Toshirô Mifune as Matsunaga in Drunken Angel (1948)

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Toshirô Mifune as Matsunaga, tubercular Japanese gangster

Japan, summer 1947

Film: Drunken Angel
(Japanese title: 醉いどれ天使 Yoidore Tenshi)
Release Date: April 27, 1948
Director: Akira Kurosawa

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

One request I received about a year ago was the flashy tailored style of Matsunaga, the swaggering Yakuza lieutenant at the heart – or should I say lung – of Kurosawa’s 1948 masterpiece Drunken Angel.

We first meet Matsunaga at the outset of the film when he seeks out the services of the alcoholic Dr. Sanada (Takashi Shimura) to take care of a pesky bullet-in-the-hand situation. Medical professional that he is, Sanada recognizes the symptoms of tuberculosis in his pugnacious patient and warns him to adopt a different lifestyle to prolong his life, cutting out elements like drinking, dancing, and smoking.

But Matsunaga isn’t exactly the type to take advice…

Kurosawa knew he needed a special kind of talent to carry the role of Matsunaga, and his choice was made after watching Toshirô Mifune’s audition.

“Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world,” Kurosawa would later write. “It was, above all, the speed with which he expressed himself that was astounding. The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three. The speed of his movements was such that he said in a single action what took ordinary actors three separate movements to express. He put forth everything directly and boldly, and his sense of timing was the keenest I had ever seen in a Japanese actor. And yet with all his quickness, he also had surprisingly fine sensibilities.”

Born on April 1, 1920, in China, Toshirô Mifune would go on to star in more than 160 movies including a total of 16 collaborations with Kurosawa. Drunken Angel was only Mifune’s fourth film, but Matsunaga is arguably the role that made him a star… to the point that many audiences have mistakenly attributed the “drunken angel” of the title to refer to Mifune’s electric gangster rather than its intended subject, the good doctor Sanada.

What’d He Wear?

Due to the American occupation of Japan at the time, Kurosawa was forced to adhere to certain protocols and censorships, including the Westernized clothing and hairstyles of Drunken Angel‘s central characters. Thus, Matsunaga hits the dance floor in a light, subtly striped suit that could have just as easily been seen on the streets of contemporary Chicago or L.A. (For the sake of argument, and based on the way it reflects sunlight, let’s refer to his suit as white.)

The double-breasted suit jacket has four mother-of-pearl sew-through buttons, with one to close. Though he often wears the front of the jacket unbuttoned, Matsunaga’s suit jackets have an internal anchor button fastened to a short strap that keeps his jacket from flapping around while he’s dancing or brawling. The ventless jacket has three-button cuffs, straight jetted hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket where he wears a silk pocket square with a pattern that appears to echo the stripes of his tie.

While not necessarily a zoot suit, the jacket’s excessively wide shoulders certainly adhere to Malcolm X’s famous description of “shoulders padded like a lunatic’s cell” with wide peak lapels stretching across the chest in an attempt to meet them.

Not satisfied with the subtlety of his suit stripes – nor with subtlety in general – Matsunaga wears a striped shirt and tie.

The likely cotton shirt has a complex stripe pattern of of a white stripe shadowed by thin dark stripes; this stripe set is, in turn, bordered on each side by a wider medium-colored stripe, all on a light-colored ground. The silk tie is boldly vertical striped in two colors, one of which likely being white.

Stripes on stripes on stripes. Note the flower that Matsunaga stuck into his lapel.

The pleated trousers are fully cut to coordinate with the rest of the suit and echo the large fit that was trendy in the immediate postwar era. The bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

The way Matsunaga’s suit gleams in the sunlight, how could it be anything but white?

Matsunaga, ever aware of the communicative power of personal style, naturally opts for a pair of spectator shoes, a choice of footwear favored by the confident and – according to its “correspondent shoe” origins – the caddish. Matsunaga’s spectator derby shoes have brown leather around the apron-toe cap and quarters with lighter-colored, likely tan, vamp.

He wears a pair of dark socks, possibly brown to coordinate with his footwear as black socks would deliver too much of a clash to effectively continue the leg lines of his white striped suit trousers.

Matsunaga entertains his date, Yakuza moll Nanae (Michiyo Kogure).

Matsunada wears a diamond ring on the third finger of his right hand.

The titular “drunken angel”, Dr. Sanada (Takashi Shimura)… doing what he does best.

When next we see Matsunaga, he’s wearing an evolved version of the same outfit… a light striped double-breasted jacket worn with a striped shirt, boldly striped tie, and spectator shoes. That outfit will be featured on BAMF Style at a later date.

What to Imbibe

Let’s be friends… have some of the good stuff.

Matsunaga and Dr. Sanada crack a bottle of Nikka Whisky, a Japanese brand that gets plenty of exposure throughout Drunken Angel.

How to drink like a drunken angel.

The Nikka Whisky Distilling story begins in 1918 when Masataka Taketsuru arrived in Scotland to learn how to distill whiskey from the best. After two years of apprenticeships, study, and marriage to Rita Cowan of Kirkintilloch, Taketsuru returned to Japan in November 1920, where he took a job at the distillery that would eventually produce Japan’s first single malt whisky, Suntory.

The ambitious Taketsuru, however, had bigger dreams. Scouting his country, he determined that the northern island of Hokkaido was the most similar region to Scotland, and he opened his distillery there in the coastal town of Yoichi on July 2, 1934.

Centuries later, Nikka remains a top-selling producer of Japanese whiskey, second only to Suntory. Although Rita’s marriage to Taketsuru met with disapproval from her family at the time, her hometowns of Kirkintilloch and Bishopbriggs in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland, are now sister cities with Yoichi, which honors Taketsuru’s devoted wife with its its central thoroughfare “Rita Road”.

Toshirô Mifune as Matsunaga in Drunken Angel (1948)

How to Get the Look

Matsunaga dresses to stand out, eschewing both convention and common sartorial logic in a bold summer ensemble that pays tribute to the range of stripes available to a gent.

• White subtly striped suit
  • Double-breasted 4-on-1 jacket with wide straight-gorge peak lapels, padded shoulders, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Pleated trousers with side pockets and turn-ups/cuffs
• Complex-striped shirt with semi-spread collar, front placket, breast pocket, and mitred button cuffs
• Vertical-striped silk tie
• Brown-and-tan apron-toe spectator derby shoes
• Dark brown socks
• Diamond ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

Footnote

Coincidentally, this is the second BAMF Style post in a row to feature someone wearing a cast on their left wrist! (See Steve McQueen…)

Emile Hirsch as Clyde Barrow in Bonnie & Clyde (2013)

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Emile Hirsch as Clyde Barrow, amateur armed robber

Texas, Easter 1934

Series Title: Bonnie and Clyde
Air Date: December 8, 2013
Director: Bruce Beresford
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance

Background

The turning point in Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker’s criminal career came on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1934. The couple was sitting inside their Ford V8 on a dusty road outside Grapevine, Texas, with their latest recruit, a shifty young son of Louisiana named Henry Methvin. Two months earlier, Clyde was in command of the closest thing he’d ever had to a “gang”, though the few criminal members with any experience quickly disassociated from the trigger-happy amateur, leaving only Clyde, Henry, and Bonnie making up the ranks of “The Barrow Gang”.

With at least nine murders to their name by that point, the gang had only Bonnie to credit for any enduring popularity they may have maintained. Contemporaries like John Dillinger and “Pretty Boy” Floyd were regarded, for better or worse, as Robin Hood-like folk heroes during the desperate days of the Great Depression, with reputations for their manners, wit, and successful bank heists. Clyde Barrow, on the other hand, was hardly more than an insecure stickup artists with a lead foot, an eager trigger finger, and a string of excessively good luck to get him out of two years worth of sticky situations. Bonnie Parker’s willingness to remain by his side was Clyde’s greatest stroke of luck, as the mere fact that she was a woman gave the public a reason to root for the Barrow Gang.

Formerly Mrs. Roy Thornton of Dallas, Bonnie Parker was hardly the type that her family or friends would have expected to become forever synonymous with crime. Bonnie was married by the time she was 16, but her good-for-nothing husband was either in jail or away from home for the next three years. For Miss Parker, loneliness was far worse than larceny, and she followed the romantic impulses that led her to devoting her life to the sociopathic Clyde Barrow in the spring of 1930.

Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and Henry Methvin, likely taken by associate Joe Palmer in late March 1934, just before the Grapevine killings. Note Clyde’s natty summer suit and mustache, clear indications that he is hoping to emulate the style of felonious idols like John Dillinger.

Fast forward four years to that dusty Easter Sunday outside Grapevine. Wanted by the police but esteemed by the general public, Bonnie and Clyde have become legends in their own time, their names synonymous with sex and danger. Waiting for a fourth associate to arrive, the trio idled away the hours of the early afternoon by napping, passing a bottle of Black & White whisky, and playing with Sonny Boy, a rabbit that Bonnie plans on gifting to her mother for Easter.

Farther up State Highway 114, Texas Highway Patrol officers H.D. Murphy, 22, and E.B. Wheeler, 26, have split off from a third patrolman to investigate a black Ford V8 with yellow wheels parked by the side of the road. The occupants were no strangers to the sight of police approaching, and Clyde Barrow – for all of his faults – had tried to make a habit of kidnapping, disarming, and releasing his uniformed enemies rather than murdering them outright. A sawed-off shotgun in his hand, Clyde turned to the youthful Henry and announced their plan: “Let’s take ’em.”

For the sake of the two approaching officers, Clyde should have been more specific. The inebriated and inexperienced Henry turned and raised his Browning Automatic Rifle, firing a fatal .30-06 round into Wheeler’s chest at point-blank range. Murphy, not expecting danger, fumbled for the shells in his pocket to load his shotgun, but Clyde had now joined the fracas and takes down the younger officer with his own shotgun.

It’s over within seconds, with Clyde’s Ford kicking up dust, leaving only the two dying or dead officers near their motorcycles with spent rounds and a discarded – and clearly fingerprinted – bottle of Scotch littering the scene. (To read more about the incident and see the whiskey bottle itself, check out this page from Bonnie & Clyde’s Texas Hideout.)

Thus began the wave of public sentiment finally turning against the Barrow Gang. Bonnie, for all intents and purposes the gang’s PR agent, was powerless against the fact that her boyfriend was part of a double murder on Easter. (It wasn’t the gang’s first killing on a religious holiday; on Christmas 1932, Clyde had killed a civilian named Doyle Johnson while stealing his Ford in Temple, Texas. This was before the gang was famous, so the egregious crime went underreported in the press.) In fact, “eyewitness” reports were even starting to put a gun in Bonnie’s hands, and a story emerged that she clenched a cigar as she fired into a helpless officer before maniacally laughing and crying out: “His head bounced just like a rubber ball!”

Of course, Bonnie was still badly burned from a car accident nine months prior and could barely stand, let alone hold her own in a gunfight, not to mention that this type of sadistic murder would be wholly uncharacteristic for her… despite her loyalty to a man who was more than capable of murder. Nevertheless, she became as hunted as Clyde, violently dying by his side less than two months later on a quiet Louisiana country road on the morning of May 23, 1934.

The 2013 miniseries Bonnie and Clyde, for all of its deviations from historical record, is one of the few pieces of Barrow-related pop culture to depict the double murders at Grapevine. The incident is directly at odds with the more romantic image propagated by the popular 1967 film starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

What’d He Wear?

Emile Hirsch, swimming in his suits like a child who raided his dad’s closet, communicates a great deal about his subtle and swagger-free characterization of Clyde Barrow, giving the audience a better sense of the character’s inadequacies and somewhat justified insecurities than the sight of a strapping 6’2″ Warren Beatty in his handsome, well-cut suits. (Interestingly, both Hirsch and the real Clyde stood at 5’7″ tall.)

It’s perhaps appropriate to feature this oversized suit on April Fools’ Day, as Clyde hardly looks as dapper as he would have liked. Of course, in 1934 – and in 2018 – April Fools’ Day was also Easter Sunday, so Clyde is dressed in his Sunday best for dual family visits with both the Barrow and Parker clans. (Another point in favor of the miniseries’ historical accuracy; unlike the sole visit to “Mother Parker” in the 1967 film, Bonnie and Clyde did manage to sneak back to Texas on several occasions to meet with their families over the course of their two-year spree.)

Clyde’s wool suiting is light brown with tan shadow stripes. The single-breasted, two-button jacket has wide notch lapels, a welted breast pocket, and straight jetted hip pockets. The sleeveheads are roped at the shoulders, the back is ventless, and there are three buttons on the end of each sleeve.

Clyde: “She’s in a lot of pain.”
Cumie: “Pretty sure the two of you [have] given a lot more than you’ve gotten.”
Mothers always know just what to say… though, given what Clyde’s crimes have put his mother Cumie (Dale Dickey) through, I can’t say I blame her for the honesty.

Clyde approaches the body of patrolman Murphy.

Clyde wears a plain white cotton shirt with a point collar, front placket, and single-button rounded cuffs.

Clyde tenses up behind the wheel when the couple is confronted by two Texas Highway Patrol officers.

Clyde’s maroon tie has a motif of pale yellow diamonds, tied in a Windsor knot and flaring out to a period-correct wide blade.

Clyde takes in his mother’s words during a foggy Easter reunion.

Worn open throughout the scene is a darker brown tonal-striped waistcoat (vest) with a single-breasted front with five dark sew-through buttons, four slim-welted pockets, and a light brown corded back lining that cinches with an adjustable strap.

The odd vest (in a sartorial context, “odd” refers only to the fact that it doesn’t match the suit) serves a practical purpose of giving Clyde an unobtrusive layer that can cover his sidearm while he hops in and out of his undeniably hot car in the days before air conditioning.

Note the subtle tonal stripes on the waistcoat and the thicker corded back.

Clyde tops off the look with a tan felt fedora with a pinched crown and tan grosgrain band and edges.

How to Get the Look

Emile Hirsch as Clyde Barrow in Bonnie & Clyde (2013)

Clyde Barrow may be a remorseless criminal, but even he thinks to dress in his finest for a family visit on Easter Sunday. Emile Hirsch’s Clyde opts for the warmth of an earth tone-centric outfit, though the bagginess could suggest that he’s more appropriately suited for April Fools’ Day… which may or may not be coincidentally concurrent.

• Light brown shadow-striped wool suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with wide notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Flat front trousers with tall belt loops, side pockets, back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton shirt with point collar, front placket, and 1-button rounded cuffs
• Maroon tie with yellow diamond motif
• Dark brown tonal-striped wool single-breasted 5-button waistcoat with four welted pockets and light brown corded back with adjustable strap
• Black leather four-eyelet cap-toe derby shoes
• Pale blue cotton undershorts with a 2-button waistband closure
• Tan felt fedora with tan grosgrain ribbon and edges

The Gun

What’s Easter without a discussion of classic firearms?

It’s generally agreed that Clyde Barrow’s preferred sidearm was the 1911-series semi-automatic pistol that Colt had been producing for the U.S. military for more than two decades. Originally chambered for the powerful .45 ACP round, the .38 Super round was introduced in 1929 as a high-pressure alternative that could penetrate the body armor and bulletproof vests often worn by gangsters. The .38 Super never gained much traction in the law enforcement community, but gangsters like John Dillinger and “Baby Face” Nelson were known to make use of this deadly round.

Bonnie and Clyde miniseries correctly arms Clyde with a 1911-series pistol, though it’s the anachronistic Colt Mk IV Series 70 rather than an original M1911 or M1911A1 that would’ve been available during the Barrow Gang’s stint in the early 1930s.

Clyde takes aim with his .45.

All that aside, it’s also been confirmed that the weapons used during the Grapevine killings were a sawed-off shotgun (in Clyde’s hands) and a Browning Automatic Rifle (used by Henry Methvin).

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series and visit Frank Ballinger’s Bonnie & Clyde’s Hideout site. (It’s on Netflix, too!)

Footnote

William Schieffer, a local farmer, said he witnessed the killings from his land which overlooked the hill where Wheeler and Murphy were killed. He often changed his story from seeing the killings at a distance to up close, but his most famous claim was  that Bonnie turned Murphy over on her foot and shot him again point-blank, saying: “Look-a there, his head bounced just like a rubber ball.” Interestingly, both Schieffer and his erroneous depiction of the murders was adapted for inclusion in the miniseries.

Schieffer’s claim was later proven fraudulent after he identified one-time Barrow accomplice Floyd Hamilton and Billie Parker, Bonnie’s sister, as the killers. He would later admit to having made up the story, seeking publicity and reward money.

Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs in The Natural (1984)

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Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs, baseball prodigy and “middle-aged rookie”

New York, June 1939

Film: The Natural
Release Date: May 11, 1984
Director: Barry Levinson
Costume Design: Gloria Gresham & Bernie Pollack

Background

Baseball season is back and in full swing (forgive the pun), and I’m feeling much better about it this year after my hometown Pirates won their home opener against the Twins yesterday, making us 4-0 for the season… after last year, I’ll take all the hope I can get! In the spirit of America’s pastime, today’s post explores one of the great baseball movies ever made.

Based on Bernard Malamud’s 1952 debut novel – and considered by many to be an improvement on it – The Natural stars Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs, an earnest, homespun, and sincere baseball player whose sole ambition is glory on the diamond. As he himself wonders, “What else is there?”

Of course, when we first meet Roy Hobbs in media res, you’d never know it to look at him that he was about to embark on his last shot at big-league stardom.

It’s 1939, nearly midway through the season, and a full 16 years since Roy was an eager-eyed rookie on his way to try out with the Cubs before he was shot and nearly killed by the dark and deranged Harriet Bird (based on the real-life shootings of Eddie Waitkus and Billy Jurges), seriously waylaying his baseball dreams. Somewhere along the way, a cynical but no less honest Roy decided to get back into the game and finds himself traded up from the semi-pro Hebrew Oilers to the struggling New York Knights.

Roy wanders into the Knights’ stadium during a sparsely attended game where the team is losing dismally to the Pirates (go Bucs!) The Knights’ cantankerous manager Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley, of course), has just been bristling about his missed opportunities as a farmer and has no time for adding a “middle-aged rookie” to his team.

Roy isn’t deterred by Pop’s discourteous orientation, however. It’s been a hard life for him since taking a .38 in the gut, and nothing will get in the way of him and his goal… especially since he knows it can all be taken away from him in a flash. Roy knows better than to be too trust his chances this time, but you gotta give him credit – he’s still going for it. As he tells the team’s avuncular co-manager:

Red, it took me 16 years to get here. You play me, and you’ll get the best I got.

What’d He Wear?

You can tell that Roy Hobbs has seen things when we first meet him. His well-worn leather jacket and fedora nod to the adventurous spirit of Indiana Jones, and Roy is only barely wearing his tie, loosened around his neck with an unbuttoned shirt collar that tells us he never meant for the look to be complete to begin with.

Our first glimpse of Roy Hobbs… the best there ever could have been.

Roy later graduates to corduroy and eventually tweed jackets when he finds success on the Knights’ roster, but it’s the “skid row” leather jacket that remains a fan favorite to the extent that the demand caused Magnoli Clothiers to develop their own version, currently available for $425.

It shares some stylistic similarities to the U.S. Navy’s then-contemporary G8/Type 440 flight jacket, but Roy Hobbs’ tough brown cowhide jacket stands in a class of its own. The jacket has a zip-up front with a substantial shirt-style collar, horizontal yokes on the front and back, and set-in sleeves with a diamond-ended single-button cuff at the end of each.

Knocking a few back with Red.

Perhaps most similar to the naval flight jackets of the era are the bellows-type patch pockets on the hips, each covered with a flap. Two short oval-shaped tabs on the back – one on the right, one on the left – adjust the fit around the waist.

Roy Hobbs picks out a #9 jersey (left) after leaving a still-fuming Pop in the dugout (right). Spot the adjustable button-tabs on the sides of his jacket.

This “downtrodden” look certainly invites comparison to the tight, buttoned-up look of the eager 19-year-old Roy (who, yes, was still magically played by the 47-year-old Robert Redford). While young Roy wore a boyish tweed cap, stiff club collar and tie, and argyle sweater vest tucked in to his trousers and worn under suspenders, the older, more grizzled Roy opts for a dirty hat, loosened collar and tie, and a sloppy jacket. Fashion – and even fashionable decorum – may have changed in 16 years, but not nearly at the rate at which Roy’s outlook had evolved.

Roy’s spirit has certainly been punctured by the time he arrives in the Knights’ dugout for the first time, but he’s still the all-American boy underneath, with his shirt and tie hinting at his red, white, and blue spirit. The light blue hairline-striped cotton shirt has a point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs. His salmon colored tie has a subtle tan repeating pattern and is tied in a small knot, worn loosely around his neck.

After Roy checks in to the hotel, he changes into a plain white cotton shirt and a maroon tie with a tan leaf-like Deco-styled motif. The shirt is styled the same as his light blue striped shirt, and under both shirts he wears a white ribbed sleeveless undershirt.

Pay no attention to her, Roy. Trust me.

Roy’s double reverse-pleated trousers are a purplish shade of brown, along the elusive “puce” spectrum. The trousers have side pockets, narrow turn-ups (cuffs), and belt loops where Roy wears a substantial brown leather belt with a polished brass single-prong buckle. The belt coordinates with his shoes, a well-worn pair of brown leather cap-toe oxfords worn with dark brown cotton lisle socks.

The end of the line for Roy Hobbs. If this next stop isn’t his big break, nothing will be.

The silver ring on the third finger of Roy’s right hand should be familiar to Robert Redford fans; the actor received it as a gift in 1966 from the Hopi tribe, and he has worn it in most of his films since.

Atop his head, Roy sports that most gentlemanly of ’30s headgear, the classic wide-brimmed fedora. Roy’s brown felt hat has evidently taken a tough path to get here, with a brown grosgrain band that has evidently faded around the top to a reddish tint.

Check out the sparsely populated stands behind him. The Knights could surely use a talented wonderboy on their roster.

Interestingly, Roy’s hat is a dead ringer for the one that his father Ed (Alan Fudge) wears in the flashback to Roy’s childhood, right down to the degree of fading along the top of the grosgrain band.

Roy’s father in 1915, wearing a fedora that wouldn’t emerge as a male fashion standard for another ten years, begging the question… is this an anachronism or a sign that the rural Midwestern Mr. Hobbs was an influential fashion plate? We may never know the truth.

The flashback is set in 1915, nearly a decade before the fedora was popularized as the American man’s hat of choice following a visit from the Prince of Wales. From the 1890s to that point, it had been primarily worn by women and was even adopted as an unofficial symbol of the women’s suffrage movement in the early 20th century.

Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs in The Natural (1984)

How to Get the Look

All-American baseball hero Roy Hobbs looks like the weary answer to Indiana Jones as he shows up to his first day on the professional diamond in a weather-beaten leather jacket, fedora, and shoes with a tie seemingly worn as an afterthought.

• Brown distressed cowhide leather zip-up jacket with shirt-style collar, front and back horizontal yokes, flapped patch side pockets, adjustable button side-tabs, and single-button pointed cuff tabs
• Light blue hairline-striped cotton shirt with point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Salmon printed cotton tie
• Purplish brown wool double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Brown leather belt with polished brass single-prong buckle
• Brown leather 5-eyelet cap-toe oxford shoes
• Dark brown cotton lisle socks
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
• Silver Hopi Indian ring with black imprint, worn on right ring finger
• Brown felt fedora with faded brown grosgrain band

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie… and give Bernard Malamud’s 1952 novel a read but be advised that the film took many liberties – often for the better – from its source material.

The Quote

I just got back in the game.

Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006)

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Daniel Craig as James Bond, British secret agent

Lake Como, Italy, August 2006

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

Background

The name is Bond… James Bond.

After more than two hours of anticipation, Daniel Craig finally delivered the words that 007 fans were waiting to hear. 007 had embarked on an adventure with more ups and downs – both emotional and physical – than we’re used to seeing with our sophisticated hero, and Casino Royale reintroduced audiences to a character with an impact similar to the initial book’s release 65 years ago this month. I know that the moment I left the theater that Thanksgiving weekend in 2006, I had to resist the impulse to buy another ticket and head back in for a second viewing.

For the 00-7th of April, let’s celebrate not only a stylish and classic springtime business look but also the 65th anniversary of the publication of Casino Royale, Ian Fleming’s first novel and the spark that so ferociously lit the James Bond franchise when it shelves on April 13, 1953.

What’d He Wear?

If Casino Royale served as a reboot for the James Bond franchise, we knew the transformation was complete in the end scene as 007 stands over the fallen villain, beautifully attired in a sharp tailored suit, offering up his trademark introduction as a brassy orchestration of that now-famous theme song screamed into the scene.

Casino Royale continued a few traditions of the Pierce Brosnan era, including the sharp Brioni suits. This was the last Brioni suit that Daniel Craig would wear on screen as James Bond, as Tom Ford would take the reigns in the following adventure, Quantum of Solace (2008). Compare this suit’s fuller silhouette to the tighter suits seen in Skyfall (2012) if you want a primer on just how much fashion can change in less than a decade.

A fine detailed description of the the suit itself, as well as an exploration of the context for Mr. Bond choosing to wear it, can be found at the seminal home of all things sartorially related to 007, The Suits of James Bond by Matt Spaiser. The suiting is a dark navy wool with double sets of blue-gray stripes creating a subtle pinstripe effect described as “track stripes” on The Suits of James Bond.

Bond stands over Mr. White with Vesper’s “crystal white” Sony Ericsson M600i cell phone… a “smoking gun” in each hand, if you will.

The single-breasted jacket has notch lapels that roll to a three-button front. Little is seen of the suit jacket on screen, but set photos prove that it has flapped hip pockets, a single back vent, and “kissing” four-button cuffs. The six-button waistcoat (or vest) makes this Daniel Craig’s first three-piece suit as 007, and he correctly leaves the lowest button unfastened. It has welted pockets and a notched bottom.

Bond sticks to blue for his shirt and tie, an appropriately flattering color for Daniel Craig given the cinematic impact of the scene that calls for him to look his best. The light blue cotton poplin shirt is also from Brioni with a high semi-spread collar, front placket, and double (French) cuffs likely worn with a set of silver-toned S.T. Dupont cuff links. His tie is micro-woven in blue and white silk, tied in a substantial four-in-hand knot. The “Royale Tie” by Magnoli Clothiers is likely meant to replicate this particular tie, described as “a repeating pattern of rounded diamonds produced by light blue threads on a dark blue background.”

“The name’s Bond… James Bond.”

The flat front trousers are shaped with darts around the hips with a wide, straight fit through the legs consistent with mid-2000s styling. They’re almost certainly worn with a belt like all of Daniel Craig’s other business suits in Casino Royale, even though purists would advice forgoing a belt with a waistcoat. The trousers have slanted “quarter-top” side pockets and narrow turn-ups (cuffs).

Bond wears the same John Lobb Luffield plain-toe derby shoes that he wore earlier with his other business suits and his tuxedo with black “museum calf” leather uppers and two lace eyelets. You can read more about these shoes at James Bond Lifestyle.

Bond is carefully not to step on the wounded Mr. White after shooting him down on the steps of Lake Gaeta.

While this brave new Bond is no longer wearing his suits “with such disdain”, as Vesper had noticed on the train, he is still outfitted with his signature Omega Seamaster that had caught her eye during the same conversation. That scene marked the first appearance of the blue-dialed Seamaster Professional Diver after Bond graduated from the sportier rubber-strapped Seamaster Planet Ocean “Big Size” that he had worn in earlier scenes. The Omega Seamaster Professional Diver, model 2220.80.00, has a 41mm stainless steel case with a blue dial with a 3:00 date window, a blue rotating bezel, and a stainless link bracelet. You can read more about this watch at James Bond Lifestyle.

A Theory…

Daniel Craig on location in Italy, suited up and suitably armed as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006). Photo by Greg Williams.

007 fans, particularly those with sartorially inclined eyes, will notice that we leave James Bond at the end of Casino Royale sporting this navy striped three-piece Brioni suit. The action picks up immediately where we left off in Quantum of Solace with Bond wearing… a navy striped two-piece suit from Tom Ford? The obvious reasoning for the difference is the change from costume designer Lindy Hemming working with Brioni in Casino Royale to costume designer Louise Frogley working with Tom Ford in Quantum of Solace, with the latter interpreting this finale suit and putting her own expert – some may even say improved – touches on the ensemble.

Personally, I prefer to imagine the Lake Como confrontation occurring two years after getting the tip from the late Vesper’s cell phone in Casino Royale. Bond ends a two-year manhunt when he tracks Mr. White to the Lake Como house, shoots him, and then spends about 24 hours interrogating him on his own. Perhaps in that time, Bond changed into the Tom Ford suit we see in Quantum of Solace, allowing time for M and Craig Mitchell to set up a safe house in Siena… and also allowing time for Quantum goons to find out their boss was in distress and to track Bond down.

Perhaps I’m overthinking things, but it’s not beyond Bond to pack several similar suits for one mission… think From Russia With Love and the five different gray-toned suits that 007 took with him to Istanbul.

How to Get the Look

Daniel Craig as James Bond, behind the scenes of Casino Royale (2006)

It’s only one shot, but it’s a memorable one as Daniel Craig fully assumes his cinematic identity as James Bond. No less than a tailored navy pinstripe three-piece suit would do the trick.

• Navy pinstripe wool Italian-tailored suit from Brioni:
  • Single-breasted 3-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, single back vent, and 4-button cuffs
  • Single-breasted 6-button waistcoat with two welted pockets and notched bottom
  • Flat front trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Light blue cotton poplin Brioni dress shirt with semi-spread collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
  • Silver-toned cuff links
• Blue-and-white woven silk tie
• Black calf leather two-eyelet John Lobb Luffield plain-toe derby shoes
• Dark navy dress socks
• Omega Seamaster Professional Diver 2220.80.00 dive watch with stainless steel 41mm case, blue dial (with 3:00 date window), blue rotating bezel, and stainless link bracelet

To read more about this particular suit, do visit the comprehensive analysis at The Suits of James Bond.

The Gun

For a scene meant to introduce Daniel Craig in the traditional image of a confident, well-suited James Bond, you’d expect 007 to be carrying his signature sidearm, the Walther PPK or even his more modern Walther P99. Instead, Mr. Bond is packing heavy heat in the form of a Heckler & Koch UMP submachine gun.

German for “Universale Maschinenpistole”, the UMP was introduced in 1999 to supplement the aging MP5 submachine gun that you’ve seen in countless action movies and video games for the last quarter of a century. The UMP fills a unique niche in the firearms market as a submachine gun chambered to fire higher caliber pistol cartridges like the .40 S&W and .45 ACP in addition to the standard 9×19 mm Parabellum.

In Casino Royale, Bond is clearly armed with the UMP9 based on the curved “banana”-style magazine as opposed to the straight box magazines of the UMP40 and UMP45. Bond’s UMP9 is also fitted with a suppressor to conceal the sound of the shot he fires to wound Mr. White in the leg.

Behind-the-scenes shot of Daniel Craig in Persol sunglasses and Brioni suit, brandishing 007’s H&K UMP-9 submachine gun. (Photo by Greg Williams)

Although the suit, shirt, and tie change when the story picks up in Quantum of Solace, at least 007 is still armed with the same weapon, albeit with the suppressor removed for easier combat while speeding his car through the windy mountainous roads between Lake Como and Siena.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie… and the book, which celebrates its 65th year in publication!

The Quote

We need to talk.

Footnote

They don’t appear in this scene, but the tortoise sunglasses that Daniel Craig wears in the above behind-the-scenes photo with the H&K UMP-9 are the same Persol 2720 shades that he wore with his two-piece navy suit when receiving his new Aston Martin in Montenegro.

Brad Pitt as Tom Bishop in Spy Game (2001)

Vitals

Brad Pitt as Tom Bishop, experienced CIA operative and U.S. Marine

Beirut, Summer 1985

Film: Spy Game
Release Date: November 21, 2001
Director: Tony Scott
Costume Designer: Louise Frogley

Background

Halfway through Tony Scott’s espionage thriller Spy Game, we get to the operation that led to the expository situation of rogue CIA agent Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) landing himself in Chinese captivity in the midst of secret trade negotiations.

As his one-time mentor Nathan Muir (Robert Redford) explains to agency top brass, Bishop arrived in Beirut in 1985 under the cover of a photojournalist (“he was good, he was talented, he had a good eye… probably had a photography merit badge stuffed in the drawer at home”) to try to get close to the family doctor of their target, Sheik Salameh. Along the way, Bishop breaks the rules and falls for one of his assets, a mysterious Brit named Elizabeth Hadley (Catherine McCormack), and is eventually forced to choose between his assignment and his amour.

Bishop: She’s just someone I used to get to the camp.
Muir: She gonna be of any more use to us?
Bishop: (with a knowing smile) Not to us.

What’d He Wear?

Embedded in 1985 Beirut under the cover of a war correspondent, Tom Bishop wisely appropriates a rugged, utilitarian look that allows him to move quickly on his feet, particularly through the rough urban terrain under siege during the explosive War of the Camps.

Nathan Muir’s leather flight jacket, tucked-in khaki shirt, and olive chinos give the veteran case officer a more traditional military appearance while Tom Bishop lives up to every bit of his cover as a war photographer.

The Vest

Tom Bishop’s drab army green vest has at least nine external pockets, ostensibly for his camera supplies, and those are just the ones we can see on the front! There are three rows of pockets on each side of the vest: a bellows pocket at the top that closes with a velcro-fastening flap, a long bellows pocket in the center that closes with a double-snap flap, and the lowest row that differs on each side. The bottom right side has two small pockets, each with a velcro flap, and the left side has a long single pocket with a double-snap flap, mimicking the pocket above it. Both sets of pockets on the bottom have a top zipper for additional storage behind the pockets themselves.

Though he almost always wears it open, the front is designed to close with a short zipper and a single tab that extends across the front with a single snap closure.

On the right shoulder is an epaulette, sewn closer to the arm and fastened at the neck with a single sew-through button.

This post was requested by an avid BAMF Style reader named Lee who had found a “fishing hunting survival hiking vest” from Mil-Tec available on eBay that appears to be very similar to the screen-worn vest sported by Brad Pitt. Priced at $49.90, this 65% polyester, 35% cotton vest is available in navy blue, black, and olive drab, and the description mentions a whopping total of 14 pockets: four on the inside and one back pocket in addition to the nine we see on the front. If you’re looking for the Tom Bishop vest, this one is as good as it gets.

…And the Rest

The rest of Tom Bishop’s war correspondent look is very contemporary to the time period, a blend of mid-’80s fashion with holdouts from the late ’70s, particularly in the shirts. Let’s go from head to toe.

Tom’s navy San Diego Padres baseball cap has already been called out as a potential anachronism by the eagle-eyed contributors at IMDB as the intersecting white “S” and orange “D” on navy design wasn’t introduced until 1991, six years after this scene is set. In 1985, the cap would have featured the intersecting “S” and “D” both in orange on a brown ground. (For the full logo history of the San Diego Padres, check out this page!)

Although the year-old Leica M6 would have been a hot product in 1985, Tom Bishop’s true fashion-forwardness comes from his hat, which utilizes a sports logo that wouldn’t be implemented for another half-dozen years.

Tom wears a pair of silver-framed sunglasses with a wide rectangular frame similar to the “navigator” variant of the classic aviator shape. Brad Pitt is a known Oliver Peoples wearer in both real life and his movies, and Redford wears Oliver Peoples glasses throughout Spy Game, but I haven’t seen any confirmation that Pitt is wearing OP eyewear in this sequence.

Hard to get a better shot than this one! Check out those temples and the shape of the bridge. Any eyewear specialists out there have any guesses?

Attached to a dark brown leather cord around his neck, Tom wears three small silver discs not unlike early dog tags from the World War I era.

Tom gives Nathan the business after a date goes awry.

The Swiss Flag logo replacing the 12:00 position on Bishop’s analog watch indicates that it’s a Victorinox Swiss Army timepiece, but Lee again came to the rescue to provide the positive identification that the watch is a Victorinox Swiss Army Crusader, model #25324.

“Very lightweight but a beautiful watch,” confirms Lee, who owns the same model. The Crusader has a brushed steel case, light tan dial with a date window at 3:00, and a tan strap in nylon and leather.

Rude awakening.

Jeans of all colors are Tom Bishop’s go-to trousers in Beirut. most frequently a pair of off-white cotton jeans with the standard five-pocket layout and a brown maker patch on the back right, most likely Levi’s.

Godspeed, Dr. Ahmed.

Tom also often sports a pair of dark gray denim jeans with the same brown patch on the back right.

Tom spots a can’t-miss Kodak moment.

Tom wears a pair of well-worn brown leather boots with reinforced soles and raised heels.

Terry’s Shirts

It would be an exercise in futility to catalog all of the shirts worn by Tom Bishop during his extended tenure as “Terry” in Beirut, and yet…

Our first shot of Tom Bishop in Beirut finds him bellying up to a crowded bar, sporting a linen or lightweight cotton délavé short-sleeved shirt with a point collar, breast pocket, and plain front half-unbuttoned to reveal a plain white cotton crew-neck undershirt. The cream shirt has a pattern that alternates between a wide faded blue stripe and a column of well-spaced red squares, each consisting of its own five-by-five micro-squares.

A few scenes later, Bishop heads to the refugee camp to make his first contact with Elizabeth Hadley and Dr. Ahmed (Amidou), sporting an off-white treated cotton field shirt with a two flapped front pockets and a point collar… unbuttoned, as are the few mixed brown plastic buttons below it down the front placket. A roll-up sleeve tab system allows Tom to unbutton his cuffs, roll up the sleeves, and hold them in place above the elbow with a tab that extends out to fasten to a button on the outer forearm.

Left: Tom wears a colorful shirt out to a Beirut bar.
Right: Tom looks every bit the experienced correspondent.

On Nathan Muir’s first day in Beirut, Tom goes to greet him in one of the more expressive shirts from his closet, a light blue floral-striped cotton long-sleeved shirt with curved ‘smile” pockets on the front, a point collar, and pearl snaps up the front placket.

Tom rocks a slightly jauntier snap-up shirt for Nathan’s arrival.

Tom seemingly abandons the trappings of his cover after Nathan’s arrival, first discarding the green vest and then the San Diego baseball cap. He accompanies Dr. Ahmed to a meeting with Nathan in a sky blue field shirt with a point collar, button-down epaulettes, front placket, two box-pleated chest pockets (with mitred corner flaps that each close with a single button), and roll-up sleeve tabs. He wears this shirt with the San Diego cap and dark gray pants that are most likely his jeans.

A similar shirt is the pale blue cotton snap-up shirt that makes its appearance a few scenes later when Nathan insults Elizabeth during her date with Tom, er, Terry. This shirt has a moderate point collar, pointed Western yokes on the front and back, and pearl snaps up the front placket with a traditional button at the neck. The dramatic pointed flaps on the double chest pockets and the cuffs each close with matching pearl snaps. He appears to wear the same gray jeans with his shirt.

Two shades of blue for serious days in Beirut.

For the climactic day of their assignment in Beirut, Tom foregoes wearing anything that could impede his mission of getting Dr. Ahmed to the sheik’s headquarters in time. This is the most activity that his assignment has called for, and he sartorially responds in a proto-military ensemble of monochromatic field shirt, undershirt, and jeans.

Tom’s light stone-colored cotton bush shirt is styled like the earlier sky blue shirt with epaulettes, roll-up sleeve tabs, and two box-pleated chest pockets with button-down flaps. He wears the same lightweight white cotton long-sleeve t-shirt with its wide crew neck seen in an earlier scene, and he sports the same off-white jeans with no belt.

A moment of respite.

Following his mission, Tom suits up in an all-olive outfit of bush shirt and jeans that comes even closer to resembling military fatigues and further away from the guise of a photojournalist. This outfit may warrant its own scaled down BAMF Style post in the future.

Go Big or Go Home

Tom Bishop’s boss, Nathan Muir, is obviously impressed by Bishop’s skills as a photojournalist, proving a necessary rule of spy-craft: don’t pick a cover that isn’t a job you can actually do. By extension, the same principle can be applied to life: don’t volunteer to do a job and then not learn how to do it.

Bishop goes about it by getting his hands on the necessary equipment, in this case a classic Leica M6 camera and a Nikon FM, with enough skill to effectively wield it à la Horst Faas. In fact, Tony Scott reportedly said that he was impressed by actual photos taken by Brad Pitt, who is an avid photographer in real life.

Due diligence.

On a more personal level, Bishop also goes the extra mile to honor his friend’s birthday… of course, it’s after executing a fancy bit of spy-craft to find it out, despite the seven different birthdays that Langley has on file for Muir. Armed with this knowledge, Bishop takes Muir to a special birthday breakfast to a restaurant where he had taught the chef to make migas and gifts him a flask – the perfect birthday present for a whiskey aficionado like Muir.

Brad Pitt as Tom Bishop in Spy Game (2001)

How to Get the Look

Tom Bishop’s utilitarian look suits his cover while also providing him with an ideal degree of functionality and mobility while operating in hostile territory. Other spies may look dashing in three-piece suits and tailored tuxedoes, but for Beirut circa 1985, you want light layers, plenty of pockets, and nothing getting in your way.

Plus – unlike some of his screen-worn outfits – this isn’t one where you necessarily need to look like Brad Pitt to pull it off!

• Light-colored cotton long-sleeved field shirt or snap-up shirt*
• Olive drab polyester/cotton utility vest with 14 pockets, right-side epaulette, and
• Cream cotton denim Levi’s jeans
• Brown leather boots with raised heels
• Navy cotton twill San Diego Padres white/orange-logo baseball cap
• Dark brown leather corded necklace with three silver discs
• Victorinox Swiss Army Crusader #25324 quartz watch with brushed steel case, tan dial with 3:00 date window, and tan nylon-and-leather strap

*If you don’t feel like a deep dive into the many shirts that make up Tom’s Beirut wardrobe, just know that he wears a mix of plain t-shirts and vintage-styled snap-up shirts or button-up field shirts, some of which we only see for a single shot. Also known as adventurer shirts, pilot shirts, and bush shirts (in more specific cases), field shirts are classic pieces of sportswear that typically have a button-up front, multiple pockets, and roll-up sleeve tabs.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

We have some fucked up barometer for success, don’t we?

Clifton Webb as Richard Ward Sturges in Titanic (1953)

Vitals

Clifton Webb as Richard Ward Sturges, millionaire and estranged family man

RMS Titanic, April 1912

Film: Titanic
Release Date: April 16, 1953
Director: Jean Negulesco
Costume Designer: Dorothy Jeakins

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Before there was Kate and Leo, there was Barbara and Clifton.

To know me is to know my obsession with the Titanic and other maritime disasters of the early 20th century. SS Valencia, Empress of Ireland, Lusitania, Princess Sophia, Titanic‘s hospital sister ship Britannic… chances are that if it sank in the first few decades of last century, I know a thing or two about it.

It was today in 1912 that the RMS Titanic actually struck the iceberg that sank her. The collision happened around 11:40 p.m., North Atlantic time, on the night of Sunday, April 14. Compared to most of the other disasters in the previous paragraph, it took considerable time to sink, finally settling under the waves at 2:20 a.m. on the morning of Monday, April 15, 1912, ending more than 1,500 lives of the roughly 2,200 that had been aboard.

The story of the Titanic and her passengers and crew had actually been featured several times on screen in the forty years to follow. Saved from the Titanic was released weeks after the tragedy, starring Dorothy Gibson – a bona fide film star of the era and actual Titanic survivor – as herself. Even the Nazis got their grips on the story for a 1943 propaganda film that targeted British greed to blame for the tragedy… though the drama behind the scenes of that one is far more compelling than the fictionalized narrative presented on screen.

It wasn’t until the release of this 1953 melodrama – the day after the 41st anniversary of the sinking – that Hollywood first approached the story as the central subject for a major production. Clifton Webb starred as Richard Ward Sturges – a millionaire cut from the same snobbish cloth as his Waldo Lydecker character in Laura – who was estranged from his wife Julia (the always sublime Barbara Stanwyck) and their children, Annette (Audrey Dalton) and Norman (Harper Carter).

Julia has taken it upon herself to return with her children to her family home in Michigan for a more honest, rooted upbringing than the elitist expatriate lifestyle that Richard had been cultivating. Richard gets wind of the plan at the 11th hour and arrives at the Cherbourg docks on the day of the Titanic‘s departure. Much like Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack would do in James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster, Richard finagles a ticket for himself in steerage, eventually sneaking his way up to the ship’s famously opulent first class quarters. (For narrative purposes, this film explains that Titanic‘s cabins were totally sold out for its maiden voyage; this was far from true as the ship was only half booked. Imagine the even greater loss of life had the remaining 50% of the ship’s passenger space actually been filled… but I’ll try to hold off on my commentary of the film’s dubious representation of reality!)

What’d He Wear?

Oh, yes, I forgot. “The best dressed man of his day.” That’s what they’re going to write on your tombstone.

Julia likely meant it as an insult, but the idea of eternal recognition for his sartorial excellence was no doubt music to the haughty Richard Ward Sturges’ ears. As a man of the world, Richard puts great importance in his clothing.

The relaxed protocols of the latter Edwardian era would permit that even a suave snob like Mr. Sturges could forego full evening dress in favor of the increasingly popular dinner suit… or tuxedo, as it was known to the Titanic‘s many American passengers.

Having boarded the Titanic spontaneously, our Mr. Sturges had no time to pack his finery, and he is forced to visit the ship’s tailor for his evening wear, which he wears on the evenings of April 13 and April 14 aboard ship. (For those keeping score of the historical inaccuracies… there was no tailor shop on the Titanic. There were, however, four passengers in third class who listed their occupation as “tailor”.)

During the Edwardian era, “the most popular style of dinner jacket was still single-breasted peak lapel or shawl collar in black vicuña,” reports Black Tie Guide, and it’s no surprise that the good Mr. Sturges outfits himself in the former for his evenings at sea. Nothing but the most cosmopolitan for this fashion plate, of course.

Richard Ward Sturges begrudgingly accepts the vestments of a shipboard tailor shop, but not without throwing some shade in the tailor’s direction.

Richard: It’s very nice material.
The tailor: Yes, sir, it’s a beautiful suit.
Richard: (correcting) I said it was “nice material.”

In this case, they’re both right, although it’s possible that a man born to wear black tie like the erstwhile Webb Parmelee Hollenbeck could make even the most pedestrian dinner suit look fashionable. The “nice material” in this case is a dark wool, potentially black but possibly midnight blue based on colorized stills and promotional material. Promotional material is hardly an authoritative source, but it would suit both Mr. Webb and his equally elegant dramatis personae Mr. Sturges to wear the more interesting and sartorially informed shade of “darker than black” midnight suiting.

Richard’s single-breasted dinner jacket is absolutely timeless with satin-faced peak lapels of moderate width, subtle roping on the sleeveheads, and a ventless back. This dinner jacket would have certainly been fashionable at the time of the film’s 1912 setting as well as its early 1950s production and even today, 65 years after the film’s release and more than a century after the sinking of the Titanic.

The jacket closes with a single button with a somewhat low stance considering the high lapel roll. There are also four buttons on each cuff, straight jetted hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket. Ever the gentleman, Richard completes his look always with a white linen kerchief rakishly folded in his breast pocket, occasionally augmenting his style with a white carnation pinned to his left lapel.

With this level of horror on Richard’s face, you’d think someone just told him that he needn’t bother dressing for dinner that evening.

Convention dictates that “your tie should be of the same material as the silk facings to your dinner jacket,” per Hardy Amies’ ABC of Men’s Fashion in 1964. It was true in the fifty years preceding Amies’ publication and remains true more than fifty years hence, so it can be assumed that the disciple-of-convention Richard’s butterfly-shaped black bow tie is made from the same dull grosgrain silk as his lapel facings. Naturally, it’s a self-tying model.

Richard wears a white dress shirt with a stiff wing collar, front bib, and squared single cuffs. The large round cuff links match the two smaller shirt studs visible on the front of the shirt above the low V-shaped opening of Richard’s waistcoat.

Richard takes a break from his poker game to shave.

Suspenders (or braces) are the only viable option if one wants to hold up his formal trousers while wearing black tie, unless the trousers have been perfectly tailored to fit without them. Richard wears a set of black suspenders with metal adjusters. His suspenders go mostly unseen until he removes his dinner jacket and they slightly poke out through the armholes of his waistcoat.

Daniel Craig’s James Bond was criticized for removing his dinner jacket during a high-stress poker game in Casino Royale, but if even Clifton Webb has done it, then perhaps 007 is owed a greater degree of leeway…

Richard wears a white piqué waistcoat with a slim shawl collar and a double-breasted six-on-three button arrangement of sew-through mother-of-pearl buttons that wraps to create a low V-shaped opening on top and a straight bottom. There is a welt pocket on each side, positioned between the top two rows of buttons.

The traditional black waistcoat was being supplanted by white piqué in both full dress and informal evening dress over the course of the 1910s.

“I guess long trousers are enough to prove you’re a man,” Richard tells his young son Norman during an emotional scene that carries greater weight than you may imagine from this quote. It’s not atypical of Richard Ward Sturges to draw upon sartorial insight for an impactful remark like this.

Richard’s “long trousers” with his black tie kit would match his dinner jacket, so he ostensibly wears a pair of midnight blue wool formal trousers with grosgrain silk side striping and plain-hemmed bottoms. He correctly wears a pair of black patent leather oxford shoes with black silk dress socks.

The Sturges family rushes the ready themselves during the Titanic evacuation. Note Richard’s perfectly shined patent leather shoes.

Richard wears a pinky ring on his right hand, likely a personal accessory of Clifton Webb’s that just happened to fit the character.

Julia (Barbara Stanwyck) pleads with an indifferent Richard.

At one point, Richard returns to his statement to retrieve the flannel single-breasted Chesterfield coat that he had previously worn with his three-piece lounge suit when boarding the ship. Likely gray or camel cloth, his knee-length coat has notch lapels with a dark velvet collar, a covered-fly front, flapped hip pockets, and decorative back buttons.

He’s never actually seen wearing the coat with his dinner suit, instead preferring to turn up his dinner jacket’s peak lapels against the cold deckside winds.

Richard absconds with his coat.

After the Titanic collides with the iceberg, Richard returns to his family to insist upon their donning clothing, though he naturally stays true to his character by reminding them of decorum: “Now, put on warm things, everybody: comfortable, but as becoming as possible.”

Richard, in turn, only ties on his life vest rather than that Chesterfield coat… despite the fact that his overcoat is arguably quite becoming.

Sturges and son.

If you’ve seen Cameron’s flick, then you know that the life jackets on the Titanic didn’t look like these. The actual life jackets were white canvas with six rectangular cork cells – three rows of two across – that reportedly broke a few necks of passengers and crew who dove from the ship into the water below.

…

[[[WIKI: At the last minute, a wealthy American expatriate in Europe, Richard Sturges (Clifton Webb), buys a steerage-class ticket (the lowest class) for the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic from a Basque immigrant. Once aboard he seeks out his runaway wife, Julia (Barbara Stanwyck). He discovers she is trying to take their two unsuspecting children, 18-year-old Annette (Audrey Dalton) and ten-year-old Norman (Harper Carter), to her hometown of Mackinac, Michigan, to raise as down-to-earth Americans rather than rootless elitists like Richard himself… When Annette learns her mother’s intentions, she insists on returning to Europe with her father on the next ship as soon as they reach America. Julia concedes that her daughter is old enough to make her own decisions, but she insists on keeping custody of Norman. This angers Richard, forcing Julia to reveal that Norman is not his child, but rather the result of a one-night stand after one of their many bitter arguments. Upon hearing that, he agrees to give up all claim to Norman. Richard joins Maude, Earl, and George Widener in the lounge to play auction bridge with them. The next morning, when Norman reminds Richard about a shuffleboard game they had scheduled, Richard coldly brushes him off… As the Titanic is in her final moments, Norman and Richard find each other. Richard tells a passing steward that Norman is his “son” and then tells the boy that he has been proud of him every day of his life. Then they join the rest of the doomed passengers and the crew in singing the hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee”. As the last boiler explodes, the Titanic’s bow plunges, pivoting her stern high into the air while the ship rapidly slides into the icy water. The remaining survivors are last seen waiting in the lifeboats for help to come as dawn approaches.]]]

What to Imbibe

Richard Ward Sturges fuels his marathon card game with coffee and Craven A cigarettes, a typically inadvisable combination for those invested in living a long life. However, the very nature of the film’s narrative suggests that this is hardly the greatest danger that Richard will face.

In the first-class smoking lounge, Richard does just what the room was made for during a high-stakes poker game with Maude Young (Thelma Ritter), George Widener (Guy Standing Jr.), and Earl Meeker (Allyn Joslyn). Though Maude is inspired by the real life passenger Margaret “Molly” Brown, only Mr. Widener reflects an actual passenger who traveled on the famous ship.

In more polite company, Richard consigns himself to champagne. His particular bubbly of choice isn’t mentioned, though there is a delightful scene as he waltzes through the first class dining room, notices the aged Mr. and Mrs. Straus at their table, and inspects their champagne.

“Pommery, 1892,” Richard reads. “Mrs. Straus, be careful of this old fox. He has plans.”

A few nights later, Richard is feeling considerably less jaunty despite the full coupe of champagne before him.

Whether or not Pommery ’92 would have been actually available among the Titanic‘s wine cellar of 12,000 bottles is lost to history, though corks from bottles of Moët & Chandon and Heidsieck & Co. were found among the ship’s wreckage.

I didn’t want to say anything, but…

The film should hardly be considered an encyclopedic resource on the actual circumstances of the RMS Titanic, as it was conceptualized as a vehicle for Darryl F. Zanuck to feature Clifton Webb in a more serious role alongside younger talent, making the most of Twentieth Century Fox’s new CinemaScope lens.

The real sinking of the Titanic certainly doesn’t lack for drama, as straightforward depictions like the later A Night to Remember would prove. However, Fox screenwriters Charles Brackett, Richard L. Breen, and Walter Reisch took the drama up to eleven with their Academy Award-winning original screenplay, weaving in actual events and figures like Captain Edward J. Smith with the film’s narrative and characters.

Imagine that you’re on a sinking ship in its final minutes. There may still be time to find a floatation device, swim out to a lifeboat, or don a few warm layers for the chilly weather… but no, you decide to stand with hundreds of other doomed men and sing. For obvious reasons, this did not actually happen.

The emphasis rarely strays beyond the drama of the Sturges family, but a few emotional interludes are permitted to mingle with the ship’s crew and some of her more famous passengers like John Jacob Astor and Maude Young, a Molly Brown surrogate played by the inimitable Thelma Ritter.

Zanuck made the most of his new CinemaScope during the latter half of the film as the Titanic begins its iceberg descent to the bottom of the Atlantic. The 882-foot-long ship was represented on screen with a 28-foot-long replica, marvelously detailed and eventually sank through special effects supervised by Ray Kellogg. (Read this excellent entry at Model Ships in the Cinema to learn more.)

The doomed ship’s final moments reveal a few technical errors; the ship’s lights appear to remain on through the portholes a few minutes after losing power, and the port of registry on the stern is incorrectly depicted as Southampton rather than Liverpool. While Titanic did indeed depart from Southampton on her maiden voyage, both Titanic and her sister ship Olympic were registered to White Star Line’s home port in Liverpool.

Barbara Stanwyck later recalled the impact that filming this real-life disaster had on her:

…It was bitter cold. I was 47 feet up in the air in a lifeboat swinging on the davits. The water below was agitated into a heavy rolling mass and it was thick with other lifeboats full of women and children. I looked down and thought: If one of these ropes snaps now, it’s goodbye for you. Then I looked up at the faces lined along the rail… those left behind to die with the ship. I thought of the men and women who had been through this thing in our time. We were recreating an actual tragedy and I burst into tears. I shook with great racking sobs and couldn’t stop.

How to Get the Look

Clifton Webb as Richard Ward Sturges in Titanic (1953)

Clifton Webb belongs to a proud but limited group of gentlemen who look more comfortable in a tuxedo than any man could hope to look in any degree of leisure. The fact that his dinner suit would remain just as stylish more than a century after the film’s 1912 setting stands as a testament to the timelessness of men’s formalwear.

• Midnight blue wool single-button dinner jacket with grosgrain silk-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • White linen pocket square
  • White carnation boutonnière
• White cotton formal shirt with wing collar, stiff front bib, and squared single cuffs
  • Round metal studs and cuff links
• Black grosgrain silk self-tying bow tie
• White piqué double-breasted formal waistcoat with shawl collar, 6×3-button front, welt pockets, and straight-cut bottom
• Midnight blue wool formal trousers with side pockets, grosgrain silk side striping, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black suspenders with silver-toned adjusters
• Black patent leather oxford shoes
• Black dress socks
• Pinky ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. It filled a need for Titanic-inspired drama in the early 1950s, and the revived interest in the story – as well as the recent release of Walter Lord’s incredibly researched tome – led to the masterful A Night to Remember released by the Rank Organisation in 1958.

The Quote

Sorry, Julia. You’re asking me to do something which involves character. As you have pointed out, I am not a man of character.

Timothy Olyphant as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens on Justified (Episode 6.02: “Cash Game”, 2015)

Vitals

Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens, old-fashioned Deputy U.S. Marshal

Harlan County, Kentucky, Fall 2014

Series: Justified
Episode: “Cash Game” (Episode 6.02)
Air Date: January 27, 2015
Director: Dean Parisot
Creator: Graham Yost
Costume Designer:  Patia Prouty

Background

The second episode of Justified‘s sixth and final season introduced a few new characters that would be help drive the series toward its action-packed endgame, including a shockingly mustache-less Sam Elliott as ruthless yet refined gangster Avery Markham.

This early in the season, however, Raylan has yet to meet Mr. Markham, instead forced to converse with the likes of his low-level henchmen like the oversized dimwit Choo-Choo (Duke Davis Roberts).

What’d He Wear?

After some uneven experimentation in early episodes, Raylan Givens had established his usual look over the six seasons of Justified. In addition to the cowboy hat and boots from which he never deviated, one could expect to see the taciturn lawman strutting into the office in a black suit jacket, jeans, and skinny tie or the “denim sandwich” of a trucker jacket and jeans when off-duty. Sure there had been variations, with different suits and sport jackets in shades of gray and brown entering the mix but rarely anything more colorful than that.

Winona: Brown suit, black suit. 1, 2, 3, 4 shirts. Two pairs of jeans.
Raylan: What the hell’s that supposed to mean?
Winona: Oh, just by looking at your closet one would think you were a simple man.

– Justified, “The Life Inside” (Episode 2.02)

It’s thus a surprising single-episode departure when Raylan spends the entirety of the sixth season’s “Cash Game” episode in an all blue ensemble anchored by a navy single-breasted peak-lapel suit jacket.

This solid navy jacket is softly napped like doeskin flannel. With a standard welted breast pocket and straight flapped pockets, the style of the jacket implies that it is orphaned from a lounge suit, though Raylan only wears it with jeans for its sole onscreen appearance. There are long side vents, allowing a little more room for the bulge created by Raylan’s holstered full-size Glock on his right hip.

The jacket has roped sleeveheads and is loosely shaped with darts, though Raylan somewhat negates the fitted effect by wearing it open. The peak lapels are pick stitched at the edges, rolling to the top of a two-button front with four smaller matching buttons on the ends of each sleeve.

“Now that ain’t polite. You just about hit me, and now you’re gonna sling foul utterances in my direction?”

Rather than opting for contrast with a lighter shirt or tie, Raylan sticks with a generally monochromatic scheme by wearing a navy shirt and tie. This lack of contrast keeps the look informal, harmonizing with his jeans better than a dressier and lighter blue shirt would.

The mini-checked cotton shirt has a slim spread collar and narrow front placket that reminds me of the standard offerings at places like Banana Republic, J. Crew, and Macy’s during the “slim fit” craze of the mid-2010s. This connection makes sense as much of Raylan’s clothing was known to be sourced from these retailers, though this may be the navy-and-black checked A.P.C. shirt that made an appearance during the show’s final episode and would be auctioned following the production.

Raylan often wore vintage ties sourced by the show’s costume team, and this satin-finished navy tie is likely no exception. Two off-kilter gray-stitched rectangles in the center of the tie break up the solid navy ground.

Raylan wears his standard Levi’s 501 jeans, recognizable by the familiar little red tag on the inside of the back right pocket. These “Original Fit” jeans have a button fly and standard five-pocket layout, sitting low on his waist.

Raylan smirks while sartorial purists shudder.

Like Raylan himself, his trusty tooled leather belt has seen plenty of wear and tear with the dark brown leather slightly worn on the top and bottom edges. There is tan contrast stitching along the edges and a steel single-prong buckle. On the right side of the belt, Raylan carries his Glock 17 in a tan-finished full-grain leather paddle holster, custom-made to resemble the Bianchi Model 59 Special Agent® that he’d worn in the first season.

Glock and badge: the tools of Raylan’s trade.

In the early episodes of Justified, Raylan stood tall in a pair of anteater cowboy boots from Lucchese, though he switched to the somewhat less expensive ostrich leg boots following the show’s second season. The Western-heeled boots have decorative stitching on the shafts, though they tend to be mostly concealed by Raylan’s jeans.

Raylan cuts off Choo-Choo’s pursuit.

By now, you know that Raylan Givens completes his cowboy image with a hat to supplement the boots. Baron Hats custom made this sahara tan 200XXX beaver hat with a 4.25″ cattleman’s crown, 3.25″ brim, and slim ranger-buckled tooled leather band for Timothy Olyphant to wear on the show, and it continues to market “The RG” hat on their site.

Raylan consults with Ava (Joelle Carter) for his 1:30 “haircut”.

Raylan sports a practical yet stylish TAG Heuer Series 6000 Chronometer on his left wrist. This watch has a brushed steel case, white dial, and black leather strap, though he often substitutes it for a brown leather strap in coordination with his other accessories like boots and belt.

An always welcome exchange with fellow marshal Tim Gutterson (Jacob Pitts) over morning coffee.

One last cowboy touch: Raylan always wears a textured sterling silver ring with a horseshoe shape on the third finger of his right hand.

Timothy Olyphant as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens on Justified (Episode 6.02: “Cash Game”, 2015)

How to Get the Look

Though unique for Raylan Givens – whose tailored jacket palette tends to fall more in the black, brown, and gray camp – all blue makes a delightful ensemble for spring. Whether or not you can pull off the tricky navy-on-navy-on-navy trifecta, Raylan’s cowboy hat and boots, or wearing a tie with jeans is yet to be seen…

• Navy flannel single-breasted 2-button suit jacket with peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and long side vents
• Navy mini-checked cotton shirt with slim spread collar, narrow front placket, and squared button cuffs
• Navy satin silk vintage skinny tie with two center askew gray-stitched rectangles
• Dark blue denim Levi’s 501 bootcut jeans
• Dark brown tooled leather belt with a dulled steel single-prong buckle
• Tan full grain leather thumb-break paddle holster for a full-size Glock pistol
• Lucchese “cigar”-colored brown ostrich leg Western-style boots with decorative stitched calf leather shafts
• Baron Hats “The RG” sahara tan 200XXX beaver cattleman’s hat with a thin tooled leather band
• TAG Heuer Series 6000 Chronometer wristwatch with brushed steel case, white dial, and black leather strap
• Sterling silver horseshoe ring with braided side detail
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series, though this episode makes its sole appearance in the sixth and final season.

The Quote

Son, are you real smart or real stupid?

Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep (1978)

Vitals

Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe, American private investigator

London, September 1977

Film: The Big Sleep
Release Date: March 13, 1978
Director: Michael Winner
Costume Designer: Ron Beck

Background

Philip Marlowe is a bold dresser. We learn that from the opening paragraph of Raymond Chandler’s inaugural novel, The Big Sleep, with the description of the detective’s powder blue suit, dark blue underpinnings, and socks with clocks. The rest of the United States may have adopted a somber approach to dressing during the years of the Depression, but Marlowe is an L.A. private eye. He’s gotta turn heads.

Decades after the novel’s publication and Bogie and Bacall sizzled in its first cinematic adaptation, the story was once again slated for the silver screen. This time, there was no Motion Picture Production Code to contend with, and audiences would be exposed to all of the sex, drugs, and nudity that Chandler had intended. It sounds like a straight adaptation but for the fact that the story was updated to the contemporary setting of late 1970s London.

With the change of setting comes a natural change of style. The original setting for Chandler’s novel and Howard Hawks’ film fell during the two decade “golden age” of both Hollywood and menswear. Flash forward to the 1970s as polyester leisure suits, dramatic disco shirt collars, and bell-bottomed trousers abound… hardly a golden age. Luckily, Philip Marlowe can adapt.

What’d He Wear?

Philip Marlowe’s complex case leads him to a swanky gambling den run by racketeer Eddie Mars (Oliver Reed). Perhaps subtly reflecting the increasing chaos of the story, Marlowe dons a bold multi-striped jacket in blue, gray, and black. Of course, the stripe pattern is hardly as simple as it sounds.

In the spirit of thoroughness, the repeating stripe sequence extends from left to right as: a thin blue stripe, a wide black stripe, a thin gray stripe, a wide black stripe, a thin blue stripe, a wide black stripe, a thin blue stripe, a wide gray stripe, a thin black stripe, a wide gray stripe, a double set of hairline black stripes, and a wide gray stripe.

Marlowe takes a moment to process exactly what it is he chose to wear this evening.

The single-breasted sport jacket is styled like Marlowe’s other tailored jackets in the film with broad notch lapels that roll to a low two-button stance with the buttoning point neatly meeting the tie blade and the trouser waistband at Mitchum’s waist.

The jacket has natural shoulders, a long single back vent, and a darted front that interferes with the busy stripe pattern but suppresses the waist to create a flatteringly imposing, athletic silhouette for the 6’1″ Mitchum despite the 60-year-old actor’s increasing midsection.

Marlowe’s jacket concedes to the fashion trends of the ’70s in many respects, including the wide flaps on the slanted hip pockets and ticket pocket. He provides an interesting contrast against the cool steel tones of the jacket by wearing a scarlet red silk display kerchief in the welted breast pocket.

The red connects to yet another chaotic choice in this fascinatingly interesting outfit: the tie. The brick red ground is covered with a field of taupe flecks and striped with double rows of gradient-shaded four-leaf clovers that streak across the tie like constellations in the stars, following the appropriately British “uphill” direction of right-up-to-left. (For a closer look at the tie, check out this behind-the-scenes photo.)

With such a busy jacket and tie, only a solid white shirt could serve as the grand neutralizer to keep this outfit from venturing into the clownish. Luckily, celebrated London shirtmaker Frank Foster was called into service for Mitchum’s cotton poplin shirt with its tall semi-spread collar with long points, front placket, and single-button rounded cuffs.

Just when the outfit can’t handle another pattern, Marlowe gives it a rest with a pair of solid wool trousers in charcoal blue with a full fit that extends down to the plain-hemmed bottoms that flare out just enough to thankfully avoid bell-bottom territory. As proven by a behind-the-scenes photo where Mitchum has removed the jacket, these trousers have thick belt loops for his black leather belt with its polished squared single-prong buckle.

Marlowe wears the same shoes that appear in other scenes, a pair of black leather high-vamp slip-ons with broguing detail including the distinctive wingtips. His dark cotton lisle dress socks are probably black.

Mars vs. Marlowe.

Barely seen in this sequence is the stainless Rolex DateJust with a silver dial and steel Jubilee bracelet that likely belonged to Robert Mitchum in real life, having previously appeared in his films like The Yakuza (1975).

Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep (1978)

How to Get the Look

Robert Mitchum’s Marlowe takes a bold approach to dressing for a night out, clashing patterns and colors with unapologetic glory.

• Blue, gray, and black multi-striped single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with wide notch lapels, welted breast pocket, slanted flapped hip pockets with right-side ticket pocket, 4-button cuffs, and long single vent
• White cotton poplin shirt with tall semi-spread collar, front placket, and 1-button rounded cuffs
• Brick red tie with beige flecks and “uphill” stripes of four-leaf clover double rows
• Charcoal blue flat front trousers with wide belt loops, slanted side pockets, and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather belt with polished single-prong buckle
• Black leather high-vamp wingtip slip-on loafers
• Black cotton lisle dress socks
• Rolex DateJust steel-cased wristwatch with silver dial and steel “Jubilee” bracelet

You may want to be careful trying to pull off this look, either by keeping the base layer and swapping in a plain gray jacket or replacing the neckwear with a subtle or solid navy or even black tie.

The Gun

The Walther PPK appears to be the sidearm of choice for the British gangsters in Eddie Mars’ organized crime operation, as Mars himself had drawn a nickel PPK – with the slide curiously locked back – on Marlowe upon their first meeting.

Later, Marlowe leaves Mars’ club with Charlotte Sternwood (Sarah Miles) on his arm only to be confronted by Lanny (Dudley Sutton), one of Mars’ men who has his own blued PPK.

Leaving a casino with a woman and a Walther PPK in hand… straight out of James Bond. The jacket? Not so much.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read Chandler’s 1939 novel.

Ted Danson as Michael on The Good Place. (Episode 1.13: “Michael’s Gambit”)

Vitals

Ted Danson as Michael, afterlife “architect”

The Good Place, present day

Series: The Good Place
Episodes:
– “Jason Mendoza” (Episode 1.04), dir. Payman Benz, aired 9/29/2016
– “What’s My Motivation” (Episode 1.11), dir. Lynn Shelton, aired 1/12/2017
– “Mindy St. Claire” (Episode 1.12), dir. Dean Holland, aired 1/19/2017
– “Michael’s Gambit” (Episode 1.13), dir. Michael Schur, aired 1/19/2017
Creator: Michael Schur
Costume Designer: Kirston Mann

WARNING! Possible spoilers ahead…

Background

NBC’s The Good Place is one of my favorite recent network TV shows, blending an infectiously funny ensemble cast with razor-sharp writing that makes moral philosophy not only interesting but accessible and entertaining.

The show begins with the death of Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a selfish 35-year-old snake oil sales rep from Arizona who immediately knows something is awry when she finds herself in the titular utopia rather than its Hadean alternative. She is welcomed by the immortal Michael (Ted Danson) who is eager to show Eleanor the ropes of her new post-life life.

Unfortunately, Michael’s carefully planned neighborhood begins rebelling against Eleanor’s unnatural presence, including a vast sinkhole that ruins the opening of new restaurant The Good Plates (do you get it please?), forcing Eleanor to admit to Michael and the rest of “the good place” that she doesn’t belong.

What’d He Wear?

“Tonight, I’m going to select my jauntiest suit,” Michael excitedly declares at the announcement of a restaurant opening party. “And I may even wear suspenders!”

So what does this already colorful dresser consider to be his “jauntiest” suit? Michael holds court at the opening of The Good Plates in a navy, teal, and taupe plaid suit.

Michael, busted in front of his boss (and a somewhat horrifying clown).

Michael wears a variety of styles for his suit jackets and sports coats, but this particular single-breasted suit jacket has sharp peak lapels – with a buttonhole through the left lapel – that rolls to the top of a two-button front. He has several other plaid suits, but this is his only jacket with peak lapels… possibly the element that marked it for selection on this most festive of occasions.

Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and Michael (Ted Danson) dressed in their fineries for the opening of The Good Plates in “Jason Mendoza” (episode 1.04).

The long double vents allow Michael to place his hands in his pockets with minimal interruption of the suit’s flow, and his sleeves are loaded with five buttons at the ends. Jaunty indeed.

The flapped pockets on his hips slant gently toward the back, as does the smaller flapped ticket pocket that runs parallel above the right-side pocket, positioned between the two buttons on the front of the suit jacket.

Around Michael’s neighborhood, this serves as the ideal business suit.

In this suit jacket’s welted breast pocket, Michael always wears a gray silk pocket square worn folded into a single point (for the restaurant opening) or dual points (for the final three episode arc of “saving” Bad Eleanor.) Though there is a subtle, spaced-apart series of gray-stitched paisleys scattered on the silk pocket kerchief, the overall effect is understated enough to add luxury – rather than chaos – to an already busy ensemble.

The suit has flat front trousers with a fitted waistband, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

This screenshot from the beginning of “Michael’s Gambit” (episode 1.13) also includes Kirston Mann’s costume designer credit.

Michael looks forward to sporting a pair of suspenders at the restaurant opening in “Jason Mendoza” (episode 1.04), referring to them as “one of the human clothing items I’m most eager to try.” In fact, he talks himself into being more excited – well, “cautiously optimistic” – about the suspenders than about the party itself.

“Check it out! So dumb… so much dumber than belts,” he laughs as he shows off his blue paisley suspenders with their silver-toned hardware.

Michael fulfills his dream of wearing suspenders.

At the restaurant opening in “Jason Mendoza” (episode 1.04), Michael wears a blue-and-white bengal-striped cotton shirt with a large spread collar, plain front, and adjustable-button barrel cuffs with mitred corners.

Michael’s sparkling navy bow tie is also appropriately festive for the occasion, likely pre-tied in a large butterfly/thistle shape.

Michael presides over the opening of The Good Plates (“I just got that!”)

For the suit’s next appearance at the beginning of a three-episode streak, Michael has not only abandoned the suspenders (and goes sans belt), but he has also changed into a different shirt and bow tie.

Beginning in “What’s My Motivation” (episode 1.11), Michael wears this suit with a light blue cotton poplin shirt, a strong choice for coordinating with the navy tones of his suit while the solid fabric is also less likely to clash with the plaid suiting. Like the striped shirt, this shirt has a spread collar and adjustable-button cuffs though these are rounded rather than cut with mitred corners. This shirt also has a breast pocket and a front placket with smoke-gray plastic buttons.

Michael admits defeat in “Michael’s Gambit” (episode 1.13).

Like the distinctive peacock-feathered bow tie that Michael wore in the first episode, his bow tie in these final three episodes of the first season was made from bird feathers. Both bow ties are products from the Charleston company Brackish, founded in 2007 when Ben Ross handcrafted a set of turkey feather bow ties for the groomsmen in his wedding party. Ross and one of the groomsmen, Jeff Plotner, then co-founded the company that continues to make one-of-a-kind bow ties, handcrafted locally in South Carolina by a team of 50 artisans.

“Ted caught a glimpse of peacock feather bow tie we had on a table, put it on, and the rest is history,” explained Kirston Mann to Vulture. “He immediately felt the character and it all just made sense. When this happens in a fitting, it’s a dream come true.”

Ted Danson added additional context in an interview with Gold Derby:

I didn’t quite know how to play Michael until I went into the wardrobe department. The costume designer for the show said, “You may want to look at these,” and she brought out some bow ties made out of peacock feathers. Michael wears bow ties, and when I see a bow tie on somebody, that person is a certain way in my mind from then on. It is such a defining little article of clothing.

In these episodes, Michael wears a Brackish “Midnight” bow tie, made from turkey feathers in muted shades of blue and green (on black) that coordinate with his suit. This particular bow tie had also appeared with Michael’s blue-on-charcoal windowpane suit in the third episode. As of April 2018, Brackish still offers the Midnight bow tie for $195. The bow tie is pre-tied in a large butterfly/thistle shape that is 2.5″ tall and 4.5″ wide.

Michael channels a “Kristen Stewart on a red carpet level of emotionless” when pleading Eleanor’s case for Shawn in “Mindy St. Claire” (episode 1.12).

An interesting dresser like Michael opts for color when he can, so he almost always wears brown rather than black shoes. His bicycle-toe derby shoes with this suit have four lace eyelets. For a similar pair of shoes, check out the Allen Edmonds “O’Hare” bicycle-toe derbies in walnut brown, currently available as of April 2018 for the close-out price of $197.

One of the most commonly agreed-upon rules of menswear is to match one’s socks to his trousers. With a tri-toned plaid suit like this, it would have been easy enough for Michael to find a pair of navy socks that would work to the same effect, but he goes the extra yardage and sports a characteristically natty pair of navy, teal, and gray plaid socks.

One of the subtly hilarious moments of the show that I found myself rewatching a few times…

Michael’s eyeglasses appear to be the Oliver Peoples “Riley” frame made from black lightweight plastic with “rounded contouring, pin detailing, and a retro keyhole bridge,” as described on the OP site.

In addition to featuring on The Good Place, this black OP frame appears to be Ted Danson’s eyewear of choice in real life.

Ted Danson as Michael on The Good Place. (Episode 1.04: “Jason Mendoza”)
Michael wears the same suit, pocket square, and shoes described here, but this earlier episode features a blue bengal-striped shirt and a sparkly navy bow tie… slightly different from the solid light blue shirt and peacock bow tie worn in later episodes.

How to Get the Look

Ted Danson’s Michael on The Good Place takes on a unique sense of style at the crossroads of preppy and professorial, including this

• Navy, teal, and taupe plaid suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with peak lapels, welted breast pocket, slanted flapped hip pockets with ticket pocket, 5-button cuffs, and long double vents
  • Flat front fitted-waistband trousers with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Light blue cotton shirt with spread collar and button cuffs
• Brackish “Midnight” turkey-feather bow tie
• Blue paisley suspenders with silver hardware
• Walnut brown calf leather four-eyelet bicycle-toe derby shoes
• Navy, teal, and gray plaid cotton lisle socks
• Oliver Peoples “Riley” black plastic-framed glasses with rounded contouring and keyhole bridge
• Gray scattered-paisleys silk pocket square

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series. The first season is currently available to stream on Netflix or to purchase on Amazon.

The second season DVD will be released on July 17 this summer, the day before series star Kristen Bell’s 38th birthday.

The Quote

Now, you two sit tight. I’m gonna go murder Janet, and I’ll be right back.

Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray (2004)

Vitals

Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles, groundbreaking R&B musician

Houston, Summer 1953

Film: Ray
Release Date: October 29, 2004
Director: Taylor Hackford
Costume Designer: Sharen Davis

Background

Jamie Foxx became only the second actor in history to receive a Academy Award for Best Actor, BAFTA, Critics’ Choice award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild award for a single performance when he played Ray Charles. Though it was released five months after the real Ray Charles died of liver disease at age 73, Ray had the blessing of the real Ray Charles who had received – and approved – a braille version of the original shooting script.

Fresh off the success of his first hit for Atlantic Records, the exciting “Mess Around”, we see Ray Charles’ career shooting skyward. He endorses a group called the Cecil Shaw Singers while on-air at a Houston radio station, resulting in a lunch date with the group’s tenor, Della Bea (Kerry Washington), who is amazed that he was able to pick out her voice.

Ray: I hear like you see. Like that hummingbird outside the window, for instance.
Della Bea: I can’t hear her.
Ray: You have to listen… Uh-oh. Did you hear that?
Della Bea: What?
Ray: Her heart just skipped a beat.

What’d He Wear?

Jamie Foxx’s Ray Charles has a vast wardrobe of outstanding period costumes, created by costume designer Sharen Davis who received one of her Academy Award nominations for Ray. (Most recently, Ms. Davis’ costume work can be seen in the second season of HBO’s Westworld, which premiered on Sunday.)

Though similar patterns had existed for decades, the 1950s was the height of fleck’s popularity with the phrase “atomic fleck” entering our lexicon sometime later to forever associate the suiting with the “atomic age” decade. Described by Hardy Amies in his 1964 enchiridion simply as “spotted or speckled material,” fleck isn’t easily defined but, to paraphrase Justice Stewart, one would know it upon seeing it.

Ray features the titular singer dressing to impress for his first date with Della Bea, wearing a navy blue twill wool sport jacket covered with a flecked windowpane check in a muted coral tone.

Ray’s single-breasted sportcoat has notch lapels that roll to a two-button front, patch pockets, three-button cuffs, and a ventless back. The fit is full, as was fashionable in the mid-1950s, without looking oversized.

Ray wears a pale blue cotton shirt with a point collar, front placket, and button cuffs.

Ray turns on the charm for Della Bea during their lunch date.

Ray’s red jacquard silk tie nicely draws out the coral flecking of his jacket. The tie is covered in a tonal floral pattern with white floral vines that curve up the tie from the flared blade.

Sunglasses were a signature of Ray Charles’ look with many different sets of shades appearing over the course of Ray. He starts out with browline-framed glasses in the ’40s and ends up with his now-trademark wraparounds within two decades. In these few scenes from the early ’50s, he briefly sported this pair of brown translucent-framed sunglasses in the classic shape that Ray-Ban would popularize with their Wayfarer model. The sunglasses have small silver diamonds on the end pieces.

Throughout most of the sequences set in the 1950s, Ray wears a steel Raketa “Blindenuhr” watch designed and manufactured in Soviet Russia specifically for blind wearers. Pressing the crown flips up the crystal case to expose the tan dial, allowing wearers like Ray to “feel” the time based on the position of the black hour and minute markers. There is a raised cell at each hour marker with two cells at 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, and 9:00. Ray’s Raketa watch is worn on a brown leather strap.

The dark trousers, likely charcoal wool, provide little contrast against the jacket. They have a full fit through the hips and legs down to the turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms. Ray wears them with a black leather belt that has a long gold-toned single-prong buckle slightly rounded on the corners.

“I got it. Three blocks up, left for two, right for one. Fifteen giant steps, and I’m at the Crystal White Hotel.”

His black leather shoes are likely the same cap-toe derby shoes that he wore earlier with a brown suit while performing on the “Chitlin’ Circuit” through the South.

Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington in Ray (2004)

How to Get the Look

Ray puts a trendy twist on a timeless combination of a navy jacket and red tie with his flecked jacket and boldly patterned tie. The look worked in the “fabulous fifties,” and it could be just the inspiration you need to turn your lunch date style up to eleven.

• Navy wool twill (with coral flecked windowpane check) single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Pale blue cotton shirt with point collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Red jacquard silk tie with white floral vine motif
• Charcoal wool pleated trousers with belt loops and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black leather belt with long gold-toned single-prong buckle
• Black leather cap-toe derby shoes
• Dark dress socks
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt/A-shirt
• Brown translucent-framed “wayfarer”-style sunglasses
• Raketa “Blindenuhr” steel wristwatch with flip-up crystal, tan dial with braille cells, and brown leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I hear like you see. Like that hummingbird outside the window, for instance.

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, Spring 1977

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

Background

It’s been quite a while – a few weeks shy of a year, in fact – since I last explored the bold wardrobe of Robert De Niro in Casino, but the onset of warmer weather had me thinking more colorfully for this #MafiaMonday.

The film’s costume design team of Rita Ryack and John A. Dunn tells us so much about the story and the characters, not only in the clothes themselves but how they are worn. An analytical guy like De Niro’s Ace Rothstein might not be expected to dress as colorfully as he does but he’s still a mob gambler in a mob world, and that sort of atmosphere tends to create a flashier sartorial aesthetic.

One need look no further than this brief scene to get a sense of who Ace Rothstein is through his clothing. We find him sitting at his desk, looking neat and a touch luxurious in his sky blue shirt and matching tie. When his secretary announces that he has a visitor from county commissioner Pat Webb (L.Q. Jones), he requests that she give him “a minute” and reveals to the audience that he’s been pantless, as he rises from his desk in undershorts, socks, and shoes. He crosses to the closet and coolly fetches a glen plaid business suit, pulling both jacket and trousers off the hanger to prepare for his guest.

Ace is all about precision, always wearing his tie tightly knotted and fastened around his neck and doing his part to prevent any wrinkles or possible imperfection to one of his many suits.

What’d He Wear?

Despite all the red, pink, yellow, and mint-green jackets lining his closet, Ace Rothstein still needs a few suits he can count on for days conducting serious business. Glen plaid has been one of the most popular patterns for business suits since Edward VIII popularized it in the early 1920s, establishing a very specific plaid now known as “Prince of Wales check” to pay homage to his title at the time.

When facing off against Pat Webb, Ace wears a finely checked glen plaid suit in blue, light gray, and gold with a coral windowpane overcheck. As bold tones of blue, yellow, and red are some of Ace’s most frequently worn shirts and ties, this suit was a wise investment as any shirts and ties in those colors would call out their corresponding tone in the plaid suiting.

Despite his painful ulcer, Ace comforts Ginger after she suffers a breakdown.

The single-breasted suit jacket has sharp “fish mouth” notch lapels that roll to a low stance of two recessed gray plastic sew-through buttons. There is a single, purely vestigal button with a short vent on each cuff. The wide shoulders have roped sleeveheads, and there are long double vents. The jacket has low rear-slanting hip pockets with large flaps and a welted breast pocket where Ace wears a puffed sky blue satin silk display kerchief.

Supposedly, the Yes / NO sign was based on decor in the real Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal’s office at the Stardust.

The sky blue silk shirt, tie, and pocket square were all made to match by Anto Beverly Hills, who had also provided shirts for the real Ace, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. The shirt was made from the duller charmeuse side of the silk with a large “1977” point collar, epaulettes that button at the shoulders (rather than at the neck), single-button tab cuffs, and a breast pocket with “V”-point stitching on the front.

Ace’s tie is made from the same shiny satin reverse side of the silk as his sky blue pocket square. He wears it tied in a four-in-hand knot with a perfect dimple below the knot.

There isn’t enough Mylanta in the world to deal with all of Ace’s problems.

Once he actually puts them on, Ace’s suit trousers are revealed to have a medium rise and a flat front, with a fitted waistband that extends across the front with a squared hidden-hook closure tab. The trousers also have frogmouth-style front pockets and slightly flared plain-hemmed bottoms with a full break that nearly dwarfs his shoes.

Casino does plenty to illustrate the mob as silk-suited interlopers in a land that the more “homespun” cowboy types consider to be their birthright. When Nevada born-and-bred county commissioner Pat Webb (L.Q. Jones) arrives for this terse meeting with Ace, the camera lingers just an extra moment on their feet. The men are shaking hands and looking each other in the eye, but Scorsese wants us to have this moment of appreciating both men for their slightly impractical footwear: Ace with his powder blue patent leather loafers and Webb with his snakeskin cowboy boots.

The men’s differences are as obvious as their choices in footwear.

With such a full break on his trousers, there’s no need for Ace to worry about matching his socks to continue the leg line, so he wears a pair of sheer silk beige socks that extend up to just below his knees.

Ace’s habit of working pantless reveals not only the height of his socks but also his choice in underwear, here a pair of cotton boxer briefs in a cool shade of light blue.

Ace Rothstein puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us… though he’s the sort of guy that would try to find a way to put on both legs at once.

Ace’s white gold jewelry and accessories perfectly echoes the aesthetic of his outfit, from the 14-carat ring on his right pinky with an emerald-cut aquamarine stone in a geometric polished shank to the 18-carat vintage Bueche Girod wristwatch with its blue square dial tri-sected by thin white gold bars.

“For my ulcer, I take a half of one of these! That’s when I have extreme pain… I had a three-month supply.”

This suit seems to get double the treatment on Ibraheem Youssef’s poster depicting all of De Niro’s tailored menswear over the course of Casino, reflecting both the suit’s first appearance as Ace is seen gifting a Rolls-Royce to “Jonathan and David” (a thinly veiled reference to Siegfried and Roy) as the third suit from the right on the third row and again for this scene in the center of the fourth row.

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

How to Get the Look

Ace Rothstein is hardly a conservative dresser, but that doesn’t mean he can’t find a way to incorporate his penchant for color into a more business-appropriate suit.

• Light blue, gray, and gold glen plaid (with coral overcheck) suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with fishmouth-notch lapels, welted breast pocket, wide-flapped slanted hip pockets, vestigal 1-button cuffs, and long double vents
  • Flat front trousers with frogmouth front pockets and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Sky-blue charmeuse silk dress shirt with long point collar, epaulettes, breast pocket, and single-button tab cuffs
• Sky-blue satin silk tie
• White gold 14-carat cuff links with half bezel set, emerald cut aquamarine stone
• Sky-blue patent leather apron-toe penny loafers
• Beige thin silk dress socks
• Light blue cotton boxer shorts
• Bueche Girod 14-carat white gold vintage wristwatch with blue square face on link bracelet
• White gold 14-carat pinky ring with emerald cut, geometric shank-set aquamarine stone
• Sky-blue satin silk display kerchief

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I appreciate the fact that he’s your brother-in-law… and I do want to help you and I like to do favors. I know who you are, but I cannot do that.

Harrison Ford as Han Solo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

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Harrison Ford as Han Solo, world-weary smuggler and former resistance leader

A Long Time Ago in Galaxy Far Far Away

Film: Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens
Release Date: December 18, 2015
Director: J.J. Abrams
Costume Designer: Michael Kaplan

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

With the upcoming release of Solo: A Star Wars Story this month, I’m honoring May the fourth with another look at everyone’s favorite intergalactic scoundrel.

Rey: You’re Han Solo?
Han Solo: I used to be.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens picks up three decades after we had left Luke, Leia, Han, and the gang celebrating the victory of the Rebel Alliance in Return of the Jedi. After the generally poorly received prequel trilogy, the auteurs helming this “sequel trilogy” knew that they had to give Star Wars fans what they wanted: namely more of Luke, Leia, and Han and absolutely no Jar Jar Binks.

Thus, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released to great fanfare, kickstarting the latest chapter in the Star Wars saga and bringing back original cast members Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford for an energetic installment that pays homage to its origins.

The film finds Han Solo having to the cynical smuggler he was when we first met him in A New Hope, albeit considerably older and less dismissive of the Force. Although Ford made it clear in pre-release interviews that “Han does not aspire to the position of Obi-Wan,” he essentially serves a similar role, connecting new characters with old stories and legends through his wizened recollections.

What’d He Wear?

“I wanted Han’s costume to feel familiar, since Harrison Ford is the same actor playing the same character,” explained costume designer Michael Kaplan in this January 2016 post from The Wookiee Gunner. “Of course he’s older, but he’s still in terrific shape. I wanted it to seem like Han was still choosing his own garb.”

“I tried to make him look as I thought Han would have evolved,” Kaplan elaborated to Entertainment Weekly. Indeed, The Force Awakens pays tribute to the classic “Han Solo look” developed by costume designer John Mollo for A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back in the 1970s.

Left: Harrison Ford in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), sporting Han’s iconic “Bespin outfit”. Right: Ford in Michael Kaplan’s “evolved” costume in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).

“Same jacket,” Leia notes upon their reunion on D’Qar. “No, new jacket,” Han insists, and it’s certainly new to viewers… though the idea of Harrison Ford as an adventurer in a brown leather jacket is anything but!

Han Solo had previously worn a jacket in The Empire Strikes Back, so this outfit continues that tradition by dressing the smuggler in a brown leather jacket that’s as time-worn as the character himself by this point in the saga.

Welcome back to the Millennium Falcon, Han.

The distressed leather jacket is waist-length with a standing collar and a unique front closure that appears to be magnetized with three rectangular cells evenly spaced out down the extended front tab. The cells at the collar and mid-chest are small horizontal rectangles, while the bottom cell is larger and more vertically inclined.

The set-in sleeves have plain cuffs at the ends with no hooks, tabs, or loops getting in the way as Han reaches for his blaster. Apropos his smuggling profession, the jacket is covered in pockets and other storage solutions, including hip pockets with straight openings on each side, a top-opening patch pocket on the right breast, and a small top-opening patch pocket at mid-chest on the left side.

On the jacket’s upper left breast are three vertical slots where Han keeps three silver-toned cylinders, though I don’t believe their purposes is ever explained (on screen, at least; they are described as “detonator casings” in the description of Anovos’ replica jacket.

Replicas of Han’s new jacket have been all over the place even before The Force Awakens was released, including a few on Amazon ranging in quality for this synthetic “leather” version for less than $60 to a somewhat better reviewed leather version priced around $160. (All prices as of May 2018.) Replicas like these tend to be better suited for cosplay or Halloween costumes rather than more substantial wear, though the “nerf-hide” jacket that will be available this spring from Anovos for $500 looks promising for those looking to make their daily attire a little more “scruffy-looking”.

If you want the real thing, you’d have to cough up a good bit more than three figures. After production wrapped on The Force Awakens, Harrison Ford’s screen-worn jacket was auctioned for $191,000 to raise money for epilepsy treatment and research, a cause chosen by Ford in honor of his daughter Georgia. You can read more about the auction here.

Han’s shirt also echoes his attire in the earlier films. The material appears to be an off-white cotton in a long-sleeved pullover style that shares more similarities to the simple beige v-neck shirt he wore in A New Hope rather than the double-breasted pullover tunic of the subsequent two movies. The shirt has a soft standing collar, similar to a tall Mandarin collar not meant to be fastened in place, with a fly placket similar to a henley shirt without buttons.

Rey (Daisy Ridley) considers her reluctantly offered job to be Han Solo’s mate on the Millennium Falcon.

Another substantial change was to Han’s cavalry-style trousers with the removal of the iconic “Corellian bloodstripe” down each side. Instead, these flat front trousers are a solid brown in a shade with a twinge of olive that contrasts with the jacket, boots, and belts. The trousers themselves are held up with a brown leather belt with a squared dark steel single-prong buckle.

Rey practices aiming the blaster offered to her by Han as BB-8 lurks in the background.

In addition to his trouser belt, Han is never seen without his utility belt and gun rig. The design is more or less the same as we saw in the original trilogy with a wide hexagonal modular buckle in gunmetal on the front and back that attaches his DL-44 blaster to a holster fastened to his right thigh, secured in place with a smaller strap just above his right knee. The utility belt has cartridge holders on the right side and a small leather pouch on the left side.

Evidently, Takodana is no place to venture unless one is well-armed.

Han wears a pair of well-worn brown pebbled leather equestrian-style boots that rise to just below his knees. A pair of very affordable Funtasma boots have been identified on Amazon as a cosmetic replica for Han’s boots, though the reviews seem to indicate “you get what you pay for” levels of quality.

BB-8 lurks behind Han on the Millennium Falcon.

On the snowy Starkiller Base, Han supplements his look with a heavy dark navy hooded parka with the same triple-loop cartridge holders on the upper left chest as he has on his leather jacket. The parka has taupe fur lining around the neck, set-in sleeves, and black latches that close the jacket down the front.

“That’s not how the Force works!”

Han completes his cold-weather look at the Starkiller Base with a beige scarf, tied in an over-hand knot.

Harrison Ford as Han Solo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

How to Get the Look

Star Wars: The Force Awakens dresses Han Solo in a natural evolution of his classic look, anchored by a brown leather jacket that adds a touch of Indiana Jones to this Harrison Ford character. With only some adjustments here and there, this very utilitarian outfit could translate well among your everyday attire in our more accessible galaxy.

• Brown distressed leather jacket with standing collar, magnetic front closure, upper right patch pocket, upper left triple-loops, side-opening hip pockets, and plain cuffs
• Off-white cotton pullover henley-style long-sleeve shirt with standing collar, front placket, and squared cuffs
• Brown cavalry flat front trousers with belt loops and elastic stirrup bottoms
• Dark brown leather belt with steel single-prong buckle
• Brown leather utility rig with wide hexagonal modular buckle and right-thigh holster
• Brown pebbled leather knee-high equestrian boots

The Gun

Han Solo has always remained a staunch advocate of “a good blaster at your side,” and The Force Awakens finds him armed with the same “BlasTech DL-44” heavy plastic pistol that he carried in the original trilogy.

The design was originally inspired by the Mauser C96 semi-automatic pistol developed for the German military around the turn of the 20th century. The “broomhandle” Mauser’s unique look made it a mainstay of movies and TV shows including The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Joe Kidd, Three Days of the Condor, and the James Bond franchise before three modified props were created by Elstree Props and/or Bapty & Co. for the original Star Wars trilogy.

Han with his DL-44 blaster… both in battle and preparing for it.

Chewbacca’s personal weapon is another cinematic firearm mainstay of the series that reappears in The Force Awakens. The official Star Wars site describes his bowcaster as “a traditional Wookiee weapon… hand-crafted on Kashyyyk [Chewie’s home planet] according to ancient methods.”

The site goes on to describe that “bowcasters are more powerful and accurate than blasters, firing a metal quarrel encased in plasma energy,” something that Han Solo discovers to his own delight when he borrows the weapon during the Battle of Takodana.

“I like this.”

Unlike the other firearm-based weapons of the Star Wars universe, Chewie’s bowcaster is based on a traditional crossbow… though it’s naturally meant to fire lasers rather than bolts. As you can read in this forum, internet detectives have narrowed down the original basis for Chewie’s weapon to likely be a skeleton-stocked crossbow made by the SinglePoint company in the U.K.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie as well as the original trilogy, to which this installment pays dutiful homage.

The Quote

Chewie… we’re home.

This was one of those moments that made it worth seeing the movie in theaters as the audience erupted in applause and cheers.

Roger Moore as James Bond in Live and Let Die (1973)

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Roger Moore as James Bond, debonair British secret agent

New York City, Spring 1973

Film: Live and Let Die
Release Date: June 27, 1973
Director: Guy Hamilton
Costume Designer: Julie Harris
Tailor: Cyril Castle

Background

Happy 00-7th of May! This month’s focus is on Sir Roger Moore’s debut as James Bond in Live and Let Die.

After a brief sequence that finds Bond briefed at his flat by M and Miss Moneypenny, we are treated to the standard “airport arrival” sequence established in Dr. No and From Russia with Love, creating a sense of continuity with the character if intentionally breaking from the prior characterization.

Though the plot is still generally following Ian Fleming’s 1954 source novel at this point, the New York City that greets Moore’s Bond is much different than the Big Apple that inspired Fleming. By the mid-1970s, the national economic crisis was hitting New York hard with drug use and crime on the rise, creating the urban “cesspool” that films like Taxi Driver made no bones about showcasing. Fleming’s story about smuggling gold coins got a shot of contemporary relevance in the arm by updating the villain’s business to drug trafficking, specifically heroin. The popularity of “blaxploitation” cinema like Shaft, Super Fly, Coffy, and Foxy Brown in the early ’70s was also taken into consideration, and the film tapped blaxploitation stars including Yaphet Kotto, Gloria Hendry, and Julius Harris to round out the ranks of Mr. Big’s criminal organization.

“I sure hope you make friends easy,” Bond is told by a cab driver dropping him off at the Fillet of Soul restaurant in Harlem, and – sure enough – our hero finds himself captured even more quickly than usual… though it’s ridiculous to see just how many people are unnecessarily tailing Bond.

Anyway… following a brief flirtation with Solitaire (Jane Seymour), 007 comes face to face with heroin kingpin Mr. Big (Yaphet Kotto). While swirling a glass of Jim Beam in his hand, Mr. Big unceremoniously condemns Bond to death at the hands of his henchmen…

James Bond: “There seems to be some mistake. My name is-”
Mr. Big: “Names is for tombstones, baby.”

Luckily, Bond is saved by CIA agent Harold Strutter (Lon Satton), who’d been one of the scores of people unnecessarily tailing him and seriously waited until the last possible second for this life-saving intervention.

What’d He Wear?

James Bond’s arrival in New York City was relatively uneventful when penned by Ian Fleming in his 1954 novel, but the cinematic Live and Let Die used the moment to establish the new 007’s fashion credentials. True, there would be a powder blue denim leisure suit just around the corner, but Mr. Bond’s arrival in New York sets an early gold standard for Roger Moore’s sense of fashionable elegance.

Bond’s navy double-breasted chesterfield coat, tailored suit, and regimental tie marks him as rather out-of-place and thus out-of-touch in early ’70s New York, but time has been much kinder to 007’s sense of style than its louder-dressed denizens with whom he interacts.

Bond steps out of John F. Kennedy International Airport, the same airport that Fleming had stipulated in the book (though it was called Idlewild at the time of the book’s publishing in 1954). It’s impressive that his coat remained in such immaculate condition after a transatlantic flight…

James Bond never removes or even unbuttons his luxurious navy blue wool Chesterfield coat throughout the scene. The coat’s softness and sheen indicates the possibility of cashmere, a theory advanced by British Esquire editor-in-chief Alex Bilmes in his tasteful tribute to Sir Roger’s tenure published by MR PORTER.

The double-breasted coat has wide peak lapels that sweep across his chest to a six-on-two button front with flat navy plastic sew-through buttons. While a velvet collar isn’t essential to qualify a coat as a Chesterfield, the dark navy velvet collar on this coat is an elegant touch that befits Sir Roger’s characterization.

The knee-length coat is somewhat shorter than a traditional Chesterfield, flattering Roger Moore’s height while also allowing Mr. Bond a greater degree of movement as he dangles and kicks his way across fire escapes and alleyways in his attempt to escape Mr. Big’s henchmen. The coat has straight hip pockets with large flaps, situated between the lowest two rows of buttons, with swelled edges that echo the lapels. The sleeves are semi-cuffed with a single button on the end of each. More can be read about this coat in the excellent illustrated analysis at Clothes on Film.

Bond never removes the coat, but the trousers and the glimpses we get under the coat’s long single vent reveal a similarly colored navy worsted suit. Interestingly, Ian Fleming would also include his first mention of his literary creation’s trademark navy suits in the third chapter of Live and Let Die, set shortly after Bond’s arrival in New York City:

The afternoon before he had had to submit to a certain degree of Americanization at the hands of the FBI. A tailor had come and measured him for two single-breasted suits in dark blue lightweight worsted (Bond had firmly refused anything more dashing)…

In his expert exploration of Roger Moore’s outfit, Matt Spaiser of The Suits of James Bond comments that this suit shares its cut with the light gray suit to follow when Bond checks into his San Monique hotel. Both suits were tailored by Moore’s preferred tailor at the time, Cyril Castle. The only other place this suit is seen on screen is the film’s opening gunbarrel sequence.

The opening of Live and Let Die established Roger Moore as the first James Bond actor to perform the iconic gunbarrel sequence without a hat.

Roger Moore poses with Live and Let Die castmates, from clockwise: Janey Seymour, Julius Harris, Geoffrey Holder, Earl Jolly Brown, and Yaphet Kotto.

The jacket’s double vents are the only part visible during the scene itself, though promotional photographs like the one to the right show details like the straight flapped hip pockets as well as the unique flared cuffs with a single link-button that was characteristic of Moore’s early ’70s Bond suits tailored by Cyril Castle.

The single-breasted suit jacket has notch lapels a touch wider than we’re used to seeing on Mr. Bond while still retaining classic proportions, the ideal balance of trendy vs. timeless. The lapels roll to a two-button front that neatly fastens at Moore’s waist.

Assuming that the trousers are similarly styled as Moore’s other suits in Live and Let Die, they would be darted – rather than pleated or traditionally flat-fronted – with button-tab side adjuster and only button-through back pockets.

The trousers’ gently flared plain-hemmed bottoms are seen on screen, breaking over a pair of black leather tassel loafers with slightly raised heels.

Bond’s black socks are an acceptable choice, though a navy or dark blue would better continue the leg line from the trousers… though with a classic outfit like this, who am I to criticize anything?

Although the filmmakers made a point of establishing Roger Moore’s James Bond as a charming, cigar-smoking contrast to his Scottish predecessor, Sir Roger’s 007 continues Sean Connery’s tradition of wearing a shirt detailed with distinctive “cocktail cuffs”, the two-button turnback cuff that combines the sophistication and prestige of double (French) cuffs with the functionality of a standard barrel cuff. The difference between the shirt cuffs worn by Connery and Moore is best explored by Matt Spaiser’s fascinating entry at The Suits of James Bond, offering knowledgable insights and perspective unavailable anywhere else.

Made by London shirtmaker Frank Foster, Moore’s pale blue cotton poplin shirt has a semi-spread collar and front placket. Sir Roger had been a client of Frank Foster’s for at least a decade before he took over the role of James Bond, and Foster’s shirts – including several made with cocktail cuffs – can be seen on Moore in episodes of The Saint and The Persuaders.

Bond is wary of a potential tail as he is chauffeured on FDR Drive into Manhattan.

If Moore’s shirt honored the Connery tradition, his striped tie was more of a revolution, marking the first time in the series that Bond doesn’t wear a single-color tie. Of course, it’s a quiet revolution as the subtle striping is actually the traditional regimental stripe of the British Royal Navy, nodding to Commander Bond’s branch of the military.

Bond’s navy tie has a widely spaced red-and-white stacked stripe pattern that follows the traditionally British “uphill” direction. Silk repp Royal Navy regimental ties can be found at retailers like Benson & Clegg, holder of the Royal Warrant to the Prince of Wales, and The Regimental Shop.

I know times have changed since 1973, but the Fillet of Soul has some of the best lunch prices out there, especially for New York City. 80 cents for a cheeseburger? Could be worth a trip on a rotating table.

The Fillet of Soul’s least popular customer flashes his Rolex before taking a nasty turn.

Bond’s Rolex Submariner gets little action here, though he no doubt would have tested its magnetic bullet-deflecting ability had agent Strutter not stepped in when he did! (It’s perhaps for the best that he didn’t get to as copper-jacketed lead bullets are in fact non-magnetic, and Mr. Bond would have been sorely disappointed.)

This Rolex Submariner is a classic ref. 5513, introduced the same year as Bond was introduced to the big screen, 1962. The watch is stainless steel with a stainless “Oyster”-style link bracelet, a black dial, and a black rotating bezel modified by production designer Syd Cain to operate as a miniature buzz saw should the need arise.

This Live and Let Die Rolex, described by Sir Roger himself as his personal favorite gadget, was included in an auction lot from Phillips Watches in November 2015, signed “Roger Moore 007” on the caseback. Additional images and info can be found at Watch Guru.

The final element of Bond’s wardrobe is a pair of black leather gloves, a stylish and practical choice to combat the chilly New York air as production commenced in the city during the early months of 1973.

What to Imbibe

James Bond: “Tell him ‘neat’, would you? No ice.”
The waiter: “That’s extra, man.”

Bond orders himself a bourbon-and-water at the Fillet of Soul in Harlem but never gets to drink it, disappearing into the wall as his waiter pockets Bond’s cash and downs his drink.

Given the choice, would you rather wear Bond’s navy Chesterfield or the zig-zag jacket of the gentleman seated at the bar?

Ian Fleming’s book features Bond drinking plenty of martinis during his mission in the States, though “the American gin, a much higher proof than English gin, tasted harsh to Bond.” However, the casting of Roger Moore meant 007 would need a new drink of choice to further differentiate him from his predecessors.

Instead of martinis, Moore’s Bond thus turned to bourbon for comfort in this inaugural outing, though he never gets to actually enjoy it, as his second attempt would be foiled by Felix Leiter’s insistence on ordering a Sazerac instead.

Bourbon had made a few appearances in Fleming’s Live and Let Die as well, such as Bond’s “quarter of a pint of Old Grandad [sic]” with a steak dinner in chapter 15, followed up with “a double Old Grandad [sic] on the rocks” in the following chapter when drowning his sorrows on behalf of Felix at two in the morning.

How to Get the Look

Roger Moore as James Bond in Live and Let Die (1973)

Roger Moore established his 007’s sense of sartorial sophistication and fashionable elegance with this timeless cold-weather ensemble that incorporates James Bond’s origins, his traditional military pedigree, and contemporary trends.

• Navy worsted suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, single-button flared cuffs, and double vents
  • Flat front trousers with 3-button side adjusters, back pockets, and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Pale blue cotton poplin shirt with semi-spread collar, front placket, 2-button turnback/”cocktail” cuffs
• British Royal Navy regimental striped tie with red-and-white thin stripes on navy silk ground
• Black tassel loafers with raised heels
• Thin black silk dress socks
• Navy cashmere wool double-breasted Chesterfield coat with wide peak lapels, dark navy velvet collar, 6-on-2 button stance, straight flapped hip pockets, semi-cuffed sleeves with vestigal button, and long back vent
• Black leather shoulder holster in blue nylon rig with black leather strap
• Rolex Submariner 5513 dive watch with black dial and black bezel on stainless “Oyster”-style link bracelet

The Gun

Live and Let Die may have implemented a few chances to James Bond’s characterization to make Roger Moore stand out from Sean Connery, but the 007 team wasn’t about to take the agent’s signature sidearm away from him… yet.

Bond carries a blued Walther PPK, likely chambered in .32 ACP with brown plastic grips, in a shoulder holster under his left armpit. Mr. Big’s henchman Tee-Hee (Julius Harris) retrieves the PPK, prompting Bond to remark that “you can’t be too careful in New York City these days,” and this was even before the whole Bernie Goetz thing!

Bond’s PPK in this scene was modified with a thinner metal frame from the trigger guard forward to make it easier for Tee-Hee’s hook to bend the barrel.

After Tee-Hee bends the barrel with his “butter-hook”, Bond promptly drops the presumably loaded pistol into Solitaire’s wastebasket… a bad idea as far as gun safety goes, but Bond’s situation is rather unique.

Tee-Hee hands Bond’s disfigured PPK back to him, which still seems like a bad idea for a villain’s henchman to do. Still, the risk pays off for Tee-Hee as Bond merely discards the still-loaded pistol in the trashcan.

Gloria Hendry, Roger Moore, and Jane Seymour in a promotional photo for Live and Let Die (1973)

Evidently, Bond was able to swiftly procure another Walther PPK before heading to San Monique later that day. Perhaps 007’s new CIA pal Lon lent his own PPK to make up for his late arrival on the scene of Bond’s near-execution.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

“Waste him”? Is that a good thing?

Footnote

Last year, I found an “Americanized” version of the Royal Navy regimental tie from Tommy Hilfiger with a slightly wider red stripe. I first wore it with this navy blazer and light blue shirt for an early summer function, hoping to subtle channel Sir Roger, though with the somewhat rakish addition of a red silk pocket square.

Navy wool blazer and light blue cotton shirt: Michael Kors
Tie: Tommy Hilfiger

Macy’s still carries a similar tie, though the stripes have been inverted with the thinner white stripe on top of the wider red stripe, still available here for $45.99 (as of early May 2018.)

James Stewart as John “Scottie” Ferguson in Vertigo (1958)

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James Stewart as John “Scottie” Ferguson, former San Francisco detective

San Francisco, Fall 1957

Film: Vertigo
Release Date: May 9, 1958
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Costume Designer: Edith Head

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today is the 60th anniversary of the release of Vertigo, Hitchcock’s noir-esque thriller and the last of his collaborations with James Stewart. Hitch blamed Jim for the film’s lack of success at the box office, but history would give Jim the last laugh as a 2012 reevaluation for BFI’s Sight & Sound led to a poll of critics choosing Vertigo as the greatest film of all time, beating out long-standing #1 choice Citizen Kane.

What’d He Wear?

As former San Francisco detective John “Scottie” Ferguson in Vertigo, James Stewart wears a rotating selection of business suits in shades of blue, gray, and brown. The suits are all generally cut the same – single-breasted, three-button jackets with notch lapels and pleated trousers with turn-ups – with variations in the suiting and style: three are flannel while two are serge, three have ventless jackets while the other two have short vents, and two of the suits have sporty patch pocket jackets as well.

With the exception of the somber death inquest, this bold royal blue serge suit serves as Scottie’s go-to “going out” suit for evenings at Ernie’s, whether he’s on a date or just drinking stag.

The single-breasted suit jacket has substantial notch lapels that roll to a three-button front. The shoulders are wide, balancing James Stewart’s lean physique, with a then-fashionable ventless back and three buttons at the end of the sleeves. This and the gray flannel suit he wears when rescuing Madeleine (Kim Novak) from the Fort Point bay are Scottie’s two suits with patch pockets on the jackets.

Three-button jackets are typically recommended for taller men, providing the perfect balance for a taller man like the 6’3″ James Stewart.

Pleated pants were back on the rise during the 1950s, and Scottie’s suit is no exception… and, speaking of rise, these trousers have a long rise that may be considered high by today’s standards but is perfectly proportional with the suit and Jimmy Stewart’s height, as the trouser waistband meets the jacket’s middle button right at the buttoning point.

Scottie wears his trousers with a slim textured belt that appears to be dark navy leather, even though traditional black leather would be more consistent with the character. The belt has a long, thin steel single-prong buckle.

Under the wide turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottom of his trousers legs, Scottie also appears to be wearing his usual cordovan wingtip derby brogues with a pair of dark navy socks.

Scottie strides into Ernie’s yet again.

Despite his colorful suits, sport jackets, and sweaters, Scottie never diverges from his usual white cotton poplin dress shirts with two-button rounded cuffs, though there is some variance as to his choice to wear a collar bar.

Up to the point of Madeleine’s death (I warned you about spoilers!), he always wears a collar bar with his shirts and ties. For this suit’s first major appearance, at the inquest following her death, he begins wearing his shirts without collar bars. It’s a subtle difference, but it must be a meaningful one as he again resumes his practice of wearing a collar bar in his shirt after making Judy’s acquaintance and growing obsessed with turning her into Madeleine.

At Madeleine’s death inquest, Scottie maintains a generally monochromatic look with a tie that appears to be blue cross-checks on a lighter cornflower blue ground. Perhaps symbolic of his distracted state of mind, he foregoes his usual collar bar and wears the tie’s tail slightly longer than the blade… a custom that has been co-opted by modern practitioners of sprezzatura.

Keeping things appropriately low-key and monochromatic for a death inquest.

Later, we see Scottie at Ernie’s, where he wears a solid crimson red tie.

Red, white, and blue for a solitary night of drinking.

After meeting Judy, Scottie returns with her to Ernie’s in the hopes of recreating his experiences with Madeleine. He even returns to wearing a collar bar as well as this striped tie that he had worn earlier. This silk tie is striped in red and alternating shades and thicknesses of gray in the “downhill” American direction of right shoulder-down-to-left hip. Scottie wears this tie with both a silver collar pin and a silver tie bar.

Keeping an eye on Madeleine, perched at the bar at Ernie’s. This was technically the first appearance of the suit, though it only made a single-shot appearance. He later wears the exact same thing in the same setting.

A brief vignette of Scottie dancing with Judy, prior to her Madeleine makeover, shows him wearing what appears to be a dark navy tie with thin, widely spaced white stripes in the same “downhill” direction.

“Enjoying” a dance with Judy, wearing a little-seen striped tie.

Scottie wears a subtle gold dress watch, secured to his left wrist on a black leather strap.

James Stewart as John “Scottie” Ferguson in Vertigo (1958)

How to Get the Look

James Stewart’s Scottie Ferguson showcases how dressing boldly can still be tasteful and traditional with this vivid blue serge suit, one of several suits that he rotates through over the course of Vertigo.

• Royal blue serge suit:
  • Single-breasted 3-button jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Single reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White poplin dress shirt with long point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and 2-button rounded cuffs
• Slim black leather belt
• Cordovan leather wingtip oxford brogues
• Dark navy socks
• Gold wristwatch with round case, black-ringed white dial, and black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

Robert De Niro as Sam in Ronin (1998)

Vitals

Robert De Niro as Sam, professional mercenary thief and ex-CIA operative

Nice, France, December 1997

Film: Ronin
Release Date: September 25, 1998
Director: John Frankenheimer
Costume Designer: May Routh

Background

I recently received a request to explore Robert De Niro’s outfit in Ronin when his ex-CIA thief Sam accompanies Deirdre (Natascha McElhone) on a recon mission in Nice. Deirdre has hired Sam’s crew to attack an armed convoy to steal an unidentified briefcase that would serve as the film’s MacGuffin.

Rather than bothering with spy cameras and tactics, Sam merely brings Deirdre and his Leica R6 2 camera to the luxurious Hôtel Barrière Le Majestic (actually located in Cannes), posing as a pair of tourists and thus not raising any suspicions as they take a considerable amount of photos to prepare for the job.What’d He Wear?

Sam wisely dresses for his reconnaissance mission with Deirdre, sticking to a relatively neutral two-color palette that helps him blend in among the tourists while still choosing luxurious items in interesting fabrics that allow him to fit into the elegant surroundings of a deluxe hotel in the French Riviera.

When he’s on the job and ready for action, Sam is typically outfitted in a rugged leather jacket, but he chooses here the softer napped reverse side. Sam’s single-breasted sport jacket is made from tobacco brown suede with notch lapels.

Sam goes full tourist with his Côte d’Azur guidebook.

The jacket has a seam around the waist, in line with the second button and the top of the straight flapped hip pockets. The jacket also has a horizontal shoulder yoke across the back, a welted breast pocket, padded shoulders, and a single back vent.

The sleeves are a touch too long with three well-spaced vestigal buttons that extend to the very end of each cuff. Like the two buttons on the front of the jacket, these three buttons are light brown plastic four-hole sew-through buttons.

Robert De Niro, making tourism cool again.

Turtleneck sweaters are a De Niro favorite in Ronin, from the charcoal merino turtleneck worn earlier with a heavy black wool coat to the maroon turtleneck he would wear for the film’s climactic action sequence.

In this scene, he wears a gray cashmere turtleneck sweater with thin ribbing on the neck, cuffs, and waistband. The material was confirmed by cashmere by the listing of this particular item, documented as #CP2540 in the Harry Ransom Center archives at the University of Texas-Austin.

A little more suspicious than the Leica in the hotel lobby, perhaps…

Sam echoes his established gray and light brown palette from the waist down with a pair of gray wool reverse-pleated trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms. They are likely worn with a belt – and my best guess would be a brown leather one – but the ribbed waistband of the turtleneck covers De Niro’s waistline throughout the sequence.

Sam wears a pair of chestnut tan leather tassel loafers with perforated medallion wingtips, similar to the classic Allen Edmonds “Manchester” slip-ons. Sam’s socks are dark gray ribbed cotton lisle, coordinating with the lighter shade of gray in the trousers to appropriately continue the leg line into his shoes.

Playing footsie.

Sam’s wristwatch has been identified as a vintage Jardur chronograph by The Watch Spot, a site dedicated to the restoration and repair of classic watches. The Watch Spot identified De Niro’s watch as the earliest Jardur Bezelmeter model, a Bezelmeter 950, “recognizable by the oval pushers and cathedral hands.” The watch has a stainless case, black dial, and is worn on a black leather strap with off-white stitched edges.

According to The Watch Spot, the watch was sourced from a Parisian watch dealer when production began in France. De Niro supposedly liked his character’s vintage Jardur so much that he kept it as a souvenir of the production.

How to Get the Look

Robert De Niro and Natascha McElhone in Ronin (1998)

Sam needs to be low-key but luxurious for his recon mission with Deirdre, wisely eschewing some of the bolder fashions one may see in the French Riviera in favor of a neutral, limited color palette with elegant but decidedly not flashy items like a light brown suede sportcoat, gray cashmere turtleneck, and ornately detailed tassel loafers.

• Tobacco brown suede single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, spaced 3-button cuffs, and single back vent
• Gray cashmere wool turtleneck sweater
• Gray wool reverse-pleated trousers with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Chestnut tan leather perforated medallion wingtip tassel loafers
• Dark gray ribbed cotton lisle socks
• Jardur Bezelmeter 950 vintage chronograph with stainless steel case, black dial (with 3 sub-dials), on black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Of course I’m afraid! You think I’m reluctant because I’m happy?

Footnote

The Hôtel Barrière Le Majestic is located along Boulevard de la Croisette in Cannes, France, rather than Nice as depicted in Ronin. Earlier this week, the legendary Cannes Film Festival kicked off its 71st annual event with Cate Blanchett serving as president of the jury and French actor Édouard Baer hosting.

Henry Fonda as the titular Lt.(j.g.) Doug Roberts in Mister Roberts (1955)

Vitals

Henry Fonda as Lt.(j.g.) Doug Roberts, U.S. Navy cargo ship executive officer

The Pacific Theater, Spring 1945

Film: Mister Roberts
Release Date: July 30, 1955
Director: John Ford, Mervyn Leroy, and Joshua Logan
Costume Designer: Moss Mabry

Background

On Henry Fonda’s birthday, I want to celebrate one of the actor’s most famous roles among a talented cast of some of my favorite actors: Jack Lemmon, James Cagney, and William Powell.

Lieutenant (junior grade) Doug Roberts is a pragmatic executive officer on USS Reluctant, a cargo ship far from the action in “the waning days of World War II,” as we learn during the film’s opening credits. Despite his popularity on “the bucket”, Lt. Roberts is itching to see some combat… and to get away from useless martinets like the ship’s strict captain (Cagney).

Fonda had originated the role on stage. The play Mister Roberts had opened on Broadway in February 1948, a few years after Fonda and his pal James Stewart returned from their own service in the war.

Like his character, Fonda had been commissioned as a Lt.(j.g.) in the U.S. Navy, serving on a destroyer on the South Pacific before receiving his commission as an officer with Air Combat Intelligence. In fact, both Fonda and his co-star Jack Lemmon (who would receive an Oscar for his role as the wily Ensign Pulver) were U.S. Navy veterans of World War II who ended their service with the same ranks as their respective characters.

What’d He Wear?

The United States military had begun implementing the dressed-down khaki shirt and trousers as an official uniform in the mid-1930s due to a request from the U.S. Army’s Panama Canal Department, where servicemen hoped for a comfortable alternative in the oppressive heat of the Panama Canal Zone. In April 1938, a khaki shirt and matching trousers made from 8.2 oz. cotton twill were authorized for duty, per olive-drab.com.

Modifications to the Army’s “Class C” khaki uniform continued to be made over the course of World War II, including the introduction of a convertible shirt collar (to be worn with or without tie) as well as the conversion to lighter weight 6 oz., then 5 oz., cotton fabric by war’s end.

The comfortable khaki uniform was adopted by other branches, including the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy, who had been borrowing USMC’s khaki uniform elements for USN aviators since 1913. By the time of American entry into WWII, the U.S. Navy had authorized the khaki shirt and trousers as an approved working uniform on all ships and submarines.

Jack Lemmon, James Cagney, Henry Fonda, and William Powell in Mister Roberts (1955). Each of theri characters here sports the tie-less service khaki uniform authorized by the U.S. Navy during World War II.

Three quarters of a century later, the Navy’s Service Khaki non-dress uniform for commissioned officers, chief warrant officers, and chief petty officers remains virtually unchanged from the World War II era with its flap-pocket khaki shirt with rank insignia on the collar, khaki trousers with gold belt buckle, and authorized khaki combination cover (or garrison cap) and black (or brown) oxfords. (One major difference: today’s non-dress Service Khaki uniform has a short-sleeved, rather than long-sleeved, shirt.)

As USS Reluctant is stationed in the South Pacific, Lt.(j.g.) Roberts is never seen in anything other than the khaki lightweight cotton twill shirt, even when his shipmates dress down in denim work shirts and dungarees. Roberts’ shirt has two patch pockets on the chest with mitred-corner flaps that close with a single button. The shirt has a front placket and single-button cuffs.

As authorized by the uniform code, Roberts wears his rank insignia on both leaves of the shirt’s point collar. The insignia for Roberts’ rank of lieutenant (junior grade) is a single silver bar, positioned vertically, similar to the equivalent O-2 grade of first lieutenant in the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Marine Corps.

Trying Doc’s concoction.

(If Roberts were in his blue or white service dress uniforms, he’d be wearing the insignia of a thin gold stripe above a wider gold stripe, positioned either on shoulder boards or the ends of his sleeves.)

Roberts wears flat front trousers ostensibly made from the same khaki cotton twill as the shirt. The trousers have belt loops, straight side pockets, jetted back pockets, and wide-legged plain-hemmed bottoms.

Doug Roberts on duty.

The trousers are worn with a matching web belt made from khaki cotton cloth with a plain gold-anodized brass slider buckle. Current regulations call for a 1¼”-wide belt for male officers, worn with the clip to the left of the buckle, and it’s likely that this was the same size belt worn by Roberts and his Reluctant shipmates.

LCdr. Morton (James Cagney) has little patience for his popular cargo chief.

Most of the time, Mister Roberts wears the classic “combination cap” with a khaki cotton cover to match the rest of his uniform. The hat has a black leather visor and gold lace 1/2″-wide “chinstrap” over the black mohair-braided cap band. The officer’s device on the front of the cap is a silver eagle with its wings spread, perched on a shield and turning to the right in alignment with the sword arm, superimposed over two crossed gold anchors. (More information about U.S. Navy headgear from WWII can be found here.)

For more rigorous workdays, Mister Roberts swaps out his more formal officer’s combination cap with a navy blue utility cap, styled like a baseball cap with a long brim. A smaller gold version of the eagle, shield, and anchors badge is pinned to the center of the crown, just above the brim.

I know that Navy service members of the era were authorized to wear utility caps in olive drab (OD-7) herringbone twill cotton to match their utility uniforms, but I’m not sure if this blue cap – which was definitely a standard by the time of the Vietnam War in the ’60s and ’70s – was seen during World War II.

When the crew is mustered to the deck in response to Roberts throwing LCdr. Morton’s prized tree overboard, Roberts wears an olive drab M1 helmet and a blue Kapok life vest with its distinctive neck floatation support.

U.S. military tradition encourages only members of the naval aviation community to wear brown service shoes with their service khaki uniforms. Thus, cargo chief Lt.(j.g.) Roberts wears a pair of classic black leather plain-toe oxfords with black socks.

A few words with Doc (William Powell).

Roberts wears a plain steel wristwatch with a round white dial on a dark leather strap. It may be one of the utilitarian models produced by Elgin and Hamilton for U.S. servicemen to wear during World War II.

Publicity photo of James Cagney and Henry Fonda in Mister Roberts (1955)

When the ship is docked for “liberty” on an island in the South Pacific, Roberts is assigned to remain on ship. As officer on duty, he wears a .45 in leather holster strapped to the right side of a thick khaki webbed gun belt. The weapon is never drawn, but it’s likely the standard M1911A1 semi-automatic pistol fielded by all U.S. military branches as an issued sidearm during World War II and through most of the 20th century.

Lobby card from Mister Roberts (1955), featuring Henry Fonda’s Lt.(j.g.) Doug Roberts armed with a .45.

Modern service khaki uniform regulations call for award ribbons to be worn above the left pocket on the shirt, though the only award that Roberts wears on his shirt is the one-of-a-kind “Order of the Palm”, created by the crew of the USS Reluctant as a parting gift to the popular officer.

Mister Roberts proudly accepts his one-of-a-kind recognition.

The “Order of the Palm” itself consists of a large gold palm tree device suspended from a teal ribbon with a single red diagonal “uphill” stripe, flanked by a thinner white stripe on each side.

What to Imbibe

After giving his bottle of Johnnie Walker to a port director and thus unwittingly leaving his bunkmate and pal Ensign Frank Pulver (Jack Lemmon) in the lurch, Roberts comes to a conclusion:

Doc, let’s make some Scotch… as naval officers, we’re supposed to be resourceful.

Luckily for the crew of the USS Reluctant, there may be no better man to have around in a crisis of booze than William Powell.

Doc takes the lead in mixing some discarded clear booze with Coca-Cola, which Pulver had kept among his stash of contraband items. Doc asks Pulver what shade their Scotch should be (“Pale? Smoky?”) and knows just how to proceed when Pulver responds with, “Well, I told her Red Label.”

The boys add iodine for taste – and what taste it is! – and “age it” with hair tonic. Do not try this at home.

Henry Fonda in Doug Roberts’ service khaki U.S. Navy uniform, dressed for the Broadway production of Mister Roberts prior to the 1955 film release.

How to Get the Look

Lt.(j.g.) Doug Roberts spent most of his days on the warm deck of USS Reluctant in the standard service khaki uniform that was popularized by U.S. Navy officers during World War II.

• Khaki cotton long-sleeve shirt with “convertible” point collar, front placket, two flapped patch pockets on chest, and single-button cuffs
  • Silver bar collar devices (denoting rank of Lieutenant junior grade)
• Khaki cotton flat front trousers with belt loops, straight side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Khaki cotton web belt with gold-anodized brass slider buckle
• Black leather plain-toe oxford service shoes
• Black socks
• Khaki cotton “combination cover” officer’s cap
• Steel watch with round white dial on black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I just happen to believe in this thing, and I wanna feel I’m good enough to be in it!

Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly in Reilly: Ace of Spies (Episode 6: “Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses”)

Vitals

Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly, shrewd British agent and anti-Bolshevik

St. Petersburg, Russia, October 1910, and
London, November 1918

Series: Reilly: Ace of Spies
Episodes:
– “Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses” (Episode 6), dir. Jim Goddard, aired 10/5/1983
– “After Moscow”(Episode 9), dir. Martin Campbell, aired 10/26/1983
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller

Background

Reilly: Ace of Spies fictionalizes the exploits of Russian-born spy Sidney Reilly, often cited as a real-life basis for Ian Fleming’s James Bond. While the showrunners must have been cognizant of the need to place their suave British secret agent in a tuxedo, the series’ narrative also coincided with the rise of the dinner jacket over the first quarter of the 20th century.

These waning years of the Edwardian era ushered in a relaxed dress code for men, evident through the rise of the lounge suit over the frock coat by day and the dinner jacket eclipsing full evening dress by night.

“Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses”, the’ sixth episode, concludes a two-parter highlighting Reilly’s activities in pre-revolution St. Petersburg. The year is 1910, and Reilly – ever the opportunist – seizes the moment to enrich himself while serving his country against a dangerous backdrop of battleships, mistresses, and trigger-happy Russians. The beginning of the two-parter found Reilly attending a formal ball in full white tie, but his more private evening escapades are conducted in a black notch-lapel dinner jacket.

The notch-lapel dinner jacket makes its next appearance in the aptly titled ninth episode “After Moscow”, set in November 1918 following Reilly’s return from a Russia plunged into violent revolution. The signing of the armistice to end World War I calls for a party, where comrades like the fiery Boris Savinkov join Reilly and his courtesan companion Alexandra the Plugger (Lindsay Duncan) to celebrate… and to plot the overthrow of Lenin’s Bolshevik government in Russia.

No one can say Sidney Reilly didn’t know how to throw a party.

The notch-lapel dinner jacket is a style that has sadly descended primarily into the domain of rental tuxedoes rather than continuing the tradition of its classic origins. Even modern style icons like George Clooney seem to have fallen prey to the “rental-style” dinner jacket with its standard notch lapel and two- or three-button front… essentially no more than a black suit jacket with silk accents. It’s this type of jacket that will be doling out by the dozens this weekend as American high schoolers head to prom. (I was one of said students 11 years ago this month when I wore a two-button notch-lapel rental jacket that was surely the pride of my local Tuxedo Junction.)

Despite the reasonable distaste that sartorial purists have for the notch-lapel dinner jacket, it’s worth noting that the “step-collar” has been an alternative option on dinner jackets since their genesis at the turn of the 20th century with shifting tides of popularity in the 1920s and 1960s (by no less than Sean Connery’s James Bond!) until it was standardized in the following decades as the cheap, easy-to-make, rental option with its multiple buttons and unspectacular fit.

What do you think? Do sartorial experts need to reclaim the potential elegance of a classic notch-lapel dinner jacket or should it remain in the domain of less tasteful tux-for-hire shops?

What’d He Wear?

When Sidney Reilly makes his first appearance in a dinner jacket, it is for dinner in a St. Petersburg restaurant with his friend and lawyer. In 1910, when this scene is set, the dinner jacket was making headway thanks to the loosened restrictions of Edwardian culture. The relative newness of the black tie dress code meant details like lapels, buttons, and proper accoutrements were in constant flux. The notch lapel, or “step collar,” struggled to find a place among early dinner jackets with a flash of popularity during the roaring twenties before it essentially vanished in 1930, not reappearing until the need for a less formal dinner jacket emerged during the relaxation of men’s dress codes in the ’60s.

Reilly’s black wool dinner jacket is single-breasted with a single-button closure. The notch lapels have black silk facings and a buttonhole through the left lapel, though he wears no accoutrement other than a white pocket square in his welted breast pocket.

Reilly sports a black wool notch-lapel dinner jacket for an evidently serious dinner with his friend and lawyer, Sasha Gramaticoff. The white pocket square only appears in “Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses” (Episode 6).

The size, shape, and low gorge of the notch lapels denote it as a garment more contemporary to the 1980s than its Edwardian setting. However, the dinner jacket is finished with otherwise timeless details like straight jetted hip pockets, three-button cuffs, and a ventless back. Both the single button on the front and the three buttons on the cuffs are covered in black silk to echo the lapel facings.

The sleeveheads are roped and the jacket is tailored with a shaped fit, consistent with the fitted profile that was popular throughout the 1910s.

Reilly the gentleman.

For this first appearance of black tie in “Dreadnoughts and Crosses”, Reilly wears a very straight and slim black bow tie shaped with such lack of curvature that it resembles merely a black neck band if one squints. This style of straight neckwear can be found on many photos of men sporting both black tie and white tie ensembles during this era.

Reilly’s waistcoat in 1910 Russia during “Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses” is white brocade silk with a low, V-shaped opening only slightly higher than the buttoning point of the dinner jacket. The full-bellied shawl collar rolls to the top of a single-breasted front with three self-covered buttons.

“Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses” (Episode 6). To the victor belong the spoils… and the cognac.

By 1918, World War I had so relaxed sartorial conventions that the full evening dress of white tie and tails was now relegated solely to the most formal events, promoting the dinner jacket to a gentleman’s standard eveningwear.

Though it’s now unfortunately a common practice at weddings and proms today, removing one’s dinner jacket in polite company was still a condemned practice 100 years ago. Luckily for Reilly, he’s in the less-than-polite company of his anti-Bolshevik associates (and Bolshevik assassin Adamson) when he slides out of his jacket for an impromptu conference in his kitchen.

The exposure reveals more of Reilly’s shirt and new black waistcoat in the scene. His white formal shirt has a stiff, detachable collar with short wings, two small silver-trimmed black-faced studs in the starched front bib, and squared single cuffs worn with plain, rounded-corner cuff links. Naturally, his bow tie is black but in a slightly curvier butterfly (thistle) shape. (Unfortunately, it’s a pre-tied bow tie with visible clasps.)

“After Moscow” (Episode 9). Reilly holds court in his kitchen.

Reilly’s black waistcoat is a significant departure both from his white waistcoat in the earlier Russia-set scenes as well as actual fashions of the era. According to the august Black Tie Guide, dinner jackets were more commonly worn with black waistcoats before World War I and white waistcoats became the norm after the war. The reasoning can be linked to the shifting dress codes. As black tie became the de facto formal evening wear option, the formality of the white waistcoat was borrowed from the white tie dress code to increase the tuxedo’s prestige without sacrificing its comfort.

Like its predecessor, the black formal single-breasted waistcoat has a low V-shaped opening, though a narrower shawl collar. The full back is finished in black satin with an adjustable strap to cinch the fit around his waist.

Reilly doesn’t break any new ground with his black formal trousers with side pockets positioned along the black silk side stripes. The bottoms are plain-hemmed in accordance with standard black tie style.

Reilly’s shoes are black patent leather oxford shoes, worn with black dress socks.

Savinkov and Reilly at the end of the night. Savinkov has loosened his tie but retained his jacket; Reilly’s bow tie remains in tact, though he had discarded his dinner jacket earlier in the evening.

Prior to World War I, men generally preferred traditional pocket watches while wristwatches remained within the female-oriented fashion domain. World War I changed the timekeeping game for gents, as officers and enlisted men returning from the front retained the efficiency of wearing easily synchronized timepieces on their wrists.

The Cartier Tank watch, Louis Cartier’s seminal wristwatch, sealed the pocket watch’s fate. With a design inspired by the new Renault tanks, the square-cased Cartier Tank entered full production following the war and soon became the watch of choice for men of elegance and sophistication like Rudolph Valentino, Fred Astaire, Duke Ellington, Clark Gable, and Cary Grant.

Cartier’s watch wouldn’t have been available to Sidney Reilly yet in 1918, but Sam Neill’s character certainly wears a gold tank watch with a white square dial on a dark leather strap.

Reilly’s formal outerwear is only seen with this jacket during the 1910 sequence in Russia during “Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses”, where he appears to be wearing a black wool Chesterfield coat with a single-breasted, three-button covered fly front and notch lapels with black silk facings. He completes the look with a black homburg and a white dress scarf, likely cashmere.

What to Imbibe

What else but champagne for a celebration? Especially for something as momentous as the armistice, Reilly breaks out the Moët for a party at his swank London pad.

Reilly tops off glasses for his spymaster chief Mansfield Smith-Cumming (Norman Rodway) and fellow agent R.H. Bruce Lockhart (Ian Charleson). The real Lockhart is often credited with keeping Reilly’s legend alive through the mostly fictionalized biography Reilly: Ace of Spies that formed the basis for this miniseries.

One hundred years after Reilly was popping bottles at his armistice party, Moët & Chandon remains a popular and prestigious champagne, producing approximately 28,000,000 bottles annually.

The French winery’s origins can be traced back to 1743, midway during Louis XV’s reign which saw an increased demand for sparkling wine. Wine trader Claude Moët smelled the potential and became the first vintner in the Champagne wine region to exclusively produce sparkling wine, becoming one of the few wine merchants accredited to serve the royal court. Its best-selling variety, featured here in Reilly: Ace of Spies among many other TV shows and films, is the dry and deep Moët & Chandon Brut Impérial.

How to Get the Look

Like any dashing British secret agent should, Sidney Reilly (Sam Neill) finds ample opportunities to dine, drink, and entertain while wearing impeccable black tie, including this notch-lapel dinner jacket worn with classic elements like a detachable wing collar shirt and shawl-collar waistcoat.

Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly in Reilly: Ace of Spies (Episode 9: “After Moscow”)

• Black wool single-button dinner jacket with silk-faced notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, silk-covered 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• White (or black) single-breasted formal waistcoat with shawl collar and low, V-shaped opening
• Black wool pleated formal trousers with silk side braiding, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White formal shirt with detachable short-wing collar, starched front, and single cuffs
  • Black shirt studs with silver trim
  • Plain cuff links with rounded corners
• Black bow tie
• Black patent leather oxford shoes
• Black dress socks
• Black wool single-breasted Chesterfield coat with silk-faced notch lapels and three-button covered-fly front
• Black homburg
• White cashmere dress scarf
• Gold tank watch with white square dial on dark leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series.

Cheers!

The Quote

I’ve run rings around you, Basil.

Lee Marvin and Sissy Spacek in Prime Cut (1972)

Vitals

Lee Marvin as Nick Devlin, mob enforcer

Kansas City (and Chicago), summer 1972

Film: Prime Cut
Release Date: June 28, 1972
Director: Michael Ritchie
Costume Designer: Patricia Norris

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

The beginning of Prime Cut follows a mysteriously packed package of meat as it journeys from Kansas City to Chicago, where it is received by Jake (Eddie Egan), the head of the Windy City’s Irish mob. The delivery’s significance is not lost on Jake, who promptly seeks out and recruits enforcer Nick Devlin (Lee Marvin) to head to Kansas and set things straight.

Nick’s target is Mary Ann (Gene Hackman), a brutal slaughterhouse operator who is in debt to the Chicago mob for half a million. Rather than pony up the $500,000, Mary Ann makes a habit of killing any man that Eddie sends his way. Of course, none of those men have been Lee Marvin.

Mary Ann promises Nick that he can collect the debt the following day at the Jayhawker Fair, where Nick confronts Mary Ann and his wife, Clarabelle (Angel Tompkins), Nick’s ex-lover.

Clarabelle: You haven’t changed a bit, Nick.
Nick: Well, nobody does. Not where it counts.

As promised, Mary Ann hands over a package for Nick, though the latter quickly discovers that it contains nothing more than beef hearts. The double-cross alerts Nick to his own danger, and he takes off, hand-in-hand with Poppy (Sissy Spacek), a young woman that Mary Ann had intended to auction into prostitution.

Despite Nick being humorously mistaken for a milk expert, the fair turns into a twisted North by Northwest-like adventure as Nick and Poppy narrowly escape from the claws of a combine harvester chasing them through a cornfield.

Roger O. Thornhill sympathizes.

“I’m sorry it was a lousy fair,” Nick deadpans to Poppy.

What’d He Wear?

For both his first scene in Chicago and the Kansas fair that leads to the film’s bloody and beefy finale, Nick Devlin wears a beige gabardine suit, similarly detailed and styled to the light gray suit he wore for his arrival in town. The suit turns out to be a fortuitous choice for the day with its neutral color helping Nick and Poppy hide int he cornfields after being chased from the Jayhawker Fair by Mary Ann’s shotgun-wielding henchmen.

The suit’s details are very specific to the decade with the jacket’s wide notch lapels, hacking hip pockets, and extra long double vents that extend at least a foot. The single-breasted jacket has a two-button front and two vestigal buttons spaced out on each cuff. The jacket is cut with roped sleeveheads and a suppressed waist.

Nick Devlin tries his hand at judging milk.

The flat front suit trousers have a medium rise with tall belt loops, “frogmouth”-style front pockets like one would find on a standard pair of jeans, set-in back pockets with flaps, and slightly flared plain-hemmed bottoms.

Nick and Poppy take off through the cornfield.

Although common practice is for one to match his belt to his shoes, Nick Devlin’s belt is actually a closer match to his shirt and tie. The belt is made from medium brown leather with a large, asymmetrical gold buckle with an exposed single prong and an extended gold circle filled with red enamel.

In a way, the effect of the red tie and the red dot on the belt buckle is similar to an exclamation point!

The debonair Nick Devlin.

Nick’s brown shirt for the Jayhawker Fair is covered in a field of beige dots.

Nick wears a brown shirt in Kansas that calls out the earthy beige suiting.

This shirt has a large point collar, a unique covered fly front, and a breast pocket with V-shaped stitching. He wears a maroon satin silk tie, tied in a long four-in-hand knot. The tie has a wide blade in accordance with the era’s trends.

Before… and after. Note the unique details of Nick’s shirt, including the long point collar, covered fly front, and breast pocket. Any idea about the tie maker from the visible – albeit blurry – tag?

Through the shirt’s double (French) cuffs, Nick wears a pair of large, round gold ridged cuff links.

Nick’s shoes appear to be a very dark brown pair of textured leather derby shoes with squared apron toes. He wears them with dark brown cotton lisle socks.

But first…

For the suit’s earlier appearance in Chicago at the opening of the film, Nick wears a point-collar shirt with red spaced stripes that barely contrast against the salmon shirting. He wears another red tie in a long four-in-hand knot, although this tie is made from a bolder and brighter scarlet satin.

Red on red for his briefing in Chicago.

Lee Marvin and Sissy Spacek in Prime Cut (1972)

How to Get the Look

Lee Marvin’s Nick Devlin in Prime Cut is an unapologetically bold dresser.

• Beige gabardine suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, slanted flapped hip pockets, spaced 2-button cuffs, and long double vents
  • Flat front trousers with tall belt loops, frogmouth front pockets, flapped set-in back pockets, and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Brown shirt covered in beige micro-dots, with large point collar, covered fly front, breast pocket, and double/French cuffs
  • Gold ridged disc cuff links
• Maroon silk tie
• Brown leather belt with extended gold single-prong buckle with red enamel circle
• Dark brown textured leather squared apron-toe derby shoes
• Dark brown cotton lisle socks

The Gun

For the finale, Nick Devlin arms himself with a Smith & Wesson M76 submachine gun, an American-made copy of the older Swedish-made Carl Gustav m/45 originally intended for use by U.S. Navy SEALs. Like the m/45, the S&W M76 was chambered in 9×19 mm Parabellum ammunition that was fed through box magazines that can hold up to 36 rounds.

The M76 was only manufactured from 1967 through 1974 and quickly became a mainstay of action movies throughout the decade including The Omega Man (1971), The Getaway (1972), Magnum Force (1973), Walking Tall (1973), The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 (1974), and Dog Day Afternoon (1975).

Publicity photo of Lee Marvin aiming a Smith & Wesson M76 submachine gun in Prime Cut.

In the early years of the Vietnam War, U.S. Navy SEAL teams were often armed with the Carl Gustav m/45 submachine gun for covert operations in southeast Asia. As the nation was opposed to the American presence in Vietnam, Sweden placed an embargo on providing arms to the United States. In response to the embargo, Smith & Wesson cloned and modified the Swedish m/45 design to develop the open bolt Model 76, which went into production in 1967.

However, was too late for usage to catch on among Navy SEAL teams as intended, and produced ceased after only seven years.

Nick Devlin turns to his S&W M76 as he prepares for battle with Mary Ann’s henchmen.

Smith & Wesson designed the M76 to be inexpensive to produce in mass quantities like its spiritual predecessor, the M3 “Grease Gun”. As he did with his M3 in The Dirty Dozen, Lee Marvin’s character “jungle tapes” two magazines for his Smith & Wesson M76 to ease the reloading process. When one magazine has expended its live ammunition, all Nick needs to do is eject it, flip it around, and reinsert it with the fresh magazine ready to go.

Note the jungle-taped magazines.

You can learn more about the history and the screen appearances of this unique weapon at IMFDB.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Was he a good guy? Then bury him!

Domenic Cooper as Ian Fleming in the first episode of Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond (2014)

Vitals

Dominic Cooper as Ian Fleming, former British Secret Service agent and aspiring author

Goldeneye, Jamaica, March 1952

Series: Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond
Episode: Episode 1
Air Date: January 29, 2014
Director: Mat Whitecross
Costume Designer: Caroline Harris

Background

This Monday, May 28, marks the 110th birthday of Ian Fleming, the author who created James Bond based on his own experiences in British naval intelligence during World War II. Fleming’s works have famously been adapted to the screen in one of the most successful film franchises to date, while the man’s own life has been adapted a few times as well.

Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond, is the most recent visual retelling of Fleming’s life, focusing on the period of 1938 to 1952 that included Commander Fleming’s service in the British Naval Intelligence Division during World War II and much of the gambling, girls, and gin that would become a hallmark for both Fleming and his fictional creation.

The real Ian Fleming at Goldeneye, sporting attire that no doubt inspired costume designer Caroline Harris as she developed Domenic Cooper’s outfit at Goldeneye.

After being a bachelor for 44 years, I was on the edge of marrying and the prospect was so horrifying that I was in urgent need of some activity to take my mind off it. So, as I say, my mental hands were empty and although I am as lazy as most Englishmen are, I have a Puritanical dislike of idleness and a natural love of action. So I decided to write a book.

– Ian Fleming, 1956

The first episode begins as Fleming puts his finishing touches on Casino Royale, both the first James Bond book as well as Fleming’s own first novel. Though he’d had experience writing as a journalist, Fleming had long told friends that he wanted to write a spy novel. His upcoming marriage to Ann O’Neill, née Charteris, provided the impetus for the nervous groom-to-be to channel his anxiety into his ambition.

“I know what you’re doing,” announces Ann (Lara Pulver) as she finds Fleming outside at the opening of the series. “Can’t bear the thought of being married, so you’re taking it out on that poor, bloody machine.” She voices her dislike for Bond, “a sadistic brute,” though she can’t help but note that her fiancé equipped said brute with his own golf handicap and drinking preferences.

“He’s not me,” insists Fleming.

“You as you’d like to be,” corrects Ann. “Your fantasy… is that who he is?”

“Not exactly,” Fleming responds.

Fleming began writing Casino Royale on the morning of February 17, 1952, completing his manuscript in less than a month, just in time to marry Ann on March 24. The rest is history.

What’d He Wear?

We all know Mr. Bond often wore Sea Island cotton shirts in Fleming’s novels, though the miniseries places Ian himself in what appears to be a navy linen shirt while penning Casino Royale in Jamaica.

Of course, linen is an ideal choice for a warm tropical climate like one may encounter in Jamaica, though some Bond style purists would have likely preferred to have seen the character’s creator in the Sea Island cotton that was so extolled in his books. After all, we do hear about “a sleeveless dark blue Sea Island cotton shirt” in chapter 11 of From Russia With Love as well as references to the same in Moonraker and Thunderball.

Cooper’s navy linen shirt as Fleming shares much in common with shirts worn by the real Ian Fleming, including the notched camp collar, baggy half-sleeves, and breast pocket. The back is pleated on the sides. The shirt closes with big black plastic sew-through buttons up the plain front, with the highest button undone at the chest.

“What shirt should Bond wear?” Fleming asks himself. He then looks down at his own garb, and eureka, a dark blue Sea Island cotton shirt it is!

As Fleming wears his shirt untucked and spends much of the scene behind a desk, we don’t see much of his shorts except to discern that they appear to be a slightly darker shade of navy than his shirt. They are likely also linen.

As Ann pulls Fleming onto the bed for something arguably more fun than being hunched over a typewriter, we get a look at his espadrilles. Fleming had specified “rope-soled shoes” for Bond to wear in Dr. No, set not far from the Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, so it’s reasonable to assume that the author himself sported this comfortable warm-weather footwear while penning his secret agent’s adventures. Check out what I wrote for Primer last summer about espadrilles here.

The canvas uppers of Fleming’s espadrilles appear to be black with two black eyelets for black laces. The outsoles are braided rope. If you’re looking for a similar pair for yourself, Ben Sherman’s “Prill Oxford Sneaker” on Amazon looks like a reasonable option for shoppers looking in the $50 to $70 range.

Who would Bond be without his watch of course? Throughout the series, Fleming wears a military-style wristwatch with a squared steel case and a round black dial with yellow Arabic numerals. The watch is fastened to his wrist on a well-worn brown leather strap.

Ian and Ann celebrate the completion of his first novel.

Go Big or Go Home

…or, better still, go to Fleming’s home!

As James Bond became an international phenomenon, there emerged an obvious interest in sojourning to the place he was created.

“Would these books have been born if I had not been living in the gorgeous vacuum of a Jamaican holiday? I doubt it,” Fleming is quoted on the official site for The Fleming Villa in Orcabessa Bay, Jamaica.

Fleming had first visited Jamaica in 1942 for an Anglo-American intelligence summit, and he immediately fell in love with the lush island nation. After the war, his friend Ivar Bryce helped him find a plot of land in Saint Mary Parish in northeast Jamaica. Fleming sketched a design for a three-bedroom home with jalousie windows and a swimming pool, and the structure was built in 1946 overlooking a private cliff. Adjacent to Ruth Bryan Owen’s Golden Clouds estate, Fleming took a cue from one of his wartime operations and named the estate “Goldeneye”.

Fleming’s mistress Ann Charteris had married Conservative politician Lord Rothermere in June 1945, but she spent much of the seven years of her marriage visiting Fleming at his Goldeneye home until she finally divorced Lord Rothermere and married Fleming in 1952.

Ann (Lara Pulver) looks over Fleming’s manuscript in Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond. Note the three rings on Fleming’s cigarette, a personal trademark that he would also pass along to 007.

Of course, Ian Fleming made it very easy to copy his lifestyle by conspicuously passing along each detail to James Bond.

“He lit his first cigarette, a Balkan and Turkish mixture made for him by Morlands of Grosvenor Street,” wrote Fleming in the fourth chapter of Casino Royale. “…he filled a flat, light gunmetal box with fifty of the Morland cigarettes with the triple gold band,” included the description in chapter 8. Most of the subsequent books continue to add detail about Bond’s smoking habits, always naturally echoing the sixty-cigarette-per-day Fleming’s own preferences. (As an Easter egg for Bond fans, there are several instances in Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond where we see Fleming’s packet of cigarettes clearly identified from Morland & Co.)

Why three gold bands? This cosmetic addition is almost certainly a reference to Fleming’s – and, thus, Bond’s – rank in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, where a Commander’s rank is denoted by three gold ribbons on the end of his or her sleeve.

Ian Fleming would no doubt be proud of this visual representation of his life. The typewriter here is an Optima Elite 3, as the author had yet to purchase his infamous golden Royal.

Five months after he completed the first manuscript of Casino Royale, Fleming rewarded himself with the purchase of a gold-plated Royal Quiet Deluxe typewriter. A collection of his typewritten communications is now marketed in the aptly named and essential volume The Man with the Golden Typewriter.

Domenic Cooper as Ian Fleming in the first episode of Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond (2014)

How to Get the Look

Domenic Cooper channels a warm-weather look often worn by the real-life Ian Fleming, the perfect warm-weather getup for sitting by the sea and penning the adventures of a sophisticated secret agent.

• Navy linen short-sleeve shirt with notched camp collar, plain front, breast pocket, and back side pleats
• Dark navy linen shorts
• Steel military-style watch with round black dial (with yellow Arabic numerals) on brown leather strap
• Black canvas two-eyelet rope-soled espadrilles

Though not quite an affordable alternative, 007-friendly brand Sunspel offers a nearly identical shirt, sans breast pocket, in Fleming’s preferred Sea Island cotton for $270. For obvious reasons, the shirt is marketed as part of Sunspel’s Ian Fleming Collection.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, and consider living the Ian Fleming lifestyle at Goldeneye!

Robert Redford as Jack Weil in Havana (1990)

Vitals

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

Havana, December 1958

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

Background

As Memorial Day is often considered the start of the American summer fashion season, today’s post explores an example of timeless warm-weather apparel sported by Robert Redford in Havana.

Havana, Sydney Pollack’s 1990 ode to Casablanca, stars Redford as a cynical American gambler who finds romance in the Cuban capital on the eve of the country’s revolution. The object of his affection is Roberta “Bobby” Duran (Lena Olin), a revolutionary sympathizer who is forced to determine if her heart remains with her husband and the revolution or the chance of a life in America with Redford’s Jack Weil.

What’d He Wear?

Jack Weil’s wardrobe of flashy suits and silk sport jackets are ideal for a smooth professional gambler making the rounds of poker tables in late 1950s Havana. However, one of Jack’s most timeless and accessible outfits is briefly seen over the course of a few daytime scenes as he meets with casino boss Joe Volpi (Alan Arkin) and begins making arrangements to secure Roberta’s escape from Cuba.

Jack’s single-breasted jacket is light cream linen, appearing on screen to be just a few shades warmer than pure white, and was custom made for the production by Western Costume Company. The ventless jacket is cut consistent with Robert Redford’s other tailored wear in Havana as well as trending ’50s styles with wide, padded shoulders, roped sleeveheads, and narrow notch lapels that roll to a low two-button stance as well as sporty patch pockets on the left breast and both hips.

Jack’s light blue cotton shirt was made by Anto Beverly Hills, then known as Nat Wise of London, who has created shirts for Robert Redford since the early years of his career. This shirt’s point collar is less distinctive than Jack’s other shirts with their large curved “Mr. B.” collars. The shirt has a wide front placket with mother-of-pearl buttons, a breast pocket, and button cuffs that he unfastens when he rolls up his sleeves after removing the jacket.

As an alternative to more commonly seen khaki trousers, Jack wears a warmer, darker shade of tobacco brown slacks. These reverse-pleated trousers have belt loops dropped about a quarter-inch from the top of his waistband, where he wears a 1″-wide dark brown leather belt with a gold rectangular “box-out” covered buckle. His trousers have side pockets and are finished with turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms.

A benefit of wearing darker trousers in warm weather? A reduced likelihood of sweat showing in “inconvenient” places. (Though you take the chance of darker fabric absorbing more sunlight and thus increasing the chance of sweating to begin with!)

Spectator shoes aren’t for everyone, but Jack Weil is the type of dresser who owns not one but two pairs of these two-tone lace-ups. With this outfit, he wears the more “subtle” spectator shoes, a pair of Bragano five-eyelet wingtip oxfords in walnut brown leather and tan nubuck that he also wore previously with his tan gabardine suit.

Little is seen of his hosiery, though auction listings for the outfit describe an unfortunate choice of black socks. Brown would have been a more visually appealing choice of socks, coordinating with the warmer tones of the outfit while also continuing the leg line from his brown trousers.

Jack Weil in his natural habitat… though the juxtaposition of Christmas decorations with such a classic warm-weather outfit could be seen as a bit unnatural.

Jack wears a pair of large gold-framed aviator sunglasses with dark lenses, which I’ve read were made by Ray-Ban. Originally developed for American military pilots in the late 1930s, the aviator is a suitable choice for Jack Weil with his military background and adventurous spirit.

Per the traditional image of a successful gambler, Jack wears gold jewelry and accessories. Havana is one of the few Robert Redford movies where the actor doesn’t wear his signature silver ring that he received as a gift from the Hopi tribe in the late ’60s, instead only wearing a gold signet ring on his right pinky. Jack’s watch is also yellow gold with a round gold dial and a flat gold bracelet.

The hell of it is that he’ll never be able to get those bloodstains out of his white linen jacket.

Robert Redford’s costume as Jack Weil in Havana (1990), sourced from Julien’s Auctions.

In November 2015, the whole outfit was auctioned by Julien’s Auctions with additional descriptive notes and photos.

How to Get the Look

When not sporting flashy colored silk or boldly printed ties, Robert Redford’s Jack Weil showcases a unique example of warm-weather business casual, incorporating subtle flair with classic menswear staples.

• Cream linen single-breasted two-button sport jacket with patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, ventless back
• Light blue cotton shirt with point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Tobacco brown reverse-pleated trousers with dropped belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Dark brown leather belt with gold rectangular closed buckle
• Brown two-tone leather five-eyelet wingtip spectator oxfords
• Black cotton lisle socks
• Gold wristwatch with round gold dial on flat bracelet
• Gold signet pinky ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie… and dig those white jackets and pants out from the back of your closet!