutu ambassador (Valentine Nonyela). The ambassador opens his desk to reveal a black epoxy-finished Browning Hi-Power Mark III semi-automatic pistol, which Bond grabs and simultaneously uses to pistol-whip the ambassador.

With several no-nos already racked up, Bond then grabs Mollaka and storms him through the halls of the embassy, keeping the armed embassy guards away with defensive tactics such as shooting fire extinguishers to distract them and, finally, pushing Mollaka out a window and following him outside. Bond finds himself surrounded by embassy guards aiming WASR-3 rifles at him, and the bruised ambassador steps out and demands: “Listen to me!”

Bond realizes his predicament. He releases Mollaka from his grasp, holds the Hi-Power off to the side, and engages the safety before dropping it to the ground.

The Nambutu ambassador’s Browning Hi-Power Mark III sits in his desk.

Lest we forget, Bond still has his Walther P99 holstered. His extensive use of the Hi-Power may have been just enough to distract viewers from remembering that Bond has his own gun that goes mostly unused throughout the sequence. One swift move of his hand leads to two skillful shots – one to execute the terrorist Mollaka and the other to puncture a gas tank, causing a non-lethal explosion just distracting enough for 007 to get safely away with Mollaka’s bag.

Now armed with his sidearm of choice, Bond takes aim.

Of course…the MythBusters team had their own ideas about Bond’s escape method. On the 95th episode, “James Bond, Part 1,” the team explored whether a 9mm round could really ignite a propane tank as seen in Casino Royale. Unfortunately for our heroic agent, not only did the tank not explode, but the 9mm round did not even pierce the tank. It wasn’t until they upped to shotgun shells that the tank would even pierce, and it took a high-powered M134 Minigun – loaded with a mix of tracer and incendiary 7.62x51mm NATO rounds – that the tank exploded in the manner seen on screen.

One only wonders what kind of holster and belt Bond would have needed to effectively carry an 85-pound minigun, but it likely would have hindered his progress climbing over those cranes!

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie. Also, check out IMFDB for more information and high-resolution images of the firearms used in Casino Royale.

And don’t forget to wish Daniel Craig a happy birthday!

Footnotes

The parkour chase is an especially impressive stunt sequence and can also be found on YouTube… as can the MythBusters segment debunking Bond’s embassy escape method.

According to Mollaka’s cell phone and security footage of Dimitrios in the Bahamas, this scene was set on July 6, 2006. Coincidentally enough, I was in Las Vegas with my family that whole week. Where were you on July 6, 2006?

Steve McQueen as Thomas Crown in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

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Steve McQueen as Thomas Crown, millionaire playboy and heist mastermind

Salem, New Hampshire, Summer 1968

Film: The Thomas Crown Affair
Release Date: June 19, 1968
Director: Norman Jewison
Costume Designer: Alan Levine

Background

In 1968’s The Thomas Crown Affair, the titular millionaire is every bit the sportsman that you’d expect a Steve McQueen character to be. A brief scene shows Crown spending his weekend recreationally gliding a Schweizer SGS 1-23H through the skies over Salem… although it was actually local pilot Roy McMaster who rode in the cockpit during the actual scenes in flight.

This vignette also featured Steve McQueen sporting casual outerwear that was also a real-life favorite of his: a classic Harrington jacket.

What’d He Wear?

Steve McQueen’s timeless Harrington jacket ensemble is a great weekend look as we approach spring and the warmer months here in the Northern Hemisphere.

Developed by the English company Baracuta as the G9 in the 1930s, this jacket had been around for more than two decades before it achieved widespread popularity. The G9 started to turn heads after Elvis Presley wore one in King Creole (1958), but it was the G9’s association with Ryan O’Neal’s Peyton Place character Rodney Harrington that led to its “Harrington jacket” moniker. Soon, the Harrington jacket was the hot jacket of the ’60s, a staple of icons from Frank Sinatra to Steve McQueen.

McQueen was known to wear sand and stone-colored models in real life, but he wears a navy cotton Baracuta G9 Harrington jacket as Thomas Crown in The Thomas Crown Affair. It’s a fitting choice for Crown, who shares his affinity for golf with the jacket’s earliest adopters. The Harrington jacket is styled like a windbreaker blouson with a zipper running down the front from the tall, Mandarin-style two-button collar to the elasticized hem. Each angled side pocket closes with a button-down flap. The jacket is designed to keep rain from inconveniencing the wearer, including an umbrella-inspired back yoke.

The thing about Steve McQueen is… you know he knew how cool he was.

A distinctive element of a genuine Baracuta is the red Fraser Tartan plaid cotton lining. Baracuta continues to produce the G9, marketed on their site as “the quintessential Harrington jacket” and currently offered for $234.

McQueen in the cockpit.

The Harrington jacket has undergone a recent revival, led by Daniel Craig who seems to be taking up the mantle as McQueen’s spiritual successor in style, sporting a Tom Ford Harrington jacket in Quantum of Solace and several Baracuta G9 jackets in real life. More information about Harrington jackets can be found at Gentleman’s Gazette or James Bond Lifestyle. Iconic Alternatives also has an excellent selection of affordable Harrington jackets to channel the classic McQueen look.

Underneath the Harrington, McQueen wears a royal blue ribbed knit t-shirt with a tall crew-neck collar with a striped band, similar to the lightweight jumper he wore earlier for a round of golf. This collar band has two white stripes, each bordered by a dark navy stripe. A behind-the-scenes photograph taken by Otto Bettmann for Getty Images reveals the shirt’s short sleeves with similar bands around each end.

Crown wears a pair of khaki cotton straight-leg trousers with a flat front and buckle-tab side adjusters rather than belt loops. The trousers have slanted side pockets and jetted back pockets.

In The Thomas Crown Affair, McQueen wears a pair of saddle brown suede two-eyelet desert boots with charcoal crepe “bumper” soles, likely the same Hutton’s “Original Playboy” boots that he sported in Bullitt the same year, here worn with a pair of mustard ribbed socks.

There seems to be an undying debate about McQueen’s preferred brand of chukka boots; some insist on Sanders & Sanders, others fall firmly into the Hutton camp. The Steve McQueen Style blog includes a lively discussion of footwear enthusiasts better informed than I, and it is this discussion that seems to yield to the Hutton advocates, although popular opinion also dictates that Sanders currently makes the closest approximation to what McQueen actually wore at the time. If you just want to channel the look and don’t care about the brand, Iconic Alternatives has got you covered.

McQueen flashes audiences a look at his desert boots while anchoring his glider.

Eye protection is key for safe gliding, so Crown doubles down with a dark navy baseball cap shielding the sun in addition to the now-iconic tortoise-framed Persol 714 sunglasses. Persol has made the most of McQueen’s enthusiasm for their shades on and off screen, currently offering the “Steve McQueen™ Special Edition” model with blue lenses to resemble one of the pairs he wears in The Thomas Crown Affair. In this sequence, however, his Persols have brown lenses.

Thomas Crown has demonstrated a preference for wearing baseball caps while navigating novelty forms of transportation.

In addition to Persol’s site, you can also browse Amazon for your own 714 shades.

We don’t see it on screen in this scene, but McQueen wears his usual gold St. Christopher pendant on a thin gold chain in The Thomas Crown Affair, so it makes sense to assume he is also wearing it under his jumper here.

How to Get the Look

Steve McQueen is one of many style icons who defined the Harrington jacket’s status as the ultimate in mid-century “rebel cool” style. The Baracuta jacket, desert boots, and tortoise-framed Persol sunglasses may be worn in this scene by Thomas Crown the character… but they’re all classic McQueen.

• Navy cotton Baracuta G9 “Harrington” zip-up windbreaker jacket with tall 2-button collar, button-down flapped slanted side pockets, “umbrella” back vent, elasticized cuffs and hem
• Royal blue ribbed knit short-sleeve t-shirt with navy-and-white-striped crew-neck collar band
• Khaki cotton flat front trousers with buckle-tab side adjusters, slanted front pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Saddle brown suede 2-eyelet desert boots
• Mustard ribbed socks
• Navy cotton twill baseball cap
• Persol 714 tortoise-framed sunglasses with brown lenses
• Gold St. Christopher pendant on thin gold chain

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, armed with an AKS-74U, in GoldenEye (1995)

Vitals

Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, sophisticated British secret agent

St. Petersburg, Russia, April 1995

Film: GoldenEye
Release Date: November 13, 1995
Director: Martin Campbell
Costume Designer: Lindy Hemming

Background

I’ve been featuring a number of looks from the James Bond series lately, but I would hate to let that get in the way of the 00-7th of March! Since we’re celebrating St. Patrick’s Day this month, it seems obvious to me that we should also be celebrating the Irish actor who delivered his own brand of debonair charm to the role of 007.

In his inaugural outing, GoldenEye, Pierce Brosnan’s Bond is relaxing in the pool of his St. Petersburg hotel when he is cornered by the alluring assassin Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen). Bond gets the upper hand – among other parts – and convinces Xenia to introduce him to the mysterious syndicate behind the disappearance of a missing satellite. Of course, the syndicate’s leader is Bond’s old chum Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), formerly agent 006 of the British secret service.

The erstwhile 006 has always been two steps ahead of 007 and entraps our hero to meet a deadly fate alongside the missing satellite’s programmer, Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco). Luckily, Bond and Natalya prove to be a skillful escape team, evading Trevelyan’s many traps with the help of a luxury watch, a belt, and a Russian T-55 tank.

What’d He Wear?

Pierce Brosnan wearing the navy birdseye Brioni three-piece suit, flanked by co-stars Famke Janssen and Izabella Scorupco. Note the addition of the waistcoat and gold cufflinks, neither of which showed up on screen.

Pierce Brosnan looks as though he was born wearing a three-piece suit, and his take on James Bond was one of the most suit-heavy tenures in the 007 franchise. In addition to some of the film’s most prominent and memorable action sequences, this navy worsted Brioni suit also featured in much of GoldenEye‘s promotional artwork.

Though it appears solid navy from a distance, the suiting is actually a small-scaled blue-on-navy birdseye weave. Esquire‘s supremely entertaining The Handbook of Style mentions the birdseye weave as one of the nine suiting patterns that men should know, describing it as optimal for “cocktail suits that women always seem to notice.” If these promotional photos of Pierce Brosnan are any indication, they’re right on the money.

Under the auspices of costume designer Lindy Hemming, this Brioni suit blends elements of classic Italian and English tailoring and style to create a suit perfect for Brosnan’s stylish 007. The cut is full and flattering with straight, padded Italian shoulders joining British details like the functional “surgeon’s cuffs”, double vents, and gently tapered waist.

Brosnan wears the single-breasted suit jacket unbuttoned throughout these scenes, often revealing Brioni’s typical Bemberg rayon lining on the inside. The jacket has notch lapels that roll to a low and close three-button front.

Bond stands among the ruins of Russia’s Soviet past…perhaps an indication of many audience’s concerns about the franchise itself.

The jacket has slightly flapped hip pockets and a ticket pocket – yet another traditional British element.

In the jacket’s welted breast pocket, Brosnan wears the blue silk puffed pocket square that adorned all three of his business suits in GoldenEye, although it contrasted more against his Glen plaid suit and his charcoal windowpane suit. The color is an interesting choice as blue-on-blue may get lost among the suiting, but it adds a subtle touch of luxury that also calls out the blue in the suit and the deep navy tie.

“Trust me.”

The navy birdseye suit is one of three wool business suits that Lindy Hemming had commissioned for Brosnan to wear in GoldenEye. All were three-piece suits with matching waistcoats, but only the charcoal windowpane suit made use of the waistcoat on screen. However, the navy suit’s waistcoat didn’t go totally to waste (or waist, ha), as much of the film’s promotional artwork features the full suit. Brosnan was also photographed with the cast and crew while wearing the same suit, complete with the six-button waistcoat, during the GoldenEye launch press conference in London in January 1995.

Pierce Brosnan and Sean Bean smiling for reporters in January 1995. Note that, despite the different tie and plain white shirt, Brosnan wears the same blue silk puffed display kerchief that he would wear on screen as Bond.

When one of the many navy suits created for the film was put up for auction by Bonhams in March 2007, the waistcoat was included:

A blue Brioni three-piece suit, of blue wool, jacket labelled inside “Brioni, Roma” and “Angels & Bermans, The Costumiers to the Entertainment Industry” and inscribed in an unknown hand “1995 GOLDENEYE PIERCE BROSNAN” with silk effect Brioni logo lining, the waistcoat with Brioni logo back and the trousers with and inscription as before

As seen in the presser photos and the auction listing, the vest appears to have two welted lower pockets and a notched bottom as well as the Bamberg “silk effect” rayon lining across the back.

The suit includes matching trousers with a medium rise that perfectly meets the blade of Brosnan’s tie at his natural waist. They are double reverse-pleated with side pockets and slightly tapered legs down to the bottoms, which are finished with cuffs.

That train explosion might have really damaged Bond’s suit! Luckily, he and Natalya escape without a scratch…and without even loosening Bond’s tie.

“A typical leather belt… male, size 34 buckle, notch,” is Q’s description for the black leather belt that Bond wears with his suit. The belt has a gold-toned brass single-prong buckle, but that’s hardly its most compelling feature as it also includes a piton device that helps him out of a jam when Russian troops corner him in the archives room of a St. Petersburg military facility. Of course.

The maker of the belt is currently unknown, but there is some speculation that it is a Dunhill belt as Dunhill provided belts for Brosnan to wear in The World is Not Enough and possibly Tomorrow Never Dies.

While the belt maker may be a mystery, there’s no doubt that all of Brosnan’s dress shirts in GoldenEye were made by Sulka, the venerated shirt-maker that closed its final shop in 2002. Anne-Marie Shiro wrote in the New York Times in 1985 that “Nothing from Sulka ever goes out of style,” and Brosnan’s shirts here are no exception. With this navy birdseye suit, he wears a pale cream poplin shirt with a classic semi-spread collar, front placket, and squared double (French) cuffs, secured by textured gunmetal links with rounded corners.

This Uber ride would surely warrant less than 5 stars.

“The fabric was so heavy it made your neck hurt,” wrote Ralph Gardner Jr.when describing his Sulka tie loyalty for the Observer in 2002, “and the ties somehow managed to be both classic and eccentric at the same time.”

Ah, the divisive ties of the Brosnan Bond era. While some fans welcome the complexity of Brosnan’s patterned ties, others yearn for the understated simplicity of Connery’s grenadine ties.

The woven silk Sulka tie that Brosnan wore during this sequence appears to be a geometric pattern of old gold diamonds on a dark navy grid with smaller yellow gold squares at each corner. A closer look reveals that each old gold diamond consists of 36-dot squares, turned 90°, and that each smaller yellow square is a 9-dot square.

Turnbull & Asser continues to market some of the popular ties they created for Brosnan to wear in Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough, but Sulka closing its operations in 2002 means that fans seeking their fair share of GoldenEye cravats are sent in search of replicas. Luckily, Magnoli has you covered with its aptly-named “Goldeneye Tie”, currently available for $60 on its site and on Amazon, described as: “This elegant tie features silver squares and golden triangles atop a tone-on-tone black field. A unique blend of 70% silk and 30% wool gives this tie body and sheen.”

Bond seems to spend most of his time in GoldenEye next to frustrated women.

The Church’s association with James Bond began with GoldenEye, with Pierce Brosnan stepping around in a pair of brown leather Chetwynd brogues and, as seen here, a pair of black calf Diplomat semi-brogue oxfords that was auctioned by Christie’s for $1,932 in December 2007.

More than two decades later, the Church’s Diplomat semi-brogues are still available from the Church’s site for €620, albeit with five lace eyelets rather than the six-eyelet models as worn by Brosnan in 1995. To learn more about the Church’s Diplomat and its appearances in the Bond franchise, check out James Bond Lifestyle.

Bond wears a pair of groundbreaking Church’s Diplomat semi-brogues. (Do you get it please?)

Brosnan wears a pair of navy blue ribbed dress socks, just a shade lighter than his suit.

Probably not the same footwear as the original tank driver wore…

GoldenEye provided the lone appearance of Bond’s Omega Seamaster Professional 2541.80.00, but it certainly makes good use of the timepiece, which has evidently been modified by Q Branch with Live and Let Die-style laser cutting technology. Although they may not have lasers, a Bond-like Omega can be yours for just shy of $2,000, thanks to eBay.

Bond’s Omega has a stainless steel 41mm case, blue dial, and blue rotating bezel. It is powered by Omega’s 1538 Quartz precision movement and is the only quartz-powered Omega that 007 wears before Brosnan switched to the 2531 chronometer with an automatic movement for his duration in the series. More details can be found at James Bond Lifestyle.

As of March 2017, neither iPhone nor Android have a comparable app to Bond’s laser-cutter. Omega for the win.

More information about this outfit and a nice illustration and description of the birdseye weave can be found at The Suits of James Bond.

Pierce Brosnan wears the Brioni suit with the Sulka shirt and tie in a promotional photo, armed with Bond’s trademark Walther PPK and silencer. Though he wears flat gold cuff links here, he would wear a dark gunmetal pair on screen.

How to Get the Look

Bond’s navy birdseye suit ensemble in Russia is one of my favorite outfits in the series and was well-featured during some of the most iconic action sequences of the modern 007 era.

• Navy blue birdseye worsted wool Brioni suit, consisting of:
  • Single-breasted jacket with a low 3-button front, welted breast pocket, flapped slanted hip pockets, flapped ticket pocket, functioning 4-button cuffs, and double vents
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Pale cream poplin long-sleeve Sulka dress shirt with moderate spread collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
  • Textured gunmetal cuff links with silver backs
• Gold square-on-dark navy grid woven silk geometric-patterned Sulka tie
• Black leather belt with brass buckle
• Black calf leather Church’s Diplomat semi-brogues
• Navy blue ribbed dress socks
• Black leather shoulder holster (RHD) for Walther PPK
• Omega Seamaster Professional Diver 2541.80.00 wristwatch with blue dial and stainless bracelet/case
• Blue silk puffed pocket square, worn in the jacket’s breast pocket

The Gun

The cinematic landscape had changed plenty during the six-year gap of Bond films from 1989 to 1995. Action movies had evolved into exposition for major gunfights featuring the latest automatic weapons.

In GoldenEye, James Bond is back with his trusty Walther PPK, but it’s an AKS-74U that he wields to deadliest effect during this series of action sequences. Sure, the

Sure, it’s part of the exaggerated violence that saturated ’90s action cinema, but it’s fun as hell to watch.

From the opening sequence in the Arkangel weapons facility to the Cuban-set finale, the first 007 for the FPS generation minds himself making greater use of weapons picked up from downed enemies; in this case, those weapons are almost exclusively AKS-74U assault carbines.

The origins of the AKS-74U can be traced all the way back to the later months of World War II as Soviet Russia was developing the first modern assault rifle, inspired by the Sturmgewehr 44 that was wielded by Hitler’s troops fighting on the Eastern front. Weapons designer Mikhail Kalashnikov built his prototypes around the new 7.62x39mm M43 cartridge, and the AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova) was quickly adopted for Soviet service and production began in 1949.

“AK-47” has incorrectly become a colloquial catch-all for any similar weapon based on or incorporating Kalashnikov’s original design, including – but not limited to – the AKM variant, the Chinese Norinco Type 56, Egyptian Maadi ARM copies, the Romanian AIM/AIMS, and Yugoslavian Zastova rifles.

As the design continued to evolve through the decades, Kalashnikov oversaw development of the AK-74, adapting his original rifle for the high velocity 5.45x39mm cartridge. As its nomenclature indicates, production began in 1974 with the first real military action later that decade for Soviet conflicts in Afghanistan.

The AKS-74U was the result of a design competition for a fully automatic carbine to be easily stored and carried as personal defense weapons. Introduced in 1979, the AKS-74U incorporated the side-folding stock from the AKS-74 with a shortened “U” (for Ukorochenniy) barrel, creating a compact and deadly selective-fire carbine for close quarters.

Note the short barrel with its muzzle flash suppressor and the side-folding stock, making this a very portable weapon for Bond to easily transfer in and out of a tank.

Weighing in at six pounds with an 8.3-inch barrel, the AKS-74U offers portability in addition to a high capacity for its accurate 5.45x39mm cartridge, fed from a standard 30-round box magazine with expanded feeding capabilities up to a 100-round drum, making it a practical choice for the close-quarters combat that Bond finds himself in throughout GoldenEye. The folding stock reduces the overall length from 28.9 inches to 19.3 inches when folded.

As the AKS-74U remains in the service of the Russian Federation’s armed forces, as well as many other Eastern European countries and those of the former Soviet Bloc, it makes sense that Bond would pick his up from the hands of Russian soldiers.

In GoldenEye 007, the N64 game that revolutionized FPS in the late ’90s, the many AKS-74 rifles (or modified Norinco Type 56-1 rifles) seen on screen are given the “KF7 Soviet” nomenclature. You can read more at IMFDB about the weaponry used in GoldenEye and GoldenEye 007.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

That’s the trouble with the world today; no one takes the time to do a really sinister interrogation anymore. It’s a lost art.

Aidan Turner as Philip Lombard in And Then There Were None (2015)

Vitals

Aidan Turner as Philip Lombard, adventurer and ex-mercenary

Devon, England, August 1939

Series Title: And Then There Were None
Air Date: December 26-28, 2015
Director: Craig Viveiros
Costume Designer: Lindsay Pugh

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

As we get closer to St. Patrick’s Day, BAMF Style is focusing on another Irishman, Aidan Turner, the Dublin-born actor who many are suggesting as a possibility for taking over the James Bond mantle as the prospects of Daniel Craig’s return seem dwindling.

Of course, an important aspect of the 007 role is how well an actor sports a dinner suit, so we’re checking out the period black tie ensemble that Turner wore as Philip Lombard in the BBC’s 2015 miniseries And Then There Were None.

Published in 1939, And Then There Were None is widely considered to be Agatha Christie’s masterpiece and, with more than 100 million copies sold around the world, tops the charts as the world’s best-selling mystery novel and the sixth best-selling book of all time. It had been adapted for the screen several times, most faithfully in 1945 (albeit with a more positive ending), until the three-part miniseries that aired after Christmas 2015 set the gold standard for adapting Christie’s work.

Turner joined an all-star cast including Charles Dance, Sam Neill, Maeve Dermody, Miranda Richardson, and Toby Stephens in the classic story of ten strangers summoned to an island mansion for a summer weekend retreat. They range from a retired judge and a judgmental spinster to an alcoholic doctor and a rakish socialite, Anthony Marston (Douglas Booth), the only one that calls out the peculiarity of their situation:

I had a letter inviting me to a house party. Pretty young things, you know? Champagne, music… and apart from Lombard, who looks like he could cut up a bit lively, the rest of you don’t really look like fun-loving house party types. No offense.

The first evening, all are dressed for dinner when they discover that none of them have ever met their supposed host, U.N. Owen (Christie’s characters weren’t above puns), and find their deepest secrets revealed as a mysterious recording accuses them each of murder. Every character refutes his or her respective charges…except the cheeky Lombard who sees no reason to deny his past:

Philip Lombard, that you did murder 21 men, members of an East African tribe…

Lombard isn’t alone in his non-denial. The reckless Marston recollects “those two kids” that he killed in a drunk driving incident that led to the “terrific nuisance” of a six-month suspended license. The guests are disgusted by Marston, but their revulsion soon turns to horror as the swaggering young socialite chokes to death before their eyes. Something is amiss…

What’d He Wear?

The seven English gentlemen invited to dinner on Soldier Island all dress for dinner the first night, sporting black tie that would have been appropriate and fashionable for a summer evening in 1939. Philip Lombard’s classic single-breasted dinner jacket with its sweeping peak lapels and his wing collar shirt would have been the epitome of fashionable English formalwear in the immediately pre-war era. Double-breasted dinner jackets had been catching on throughout the decade as a fashionable but ultimately less formal – and thus, more American – alternative.

It’s worth noting that, in the 1945 film, Louis Hayward’s Lombard wears a double-breasted dinner jacket with a turndown collar, perhaps a reflection of the character’s casual nature and the more staid context during the latter years of World War II.

Dueling Lombards: Louis Hayward (in 1945) and Aidan Turner (in 2015) attempt to out-debonair each other as Philip Lombard.

Surprisingly, given the character’s general irreverence, Aidan Turner wears a very formal dinner suit in the 2015 adaptation. His black wool single-breasted dinner jacket has full-bellied peak lapels, faced in black grosgrain. The wide lapels have long gorges with edges that even rise above the concave shoulder line, and the width is so exaggerated that the lapels even roll over the single link-button closure in the front, which he wears open anyway.

“Strong shoulders and wide lapels,” defined men’s jackets in the 1930s, according to costume designer Lindsay Pugh in a 2013 Q&A with WWD.com.

The concave shoulders with roped sleeveheads and the width of the lapels at the peaks work with the ventless back and suppressed waist to deliver an hourglass silhouette that emphasizes Lombard’s sleek, athletic physique, no doubt contributing to Marston’s conclusion that he “could cut up a bit lively.” The dinner jacket has a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, and three black plastic buttons on the end of each cuff.

A traditionally British element of Lombard’s black tie ensemble is the wing collar on his starched white formal shirt. By the late 1930s, the turndown collar had usurped the classic wing collar in popularity – particularly in the United States – but the wing collar remained the most formal option. Lombard wears his on a starched white boiled shirt with two studs visible on the front bib. The shirt’s single cuffs are worn with a set of silver-trimmed black square cuff links, essentially larger versions of the shirt studs.

Lombard wears a black grosgrain silk self-tied bow tie in a large butterfly/thistle shape.

Lombard’s black wool formal waistcoat has luxurious shawl lapels and a low, V-shaped opening. It is single-breasted with four black plastic sew-through buttons all worn fastened and a notched bottom.

Auditioning for 007?

Lombard’s black high-rise trousers have period-correct pleats and the standard silk side stripe – grosgrain here to match the lapel facings and bow tie. The bottoms are finished with plain hems, as they should be on a dinner suit.

Lombard wears black patent leather oxford shoes and black dress socks.

Lombard kicks back with a pre-dinner whiskey.

Barely seen under Lombard’s shirt sleeve is his tank watch, a simple square-cased wristwatch on a russet brown leather strap. A pocket watch would have been the most traditional option, particularly with a classic formal look like Lombard’s, but a sportsman like him would probably prefer to keep his daily timepiece without sacrificing function for form.

Aidan Turner and his co-stars joke around on set.

How to Get the Look

Despite his irreverent nature and bold suits and casual attire, Philip Lombard sports very traditional and classically British evening wear when dressing for dinner with the other doomed guests on Soldier Island.

• Black wool single-breasted 1-button dinner jacket with wide grosgrain-faced lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Black wool single-breasted 4-button formal waistcoat with shawl lapels and notched bottom
• Black wool single-pleated high-rise formal trousers with satin side stripe, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White formal shirt with starched front bib and single cuffs
  • Detachable wing collar
  • Silver-trimmed black square studs
  • Silver-trimmed black square cufflinks
• Black grosgrain butterfly-shaped self-tied bow tie
• Black patent leather oxfords/balmorals
• Black dress socks
• Steel tank watch with square tan dial on russet brown leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series and Agatha Christie’s 1939 novel, one of my favorites and certainly deserving of its best-selling status.

The Quote

It’s amazing how people get an attack of conscience when they’re safely tucked away in their beds.

Footnote

Turner is effective in the role, but it’s hard to imagine his Lombard – or any Lombard played by a modern actor – deliver the restrained insult “my good blockhead” that always stood out to me from Christie’s novel.

Danny Huston as Ben “the Butcher” Diamond in “…And Your Enemies Closer”, episode 2.07 of Magic City (2012-2013)

Vitals

Danny Huston as Ben “the Butcher” Diamond, sadistic and volatile Miami gangster

Miami Beach, spring 1959

Series: Magic City
Episodes:
– “Castles Made of Sand” (Episode 1.03, dir: Ed Bianchi, aired April 20, 2012)
– “Time and Tide” (Episode 1.08, dir: Ed Bianchi, aired June 1, 2012)
– “Crossroads” (Episode 2.04, dir: Ed Bianchi, aired July 12, 2013)
– “World in Changes” (Episode 2.05, dir: Simon Cellan Jones, aired July 19, 2013)
– “…And Your Enemies Closer” (Episode 2.07, dir: Simon Cellan Jones, aired August 2, 2013)
Creator: Mitch Glazer
Costume Designer: Carol Ramsey

Background

In these waning weeks of spring, some folks may be anxious to get an early start to summer fun, so light up a Habanas Partagas cigar and head for a warm weekend retreat – or at least a Sunday in the sun – in the spirit of Magic City‘s baddest antagonist.

What’d He Wear?

Ben the Butcher’s bright pastels often disguised his villainy and blended him in among the neon sights and scenes of atomic age Miami Beach, but he would also let his dark side show with shirts like this black “pocketless guayabera”.

Black isn’t the best color for a sunny afternoon in the tropics, but the lightweight linen material and its roomy size ensures the dark fabric’s greater breathability under the hot sun.

How could a gangster like this not wear black?

One of the defining aspects of a guayabera is the presence of alforzas, the pleated vertical strips on the front and back of the shirt. Ben’s shirt has two alforzas down the front of the shirt and a single alforza down the back, all beginning at a button-accented pointed top yoke.

Ben’s shirt isn’t a true guayabera, which supposedly gained its name for the four pockets stitched onto the front by a Cuban seamstress for her husband to carry guayabas in the field. But, like a true guayabera, Ben’s black shirt has a straight hem across the bottom, split by a widely-spaced three-button vent on each side, and is correctly worn untucked.

(Left) The button-accented pointed yoke above the back alforza on Ben’s shirt.
(Right) The left cufflink and three-button side vent of Ben’s shirt.

When this outfit was auctioned, it was confirmed that this black shirt is indeed a size XL, made by Renato. Renato was one of several manufacturers, including Anto Beverly Hills and Ramon Puig, that made Ben the Butcher’s on-screen pocketless guayabera shirts.

The shirt is styled similarly to Ben’s previously featured baby blue shirt – also made by Renato – with its unbuttoned spread collar, fly front, and squared double (French) cuffs that add a touch of luxury to his leisure garb.

At least three different sets of cuff links are seen with this shirt through the show’s two-season run. Apropos his name, they all feature diamonds. For the shirt’s first appearance during a cabana poker game in “Castles Made of Sand” (1.03), Ben wears a set of large silver squared-framed cuff links with a large diamond suspended in the center.

By the next season, in “Crossroads” (2.04), he is wearing a set of gold rectangles accented with a field of small diamonds, seen above as he holds his cigar. For the rest of the second season, Ben again wears a set of gold rectangle cuff links but with only a single diamond in the center.

Ben’s tenure as the feared butcher of Miami Beach sees him wearing several sets of cuff links… always with the signature diamonds to evoke his surname.

Light-colored linen trousers are a must for any beach-dweller, and Ben’s bottom half is frequently swaddled in cream Brooks Brothers trousers made from 100% Irish linen. The trousers have a zip fly, straight side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms with the inner cuffing visible after his impulsive dip into the pool with Lily.

The trousers worn in “Castles Made of Sand” (1.08) that were included in the aforementioned auction had a size 35 waist and 30 inseam. He wears them with a slim black leather belt that coordinates with his shoes.

Ben’s symbolic fountain seems more appropriate than ever during his late nigh frolic with Lily.

Ben’s leisurely approach to life comes across in his choice of footwear, a pair of black leather bicycle-toe loafers always worn without socks. The shoes have a strap across the vamp with a silver squared buckle, though it’s not the traditional monk strap shoe.

Magic City aficionado and expert Eric J. Tidd, curator of the digital Miramar Playa, owns a pair of Danny Huston’s screen-worn size 44 shoes and has shared a photo confirming that they are the now-discontinued Aldo M-19261 model… still available on Amazon in a variety of sizes for less than $40.

Photo of Danny Huston’s screen-worn Aldo loafers, courtesy of Eric J. Tidd.

Ben’s choice of jewelry is predictable; many associate gold pinky rings like his with classic gangsterdom, and his has a large diamond setting, again calling out his name.

The wristwatch he wears in the first season has a round gold-colored case on a black leather strap with gold non-numeric markers and hands on a black dial.

Easy enough to recreate Ben Diamond’s bar, seen behind him. In addition to the big bottle of Gordon’s gin (which really hasn’t changed its look in decades), pick up a fifth of Scotch and a squat bottle of Drambuie…with those two ingredients, you can mix yourself a Rusty Nail.

Ben wears a different gold watch in the second season, a Hamilton Electric on a dark brown alligator strap. The major cosmetic difference is the Hamilton’s light silver dial and gold numeric markers.

Ben takes over during Lily’s massage in “World in Changes” (2.05)…

This is primarily an “indoor” outfit for Ben Diamond, but he does venture outside in “World in Changes” (2.05) to briefly intimidate his wife Lily during a massage. He shields his eyes from the sun – and adds a more menacing, less human element – by wearing his black plastic-framed Victory Suntimer “Palm Beach” wayfarer-style sunglasses with dark gray lenses.

…but his methods leave her less than satisfied.

This same model of sunglasses, VCS 752, is still available from the Victory Optical Collection site for $210.

How to Get the Look

Danny Huston as Ben “the Butcher” Diamond in “Castles Made of Sand”, episode 1.03 of Magic City (2012-2013)

If you’re going to wear black at the beach, do it like Ben Diamond: choose a summer-weight fabric like linen or lightweight cotton and pair it with contrasting cream trousers and a meanacing smirk.

• Black lightweight linen/cotton “pocketless guayabera” shirt with spread collar, covered front fly placket, 3-button side vents, double/French cuffs, and quadruple-pleat alforza strips down each front panel with decorative buttons
• Cream linen flat front trousers with belt loops, zip fly, straight/on-seam side pockets, button-through jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Slim black leather belt
• Black leather bicycle-toe loafers with silver-toned buckle straps
• Gold rectangular diamond-studded cuff links
• Gold pinky ring with set-in diamond
• Gold wristwatch with a dark leather strap
• Victory Optical Collection Suntimer “Palm Beach” VCS 752 black-framed wayfarer-style sunglasses with dark gray lenses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the series.

The Quote

One more word and I’ll be wearing your blue fucking eyes as cuff links.

Michael Caine as Alfie Elkins in Alfie (1966)

Vitals

Michael Caine as Alfie Elkins, charming part-time car service driver and full-time cad

London, Summer 1965

Film: Alfie
Release Date: March 24, 1966
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Wardrobe Supervisor: Jean Fairlie
Tailor: Douglas Hayward

Background

Make a married woman laugh and you’re halfway there with her.

Right off the bat, we learn that the titular Alfie Elkins is no gentleman.

Although he had already featured in several major British films through the ’60s, it was his Academy Award-nominated breakthrough role in Alfie that led Michael Caine to global stardom.

The actor, who is celebrating his 84th birthday today, was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite on March 14, 1933 in London. He took up acting at the age of 20, initially performing under the name Michael Scott(!) before he was inspired to take his better-known stage name from a marquee promoting The Caine Mutiny at the Odeon Cinema.

A decade later, Michael Caine had completed work as Len Deighton’s anti-Bond spy in The Ipcress File when he took over the role of Alfie from his friend and roommate Terence Stamp, who had originated the role on Broadway but declined to reprise it on screen.

The film was written by Bill Naughton, adapting his screenplay from his own 1963 play, and directed by Lewis Glibert, who also celebrated his birthday recently (March 6, 1920 – happy belated 97th, Lewis!) Gilbert would go on to direct his first of three Bond films, You Only Live Twice, the following year.

What’d He Wear?

In ABC of Men’s Fashion, published in 1964, Hardy Amies advises that “the navy blue [blazer] without club badge on pocket and very often double-breasted is now very popular for wearing in circumstances where a sports jacket in tweed or jersey would be too informal and an ordinary dark suit too formal.”

Two years after Amies’ seminal work was published, Michael Caine’s Alfie began and ended his lonely story in the same outfit: a navy serge double-breasted blazer, surprisingly emblazoned with RAF detailing and a RAF striped tie. The surprisingly traditional elements in this hip, caddish character are offset by the contemporary styling of Caine’s personal tailor, Douglas Hayward.

Ah, the old take-a-baby-to-the-park trick. Alfie, you card, you…

The worsted serge blazer has four chrome shank buttons with one to button (4×1), a double-breasted style that would later briefly enjoy popularity in the late 1980s, with a single shank button on the end of each cuff as well.

Based on Alfie’s badge and tie, I would imagine that these are the silver-finished chrome buttons engraved with the symbol of the Royal Air Force (RAF), available from Benson & Cregg, which confirms the diameter of his four large front buttons at 2.4cm with the smaller cuff buttons sized at 1.5cm.

Caine’s blazer incorporates elements of traditional British tailoring, including the well-padded shoulders and double vents, although the close, short fit and higher gorges also wink at Italian-influenced mod style.

Alfie’s last date with Ruby (Shelley Winters) doesn’t quite go as planned…

Alfie’s blazer has patch pockets – one on each hip and one on the left breast, emblazoned with the badge of the Royal Air Force, a bit of stolen valor on Alfie’s part… not surprising, given his tendency for stealing virtue as well.

The RAF’s motto “Per ardua ad astra” (“Through adversity to the stars”) dates back to 1912 when it was used by the newly formed Royal Flying Corps, six years before it was merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to create the RAF. The badge consists of the motto inscribed in gold on a navy circle, itself bordered by gold with an Imperial crown on top. A gold volant eagle flies out of the light blue center of the circle.

I’ve never served in the RAF – partially due to my American citizenship and also my total inability to fly a plane – but I would feel very distinguished in a blazer sporting its attractive badge on the breast. Benson & Clegg offers the hand-stitched badge for £30.

From his blazer badge and buttons to the stripes of his tie, Alfie has totally appropriated the Royal Air Force for his about-town attire.

Alfie wears a pale cream poplin shirt with a plain front and squared double (French) cuffs that Alfie wears with etched gold oval links. The shirt’s narrow English spread collar is rounded on the corners, similar to the classic club collar.

The etching on Alfie’s gold-toned cuff links is difficult to ascertain in the finished film, but a set of gilt RAF-engraved cuff links – like this pair currently available on Benson & Clegg – would certainly follow the theme of his attire.

Alfie’s striped silk repp tie is fittingly slim to coordinate with his narrow shirt collar. Naturally, he wears an RAF-striped tie, consisting of three repeating stripes in thick navy, thick burgundy, and thin pale blue, all crossing from the right shoulder down to the left hip.

Benson & Clegg offers a variety of RAF ties, but none at the super-slim width of Alfie’s tie; the standard silk RAF tie available from their site is described as 9.5cm wide (available here for £55.)

Alfie’s tie remains firmly in place, even after an assignation with Millicent, but he lets it hang free after arriving in the relative comfort of Gilda’s flat.

Alfie’s gray flannel trousers have a contemporary low rise, but the tapered leg works with Michael Caine’s tall, 6’0″ frame to make his legs look long and lithe… at least until he takes off his blazer and tie for a night of slumming at Gilda’s flat. The trousers have straight side pockets, jetted back pockets, and cuffed bottoms.

The trousers also have belt loops, through which Alfie wears a slim black leather belt that is nearly concealed by his billowing shirt after he gets to Gilda’s. The belt has a gold-tone single-prong square buckle.

In the aforementioned ABC of Men’s Fashion, Hardy Amies observed that “when Chelsea boots first appeared in the late 1950s it quickly became certain that they were the most appropriate form of footwear to wear with narrow trousers,” illustrated by Michael Caine in Alfie as he wears his black leather ankle boots with black elastic side gussets and pull tabs.

Alfie could’ve gone full RAF with this natty pair of regimental striped socks available from Benson & Clegg, but he went with plain black socks instead. Pity.

Esquire’s The Handbook of Style describes Chelsea boots as “a Mod staple in 1960s London,” making them the perfect choice for our caddish mod anti-hero.

“Watch your ring with my stockings!” warns Alfie’s first on-screen paramour, Siddie (Millicent Martin), referring to the gold ring he wears on his left pinky, set with a brown oval stone. It’s surprising that Alfie wears something that could get in the way of his favorite activity.

Alfie also wears an elegant stainless watch, possibly an Omega, with a black dial and a steel bracelet with a deployable clasp.

Alfie Elkins, the self-described master of seduction.

Benson & Clegg, the London menswear house mentioned throughout this post, was granted a Royal Warrant from The Prince of Wales in 1992 to supply official buttons, badges, and military neckwear. It is for this reason that I so frequently hyperlinked to the Benson & Clegg site.

How to Get the Look

Alfie appropriates the Royal Air Force for his snappy but Mod-influenced navy blazer ensemble worn for the film’s prologue and conclusion, delivering a very British look for a character who indeed became emblematic of swinging ’60s London.

• Navy worsted serge double-breasted blazer with peak lapels, 4×1 chrome RAF shank buttons, patch breast pocket with RAF badge, patch hip pockets, 1-button cuffs, and double vents
• Pale cream poplin dress shirt with narrow spread club collar, plain front, and squared double/French cuffs
• Slim silk RAF-striped repp tie in navy, burgundy, and pale blue
• Gray flannel low-rise trousers with belt loops, extended front waist tab, straight/on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, tapered leg, turn-ups/cuffs
• Slim black leather belt with small gold-toned single-prong buckle
• Black leather Chelsea boots with black elastic side gussets and pull tabs
• Black dress socks
• Stainless wristwatch with a black dial on steel deployable-clasp bracelet
• Gold pinky ring with a brown oval setting

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

You know what? When I look back on my little life and the birds I’ve known, and think of all the things they’ve done for me and the little I’ve done for them, you’d think I’ve had the best of it along the line. But what have I got out of it? I’ve got a bob or two, some decent clothes, a car, I’ve got me health back and I ain’t attached. But I ain’t got me peace of mind, and if you ain’t got that, you ain’t got nothing. I dunno. It seems to me if they ain’t got you one way they’ve got you another. So what’s the answer? That’s what I keep asking myself: what’s it all about? Know what I mean?

Footnote

Michael Caine shares more than just his original stage name with Steve Carell’s character from The Office; Carell’s Michael Scott mentions that his birthday is March 15th, the day after Michael Caine. Weird!

Robert De Niro as Sam “Ace” Rothstein in Casino (1995)

Vitals

Robert De Niro as Sam “Ace” Rothstein, Vegas casino executive and mob associate

Las Vegas, Fall 1980

Film: Casino
Release Date: November 22, 1995
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Design: Rita Ryack & John A. Dunn

Background

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, a feast day that finds many people celebrating with Jameson and green clothing whether they have any Irish heritage or not.

Robert De Niro’s father was half Irish, so that’s all the excuse BAMF Style needs to explore one of his loud green outfits as the impressively attired Las Vegas executive Sam “Ace” Rothstein in Casino.

What’d He Wear?

The 1980s sequences mark a shift in Ace’s wardrobe. Prior to his gaming license hearing, Ace’s tailored attire consisted primarily of two-piece suits, supported by the occasional odd jacket in more casual situations such as a poolside meeting, opening a bank account, and dressing down an inept casino employee.

For his gaming license hearing and most scenes to follow, Ace begins a pattern of wearing primarily odd jackets with the only actual suit being the blue-and-green plaid suit that he wears when reconnecting with Ginger in the scene following this one.

Ace thus wears a variety of bold jackets with an added sense of chaos deriving from the mismatched (albeit well-coordinated) jackets and trousers. That boldness means a grand total of three green odd jackets: a bright kelly green sport coat with peak lapels, a mint green jacket worn for a meeting with his divorce lawyer (in the scene preceding this one), and – finally – this mint green flecked silk blazer that he evidently intends to wear for an airing of Aces High! until the news of his daughter’s kidnapping pulls him away.

We’ve all experienced tense phone calls with James Woods.

Since a jacket like this would be rarely found out in the wild, there seems to be no clear standard on its preferred nomenclature. It’s certainly an odd jacket (in both a sartorial sense and a more literal reference to its eccentricity) and certainly not a traditional blazer, but I would argue that it’s bold color, ornamental metal buttons, and more formal structure would place it closer to the blazer camp than that of a sports jacket.

Ace’s jacket is so unique that I think any aspiring Sam Rothstein sartorialists would be hard pressed to get something similar without a lucky find or a cheap alternative like this poly/cotton blend from ASOS that may have the green fleck detail and peak lapels, but you’ll be getting what you pay for with the $34 price tag and doubtless concession to the “skinny” slim fit fad that’s bastardized menswear the last years.

Like his other jackets, the shoulders are wide and well-padded with roped sleeveheads and tailored to perfectly fit De Niro’s frame. In addition to its flattering cut and fit, the details of Ace’s jacket set it apart from imitators as one of the most distinctive garments in a film that’s full of them.

Both the two buttons on the front and the single decorative button on each cuff are silver-toned shank buttons. It is single-breasted with sharp peak lapels, a throwback to a popular style in the 1920s and 1930s that was briefly revived – and frequently exaggerated – during the late 1970s.

Ace’s blazer has slanted flapped hip pockets and a welted breast pocket where he wears a black silk display kerchief, one of the few times his pocket square doesn’t match his tie. The black display kerchief in Ace’s jacket breast pocket grounds the outfit while also coordinating with his black trousers and footwear. The jacket has long double vents, likely 12″.

Ace feels equally at home hobnobbing with scantily-clad showgirls and slick-suited mobsters.

Ace keeps his top half monochromatic, wearing all mint green above the waist line. His shirt, custom made for the production by Anto Beverly Hills, is made from the dull side as the same charmeuse silk as his tie. Every detail of the shirt is authentic to the 1970s and the actual shirts worn by Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal during the era, himself an Anto customer in real life.

The shirt has the long “1977 point collar” found on most of De Niro’s shirts throughout Casino with edge-stitched epaulettes – or shoulder straps – that extend out fully out to the end of the shoulder and are buttoned at the neck on the pointed end of the strap. The shirt has a plain front, a monogrammed breast pocket with a pointed yoke over the left chest, and the very distinctive “Lapidus” single-button tab cuffs.

A slightly dressed down Ace wears his mint green silk Anto shirt when confronting Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) with the news of his listing in the infamous NGC Black Book. (In real life, Tony Spilotro had been admitted to the Black Book in December 1978.)

While Anto used the duller side of the silk to create Ace’s shirt, the mint green tie was crafted from the shinier satin side. He only wears the tie while being prepped for his TV show in the dressing room, sporting the elusive triple threat of mint green-on-mint green-on-mint green.

The perfect knot with its expert dimple goes wasted as Ace is never seen wearing his tie without his makeup bib getting in the way.

Ace likely wears the same black high-rise trousers that feature in many of his odd jacket ensembles during the latter portion of Casino. They are designed with minimalism in mind so as not to distract from the boldness of his colorful top half, with a flat front shaped by darts and a fitted waistband with no belt loops or adjusters. Set in 1980, Ace’s trousers have the frogmouth front pockets and slightly flared plain hem bottoms that would have been fashionable.

His shoes are also the same black leather apron-toe loafers worn with black dress socks.

This is the only look we get of Ace’s trousers during the sequence, and – unfortunately – the window glare casts a cyanic tone that compromises the black to appear bluer through the glass.

This would’ve been a nice outfit to showcase some emerald jewelry, but Ace opts for a pinky ring in 14-carat white gold with a blue synthetic stone set in a geometric polished shank.

He also forgoes his usual habit of matching his ring and watch, wearing a vintage steel wristwatch with a red square face. Perhaps this incongruity is a reflection of Ace’s distracted mental state during the chaotic trauma of his unstable ex-wife and her former pimp kidnapping his daughter.

Mint green jackets and pay phones…relics of a bygone era.

Check out the bottom row of Ibraheem Youssef’s impressive poster illustrating all of De Niro’s tailored clothing in Casino and you’ll see all three of his green odd jackets.

How to Get the Look

Mint green is a sadly under-utilized color in men’s wear, but “Ace” Rothstein does his best to compensate for that with his silk fleck jacket and matching shirt and tie combination.

• Mint green fleck silk single-breasted 2-button blazer with peak lapels, welted breast pocket, slanted flapped hip pockets, double vents, 1-button cuffs
• Mint green dull silk dress shirt with long point collar, epaulettes, breast pocket, and 1-button “Lapidus” tab cuffs
• Mint green satin silk tie
• Black darted-front trousers with fitted waistband, frogmouth front pockets, and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather apron-toe slip-on loafers with high vamps and raised heels
• Black dress socks
• Steel vintage wristwatch with red square dial on expanding bracelet
• White gold 14-carat pinky ring with synthetic blue emerald-cut stone set in geometric polished shank
• Black silk display kercheif

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge in Pulp Fiction (1994)

Vitals

Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge, tough, taciturn boxer

Los Angeles, Summer 1992

Film: Pulp Fiction
Release Date: October 14, 1994
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Costume Designer: Betsy Heimann

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

There have been several requests to see Butch Coolidge’s bomber jacket ensemble from Pulp Fiction get a proper BAMF Style analysis, so what better occasion would there be than Bruce Willis’ birthday? Happy 55th, Bruce!

Like many classic fictional boxing stories before him, Butch Coolidge finds himself in a hard place between his pride and the mob…and ultimately decides that it’s the latter that should suffer.

What’d He Wear?

Butch stands out from the slick-suited gangsters of Tarantino’s underworld with a sartorial approach that could be best described as tough and timeless working-class style. His clothing is all from classic American brands like Schott NYC, Levi’s, and Converse that all had at least seven decades of solid reputations under their belt by the time Butch donned their wares.

Betsy Heimann, the costume designer who dressed some of the most stylish films of the ’90s, described the origins of Butch’s look in a 2015 interview with Dazed‘s Emma Hope Alwood:

…Quentin said, well I want Butch to wear a leather jacket and I said, “How about one like Nick Nolte wore in Who’ll Stop the Rain?” And so that led me to go to Schott, they’ve been making jackets since World War Two, to just get that a jacket that is like the classic everyman. There’s nothing fashion about it – that’s it.

From head to toe, Butch sports a classic and casual all-American look.

Founded in 1913, Schott NYC is best known for its history of producing military and motorcycle jackets, including the iconic “Perfecto” jacket that Marlon Brando would popularize in The Wild Ones. “Schott also designed and produced the leather bomber jacket for the Army Air Corps during the Second World War,” as explained in Esquire: The Handbook of Style. “Returning veterans turned the bomber into another civilian menswear staple.”

While the leather flight jacket’s venerated pedigree indeed dates to before World War II, the all-American MA-1 bomber jacket as worn by Butch Coolidge was developed in the mid-1950s as a Jet Age response to frequently changing requirements of air safety and comfort.

Though designed for comfortable performance in the cockpit of a Boeing B-52, Butch also makes good use of his MA-1 flight jacket in the driver’s seat of Fabienne’s 1980 Honda Civic.

The MA-1 bomber jacket is defined by its blouson-style elasticized hem and cuffs with a matching knit collar, typically made from 100% wool for added warmth when needed.

Butch’s jacket is saddle brown sueded leather with a golden satin lining. The matching knit collar band, cuffs, and waist hem are all brown to match the rest of the jacket. The jacket zips up the front with a very long brown leather pull, and there are two slanted side pockets.

Butch escapes from Maynard’s hellhole relatively unscathed.

As opposed to the minimalist front of the jacket, the back is split down the center by a wide swelled seam that matches the horizontal yoke straight across the top that continues running down the back of each set-in sleeve.

As of March 2017, the only MA-1 bomber available from Schott is a black cowhide leather version (here), but some manufacturers have taken to producing replicas of Butch’s brown suede jacket, such as this one that starts at $169.

To read more about Butch’s suede blouson’s place in the history of cinematic bomber jackets, check out Marta Sundac’s piece for HighSnobiety from November 2013.

Butch is dressing for function rather than fashion. For his planned escape from L.A., he was planning to wear a pale cotton button-up shirt, but the circumstances forcing him back into danger’s way convince him that it’s time to dress for moving and moving fast. He ditches the button-up and instead wears only a plain white cotton crew-neck undershirt.

With his classic bomber jacket, super short-sleeve undershirt, and jeans, Butch evokes rebellious ’50s icons like Marlon Brando and James Dean.

Evident from the visible tag on the outside and the exposed seams around the short set-in sleeves, Butch actually appears to be wearing his t-shirt inside out.

Ball gag not recommended.

Butch wears a pair of classic Levi’s jeans. With their zip fly and straight fit, they may be a pair of Levi’s 505 Regular Fit jeans in a “light stonewash” color. His belt is rough brown leather with a simple brass single-prong buckle.

That familiar red tag on the back pocket tips us off to Butch’s Levi’s.

Butch’s dirty sneakers are actually a pair of classic Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star lo-tops with beige canvas uppers and white rubber soles with red piping. They are likely the “natural”-colored M9165 ox sneakers, still available from outlets like Amazon.

Are Chucks really Chucks if they’re not this well-loved?

Like all of Butch’s clothing, the Chuck Taylor All-Star has a decades-long legacy as the shoe dates back to Chuck Taylor’s 1921 All Stars basketball team. The preferred sneaker of World War II servicemen in training (source), the All-Star even shares some of his bomber jacket’s American military heritage.

Apropos his profession, Butch wears a pair of plain white cotton boxer shorts with an elastic waistband.

Butch’s Christ-like pose is likely the result of exhaustion than any divine influence. But after that “hand cannon” missed Vincent and Jules with all six shots, who knows how divinity works in the Pulp Fiction universe?

Forgetting to wear a watch would be a rookie mistake. Borderline unforgivable, in fact.

Butch’s gold watch that lends its name to this entire plot segment has been identified as a yellow gold Lancet trench watch from World War I. In its course of traveling through generations of asses, the watch is in surprisingly good condition with the faded red numeric markers on the white dial more an indicator of its age than its previously rectal surroundings. Butch wears his on a steel expanding bracelet.

Lancet was a short-lived brand of WWI-era timepieces made by Langendorf Watch Company of Switzerland. In the late 1950s, Langendorf introduced the Lanco brand that has gone through several degrees of rejuvenation; Lanco watches are currently produced by South Africa’s S. Bacher & Company, under license from The Swatch Group. Despite Captain Koons’ claim, Langendorf Watch Company was not the first company to produce wristwatches.

“I specifically reminded her: bedside table… on the Kangaroo! I said the words, ‘Don’t forget my father’s watch!'” Right you are, Butch.

Of course, no mention of the watch should stand alone without its memorable introduction delivered by the brilliant Christopher Walken as Captain Koons, USAF:

This watch I got here was first purchased by your great-grandfather during the first World War. It was bought in a little general store in Knoxville, Tennessee. Made by the first company to ever make wristwatches. Up till then people just carried pocket watches. It was bought by private doughboy Erine Coolidge on the day he set sail for Paris. It was your great-grandfather’s war watch and he wore it everyday he was in that war. When he had done his duty, he went home to your great-grandmother, took the watch off, put it an old coffee can, and in that can it stayed ’til your granddad Dane Coolidge was called upon by his country to go overseas and fight the Germans once again. This time they called it World War II. Your great-grandfather gave this watch to your granddad for good luck.

Unfortunately, Dane’s luck wasn’t as good as his old man’s. Dane was a Marine and he was killed, along with the other Marines at the battle of Wake Island. Your granddad was facing death, he knew it. None of those boys had any illusions about ever leavin’ that island alive. So, three days before the Japanese took the island, your granddad asked a gunner on an Air Force transport name of Winocki, a man he had never met before in his life, to deliver to his infant son, who he’d never seen in the flesh, his gold watch. Three days later, your granddad was dead. But Winocki kept his word. After the war was over, he paid a visit to your grandmother, delivering to your infant father, his Dad’s gold watch. This watch.

This watch was on your Daddy’s wrist when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured, put in a Vietnamese prison camp. He knew if the gooks ever saw the watch it’d be confiscated, taken away. The way your Dad looked at it, that watch was your birthright. He’d be damned if any slopes were gonna put their greasy yellow hands on his boy’s birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something. His ass. Five long years, he wore this watch up his ass. Then he died of dysentery, he gave me the watch. I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the watch to you.

Go Big or Go Home

“Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps,” advised Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) when pepping Butch to take the fall. Marsellus’s words come back to save his life when Butch puts decency before pride by going back down into Maynard and Zed’s den of iniquity to save Marsellus from a horrible fate at the hands of the two twisted rapists…despite Marsellus’s prior pledge to hunt Butch down for his betrayal.

A combination of toughness and luck provided Butch with the opportunity to make a break for it, unnoticed, while Maynard and Zed have their way with Marsellus Wallace. Butch gets to the door of Maynard’s pawn shop, and freedom is in sight…but his conscience catches up with him before he can swing open the door. No…despite the fact that Marsellus was “prepared to scour the the Earth” to find and kill Butch, not he nor any person deserves to be subjected to that kind of torture. Butch embodies the idiom “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy” in that moment.

Given the level of violence that seems to excite Maynard and Zed, it’s no surprise that the depraved pawn shop owner has a litany of potential melee weapons hanging behind his counter. Not the hammer…not the chainsaw…not the Louisville Slugger… but that sword? That sword will do.

To the tune of The Revels’ 1961 instrumental track “Comanche”, Butch slowly makes his way back down the stairs “holding the sword pointed downward, Takakura Kenstyle,” according to Tarantino’s screenplay. (The screenplay also originally called for The Judds to be playing over this scene.)

With a few dashes of the sword, he cuts down the spectating Maynard and distracts Zed just long enough to give Marsellus the opportunity to exact the first of his “medieval” justice on his tormentor with Maynard’s 12-gauge shotgun.

Butch: You okay?
Marsellus: Naw man. I’m pretty fuckin’ far from okay.
Butch: What now?

Marsellus gets a well-deserved moment of badassery as he describes his plans for Zed. While Butch is no doubt pleased that a twisted rapist will be getting his due, it’s not what he meant.

Butch: I meant… what now between me and you?
Marsellus: Oh… that “what now”. I tell you what now between me and you. There is no me and you. Not no more.
Butch: So we cool?
Marsellus: Yeah, we cool. Two things. Don’t tell nobody about this. This shit is between me, you, and Mr. Soon-To-Be-Living-The-Rest-of-His-Short-Ass-Life-In-Agonizing-Pain Rapist here. It ain’t nobody else’s business. Two: you leave town tonight, right now. And when you’re gone, you stay gone, or you be gone. You lost all your L.A. privileges. Deal?
Butch: Deal.
Marsellus: Get your ass out of here.

And, thus, the narrative rewards Butch for his actions by giving him a twist on the Hollywood ending that Hans Gruber had prophesied for a previous Bruce Willis character: “This time John Wayne does not walk off into the sunset with Grace Kelly.”

Well this time, Hans, he’s riding off into the sunset with his Italian girlfriend on a stolen motorcycle chopper to the sounds of The Marketts’ 1963 surf rock hit “Out of Limits.”

So, the next time you’re toasting yourself a delicious Pop Tart Sams Frosted Cinnamon Toaster Pastry in your kitchen, pop some classic surf rock on the hi-fi… and keep an eye on your bathroom door.

For all of his better qualities, Butch isn’t one for a well-rounded breakfast.

How to Get the Look

Butch Coolidge’s suede MA-1 bomber jacket and jeans fits nicely into the ambiguous setting of Pulp Fiction, a version of 1990s L.A. where characters dress, talk, and drink like it’s the Jet Age.

• Saddle brown suede bomber jacket with slanted side pockets and brown knit collar band, cuffs, and waist hem
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve t-shirt
• Levi’s 505 Regular Fit light blue stonewashed denim jeans
• Brown leather belt with rounded brass single-prong buckle
• Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star M9165 beige “natural” canvas lo-top sneakers with white laces and red-accented white rubber soles
• White tube socks
• White cotton boxer undershorts with elastic waistband
• Lancet vintage yellow gold trench watch with white dial (with faded red numeric markers and 6:00 sub-dial) on steel expanding bracelet

The Guns

Butch finds himself in this particular predicament because he killed a man with his fists the previous night, so he’s not necessarily the type to rely on firearms. Of course, Marsellus Wallace does such a bad job keeping his weapons out of Butch’s grasp that Butch can’t help but to get his hands on them all.

The first of these is an Ingram MAC-10 submachine gun, fitted with an intimidating suppressor and left on Butch’s kitchen counter when Marsellus runs out to retrieve breakfast for he and Vincent Vega (John Travolta). Vincent couldn’t have picked a worse time to go to the bathroom and leave Marsellus’ gun unattended, as Butch spies it while toasting his Pop Tarts, erm, Sams Frosted Cinnamon Toaster Pastries, and uses it to eliminate his adversary. Following the killing, Butch crudely wipes down the weapon and leaves it behind.

What? You mean you don’t keep a silenced submachine gun next to your blender? How can you even stand to be in your kitchen?!

It’s worth mentioning that Tarantino’s original screenplay described Marsellus’s weapon as “a small compact Czech M61 submachine gun with a huge silencer on it,” likely a reference the Škorpion vz. 61, chambered in the more anemic .32 ACP cartridge than the 9x19mm Parabellum or .45 ACP taken by the MAC-10.

Of course, a big shot like Marsellus Wallace would know better than to hit the streets unarmed. Marsellus packs a Smith & Wesson 4506 in his shoulder holster, which Butch gets his hands on during their confrontation. The weapon is semi-accurately described in the screenplay as “a .45 automatic.”

Butch was able to get the upper hand by distracting Marsellus with the subtly gastric scent of his vintage wristwatch.

The S&W 4506 is one of my favorite semi-automatic pistols. Constructed almost entirely of stainless steel and weighing in at just over 2.5 pounds, it’s a heavy and intimidating weapon chambered for the powerful and venerable .45 ACP cartridge. The 4506 model is a traditional double-action (DA/SA) pistol as opposed to the double-action-only (DAO) 4546 and 4566 models.

It was introduced in 1988 as part of the third generation of Smith & Wesson’s semi-automatic pistols, an evolution of the second-generation pistols such as the Smith & Wesson 659 that featured heavily in Reservoir Dogs. A Smith & Wesson 4506-1 would later be part of the now-iconic first scene in the pilot episode of Breaking Bad.

Production of the Smith & Wesson 4506 was discontinued in 1999 after more than a decade. Marsellus Wallace carries an early model with a squared trigger guard, chrome trigger and hammer, and optional adjustable rear sights.

To read more about the firearms used in Pulp Fiction, check out IMFDB.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.

Robert Redford as Jack Weil in Havana (1990)

Vitals

Robert Redford as Jack Weil, smooth, cynical gambler and U.S. Navy veteran

Havana, December 1958

Film: Havana
Release Date: December 14, 1990
Director: Sydney Pollack
Costume Designer: Bernie Pollack

Background

Blue is one of my favorite colors to wear for spring, and Robert Redford wore a bold turquoise blue suit for a memorable sequence in Havana shortly after Redford’s character Jack Weil arrives in the titular city.

The time is December 1958, and anyone with any clue about Cuban history could tell you that that is a hell of a time to find yourself in Havana. Of course, our smooth hero doesn’t have a care in the world. He came down for a high-stakes poker game and the hopes of getting laid…hopes that were dashed after his traveling companion Roberta (Lena Olin) rejected his indecent proposal (see what I did there?) by mentioning her husband.

Instead, Jack finds himself in the company of two vivacious American tourists, Diane (Betsy Brantley) and Patty (Lise Cutter), who are more than happy to follow his lead into some of the city’s nooks and crannies. Of course, the Casablanca-esque plot thickens when Jack again encounters Roberta and meets her husband, revolutionary leader Dr. Arturo Duran (Raúl Juliá).

What’d He Wear?

Jack Weil wears a sporty and bold turquoise blue flannel suit for a night out in Havana, custom made for Robert Redofrd and provided by Western Costume Company of Hollywood.

The single-breasted suit jacket nicely fits Redford with its era-appropriate full cut and padded, roped shoulders that also seem to be a personal preference for Redford’s on-screen tailoring. The narrow notch lapels roll down to the low two-button stance, so low that the tie often flops over the buttoned jacket.

Both the buttons on the front and the two smaller buttons on each cuff are black urea. The ventless jacket has patch pockets on the hips and left breast.

Merry Christmas?

The trousers have belt loops, placed about a half-inch down from the top of the waist, where Weil wears a slim black leather belt with a small gold box-frame buckle.

The single reverse pleats are placed at the first belt loop out from each side of the fly. The trousers have side pockets, jetted back pockets, and are finished with cuffed bottoms.

Jack Weil’s walk of pride as he escorts Diane and Patty through the streets of Havana before finding their way back to the cozy confines of his hotel room.

Redford’s pale pink cotton long-sleeve dress shirt was created by Anto Beverly Hills (with a “Nat Wise of London” label) with a large and distinctively shaped spread collar. The shirt has a front placket, breast pocket, and single-button barrel cuffs.

LiveAuctioneers featured one of the shirts worn by Redford on screen, sold for $300 in June 2013.

Redford’s proved many times that real men wear pink…and his romp with Patty and Diane later that evening should certainly prove that the boldness of wearing a traditionally “non-masculine” color will go a long way toward impressing women.

Weil’s burgundy silk tie is painted with a large yellow-and-blue gray leaf motif, repeating four times between the knot and the wide blade.

The tie may be the most dated element of Jack’s ensemble.

Weil dresses for his night out by wearing the snappy black-and-white leather spectator shoes that introduced his character in the opening scene. The two-tone oxford brogues have a black perforated wingtip toe cap, black outside counter on the heel, black eyelet tabs, and black laces with a white vamp and quarter. As he did with their first appearance, Weil appears to wear his black-and-white shoes with black socks.

Spectator shoes add a nice pop that make an outfit more interesting and, in this case, dial down the formality to keep Jack Weil looking snappy for an evening out on the town.

Redford swaps out his usual silver ring for an ornate gold signet ring, worn on his right pinky. The pinky ring better fits Weil’s gambler persona and likely would have clashed with Redford’s silver ring, received as a gift from Hopi Indians in 1966 and worn in most of his films since then.

Weil wears an all-yellow gold watch, strapped to his right wrist on a flat gold bracelet.

Jack lights up with his new friends.

This entire screen-worn outfit – from the suit and shirt to the tie and shoes – is offered at The Golden Closet for $2,500, as of March 2017.

What to Imbibe

Jack Weil and his reporter pal Julio Ramos (Tony Plana) begin the evening at “Hemingway’s favorite bar,” according to Julio, and appropriately commemorate the occasion with one of Papa’s preferred cocktails: a classic daiquiri.

After making the acquaintance of Diane and Patty, Jack asks the two young women if they “want to try anything” (oh, geez) before picking up a round of mojitos for the group.

I’d also avoid eye contact with any bartender after ordering a mojito.

Jack is wise to suggest this cocktail for the group, particularly in their “when in Havana…” mindset. The mojito was also reportedly a favorite drink of Ernest Hemingway, particularly when imbibing at La Bodeguita del Medio in Havana, and Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond would also enjoy one while kicking back on a warm Cuban afternoon in Die Another Day.

Mojitos have a reputation for being the drink of choice for people looking to torture their bartender, so learn what goes into making one yourself before putting some poor barkeep through the works. According to the IBA, you’ll need:

• 4 parts Cuban white rum
• 3 parts fresh lime juice
• 6 sprigs of mint
• 2 teaspoons of sugar
• soda water

Start by muddling the mint with the lime juice and sugar in a Collins glass, then add a splash of soda water and fill the glass with crushed or cracked ice. Pour in the rum – preferably Cuban rum, of course – and top off the whole concoction with soda water and a final mint sprig for garnish. For an extra taste of Havana, cut the sweetness with a dash or two of Angostura bitters and enjoy on a warm summer evening.

Beware… Jeffrey Morgenthaler wisely warns against downing ten mojitos in one sitting, as tempting as it may sound. For more mojito-drinking tips, check out Morgenthaler’s The Dos and Don’ts of Mojitos.

How to Get the Look

Redford’s suit from Havana, as featured at The Golden Closet.

Jack Weil’s costumes in Havana perfectly illustrate an eye for costume…this is exactly the outfit I would expect to see a confident gambler wearing for a tropical night of bar-hopping in the late 1950s.

• Turquoise blue flannel suit, consisting of:
  • Single-breasted 2-button suit jacket with narrow notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Single reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Pale pink cotton dress shirt with large shaped spread collar, front placket, breast pocket, and 1-button cuffs
• Burgundy silk tie with painted leaf motif
• Black leather belt with gold rectangular closed buckle
• Black & white leather 5-eyelet wingtip oxford spectator brogues
• Black dress socks
• Gold wristwatch with round gold dial on flat bracelet
• Gold signet pinky ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

Jon Hamm as Don Draper in “Marriage of Figaro”, Episode 1.03 of Mad Men.

Vitals

Jon Hamm as Don Draper, mysterious ad exec and suburban dad

Ossining, New York, April 1960

Series: Mad Men
Episode: “Marriage of Figaro” (Episode 1.03)
Air Date: August 2, 2007
Director: Ed Bianchi
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

Background

In addition to Mad Men‘s first mention of Dick Whitman, “Marriage of Figaro” includes a snazzy casual outfit for a slick spring weekend in the suburbs.

The first two episodes certainly hinted at the deep layers lurking beneath the man first introduced to us as Don Draper, but it is “Marriage of Figaro” that breaks Mad Men‘s ground in exploring our ostensible protagonist’s isolation and loneliness… a quality that Todd VanDerWerff of The AV Club described as “his essential unhappiness.”

It’s a polarizing quality, for sure, and it’s telling that this episode turned off several objectively decent viewers like my dad and my girlfriend’s brother who were disgusted by following this lead character’s selfish forays into infidelity.

Sticking with the show, audiences get a better understanding of Don’s superficial selfishness as a manifestation of his self-loathing and depression. VanDerWerff drew several interesting conclusions in his analysis, calling out the episode’s “very deliberate work/home split, following Don Draper in both environments and seeing how he fits (or doesn’t fit) in either one.”

Following his failed seduction of Rachel Menken on the avian rooftop of her family’s department store, Don is tasked the following morning with preparing for his daughter’s sixth birthday party. Fueled by a seemingly endless chain of cigarettes and beer, Don draws the dazzled eyes of Betty’s circle, setting the tone for the suburban flirtations to follow, all in varying degrees of subtlety. He and Helen Bishop (Darby Stanchfield), the much-gossiped-about single mother, form a wordless but natural bond as they both gaze out over the party where neither of them belong.

None too pleased to see her husband in such close proximity to a woman who scandalizes Ossining with her walking(!), Betty scurries outside to remind Don of his paternal duties. Without a word for the rest of the episode, Don picks up the cake but, in his ennui, he bypasses the house and finds himself lighting a Lucky by the train tracks, hours later.

The party long over with every child – particularly his own – feeling let down, Don returns home far too late with a dog in tow for Sally. The dog is his ultimate redemption in the eyes of his suddenly grateful six-year-old that he disappointed just enough to save the day with his grand gesture.

What’d He Wear?

The previous episode, “Ladies Room” (1.02), was the first to provide a closer look at Don Draper’s home life, but “Marriage of Figaro” provides the first true on screen casual outfits. Following the all-brown “workman’s” ensemble he wears when building Sally’s playhouse, he dresses for the party in a navy twill sport jacket, black knit polo, and gray trousers.

I was pleased to get a request to write about this outfit as it has stood out to me since I first saw the episode nearly ten years ago…and it always seemed a little too cool for a suburban dad to be wearing for his six-year-old daughter’s birthday party, yet another indication that perhaps Don doesn’t belong.

Betty gets understandably jealous when worldly women like Mount Holyoke graduate Helen Bishop approach her husband.

“Marriage of Figaro” appears to be the sole appearance for this navy blue sportcoat, constructed from what appears to be cashmere twill. On her Instagram account, costume designer Janie Bryant posted a photo from her archives with handwritten notes that identify the jacket as “Collection Helen Larson ‘Malibu Imperial’ #40282926.”

Malibu Imperial was a luxury clothier in Beverly Hills that reportedly made several of David McCallum’s mod suit as Illya Kuryakin on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Searches for vintage Malibu Imperial jackets from the era yield many cashmere examples, leading to my hypothesis that Jon Hamm is wearing a vintage cashmere twill jacket in this sequence.

Don doubles down on his borderline inappropriate levels of cool as he inspects the dregs of his bourbon before guzzling it down.

The single-breasted sportcoat has a single-button closure and a single button on each cuff, all dark brown plastic sew-through buttons. The narrow notch lapels have swelled edges and rounded notch corners that contribute to a slightly softened appearance.

The jacket’s short length is something that would be more fashionable later in the decade. It has a ventless back and padded shoulders with roped sleeveheads. There is a welted breast pocket and the straight hip pockets have wide jetting.

Fear and Loathing at the Six-Year-Old’s Birthday Party.

Don wears a black soft knit polo shirt with a gray placket of three flat gray plastic buttons. No shirt cuffs are visible under the jacket’s long sleeves, so it can be deduced that Don’s polo is short-sleeved, a theory that gains additional credence as some production photos from “Marriage of Figaro” appear to show Don wearing his shirt without the sportcoat, revealing the shirt’s short set-in sleeves.

This type of soft knit polo is often marketed as a sweater or “sweater-knit polo” and can be made from a variety of fabrics ranging from acrylic to cashmere. A cashmere knit polo would match the luxury of Don’s jacket and lifestyle, but a cashmere garment is much more difficult to wash than acrylic or cotton. After being worn all day on a warm spring afternoon without an undershirt as Don does here, the shirt would certainly be due for the laundry.

Don channels his inner Orson Welles in this production photo without his navy cashmere jacket.

As of March 2017, Macy’s offers an all-cotton Polo Ralph Lauren “Men’s Polo Sweater” for $185 (link) that looks to be a nice modern substitute for Don’s polo. If you have more of a Don-sized clothing budget, the Dunhill “Archive Knit Polo” for $595 (link) is a luxurious, textural knit 70% cashmere and 30% silk blend that has all the elements of Draper’s shirt, from the buttons and wide collar to the elasticized ends of the elbow-length sleeves.

Although Don opts for a short-sleeve polo, long-sleeve shirts are often recommended when worn with jackets to avoid sweat and body oils from affecting the sleeves of the jacket. Plenty of long-sleeve options can be found, including this 100% acrylic shirt from Alberto Cardinali for $13 (link), the slightly more fashionable acrylic/cotton blend from Gameyly for $44 (link), and a nice Club Room merino wool and acrylic blend with a hidden fly front for under $80 (link). Shoppers looking to channel Don’s cashmere-oriented sensibilities can find affordable 3-button polos from Cashmere Boutique or Shephe, all for typically less than $150.

Don Draper always appreciates a good bargain!

The light gray semi-solid wool trousers continue to cool, wintry tones of Don’s navy jacket and black shirt, all nicely offset by the warmth of his coordinated dark brown leather shoes and belt and further grounded by the jacket’s dark brown buttons.

The slim brown leather belt has a small box-out buckle in tarnished brass.

Careful Don…a wild Carlton approaches!

Don wears a pair of dark brown leather split-toe penny loafers with his thin beige socks barely visible between his shoes and the full break of the trousers.

The wristwatch that Don wears throughout the first season has been strongly hypothesized to be a steel Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox with a replacement black and white “tuxedo dial” and a black leather strap.

The Memovox was very innovative when introduced in 1956 as it was the first automatic wristwatch to include a mechanical alarm function. It was produced through the 1960s and revived in 2012. Don would stick with Jaeger-LeCoultre, wearing the Reverso style in the second and third seasons, before he switched to his Rolex Explorer in the fourth season and his Omega Seamaster DeVille for Mad Men‘s final three seasons.

Go Big or Go Home

…and, if you’re supposed to be home for your daughter’s birthday party, just go home!

I shouldn’t have to say this, but if your daughter is turning six and you’re not there to celebrate with her… you should rectify that immediately.

Of course, you should make an effort to get there in style. For Don Draper, this means a sleek gold 1960 Buick LeSabre convertible (provided by Aardvark Picture Vehicle Props) from the era was Buick was one of the masters of tailfin styling and not old-man-who-won’t-get-out-of-the-left-lane-even-though-he’s-going-well-under-the-speed-limit.

Apropos the episode title, Don plays “Marriage of Figaro” on the hi-fi at home…evidently there’s nothing better for a six-year-old’s birthday party than Mozart. If you’re looking for something a little more accessible for your party music, Bobby Vinton’s “P.S. I Love You” kicks in at the finale and plays through the end credits, emblematic of the Draper family serving only as an afterthought in Don’s clouded mind.

If that’s too tame for your taste, kick things into a higher gear while sticking to the “mint juleps in the early ’60s” theme; Ray Charles’ “One Mint Julep” is the brassy instrumental that will get things going for you.

Music is only one of your responsibilities when making your guests feel happy and comfortable. Leering is not okay.

Hang in there, Helen.

What to Imbibe

“Mint juleps!” announces Betty as she makes the rounds with a set of silver cups neatly assorted on a matching tray.

“It’s that time of year,” she adds. Time of year aside, it makes sense that Don would enjoy a mint julep as his signature drink, the old fashioned, shares the mint julep’s base ingredients of whiskey and sugar syrup.

All eyes are on Betty as she serves her mint juleps. For someone who seems to crave attention, she doesn’t look like she appreciates it.

While well worth the effort, making a proper mint julep can be a complicated process, as I have previously outlined in a post that found Sean Connery’s James Bond enjoying a julep or two next to the villainous Auric Goldfinger and his pilot, Pussy Galore.

If you’re in a rush and just trying to meet the typical demand of bored adults at a child’s birthday party, you can follow Betty’s example of pouring an entire fifth of bourbon into a pitcher of ice, spraying in some soda water, and letting guests fill their own glasses.

How to Get the Look

This especially cool behind-the-scenes shot of Jon Hamm in costume (with notes!) is sourced from Janie Bryant’s Instagram @janiebryant.

Don Draper’s suave suburban style sets him apart from the predatory patriarchs at his daughter’s sixth birthday party.

• Navy blue cashmere twill single-breasted 1-button sportcoat with slim notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 1-button cuffs, ventless back
• Black soft knit short-sleeve polo with large collar, 3-button placket, and elbow-length set-in sleeves with elasticized cuffs
• Light gray semi-solid wool flat front trousers with belt loops, slightly slanted side pockets, jetted back pocekts, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark brown leather belt with a small brass box-out buckle
• Dark brown leather split-toe penny loafers
• Thin beige socks
• Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox steel-cased wristwatch with black-and-white “tuxedo dial” and black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Start with the first season, but you’ll eventually want to check out the whole series.

The Quote

Glenn, I’m pretty sure there are some peanut butter sandwiches and a BB gun out there in the backyard. Why don’t you come with me?

John Wayne as Det.-Lt. Lon “McQ” McHugh in McQ (1974)

Vitals

John Wayne as Lon “McQ” McHugh, taciturn Seattle PD lieutenant

Seattle, Fall 1973

Film: McQ
Release Date: February 6, 1974
Director: John Sturges
Wardrobe Credit: Luster Bayless

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

What do you get when you mix Dirty Harry’s attitude with Bullitt’s cinematic style and a twist of neo-noir influence? Why, you get McQ, the 1974 crime drama that marked one of Wayne’s few non-Western and non-war movies in his storied career.

John Wayne was just shy of 67 years old when McQ was released in theaters. He vocally regretted not accepting the lead role in Dirty Harry that would cement Clint Eastwood’s superstardom. In the three years since, Eastwood had already starred in two films as Harry Callahan with another soon to follow.

The McQ creative team, with veteran director John Sturges at the helm, revived the original Seattle setting of Dirty Harry and also capitalized on the success of films like Bullitt by connecting action set pieces with impressive car chases; in fact, the “McQ” moniker may have been an attempt at signaling Steve McQueen’s name and success in that role.

Wayne plays Lon “McQ” McHugh, a tough detective-lieutenant with the Seattle Police Department frequently disgusted by politics interfering with his ability to lawfully exact justice. He’s hounded by assassins, drug peddlers, and hoodlums through the film, culminating in the tragic destruction of his “brewster green” 1973 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am… a brand-new American sports car in hunter green. Hm.

After a much-needed hospital visit, McQ is back in action, this time with his deceased partner’s widow Lois (Diana Muldaur), who may know more about their gun-toting pursuers than she lets on.

The chase leads McQ and Lois to a beach, where stunt coordinator Ronnie Rondell and stuntmen Hal Needham and Gary McLarty executed an impressive rollover stunt with the blue Cadillac sedan pursuing Lois’ 1969 Pontiac Belvedere. For an entertaining read about the stunt process (and its nearly fatal execution), check out this 2014 Road & Track article by Alex Nunez.

McQ hits the beach in Lois’ Belvedere.

Thank you to Craig, a great BAMF Style reader and Patreon supporter, who sent me a copy of the McQ DVD, allowing me to respond to the several requests I’ve received to write about John Wayne’s wardrobe in the film.

What’d He Wear?

McQ wears a heavy birdseye tweed jacket and striped tie for an evening of highballs with Lois that eventually becomes his outfit for the rest of the film. Tweed is a fine choice, as its durability is key for the amount of car stunts, gunfights, and beatings to which McQ is subjected during the movie’s latter scenes. Whether intentional or not, it also nods to Wayne’s significant Scots-Irish heritage.

McQ gets taken for a ride.

McQ’s gray single-breasted sport jacket is large-scaled birdseye tweed with taupe striping. The three-button stance nicely balances John Wayne’s 6’4″ height, and he often wears the top two buttons fastened, correctly leaving the bottom button undone. The two smaller buttons on the cuff are, like those on the front, sew-through buttons with two holes.

Tweed’s rough durability makes it a staple of British country clothing, and tweed jackets often incorporate sporty details such as the swelled edges and patch pockets seen on McQ’s jacket.

John Wayne’s already imposing physique is emphasized with padded, roped shoulders. Though cut and detailed similarly to his other jackets, this is the only one with double vents – and long ones fashionable to the ’70s, at that – rather than the single vent of his navy blazer and charcoal flannel suit jacket.

McQ wears a sky blue poplin shirt with a edge-stitched details, including the fashionably large semi-spread collar, front placket, breast pocket, and rounded barrel cuffs with two buttons to close.

If it’s that hard to fit your 6’4″ frame inside a Trans Am, maybe you needed a different car, anyway…

Of course an all-American like John Wayne would wear a red, white, and blue tie. His crimson repp tie has thin sets of stripes in dark navy, beige, and dark navy… naturally following the American stripe direction pointing up to the right shoulder.

Even John Wayne can get his ass kicked from time to time… he’s in the hospital for a full two minutes before he even considers going back out to take on corrupt police officers and drug dealers.

McQ wears a pair of taupe wool flat front slacks that may be a shade too similar to his sport jacket as deeper contrast is always preferred when pairing trousers with an odd jacket. These trousers have side pockets, jetted back pockets, that close with a button, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

The wide belt loops accommodate a thick black leather belt with a large brass single-prong buckle. McQ wears his new Browning Hi-Power secured to the left side of his belt for a cross-hand draw from a tan leather holster.

McQ keeps his Browning Hi-Power holstered in a cross-draw rig on the left side of his belt. It’s ill-concealed on a windy day and bulges under his jacket, but if you see John Wayne coming your way, it’s safe to assume he’s got a gun on him anyway.

McQ wears black leather slip-on loafers with black socks.

McQ’s footwear is best seen in the promotional shot featured in this German lobby card. Any German-speaking BAMFs out there able to translate “schlägt zu” in this context?

For his nocturnal escapades in the impound lot, McQ adds an extra layer with a khaki raincoat. The coat has set-in sleeves, a 5-button covered fly front, single-button cuffs, and handwarmer side pockets.

Who says it needs to rain for you to wear a raincoat? Covert nocturnal activity is always a fine occasion to whip out the khaki mack.

On his right wrist, John Wayne wears a simple brass Montagnard bracelet that gifted to him by the indiginous Montagnard people of Vietnam during the filming of The Green Berets in 1968. Modern Forces Living History Group reports that many American servicemen returned from Vietnam with these bracelets from the tribe, signifying friendship or respect.

Manready Mercantile offers a striking replica of the “Montagnard Bracelet” in brass, copper, or steel (link), where they explain that “not only did Duke don the bracelet on his wrist until the day he passed, it’s said he lays with it to this day.”

John Wayne wore the Montagnard bracelet on his right wrist in all of his films from The Green Berets on.

McQ’s watch doesn’t get much dedicated screen time, but it’s worn in the same manner that John Wayne would typically wear his timepieces with the face on the inside of his wrist. It appears to be a gold chronograph, surprisingly small in diameter for a man of Wayne’s size, with a silver dial (with three sub-dials), worn on a drab vinyl strap that closes with a buckle.

McQ’s practice of wearing his watch on the inside of his wrist (a trait shared with John Wayne himself) may nod to possible military background, which would also explain his expert handling of firearms beyond his police-issued .38.

John Wayne’s real life preference for Rolex watches has been well documented, but I can’t say conclusively whether this is a Rolex or not. The closest model would likely be a Rolex Daytona with a slate dial and a custom band, such as this model 116523 currently offered for $10,995.

A Rolex Magazine article from November 2016 has a great pictoral history of Wayne’s Rolex history, including some great images of The Duke sporting his DateJust while vacationing at his Acapulco resort.

How to Get the Look

John Wayne’s rugged and classic tweed-centered ensemble serves him ably as he battles the bad guys in the final act of McQ.

• Gray taupe-striped birdseye tweed single-breasted 3-button sportcoat with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, double vents
• Sky blue poplin shirt with large semi-spread collar, front placket, breast pocket, and 2-button rounded barrel cuffs
• Crimson red repp tie with thin navy/beige/navy R-down-L stripes
• Taupe wool flat front trousers with wide belt loops, side pockets, button-through jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather belt with brass single-prong buckle
• Tan leather belt holster for full-size semi-automatic pistol
• Black leather slip-on loafers
• Black socks
• Khaki raincoat with 5-button covered fly front, set-in sleeves with 1-button cuffs, handwarmer pockets, and single back vent
• Plain brass “Montagnard Bracelet”
• Yellow gold chronograph wristwatch with silver dial (with three sub-dials) and olive vinyl buckle-strap

The Guns

John Wayne might’ve gotten famous firing six-shooters on horseback, but McQ reinvented the actor’s image as he fired fully automatic rounds from a MAC-10 out the side window of a Plymouth sedan after using up all the rounds from his “wonder nine” Browning Hi-Power.

As a veteran cop in the ’70s, Lieutenant McHugh begins the film with a standard .38 Special revolver, but – once both are taken away from him following his resignation from the force – he’s force to load up on his own. A trip to Warshal’s Sporting Goods in Seattle yielded both the high-capacity pistol he was seeking in the form of a Browning Hi-Power as well as the chance to covertly “borrow” a MAC-10.

McQ’s choice of a Browning Hi-Power for his personal sidearm may have been influenced by Frank Serpico, the maverick NYPD cop who was portrayed by Al Pacino in the previous year’s Serpico. The fictional McHugh finds himself in a similar situation as both the real and cinematic Serpico, constantly in danger as he tirelessly works to uncover a conspiracy that lead up the police department’s chain of command.

Only John Wayne could make a Browning Hi-Power look so small in someone’s hands.

Once the battle heats up, McQ literally brings out the big guns when he digs out the Ingram MAC-10 submachine gun that he wisely removed from his car trunk following its destruction.

McQ is often credited with introducing the MAC-10 to the general public, developing wider consciousness of the weapon and greater demand for it. It had been developed a decade earlier by George B. Ingram, but it wasn’t introduced until 1970 for three years of production by Military Armament Corporation (MAC). The “MAC-10” nomenclature is an unofficial one as it is officially abbreviated as the “M-10” or “M10”.

Designed purely for functionality, the MAC-10 is an ugly weapon, built from steel stampings and feeding from a box magazine in the grip that either carries 32 rounds of 9x19mm Parabellum ammunition or 30 rounds of .45 ACP ammunition; McQ’s particular MAC-10 is the latter .45-caliber model.

The lawman steadily fires his .45 while riding against a gang of outlaws… a more modern take on the usual John Wayne narrative.

If the MAC-10 with its big two-stage suppressor looks familiar to you, it may be from seeing a similar weapon handled by Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction, featured in last week’s post.

According to Jack Lewis’s Assault Weapons, the MAC-10 gained a quick – and deserved – reputation for inaccuracy with IACP weapons researcher David Steele describing the weapon as “fit only for combat in a phone booth.” This frequent criticism of the MAC-10 was rectified with the development of a two-stage suppressor by Sionics, designed by Mitchell Werbell III.

Nearly a foot long, this two-stage suppressor also served two purposes; it greatly reduced the sound of the weapon firing, muting almost all but the bolt cycling, and also served as a foregrip to steady the weapon when used with a Nomex cover as suggested by the U.S. Army. A second hand would certainly come in handy with a weapon firing .45 ACP rounds at a rate of 1,090 rounds per minute.

Ever the cowboy, John Wayne even fires his MAC-10 one-handed and from the hip.

For more info about the guns of McQ as well as photos of the film’s actual weapons, supplied by Long Mountain Outfitters, check out the IMFDB page.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

I’m up to my butt in gas!

Robert Shaw as Donald “Red” Grant in From Russia With Love (1963)

Vitals

Robert Shaw as Donald “Red” Grant, lethal SPECTRE assassin

Istanbul, Spring 1963

Film: From Russia With Love
Release Date: October 10, 1963
Director: Terence Young
Costume Designer: Jocelyn Rickards

Background

Robert Shaw set the Bond franchise standard as the dangerous Donald “Red” Grant in From Russia With Love, one of the most memorable antagonists in the series.

Grant is arguably the archetype for subsequent villains that followed his laconic, icy blond example like Vargas in Thunderball, Necros in The Living Daylights, and Stamper in Tomorrow Never Dies, though none could ever match Robert Shaw’s truly menacing presence on screen.

From Russia With Love is notable in the Bond canon for also being a helluva good espionage film on its own. Much credit for this comes from the film’s paranoid atmosphere, a true product of the Cold War and no doubt enhanced by Grant’s constant presence as he lurks in the dark shadows of the narrative. We don’t know Grant’s exact mission at the outset, and his unpredictability is all the more unsettling as he efficiently dispatches with nearly everyone that comes into contact with Bond… and it’s only a matter of time until he has 007 himself in his crosshairs.

What’d He Wear?

From the time that James Bond alights at the Istanbul airport through the gypsy camp gunfight up to the confrontation at the Hagia Sophia mosque, Grant wears the same gray check suit, pale blue shirt with double cuffs, and royal blue satin tie. It’s as though Grant took a page out of Bond’s book, dressing subtly enough to effortlessly blend into the background while still stylish enough to satiate his pride.

Grant’s full-cut wool suit is actually a small-scale gun club check in black, maroon, and navy on a gray ground. Gun club check is a pattern more frequently associated with country clothing, such as the sport jacket that Timothy Dalton would wear as 007 himself in The Living Daylights, but a smaller scaled check like Grant’s is very suitable for the frequently shifting locales of Grant’s mission in Istanbul.

What’s a good assassin without a pair of dangerous-looking black leather gloves? Grant’s gloves have basket-woven thumbs.

The boxier, buttoned-up look of Grant’s three-button suit jackets give him a lethal appearance with a businesslike approach to killing, amplified by the padded shoulders. Like his other suit, this jacket is single-breasted with narrow notch lapels and single back vent. The hip pockets are flapped, and Grant wears a white pocket square in the welted breast pocket.

In fact, most of the details are consistent between Grant’s suits save for the cuffs; this suit has 3-button cuffs while his later suit has only a single button at the end of each sleeve.

The double forward-pleated trousers are finished at the bottom with cuffs.

Grant coolly leaves the scene of a crime.

Grant’s shirt and tie plays with his parallels to Bond’s From Russia With Love “uniform”, as Sean Connery also wears almost exclusively blue silk ties with pale blue poplin shirts. While James Bond prefers navy grenadine ties, though, Grant sports a louder royal blue tie in shiny satin silk.

Grant’s pale blue poplin shirt has a spread collar and double (French) cuffs, likely worn with the same round blue enamel gold disc cuff links that he would later wear when battling Bond on the Orient Express. (A costume-related continuity error actually gives Grant two different sets of cufflinks with the Orient Express suit.)

Yikes, Rosa!

The black leather plain-toe slip-ons that Grant wears appear to also be the same that he would wear on the Orient Express. With short black elastic side gussets, these loafers best resemble a Chelsea boot that’s been cut off at the ankle. Connery would wear similar footwear the following year in Goldfinger with both formal and casual outfits.

For an extra bit of trivia, the teal taxi in which Grant joins Rosa Klebb is a 1951 Plymouth Cranbrook. At 12 years old, the car would be ineligible for Uber… although I imagine potential riders would also be put off by the intense rust on the fender.

Though it gets little action here, Grant wears the same garotte-customized Milan wristwatch that he demonstrated to great effect during the pre-credits scene. The heavy steel watch, replicated at YourProps.com, has a white dial with gold case markers at each quarter hour and black numeral markings at all but 3:00, where the number is cut out for a date window. The brown leather strap is debossed through the center.

How to Get the Look

Red Grant looks both predatory and dapper as he stalks Bond through the nooks and crannies of Istanbul.

• Gray gun club check wool suit, consisting of
  • Single-breasted 3-button suit jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and back vent
  • Double forward-pleated trousers with turn-ups/cuffs
• Pale blue poplin shirt with spread collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
  • Gold disc cuff links filled with blue enamel
• Royal blue satin silk tie
• Black leather plain-toe side-gusset loafers
• Black dress socks
• Milan wristwatch with heavy steel case, white dial (with 3:00 date window), brown leather strap, and garotte wire
• Black leather gloves with basket-woven thumbs

Though he mocks the mannerisms of a gentleman, Grant does wear a gentlemanly white pocket square in his breast pocket.

The Gun

Every movie assassin needs a stylish handgun, and Grant takes inspiration from 007 by borrowing a different weapon from the German military’s early 20th century arsenal, arming himself with the distinctive Mauser C96.

Streets of Istanbul by day, sneaking behind a gypsy wagon at night… Red Grant will be the first to tell you there’s no such thing as “a typical day” working for SPECTRE.

The Mauser C96 is easily recognizable with its long barrel and the unique round wooden grip that earned the weapon its “Broomhandle” nickname. It could be fitted with a shoulder stock that ostensibly converted it to a carbine rifle. The standard model used the proprietary 7.63x25mm Mauser ammunition, fed by a 10-round stripper clip into an internal magazine in front of the trigger.

Though not practical for concealed carry, the Mauser is a sensible option for Grant in this context. He isn’t sure where his mission will take him, but he will almost certainly need to exercise his skills as an assassin and he may need to do so from a distance. A rifle would be both impractical and conspicuous, but the range and accuracy offered by the Mauser C96’s long 5.5-inch barrel and its high-velocity 7.63x25mm cartridge makes it a suitable carbine substitute in a pinch.

Bond would also be grateful for the accuracy of Grant’s Mauser C96…although he doesn’t know it yet.

As its name implies, the Mauser C96 was introduced in 1896, beginning more than four decades of continuous production and countless variants until 1937. The classic configuration was Grant’s 5.5″-barreled model in 7.63x25mm Mauser, but contracts around the world meant different needs for different militaries; the Chinese developed approximately 8,500 “Shanxi Type 17” pistols chambered for the powerful .45 ACP cartridge, the Bolshevik Russian government purchased large numbers of the short-barreled M1921 Mauser that was thus nicknamed the “Bolo” Mauser, and the Imperial German Army contracted 150,000 Mauser pistols to be chambered for its standard 9x19mm cartridge during World War I. This latter variant gained its “Red 9” moniker from the large number 9 that was burned and painted onto the grips to warn users from incorrectly loading them with 7.63mm ammunition.

One of the most famous developments of the C96 was the select-fire “Schnellfeuer”, produced by Mauser from 1932 to 1936 after the Spanish firms Beistegui Hermanos S.A and Astra-Unceta y Cía S.A. developed their own select-fire C96-type machine pistols in the late 1920s.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm (Episode 1.01: “The Pants Tent”)

Vitals

Larry David as himself, a neurotic comedy writer

Los Angeles, Fall 2000

Series: Curb Your Enthusiasm
Episode: “The Pants Tent” (Episode 1.01)
Air Date: October 15, 2000
Director: Robert B. Weide
Creator: Larry David
Costume Designer: Wendy Range Rao

Background

Curb Your Enthusiasm isn’t a show often celebrated for its sartorial style, but the trouser-centric faux pas that drives the plot of its first episode makes Larry David the perfect subject for BAMF Style’s annual April Fool’s Day post this year.

What’d He Wear?

Is it a bad thing? Maybe it’s not such a bad thing, you know?

Larry David lets us know exactly the sort of show we’re in for as the opening shot of Curb Your Enthusiasm is a close-up of his crotch as he aggressively tests the bounds of the corduroy bunched up above his groin.

“I have never seen a bunch-up like this in my life… this is like a five-inch bunch-up I got here.”

Larry deems this trouser phenomenon his “pants tent”, though it’s surprising that this would only be the first occurrence for a man who makes such a habit of wearing baggy clothing. These particular light brown corduroys are even baggier due to their double reverse pleats, providing ample material to pitch a pants tent.

With their excess size, Larry’s pants are almost certainly held up with a belt that remains unseen under his shirt. The bottoms are plain-hemmed, but Larry wears them cuffed them up about an inch.

A Racked article from April 2016 that asked its readers “is Larry David the style icon we need?” (he isn’t) described “LD’s signature look, a mix of layers in desert mountain tones, all slate gray and brown and navy blues.”

Larry establishes this look from the outset, wearing a soft gray-blue long-sleeve polo shirt layered over a black cotton crew-neck t-shirt with his “pants tent” corduroys. Like all of his clothing, the polo shirt is a few sizes too big, and he has rolled back the elasticized cuffs over his wrists. He leaves the top of the three buttons undone.

The polo shirt is almost definitely Pima cotton, an ultra soft and durable fabric that would be a comfortable option for Larry’s days either in the office or on the golf course.

Although to suggest that Larry David is ever comfortable shows a fundamental lack of knowledge about his character.

Larry dons an extra layer for the movie theater, an extremely oversized dark olive suede jacket with wide notch lapels, a two-button single-breasted front, patch pockets on the left breast and hips, plain cuffs, and ventless back. It appears not to the be the 3-button jacket that he wears the next day, as this has no pocket on the right breast.

As Larry would later describe it: “I think your friend Nancy thinks she got me aroused in the movie… because of the tent in the pants, and, when she looked down… she thought that there was some garbage there.”

This episode was filmed and aired in 2000, evidently somewhere between the real Larry David’s preference for Nike Jordans while working on Seinfeld in the ’90s and before he adopted his now-trademark sustainable sneakers by Simple.

Larry’s white sneakers get some prominent screen time, as do their rubber outsoles with white toe caps and black accents on a wide gray center strip. What appears to be a black “B” is centered on the outsole, perhaps indicating the sneaker brand.

Do Larry’s outsoles look familiar?

Larry wears a pair of tight beige socks, possibly a cotton and elastane blend.

Larry’s signature gold-framed eyeglasses have been identified as Oliver Peoples MP-3, a style discontinued in the late ’80s but has remained on his face in the three decades since. The rounded lenses are rimmed with a thin tortoise eye wire. As Larry himself explained:

I can’t find another pair of glasses… I just like them. And now it’s too late to change, even if I didn’t like them. It would be like getting a tou­pee. It feels like a big step.

How to Get the Look

Larry David puts softness before style when dressing, although his soft cotton ensemble creates more problems than it’s worth…

• Dark olive suede single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, patch breast and hip pockets, plain cuffs, and ventless back
• Gray-blue soft Pima cotton long-sleeve polo shirt with 3-button collar and elasticized cuffs
• Black cotton crew-neck short-sleeve t-shirt
• Light brown double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and self-cuffed bottoms
• White sneakers with white toe caps and black-accented gray-striped rubber outsoles
• Beige cotton/elastane socks
• Gold-framed vintage eyeglasses with thin tortoise eye wires and round lenses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the series, and start with the first season.

The Quote

I got a tent.

John Travolta as Chili Palmer in Get Shorty (1995)

Vitals

John Travolta as Chili Palmer, Miami loan shark and aspiring filmmaker

Los Angeles, Winter 1995

Film: Get Shorty
Release Date: October 20, 1995
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Costume Designer: Betsy Heimann

Background

Today’s Mafia Monday post explores one of the many delightfully idiosyncratic characters from the wonderful world of Elmore Leonard.

Miami loan shark Chili Palmer is effortlessly capable at his job, but – like many people – when a job is too easy, it becomes tedious. Bored with the incompetence of psychotic mobsters in his orbit like Ray “Bones” Barboni (Dennis Farina), Chili embraces the opportunity to go west in search of a delinquent dry cleaner.

Already a fan of movies as his poster of The Thin Man in his Miami office suggested, our charismatic loan shark takes to Hollywood like a duck to water, shaking up the town with his syndicate sensibilities. Chili has found his calling, but his dangerous line of work and true appreciation for classics like Rio Bravo and A Touch of Evil make him the perfect foil to spineless producers like Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman) and eccentric actors like Martin Weir (Danny DeVito).

What’d He Wear?

Like most of Elmore Leonard’s work, there’s no time wasted in exposition when we could be getting straight to the story. In this case, it’s a black leather jacket that sets everything in motion:

Do you see a black leather jacket, fingertip length like the one Pacino wore in Serpico? ‘Cause if you don’t, you owe me $379.

Setting aside the fact that Al Pacino wore no such jacket in Serpico, this line alone tells us three things about Chili Palmer: he’s assertive, he appreciates movies, and he’s [relatively] principled.

Also, it’s worth noting that Travolta is still playing characters who strive to sartorially emulate Pacino two decades after his hotheaded Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever memorably used Pacino as inspiration when getting ready for a night on the town. Interestingly, the line about Serpico’s leather jacket comes straight from Leonard’s original novel.

Chili retrieves his jacket from Ray Bones that same day in Miami, but the jacket itself doesn’t make an appearance on his person until he’s at a screening of Touch of Evil in L.A. a few nights later.

Chili’s leather jacket is cool, but I’m all about Karen rocking that vintage Lakers tee like a pro. The Randy Pfund era was a bold time to be a Lakers fan.

Chili wears a black leather jacket, accurately described as “fingertip length,” styled like a single-breasted suit jacket with long edge-stitched notch lapels and a ventless back. The jacket’s low stance two-button front is split by a horizontal seam above the second button.

Chili always manages to keep cool, making him far more deserving of the cool leather jacket than the excitable Ray Bones.

The jacket has a welted breast pocket and a jetted hip pocket on each side that sits on the horizontal seam that traverses the front just above the second button. The shoulders appear to be padded and slightly too wide for Travolta’s frame with the roped sleeveheads a few inches off his shoulder.

Plenty of replicas for this popular jacket, in varying degrees of accuracy, exist online such as this $189 example from New American Jackets. To track one down that’s closer to Travolta’s screen-worn jacket, try to find that distinctive horizontal stitch above the second button as well as the wide lapel notches. Jackets like Chili’s would often be marketed as a “leather blazer” today, such as this stylistically similar lambskin jacket from Koza Leathers.

A movie fan like Chili would be tickled to know just how popular replicas of his jacket are.

The Chili Palmer of Leonard’s 1990 novel often wore suits and ties; one outfit in particular is described as a muted dark blue pinstripe suit with a tab-collared blue shirt and rust-colored tie.

The cinematic Chili played by Travolta eschews dress shirts, in favor of exclusively wearing long-sleeve soft knit polos in dark, solid colors. This Chili also reflects the ’90s trend of layering black on black, a risky sartorial option as not all blacks are as similar as they seem. Chili goes a safer route, as his leather jacket and soft cotton polo nicely contrast each other due to the comfortably different material.

Chili’s black soft cotton knit long-sleeve polo appears to be the same one he wore with his black suit in Miami and his gray suit in Vegas. It has a large collar and four black plastic buttons that he always wears fastened to the neck.

Chili takes a drag from one of his Gitanes cigarettes as all of his problems appear to be working themselves out.

His untucked polo shirt often covers his black leather belt, which has a gold-toned single-prong buckle. A black leather belt from the production featured on Prop Bay gives a closer look at the belt’s edge stitching and the squared buckle with three thin ridges above and below the prong.

Chili wears a pair of black wool flat front trousers with straight side pockets and and plain-hemmed bottoms.

Chili is dragged into action for the film’s finale.

Although he appears to be wearing black derbies for the balcony-dangling action sequences in the finale (perhaps so Travolta or his stuntman didn’t lose his shoes), the film makes a point of showing his black alligator loafers as he saunters along the iconic terrazzo stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

A gangster arrives in Hollywood; no single image could better encapsulate the film’s plot than the mafioso-evoking alligator loafer stepping on a Walk of Fame star.

Chili completes his image as the consummate gangster with all yellow gold jewelry to complement his all black clothing.

On the third finger of his right hand, Chili wears a gold ring with a large green stone. On the opposing wrist, he wears a thin gold wristwatch with a rectangular case and a flat bracelet. Quora users have speculated about the watch’s maker, with one Patek Philippe example proposed as the possible watch.

Gene Hackman supposedly said that the scene where Chili recites Touch of Evil’s lines while watching it in the theater was one of the most “engaging” things he’d witnessed in a movie. (Source: IMDB)

How to Get the Look

All black is a risky look, but Chili Palmer pulls it off with a confidence and contrasts, accenting his leather-centric look with gangster touches like alligator loafers and gold jewelry.

• Black leather jacket with edge-stitched notch lapels, low 2-button front, welted breast pocket, straight/on-seam jetted hip pockets, snap cuffs, and ventless back
• Black soft cotton knit long-sleeve 4-button polo shirt
• Black wool flat front trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black edge-stitched leather belt with gold-toned single-prong ridged square buckle
• Black alligator loafers
• Black dress socks
• Thin rectangular yellow gold watch on a flat gold bracelet
• Gold ring with green stone

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie. It even had the rare approval of Elmore Leonard himself – as reported in the Los Angeles Times in 1995 – and is still considered among the best adaptations of his work.

And speaking of his work… you should definitely grab Leonard’s novel while you’re at it!

The Quote

Now, I’ve been shot at three times before – twice on purpose and once by accident – and I’m still here. And I’m gonna be here for as long as I want to be.

Footnote

Chili Palmer wears similar outfits in the film’s 2005 sequel, Be Cool. One of his outfits from that film was later auctioned, a charcoal suit and a black long-sleeve 3-button cotton-blend polo made by Jhane Barnes, which discontinued its menswear line in 2013.

Robert Redford as Harry “the Sundance Kid” Longbaugh in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Vitals

Robert Redford as Harry Longbaugh, aka “The Sundance Kid”, American outlaw

New York City to Bolivia, Spring 1901

Film: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Release Date: October 24, 1969
Director: George Roy Hill
Costume Designer: Edith Head

Background

For Western Wednesday, BAMF Style is taking a look at one of the most classic and unique films in the genre, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The film is loosely based on the true story of the turn-of-the-century outlaws who fled to South America after their gang, the Wild Bunch, was broken up by the long arm of the law. William Goldman’s witty, engaging screenplay became a hot commodity in Hollywood once studio execs warmed up to the idea of its Old West heroes fleeing. A veritable “who’s who” of the era’s most popular actors were considered for the titular leading roles before Paul Newman and Robert Redford were cast, cementing their place in film history as one of the most dynamic buddy duos to hit the screen.

Redford’s Sundance Kid provides a steady presence that balances the idealistic Butch as played by Newman. Like many traditional cinematic gunslingers, Sundance is laconic and suspicious with a laidback sense of humor as opposed to the charming and clever Butch who is always looking for the next laugh. Each brings a sense of balance to their bickering partnership that strengthens it as a brotherhood rather than a friendship or professional association. Tension rises and falls throughout Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but at no point is there even any threat that one will turn on the other, even as both seem to share the affections of Sundance’s romantic partner, Etta Place (Katharine Ross).

William Goldman said he was drawn to the story of Butch and Sundance as it countered F. Scott Fitzgerald’s theory of “no second acts in American lives,” with the duo faced with determining their second act in the face of the changing state of the American frontier. Given the choice of adapt or die, they choose a third option: fleeing to Bolivia, by way of New York City.

The changing state of the American frontier catches up to horseback bandits Butch and Sundance, and the duo is given the choice: adapt or die. Instead, they choose a third option: fleeing to Bolivia, by way of New York City.

What’d He Wear?

Sundance’s “day dress” outfit of charcoal jacket and waistcoat with striped trousers is his most formal look in the film. When situations call for a suit, he typically sports a gray tweed three-piece suit more fitting his usual image of an outdoorsy gunslinger, but he rises to the occasion for a formal portrait in New York with this turn-of-the-century take on a Masonic suit that was also preferred by some real-life Wild Bunch bandits at the time…but more on that later.

Although its purpose is mostly ceremonial in New York for a day of portraits and jewelry shopping, Sundance’s formal day dress serves a greater purpose when it lulls a Bolivian bank president into a false sense of security; the president willingly leads this prosperous prospect through his bank, grinning ear-to-ear until Etta hands Sundance his .45 and the ruse is up.

(Left) Butch didn’t realize we weren’t smiling for that one.
(Right) A Bolivian bank president, distracted by Sundance’s fine formal attire, mindlessly leads him down into the vault.

Sundance would have been the height of 1901 fashion in his sack jacket, with Brooks Brothers introducing its iconic “Number One Sack” that year and redefining American menswear for the better part of the 20th century.

Redford’s screen-worn jacket, auctioned in 2011. The piping along the edge seems to have been added after the production.

Redford’s charcoal worsted wool jacket in the film was custom made for him by Western Costume with his usual padded shoulders and heavily roped sleeveheads, although the wide shoulders are not as noticeable given the cut’s traditional shapelessness. It follows the sack cut, unshaped by darts and short-fitting with a rounded cutaway bottom, although the four black plastic buttons are one more than Brooks Brothers’ seminal sack coat’s 3-roll-2 stance.

The ventless jacket has notch lapels, a welted breast pocket, and straight flapped hip pockets that line up directly with the lowest buton. There are two decorative buttons at the end of each sleeve.

The jacket was auctioned in June 2011, fetching $8,500, although some modifications had evidently been made since Redford wore it as the Sundance Kid. His name and measurements (40 chest and 17½ sleeve) are still printed on the tag, but dark taping has been added to the edges.

Sundance wears a charcoal waistcoat that matches his jacket. It fastens high on the chest with short notch lapels that roll to the top of the six-button front.

The waistcoat has four thinly-welted pockets, and Sundance keeps his unseen gold pocket watch in the lower left pocket, allowing easy access for the left-handed gunslinger. The watch has a thick gold “single Albert” chain through the fourth buttonhole with a dropped fob that hangs down to just above the vest’s straight-cut bottom.

Dammit, Butch! Get it together.

Sundance wears cashmere stripe trousers, another fashion from the era typically associated with morning dress. “Cashmere stripe” refers to the stripe itself rather than the material, which was traditionally worsted, and has been used to describe a variety of similar patterns of black stripes on a gray ground. In Sundance’s case, the stripes appear to alternate in thickness between hairline and a slightly thicker stripe.

True cashmere striped trousers would have more likely followed the baggier “sponge bag” style, but this adherence to the era’s fashion wouldn’t translate as well in 1969. In fact, Redford’s flat front trousers are very much a product of 1969 with the slim, tapered leg and low rise that reveals the bottom of the trousers’ belt loops peeking out from his waistcoat.

Redford’s trousers also have a straight fly with no extended waist tabs and frogmouth front pockets; he slips his left hand into this pocket during the many takes of the trio’s photo session.

Cashmere striped trousers have essentially gone the way of morning dress with your best bet being buying a costume or going vintage if you want a pair of your own, such as these pleated trousers with side adjusters available at Savvy Row.

Butch opts for a more “city dude”-friendly pair of Chelsea boots for their photo session, but Sundance evidently wears the same tall black leather plain-toe riding boots that he wore with his gray tweed suit, a surprising yield given the rest of the outfit’s formality.

Redford on set in Mexico with his first wife, Lola Van Wagenen.

Sundance wears a white cotton dress shirt with a front placket and single-button rounded barrel cuffs. Detachable collars were de rigeur for even semi-formal attire at the time, so he wears a stiff rounded club collar.

For the New York photo session, Sundance’s silk tie is multi-striped in gradient shades of blue and gray. For one of the gang’s bank robberies and celebratory post-heist dinner in Bolivia, he wears a dark navy silk tie with a foulard pattern of lavender squares, each with a small purple dot in the center.

Redford gets a head start on Operation Dinner Out.

Three years earlier, Robert Redford had received a silver ring as a gift from a Hopi tribe that he began wearing on the third finger of his right hand in nearly all of his films to follow.

The gang toasts after their latest criminal venture.

Like the rest of his outfit, Sundance’s homburg was the cutting edge of turn-of-the-century fashion, having been popularized in the English-speaking world in the 1890s after Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, returned from Germany wearing one. Sundance sports a gray felt homburg with a wide black grosgrain band and gray grosgrain trim along the edge of the hat’s signature stiff, kettle-curled brim.

Although he wisely doesn’t wear it during the actual photo session shown in the film, promotional images of the trio’s New York photo shoot feature Sundance’s wide black leather gun belt with a large steel single-claw Ranger-style buckle and a holster for his Single Action Army revolver hanging down against his left thigh.

It would be highly irregular that Sundance, traveling incognito, would draw such attention to himself by posing with his holster revolver for a New York City photographer. (He doesn’t wear his gun rig in the actual film.)

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid‘s formal portrait session of Butch, Sundance, and Etta pays homage to two famous photos of Sundance, taken months apart and more indicative of successful businessmen of the era than the rugged bandits who persistently raided the express trains of Mr. E.H. Harriman.

Okay…What Did He Really Wear?

(Left) Redford as Sundance.
(Center and right) Sundance himself, as seen around the time the film was set.

In The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Thom Hatch describes the gang’s infamous photo session in Fort Worth in the fall of 1900, coming off of a successful bank robbery months earlier in Winnemucca, Nevada:

A few blocks from the Maddox Hotel, at 705 Main Street, stood the Swartz View Company, the studio of photographer John Swartz. Inside the second-floor studio was taken the most notable and ill-conceived photograph of the Old West era. On November 21, Butch Cassidy, Harry Alonzo Longbaugh, Harvey Logan, Ben Kilpatrick, and Will Carver – dressed in their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothing – sat together for a portrait.

Butch’s derby was tilted jauntily to the left, Carver’s to the right. Logan pushed his hat back to expose his forehead and wore a nosegay in his buttonhole. Ben Kilpatrick’s lanky frame dominated the center of the photo. Sundance appeared uncomfortable, uncertain about whether or not to smile. All the men wore white shirts with crisp, stiff collars and long ties, and exhibited shiny watch fobs. The well-dressed gentlemen in the photo might have been mistaken for a group of bankers or merchants.

The notion to record their visit to Fort Wroth with a lasting souvenir such as a group photograph has been credited over time to both Butch and Sundance. It would be in keeping with Butch’s personality to find amusement in joking around, perhaps even mocking – in a cowboy way – the well-to-do folks who wore such dude clothing every day. On the other hand, Sundance was known to have a propensity for dressing up in nice clothing and showing off whenever the occasion arose. Whatever the reason, the photograph would prove to be a foolhardy idea.

The Wild Bunch in Fort Worth, November 1900.
Top row (left to right): Will Carver and Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan.
Bottom row (left to right): Harry “the Sundance Kid” Longbaugh, Ben “the Tall Texan” Kilpatrick, and Butch Cassidy.

The outfit sported by Redford as Sundance looks like an amalgamation of looks from across the gang. Redford borrows the club collar shirt and dark sack jacket and waistcoat from Ben Kilpatrick (front and center) while also jauntily wearing his hat back on his head like the bushy-mustached Harvey Logan (top right) did for the real life photo. The collared waistcoat and single Albert watch chain with a dropped fob look most like the ones sported by the real life Butch Cassidy… while the real life Sundance Kid with his dark patterned three-piece suit and wide-knotted tie looks most like Paul Newman’s Butch Cassidy!

The newly married (perhaps) Harry Longbaugh and Etta Place in New York City, February 1901, en route South America.

Months later, Butch and Sundance were on the run, determining to leave the dangers of the United States behind them to bask in the warm freedom that South America has to offer. As portrayed in the film, the duo decided to live it up before leaving for good with a jaunt through the Big Apple before sailing for Buenos Aires, their first port of call.

Sundance preceded Butch to New York City, arriving with his fiancee, the mysterious and alluring Etta Place, on February 1, 1901. They immediately took residence in a second-floor luxury suite at a West 12th Street boarding house, living as Mr. and Mrs. Harry Place. They would be shortly joined by “James Ryan,” Etta’s brother, portrayed by Butch Cassidy.

Two days after their arrival in the city, Sundance and Etta had their formal portrait taken at the DeYoung Photography Studio on Broadway. You’d never guess that Sundance was a train-hopping, fast-shooting bandit to see how at home he looks in his staid formal attire of a high-fastening double-breasted frock coat, silk top hat, bow tie, and well-shined cap-toe oxfords.

“…from New York City, with a picture of him and his wife, saying he had married a Texas lady he had known previously,” read the notation made by David Gillepsie after Sundance personally mailed him a print. Before they reached New York City, Sundance took Etta to meet his family, where he had introduced her as his wife despite no actual evidence that the two had gotten married.

Butch, Sundance, and Etta boarded the freighter SS Herminius on February 20 after nearly three weeks and a spectacular blizzard that had sent massive ice floes down the East River.

Go Big or Go Home

Thom Hatch describes the enthusiasm that must have flowed through Butch, Sundance, and Etta as they toured New York for three weeks before their eventual departure to South America:

They were flush with money and the prospects of adventure and a new life. But first they were anxious to see all the wondrous sights this vibrant city of nearly three and a half million people had to offer.

Indeed, the lively ragtime-influenced track that plays over the montage of the trio’s adventure in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid even captures the spirit with its title: “The Old Fun City”.

“Accustomed to saloons, snow-capped mountains, and desolate open places,” Hatch continued, “the three Westerners must have marveled at the skyscrapers, automobiles, and bright streetlights that welcomed them.”

Hatch describes a trip to the famous Tiffany & Co. store, located in 1901 at the corner of 15th Street at Union Square, where Butch purchased a $40 gold watch for himself while Sundance picked up a diamond stickpin for himself and spent $150 on a gold lapel watch for Etta.

How to Get the Look

Sundance dudes up for the gang’s tour of New York, presenting himself as a fashionable, dapper gentleman of means.

• Charcoal worsted wool single-breasted 4-button sack coat with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, decorative 2-button cuffs, ventless back
• Charcoal worsted wool single-breasted 6-button waistcoat with short notch lapels, slim-welted pockets, and straight-cut bottom
• Gray-and-black “cashmere stripe” wool flat front trousers with belt loops, straight fly, frogmouth front pocekts, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton dress shirt with white detachable club collar, front placket, and 1-button rounded cuffs
• Blue patterned silk tie
• Black leather calf-high riding boots with raised heels
• Gray felt homburg with black grosgrain band
• Black leather gun belt with steel Ranger-style single-prong buckle and left-hand-draw thigh holster
• Gold pocket watch on gold “single Albert” chain with dropped fob, worn in left vest pocket
• Silver Hopi ring with black imprint, worn on right ring finger

Elements of Sundance’s take on formal day dress are more 1969 than 1901, but perhaps Sundance has adopted some of Butch’s forward-thinking attitude: “I got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals.”

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

To learn more about the real Butch and Sundance, check out Thom Hatch’s The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a terrifically entertaining and informative read that I quoted liberally in this post. You can find the book on Amazon.

Footnote

What was initially planned to be a movie montage of Butch, Sundance, and Etta enjoying the sights and amusements of New York City became a challenge when director George Roy Hill was refused permission to film on the period set of Hello, Dolly! in the neighboring soundstage. To work around this, Hill reformatted the sequence as an energetic series of still photographs, taken of Newman, Redford, and Ross on the Hello, Dolly! set then sliced and merged into a series of hundreds of actual period photos.

Daniel Craig as James Bond in Quantum of Solace (2008)

Vitals

Daniel Craig as James Bond, rogue British government agent

La Paz, Bolivia, August 2008

Film: Quantum of Solace
Release Date: October 31, 2008
Director: Marc Forster
Costume Designer: Louise Frogley

Background

The last post found us sailing down to Bolivia with the Sundance Kid, so let’s hang around and see what kind of trouble James Bond gets into in the same country for the 00-7th of April.

Exactly 100 years after Butch and Sundance met their fate in San Vicente, Daniel Craig’s rogue James Bond arrived in the country with his former MI6 handler Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini), where they are immediately interrupted by the efficient Agent Fields (Gemma Arterton, who recently expressed that she wouldn’t take the role if offered it today).

What’d He Wear?

Bond evidently picked up some fresh Tom Ford suits after his visit to Mathis’ Italian villa, sporting the first as his traveling suit as they fly across the Atlantic. 007 looks sharp as he alights in the La Paz airport, wearing his new Tom Ford suit in cool dark brown mohair tonic.

Distinctive for its shiny iridescence created by its two-colored warp and weft, mohair tonic enjoyed the greatest popularity during the 1960s mod scene, making it an appropriate suiting for Daniel Craig’s heritage-focused interpretation of James Bond.

Teachers on sabbatical, eh?

The details of the suit jacket are consistent with the other Tom Ford “Regency” cut jackets that Craig wears in Quantum of Solace; the front is single-breasted with medium-width notch lapels that roll over the top of the jacket’s three-button front. This 3-roll-2 button stance is perfectly situated with the middle button over the waist, but the lower trouser rise and the long tie create the undesired effect of the tie substantially poking out under the buttoned jacket.

Somehow, Bond looks better after a transatlantic six-martini flight than most people do after leaving their house for work in the morning. (Mathis, on the other hand, looks much more relatable.)

Bond’s pick-stitched jacket has a chest chest and suppressed waist with a trim cut that flatters better Craig than the much slimmer fit of his later Tom Ford suits in Skyfall. The natural “pagoda” shoulders with roped sleeveheads emphasize Craig’s concave shoulder lines. He wears a white linen pocket square neatly folded in the jacket’s curved “barchetta” breast pocket, and the hip pockets are straight and flapped with a ticket pocket on the right side adding an extra dash of British detail. The double back vents rise high, approximately 10″.

All of Bond’s Tom Ford suits in Quantum of Solace have functioning 5-button cuffs with the buttonhole closest to the wrist cut longer and always left undone, a rakish way for Bond to signal his bespoke tailoring to those who would notice.

The flat front trousers have a fashionably low rise with side adjusters revived from the era of Sean Connery and early Roger Moore, although Craig’s adjusters are slide-buckle tabs rather than buttoned “Daks top” adjusters. The waistband is extended across the front with a concealed hook closure on a squared tab.

The side pockets follow the slightly curved side seams, and the jetted back pockets close with a button. The straight-leg trousers fit closely to Craig and are finished at the bottom with cuffs (turn-ups).

Images grabbed of Daniel Craig on set show more details of his trousers and highlight the shiny aspects of the mohair fabric. This film also marked the return of side adjusters on Bond’s trousers, a Connery-era detail that had been replaced by belts during Roger Moore’s tenure.

Other than his first appearance in the pinstripe suit (meant to evoke the three-piece suit from the Casino Royale finale), Bond wears exclusively white poplin dress shirts throughout Quantum of Solace, all from Tom Ford, and styled with a large semi-spread collar, front placket, and two back darts. The double (French) cuffs in this scene are worn with gold cluster cuff links that nicely mirror the earth-toned iridescence of both his suit and tie.

Also from Tom Ford, Bond’s silk tie is a micro-grid of dark brown and light tan squares that look solidly taupe from a distance and is tied in a Windsor knot… ostensibly with apologies to Ian Fleming.

Bond knocks back his sixth in-flight martini.

Bargain Bonds may find solace of their own with this “houndstooth” silk tie from Vincenzo Boretti that offers a similar effect for only $17.

Brown shoes are traditionally a safe bet when sporting a brown suit, but Bond eschews this comfortable choice in favor of the same black calf full leather Church’s Philip oxfords that he wears with all of his suits in Quantum of Solace. These six-eyelet oxfords have a perforated cap-toe, comfortable suede lining, and oak bark soles. You can find more information about the Church’s Philip at James Bond Lifestyle.

(Left) Daniel Craig on set.
(Center) Church’s Philip oxfords, as worn by Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace.
(Right) Bond and Fields are escorted to their room.

The sun hits Bond’s face as he emerges from the La Paz airport, but he’s thoughtfully prepared for the situation with a pair of matte rhodium-framed Tom Ford FT108 aviator sunglasses, the same shades he rocked with a dressed-down cardigan and desert boots at Mathis’ villa in the previous scene.

More information about these Italian-made sunglasses can be found at James Bond Lifestyle or on the Christie’s auction page when Craig’s actual screen-worn sunglasses were sold for £23,750 in 2012.

Fields should have rethought her cover story when Bond arrived wearing Tom Ford sunglasses and an Omega watch…not to mention the suit itself.

Bond’s wristwatch is the same Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600m Co-Axial Chronometer 2201.50.00 that he wears throughout Quantum of Solace with a stainless steel 42mm case and deployment-clasp link bracelet. The round dial is black with a 3:00 date window and luminous hour markers and hands. The specific number of Bond’s watch, which was auctioned by Christie’s in 2012 for £34,850, is #81087613. Given that he spends most of his time in Quantum of Solace gone rogue, it makes sense that he would wear this watch exclusively without Q Branch outfitting him with alternatives.

For a great analysis and breakdown of Craig’s suit in this scene, visit Matt Spaiser’s blog The Suits of James Bond.

How to Get the Look

James Bond revives a bold vintage fad with his mohair tonic suit in muted brown, setting the gold standard for travel attire and easing his own path for post-flight stationary-and-Bollinger seductions.

• Dark brown mohair tonic Tom Ford “Regency” suit:
  • Single-breasted 3-roll-2 button jacket with notch lapels, curved “barchetta” breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets with ticket pocket, functional 5-button cuffs, and long double vents
  • Flat front low-rise trousers with buckle side-adjusters, curved-seam side pockets, button-through jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White poplin Tom Ford dress shirt with large semi-spread collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
  • Gold cluster cuff links
• Brown two-tone mini-grid silk Tom Ford tie
• Black calf leather Church’s Philip six-eyelet perforated cap-toe oxfords/balmorals
• Black dress socks
• Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600m Co-Axial Chronometer stainless steel wristwatch with steel bracelet, black face, and black bezel
• Tom Ford FT108 aviator sunglasses with semi matte rhodium frame, black temple tips, and smoke blue 19V lenses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

Hello. We’re teachers on sabbatical and we’ve just won the lottery.

Footnote

Mohair tonic is a very difficult suiting to track down these days. This three-ply “Tonic Ginger” suit from Jump the Gun incorporates the color and basic style of Bond’s Bolivia suit in Quantum of Solace with mod-influenced details like covered buttons and a high-buttoning short jacket.