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Gregory Peck’s Duffel Coat in The Guns of Navarone

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Gregory Peck as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Gregory Peck as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Vitals

Gregory Peck as Captain Keith Mallory, experienced Allied spy and mountain climber

“Navarone Island”, Greece, Fall 1943

Film: The Guns of Navarone
Release Date: April 27, 1961
Director: J. Lee Thompson
Wardrobe Credit: Monty M. Berman & Olga Lehmann

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

After leading his scrappy team of British Army commandos through Greece, Captain Keith Mallory finds himself at the crucial point of his mission, the infiltration of an enemy fortress on the fictional Navarone Island. Mallory and his team had been briefly detained in Mandrakos, where they turned the table on their Nazi captors and stole the German military uniforms to provide them ideal cover as they sneak into the fortress and disable the guns and, ideally, escape with their lives.

Mallory and the cheeky Corporal Miller (David Niven) breached the island while still dressed as officers of the Heer and Waffen-SS, respectively, but abandon the enemy uniform tunics to complete their heroic task in nondescript shirt sleeves. The job complete, Mallory and Miller bundle up in duffel coats and share a smoke on the deck of a British destroyer returning them to safety, ostensibly for their next mission.

THE GUNS OF NAVARONE

Corporal Miller: To tell you the truth, I didn’t think we could do it.
Captain Mallory: To tell you the truth, neither did I.

What’d He Wear?

In Dressing the Man, Alan Flusser defines the duffel coat as “a three-quarter length, loose-fitting coat with a hood fastened with loops and toggles of wood or horn.” Apropos the maritime nature of the mission’s conclusion, the duffel coat derives its name from the Belgian seaport town in Antwerp where the coarse, heavy woolen fabric originated in the early 19th century. By the 1890s, it had been adopted by the British Royal Navy, who issued these “convoy coats” in a camel shade of khaki through both major world wars. Though it was fielded and authorized to a greater degree by the RN, the duffel coat maintains its association with one of the most famous British Army officers, Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, resulting in its “Monty coat” nickname. Original Montgomery, self-described as “the oldest surviving company chosen by the British Admiralty in the early 1890s to make the first duffle coats,” still offers its original toggle coat design more than 120 years later, albeit in a blend of 70% Italian wool and 30% polyester as opposed to the locally sourced wool construction of the earliest British military duffels.

For other modern and affordable alternatives to the duffel coats worn in The Guns of Navarone, I recommend exploring the latest article from Iconic Alternatives.

By the time production was rolling on The Guns of Navarone, the hard-wearing duffel coat had evolved from its military origins to become a popular campus staple on both sides of the Atlantic. Thus, it served both fashion and function to dress Gregory Peck and David Niven in duffel coats—no doubt supplied by their Royal Navy brethren—when keeping warm aboard a British destroyer following the successful completion of their mission.

THE GUNS OF NAVARONE

Peck and Niven wear matching khaki duffels that appear to be made from genuine duffel, the coarse, double-woven woolen cloth that originated in Belgium as opposed to the softer Melton cloth used on many modern duffel coats. Each have the jacket’s signature oversized hood, so designed to accommodate naval headgear, if needed.

The shoulders are reinforced with a horizontal yoke that extends down each front side of the coat, just below the first toggle. There are four double-braided hemp fastenings, extending from the left side to connect with corresponding wood toggles on the right. The set-in sleeves are roomy through the arms with a wide strap at each cuff that fastens onto one of two traditional sew-through buttons (rather than toggles). The coats have two large patch pockets at hip level, just below the lowest toggle on the front.

Two pros celebrate a job well done.

Two pros celebrate a job well done.

The coat replaces the German uniform tunic that Mallory had worn for the latter stages of his mission, taken earlier from Oberleutnant Muesel (Walter Gotell). As Muesel was an officer of the Heer, he wears the traditional wool gabardine field uniform in feldgrau (“field gray”), the distinctive greenish-gray color associated with the various German armed forces from the start of the 20th century through World War II.

The standard Wehrmacht feldbluse (field tunic) was modified several times throughout the war, often to simplify manufacturing, though Muesel’s tunic appears to be an original Model 1936 with its five-button front and the bottle green felt collar for the traditional double-braided “litzen” collar patches. All four pockets are box-pleated with a single-button flap, though the squared corners of the flaps differ from the scalloped flaps common to most pre-1943 uniforms. Above the right breast pocket, Muesel wears the standard Wehrmachtsadler (“armed forces eagle”) of a gold silk-embroidered eagle clutching the a wreath against a bottle green ground, though the filmmakers seem to have replaced the infamous Nazi swastika that would have been inside the wreath with a different design.

Muesel’s rank, Oberleutnant (“Senior Lieutenant”) is roughly equivalent to the NATO OF-1a grade, which translates to Lieutenant in the British Army and First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. The rank insignia is worn on the epaulettes (shoulder straps), denoted by a single gold star on a gray-braided shoulder board with the plain white piping suggesting that Oberleutnant Muesel was an infantry officer.

Captain Mallory seemingly demotes himself to a Lieutenant after appropriating Muesel's uniform.

Captain Mallory seemingly demotes himself to a Lieutenant after appropriating Muesel’s uniform.

Mallory also takes Muesel’s wide black patent leather belt, worn outside the tunic and closing through a double-prong buckle in a gold finish (possibly an error, as I believe gold belt buckles were reserved for generals while officers below them wore silver-toned belt buckles.) Mallory wears Muesel’s dark brown leather holster for his Mauser 1934 “pocket pistol” attached to the belt.

Naturally, Mallory completes the look by donning Muesel’s Schirmmütze (peaked cap) with a feldgrau wool cover to match the uniform, piped in white Waffenfarbe to indicate Muesel’s infantry service with a gold-embroidered eagle at the top of the crown. The bottle green fabric band is decorated with the silver-embroidered oak leaf wreath and cockade insignia and silver-braided bullion indicating Muesel’s status as a field-grade officer, and the cap is finished with a shiny black patent leather visor.

Mallory's team outfits themselves with their new disguises.

Mallory’s team outfits themselves with their new disguises.

Throughout the mission, Captain Mallory wears a long-sleeved khaki shirt with point collar, epaulettes, and button cuffs. The box-pleated chest pockets each close with a single-buttoned flap.

The shirt more closely resembles what Mallory wore with his off-white linen suit during the opening scenes than anything issued by the German Army during World War II, so it’s likely that the Allied captain wears his own shirt as it would be completely covered when he correctly buttons the uniform tunic over it anyway.

Mallory ditches the German uniform tunic once the job is underway. We can't have our heroes saving the day in enemy uniforms!

Mallory ditches the German uniform tunic once the job is underway. We can’t have our heroes saving the day in enemy uniforms!

In 1940, the Heer began issuing feldgrau uniform trousers to match the tunics as opposed to the contrasting steingrau (“stone gray”) trousers that had been issued by the Reichswehr since 1922. Even after he discards the tunic, Captain Mallory continues wearing the uniform’s flat front trousers, which are fitted with buckle-tab side adjusters on the waistband and are finished with plain-hemmed bottoms. The only pockets are the frogmouth-style front pockets.

Mallory wears tall russet leather lace-up boots, likely standing in for the Schnürschuhe (“lace-up shoes”) that had been issued by the German Army since 1937 and had effectively replaced the Wehrmacht’s infamous jackboots by 1943. Worn with light gray socks, Mallory’s ten-eyelet boots are closed-laced, oxford-style, with a cap toe and a slightly higher rise than the ankle-high Schnürschuhe boots.

THE GUNS OF NAVARONE

As he and Miller plan to infiltrate the fortress, Mallory checks the time on his Gruen Precision wristwatch. The Gruen Watch Company’s founder, the German-born Dietrich Grün, had been making timepieces since the 1870s and finally founded a company under his own name in 1894, becoming one of the first U.S. watchmakers to offer basic Swiss movements. Gruen introduced its wristwatches in 1908, around the time that they were mostly fashionable for women as they had another decade to grow in popularity among men. The construction of the Precision Factory in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland, led to the development of the Gruen Precision, using the highest-quality movements the company had to offer.

Mallory’s steel Gruen Precision watch has a round silver dial with Arabic number markers and is worn on a brown leather strap.

Five seconds to 10:00... or 2200 hours, if you will.

Five seconds to 10:00… or 2200 hours, if you will.

The Gun

You got me in the mood to use this thing, and by God, if you don’t think of something, I’ll use it on you!

When Captain Mallory takes Oberleutnant Muesel’s uniform, he also commandeers the officer’s sidearm, a Mauser Model 1934 semi-automatic pistol.

Mallory draws Muesel's Mauser 1934 after discovering a traitor in the group.

Mallory draws Muesel’s Mauser 1934 after discovering a traitor in the group.

Less famous than its Walther contemporaries, specifically the PPK that would become famous due to its association with James Bond, this compact series of Mauser pistols dates back to the years before World War I when Josef Nickl designed the Mauser Model 1910, a “pocket pistol” chambered for the anemic 6.35x16mmSR (.25 ACP) round. Four years later, the slightly larger Mauser Model 1914 entered production, chambered for the slightly more powerful 7.65x17mmSR Browning (.32 ACP) ammunition.

While the Mauser 1910 would continue production through the beginning of World War II, the Mauser 1914 was superseded by the almost identical Mauser 1934 during the early months of the Third Reich. The Model 1914 and 1934 pistols were nearly identical in size and weight, both striker-fired with the ability to carry eight rounds of .32 ACP in a box magazine. According to an informative article for American Rifleman by Mauser 1934 owner Garry James, the sole differentiation was “the introduction of a more comfortable, rounded grip on the newer pistol.”

Mallory takes out enemy personnel during his infiltration of Navarone Island.

Mallory takes out enemy personnel during his infiltration of Navarone Island.

The Mauser 1934 was most frequently carried by German police and naval officers of the Kriegsmarine, though it was also fielded by Wehrmacht officers so it’s no surprise that Muesel would have been armed with one… though it was certainly good luck for Captain Mallory that he was able to obtain a suppressor that would fit the sidearm.

THE GUNS OF NAVARONE

In 1941, Mauser ceased production on the 1910 and 1934 series of pocket pistols, instead focusing on the more aerodynamic Mauser HSc, designed by Alex Seidel with a look more consistent with the Walther PPK and sharing the PPK’s .32 ACP chambering. More than 250,000 HSc (Hahn Selbstspanner, or “self-cocking hammer”, design C) pistols were produced during World War II, with more than half issued to the Wehrmacht while the rest were picked up by the Kriegsmarine, police, and civilian population. Unlike the earlier Mauser pocket pistols, the HSc design survived the war with a run of pistols manufactured by the French for the First Indochina War before the Mauser factory resumed HSc production in earnest in 1968, producing Mauser HSc pistols in both .32 ACP and .380 ACP until 1977.

How to Get the Look

Gregory Peck as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Gregory Peck as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Captain Mallory’s hard-wearing duffel coat is just what the doctor ordered for warming up after a grueling seaside mission in The Guns of Navarone, sported with a khaki shirt, earthy gray uniform trousers, and russet combat boots apropos the jacket’s military pedigree.

  • Khaki heavy woolen duffel coat with oversized hood, four-toggle front, hip pockets, set-in sleeves with adjustable straps, and reinforced shoulder pads
  • Khaki long-sleeved shirt with point collar, epaulettes (shoulder straps), box-pleated chest pockets (with single-button flaps), and button cuffs
  • Field gray wool gabardine flat front uniform trousers with buckle-tab side adjusters, frogmouth front pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
  • Russet brown leather 10-eyelet cap-toe combat boots
  • Light gray socks
  • Gruen Precision wristwatch with steel case, round silver dial with Arabic number markers, and brown leather strap

I recommend exploring the latest Iconic Alternatives article for you to find the ideal duffel coat to add to your collection!

If Gregory Peck wearing a duffel coat isn’t enough to inspire you to get one, then look no further than style icon Paddington Bear, who famously sported a navy duffel coat with two or three rows of toggles in addition to his red bush hat.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read Alistair MacLean’s novel.

The Quote

You think you’ve been getting away with it all this time, standing by. Well, son… your by-standing days are over! You’re in it now, up to your neck!


Walter Matthau’s Navy Striped Suit in Charade

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Walter Matthau as Carson Dyle in Charade (1963)

Walter Matthau as Carson Dyle in Charade (1963)

Vitals

Walter Matthau as Carson Dyle, posing as CIA administrator Hamilton Bartholomew

Paris, April 1963

Film: Charade
Release Date: December 5, 1963
Director: Stanley Donen

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today commemorates the 99th birthday of the great Walter Matthau, the New York-born actor and comedian. After playing heavies in movies like the Elvis vehicle King Creole (1958) and his self-directed Gangster Story (1960), Matthau got a chance to exercise his versatility and comedic chops with a delightfully duplicitous role in Stanley Donen’s romantic comedy thriller Charade (1963).

American housewife Regina “Reggie” Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) is in Paris “mourning” the death of her detested late husband when three mysterious men interrupt the proceedings and she is handed a letter, inviting her to the office of H. Bartholomew at the U.S. Embassy. There, we first encounter Matthau in the guise of Hamilton Bartholomew, a charmingly modest bureaucrat given to amused non-sequiturs and grumpy anecdotal spells as well as being easily distracted by the inanities of office life from a spot on his tie to the lack of variety in his lunch options:

I’ve got something here… I’ve got liverwurst, liverwurst, chicken, and liverwurst.

Even his position with the CIA is downplayed; no, he isn’t in the romantic world of spies and agents, he insists, merely an administrator. “A desk jockey,” he clarifies, “trying to run a bureau of overworked men with under-allocated funds.” Of course, fans of the film know there’s far more to “Mr. Bartholomew” than meets the eye…

What’d He Wear?

When posing as CIA administrator Hamilton Bartholomew, Carson Dyle dresses for the office in a three-piece sack suit made from dark navy narrowly striped flannel.

After his white handkerchief gets its due time as the primary scrubber of his tie, Dyle gives it an ignominious sniff before relegating back to pocket detail where it peeks out just over the top of his jacket’s welted breast pocket, keeping watch on the proceedings should his next round of liverwurst and red wine again endanger his tie’s aesthetic value.

Note the bare thread sticking out of Dyle's left jacket sleeve, indicating that it's missing the lower of the two vestigal buttons.

Note the bare thread sticking out of Dyle’s left jacket sleeve, indicating that it’s missing the lower of the two vestigal buttons.

The single-breasted jacket has three buttons widely spaced upon the front to balance Walter Matthau’s 6’2″ height, with the notch lapels rolling over the top button. The jacket has straight flapped hip pockets in addition to the breast pocket, a single vent, and two-button cuffs. The sleeve buttons are non-functional, as illustrated in the above screenshot where loose threads flaring out from where the second button would be indicates that this sleeve button has been removed, possibly an in-character detail Dyle is employing as Bartholomew to give the impression of an uninteresting office drone who doesn’t care enough to have his clothing repaired.

CHARADE

The suit has a matching six-button waistcoat, worn fully fastened down to the notched bottom. Little is seen of the trousers, but Dyle’s gray flannel suit has flat front trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms, so we can safely assume that these trousers are styled consistently with those. As Dyle wears the jacket and waistcoat throughout the scene, we also can’t tell if the trousers are worn with a belt, suspenders, or are fitted with either side-adjusters or a tailored waistband… though “Hamilton Bartholomew” seems like the type who would wear a belt for practical reasons even if it isn’t the aesthetically recommended choice for wearing under a waistcoat.

CHARADE

Dyle’s cotton shirt has a subtle icy cast that suggests pale blue rather than stark white and neatly harmonizes with his dark blue suiting. The collar is fastened under the tie knot with a gold barbell-style bar, though this contrasts with the silver-toned metal of his bar-style cuff links.

For a "desk jockey" like Hamilton Bartholomew, a bit of wine with an otherwise uninspired lunch provides an almost mischievous sense of pleasure that would be the high point of his day.

For a “desk jockey” like Hamilton Bartholomew, a bit of wine with an otherwise uninspired lunch provides an almost mischievous sense of pleasure that would be the high point of his day.

“It’s a stubborn little devil,” Dyle remarks on his dark navy tie when greeting Reggie in his office. “Dry cleaning-wise, things are all fouled up.” As he continues going on about his laundry woes, Reggie interrupts to make sure he’s aware of why he called her there. He apologizes for focusing on his neckwear in the widow’s presence: “I’m very sorry… last time I sent out a tie, only the spot came back.”

Dyle wears his dark navy tie in a tight four-in-hand knot. The collar bar pushes the tie forward, further exhibiting the stain that seems to be giving him so much grief during his initial meeting with Reggie Lampert.

Dyle wears his dark navy tie in a tight four-in-hand knot. The collar bar pushes the tie forward, further exhibiting the stain that seems to be giving him so much grief during his initial meeting with Reggie Lampert.

Unseen in the movie, Dyle almost certainly wears the same black three-eyelet cap-toe derbies that he later wears with his gray flannel suit. Anything else would be far too creative for such a conventional dresser.

How to Get the Look

Walter Matthau as Carson Dyle in Charade (1963)

Walter Matthau as Carson Dyle in Charade (1963)

Walter Matthau’s classic American sack suit and conventional accessories of collar bar and white pocket square strengthen Carson Dyle’s guise as Hamilton Bartholomew, an uninteresting bureaucrat who may work for an intelligence organization but presents himself as a non-threatening “desk jockey” rather than a dangerous, opportunistic spy.

  • Navy narrowly striped flannel sack suit:
    • Single-breasted 3/2-roll jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and single vent
    • Single-breasted 6-button waistcoat with notched bottom
    • Flat front trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms
  • Ice blue cotton shirt with pinned collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
    • Gold barbell-style collar bar
    • Silver bar-style cuff links
  • Dark navy tie
  • Black leather three-eyelet cap-toe derby shoes

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, and be sure to find one of the high-quality versions like the recent Criterion Collection release. The film’s decades under public domain meant an abundance of lower-quality versions opportunistically released on home video to take advantage of the film’s high profile and cast recognition.

Dennis Haysbert’s Yellow Plaid Coat in Far From Heaven

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Dennis Haysbert as Raymond Deagan in Far From Heaven (2002)

Dennis Haysbert as Raymond Deagan in Far From Heaven (2002)

Vitals

Dennis Haysbert as Raymond Deagan, affable gardener and widowed father

Suburban Connecticut, Fall 1957

Film: Far From Heaven
Release Date: November 8, 2002
Director: Todd Haynes
Costume Designer: Sandy Powell

Background

A recent Instagram post from my friend @chimesatmidnight reminded me of the fantastic fall style and autumnal aesthetic in Far From Heaven, Todd Haynes’ tribute to the incandescent melodramas directed by Douglas Sirk in the 1950s. Influenced by movies like All that Heaven Allows, Imitation of Life, and Written on the Wind, Haynes employed techniques from the era to provide the same idyllic mid-century look, feel, and sound, with the help of Elmer Bernstein’s original score, Kelley Baker’s sound, the richly detailed world created by production designer Mark Friedberg, and Edward Lachman’s thoughtful cinematography.

Due to its themes, Keith Phipps rightly stated in his A.V. Club review that Haynes “has crafted a feature-length homage to Sirk that succeeds both on its own terms and as the Sirk film that could never have been made in his own lifetime.” David Rooney expanded on this for Variety: “Equating the stigma of two such distinct ’50s social taboos as interracial relations and homosexuality, Haynes’ script eloquently illustrates themes with clear contemporary relevance about being an outsider in a world that tolerates minorities only while they remain innocuous and invisible on the margins.”

Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) has been creating quite the stir among her societal pals in late 1950s Hartford due to her friendliness with Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert), the son of her family’s late gardener Otis. Thanks to the progression of time, Haynes is able to spin a narrative with plots that the restrictive Hays Code would have never allowed during Sirk’s era, exploring Cathy’s growing intimacy with the black Raymond while her husband Frank (Dennis Quaid) comes to terms with his sexuality; A.O. Scott glibly concluded his glowing review for The New York Times with: “Its mild sexual content and language would never have been allowed in 1957, but times, thank Heaven, have changed.”

“It’s a difficult time…with my husband,” Cathy offers when Raymond spies her crying outside the house, providing one hell of an understatement given the bruise she’s unable to conceal on her forehead. Several nights earlier, she had surprised Frank at his office where he was “working late,” only to find him in the embrace of another man. In the days to follow, Frank began therapy, though whiskey provided him more comfort than his talk sessions with Dr. Bowman (James Rebhorn). After the Whitakers’ swanky soiree one evening, a drunken Frank tries to prove that he has overcome his “condition” by seducing Cathy on their couch, but he’s unable to follow through and becomes irritable, striking her in the head. Though he immediately regrets it, this furthers the divide in the Whitaker marriage that leads to Cathy’s sobbing outside the front door the following morning.

Raymond offers Cathy the opportunity to catch some much-needed fresh air by inviting her along to pick up shrubs outside of town, echoing Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson) making a similar journey with Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) in All That Heaven Allows, though the central division between the characters in Sirk’s film was based more on class and age as the slightly younger gardener Ron was looked down upon by Cary’s friends and family. In this case, the matter of race—magnified by the fact that Cathy is a married woman—raises the stakes considerably for the growing attraction between our two protagonists in 1950s America.

She finds herself able to only be completely honest with Raymond, allowing her “everything is perfect!” façade to fall as she admits to him that the shiner on her forehead was indeed the result of her husband’s aggression. “I’m so sorry,” Raymond responds, providing the empathy she needed rather than the platitudinous reassurances of her friends.

Despite the idyllic beauty of the lush, colorful autumnal scenery and Bernstein’s optimistic score, we the audience are more aligned with the maid, Sybil (Viola Davis), as she spies Cathy joining Raymond in his truck. To the bigoted residents of Hartford, it’s more than just an innocent ride through town, it’s an affront to their sense of order.

That affront is soon personified by the judgmental eyes—and eventually “vicious talk”—of Mona Lauder (Celia Weston), picking up her green Edsel from the shop across the street from the restaurant where Raymond takes Cathy for her to fulfill her “wondering what it must be like to be… the only one in a room.”

In the spirit of the movie’s setting, era, and themes, I present one of my favorite seasonal tracks, Nat King Cole’s masterful rendition of “Autumn Leaves,” penned by Johnny Mercer.

What’d He Wear?

“Costume designer Sandy Powell takes this color detail to a delirious new height,” wrote Marjorie Baumgarten for the Austin Chronicle, highlighting how the award-winning Powell’s masterful costume design was an essential piece for completing the Douglas Sirk aesthetic puzzle and bringing to life the colorful clothing that dressed the repressed suburbanites in those mid-century melodramas.

For the Los Angeles Times, Booth Moore wrote that “the costumes in Far From Heaven work to create a snapshot of America teetering on the edge.” She specifically calls out the warm tones that Raymond wears to complement Cathy’s wardrobe, specifically his “autumnal plaid coat” that recalls Rock Hudson’s buffalo check hunting coat in Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows.

Raymond wears Hudson-inspired red plaid earlier in the movie, but for his walk through the woods with Cathy, he layers against the increasing cold in a golden mustard-yellow thigh-length coat with an olive green, black, and red plaid pattern, similar in spirit if not exact detail to the classic plaid Woolrich coats that were a staple of ’50s rugged wear. Raymond’s coat is constructed from a heavy woolen flannel twill that reduces the need for additional layers.

FAR FROM HEAVEN

The golden plaid coat has a shirt-style collar and four buttons spaced down the front from the collar to the waist, all the same copper metal shank buttons as seen on the pocket flaps and the shaped storm flap that extends over his left shoulder. The set-in sleeves are heavily roped at the sleeveheads but plain at the cuffs with no buttons, straps, tabs, or zips. The ventless coat has bellows pockets on the hips that each close with a single-buttoning flap.

Raymond's colorful jacket blends against the autumnal leaves, communicating both his earthiness and that the two are sharing their last moments of relative peace while his association with Cathy is still "unseen" to much of her social world.

Raymond’s colorful jacket blends against the autumnal leaves, communicating both his earthiness and that the two are sharing their last moments of relative peace while his association with Cathy is still “unseen” to much of her social world.

Finding a yellow plaid men’s jacket of any sort is going to be a challenge, though this brighter yellow checked woven cotton “shacket” from River Island echoes the spirit of this coat but in a shorter, zip-up style more like the brown plaid jacket that Raymond would wear in a following scene, meeting Cathy at a local diner.

Under the coat, Raymond is dressed in one of his usual brushed chamois flannel work shirts, detailed with a wide camp collar, two patch chest pockets with horizontal yokes, plain cuffs, and a button front. This earthy shirt is pea green with a subtle yellow flecking, worn over a heathered gray cotton crew-neck T-shirt.

Raymond's green shirt camouflages him among her shrubbery. At this point, he's essentially visible only to her, and she's safe to continue their association. By joining him outside this area for which he is able to hide, she puts them both at risk.

Raymond’s green shirt camouflages him among her shrubbery. At this point, he’s essentially visible only to her, and she’s safe to continue their association. By joining him outside this area for which he is able to hide, she puts them both at risk.

Shirts like Raymond’s were very popular for the working class or suburban weekenders during the 1950s, and the style has maintained life more than half a century later with “board shirts” like the cotton or woolen garments offered by Pendleton Woolen Mills. Aside from finding a vintage shirt (or waiting for Pendleton to add a green flecked board shirt to its venerated line), the closest items on the market to emulate Raymond’s hardworking aesthetic are these olive chamois flannel shirts with point collars and two buttoned-flap pockets from Amazon Essentials (in regular and slim fit), L.L. Bean, and Woolrich, though they tend to lack that atomic panache of Raymond’s Eisenhower-era garb.

FAR FROM HEAVEN

Raymond wears thin-waled corduroy trousers in a warm shade of copper that complements the earthy shades of his work-wear. While many modern corduroy trousers are styled like jeans with rivets, frogmouth front pockets, and patch back pockets, these flat front trousers have slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and a small coin pocket with an opening just below the right side of the belt. He wears a well-worn brown leather belt with a squared brass single-prong buckle and a gardening tool sheathed in tan leather on the left side of the belt.

The trousers are finished on the bottoms with slim turn-ups (cuffs) that cover the tops of his tan leather moc-toe derby-laced work boots.

FAR FROM HEAVEN

On his left wrist, Raymond wears a watch with a gold-toned case and round white dial on a tan leather strap that secures through a gold-toned single-prong buckle.

A glimpse at his watch reminds Raymond that he needs to pick up shrubbery, providing an opportunity for him to spirit Cathy away from her troubles for the rest of the afternoon.

A glimpse at his watch reminds Raymond that he needs to pick up shrubbery, providing an opportunity for him to spirit Cathy away from her troubles for the rest of the afternoon.

How to Get the Look

Dennis Haysbert as Raymond Deagan in Far From Heaven (2002)

Dennis Haysbert as Raymond Deagan in Far From Heaven (2002)

A highlight of Far From Heaven‘s fabulous ’50s fall style is Raymond Deagan’s autumnal approach to work-wear, particularly this colorful plaid coat for a pivotal sequence.

  • Golden mustard yellow (with olive, black, and red plaid) heavy woolen flannel twill thigh-length hunting coat with shirt-style collar, four-button front, left-shoulder storm flap with single-button closure, bellows hip pockets with single-button flaps, plain cuffs, and ventless back
  • Pea-green (with yellow fleck) chamois flannel long-sleeve work shirt with wide camp collar, plain front, patch chest pockets with horizontal yokes, and button cuffs
  • Copper corduroy flat front trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, right-side coin pocket, jetted back pockets, and slim turn-ups/cuffs
  • Thick brown leather belt with squared brass single-prong buckle
  • Tan leather moc-toe derby-laced work boots
  • Gold wristwatch with round white dial on tan leather strap (with gold single-prong buckle)

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Sometimes, it’s the people outside our world we confide in best.

Mad Men, 1969 Style – Don Draper’s Brown Suit

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Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 7.05: "The Runaways")

Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 7.05: “The Runaways”)

Vitals

Jon Hamm as Don Draper, displaced ad man seeking to salvage his professional and personal lives

New York City, Spring 1969

Series: Mad Men
Episodes:
– “Time Zones” (Episode 7.01), dir. Scott Hornbacher, aired 4/13/2014
– “A Day’s Work” (Episode 7.02), dir. Michael Uppendahl, aired 4/20/2014
– “Field Trip” (Episode 7.03), dir. Christopher Manley, aired 4/27/2014
– “The Runaways” (Episode 7.05), dir. Christopher Manley, aired 5/11/2014
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

On #MadMenMonday, we turn again to Don Draper’s style for the office with a chocolate brown suit that clothed our ad man through many episodes of the show’s penultimate season, set in the early months of 1969 as he flounders in virtual unemployment after his unpredictable behavior made the one-time advertising hotshot a liability for Sterling Cooper & Partners.

Two months after his failed pitch to Hershey executives in the sixth season finale, Don is flying across the episode’s titular time zones from Los Angeles back to New York on a TWA flight that lands him next to the recently widowed Lee (Neve Campbell!), who falls asleep on his shoulder mid-flight and offers to “make [him] feel better.” Don turns down Lee’s offer in favor of returning home to coverage of Richard Nixon’s inauguration and providing pitches to Fred Rumsen (Joel Murray), who’s been reduced to freelancing after his own unpredictable behavior—drunkenly pissing himself at work—had led to his own dismissal nearly seven years earlier.

“Field Trip” (Episode 7.03) finds Don humbly returning to SC&P in spring 1969 after nearly six months out of the office… interestingly, the same duration that Roger Sterling had suggested for Freddy’s own forced leave in the second season. Despite the resentment and the tough stipulations he must accept as the terms of his re-employment, Don accepts with just one word before cutting to the end credits, scored by Jimi Hendrix’s “If 6 Was 9”:

"Okay."

“Okay.”

“Field Trip” may have been a technical turning point for Don Draper’s career, but “The Runaways” (Episode 7.05) proves what makes the character so compelling. Having gotten his mojo back after “The Monolith” (Episode 7.04) and Freddy’s concise advise to “do the work, Don,” the erstwhile creative director surprises Jim Cutler (Harry Hamlin) and Lou Avery (Allan Havey) during their secret Commander cigarettes pitch meeting at the Algonquin Hotel to try to win over Philip Morris. Cutler and Avery are quietly fuming, all but assuring Don that his recently regained tenure at the agency will be short-lived, but Don is unfazed, coolly sending the two execs off in a cab as he lights his Old Gold and ushers a taxi for himself to the opening notes of Waylon Jennings’ “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line”.

Few could analyze the use of this music cue better than The A.V. Club‘s stalwart reviewer, Emily VanDerWerff, who noted in her contemporary recap:

Okay, let’s work backwards. Waylon Jennings. “You Got The Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line.” Don trying to take power from Cutler and Lou. Stephanie as a daughter figure Don never sees. Sally as the daughter he actually has whose nose is broken (except not really) but he never finds out about it. Henry as the surrogate father. Henry as the surrogate Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon.

Richard Nixon! Waylon Jennings is Richard Nixon! The rise of the Republican right largely piggybacked off the desire to see moral order and certainty arise, the desire to have “daddy” come back in and make everything right again. But that’s not how it works! You can’t just have Don Draper walk in and change the fact that everything is falling apart and the apocalypse is coming through his mere presence. Nothing can ever go back to the way it was, because that’s not how life works.

The only ad man that'll walk the line.

The only ad man that’ll walk the line.

VanDerWerff’s summary of the episode is particularly interesting, capturing the show’s prominent themes as Mad Men entered its final stretch:

We want to see Don stride into that room and convince Phillip Morris that he’s the guy who can get them what they want. We want to see him put Cutler and Lou in their places. We want to see him whistle for a taxi and have the car come right to him. More than anything, I think, we want him to get the old band together, to team up with Peggy and Pete and Joan and Roger and Bert and kick some ass, take back the company that’s supposed to be theirs. But it’s not really theirs anymore, just as the America that was unquestionably Don Draper’s in the pilot has crumbled out from under his feet, both through acts he’s undertaken himself and acts that have taken place around him. The world around Don Draper has become a different place, but he’s stayed the same. It’s not the computer that drives you mad; it’s everything the computer represents. You will be replaced. Maybe not today. Maybe not even a year from now. But you will be. And you can’t stop it. Maybe that’s the ultimate tragedy of Mad Men: The more you long for stasis, the more the universe starts readying a new version.

What’d He Wear?

Although brown is often associated with menswear trends of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Don Draper didn’t wait to incorporate brown business suits into his office attire until 1969. As early as the first season set in 1960, he was sporting a brown striped suit for important client pitches, and an autumnal brown suit made several appearances across the second season. Outdated “no brown in town” maxim from London aside, brown suits have long been accepted and welcome for business since at least the late 1930s. Thirty years later, Don seems to favor this chocolate brown suit when he’s motivated to “do the work,” per Freddy Rumsen’s maxim… or at least appear to be doing it.

When we met Don Draper in the first episode, he was “the man in the gray flannel suit,” literally clad in a businesslike gray worsted as he dominated the halls and conference rooms of Sterling Cooper, projecting the perfect image of the slick businessman. Nearly a decade later, his carefully built self-image has been all but demolished, and he’s returned to show SC&P that he intends to “do the work” rather than coasting on his reputation. The professional-looking gray suits remained in his closet as he struts into the Time & Life Building in a well-tailored chocolate brown worsted suit that reflects his new, grounded approach to work.

Fetching cab after cab outside the Algonquin at the close of "The Runaways" (Episode 7.05).

Fetching cab after cab outside the Algonquin at the close of “The Runaways” (Episode 7.05).

The single-breasted suit jacket has notch lapels of moderate width that roll over the top button for a clean 3/2-roll front. In the welted breast pocket, Don wears one of his neatly folded white linen pocket squares. The jacket also has straight flapped hip pockets, two-button cuffs, and a single vent.

Don gets a golden reception from the junior members of SC&P's creative team in "Field Trip" (Episode 7.03).

Don gets a golden reception from the junior members of SC&P’s creative team in “Field Trip” (Episode 7.03).

Don’s flat front trousers follow the standard template for his suits with side pockets, two back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms with a short, clean break over his shoes. Through the trouser belt loops, he wears a narrow black leather belt with a gold-toned box-style buckle, though this etched rectangular buckle is more elegant than the dulled silver box-style buckles of his belts in earlier seasons.

Don gets down to business in his shirt sleeves, whether it's presenting himself to Jim Cutler in "Field Trip" (Episode 7.03) or battling with a fussy sliding door in "Time Zones" (Episode 7.01).

Don gets down to business in his shirt sleeves, whether it’s presenting himself to Jim Cutler in “Field Trip” (Episode 7.03) or battling with a fussy sliding door in “Time Zones” (Episode 7.01).

Don is still a year away from incorporating more varied shirts into his office wardrobe, sporting white or gently off-white cotton dress shirts with semi-spread collars, front plackets, and breast pockets for many decks of Old Gold cigarettes. (Old Gold had replaced Lucky Strike as Don’s brand of choice after the tobacco brand dropped his agency during the show’s fourth season.)

Don takes a drag while waiting for his meeting with the SC&P partners in "Field Trip" (Episode 7.03).

Don takes a drag while waiting for his meeting with the SC&P partners in “Field Trip” (Episode 7.03).

All of Don’s shirts for the office are finished with double (French) cuffs, which he closes with gold cuff links when wearing this chocolate brown suit. The most prominently featured set of cuff links with his suit are the squared gold links with their large black onyx center squares in “Field Trip” (Episode 7.03).

Four Striped Ties

Don exclusively wears striped ties with this brown suit, all consistently patterned with stripes of at least two colors against a solid ground, crossing diagonally in the right-down-to-left “downhill” direction. By 1969, neatly patterned repp and regimental stripes were increasingly more popular than the minimalist ties Don sported earlier in the decade, setting the tone for what would be the dominant neckwear fashions of the ’70s.

When the suit makes its first appearance in “Time Zones” (Episode 7.01) for his flight back to the Big Apple, Don’s tie is block-striped in a warm brown and dark navy, with each double set of stripes separated by a narrow tan-and-gold double stripe. Don may have some U.S. Army service to his name (as well as to Dick Whitman’s name), but this particular tie shares visual similarities with the regimental stripe of the 2nd (City of London) Battalion, London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), which consists of block stripes in ruby and dark navy separated by a thin triple stripe set in gold, white, and gold.

Tie One On:

  • Best Match! Ben Silver “2nd City of London Regiment” tie in ruby and dark navy with thin triple gold uphill stripe sets (Ben Silver, $128)
  • Ben Silver “Mogador Woven Stripe Tie” in claret brown with amber and navy uphill stripe sets (Ben Silver, $145)
  • Canali “Large Diagonal Stripe Silk Tie” in brown with ivory-on-blue uphill stripes (Neiman Marcus, $295)
  • Ermenegildo Zegna “Four-Color Stripe Silk Tie” uphill-striped in brown, blue, ivory, and navy (Neiman Marcus, $195)
  • Robert Talbott “Beltonians” regimental striped tie in brown, tan, and dark navy (O’Connell’s, $90)
  • WANDM tie in navy, brown, beige, and gray uphill block stripes (Amazon, $11.98)
"Time Zones" (Episode 7.01): Grounded regimental stripes for his flight east with Lee and a subsequent morning of work with Fred Rumsen.

“Time Zones” (Episode 7.01): Grounded regimental stripes for his flight east with Lee and a subsequent morning of work with Fred Rumsen.

“A Day’s Work” (Episode 7.02) finds Don loitering in his bachelor pad, having spent his long day doing nothing. He dresses professionally for the sole purpose of a visit from his former secretary Dawn (Teyonah Parris), who is still loyally providing him with office intel, before Dawn swiftly goes on her way and Don plops himself back down in front of the tube.

It’s the eve of Valentine’s Day, but—as reviewer Sonia Saraiya so succinctly stated in her joint review for The A.V. Club—”Don is lonely.” His maroon striped tie adds a dash of romantic red to the outfit, patterned with sets of thin taupe-and-cream stripes spaced about an inch apart against the maroon ground.

Tie One On:

  • Brooks Brothers “Wide Stripe Tie” in wine red woven silk with white and slate downhill stripes (Brooks Brothers, $89.50)
  • Canali “Men’s Alt Stripe Silk Satin Tie” in dark red with thin taupe and beige uphill stripes (Neiman Marcus, $160)
  • Poszetka “Silk Raspberry Red Regimental Tie” in dark red with gold and light blue uphill stripe sets (Poszetka, 31€)
  • Retreez microfiber polyester tie in burgundy with white-and-red uphill stripes (Amazon, $10.99)
  • The Tie Bar “Short Cut Stripe” silk/wool tie in burgundy with rust, gray, and white downhill stripes (The Tie Bar, $25)
  • Ties.com “Bann Burgundy Tie” in burgundy silk with alternating red/white and red/tan downhill stripe sets (Ties.com, $35)
  • WANDM tie in burgundy with double white uphill stripes (Amazon, $11.98)
"A Day's Work" (Episode 7.02): A burgundy regimental striped tie is worn for the sole purpose of greeting Dawn for a few minutes in his front hallway... the 1969 equivalent of putting on the top half of a suit for a video conference call.

“A Day’s Work” (Episode 7.02): A burgundy regimental striped tie is worn for the sole purpose of greeting Dawn for a few minutes in his front hallway… the 1969 equivalent of putting on the top half of a suit for a video conference call.

For the most part, Don’s striped ties with this suit are neatly striped in a repeating series like the classic regimental, college, and club ties. However, he dresses for his return to SC&P in “Field Trip” (Episode 7.03) in a more abstract striped tie, patterned in a non-balanced series of mint green and orange gradient stripes against a black ground.

Tie One On:

  • Kai silk tie with green and orange multi-stripes on black ground (Amazon, $14.99)
  • Marshall Field & Company vintage 1960s polyester tie with mixed orange, brown, and black downhill stripes (Rusty Zipper, $16)
  • Secdtie microfiber jacquard woven tie with downhill gradient stripes in green, slate, and orange (Amazon, $11.99)
"Field Trip" (Episode 7.03): A gradient-striped tie that doesn't follow the rules like his regimental stripes runs counter to the stipulations Don must agree to in order to get a position back at SC&P at the episode's end.

“Field Trip” (Episode 7.03): A gradient-striped tie that doesn’t follow the rules runs counter to the stipulations Don must agree to follow in order to get a position back at SC&P at the episode’s end.

At the end of “The Runaways” (Episode 7.05), Don returns to New York from California, simultaneously energized and demoralized by his chance chat with Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) and subsequent (unrelated) ménage à trois with his wife Megan (Jessica Paré) and her friend Amy (Jenny Wade), ready to reclaim his role in the agency by crashing Cutler and Avery’s covert meeting with Philip Morris representatives to discuss the Commander cigarettes account.

For this final appearance of the chocolate brown suit, Don returns to the tried-and-true reliability of a regimental tie with thin sets of yellow and dark navy stripes against a taupe brown ground.

Tie One On:

  • Antica Seteria Comasca “Mogador – Cambridge” tie in brown melange silk/cotton with blue-and-cream uphill stripe sets (Antica Seteria Comasca, $41.99)
  • Drake’s handmade silk/cotton tie in brown with thin cream-and-green uphill stripe sets (Drake’s, £145)
  • Best Match! Eagle satin multi-stripe tie in taupe with blue, white, and navy downhill stripe sets (Belk, $29.99)
  • Edwards Garment “Narrow Stripe Tie” in gold polyester with thin navy-and-pale blue downhill stripe sets (OpenTip.com, $15.92)
  • Franco Bassi “Melange Stripe Tie” in brown silk with navy and beige uphill stripe sets (Franco Bassi, 95€
  • J. Press “Classic Stripe Tie” in brown silk with light blue, white, and navy downhill stripe sets (J. Press, $79)
  • KITON “Napoli” handmade beige linen tie with blue-and-cream downhill stripe sets (Sartoriale, $97)
  • Wembley vintage 1960s light brown downhill-striped tie in brown, beige, and blue (Rusty Zipper, $10.80)
"The Runaways" (Episode 7.05): A light brown regimental striped tie as subtle and understated as Don's meeting-crashing power move.

“The Runaways” (Episode 7.05): A light brown regimental striped tie as subtle and understated as Don’s meeting-crashing power move.

Completing the Look

There seems to be an enduring menswear debate that questions the most appropriate footwear for brown suits. I think the most important considerations are the suit’s color and context. For example, with a lighter brown or khaki suit worn either for work or play, I like to wear medium brown leather monks or brogues. With a warmer brown tweed suit, I like darker brown derbies or boots.

In the case of Don Draper’s rich brown suit for these seventh season episodes of Mad Men, his black leather derbies are a fine accompaniment for his workday. Where brown shoes may look too much like they’re trying to match the rest of the suit, black shoes have a decided contrast with the dark suiting and also allow for a visual balance with Jon Hamm’s dark hair (top), Don’s black belt (middle), and the shoes themselves (bottom). Black derby shoes also reinforce the professional context for which Don is wearing the suit as opposed to the more playful potential of brown or burgundy shoes.

Worn with black dress socks, Don’s black calf leather derby shoes appear to have a split-toe front and five lace eyelets. The maker of these specific shoes is unconfirmed though auction listings have confirmed both Florsheim and Peal and Co. (by Brooks Brothers) as Don’s shoemakers at various points across the series run.

Don contemplates his hard-fought return to SC&P in "Field Trip" (Episode 7.03).

Don contemplates his hard-fought return to SC&P in “Field Trip” (Episode 7.03).

The professional world of 1969 was much different than ten years earlier as hats had been increasingly fallen out of fashion—encouraged by the youthful John F. Kennedy foregoing them during his administration in the early years of the 1960s, setting a presidential precedent that would rapidly be adopted by the rest of the country over the rest of the decade.

In addition to following the decorum of not wearing a hat indoors, it’s fitting that Don returns to SC&P literally hat in hand in “Field Trip” (Episode 7.03), and the hat is never seen atop his head until he’s firmly entrenched back in the workplace. In “The Runaways” (Episode 7.05), he’s wearing this gray felt short-brimmed trilby as he’s lording over Jim Cutler, crouched in the back seat of a taxi that Don summoned for him after crashing the Commander cigarettes meeting. The hat has a pinched crown and narrow black ribbed grosgrain silk band with a feather in the left side.

"You think this is gonna save you, don't you?" Cutler barks. Look at that face, Cutler. He's already saved.

“You think this is gonna save you, don’t you?” Cutler barks. Look at that face, Cutler. He’s already saved.

To combat the spring chill as well as the chilly reception he encounters at SC&P, Don wears his usual raglan-sleeve balmacaan raincoat, though it’s a newer one than the coat from earlier seasons that had a slimmer collar and a degree of shimmer. This khaki gabardine coat has a wide bal-type collar, slanted hand pockets with wide welts, and a long single vent. The front has a covered fly for the five khaki sew-through plastic buttons.

"Here I am," Don greets Roger's secretary Caroline (Beth Hall) upon his return in "Field Trip" (Episode 7.03) He would later echo the same words and open-armed gesture, albeit with considerable more defiance, when running into Jim Cutler in the same episode.

“Here I am,” Don greets Roger’s secretary Caroline (Beth Hall) upon his return in “Field Trip” (Episode 7.03) He would later echo the same words and open-armed gesture, albeit with considerable more defiance, when running into Jim Cutler in the same episode.

After the first four seasons found him cycling through two Jaeger-LeCoultres and a Rolex Explorer, Don Draper first strapped on his Omega Semaster De Ville at the top of the fifth season when he was at the top of his game on the eve of his 40th birthday, living the good life with his stylish wife and a partnership at one of the most ambitious agencies in the business.

Nearly three years later, all of that has changed for Don, but he’s still wearing the same Omega and must be reminded of that degree of success when counting down the minutes to the start of his first workday back at SC&P in “Field Trip” (Episode 7.03). This is the best look we get at the luxury watch, strapped to his left wrist on a black textured leather band with its gleaming yet subtle stainless steel case that allows the black dial—with its elegantly minimalist silver hour markers (two for 12:00,  6:00, and 9:00) and date window at 3:00—to take center stage.

It's nine o'clock sharp, and Don's still at home! Not off to a great start, Mr. Draper. (In a nod to the show's attention to detail, the date window on Don's watch indicates that it's the 31st of the month as does the calendar in Peggy's office, suggesting that the in-universe date of Don's return to work was likely Monday, March 31, 1969.)

It’s nine o’clock sharp, and Don’s still at home! Not off to a great start, Mr. Draper. (In a nod to the show’s attention to detail, the date window on Don’s watch indicates that it’s the 31st of the month as does the calendar in Peggy’s office, suggesting that the in-universe date of Don’s return to work was likely Monday, March 31, 1969.)

Don’s Omega watch was one of four screen-worn timepieces that was included in a Christie’s auction from December 2015. The listing for the Omega, which eventually sold for $11,875, described it as “Signed Omega, Automatic, Seamaster, De Ville, Ref. 166.020, Movement No. 23’943’081, Circa 1960.” Ellen Freund, Mad Men‘s property master, worked with vintage watch specialist Derek Dier to select each character’s signature watch.

How to Get the Look

Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 7.05: "The Runaways")

Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 7.05: “The Runaways”)

Mad Men may have established Don Draper as the archetypal man in the gray flannel suit, but he’s a master of many palettes, specifically a grounded but rich chocolate brown suit when he needs to “do the work” and regain his agency’s trust as the series built up to its finale.

  • Chocolate brown worsted wool suit:
    • Single-breasted 3/2-roll jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and single vent
    • Flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
  • White cotton dress shirt with semi-spread collar, front placket, breast pocket, and double/French cuffs
    • Ornate gold cuff links
  • Earth-toned regimental tie with “downhill” stripe direction
  • Black leather belt with etched gold rectangular box-style buckle
  • Black calf leather 5-eyelet derby shoes
  • Black cotton lisle dress socks
  • Omega Seamaster DeVille wristwatch with stainless 34mm case, textured black crocodile strap, and black dial with date indicator
  • Gray felt short-brimmed trilby with black ribbed grosgrain silk band and decorative feather
  • Khaki gabardine cotton bal-type raincoat with Prussian collar, raglan sleeves, covered 5-button fly, slanted welt hand pockets, and single vent

Note: All prices included in the post above are current as of October 2019, with prices and product availability subject to change.

Check out Iconic Alternatives’ latest post, a collaboration with Instagram’s @dondraperstyle, that breaks down some of the most essential pieces worn by the enigmatic ad man.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series, currently streaming on Netflix and available on DVD/Blu-Ray.

Enthusiasts of Don Draper’s style can also peruse GQ‘s comprehensive attempt to track all of his on-screen attire, which tallies up to 518 different suits, casual ensembles, tuxedoes, and pajama sets here: Everything Don Draper Has Ever Worn on Mad Men, though it should be noted that some of the outfits appear to be presented out of order, particularly toward the final seasons.

The Quote

Why don’t you fellas catch me up?

Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday – Corduroy Riding Jacket

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Kirk Douglas as John "Doc" Holliday in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Kirk Douglas as John “Doc” Holliday in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Vitals

Kirk Douglas as John “Doc” Holliday, hot-tempered gambler, gunslinger, and ex-dentist

Dodge City, Kansas, October 1881

Film: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Release Date: May 30, 1957
Director: John Sturges
Costume Designer: Edith Head

Background

Let’s call today #WesternWednesday as we transport back to the 1880s, following the taciturn lawman Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) and his infamous pal, tubercular dentist “Doc” Holliday (Kirk Douglas), as they travel from the “beautiful, biblious Babylon of the west” Dodge City—as the rowdy cow town was famously coined by a Chicago newspaper editor—back to Arizona Territory. The two arrive in Tombstone in time for the fateful shootout with the Clanton-McLaury cowboy faction that would be immortalized in countless books and movies, including the 1957 movie Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

It was Kirk Douglas’ performance that elevated Doc Holliday’s public perception from stock character to a deeply troubled figure bitterly aware that he was living on borrowed time.

Smoking may be bad for your health, but the tubercular Doc Holliday knows his end is near anyway so he opts for one of the coolest on-screen depictions of lighting up, using the flaming end of a stick from his campfire to ignite one of his hand-rolled cigarettes.

Smoking may be bad for your health, but the tubercular Doc Holliday knows his end is near anyway so he opts for one of the coolest on-screen depictions of lighting up, using the flaming end of a stick from his campfire to ignite one of his hand-rolled cigarettes.

What’d He Wear?

When not dandified in one of his gray suits for appearances in town, Kirk Douglas’ Doc Holliday hits the trail in a single-breasted riding jacket made from tobacco brown thin-waled corduroy, recalling the original purpose of corduroy as a rugged, durable cloth for outdoorsmen.

The three-button jacket is structured like a tailored sports coat with a full-bellied shawl collar, self-edged with wale in a contrasting direction, that rolls just over the top button. The ventless jacket’s front skirt is squared with no cutaway with a straight, jetted pocket on each hip. The shoulders are padded with roped sleeveheads, and the sleeves are finished with two non-functioning buttons spaced apart on the cuffs.

DOC HOLLIDAY

Shawl-collar corduroy jackets were also popular during the time of the film’s production, and your best bet for finding one today would be to seek out vintage pieces like this fur-collared Cresco corduroy car coat or this semi-fur-collared Sir Jac coat, both dating from the 1960s though neither have the same tailored structure of Douglas’s screen-worn sport jacket. Some modern manufacturers have also embraced this unique style, though it tends to be higher-end fashion houses like Gucci or MR PORTER and with an approach more akin to a cardigan-like jacket. While it’s not corduroy, Orvis offers the “Newbury” shawl-collar jacket in darker brown nubuck that evokes the spirit, if not the exact details, of this classic trail-friendly outerwear.

Doc wears two different shirts with this jacket while on the trail, the first and most rugged being a sky blue cotton long-sleeved button-up shirt with a soft attached collar, rounded at the corners like a classic club collar. The shirt has single-button squared cuffs, a front placket, and a breast pocket with a pointed yoke.

Doc and Wyatt.

Doc and Wyatt.

During a daytime scene, Doc wears a fancier off-white shirt with a ruffled front, resembling the long-sleeved pale gray shirts he wears with his city suits.

Though clearly evocative of old west fashions, the costumes of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral have some anachronistic details more contemporary to the film’s production than its setting. For example, the prevailing method for holding up men’s trousers before the 1920s was to fasten suspenders onto the buttons positioned around the outside or inside of the waistband (often supplemented with an adjustable rear cinch strap), seen on everything from dress trousers to early Levi’s denim jeans. It wasn’t until the roaring ’20s and the decad that belt loops became common on trousers, as trouser waistbands dropped and an increasing amount of men began employing the simplified practice of slipping on a belt to comfortably secure their trousers around their waist.

All that to say… Doc’s brown striped flat front trousers with their belt loops—for his brown leather belt with brass buckle—and lower rise are more a product of the ’50s than what may have been encountered on the Santa Fe Trail, circa 1880. The cotton twill Chadwick Striped Trousers offered by Historical Emporium, with their riveted suspender buttons around the waist, would be a period-inspired alternative. Doc’s trousers are straight through the legs to the plain-hemmed bottoms.

DOC HOLLIDAY

Doc’s trouser belt may be considered anachronistic, but there’s nothing inaccurate about his choice to wear a gun belt… though it has been suggested that Westerns grossly overestimate the amount of actual holsters worn in the old west as opposed to gunmen who preferred to carry their six-shooters in their waistband or a pocket.

While on the trail, Doc wears a dark brown leather gun belt with a holster strapped around his right thigh, a more practical alternative to the shoulder rig he sports with his “city dude” suits.

DOC HOLLIDAY

Doc wears dark brown leather riding boots.

DOC HOLLIDAY

Doc appropriately wears an all-black “gambler hat”, a more urban evolution of the low-crowned telescope hat worn by Mexican cowboys in the southwest. The low, round crown prevented hot air from accumulating inside the hat. The telescope hat also featured a wide brim to protect its wearers from the piercing sun; since gamblers spent most of their time inside, the gambler hat featured a smaller, upturned brim like Doc’s.

Note that Doc is also wearing the frilly-front white shirt that he tends to wear with his city suits.

Note that Doc is also wearing the frilly-front white shirt that he tends to wear with his city suits.

The tubercular gunman protects his throat against the dry heat by knotting a pale gray kerchief around his neck, occasionally coughing into it as well. He also wears yellow leather work gloves.

DOC HOLLIDAY

When Doc removes his gloves, he reveals his gold ring that shines from the third finger of his left hand with a gleaming, oval-shaped coral red setting.

DOC HOLLIDAY

How to Get the Look

Kirk Douglas as John "Doc" Holliday in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Kirk Douglas as John “Doc” Holliday in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Doc Holliday takes a timeless approach to dressing for the long trail in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in a corduroy jacket that, depending on how it’s accessorized, would look just as appropriate on a college campus as it does on a cattle ranch.

  • Tobacco brown thin-waled corduroy single-breasted 3-button jacket with shawl collar, straight jetted hip pocket, 2-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Sky blue cotton long-sleeved shirt with soft rounded collar, front placket, breast pocket (with pointed yoke), and 1-button squared cuffs
  • Brown striped flat front trousers with belt loops and plain-hemmed bottoms
  • Brown leather belt with brass squared single-prong buckle
  • Dark brown leather gun belt with right-side thigh holster
  • Dark brown leather riding boots
  • Black gambler hat with round crown and black ribbon
  • Yellow leather work gloves
  • Gold ring with large oval red coral setting

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. If you’re interested in learning more about the real Doc Holliday, Gary L. Roberts wrote a well-researched and finely detailed biography of the irascible dentist, Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend.

For enthusiasts of Old West history, I also recommend Tom Clavin’s Dodge City, a comprehensive tome that explores “the wickedest town in the American West” and its role in the histories of famous figures like Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and—of course—Doc Holliday.

Bogart’s Nautical Blazer and Cap in To Have and Have Not

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Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not (1944)

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not (1944)

Vitals

Humphrey Bogart as Harry Morgan, cynical fishing boat captain

Fort-de-France, Martinique, Summer 1940

Film: To Have and Have Not
Release Date: October 11, 1944
Director: Howard Hawks

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today is the 75th anniversary of the release of To Have and Have Not, the romantic adventure directed by Howard Hawks and adapted from Ernest Hemingway’s novel that staged the first meeting of iconic classic Hollywood couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

“Immeasurably assisted by the fact that Bogart and Bacall fell in love on the set, the film was above all else a love story,” wrote Ed Krzemienski in a 1999 essay for Bright Lights Film Journal.

Appropriately enough, To Have and Have Not traces its cinematic origins to a fishing trip where Hawks had assured his pal Hemingway that they could make a great movie from the author’s worst book. Evidently in agreement regarding the quality of its source material, the two collaborated to develop To Have and Have Not, the first of what would be three adaptations of the 1937 novel before The Breaking Point (1950) and The Gun Runners (1958). Jules Furthman’s original screenplay kept Papa’s intended setting of Cuba, but this eventually was changed to Martinique to avoid violating FDR’s “Good Neighbor policy” with Latin America. The setting was reportedly a suggestion by William Faulkner who was brought on to make significant changes to the script both for narrative and dramatic purposes and to keep the film intriguing and interesting while adhering to the strict Hays Code after the prickly censorship czar Joseph Breen tore the script apart for its unapologetic depictions of violence and sex.

Under Faulkner’s lead, the screenplay softened the lead characters of fishing boat captain Harry Morgan and the seductive drifter Marie Browning while also making the fortuitous choice of keeping Marie as Harry’s only romantic interest, eventually showcasing the undeniable on-screen chemistry between Bogie and Bacall.

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

“Howard was really happy with the film. And with the celluloid relationship between Bogie and me,” wrote Lauren Bacall in her memoir, By Myself, which I’ve been voraciously reading and enjoying after my girlfriend gifted me a copy for my birthday. “Originally the script had involved an attraction between Bogie and the character Dolores Moran played. But halfway into the film Howard ran some of our scenes cut, showed them to Bogie, and with Bogie’s help had come to the conclusion that no audience would believe anyone or anything could come between Slim and Steve. So scenes were adjusted accordingly and all of mine made stronger and better. You can’t beat chemistry.”

This chemistry reached a famously high water mark as Bogie and Bacall’s Harry and Marie—who have nicknamed each other “Steve” and “Slim”, respectively—are trading innuendo-laced barbs until Marie settles into Harry’s lap and treats him to a long kiss to satisfy her own curiosity before lingering in the doorway before she leaves the room with an assurance that their romance is only just beginning:

You don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle… you know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

To Have and Have Not was released 75 years ago today on Wednesday, October 11, 1944, one day after director Hawks and his electric co-stars Bogie and Bacall began shooting the adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, which has since become a film noir standard. BAMF Style readers may recall that To Have and Have Not holds a significant place in my heart as the first movie that I watched with my girlfriend.

What’d He Wear?

When not at the helm of his fishing boat, the Queen Conch, Captain Harry Morgan spends his evenings in the taverns of Fort-de-France sporting his dressier of two on-screen outfits, a naval-inspired double-breasted blazer with nautical peaked cap, off-white gabardine slacks, and white bucks. I was particularly inspired to write about this after I heard how much it resonated with “Chromejob”, a BAMF Style reader who commented in July 2019 that “Ever since high school when I fell in love with this film, I’ve loved his evening wear. A four button two double-breasted blazer that goes with everything, I suspect a linen shirt, and cream pants. I finally found a similar blazer made by Burberry, but of course nothing comes close to the way Bogie wore it and pulled off his careless elegance.”

The one part of Harry’s wardrobe consistent with both his casual work shirt and jeans and the blazer and bucks is his headgear, a traditional peaked cap that signifies his position as captain. The hat has a dark navy canvas cover with a badge of two gold embroidered crossed anchors, a black leather band across the front, and a black leather visor.

To Have and Have Not turned smoking into an art form. Unfortunately, Bogie's unparalleled coolness with a cigarette in hand contributed to the actor's early death from esophageal cancer at the age of 57.

To Have and Have Not turned smoking into an art form. Unfortunately, Bogie’s unparalleled coolness with a cigarette in hand contributed to the actor’s early death from esophageal cancer at the age of 57.

Harry’s double-breasted blazer is almost certainly made from navy blue wool serge with four metal shank buttons with two to close, though Bogart only wears the lowest button fastened. The ventless blazer has peak lapels, in the double-breasted tradition, with a substantial breadth consistent with fashions of the 1940s.

The breast pocket is welted, though the hip pockets are more informal patch pockets, and there are two ornamental buttons on each cuff.

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

Harry’s shirt looks to be a shade away from white, perhaps cream or light blue, with a long point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs. A comfortable, no-frills shirt for the kind of guy who would appreciate it.

"Steve" practices his whistling after an innuendo-laced encounter with "Slim".

“Steve” practices his whistling after an innuendo-laced encounter with “Slim”.

Harry’s off-white gabardine trousers have a full fit, no doubt amplified by the presence of pleats which—while not seen on screen—were both fashionable at the time of the film’s production and an evident preferred style of Bogie’s. A glimpse at the waistband in behind-the-scenes shots with the blazer unbuttoned reveals a slim leather belt at the waist, likely brown to avoid visual disharmony with the softer tones of the slacks and shoes, with side pockets. The bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

"Bogie and I went to Burt Six's studio for stills," wrote Lauren Bacall in her memoir, By Myself, of the publicity shots taken following the last day of shooting. "First Bogie alone, with me behind the camera making faces, joking, then the two of us. Bogie knew just how to do it."

“Bogie and I went to Burt Six’s studio for stills,” wrote Lauren Bacall in her memoir, By Myself, of the publicity shots taken following the last day of shooting. “First Bogie alone, with me behind the camera making faces, joking, then the two of us. Bogie knew just how to do it.”

Harry completes his outfit with white bucks, at the time among the least formal shoes still acceptable for a gent to wear with a blazer and slacks.

Named for the napped nubuck leather used to construct the uppers, bucks grew in popularity throughout the early 20th century’s “golden age of menswear” as a natty but informal summer shoe. They had reportedly originated a half-century earlier, though the modern buck shoe emerged around the 1930s with the addition of the signature “red brick” rubber soles and enjoyed the height of their popularity during the ’50s thanks to Pat Boone and countless Ivy Leaguers and trad dressers. The Handbook of Style by Esquire still lists white bucks among the top five essential shoes a man should own, placing them in the more contemporary context as “a semi-dress-up alternative to sneakers” and as “ideal partners for dark jeans and khakis.”

True bucks should be purchased from a trusted shoemaker, made from genuine napped nubuck leather, sanded on the grain side for a napped finish as opposed to the softer suede underside. You can pick up white bucks from manufacturers like Allen Edmonds, Brooks Brothers, Florsheim, and Peter Huber.

Harry’s white bucks are cap-toe oxfords, worn with white ribbed socks. There are two schools of thought for maintaining white bucks, given how easily white suede can pick up and shoe dirt. Some buck wearers prefer to keep their shoes pristine with regular cleaning while other proudly wear their increasingly scuffed shoes with pride; Captain Morgan, characteristically enough, is among the more insouciant latter group.

Humphrey Bogart and co-star Dolores Moran on set with director Howard Hawks. Bogie's scenes with Moran were significantly cut down from the original script to avoid taking away from his on-screen chemistry with Lauren Bacall, despite Hawks' disapproval of their off-screen romance.

Humphrey Bogart and co-star Dolores Moran on set with director Howard Hawks. Bogie’s scenes with Moran were significantly cut down from the original script to avoid taking away from his on-screen chemistry with Lauren Bacall, despite Hawks’ disapproval of their off-screen romance.

Harry wears a simple tank watch on his left wrist with an elegant rectangular case, light-colored dial, and dark strap. Humphrey Bogart was known to own and wear a Longines Evidenza in real-life and several of his movies, but this watch does not appear to have the tonneau-shaped case of his Evidenza.

Harry gives his pal Eddie (Walter Brennan, on loan from MGM) a reassuring pat on the arm, flashing a glimpse of his wristwatch.

Harry gives his pal Eddie (Walter Brennan, on loan from MGM) a reassuring pat on the arm, flashing a glimpse of his wristwatch.

Interestingly, Bogart does not wear his trademark gold ring with its diamond-and-rubies setting that he wears in many of his other films, which he had inherited from his father a decade earlier.

The Gun

Among his packs of Chesterfield cigarettes kept in the desk drawer of his hotel room, Harry Morgan stores a Colt Police Positive, distinguished by its exposed ejector rod and the hard rubber grips that were a hallmark of Colt’s revolvers from the early decades of the 20th century.

Harry's desk isn't filled with the most kid-friendly contents.

Harry’s desk isn’t filled with the most kid-friendly contents.

Though the revolver is identified on IMFDB as a Colt Official Police, the slightly larger and newer sibling of the Police Positive, the size of the revolver in Humphrey Bogart’s hand as well as the hard rubber grips—never a production offering on the Official Police—lead me to conclude that Captain Morgan is armed with a Police Positive.

Colt introduced the Police Positive in 1907 as an improvement to the earlier Colt New Police. As its name suggests, it was designed with law enforcement in mind, and the Police Positive helped Colt secure its foothold on the law enforcement market for the early half of the 20th century, also assisted with the introduction of the larger-framed Colt Official Police in 1927. Though a beefed-up .38 Special model of the Police Positive was offered, the model’s age, smaller frame, and compatibility with increasingly obsolete small calibers like .32 Long/Short Colt, .32 S&W Long, and .38 S&W shortened its market relevance, and production ceased in 1947.

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

The slightly smaller frame of the Police Positive was a wise choice for Bogie, who was often armed with smaller-framed handguns that were more compatible with his shorter, lean physique so that the actor would not appear to be dwarfed by his firearms. (For example, Bogart is depicted with a full-size M1911A1 service pistol on the promotional artwork for Casablanca while he had actually carried the more compact Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless pistol on screen.)

What to Listen to

Thanks to Hoagy Carmichael’s casting as cheeky lounge pianist “Cricket”, the soundtrack of To Have and Have Not is full of musical gems from across the early 20th century. Carmichael’s famous piano skills are accompanied by Lauren Bacall for “How Little We Know” and “Am I Blue?”, though Howard Hawks’ intended signature tune for the actress—”Baltimore Oriole”—remains strictly in Hoagy’s domain.

Another significant song that gets the Carmichael treatment in To Have and Have Not is “Limehouse Blues”, penned by Douglas Furber and Philip Braham. After its 1921 premiere in the West End revue A to Z, “Limehouse Blues” would become the signature tune for Gertrude Lawrence though she wouldn’t record the song until 1931. By then, “Limehouse Blues” had already been recorded by cornetist Red Nichols and it would soon be elevated to a jazz standard with Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Nancy Sinatra, and Kay Starr among the musical luminaries who included it in their repertoire.

Despite the many versions recorded with Furber’s vocals—albeit modified from the original ’20s lyrics for purposes of political correctness—”Limehouse Blues” has enjoyed its greatest longevity as an instrumental number that has transcended jazz to also become a standard in the bluegrass genre.

Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli, and the Quintette du Hot Club de France became significantly associated with “Limehouse Blues”, recording several versions in the years leading up to World War II.

As swing music became a symbol of resistance in war-torn France, Ian Brookes observed that Carmichael’s Reinhardt-influenced interpretation of “Limehouse Blues” in To Have and Have Not evokes the spirit of the French Resistance and recalls the film’s themes of anti-fascism.

Humphrey Bogart as Harry Morgan in To Have and Have Not (1944)

Humphrey Bogart as Harry Morgan in To Have and Have Not (1944)

How to Get the Look

The image of Bogie in his cap and double-breasted blazer evoke the image of a naval officer, uniformed in reefer jacket and peaked cap, giving Captain Morgan a commanding yet laidback presence even on land. (Appropriately enough, Humphrey Bogart himself had enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1918 and joined the Coast Guard Reserve after World War I ended.)

  • Navy wool serge double-breasted blazer with wide peak lapels, 4×2-button front, welted breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Off-white cotton shirt with point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
  • Cream gabardine pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
  • Brown leather belt
  • White nubuck leather cap-toe oxford bucks
  • White ribbed socks
  • Navy canvas-cover peaked cap with gold embroidered crossed anchors, black leather band, and black leather visor
  • Square-cased wristwatch on brown leather strap

Looking for your own double-breasted navy blazer? My friend at Iconic Alternatives has identified a few affordable modern blazers—both single- and double-breasted—in this comprehensive post using various James Bond actors’ blazers as a template.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and Ernest Hemingway’s novel (though the source material is considerably different than the screen adaptation.)

Gregory Peck’s Taupe “City Clothes” in The Big Country

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Gregory Peck as Jim McKay in The Big Country (1958)

Gregory Peck as Jim McKay in The Big Country (1958)

Vitals

Gregory Peck as Jim McKay, “neat, clean, and polite” former sea captain and aspiring rancher

West Texas, Summer 1886

Film: The Big Country
Release Date: August 13, 1958
Director: William Wyler
Costume Design: Emile Santiago & Yvonne Wood

Background

A couple years ago, I had received a request via Twitter from venerated BAMF Style reader Ryan to explore Gregory Peck’s “taupe city slicker suit” in The Big Country, which also happened to be the favorite movie of former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, born 129 years ago today on October 14, 1890. In fact, Ike was such a fan of William Wyler’s Technicolor Western that he screened the 166-minute epic on four separate occasions during his administration’s second term in the White House.

Adapted from Donald Hamilton’s serialized Ambush at Blanco CanyonThe Big Country—co-produced by Wyler and Peck—tells the story of Jim McKay, a patient sea captain traveling west to make his life on a ranch with the vivacious Patricia Terrill (Carroll Baker) and those in her orbit, including her charming friend Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons), her domineering father “the Major” (Charles Bickford), and the patriarch of the rival Hannessey clan, Rufus (Burl Ives, in an Academy Award-winning performance).

In addition to Ives’ recognition, Jerome Moross’ triumphant score was also rightly nominated for an Oscar, though it lost to Dimitri Tiomkin’s work in The Old Man and the Sea. Franz Planer’s exquisite cinematography was also snubbed, though not even nominated in its category. Moross’ and Planer’s impressive work is showcased from the get-go with the stirring opening credits that follow McKay’s coach as he approaches his destination.

“There’s Pat Terrill and her eastern dude!” exclaims the rapscallion Buck Hannassey (Chuck Connors), Rufus’ most rambunctious son, when he spots Jim and Patricia out for a ride shortly after their arrival. McKay holds firm against the gang’s abuse, coolly resisting the harassment from the roguish band of what Pat herself describes as “local trash” as he rises above the group’s pettiness with his easygoing, mild-mannered charm:

Don’t worry about it. Greenhorns always have to get knocked around a little.

What’d He Wear?

“Honestly, darling, you do look funny out here in those clothes,” remarks Patricia Terrill (Carroll Baker) of her ostensible fiance’s dress, an observance more sarcastically commented on by the rough and wild Buck Hannassey, when he asks his brothers:

Don’t it make you boys feel kinda dirty to look at such a handsome gentleman all dressed up in a fancy suit?

Based on the dialogue along, one would expect Jim McKay (Gregory Peck) to have made his journey west in a purple plaid suit and fancy brocade silk waistcoat, but alas McKay’s attire is as unassuming and dignified as the man himself. The fact that so many feel the need to comment on McKay’s subdued outfit merely illustrates how uncommon it is for these characters—and specifically, the hard-living Hannasseys—to encounter a man (or woman!) on this west Texas trail who isn’t bedecked in buckskin and flannel.

With Pat by his side, Jim makes the unwelcome acquaintance of his new neighbors.

With Pat by his side, Jim makes the unwelcome acquaintance of his new neighbors.

Gregory Peck's screen-worn jacket from The Big Country (Source: Heritage Auctions)

Gregory Peck’s screen-worn jacket from The Big Country (Source: Heritage Auctions)

A Heritage Auctions listing includes a three-button jacket described as “a brown sport coat worn by Peck in the 1958 Western” and stamped as a product of Western Costume Co., identifying the garment as a size 40R and part of a two-piece suit. A tag in the pocket bears Peck’s name and the manufacture date of July 1957.

The modern photography of the auction listing makes the jacket look much more tan than the sandy taupe color that appears on screen. As Peck’s other jackets—a similarly cut suit jacket and a reefer coat—in The Big Country are dark navy blue, we can deduce that this must be the same jacket.

McKay’s single-breasted jacket has narrow notch lapels that roll to just above the top of three buttons, a welted breast pocket that slants toward the center, straight flapped hip pockets, and two non-functioning buttons on the cuffs.

While the tailoring is consistent with the modern lounge suit jacket or sports coat, the back of the jacket is detailed for the era with seams that curve out from each sleeve and follow the back of the jacket to the bottom, flanking a long center vent. The waist line is detailed with two decorative buttons, a holdout from when the front of a riding coat was buttoned to the back.

THE BIG COUNTRY

McKay wears a white shirt with a rounded club collar, plain front, and double (French) cuffs, worn with a set of ornate gold squared cuff links filled in the center with a black amoebic stone.

The happy couple, moments before their tenuous bond would first be tested by Jim's pacifying reaction to the rougher elements of his new home.

The happy couple, moments before their tenuous bond would first be tested by Jim’s pacifying reaction to the rougher elements of his new home.

After Buck recognizes the growing connection between Jim and Julie, he exclaims in disbelief:

He sure is a dude! Is that the kind of a man you want? With a bow tie, fancy hat, and no nerve to hold a gun?

Rather than a bow tie in the modern sense, Jim’s neckwear to which Buck refers is a simple black silk tie. Among the period-inspired offerings at Historical Emporium, the most similar product is cataloged as a “floppy bow tie”… and I can hardly think of a more accurate description, though many have also referred to this narrow neckwear style as a “ribbon tie”.

THE BIG COUNTRY

Though the lack of contrast between them creates the initial effect of a two-piece suit, neither the jacket nor trousers are matching pieces, though—for purposes of shorthanded expression—I may, at times, continue to use the Hannassey’s misinformed vernacular to refer to it as such. One interesting comment about this particular era is that McKay’s decision to wear three non-matching pieces was actually considered more formal than if he wore a true three-piece suit as these “ditto suits” were only coming into fashion by the late Victorian era as less formal alternatives to frock coats worn with non-matching trousers and waistcoats.

McKay’s odd waistcoat (“odd” meaning non-matching rather than the more pejorative definition) has a subtle brown micro check on a beige ground that blends to form a warm shade of taupe that also only slightly contrasts against the jacket. The high-fastening waistcoat has six buttons that close down to the notched bottom and four welted pockets.

THE BIG COUNTRY

This is clearly what McKay considers his “go-to-town” attire, as he again wears it after Pat sends him back to live in town. For this return trip, he wears the jacket and trousers sans waistcoat, revealing the waistband of the slightly darker taupe trousers. McKay wears these high-rise trousers with suspenders with brown leather hooks that connect to buttons along the inside of his trouser waistband, proving that they’re not the same taupe trousers that he wears for day-to-day life on the ranch as those have belt loops.

McKay’s flat front trousers have slanted front pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms that are worn on the outside of his boots.

McKay returns to town in his taupe city suit sans waistcoat, revealing the previously unseen trouser waistband and suspenders.

McKay returns to town in his taupe city suit sans waistcoat, revealing the previously unseen trouser waistband and suspenders.

When dressed in this manner, McKay wears brown leather boots with the shafts covered by his trousers. Only when co-starring with the 6’3″ Charlton Heston and the 6’5″ Chuck Connors would Gregory Peck—also 6’3″—need to be considered about his height, and it’s reported that he wore lifts in the movie that at least gave him the edge over Heston.

McKay takes in the sights and sounds of his new hometown.

McKay takes in the sights and sounds of his new hometown.

Remember that “fancy hat” Buck had maligned? McKay the erstwhile naval captain had found himself somewhat out to sea initially in the wild west, his taupe felt derby hat with its brown ribbed grosgrain silk band and edges establishing him as an outsider as he alights from the Southwest Overland stage in the opening scene.

“I don’t know if I’d wear that hat too long around here, Mr. McKay,” advises Steve Leech (Charlton Heston). “One of these wild cowboys might take it into his head to shoot it off ya.”

Sure enough, as soon as Jim and Pat encounter the Hannassey boys on the road, Buck tosses the derby up into the air for his brothers to shoot a few single-action holes through. “Not very good shots, are they?” a relieved Jim asks upon retrieving his undamaged hat after the fracas.

McKay regards his controversial derby hat.

McKay regards his controversial derby hat.

What Americans call the derby hat originated in England when hatmakers Thomas and William Bowler introduced their latest product, which would become colloquially known as the “bowler hat”, in 1849. The versatile hat with its low, round crown and upturned brim gained a quick reputation for durability and crossed the pond within a decade, where it obtained its “derby” moniker either through association with the Earl of Derby or dapper yet deadly outlaw Marion “the Derby Kid” Hedgepeth.

Hedgepeth—who would later gain notoriety for providing information that would lead to the arrest of serial killer H.H. Holmes—was far from the only outlaw who terrorized the wild west with a derby atop his head, as their ubiquity among old west figures including (but hardly limited to) Bat Masterson, Butch Cassidy, and Billy the Kid led to journalist Lucius Beebe describing the derby as “the hat that won the West”.

Thus, it’s surprising that McKay’s hat receives such a cool reception by thugs like the Hannasseys who would surely respect the violent exploits of criminal contemporaries like Butch and Billy. Perhaps their attitudes were more a reflection of the late 1950s, by which time the derby would have been rendered obsolete or old-fashioned, relegated to the heads of dandies or stodgy British businessmen while the wide-brimmed Stetson had emerged perhaps unfairly victorious in contemporary pop culture depictions of the American West.

How to Get the Look

Gregory Peck as Jim McKay in The Big Country (1958)

Gregory Peck as Jim McKay in The Big Country (1958)

Most of The Big Country‘s characters make a big deal about Jim McKay’s attire which, aside from a few period-influenced details, could easily be updated for the modern era with a more contemporary lounge suit and tie.

  • Sandy taupe gabardine Victorian era single-breasted 3-button lounge jacket with notch lapels, slanted welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, non-functioning 2-button cuffs, tailed back with single vent and 2 decorative buttons
  • Taupe flat front high-rise trousers with slanted front pockets, no back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
  • White cotton shirt with rounded club collar and double/French cuffs
    • Ornate gold square cuff links with black-filled amoebic centers
  • Black silk ribbon tie
  • Suspenders with brown leather hooks
  • Brown leather boots
  • Taupe felt derby hat with brown ribbed grosgrain silk band and edges

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

There are some things that a man has to prove to himself alone, not to anyone else.

True Detective – Ray Velcoro’s Mustard Tweed Sports Coat

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Matt Bomer as Monroe Stahr on The Last Tycoon (Episode 8: “An Enemy Among Us”)

Colin Farrell as Ray Velcoro on True Detective (Episode 2.02: “Night Finds You”)

Vitals

Colin Farrell as Ray Velcoro, troubled and crooked Vinci PD detective

Ventura County, California, October 2014

Series: True Detective
Episodes:
– “Night Finds You” (Episode 2.02, dir. Justin Lin, aired 6/28/2015)
– “Maybe Tomorrow” (Episode 2.03, dir. Janus Metz, aired 7/5/2015)
Creator: Nic Pizzolatto
Costume Designer: Alix Friedberg

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

As we get deeper into autumn, let’s crib a fall-friendly look from the second episode of True Detective‘s divisive second season. Even if you weren’t a fan of the neo-noir sophomore season of Nic Pizzolatto’s HBO series, there’s still something undoubtedly fun about Ray Velcoro’s cowboy-inspired take on a detective’s daily attire. (And if you really can’t stand anything but the first season of True Detective, you have less than three weeks left to wait until BAMF Style revisits one of Rustin Cohle’s looks!)

The second episode of the season, “Night Finds You,” includes Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) and his new task force partner Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) finding a creepy psychiatrist, Irving Pitlor (Rick Springfield), at his Esalen-like institute during their investigation into the death of Vinci, California city manager Ben Caspere. Following the meeting, Velcoro chases his own leads…and two volleys from a shotgun find his torso at point-blank range to the tune of “I Pity the Fool” by Bobby “Blue” Bland.

What’d He Wear?

Unlike the Western-yoked tweed jackets that Ray Velcoro wears, at least in the earlier episodes of the second season, Colin Farrell wears a more traditional sports coat in a rich mustard brown woolen tweed.

According to Valli Herman in a 2015 Costume Designers Guild article, costume designer Alix Friedberg sourced fabrics from L.A. wholesaler B. Black & Sons to create Velcoro’s vintage-inspired sport jackets that nod to some of the most visually masculine pop culture heroes from Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry to Waylon Jennings and Tom Waits. Men’s fashions in the mid-2010s were at the most dramatic of the latest super-slim trend, but Velcoro’s jackets with their larger fit and wider lapels suggest a silent sartorial rebellion favoring the timeless rather than the trendy.

Velcoro’s two-button sports coat has notch lapels with swelled edges that roll to a two-button front. The jacket has a welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, and a single vent. The shoulders are padded with roped sleeveheads and three-button cuffs at the end of each sleeve.

Ray Velcoro has little patience for Dr. Pitlor.

Ray Velcoro has little patience for Dr. Pitlor.

Velcoro wears a flannel snap shirt, patterned in a bronze, slate, and ivory shadow plaid and detailed with pointed Western-style yokes that are echoed by the pointed single-snap flaps over the two chest pockets. In addition to the mother-of-pearl button at the collar, Velcoro wears the first snap down the front placket undone for an insouciant effect.

Alternatives:

  • Howler Brothers “Gaucho” shirt in Roper tan Thornton plaid cotton/poly (Amazon, $57.85)
  • Pendleton “Western Canyon” shirt in brown/gray ombre plaid woolen flannel (Amazon, $127)
  • Pendleton “Western Canyon” shirt in taupe/gold ombre plaid woolen flannel (Pendleton, $99-$149)
  • Steton “Men’s Y/D Twill” shirt in brown/blue ombre plaid (Stetson, $79.50)
Velcoro takes a life-affirming drag the morning after he took two shotgun blasts to the stomach.

Velcoro takes a life-affirming drag the morning after he took two shotgun blasts to the stomach.

Under the shirt, Velcoro wears one of his usual white ribbed cotton sleeveless A-shirts. Both the undershirt and his brown leather belt get plenty of exposure when Velcoro wakes the morning after he’s been shot in the belly with rubber buckshot. He wears his Vinci PD badge fastened to just the left of the belt’s dulled steel single-prong buckle.

A rude but relieving awakening for Ray Velcoro in "Maybe Tomorrow" (Episode 2.03), as the compromised detective had good reason to think there was no tomorrow for him after he was blasted twice with a shotgun.

A rude but relieving awakening for Ray Velcoro in “Maybe Tomorrow” (Episode 2.03), as the compromised detective had good reason to think there was no tomorrow for him after he was blasted twice with a shotgun.

Like his fellow TV cowboy cop Raylan Givens, Ray Velcoro balances his sport jackets and boots with classic American jeans, in this case a pair of dark blue denim Levi’s 501® Original Fit button-fly jeans with his knife clipped into his right side pocket. These iconic jeans, which have been essentially unchanged since the most recent design was standardized in 1947, are widely available directly from Levi’s as well as from retailers like Amazon.

The character’s signature dark brown square-toed boots are consistent with the rest of his style, with Friedberg working together with Farrell until they landed on the ideal pair of custom-made cowboy boots from the Stallion Boot Company of El Paso.

TRUE DETECTIVE

For a brief scene in the season’s first episode, “The Western Book of the Dead” (Episode 2.01), we catch up with Velcoro at the wheel of his Charger, sporting this same tweed jacket over a blue denim-like snap shirt with two patch pockets that each close with a mitred-corner flap. Again, no bolo tie; evidently, Velcoro saves those for his Western-yoked jackets.

Classic chambray work shirt in "The Western Book of the Dead" (Episode 2.01)

Classic chambray work shirt in “The Western Book of the Dead” (Episode 2.01)

What to Imbibe

“Night Finds You” includes a scene of Ray Velcoro settled into the oversized booth at his usual watering hole, the darkened Black Rose dive bar, with a bottle of his brew of choice, Modelo Especial.

TRUE DETECTIVE

Modelo Especial was first bottled in 1925 and the Mexican pilsner-style lager is now a leading product of Grupo Modelo. As of 2017, Modelo Especial was the #2 best-selling imported beer in the United States in 2017 and the #7 best-selling beer overall. (Source: USA Today)

How to Get the Look

Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams on True Detective (Episode 2.02: "Night Finds You")

Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams on True Detective (Episode 2.02: “Night Finds You”)

Ray Velcoro spends much of his duration for the Velcoro PD decked out in Western-yoked tweed jackets, bolo ties, and jeans, but this particular outfit that makes its brief appearance in “Night Finds You” is considerably more accessible for the non-horseback layman with its more traditional tweed sports coat, snap-front flannel shirt, and—perhaps most crucially—lack of a bolo tie.

  • Mustard brown woolen tweed single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with swelled-edge notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Bronze, slate, and ivory shadow plaid flannel Western-yoked snap-front shirt with two pointed single-flap chest pockets and triple-snap cuffs
  • White ribbed cotton sleeveless A-style undershirt
  • Levi’s 501 Original Fit button-fly jeans in dark blue denim
  • Brown leather belt with dulled steel squared single-prong buckle
  • Brown leather square-toed short slip-on roper boots

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the second season of True Detective a chance… but you’d really be doing yourself a favor if you watch season one.

The Quote

Bad habits. Never lost one yet.


Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in Captain Marvel

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Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in Captain Marvel (2019)

Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in Captain Marvel (2019)

Vitals

Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, “full-bird colonel turned spy turned S.H.I.E.L.D. agent”

Rosamond, California, to Louisiana, June 1995

Film: Captain Marvel
Release Date: February 27, 2019
Director: Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck
Costume Designer: Sanja Milkovic Hays

Background

Carol Danvers: Nicholas Joseph Fury… you have three names?
Nick Fury: Everybody calls me Fury. Not Nicholas. Not Joseph. Not Nick. Just Fury.
Carol Danvers: What does your mom call you?
Nick Fury: Fury.
Carol Danvers: What do you call her?
Nick Fury: Fury.
Carol Danvers: What about your kids?
Nick Fury: If I have them? They’ll call me Fury.

The 21st film released by Marvel Studios for the Marvel Cinematic Universe spends more time with Nick Fury than previous entries, giving us an ostensible origin story for the black-clad badass who’s been at the core of the MCU since his first appearance in the post-credits scene of Iron Man. As Captain Marvel is set in 1995, decades before the primary action of the MCU, Samuel L. Jackson was digitally de-aged to portray the character, then seen as a much lower-level agent in the S.H.I.E.L.D. bureaucracy and—perhaps most surprising—with both of his eyes intact.

Fury is called to a scene of suburban destruction in Los Angeles after “Vers” (Brie Larson) crash-lands on planet C-53… known to some as Earth. It’s June 1995, providing the opportunity to load the film with ’90s nostalgia from Bon Jovi and Blockbuster to No Doubt and Nerf guns.

After discovering that there was some credence to what “Blockbuster girl” had told him about an infiltration of shape-shifting Skrull, Fury follows Carol Danvers and her stolen motorcycle out into the desert town of Rosamond, California, about 20 miles outside of L.A., where she’s chasing down her own distorted memories at Pancho’s Bar. To ensure that Fury’s not a Skrull, Vers puts him through the motions, asking him to recall his history from his birth in Huntsville, Alabama (on July 4, 1950, according to his S.H.I.E.L.D. ID), through his military and spy career that consisted primarily of service in cities starting with the letter “B”, up to the then-present day in June 1995, having spent six years since the end of the Cold War “trying to figure out where our future enemies are coming from.”

Following their initially uneasy alliance Fury and Danvers develop a trusting bond as they make their airborne escape from the Project Pegasus facility, searching for more answers from Danvers’ ex-USAF pal Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) who now lives with her daughter in rural Louisiana… “due east, hang a right at Memphis,” as Fury navigates. Along for the ride is Goose, the stray cat—or, uh, flerken—that Fury befriended inside the Project Pegasus facility, and the eventual culprit behind Fury’s famous ocular misfortune.

"Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye," Fury explains in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Captain Marvel reveals that Goose was evidently the last being that Fury trusted... and indeed loses his eye as a result!

“Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye,” Fury explains in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Captain Marvel reveals that Goose was evidently the last being that Fury trusted… and indeed loses his eye as a result!

What’d He Wear?

Now working off the grid for his solo mission to follow Vers, Nick Fury takes an off-duty approach to dressing, still wearing a tie but hardly looking as businesslike as he did in his previous charcoal suit, white shirt, and monochromatic striped tie. Vers has also changed into street clothes, grabbing a well-worn motorcycle jacket, Nine Inch Nails T-shirt (consistent with her previously seen taste in civilian clothes), distressed jeans, and a plaid flannel shirt around her waist from a mannequin before heading out into the desert. “I see you’ve changed it up a bit… grunge is a good look for you!” Fury assures her, later offering her a baseball cap with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo to ease their infiltration of the Project Pegasus facility.

Carol Danvers: (sarcastic) Does announcing your identity on clothing help with the covert part of your job?
Nick Fury: Said the space soldier who was wearing a rubber suit. Lose the flannel.

Interested in Vers' NIN T-shirt? Nine Inch Nails' former art director Rob Sheridan confirmed that the shirt is actually a bootleg as the width of the rectangle differs from the "NIN" typography, but Marvel has since worked with NIN to commission a newly designed T-shirt to commemorate the collaboration between the band and the entertainment company.

Interested in Vers’ NIN T-shirt? Nine Inch Nails’ former art director Rob Sheridan confirmed that the shirt is actually a bootleg as the width of the rectangle differs from the “NIИ” typography, but Marvel has since worked with NIN to commission a newly designed T-shirt to commemorate the collaboration between the band and the entertainment company.

While Vers may have been the actual fighter pilot in a past life, Fury takes a sartorial cue from the classic American flight jacket with his zip-up blouson, constructed in a cool shade of tobacco brown suede.

CAPTAIN MARVEL

Fury’s blouson jacket has a shirt-style collar, a zip-up front, and is gently elasticized around the hem. The jacket has slanted hand pockets and squared single-button cuffs that Fury wears unbuttoned.

Fury's unbuttoned jacket cuffs harmonize with his loosened tie for an insouciant off-duty look.

Fury’s unbuttoned jacket cuffs harmonize with his loosened tie for an insouciant off-duty look.

Jackets like this are frustratingly hard to find as the dominating style of suede casual outerwear seems to be varsity or bomber jackets inspired by the MA-1, while non-sueded leather seems to maintain a stronghold on collared blousons. Earlier this year, the Theory “Noland” suede jacket in tobacco brown offered a promising alternative, slightly differing from Fury’s jacket with details like horizontal seams across the chest and ribbed cuffs and hem, but the jacket is almost impossible to find new, as it’s no longer available from Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, or Saks Fifth Avenue. MR PORTER and MODESENS seem to still offer the jacket. Other alternatives include the Alfredo Rifugio brown suede blouson or the Officine Generale tobacco suede jacket. If you don’t mind the addition of a set-in zippered breast pocket, check out the “Palerme” jacket by Mango or this Schott jacket made from unlined roughout cowhide.

CAPTAIN MARVEL

For fans of sartorial-themed observances, October 18 is celebrated as the Day of the Cravat in Croatia, where the modern necktie was ostensibly developed during the 16th century… so I’d like to extend a very happy Cravat Day to all of my Croatian readers. On that note, let’s take a look at Nick Fury’s neckwear.

Fury unites the colors of his outfit with a luxurious silk tie striped in the uphill direction with brown and dark navy block stripes, each separated by a thin triple stripe set that echoes the wider stripes beneath it. When a defeated Fury finds himself at the mercy of Keller (Ben Mendelsohn), the tie is flipped back against his chest, revealing the distinctive gold-embroidered branding on the inside of the blade that clearly identifies the tie as a product of Italian menswear brand Canali.

While this particular tie appears to no longer be included in Canali’s luxurious catalog, the brand offers a timeless woven silk tie with blue double stripes against a brown ground.

Given Samuel L. Jackson's well-publicized role as a Brioni ambassador, I wonder if the brand took umbrage with the actor visibly sporting a Canali tie given the competition between the two Italian menswear brands.

Given Samuel L. Jackson’s well-publicized role as a Brioni ambassador, I wonder if the brand took umbrage with the actor visibly sporting a Canali tie given the competition between the two Italian menswear brands.

Once Fury is decidedly aligned with Vers and Talos, he ditches the tie—perhaps symbolic of his abandonment of his previous bureaucratic role with S.H.I.E.L.D.—and is never seen sporting one again.

When Fury removes his jacket, we also get a better look at his shoulder holster, a pebbled tan leather rig with a holster under the left armpit for his standard-issue SIG-Sauer P226 semi-automatic pistol.

CAPTAIN MARVEL

Fury’s shirt is charcoal with a blue sheen, perhaps indicative of a silk or high-twist cotton construction, with a narrow collar, plain front, and adjustable button cuffs.

While it may be possible sacrilege to some, the shirt reminds me of some of the inexpensive off-the-rack styles such as the Van Heusen “Flex” in colors like charcoal or night blue, each available for only $37.99. On the much higher-end, Brioni includes an all-cotton “formal shirt” for $625 in a deep shade of blue that could be an update of the version that Brioni ambassador Samuel L. Jackson wore on screen. Should that be too rich for some (as it would be for me), Charles Tyrwhitt offers a non-iron twill shirt in dark navy, perhaps bluer than Fury’s screen-worn shirt but far more affordable than the Brioni option at only $79.

CAPTAIN MARVEL

Fury wears plain dark gray sharkskin flat front trousers with slightly slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms. Through the trouser belt loops, he wears a black leather belt—edge-stitched with black thread—that fastens on the front with a polished steel single-prong buckle.

Chekhov's Pager.

Chekhov’s Pager.

Fury wears black leather mid-calf plain-toe boots with a single zipper on the inside of each. Samuel L. Jackson himself had worn a pair of similar Balenciaga boots for a recent Esquire cover shoot, though this brand would certainly be too “high fashion” for Nick Fury, particularly the branded $1,200 “booties” currently available as of October 2019.

Alternatives:

  • Barbanera vintage calfskin “Cash” boots (The Rake, $610)
  • Florsheim “Medfield” zip boots (Amazon, $99.99)
  • FRYE “Mark” inside-zip boots (Amazon, $98.40)
  • Laredo “Long Haul” boots (Amazon, $114.95)
  • Nunn Bush “Bristol” bicycle-toe boots (Amazon, $68)
  • Rockport “Toloni” zip boots (Amazon, $128.25)
  • Stacy Adams “Santos” side-zipper boots (Amazon, $89.95)

While the uppers appear to be more fashion than form, the boots have classic lugged rubber outsoles that are more practical for an action-oriented agent like Nick Fury who would benefit from their traction rather than slipping and sliding across the floors of the Project Pegasus archives, though the heels are hard leather. Based on the glimpse we see between the tops of his mid-calf boots and the bottoms of his trousers, Fury appears to be wearing tall black cotton lisle socks.

Note the rectangle on the arch of each outsole that appears to contain the bootmaker's brand. Any ideas as to who made these?

Note the rectangle on the arch of each outsole that appears to contain the bootmaker’s brand. Any ideas as to who made these?

Fury’s sunglasses are the most Samuel L. Jackson-like part of his wardrobe as the actor notably wears round-framed shades for many off-screen appearances. Image Optics confirmed on a post-release Facebook post that Jackson wears a pair of John Varvatos V605 with gray/crystal plastic frames and round gray lenses by De Rigo, credited to property master Drew Petrotta. These John Varvatos sunglasses are also available on Amazon.

"Nicholas Joseph Fury" introduces himself at the entrance gate to the Project Pegasus facility. For any trivia buffs, his ID includes a birthdate of July 4, 1950... appropriately enough for this all-American agent.

“Nicholas Joseph Fury” introduces himself at the entrance gate to the Project Pegasus facility. For any trivia buffs, his ID includes a birthdate of July 4, 1950… appropriately enough for this all-American agent.

We don’t get a very close look at Fury’s black 24-hour bezel watch, but it may possibly be a Rolex GMT Master II like this $11,000 watch at Big Watch Buyers, which has black PVD plating on the stainless 40mm case, ceramic rotating bezel, and Oyster-style link bracelet with fold-clasp closure. The 24-hour bezel is marked with white hour markers (numeric for even numbers, dots for odd numbers), and the black dial has white hour indicators.

According to Bob’s Watches, the 24-hour rotating bezel first appeared on the Rolex GMT Master when this iconic timepiece was introduced via partnership with Pan Am in 1954 with an additional fourth hand to efficiently use this feature, originally developed for pilots and navigators on long flights, adding yet another aviation-inspired piece to Nick Fury’s wardrobe.

"I'm about five seconds from complicating that wall with ugly-ass Skrull brains."

“I’m about five seconds from complicating that wall with ugly-ass Skrull brains.”

The final scene before the credits finds Fury back in Los Angeles and back behind his desk at S.H.I.E.L.D., but the burgundy turtleneck that has replaced his staid white shirt and tie—as well as his new makeshift eyepatch—tells us that he’s evolving from the desk-bound agent that started the story. Inspired by Carol Danvers’ USAF call-sign from her file, he renames his plan for “more heroes” from The Protector Initiative to The Avenger Initiative, kicking off his plan for “a response team comprised of the most able individuals humankind has to offer.”

Clad in a turtleneck with a patch over his left eye, the Nick Fury we see at the end of Captain Marvel foreshadows the Fury we get to know over the rest of the MCU.

Clad in a turtleneck with a patch over his left eye, the Nick Fury we see at the end of Captain Marvel foreshadows the Fury we get to know over the rest of the MCU.

The Gun

The SIG-Sauer P226 seems to be the standard issue sidearm for agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., carried by Nick Fury as well as Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Talos while he’s impersonating S.H.IE.L.D. director Keller.

CAPTAIN MARVEL

The Swiss-designed SIG-Sauer P226 was still a relatively new pistol on the U.S. market in 1995, having only been developed a dozen years earlier at a time when most American police departments were still armed with .38-caliber revolvers. As these agencies gradually began to modernize and arm their offers with semi-automatic pistols, SIG-Sauer joined Beretta and Glock among the “big three” firearm manufacturers that were being pressed into service around the country, including with the FBI.

In fact, before standardizing the .40-caliber Glock in 1998, the FBI had authorized nearly a half-dozen 9×19 mm Parabellum pistols, including the SIG-Sauer P225, P226, and P228, as well as the Beretta 92FS, Smith & Wesson 5904—and even the 10mm Smith & Wesson 1076—in the agency’s quest to replace the aging six-shot .38 Special revolvers that had proved ineffective during a deadly 1986 gunfight that had proved fatally ineffective against two heavily armed bank robbers in Miami.

What to Imbibe

After their intergalactic success against Kree warriors, Fury joins Carol, Maria, and Maria’s daughter Monica for dinner at Maria’s home. As they’re still in Louisiana, Maria serves a local beer, Abita Amber, a flagship brew from Abita Brewing Company in Abita Springs, located about 30 miles north of New Orleans.

The Abita bottles appear just in front of Maria's right arm, a nice regional touch to reinforce the Louisiana setting.

The Abita bottles appear just in front of Maria’s right arm, a nice regional touch to reinforce the Louisiana setting.

Jim Patton and Rush Cumming founded Abita Brewing Company in 1986 and has grown to considerable nationwide popularity, with its flagship beers served in 46 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. In addition to Amber, Abita’s flagship beers include Golden, Jockamo IPA, Light, Purple Haze, Restoration Pale Ale, and Turbodog.

How to Get the Look

Samuel L. Jackson and Brie Larson in Captain Marvel (2019)

Samuel L. Jackson and Brie Larson in Captain Marvel (2019)

For our throwback introduction to Nick Fury in Captain Marvel, Fury rises above the 1995 setting with a unique outfit that adds a fashionable touch to a practical off-duty ensemble of a suede blouson jacket, dark shirt, striped tie, 24-hour watch, and zip-side boots. If not completely timeless, this aviation-inspired approach to dressing is more universal than what some men were wearing in the mid-’90s!

  • Tobacco brown suede blouson jacket with shirt-style collar, zip-up front, slanted hand pockets, and single-button squared cuffs
  • Charcoal blue high-twist cotton dress shirt with narrow collar, plain front, and adjustable button cuffs
  • Brown and navy block-striped Italian silk tie with thin triple accent stripes
  • Dark gray sharkskin flat front trousers with belt loops, slightly slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
  • Black edge-stitched leather belt with polished steel rectangular single-prong buckle
  • Black calf leather plain-toe inside-zip mid-calf boots with lugged rubber outsoles
  • Black cotton lisle socks
  • Tan pebbled leather shoulder holster
  • John Varvatos V605 crystal/gray plastic-framed sunglasses with round gray lenses
  • Black PVD-coated stainless watch with white numbers and markers on black dial and rotating 24-hour bezel with black link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie… and don’t cut Nick Fury’s toast diagonally.

(Thank you to my pal Jay, who gave me tickets to go see this on the night it was released in March, making this one of the few movies I’ve actually seen in theaters on the day it came out!)

The Quote

Had a space invasion, big car chase, got to watch an alien autopsy… typical nine-to-five.

Rod Taylor in The V.I.P.s.

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Rod Taylor and Maggie Smith in The V.I.P.s (1963)

Rod Taylor and Maggie Smith in The V.I.P.s (1963)

Vitals

Rod Taylor as Les Mangrum, gregarious Australian tractor manufacturing mogul

Heathrow Airport, London, Winter 1963

Film: The V.I.P.s
(also released as Hotel International)
Release Date: September 19, 1963
Director: Anthony Asquith
Costume Designer: Pierre Cardin (uncredited)

Background

A generation after Grand Hotel (1932) established the subgenre of the ensemble drama with a packed cast of international stars, Anthony Asquith updated the pattern for the jet age with the genteel director’s penultimate film, The V.I.P.s, which—appropriately enough, given its spiritual predecessor—had also been released as Hotel International. While the central narrative and marketing focused on the exaggerated melodrama of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s on-screen romance, bolstered by the two’s tempestuous off-screen affair, I took the greatest delight in following the subplot of gregarious Australian businessman Les Mangrum (Rod Taylor) and his lovestruck secretary, Miss Mead (Maggie Smith), an opinion shared by Sam Kashner in his July 2003 article for Vanity Fair:

Oddly, their love affair—with Mangrum unaware of Miss Mead’s love for him— is more touching than the Sturm and Drang of the Taylor-Burton relationship. The intensity of Rod and Maggie’s on-screen relationship led several people who worked on the film to conclude that they were really falling in love.

Stranded at London’s Heathrow Airport and the neighboring Hotel International, Les is too focused on his immediate concern of returning to New York and saving his business to notice the blooming affections of the devoted and dutiful Miss Mead, all the while providing a refreshingly grounded counter to the haughtiness of his fellow V.IP.s. Rod Taylor and Maggie Smith would rekindle their charming chemistry two years later in Young Cassidy (1965).

“Puffin” Asquith and screenwriter Terence Rattigan gave Rod Taylor considerable leeway to ad-lib his mannerisms and speech to ensure authenticity but, though the actor originally hailed from New South Wales, he explained to the press the following year that it took remarkable concentration for him to revert to an Aussie accent. Decades later, Taylor recalled one of his more unrestrained moments when speaking to Kashner for his Vanity Fair retrospective:

In the end Mangrum is so ecstatic when Miss Mead finds a way to save him that he bounces on the furniture in pure joy, and he doesn’t even notice when his glamorous girlfriend leaves the room. “I didn’t do it consciously,” Rod recalls. “It was the energy of the guy. But whatever I did, little Puffin allowed me to do it. And, in an English movie, with that kind of elegance and whatnot, for me to blow up like a fuckin’ hyena was a relief.”

What’d He Wear?

The V.I.P.s is set in January—a summer month for Australians—though Les Mangrum is no stranger to appropriately layering for the wintry London climate, arriving at Heathrow Airport in a warm shearling coat and trilby over his checked sport jacket, odd waistcoat, and knitted tie. Consistent with his “salt of the earth” personality, Les is dressed from head to heels in earth tones.

Les Mangrum’s top layer is a shearling car coat, the ideal choice for his more rugged, adventurous character especially when compared to the elegant⁠—and somewhat pompous⁠—Paul Andros (Richard Burton) in his Astrakhan-collared Chesterfield or the romantic Marc Champselle (Louis Jourdan) in his camel raglan-sleeve coat.

Shearling sheepskin outerwear can trace its origins back to the Stone Age, though shearling fashions as we know them today grew in popularity over the early decades of the 20th century with the rise of aviation as pilots sought a warm outer layer to combat declining temperatures. Developed in 1934, the shearling sheepskin B-3 flight jacket became essential for the comfort and survival of the American flight crews who spent hours in the unpressurized B-17 and B-24 cabins during World War II while British pilots simultaneously came to rely on their sheepskin Irvin flying jackets. The process of tanning, processing, and dying the skin of a shearling lamb with the wool still intact resulted in a soft, warm product with one suede-like leather “outside” and a woolly opposing “inside”.

While the Boeing 707-436 in BOAC livery featured in The V.I.P.s would have pressurized cabins to keep its occupants far warmer than WWII flight crews, Les Mangrum's shearling coat is still a smart choice for keeping out the winter chill.

While the Boeing 707-436 in BOAC livery featured in The V.I.P.s would have pressurized cabins to keep its occupants far warmer than WWII flight crews, Les Mangrum’s shearling coat is still a smart choice for keeping out the winter chill.

Les Mangrum wears a thigh-length shearling jacket over his sport jacket like a topcoat, tinted in the classic copper brown associated with sheepskin with a natural beige fleece-like soft wool that lines the entire inside of the jacket as well as the collar, revers, and cuffs. Styled in the manner of an oversized pea jacket, Mangrum’s coat has an eight-button, double-breasted front with two parallel columns of four buttons each from the neck down to the waist line, with each buttonhole reinforced with rectangular pieces that fold over each buttonhole onto the pile-side lining. There is a slanted hand pocket on each hip.

Shearling sheepskin coats like Mangrum’s are difficult to track down, with the prevailing sheepskin style being modeled after classic flying jackets like the Irvin that Tom Hardy wore in Dunkirk (2017) as an RAF pilot during World War II. That said, there are several great options available from Sickafus Sheepskins in addition to the pea coat-inspired outerwear currently offered by Caine and cwmalls, though you should be advised that genuine sheepskin will set you back several hundred dollars, if not over a thousand.

Only briefly seen, Les tops his outfit with a dark olive brown felt trilby not unlike the hat that Sean Connery was wearing at the same time across his first four James Bond films, discussed here at The Suits of James Bond. Les’ trilby has a pinched crown, a deeply dented crown, and a short brim, detailed with a narrow grosgrain silk ribbon in the same dark olive brown shade as the rest of the hat.

The V.I.P.s

The pattern of Les’ wool sports coat is a small-scale houndstooth check known as “puppy tooth” in an alternating dark brown and beige pied-de-poule broken check, overlaid with a rust-colored windowpane overcheck.

Les settles into his comfortable seat at the V.I.P. lounge.

Les settles into his comfortable seat at the V.I.P. lounge.

Les’ single-breasted sport jacket has notch lapels that gently roll over the top of the three closely spaced buttons. The jacket has a welted breast pocket, flapped hip pockets that slant backwards, and a flapped ticket pocket that is placed well above the right-side hip pocket but is positioned on a parallel slant. Though many details are consistent with the classic hacking jacket, Les’ sports coat has long double vents rather than the more equestrian single vent. There are three “kissing” buttons on each cuff.

The V.I.P.s

Les wears a white cotton shirt with a semi-spread collar and double (French) cuffs that he secures with gold cuff links.

Contemporary lobby card for The V.I.P.s (1963) featuring Linda Christian and Rod Taylor.

Contemporary lobby card for The V.I.P.s (1963) featuring Linda Christian and Rod Taylor.

The brown knitted silk tie that Les wears with this outfit harmonizes well with its earthy tones, rustic textures, and relative informality. Knitted ties seem to be undergoing a resurgence in popularity at the moment, so you can test out if the look is right for you with this inexpensive “army green” knitted polyester tie by FASINUO (Amazon, $9) or graduate to a knitted silk tie like these flat-bottomed cravats:

Tie One On:

  • Benchmark dark brown knitted silk tie, 2.5″ wide (Amazon, $24.95)
  • Drake’s “chocolate” knitted silk tie, 2.5″ wide (Drake’s, £125)
  • Howard Yount “camo green” knitted silk tie, 2.5″ wide (Howard Yount, $45)
  • Michelsons of London brown knitted silk tie, 3″ wide (Amazon, $36.95)
  • The Tie Bar “chocolate” knitted silk tie, 2″ wide (The Tie Bar, $25)
  • Viccels brown knitted silk tie (Viccels, $19.78)

The V.I.P.s

Les wears an ivory odd waistcoat (or “vest”, to us Americans) with a five-button closure, though he correctly leaves the lowest button undone over the wide notch bottom. A unique detail of Les’ waistcoat are the flaps over the two set-in hip pockets.

Les finds himself torn between two women, his secretary Miss Mead (Maggie Smith) and his glamorous girlfriend Miriam Marshall (Linda Christian).

Les finds himself torn between two women, his secretary Miss Mead (Maggie Smith) and his glamorous girlfriend Miriam Marshall (Linda Christian).

An adjustable strap crosses the bottom of the back, which is lined in a fawn-colored satin that nearly matches his trousers. These pleated trousers have belt loops—though Les wears them sans belt—as well as slanted side pockets and jetted back pockets with a button-through closure on the left.

The V.I.P.s

The well-traveled black hard leather outsoles of Les’ shoes get more screen time than the dark brown leather uppers as Les kicks back make himself at home in the V.I.P. lounge, letting the plain-hemmed bottoms of his trousers fall back to reveal his black hosiery.

Les enjoys that V.I.P. lifestyle.

Les enjoys that V.I.P. lifestyle.

Via what are likely continuity errors over the course of the production show Les wearing two different wristwatches. The first, which we see as he works the phones in the V.I.P. lounge, is stainless steel with a steel bracelet. By the time he has checked into the Hotel International, his left wrist is now dressed with a gold watch on a gleaming black leather strap.

At left, Les appears to be wearing a wristwatch on a steel bracelet while, later—at right—Les sports a gold watch on a black leather band.

At left, Les appears to be wearing a wristwatch on a steel bracelet while, later—at right—Les sports a gold watch on a black leather band.

What to Imbibe

According to Sam Kashner’s Vanity Fair article:

Alcohol was the jet fuel that propelled the making of The V.I.P.s. “Everybody was extremely thirsty on the set,” Rod Taylor recalls. “It wasn’t like going to Hollywood lunches and having iced tea. I mean, the bar inside the studio was constantly packed. You definitely did not get through lunch without a bottle of wine…. And, of course, Dickie [Burton] would say, ‘Have a tot of brandy,’ and this would be 10:30 in the morning. Which seemed perfectly normal to everybody.”

Les Magnum does not necessarily keep up with Taylor and the rest of the film’s cast behind the scenes, but the garrulous businessman imbibes in plenty during his extended stay in London, from a bottle of White Horse Scotch whisky in his hotel room to a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne that he splits with Miss Mead over dinner.

Les: Well, let’s have another go at this.
Miss Mead: Well, I’ll be squiffy!
Les: Marvelous! That, I should like to see, Miss Mead. Just once. What am I talking about, “just once”? If I don’t see it tonight, I don’t suppose I ever will.

The V.I.P.s

Fans of the film were also encouraged to embrace booze, as a contemporary contest at the time of the release promised to reward one lucky “V.I.P.” with a robust personalized bar that included 12 bottles of Booth’s High & Dry gin and three bottles of dry vermouth.

How to Get the Look

Rod Taylor as Les Mangrum in The V.I.P.s (1963)

Rod Taylor as Les Mangrum in The V.I.P.s (1963)

Les Mangram typifies the successful businessman who hasn’t forgotten his rustic roots or his salt-of-the-earth personality, dressed in rustic tones and textures with his layered shearling coat, houndstooth wool sport jacket, odd waistcoat, and knitted tie for a wintry day of jet age travel.

  • Brown-and-beige “puppytooth” check (with rust windowpane overcheck) wool single-breasted 3-button sport jacket with welted breast pocket, slanted flapped hip pockets with flapped ticket pocket, 3-button “kissing” cuffs, and long double vents
  • White cotton shirt with semi-spread collar and double/French cuffs
    • Gold cuff links
  • Olive brown knitted silk tie
  • Ivory wool 5-button waistcoat with two flapped set-in hip pockets, notched bottom, fawn satin lining, and adjustable back strap
  • Fawn pleated trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
  • Dark brown leather lace-up shoes
  • Black cotton lisle socks
  • Copper brown shearling sheepskin thigh-length 8×4-button double-breasted coat with wide collar and revers, slanted side pockets, and cuffs
  • Dark olive brown trilby with narrow grosgrain silk band
  • Gold wristwatch on black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

A hundred years ago, top people were top people because they were born top people, but you know something, love? A hundred years from now, top people will be top people because they deserve to be.

The Wild One: Brando’s Motorcycle Jacket

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Marlon Brando as Johnny Stabler in The Wild One (1953)

Marlon Brando as Johnny Strabler in The Wild One (1953)

Vitals

Marlon Brando as Johnny Strabler, outlaw motorcycle club leader

Central California, Summer 1953

Film: The Wild One
Release Date: December 30, 1953
Director: László Benedek

Background

“Hey, Johnny, what are you rebelling against?”

“Whaddaya got?”

This famous exchange originated among the actual biker gangs that producer Stanley Kramer had brought on set to play themselves. When Kramer asked what it was they were “rebelling” against, a member cracked back to him, “Well, whaddaya got?” The line so encapsulated the culture and attitude of bikers during the era that it was incorporated into The Wild One, though the question is posed by Mildred, the platinum blonde beauty salon operator that one of Johnny’s boys picked up in a bar.

Inspired by actual events over a rambunctious fourth of July weekend in Hollister, California, in 1947, The Wild One was based on Frank Rooney’s short story “The Cyclists’ Raid” that appeared in Harper’s magazine in January 1951. It was swiftly adapted for the screen, though the locations involved were changed to the fictional California burgs of Carbondale and Wrightsville, the latter being the “screwball town”—according to Dextro (Jerry Paris)—where most of the action takes place.

The credits are a bit misleading, introducing Marlon Brando to us as The Wild One, though his character Johnny Strabler turns out to be the most restrained of his hell-raising confederates, particularly when compared to the obnoxious pipsqueak Mouse (Gil Stratton), the larcenous, simple-minded Pigeon (Alvy Moore), or rival gang leader Chino (Lee Marvin).

It begins here for me on this road. How the whole mess happened I don’t know, but I know it couldn’t happen again in a million years. Maybe I could have stopped it early, but once the trouble was on its way, I was just goin’ with it. Mostly I remember the girl. I can’t explain it – a sad chick like that, but somethin’ changed in me. She got to me, but that’s later anyway. This is where it begins for me right on this road.

Kathie and Johnny try to understand each other.

Kathie and Johnny try to understand each other.

THE WILD ONEDespite his anomalous introduction, Johnny is full of swagger, and this “bad boy” charm is not lost on repressed counter girl Kathie (Mary Murphy). While the rest of his gang is tearing up the town, Johnny is focused on making a date with the small-town gal, though the disaffected biker struggles to fight through his repressed emotions to forge a genuine connection with the woman who, her emotions worn on her sleeve, tries to get through by asking:

You’re still fighting, aren’t you? You’re always fighting. Why do you hate everybody?

In light of the sensationalistic media coverage of the 1947 events which the San Francisco Chronicle had called “the worst 40 hours in the history of Hollister”, The Wild One goes a few steps further with its dramatization, expanding on the relatively mild drinking and street stunts during the actual weekend by adding more violence, rioting, and death. In fact, many of the original cyclists from the American Motorcycle Association were invited back to Hollister by the Oakland Hells Angels over the weekend of July 4, 1997, for a 50th anniversary commemoration of the now-famous events.

What’d He Wear?

Homer Van Pelt's enduring image of a leather-clad Marlon Brando leaning on his Triumph motorcycle remains a best-selling poster and print.

Homer Van Pelt’s enduring image of a leather-clad Marlon Brando leaning on his Triumph motorcycle remains a best-selling poster and print.

Although this 1953 film features one of the most iconic men’s movie outfits of all time, The Wild One had no credited costume designer. In fact, according to IMDB, it was Marlon Brando himself who selected Johnny Strabler’s famous costume from items in his own wardrobe, renewing his real-life passion for motorcycles to get into character, establishing a persona that would live long past the fabulous fifties to become emblematic of the decade’s counterculture.

No doubt a result of Brando’s swaggering persona, Johnny’s Perfecto-style motorcycle jacket became an overnight symbol of biker culture to the population that had yet been unexposed to the motorcycle clubs being established across the country. After The Wild Ones, the Schott Perfecto® jacket became a staple of countercultural style from contemporary figures like James Dean to a late ’70s punk revival thanks to rockers from Joan Jett to the Ramones.

“The Perfecto motorcycle jacket was already a quarter century old when Marlon Brando immortalized it in the 1954 biker flick The Wild One,” Esquire‘s The Handbook of Style introduces it, though a few days off regarding the film’s release date. “The original dates from 1928, when a Harley-Davidson distributor asked Schott Bros., a Staten Island outerwear manufacturer, to create a leather motorcycle jacket. (The brothers had long branded their raincoats under the name Perfecto, after one of the founders’ favorite cigar.)”

Whether or not it was a genuine Schott Perfecto that Brando wore in The Wild One remains a matter of debate, but let’s start by looking at the jacket itself.

Johnny Strabler rides from Carbondale to Wrightsville in a black leather motorcycle jacket, likely made from stiff, durable steerhide that had been softened over years of hard wear atop his Triumph Thunderbird 6T. The waist-length jacket has an asymmetrical “lancer front” that zips up from waist to neck with a long fabric zipper pull. When unzipped, the jacket’s front flaps present as two widely notched and snap-studded revers, though zipping up to the neck converts these to a spread collar with a single snap at the edge of each leaf for an optional fur collar to be added, while the snaps on the lower halves of the lapels would be to fasten them down onto the body of the jacket. These snaps were not a native feature of the Schott Perfecto 618, so they were either added for the production or an indicator that Brando was not wearing a Schott.

Over the course of The Wild One, Brando wears the jacket unzipped, partially zipped, and zipped to the neck as seen during his fight with Chino or his evening in the woods with Kathie.

Marlon Brando's outfit in The Wild One may have become legendary, but⁠—according to IMDB⁠—San Francisco Hells Angels chapter president Frank Sadilek bought the striped shirt that Lee Marvin wore as Chino and wore it for a meeting with police officials.

Marlon Brando’s outfit in The Wild One may have become legendary, but⁠—according to IMDB⁠—San Francisco Hells Angels chapter president Frank Sadilek bought the striped shirt that Lee Marvin wore as Chino and wore it for a meeting with police officials.

Brando’s motorcycle jacket has a total of four external pockets. There are two slanted hand pockets, each with a ringed zipper pull, as well as a third slanted zip pocket, higher on the left side of the chest and—in an uphill direction—perpendicular to the hand pocket just beneath it. Also on the left side, in front of the lower hand pocket, is a small set-in coin pocket that closes with a pointed single-snap flap that Brando occasionally tucks into the pocket. Schott added this pocket as a custom option to the Perfecto One Star in the early ’50s, though it became standard by 1955.

The leather half-belt is another signature of the Perfecto-style motorcycle jacket, fastened around the front of the waist through wide loops just an inch below the bottom of the jacket and closing through a large steel single-prong buckle with mitred corners.

Brando’s character has customized his leather jacket with his name—”Johnny”—painted in cursive over the left chest in addition to a single star pinned to each epaulette (shoulder strap), indicating Johnny’s position of leadership similar to the insignia of an American brigadier general. While the Schott Perfecto 613 One Star had been introduced in the late 1940s with similar stars affixed to the shoulder straps, some have argued that Brando wore a Schott Perfecto 618 with stars added to resemble the 613 One Star.

THE WILD ONE

Further character customization of Brando’s jacket includes a sunglasses-wearing skull and crossed pistons below a stenciled “B.R.M.C.”, standing for—as Mouse squeals—”Black Rebels Motor-siccle Club”. The name and logo have since been appropriated by the San Francisco rock band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, which formed in 1998.

Aside from the customized logo, Johnny’s motorcycle jacket has the Perfecto’s customary pleated bi-swing “action back” and the zip-up sleeves that can be unzipped up the underside of the forearm to the elbow.

The members of B.R.M.C. and the Beetles surround their feuding leaders, dressed in a variety of leather jackets from Perfecto-style motorcycle jackets to A2-style flight jackets.

The members of B.R.M.C. and the Beetles surround their feuding leaders, dressed in a variety of leather jackets from Perfecto-style motorcycle jackets to A2-style flight jackets.

For obvious reasons, Schott NYC proudly takes credit for manufacturing the motorcycle jacket that Marlon Brando made famous in The Wild One, though there have been several discussions online that have advanced a theory that Brando actually wore a replica Perfecto-style jacket made by the lesser known brand Durable, suggested here in a forum on The Fedora Lounge and advanced via citation of Brando’s underarm gussets and sleeve zips by Rick Theriault’s exploration of his own 1950s Durable jacket here.

With the help of a timeline that Schott NYC published last year to celebrate the 90th anniversary of their Perfecto jacket, we can piece together the following:

  • 1913: Schott is founded by brothers Irving and Jack Schott on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, specializing in fur-lined raincoats
  • 1928: Schott introduces the Perfecto jacket, notable for being the first mass-produced American outerwear with zippers sewn on
  • Late 1940s: Schott introduces the horsehide Perfecto 613 One Star
  • Early 1950s: Schott introduces the Perfecto 618, identical to the 613 though it lacks the shoulder stars

Both the Perfecto 613 One Star and the Perfecto 618 (in steerhide and horsehide) are still available from Schott NYC, though the company now also offers customizable jackets, giving many fans the opportunity to order their own Brando-inspired Perfecto jackets as seen in this “You Call the Schotts” forum where users discuss (and interact with a Schott representative) the customizations that were seemingly made to the screen-worn jacket in The Wild One. For a few hundred bucks less, Magnoli Clothiers also offers a customizable “Brando Leather Jacket” that makes no secret of who inspired it.

In the nearly a century that has passed since Schott introduced the groundbreaking Perfecto, legions of menswear designers and manufacturers have developed their own motorcycle jackets, and my friend at Iconic Alternatives will soon be publishing a definitive guide to finding modern (and affordable) motorcycle jackets in the spirit of Brando, Dean, and the decades of rebels to follow.

Honestly, the Schott vs. Durable discussion is considerably above my head and has been much argued by those more expert than myself, and it seems we’re at the mercy of internet detectives to determine the actual maker of Brando’s jacket as the screen-worn coat seems to have been lost to history. Whatever the true provenance of Brando’s screen-worn motorcycle jacket may be, Schott has claimed credit for it and their instrumental role in developing the original Perfecto in the 1920s makes them worthy of mention during any discussion of Johnny Strabler’s rebellious attire.

Johnny and his pals watch the Carbondale motorcycle races before deciding that their leader is worthy of at least winning the second place prize.

Johnny and his pals watch the Carbondale motorcycle races before deciding that their leader is worthy of at least winning the second place prize.

Johnny’s shirt is a simple ringer T-shirt, so named for the “ringed” piping around the crew neck and the ends of the short set-in sleeves. The shirt appears to be the same one that Brando is wearing in this portrait by Everett.

Contemporary color photography from the production of The Wild One depicts the shirt as light beige, similar to this “hummus” beige ringer T with dark navy accents from ASOS (for only $10, as of October 2019.) Like motorcycle jackets, ringer tees grew in popularity in the U.S. during the mid-’50s and enjoyed a revival among the 1970s hard rock subculture.

Promotional photo of Johnny (Marlon Brando), flanked on his Triumph by Mildred (Peggy Mailey) and "Britches" (Yvonne Doughty), both on motorcycles of their own though only Britches was a fellow biker in the film; the blonde Mildred was the beauty shop owner who asked Johnny what he was rebelling against.

Promotional photo of Johnny (Marlon Brando), flanked on his Triumph by Mildred (Peggy Mailey) and “Britches” (Yvonne Doughty), both on motorcycles of their own though only Britches was a fellow biker in the film; the blonde Mildred was the beauty shop owner who asked Johnny what he was rebelling against.

Johnny’s dark indigo blue jeans have been suggested to be Levi’s 501® jeans, at the time still only prominently marketed in Western states according to the online listing for the Levi’s® Vintage Clothing 1954 501® Jean, which introduced a zip-fly (thus the 501® Z designation) in lieu of the venerated button fly. As the zippered fly would debut on the 501 the year after The Wild One was produced and released, Brando’s 501s maintained the original button fly.

Brando’s jeans are constructed from selvedge denim, “woven so the fabric’s ‘edge’ can be used in garment construction” according to Todd Shelton’s definitive May 2019 exploration into this tightly woven heavy fabric. You can also read more about selvedge and raw denim in Mash Nedich’s article for Primer.

Although the brand has evolved the product in the decades since Brando wore them in The Wild One, Levi’s 501 Original jeans with a button-fly closure and “rigid dark wash” selvedge denim are still available in the 1947 pattern (from Amazon and Levi’s) as well as the “Original Fit” (from Amazon and Levi’s) and the “Original Shrink-to-fit” (from Amazon and Levi’s).

THE WILD ONE

Johnny wears a dark leather belt, likely black to match the rest of his leather, with a tall single-prong buckle that echoes the buckle on his jacket’s half-belt. The belt is decorated with a series of “X”-shaped laces in contrasting light leather that weave in and out of double grommets around the back of the belt.

While lacking the contrasting lace and more substantial buckle of Brando’s screen-worn belt, there are a few relatively inexpensive X-laced black leather belts available on the Internet from Amazon, Bonanza, and other retailers.

THE WILD ONE

Engineer boots trace their origins back to the Civil War era when Massachusetts-based shoemaker Frye introduced its harness boots that would soon be adopted by the U.S. cavalry. Decades later, it was on the dawn of yet another major war that the Chippewa and West Coast Shoe Company (Wesco) evolved these ankle-strapped boots in the late 1930s to have longer shafts in the spirit of English equestrian footwear with loose gussets at the top secured by a second buckled strap. These minimally designed, easy-to-remove “engineer boots” were meant to be worn by railway firemen but also caught on among shipyard welders in the Pacific Northwest and, after World War II, by motorcyclists who needed laceless boots with long shafts to protect against the heat of their bikes and to prevent further injury in the case of an accident.

Costumed in his moto jacket, jeans, and engineer boots, Marlon Brando poses on a Matchless motorcycle used by stunt rider Wally Albright; note the inverted "M" to resemble a "W".

Costumed in his own moto jacket, jeans, and engineer boots, Marlon Brando poses on a Matchless motorcycle used by stunt rider Wally Albright; note the inverted “M” to resemble a “W”.

Thanks to wearers like Brando in The Wild One and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, engineer boots have become inextricably linked with ’50s counterculture, alternatively known as “motorcycle boots” as the image tends to evoke Johnny Strabler and his fellow B.R.M.C. bikers before that of the railway engineer for whom the boots were developed. In 2011, Brando’s estate sued Harley-Davidson for using the actor’s likeness to sell engineer boots similar to the ones worn in The Wild One, though both parties reached a settlement.

Classic engineer boots were invariably made of sturdy black bullhide with shafts ranging from 7″ to 17″ in height and thick leather soles with substantial heels. The dual-strap design remained a trademark of engineer boots, with one across each instep and one around the gusseted top of each shaft.

As the original manufacturers of engineer boots, Chippewa and Wesco both benefited from their postwar popularity and both have been suggested to be the brand that Brando famously wore in The Wild One, though Vintage Engineer Boots—an expert in this style of footwear, as the blog name suggests—has deduced Johnny Strabler’s on-screen engineer boots to be vintage steel-toed Chippewas.

More than 65 years later, Chippewa and Wesco engineer boots are still widely available as well as less expensive alternatives from AdTec, Dingo, and FRYE:

  • Chippewa 11″ “Original Collection” engineer boots (Amazon)
  • Chippewa 11″ steel-toed engineer boots (Amazon)
  • Chippewa 17″ steel-toed engineer boots (Amazon)
  • Wesco 11″ “Boss” engineer boots (Amazon)

For as much as fans have had to guess who made the staples of Johnny Strabler’s attire like his jacket and boots, a close-up of the movie leaves no doubt regarding the maker of his black leather riding gloves. As Johnny guzzles his bottle of Blatz inside Bleeker’s, white printing is seen along the inside: “SPEC…” “CLASS P – PIQUE” “SIZE 8:” “A&F STOCK”, all snippets of the gloves’ manufacture and provenance though the most telltale is the bottom line of print that identifies the maker: “BUSCARLET GLOVE CO.”

Online searches turn up varying results for Buscarlet Glove Company, including a French specialist of women’s gloves, though Johnny undoubtedly wears the American-made Buscarlet gloves that were headquartered in New York. Both companies seem to be defunct now, and simple leather gloves seem to have been supplanted among motorcyclists by more protective gloves.

Johnny gives us a clear shot of the print on the inside of his gloves as he deals with an excessively foamy Blatz.

Johnny gives us a clear shot of the print on the inside of his gloves as he deals with an excessively foamy Blatz.

When Johnny removes his gloves, he reveals a large ring gleaming from the third finger of his left hand with a dark stone.

Also dressing his left hand is a bulky curb-chain bracelet, highlighted in some shots from Phil Stern’s archive of behind-the-scenes photography.

"Say what? Who are you? Some girl who makes sandwiches or somethin'?"

“Say what? Who are you? Some girl who makes sandwiches or somethin’?”

When on the road, Johnny sports a pair of metal-framed aviator sunglasses, an indication of crossover style between the worlds of motorcycling and aviation. Bausch & Lomb had originally developed these tinted pilot’s glasses in 1936 as an elegant update of the existing military flight goggles. Over the course of World War II, they had been popularized by young men seeking to emulate American war heroes of the skies and became firmly entrenched in pop culture after eccentric General Douglas MacArthur was photographed in his peaked cap, aviators, and signature corncob pipe after landing in the Philippines in 1944.

Ten years later, Marlon Brando rode through the opening credits of The Wild One with his eyes shielded by a pair of aviators, and the world had a new iconoclast from whom to take their eyewear cues. When not wearing his aviators, Johnny tended to clip them to the belt of his leather jacket.

Given its association with Bausch & Lomb, Ray-Ban has essentially cornered the market on the classic aviator frame (available from Amazon and Ray-Ban), though most eyewear companies—and quite a few clothiers—offer their own variation of the frame as well, with the J+S Premium Classic Aviator (Amazon) emerging as a popular, low-priced alternative.

We meet the titular "wild one" during the opening credits.

We meet the titular “wild one” during the opening credits.

Johnny’s signature headgear was a mariner’s cap (also known as a “fiddler cap” for its association with Fiddler on the Roof) with an eight-paneled, tightly woven cloth cover in khaki—as established by contemporary color photography—with two ventilation holes on each side and a flat gold-toned linked chain across the front. The cap has a short black leather visor.

Wild One caps” are a signature product of San Diego’s Village Hat Shop, particularly the “Brando Cotton Canvas Cap” from New York Hat Company which swaps out the gold-toned band for a black braided rope.

What to Imbibe

After the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club arrives in Wrightsville, Johnny Strabler becomes the first of many in the club to patronize Bleeker’s Cafe, the diner owned by Frank Bleeker (Ray Teal) whose daughter Kathie works the register, first making Johnny’s acquaintance over the bottle of beer that she serves him.

The beer that fuels Johnny and the rest of the BRMC’s exploits in Wrightsville appears to be Blatz, a Milwaukee brew that was enjoying considerable popularity across the nation at the time.

Johnny eschews the glass that Kathie provided for his beer, choosing to drink his Blatz straight from the bottle.

Johnny eschews the glass that Kathie provided for his beer, choosing to drink his Blatz straight from the bottle.

Blatz beer dates back to 1846 when Johann Braun opened City Brewery, one of approximately 35 to open in the city in the two decades to follow the first Milwaukee brewery opening in 1840. Four years after Braun’s brewery opened at Main and Division streets (now N. Broadway and E. Juneau Avenue), Bavarian-born immigrant Valentin Blatz established his brewery next door. When Braun less than two years later, Blatz married Braun’s widow and merged the two breweries under his ownership. In 1852, the total output of Blatz’s newly expanded brewery was 350 barrels, a humble beginning for what would become the third best-selling Milwaukee brewery by the turn of the century.

Fred MacMurray in a 1949 advertisement for Blatz. Note the similarities between the bottle in the ad and the bottles in The Wild One.

Fred MacMurray in a 1949 advertisement for Blatz. Note the similarities between the bottle in the ad and the bottles in The Wild One.

As the taste for German-style lagers gained a foothold in the United States over traditional English ales, so too did interest in Blatz beer, which was producing 16,000 barrels annually by 1868. A fire in 1872 did little to halt the brewery’s upward momentum, as it provided Val Blatz the opportunity to reinvest in new technologies that better allowed for innovation and expansion. Three years later, Blatz became the first Milwaukee brewery to have an in-house bottling department to package its beer and ship nationally. By 1880, production was up to 125,000 barrels each year, shipped across the country as far as New York, Boston, Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans, as well as nearer cities with booming beer markets like Chicago and Memphis.

In the two decades approaching the turn of the century, Blatz worked fiercely to continue innovating his product, installing an innovative pipeline between the brewery and bottling works in 1889, the same year that the works was incorporated as the Val Blatz Brewing Company with a capitalization of $2,000,000. In 1891, a new and expanded brewery complex was built while Blatz sold part of his interests to an English syndicate and, in 1894, the Blatz brewery became the first in the country to run on electric power, putting the brewery on an unstoppable track of progress that led to it becoming the third largest Milwaukee brewery by 1900. Unfortunately, Val Blatz did not live to see this achievement, as the visionary brewer died on May 26, 1894 at the age of 67.

Despite its continued growth, Blatz suffered the same blow as breweries across the nation when Prohibition was enacted in the United States. For 13 years, Blatz eked out non-alcoholic products such as malt soaps, near beer, and “Blatz Gold Star Ginger Ale” to stay afloat, finally resuming full production of beer as soon as Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Two years later, in the spirit of Val Blatz’s endless enthusiasm for innovation, Blatz became one of the first beers in the country to be sold in cans. Ownership shifted to whiskey producer Schenley Industries during the post-Prohibition era, but Blatz continued its upward track, becoming the 9th most produced American beer in 1950 with 1,756,000 barrels. Given this popularity, it’s little surprise that it would have been so ubiquitous in Bleeker’s Cafe when Johnny and his gang strolled in on one otherwise quiet summer day in 1953.

Johnny offers his stolen gold trophy to Kathie, making one hell of a tip when all she served him was a bottle of beer. That just shows you how much people really liked drinking Blatz in the '50s, I guess.

Johnny offers his stolen gold trophy to Kathie, making one hell of a tip when all she served him was a bottle of beer. That just shows you how much people really liked drinking Blatz in the ’50s, I guess.

The once mighty Blatz brewery met a surprisingly quick demise not long after the B.R.M.C. drank Bleeker’s Cafe dry in 1953. Pabst Brewing Company acquired Blatz from Schenley in 1958, but the sale was voided when the government determined the acquisition in violation of the Clayton Act, and the brewery was forced to close within the year. The brand lived on as the assets and labels were sold to Pabst in 1960, changing hands multiple times over the decades from G. Heileman to Stroh’s to Pabst to Miller before once again being acquired by Pabst in 2007.

You can read more about the history of Blatz beer from the brewery complex’s nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places as well as this Angelfire site.

What to Ride

Marlon Brando leans against his character's trademark Triumph in The Wild One (1953)

Marlon Brando leans against his character’s trademark Triumph in The Wild One (1953)

Johnny Strabler rides through California on a 1950 Triumph 6T Thunderbird motorcycle reported to be Marlon Brando’s own, with 1951 California registration plate #93832 (not #63632, as has been reported elsewhere.)

Triumph introduced the Thunderbird in 1949 to meet the increasing demand for motorcycles by recreational riders embracing the avocation in the years following World War II and the rise of biker culture. British motorcycles were lighter and more agile and, according to a January 2003 article in American Motorcyclist, “after 1950, more Triumphs were sold in America than in any other country.”

The 6T Thunderbird was powered by a four-stroke parallel-twin engine bored out to almost 650cc from the Speed Twin’s 500cc displacement for additional horsepower to satisfy the American market, offering 34 bhp (25 kW) at 6300 rpm, enough to push the 370-pound motorcycle to top speeds around 100 mph. While the “6T” in its name was a reference to the 650cc engine, it’s been suggested that Triumph managing director Edward Turner was inspired by an American motel for the “Thunderbird” part of the name. Triumph initially offered the 6T Thunderbird in blue only, until American dealers demanded a black model to take on the tough-looking competition from Harley-Davidson and Indian. In response, Triumph delivered the all-black “Blackbird” for the U.S. market only.

Johnny Strabler’s Triumph is consistent with his fellow Black Rebels Motorcycle Club members who all ride Triumphs or other British motorcycles made by BSA and Matchless. In turn, Chino and his rival club—the Beetles—ride into Wrightsville on predominantly American-made Harley-Davidson motorcycles. (Interestingly enough, just a decade later, a little band called the Beatles would kick off the “British invasion”.)

Triumph was indignant at the use of their motorcycles in The Wild One, to the point where Bill Johnson, the Triumph importer whose Johnson Motors was largely responsible for the brand’s success in the U.S., issued an objection:

It should be obvious that the film is calculated to do nothing but harm, particularly to do a minor group of business people—motorcycle dealers throughout the USA. Certainly there is nothing educational about this picture, but on the contrary it raises a most unfavorable presumption against the sport of motorcycling generally, and is a stigma to anyone who owns or rides a motor bike.

A longer excerpt of this objection can be found in Lindsay Brooke and David Gaylin’s comprehensive history Triumph Motorcycles in America. Eventually, Triumph would embrace its prominent role in such an iconic movie, even to the point of listing Marlon Brando next to Steve McQueen as a celebrity who “cemented the Triumph legend.” And indeed he did.

Johnny parks his Triumph 6T Thunderbird in front of Bleeker's Cafe. Note the registration plate that clearly reads 93832 (rather than 63632).

Johnny parks his Triumph 6T Thunderbird in front of Bleeker’s Cafe. Note the registration plate that clearly reads 93832 (rather than 63632).

Marlon Brando wasn’t the only prominent cast member who owned a Triumph motorcycle. Having overcome his initial inability to ride a motorcycle Lee Marvin—who played the Harley-Davidson rider Chino—competed in real-life desert races on a Triumph 200cc Tiger Cub, evidently respecting Brando’s choice in bikers more than he did his style of method acting. Fellow ’50s rebel was so inspired by Brando’s Triumph that he bought himself a Triumph TR5 Trophy, the same 498cc motorcycle that would be popularly ridden by “the Fonz” (Henry Winkler) on Happy Days.

You can read more about the 1950-1953 6T Thunderbird model here and about the motorcycles (and cars) featured in The Wild One at IMCDB.

How to Get the Look

“Marlon Brando’s motorcycle gang leader in The Wild Ones… made jeans and leather a classic combination,” wrote Marion Maneker in Dressing in the Dark: Lessons in Men’s Style from the Movies. Indeed, Johnny Strabler’s personalized black leather Perfecto-style motorcycle jacket, selvedge Levi’s jeans, engineer boots, and canvas peaked cap has endured for more than half a century as emblematic of 1950s rebellious counterculture.

Marlon Brando as Johnny Stabler in The Wild One (1953)

Marlon Brando as Johnny Strabler in The Wild One (1953)

  • Black steerhide leather Perfecto-style motorcycle jacket with widely notched lapels (with collar snaps), asymmetrical zip-up lancer front, snapped epaulettes/shoulder straps (each decorated with a single star), zip-up slanted hand pockets, zip-up slanted left chest pocket, left-side coin pocket (with pointed single-snap flap), half-belt (with mitred-corner steel single-prong buckle), zip-up sleeves, and bi-swing pleated “action back”
  • Beige cotton “ringer” T-shirt with dark navy-piped crew neck and short sleeve ends
  • Levi’s 501® Original jeans in dark indigo blue selvedge denim with belt loops, button fly, front pockets, right-side coin pocket, flapped back pockets, and self-cuffed plain-hemmed bottoms
  • Black leather belt with contrasting “X”-lacing and tall single-prong buckle
  • Black bullhide leather engineer boots with buckled straps and double leather outsoles (with stacked heels)
  • Mariner’s cap with soft khaki eight-panel cloth cover, flat gold-linked front band, and black leather visor
  • Black leather motorcycle gloves
  • Silver curb-chain bracelet
  • Gold ring with stone
  • Aviator-style sunglasses

To read more about Brando’s iconic outfit, check out these guides from Every Guyed and High Snobiety.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

You think you’re too good for me. Nobody’s too good for me! Anybody thinks they’re too good for me, I make sure I knock ’em over sometime. Right now, I could slap you around to show you how good you are and tomorrow, I’m someplace else and I don’t even know you or nothing.

Boardwalk Empire: Nucky Thompson’s Final Suit in “Eldorado”

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Steve Buscemi as Enoch "Nucky" Thompson on Boardwalk Empire (Episode 5.08: "Eldorado")

Steve Buscemi as Enoch “Nucky” Thompson on Boardwalk Empire (Episode 5.08: “Eldorado”)

Vitals

Steve Buscemi as Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, corrupt Atlantic City politician and bootlegger

Atlantic City, Late Spring 1931

Series: Boardwalk Empire
Episode: “Eldorado” (Episode 5.08)
Air Date: October 26, 2014
Director: Tim Van Patten
Creator: Terence Winter
Costume Designer: John A. Dunn
Tailor: Martin Greenfield

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary since the final episode of Boardwalk Empire aired. Set in 1931, the fifth and final season of HBO’s Prohibition-set crime drama took a seven-year leap to conclude the stories of Atlantic City’s corrupt ex-treasurer Enoch “Nucky” Thompson (Steve Buscemi) and those in his orbit, whether based on reality like “Lucky” Luciano (Vincent Piazza) or fictional creations for the show like Gillian Darmody (Gretchen Mol). Nucky himself is based on Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, the colorful and indeed corrupt politician from Atlantic City’s heyday in the roaring ’20s.

“Eldorado” gave the viewers one last day on the boardwalk with Nucky who, despite the bright sunshine, shares our sense that this may be his last promenade for more reasons than just his plans to leave town. Consider the name of the episode, which—aside from a passing reference as the name of a swanky new apartment building—is never uttered on screen but instead remains Nucky’s ultimate, and ultimately unachievable goal.

Luciano and his partners Meyer Lansky (Anatol Yusef) and Bugsy Siegel (Michael Zegen) had been embroiled in Nucky’s war with Dr. Valentin Narcisse (Jeffrey Wright), the series’ antagonist for two seasons running, and plan to end it with two gunmen taking one of them down—in public, to send a message. We immediately find ourselves following Nucky on his afternoon walk on the Atlantic City boardwalk, but we’re not the only ones tailing the dapper bootlegger as Nucky senses the foreboding presence of the two clunky and clearly armed men keeping a sinister distance behind him. Nucky makes the most of his lsat day, getting a sense of the future through a boardwalk TV demonstration, making amends for the present over Cokes with his estranged brother Eli (Shea Whigham), and finally dealing with the consequences of his past, particularly his Faustian deal with the Commodore decades prior that corrupted the then-teenage Gillian Darmody (Madeleine Yen) and ruined at least two Darmody generations to follow.

Between the flashbacks of then-deputy sheriff Nucky’s dealings with the Commodore in 1897 to his own recollections of the previous morning’s dawn swim when he was hoping to pass the point of no return, “past where there isn’t any choice… [though] you can’t know until you pass it… then it’s too late,” this terrific finale weaves in themes of the past and its consequences. Perhaps not only aware of his inevitable end, Nucky seems to welcome it, conducting end-of-life behavior like attempting amends with those he has most wronged, namely his little brother Eli and the troubled Gillian, both of whom have been reduced to considerably lower stations as a tangential result of Nucky’s past actions. He can’t undo what he’s done in the past, but he can work in the present to try to improve their futures—with gifts of cash (and a shaving kit) for Eli and tearful attempts at reassurance for Gillian, who has been idling for the better part of a decade in an asylum, in what AV Club reviewer Genevieve Valentine described as “one of the most nihilistic scenes the show’s ever given us.”

And suddenly, Dr. Narcisse and his bodyguard are shot down outside of a church in a fusillade of gunfire from two .45-toting gangsters, and we realize that perhaps Nucky may be in the clear after all as it becomes obvious that Luciano and the other heads of the newly formed Mafia commission planned to spare Nucky and take out Narcisse instead. It looks like our protagonist may reach Eldorado after all, gathering the last of his belongings before he gets a call that Joe Harper (Travis Tope), the teenage thief that Nucky has been treating like somewhat of a protégé, had been caught conducting his larcenous business in the Ritz-Carlton, Nucky’s erstwhile stronghold.

Nucky takes Joe out for some parting words of wisdom, handing him $100 to buy a 5-cent cup of coffee… but neither the cup of joe nor Joe himself are so easily bought. “Answer to everything,” Joe cynically grumbles about the cash. “No… just the best one I’ve got,” responds Nucky, who then watches with amusement as a stone-faced Joe tears up the bill. “Okay, kid, you showed me,” Nucky signs off, dropping off just the necessary nickel for Joe’s coffee. “Good luck. You’re gonna need it.”

Production still of Steve Buscemi as "Nucky" Thompson in "Eldorado", the series' final episode.

Production still of Steve Buscemi as “Nucky” Thompson in “Eldorado”, the series’ final episode.

Nucky strolls up the nighttime boardwalk and the pieces finally come into place, answering for us exactly when he had corrupted himself nearly 40 years earlier…the very minute in 1897 when he passed that point he had earlier described to his brother as “where there isn’t any choice” by betraying the vulnerable trust of the teenage Gillian Darmody and essentially selling her into the lecherous Commodore’s “service” in exchange for power. With the sense that our anti-hero could be beyond redemption, we also see the same two beefy gents in hats from before clearly watching him from a few paces ahead. New York gunmen? Is Nucky still a target? At least now we have the sense that he deserves it.

Of course, the threat is not from what’s ahead of him, but from what’s directly behind him… in this case a .32-toting Joe Harper just a few steps to his back, revealing himself to be Tommy Darmody, the teenage son of Nucky’s one-time protégé Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt) and, of course, the grandson of the all-but-destroyed Gillian Darmody.

“Who are you?” Nucky asks, but he already knows. “Tommy Darmody,” the youth responds, raising a Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless pistol—somewhat poetically, the same firearm his father had used while in Nucky’s service—and firing three bullets into his father’s former mentor, the final and fatal shot ripping through Nucky’s left cheek in a tragic mirror of Jimmy’s own death at Nucky’s hands a decade earlier.

Nucky meets his tragic but inevitable end.

Nucky meets his tragic but inevitable end.

As Nucky slumps in a corner of the boardwalk he had once dominated, the two hatted men run onto the scene and identify themselves as federal agents to Nucky as they apprehend his assassin, but the dying bootlegger couldn’t care less. Appropriately, his escape from the fate he deserved was prevented by a teenage Darmody, having damned himself so many years earlier via the corruption of another teenage Darmody.

Family drama aside, the circumstances of Nucky’s death remind me of Larry Fay (1888-1933), the real-life bootlegger who had inspired James Cagney’s character in The Roaring Twenties. The dapper Fay had established himself during the early years of Prohibition by earning more than half a million dollars importing whiskey into New York from Canada, using the revenue to buy into a taxi cab company and ultimately a Manhattan nightclub—the El Fay—with the gregarious hostess Texas Guinan (of “Hello, sucker!” fame) serving as mistress of ceremonies. Despite nearly 50 arrests, Fay managed to evade conviction and successfully involved himself in several legitimate enterprises, including a partnership of the Casa Blanca Club. It was at this club during a New Year’s Eve celebration that Fay, nearly broke from the Depression, was fatally shot in the evening hours of December 31, 1932, by the club’s doorman Edward Maloney, a former Prohibition agent who was disgruntled by the club’s widespread wage reduction that meant a weekly pay cut of $40.

A once-powerful gangster who reigned during the roaring ’20s, now past his prime as the country suffers through the Great Depression, shot down against a boisterous nightlife backdrop by someone he would rarely regard with a second glance.

What’d He Wear?

Nucky Thompson's charcoal blue striped suit from the final episode. (Source: ScreenBid)

Nucky Thompson’s charcoal blue striped suit from the final episode. (Source: ScreenBid)

Nucky Thompson may have been out of the lucrative bootlegging business by the middle of 1931, but his dapper attire still communicated success. The former gangster dressed for the last day of his life in “Eldorado” in a charcoal-blue flannel three-piece suit, patterned with gray double-beaded track stripes. Though Steve Buscemi would wear similarly colored and striped suits throughout Boardwalk Empire, this appears to be the only appearance of this specific dark striped suit.

The size 38R suit was included in a ScreenBid auction with many other props and costumes from across the show’s run, where it was curiously described as “a black three-piece suit with the white pinstripes,” despite clearly appearing blue in the auction photos and on screen. The auctioned suit jacket includes special effect rigging over the right side of the chest with gunshot damage and blood stains from “our sad anti-hero’s final moments.”

Given his executive status and ambitions, it’s appropriate that Nucky Thompson wore suits made for the series by Brooklyn-based tailor Martin Greenfield, whose roster of clients includes at least six U.S. Presidents dating back to Dwight D. Eisenhower. Greenfield’s career as a tailor began in 1947 when the Czech immigrant and Holocaust survivor joined GGG Clothes as a “floor boy” in 1947, swiftly developing his skill and reputation as a tailor. Thirty years after he started at the East Williamsburg shop, Greenfield had risen to the position of Vice President of Production and bought out the company to establish Martin Greenfield Clothiers.

Boardwalk Empire began production on a massive Brooklyn lot in late 2009 and, with executive producer Martin Scorsese directing the pilot, the production was sparing no expense. Thus, costume designer John A. Dunn turned to the talented tailor who just happened to have a shop nearby: Martin Greenfield. “I like Nucky Thompson, Steve Buscemi,” Greenfield told Matt Welty in an interview for Complex. “He’s such a nice guy, and such a great actor, and he insists on coming to the factory to try everything on. He loves the clothing. When they ask him what do you like best in the show, he says, ‘the wardrobe.'”

The single-breasted charcoal-blue striped suit jacket from “Eldorado” has the short, wide peak lapels with straight gorges and sharp corners that were very fashionable in the early 1930s. The lapels end high on the chest, above the three-button closure. By 1931, the character has long since abandoned his former practice of pinned a red carnation to his left lapel.

"Let's just get something straight. Whatever you want, whatever you think I will do, that won't be possible. All right? You were very clever. You made a bargain. You saved your own neck. And that's more than other people can say. I'm not someone you should look to for help. I'm leaving here. Starting something new. I won't be back."

“Let’s just get something straight. Whatever you want, whatever you think I will do, that won’t be possible. All right? You were very clever. You made a bargain. You saved your own neck. And that’s more than other people can say. I’m not someone you should look to for help. I’m leaving here. Starting something new. I won’t be back.”

Additional era-specific detailing can be found in the wide shoulders with their heavily and highly roped sleeveheads which, along with the suppressed waist and flared skirt, contribute to the strong silhouette often associated with English tailoring.

Nucky’s ventless suit jacket also has a welted breast pocket and straight flapped hip pockets.

BOARDWALK EMPIRE

One detail that remains consistent from Nucky’s opulent suits featured in the earliest episodes from the start of the roaring ’20s are the Edwardian-influenced turnback or “gauntlet” cuffs that consist of a semi-cuff slightly longer than an inch around the end of each sleeve, cut out at the vent where each cuff is finished with four buttons.

BOARDWALK EMPIRE

Gone are the days of Nucky’s bold orange, purple, and blue checked shirts. Now, hardly relishing the trappings of his past as a local politician and gangster, Nucky opts for more conservative shirtings like this white cotton with a subtle gray grid-check, made for the production by Geneva Custom Shirts of New York. The shirt has a plain front and double (French) cuffs, which Nucky fastens with silver squared links with light gray enamel-centered squares with rounded corners.

Unlike his shirts of past seasons with their distinctive detachable “keyhole-cut” white collars, Nucky dressed for the ’30s in the newly established and accepted style of shirts with attached collars, one of his few concessions to evolving fashions. According to Alan Flusser in his seminal Dressing the Man, “at one point during the 1930s, nearly half of all American men reportedly wore their dress shirt collars pinned,” making the good Mr. Thompson quite the contemporary dresser with his brass shaped-end bar that slides onto each leaf of his long point collar to connect them under the tie knot.

Nucky’s “old gold” paisley silk tie is also a Geneva product, perhaps colored to reflect the mythical El Dorado, or “Golden King”, of South American legend that gave the episode its title. While Geneva, the esteemed shirtmaker who made many of the show’s shirts and ties, does not include its neckwear on its site, there is a similar-looking “Gold Estate Paisley Tie” in woven silk available from The Tie Bar for aspiring Nucks, though it lacks the neat organization of ornately patterned circles and squares that alternate against a horizontally ribbed ground.

That moment when you realize you shouldn't have sold your soul 34 years ago...

That moment when you realize you shouldn’t have sold your soul 34 years ago…

While Nucky’s suits underwent a shift in styles to reflect the times over the show’s setting from the early 1920s through 1931, the one constant was that all were three-piece suits with matching waistcoats. Nucky’s waistcoats—or vests, as we Americans colloquialize them—varied in style across the years, including single- and double-breasted, low and high fastenings, and the presence of lapels.

The matching waistcoat with this suit is a popular Nucky style with a single-breasted front with seven closely spaced buttons down to the notched bottom, where he wears the lowest button undone. The waistcoat has peak lapels and four welted pockets, but he does not wear a pocket watch as he seemingly abandoned this practice between the fourth and fifth seasons. Both the suit jacket and waistcoat share a matching two-tone navy striped satin lining.

In 1931, men were increasingly wearing belts with their trousers, though the best practice for three-piece suits remained—as it remains to this day—to wear suspenders (braces) with trousers worn with a waistcoat, serving the dual purpose of avoiding a belt buckle “bunching” under the waistcoat while also keeping the trouser waistband pulled up or, uh, suspended, well under the waistcoat to avoid the unpleasant “shirt triangle” when a trouser waistline falls too far below a jacket or waistcoat’s lowest buttoning point.

A well-tailored gent like Nucky exclusively wears suspenders with his three-piece suits, in this case a set of two-tone navy-and-blue twill suspenders that connect to buttons along the inside of his trouser waistband. The fabric of his braces are only briefly spotted when he puts his suit jacket back on after an afternoon of Cokes with Eli.

The fact that Nucky's suspenders are only spotted in this blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment is a sign that he is wearing them correctly. I've seen real-life examples of men (some that I actually consider friends!) wearing suspenders over their waistcoats and...it just makes me sad.

The fact that Nucky’s suspenders are only spotted in this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment is a sign that he is wearing them correctly. I’ve seen real-life examples of men (some that I actually consider friends!) wearing suspenders over their waistcoats and…it just makes me sad.

In addition to the buttons along the inside of his waistband, Nucky’s pleated suit trousers have belt loops that go unused and are only spotted in the auction photos that were featured on ScreenBid. The trousers have side pockets and two button-through back pockets and are fully cut through the legs to the bottoms, which are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

Nucky's Italian-made oxfords were also included in the auction. (Source: ScreenBid)

Nucky’s Italian-made oxfords were also included in the auction. (Source: ScreenBid)

Nucky’s shoes are burgundy calf leather six-eyelet oxfords with a perforated cap toe, identified by the auction listing as Italian in provenance though no maker is identified in the description nor is a maker’s mark visible in the photos provided of Buscemi’s screen-worn footwear.

We know that the famous multi-colored wingtips in the opening credits were sold by Forzieri, a Florence-based shop that currently includes the Santoni “Wilson” cap-toe oxford in dark brown leather among its collection, though they lack the perforation and the burgundy shade of Nucky’s kicks. While not Italian, Florsheim offers a five-eyelet burgundy oxford with perforated detailing along the cap toe (Amazon) that could add a Nucky-influenced panache to your wardrobe. Other alternatives include the Mezlan “Tyson II” five-eyelet oxford with a truly perforated cap toe box and a unique pebbled vamp (Amazon) and the inexpensive cowhide Urbane Shoe Co. oxford brogue (Amazon).

While it would take a substantial investment—which a good shoe deserves—you could nearly replicate Nucky’s shoes with the Allen Edmonds “Strand” cap-toe oxford in oxblood calfskin leather with six lace eyelets and single oak leather soles. The oxblood or dark chili calf leathers are close to the shade Nucky wears, but the cigar brown (Amazon) is also a suitable alternative.

Nucky wears navy socks with bold blue chalk stripes that add a dash of character to an otherwise tastefully conservative ’30s business suit. While general searching for striped dress socks tends to yield horizontally striped results, I did find a pair of blue-on-navy vertical-striped cotton/nylon socks (available on Amazon for $22.06 as of October 2019) made by Zanella, though I can’t tell if this is the same as the Italian luxury trouser brand Zanella.

Hoping for closure, Nucky is dismayed to find Gillian far more intrigued by an errant ladybug.

Hoping for closure, Nucky is dismayed to find Gillian far more intrigued by an errant ladybug.

Nucky’s dark brown Lords hat (or “Lord’s hat”) echoed his brown shoes, harmonizing the top and bottom of his outfit. A cousin of the classic homburg that was popularized by Edward VII after a trip to Germany in the 1890s, the Lords hat shares the homburg’s general shape and “pencil curl” brim, though the Lords hat has a pinched crown that differs from the homburg’s “gutter crown”, thus bridging the formality between the more formal homburg and the more businesslike fedora. Forum contributors at The Fedora Lounge have explained that the name derives from the English usage of “lord”, alternately referring to a wealthy landowner or more specifically the House of Lords, as opposed to the more ecclesiastical definition of the word.

Nucky wears a dark chocolate brown wool felt Lords hat that has a wide black ribbed grosgrain silk band. Gentleman’s Gazette suggests that the Lords hat can be differentiated by its unbound brim (as opposed to the bound brim of a homburg), though—as Nucky illustrates—Lords hats can also have edge binding to match the band.

What to Listen to

These closing scenes of the finale alone grace the viewer to a delightful sample of popular music in the waning years of Prohibition.

Nucky’s afternoon stroll along the boardwalk is interrupted by the welcome distraction of a vivacious platinum blonde barker (Rachel Kenney) promising a vision of “the world to come”: television. Scoring the scene is a contemporary-sounding rendition of “I’m a Dreamer, Aren’t We All?” with vocals by Johnny Gale, backed by Vince Giordano and his Nighthawks Orchestra.

A talented arranger and saxophonist, Giordano has made a career of specializing in recreating the “hot jazz” sounds of the roaring ’20s and subsequent decades, contributing era-perfect music for the soundtracks of period movies like The AviatorBessie, and Cafe Society, in addition to every season of Boardwalk Empire. A trademark for Giordano’s soundtracks is to feature a contemporary artist singing in an old-fashioned style against the ’20s-style arrangement, with artists including Margot Bingham, Kathy Brier, Neko Case, Elvis Costello, Nora Jones, Liza Minnelli, Leon Redbone, Regina Spektor, Patti Smith, St. Vincent, Loudon Wainwright III, Martha Wainwright, and Rufus Wainwright among the talented lineup whose vocals were backed by the Nighthawks Orchestra on the Boardwalk Empire soundtrack.

“I’m a Dreamer, Aren’t We All?” was introduced by Janet Gaynor in the pre-Code musical Sunny Side Up (1929), which also introduced the titular track that would be used in Paper Moon (1973). Less than two weeks after Sunny Side Up was released, self-proclaimed “King of Jazz” Paul Whiteman recorded a version of “I’m a Dreamer, Aren’t We All?” on October 16, 1929, with a vocal group that included a young Bing Crosby. The song was written by Ray Henderson with vocals by Buddy DeSylva and Lew Brown.

After the television demonstration prompts a flashback to Nucky’s young adulthood when he was protected from his shotgun-wielding father by his brother Eli, we return to 1931 as Nucky goes to see a down-and-out Eli living in a dirty single room over the boardwalk. Presumably over the radio in Eli’s room, we hear a vintage-inspired rendition of “I Surrender Dear”, this time featuring Elvis Costello with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks Orchestra, followed by an actual era recording of Rudy Vallée and the Connecticut Yankees crooning “Begging for Love”, a fitting song given each brother’s unspoken desperation for the other’s approval or affection in this moment.

Penned by Harry Barris and Gordon Clifford, “I Surrender Dear” was a massive hit for Bing Crosby in 1931, launching the crooner to stardom as his first solo hit after leaving the Rhythm Boys, a vocal group that performed with orchestras led by Paul Whiteman and Gus Arnheim. It was Arnheim’s Cocoanut Grove Orchestra that accompanied Crosby as he recorded the song on January 19, 1931, paving the way for what would be a legendary solo career. Louis Armstrong, Sam Lanin, and Ben Selvin (with Helen Rowland) were among the other major artists to record the song that year.

The multi-talented Rudy Vallée would become one of the first pop stars. With his “Vagabond Lover” persona and smooth tenor voice, the dashing singer captured the hearts of many a flapper with his recordings of popular songs like “Deep Night”, “Honey”, and “As Time Goes By”. Written by Irving Berlin, “Begging for Love” was one of many hits that Vallée  recorded with his backing band, the Connecticut Yankees.

At the Old Rumpus Burlesque Club, Vince Giordano and his Nighthawks Orchestra play “Tin Roof Blues” as Nucky arrives to pick up the last of his personal effects, followed by “Don’t Mind the Rain”, the latter accompanied by Angela McCluskey, the Scottish-born singer and lead vocalist of Wild Colonials. Apropos the Scottish performer, “Don’t Mind the Rain” was written by a UK resident, London-born composer Ned Miller.

The jazz standard “Tin Roof Blues” was first written and recorded by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in the spring of 1923, though many major jazz acts of the roaring ’20s recorded the song, including Louis Armstrong, Ted Lewis, Jelly Roll Morton, and Joe “King” Oliver after Armstrong split from his outfit. Walter Melrose, whose company published the sheet music, added lyrics to the song, though it’s most typically performed as an instrumental.

Following the Old Rumpus scenes, we—and the dangerous youngster Joe Harper—catch up with Nucky on the boardwalk while more vintage recordings from the era play in the background. Heard as “Joe” tears up the money that Nucky gives him for coffee is Paul Whiteman’s “Ragamuffin Romeo”, written by Mabel Wayne and Harry DeCosta and which Whiteman’s band performed the previous year in his Universal Pictures pre-Code “talkie hit”, King of Jazz (1930).

Nucky continues his solo nighttime walk along the lively boardwalk, lighting up a Lucky that turns out to be not so lucky as he finds himself facing the business end of Joe Harper’s .32. Nucky falls with three rounds in his face and chest to the dissonantly light and sweet “A Bench in the Park”, another Bing Crosby number though recorded in May 1930 while in Hollywood and still performing as one of Paul Whiteman’s Original Rhythm Boys with Harry Barris and Al Rinker. Interestingly, the hard-living Crosby had been causing problems at the time of the recording, culminating in his causing a car accident while driving drunk. Bing’s antics and his increasing dissatisfaction with Whiteman’s leadership led to his eventually establishing his solo career.

While the saccharine “A Bench in the Park” may juxtapose Nucky’s death—and why shouldn’t it? it’s not like whoever was playing it knew there was going to be a fatal shooting that night—the following track communicates an appropriately mournful mood as it brings the series to a conclusion through the end credits.

Echoing the Lee Morse recording that scored Nucky and Margaret’s final dance earlier in the episode, the final song of the series is Norah Jones’ rendition of “If You Want the Rainbow (You Must Have the Rain)”, written by Mort Dixon, Oscar Levant, and Billy Rose, which had been introduced by Fanny Brice in the 1928 musical My Man that also marked Brice’s cinematic debut.

The song itself is not necessarily sorrowful—indeed, a very upbeat version was recorded by popular radio star Annette Hanshaw the same year—but Lee Morse’s torchy rendition channels the sadness that followed the bandleader through her life.

Jazz Age singer, guitarist, and bandleader Lee Morse during her 1920s heyday.

Jazz Age singer, guitarist, and bandleader Lee Morse during her 1920s heyday.

Lena Corinne Taylor was born November 30, 1897, in Cove, Oregon, a small Grande Ronde Valley town with a population that never exceeded 500 until the 1990s. Her musically inclined family moved around much during her youth, though this transience did not stop a 17-year-old Morse from marrying local woodworker Elmer Morse in May 1915. The marriage bore a son, Jack, though Lena’s increasing popularity across the Pacific Northwest as a singing guitarist increased her desire for music career, and she left Elmer and Jack in 1920. That same year, Lena was signed to her first contract after she was noticed by a vaudeville producer in San Francisco, where she had accompanied her father to the Democratic National Convention.

Over the next few years, she gained notice for her talent in musical revues and her unique knack for yodeling and blues. Despite her personal success writing and recording her own songs for Pathé beginning in 1924 (billing her as “Miss Lee Morse” to assure listeners that the singer was female), her personal life fell apart as Elmer Morse finally filed for divorce on the grounds of desertion and abandonment. Though she gained custody of her young son Jack, whom she had left with his father five years earlier, she had little interest in being a mother and continued making progress to further her career, though her stage fright for playing in clubs led to the development of a drinking problem that left her unable to perform her debut in Ziegfeld’s Simple Simon in 1930. Ruth Etting was quickly called into substitute for the drunken Morse, and “Ten Cents a Dance” became Etting’s signature song rather than Morse’s.

Another troubled relationship, this time with pianist Bob Downey, ended after more than a decade when Downey left her for a stripper and Morse turned back to the bottle for comfort. After World War II, her new husband Ray Farese hoped to revitalize Morse’s career with a Rochester radio show. One of the most unique and prolific talents of the Jazz Age with more than 200 recordings to her name, Lee Morse died in December 1954 when she was only 57 years old and remains tragically underappreciated today.

How to Get the Look

Steve Buscemi as Enoch "Nucky" Thompson on Boardwalk Empire (Episode 5.08: "Eldorado")

Steve Buscemi as Enoch “Nucky” Thompson on Boardwalk Empire (Episode 5.08: “Eldorado”)

Long past his prime at the top of Atlantic City’s underworld by mid-1931, Nucky Thompson takes a conservative yet still elegant sartorial approach for his final day on the coastal resort burg’s boardwalk . Outfitted by skilled local craftsman—in this case, Martin Greenfield Clothiers and Geneva Custom Shirts—Nucky can’t go wrong in his timeless dark charcoal blue striped three-piece suit, perfectly but not excessively detailed to follow the era’s fashions.

  • Charcoal blue with gray double-beaded stripe lightweight flannel three-piece suit:
    • Single-breasted 3-button long jacket with wide, sharp peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 4-button gauntlet cuffs, and long single vent
    • Single-breasted 7-button waistcoat/vest with notch lapels, four welted pockets, notched bottom, and adjustable back strap
    • Pleated high-rise trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
  • White with mini gray grid-check cotton dress shirt with point collar, plain front, and double/French cuffs
    • Gold collar bar
    • Silver-toned square cuff links
  • “Old gold” paisley silk tie
  • Navy-and-blue twill suspenders
  • Burgundy calf leather 6-eyelet perforated cap-toe oxford shoes
  • Navy blue-striped socks
  • Dark brown wool felt Lords hat with black ribbed grosgrain silk ribbon and edges

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the whole series.

The Quote

The past is past. Nothing can change it.

Steve McQueen’s Navy Uniforms in The Sand Pebbles

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Steve McQueen as Jake Holman, Machinist's Mate, 1st Class, U.S. Navy, in The Sand Pebbles (1966)

Steve McQueen as Jake Holman, Machinist’s Mate, 1st Class, U.S. Navy, in The Sand Pebbles (1966)

Vitals

Steve McQueen as Jake Holman, maverick U.S. Navy Machinist’s Mate, 1st Class (MM1)

Yangtze River, China, Summer 1927 through Spring 1927

Film: The Sand Pebbles
Release Date: December 20, 1966
Director: Robert Wise
Costume Design: Wingate Jones, John Napolitano, Bobbie Read, and James W. Tyson

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

The Navy League of the United States organized the first Navy Day on October 27, 1922, to commemorate the birthday of Theodore Roosevelt who—before becoming the 26th President of the United States—had long championed the U.S. Navy and had served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Set four years after the establishment of Navy Day, The Sand Pebbles begins in 1926 China, “a country of factions trying to unite to become a nation… through revolution…” according to the opening text.

Three years after Richard McKenna’s best-selling debut novel The Sand Pebbles was published, Robert Wise finally received the financing to produce and direct his cinematic adaption, having used the interim to direct The Sound of Music (1965), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture in the midst of production on The Sand Pebbles. Filming began in Taiwan on November 22, 1965, with a short break for Christmas, then moved to Hong Kong four months later, where star Steve McQueen’s six weeks in the city would be the subject of an entertaining retrospective article by Stuart Heaver for Post Magazine around the 50th anniversary of production there.

The "USS San Pablo" used in the movie was actually a replica gunboat that the production spent $250,000 to construct. The seaworthy vessel was based on the USS Villalobos, a former Spanish Navy gunboat that the U.S. Navy had seized during the Spanish-American War and put into service patrolling the Yangtze River for a quarter of a century until it was decommissioned and sunk by the Navy in 1928.

The “USS San Pablo” used in the movie was actually a replica gunboat that the production spent $250,000 to construct. The seaworthy vessel was based on the USS Villalobos, a former Spanish Navy gunboat that the U.S. Navy had seized during the Spanish-American War and put into service patrolling the Yangtze River for a quarter of a century until it was decommissioned and sunk by the Navy in 1928.

Steve McQueen enjoys a cigarette while on location in Hong Kong with his then-wife, Neile Adams, circa spring 1966. McQueen is wearing the undershirt and uniform trousers of Holman's white service dress (or "undress") uniform.

Steve McQueen enjoys a cigarette while on location in Hong Kong with his then-wife, Neile Adams, circa spring 1966. McQueen is wearing the undershirt and uniform trousers of Holman’s white service dress (or “undress”) uniform.

“He was the perfect choice for Jake Holman,” Wise later said of McQueen, though Paul Newman was reportedly his first choice for the role. “I’ve never seen an actor work with mechanical things the way he does. He learned everything about operating that ship’s engine, just as Jake Holman did in the script. Jake Holman is a very strong individual who doesn’t bend under pressure, a guy desperately determined to maintain his own personal identity and pride. Very much like Steve.”

Steve McQueen received the only Academy Award nomination of his iconic career for his portrayal of the young but experienced U.S. Navy machinist Jake Holman, whose swagger transforms to cynicism following a transfer to the Yangtze River Patrol, his seventh transfer in nine years. The headstrong, hardworking, and bluntly honest Holman finds himself at odds with most of his fellow “sand pebbles” on the USS San Pablo, aside from the sensitive and sensible “Frenchy” Burgoyne (Richard Attenborough), a fellow engineer.

The source of the crew’s antipathy toward Holman centers around the hardworking engineer’s reluctance to hire Chinese locals to do his work, particularly the operation and maintenance of the ship’s engine that had traditionally fallen under the domain of engine room laborer Chien (Tommy Lee). After Chien dies performing maintenance work on the engine, Holman selects Po-han (Mako), with whom he eventually forges a friendship and supports in a barroom brawl against his boorish shipmate Stawski (Simon Oakland).

Just after the fight, the San Pablo crew is hurriedly called back to the ship just in time to avoid an angry local mob, which the gunboat’s captain, Lieutenant Collins (Richard Crenna), understands is just the beginning of the aggression they will face as they make their way through the river for one last dangerous mission to rescue the British and American missionaries—including his new girlfriend, idealistic schoolteacher Shirley Eckert (Candice Bergen)—from China Light in Paoshan.

What’d He Wear?

Jake Holman’s rating of Machinist’s Mate, 1st Class (MM1), is lateral to the U.S. Navy enlisted rank Petty Officer, 1st Class (PO1), currently pay grade E-6 that is equivalent to a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps or a technical sergeant in the U.S. Air Force.

Rate insignia for Machinist's Mate, 1st Class. Jake Holman incorrectly wears this post-1941 version with a right-facing eagle on his uniforms.

Rate insignia for Machinist’s Mate, 1st Class. Jake Holman incorrectly wears this post-1941 version with a right-facing eagle on his uniforms.

While pay grades E-1 to E-3 are considered apprenticeship rates, Holman’s E-6 rate ranks him among the non-commissioned officers (NCOs) or petty officers. As an E-6, Holman is the highest rank of this petty officer subdivision. The specific insignia for petty officers emerged in 1894 consisting of an eagle with its wings spread—colloquially called a “crow” for how the dark bird’s silhouette appeared against the white uniform—atop a rating mark and class chevrons. In Holman’s case, his Machinist’s Mate rate is represented by a propeller while his senior rank of petty officer first class is represented by the maximum three chevrons beneath it. (Should Holman have advanced through the chief petty officer ranks, he would have received a similar insignia that added a rounded “rocker” arched atop the chevrons with up to one or two stars added, depending on his advancement.)

On his service dress uniforms, Holman wears two service stripes on the forearm of his left sleeves, each stripe indicating four years of service. This is consistent with Holman telling Shirley that he has spent a total of nine years in the Navy; three more years and he would have earned his third service stripe. Holman’s rank insignia and 5¼”-long service stripes are always the same color; dark navy against his white uniform and red against his navy blue uniform.

Little has changed in enlisted ranks, uniforms, and insignia since the 1920s when The Sand Pebbles is set, though the rate patch worn by Steve McQueen as Jake Holman is an anachronistic version with the “crow” facing its right side, and thus “facing the enemy”, which was not put into practice until after 1941 when the United States entered World War II. In the nearly 50 years before that, the crow on a Machinist’s Mate insignia would have faced left, toward the wearer’s back.

Holman shares his enthusiasm regarding the effect that his crisp white naval uniform has on women. Note the anachronistic right-facing "crow" on his Machinist's Mate rate insignia; the eagle would not face this direction until after 1941.

Holman shares his enthusiasm regarding the effect that his crisp white naval uniform has on women. Note the anachronistic right-facing “crow” on his Machinist’s Mate rate insignia; the eagle would not face this direction until after 1941.

All of McQueen’s costumes were made for the production by venerated Hollywood wardrobe supplier Western Costume Company, following the specifications of U.S. Navy uniforms which had remained virtually unchanged by the time of the film’s production in the mid-1960s. Unlike the other branches of the U.S. military that have adopted service uniforms for both officers and enlisted members that resemble civilian business suits with lapeled jackets, collared shirts, ties, and trousers, the U.S. Navy has maintained its traditional “crackerjack” service dress sailor suits and white canvas “Dixie cup” hats for junior enlisted members, all of which emerged for practical purposes during the early 19th century.

You can read more about the naval uniforms and attire that would have been worn aboard an American gunboat patrolling 1920s China at this fan site dedicated to The Sand Pebbles. Many of these same uniforms were also worn by the U.S. Navy during World War II, as you can read in this post dedicated to that topic. The Naval History and Heritage Command site also features a comprehensive history of enlisted and officer uniforms from 1776 through the early 1980s.

Click the appropriate link below to jump ahead to read about Steve McQueen’s various USN uniforms as Jake Holman in The Sand Pebbles:

  1. Service Dress White (SDW)
  2. Undress White Service Uniform
  3. Dungaree Work Uniform
  4. Non-Regulation Tropical White Short
  5. Service Dress Blue (SDB)

Service Dress White (SDW)

“Uniform gets ’em every time,” Holman comments after charming a prostitute sitting in the darkened corner of Baxter’s bar, where he checks in for a drink before his voyage where he meets the ambitious high school teacher Shirley Eckert. Like the young woman in the Shanghai bar, Shirley finds herself instantly charmed by the swaggering sailor in his white uniform. The next evening, he arrives on board his assigned vessel, the USS San Pablo, where the affable Frenchy assures Holman that he’ll be the senior rate in charge of the gunboat’s engine room.

Holman looks over his new domain, the engine room of the USS San Pablo.

Holman looks over his new domain, the engine room of the USS San Pablo.

“For us who wear the uniform, every day is Flag Day,” Lieutenant Collins (Richard Crenna) tells the ship’s crew on June 14. Holman’s full service dress whites make another appearance later when courting Shirley on shore by buying her a bird that she could set free.

Steve McQueen wears Jake Holman's white service dress uniform during production of The Sand Pebbles. Note that his black leather shoes are not the lace-up derbies that he would wear with his other uniforms.

Steve McQueen wears Jake Holman’s white service dress uniform during production of The Sand Pebbles. Note that his black leather shoes are not the lace-ups he would wear with his other uniforms.

Based on Collins’ implication that one of Holman’s first days aboard the USS San Pablo is Flag Day (June 14) as well as the summer suits of the civilian gents he had dined with in transit and the white uniforms of those on board the San Pablo, we can deduce that the film begins in these late spring days just before the official start of summer, an appropriate season for Holman to be dressed in his service dress whites (SDW), a warm-weather version of the classic blue “crackerjack” uniform:

  • White canvas twill “Dixie cup” cap
  • White cotton pullover V-neck jumper with navy squared “sailor collar” (with triple white-tape trim and white corner stars), slightly V-shaped chest yoke, and long sleeves with navy cuffs (with triple white-tape trim)
    • Machinist’s Mate, 1st Class rate badge (navy-embroidered crow, propeller, and three chevrons) on upper left sleeve
    • Two navy-embroidered service stripes on forearm of left sleeve
  • Black silk neckerchief
  • White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
  • White cotton twill flat front trousers with front fly, two front pockets, laced back gusset, and plain-hemmed bell-bottoms
  • Black leather slip-on loafers
  • Black socks
  • White cotton boxer shorts with three-button fly

Explore current U.S. Navy regulations for the men’s enlisted service white dress uniform here.

According to a history of the uniform posted to the Navy’s official site, the first enlisted uniform was established in 1817, developed for strictly utilitarian purposes to reflect a sailor’s work, though sailors were only issued blue service dress for the first 50 years. The visor-less “Dixie cup” was originally made of sail canvas and doubled as a flotation device, the black neckerchief doubled as a rag during work or battle dressing during combat, and the bell-bottom pants were designed to be easily removed should the wearer fall overboard.

In 1886, white service dress was introduced to meet uniform demands as the Navy expanded its presence across the Pacific and into the Far East. The uniform was developed from the pre-existing “undress whites” that had existed for 20 years, lengthening the jumper sleeves and adding a yoke and navy blue trim to the collar and cuffs.

THE SAND PEBBLES

While the insignia may be anachronistic, the costume team for The Sand Pebbles correctly used this pre-1940 version of enlisted white service dress with the blue collar and cuffs. “The 1913 instructions directed that the collar and cuffs of the white dress jumper be faced with blue flannel, while the undress whites omitted the blue facing,” states Naval History and Heritage Command in its description of enlisted dress during World War I. These details were removed in October 1940 due to reported issues with the blue dye running, essentially leaving sailors with a uniform that was similar to the pre-existing “undress whites”.

75 years later, the service dress white jumpers were revised to again feature navy blue piping on the sleeve cuffs, navy blue-piped collar with stars, and a yoke, reinvigorating the dress code as a “photo negative” of the service dress blue as shared by Military Report. By October 31, 2021, the revised SDWs will be required to be worn by all sailors.


Undress White Service Uniform

Jake Holman reports for muster his first morning aboard the USS San Pablo in a simplified version of the white service uniform, colloquially known a the “undress whites”, though the more formal service white uniform was actually a derivative of this earlier uniform. Established in 1866, the “undress whites” formed the basis for the white service dress that was designed to be a summer-friendly alternative to the classic blue service dress sailor suit.

Holman joins Frenchy and his fellow ship-mates for muster aboard the USS San Pablo, though Holman is dressed in his "undress whites" with rank insignia while his fellow sailors wear simplified short-sleeved shirts and shorts.

Holman joins Frenchy and his fellow ship-mates for muster aboard the USS San Pablo, though Holman is dressed in his “undress whites” with rank insignia while his fellow sailors wear simplified short-sleeved shirts and shorts.

Frenchy (Richard Attenborough) and Jake Holman (Steve McQueen) stand attention in their "undress whites" with M1903 Springfield rifles when ashore in The Sand Pebbles.

Frenchy (Richard Attenborough) and Jake Holman (Steve McQueen) stand attention in their “undress whites” with M1903 Springfield rifles when ashore in The Sand Pebbles.

Enlisted “undress” is less ornamental than service dress, eschewing service stripes, ribbons, or any contrasting fanfare aside from the rank insignia on the wearer’s upper left sleeve.

  • White canvas twill “Dixie cup” cap
  • White cotton pullover V-neck jumper with white squared “sailor collar” and mid-chest loop, pointed-bottom patch pocket on left chest, and 3/4-length sleeves
    • Machinist’s Mate, 1st Class rate badge (navy-embroidered crow, propeller, and three chevrons) on upper left sleeve
  • White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
  • White cotton twill flat front trousers with front fly, two front pockets, laced back gusset, and plain-hemmed bell-bottoms
  • Khaki canvas nine-pocket M1910 cartridge web belt
  • Black leather cap-toe derby shoes
  • Khaki canvas six-eyelet gaiters
  • Black socks
  • White cotton boxer shorts with three-button fly

Holman wears this uniform again, albeit with the addition of a cartridge belt and gaiters, when he, Ensign Bordelles (Charles Robinson), Frenchy, and another seaman land at the China Light mission in Paoshan to evacuate Jameson and his fellow missionaries. The uniform gets plenty dirty when Holman angrily retreats to the engine room and shovels coal into the boiler after being forced to shoot his pal Po-han to put him out of his misery, illustrating why the Navy saw a need for the development of dungarees for service members engaged in dirtier details like this.

Jake Holman and Shirley Eckert develop their acquaintanceship.

Jake Holman and Shirley Eckert develop their acquaintanceship.

Holman wears his undress whites during the final sequence when he joins Collins’ small boarding party for the nighttime rescue mission of Jameson, Shirley, and the other missionaries from China Light. It’s unfortunate for our heroes that they were clad completely in white while trying to be covert under the night sky, and the all-white working uniform no doubt made Holman and his comrades easier targets.

Per his usual journeys ashore in China, Holman supplements his undress whites with ammo belt and gaiters. While gaiters are commonly worn to protect the wearer and his clothes from the elements, they also serve a tactical purpose of restraining the flared bell bottoms of Holman’s white uniform trousers as he darts in and out of cover while dodging the Nationalist soldiers’ rifles at Paoshan.

"I was home... What happened? What the hell happened?!"

“I was home… What happened? What the hell happened?!”

Like some of McQueen’s other costume pieces from The Sand Pebbles, Jake Holman’s undress whites were recently auctioned, sold in December 2018 via icollector.com:

This is McQueen’s standard Naval sailor jumpsuit from that film. Consisting of a 2-piece white canvas US Navy sailor’s uniform with (1) long-sleeve, v-neck, pull-over top with breast pocket and back flap. With Chief Petty Officer chevron rank insignia patch on left upper sleeve. Exhibiting internal Western Costume Co. label typed, “2400-1 Steve McQueen”, with Western Costume stamp and (1) pair of matching bell-bottom pants with button front and lace back closures with Western Costume Co. label typed, “2531-1 Steve McQueen” and Western Costume stamp.

The “-1” after each four-digit label number indicates that this was the primary piece to be worn on screen before reverting to spares.


Dungaree Work Uniform

Who works for who around here?

Once out to sea, Holman dresses for duty in the engine room in his blue chambray shirt, white Dixie cup, and the classic dungarees that were the junior enlisted working uniform from 1913 through the 1990s. Unlike Holman’s other uniforms, this work uniform gives no indication of his rank or identity, perhaps indicative of his relative powerlessness in the engine room that should otherwise be his domain… though this would have also been the logical choice for Holman to wear for his hands-on engine room operations.

In his chambray work shirt and dungarees, Jake Holman looks right at home in the USS San Pablo engine room.

In his chambray work shirt and dungarees, Jake Holman looks right at home in the USS San Pablo engine room.

The Navy established this junior enlisted working uniform in 1913 out of a necessity to provide attire that sailors could wear for dirty jobs that would soil their uniforms. Due to how heavily this informal and unstructured attire contrasts with the iconic “crackerjack” and service dress uniforms, the Navy sought to keep its dungaree-dressed sailors well out of sight from the public for the dress code’s first 30 years.

Per Naval History and Heritage Command, “the complete dungaree uniform consisted of a blue denim jumper; trousers of similar material, worn with a black belt; a soft-collared blue chambray shirt, and a head cover,” and was meant to be worn primarily for work detail. The prescribed headgear was the white “Dixie cup” hat until 1995, when it was ostensibly replaced by the command ball cap, though a black watch cap was also authorized in cold weather. Black “boondockers” and jump boots were often worn with dungarees, but Holman appears to be wearing the same low black cap-toe derbies that he wears with his other uniforms.

Steve McQueen in The Sand Pebbles, sporting a light chambray work shirt and contrasting dark dungarees.

Steve McQueen in The Sand Pebbles, sporting a light chambray work shirt and contrasting dark dungarees.

Given the nature of their dirty work below-decks, dungarees became a particular favorite for members of a ship’s “black gang”, or the firemen and crew members that serviced the ship’s engine room, so named for the thick soot and coal dust in the air that often stained the men and their clothing. Holman uses the term twice in The Sand Pebbles, both times making his case to Lieutenant Collins that, “black gangs should stand their watches in the engine room, sir.”

  • White canvas twill “Dixie cup” cap
  • Light blue cotton chambray work shirt with point collar, front placket, two button-through chest patch pockets, and button cuffs
  • White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
  • Blue denim dungarees with belt loops, two patch front pockets, two patch back pockets, and bell bottoms
  • Black web belt with brass slider buckle
  • Black leather cap-toe derby shoes
  • Black socks
  • White cotton boxer shorts with three-button fly

Despite the Navy’s initial reluctance to be publicly associated with a dress code hardly as resplendent as its famous service dress or full dress, dungarees became more popular and publicly acceptable on ships during World War II, establishing the enduring cultural association between dungarees and the Navy. Eventually, dungarees became more reflective of a sailor’s identity with last names stenciled above a pocket on the shirt and the dungarees with rate badges and chevrons also being ironed on.

Although jeans as we know them had been around since Jacob W. Davis and Levi Strauss patented their blue denim pants for miners in 1873, it wasn’t until returning service members—particularly Navy veterans—continued sporting their hard-wearing dungarees in civilian life that jeans evolved into the iconic casual pants that they are today. Recognizing this potential, Levi’s swiftly updated their classic jeans into a more contemporary version introduced in 1947 that removed the cinch and suspender buttons and modernized the fit. Levi’s Vintage Clothing recently reintroduced the “1947 501® Men’s Jeans”, described on the Levi’s site as “the jean of a new generation,” and iconic rebels like Marlon Brando and James Dean made jeans popular in their movies and the denim pants once relegated to strictly the dirtiest of work were now a staple of casual menswear.

During some scenes, particularly Holman’s conflict with the captain regarding the cleanliness of the engines and his initial training of Chian’s replacement Po-han, Holman wears a much lighter pair of dungarees, almost the same shade of blue as his shirt.

Despite his mastery of the engine room, Holman finds himself in yet another confrontation with Lieutenant Collins. Note the lighter wash of his dungarees which have little contrast with the color of his shirt in this sequence.

Despite his mastery of the engine room, Holman finds himself in yet another confrontation with Lieutenant Collins. Note the lighter wash of his dungarees which have little contrast with the color of his shirt in this sequence.

In cooler climates, the dungaree work uniform was often work with a matching blue denim work coat, though this does not appear to be worn by any of the USS San Pablo crewmen as the weather gets chillier. Instead, Holman and his shipmates merely layer their usual chambray shirts over dark navy mock-neck long-sleeve T-shirts. In addition to this long-sleeved undershirt, Holman also appears on deck wearing a dark navy watch cap and the khaki gun belt that Bordelles had issued him for his own safety.

THE SAND PEBBLES

During the climactic sea battle with the Chinese junks that leads to Holman breaking the boom, the engineer is again dressed in his chambray shirt and dungarees, though it’s implied that we’re now in early spring and most of Holman’s shipmates are sporting white service dress. Holman wearing his dungarees serves the dual purpose of being the standard garment that a member of the black gang would be wearing for daily life on a gunboat as well as to help differentiate the star McQueen from the rest of the cast, many of whom are seen getting bloodied in battle.

Once Holman sets up his BAR position, he prepares for combat by donning an M1917 steel helmet as well as his gun belt and gaiters.

Armed with his BAR, Holman leads his shipmates as the engage the local militia in fierce combat to break through the boom.

Armed with his BAR, Holman leads his shipmates as the engage the local militia in fierce combat to break through the boom.

This wide helmet dates back to the early months of World War I, when trench warfare and dangerous falling shrapnel illustrated the immediate need for militaries to outfit their combatants with better head protection, specifically steel helmets. The French Army led the way with the introduction of the unique-looking Adrian helmet in 1915, though the more utilitarian “Brodie helmet” developed by the British shortly after proved to be more influential. Designed by John Leopold Brodie in 1915, the helmet was swiftly adopted by Britain’s allies around the world including the United States, who initially purchased 400,000 Mark I helmets from the British for the American Expeditionary Forces. By the end of the war, the U.S. had produced millions of their own version of the helmets, now designated the M1917 and manufactured to provide even stronger ballistic protection. The United States issued the M1917 “Kelly” helmet across its branches until 1942, when it was replaced by the iconic “steel pot” M1 helmet.


Non-Regulation Tropical White Short

When Lieutenant Collins calls Holman up to account for Chien’s death, Holman cleans up and presents himself in a white short-sleeved shirt not unlike those sported by the commissioned officers, albeit without shoulder boards. For comfort int he warm climate, he wears these with white shorts that—unlike his service dress pants—have belt loops where Holman wears a white belt with a gold-toned single-prong buckle. Similar to the dunagaree work fatigues, this approach to dressing does not recognize Holman’s rank in any manner. He wears the same attire when entering a bar on shore to report on his meeting with Collins and make the acquaintance of Maily (Marayat Andriane) while the other sailors dance party to the tune of roaring ’20s standards like “Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goodbye!)” and “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue”.

Clad in his non-regulation white shirt and shorts, Jake Holman roots for his pal Po-han during a barroom brawl.

Clad in his non-regulation white shirt and shorts, Jake Holman roots for his pal Po-han during a barroom brawl.

THE SAND PEBBLES

This manner of dress seems to pre-date the Navy’s official Tropical White Uniform (or Tropical White Short) that emerged later in the 20th century for comfortable but presentable attire in warm climates. The version of these non-regulation tropical whites seen in The Sand Pebbles with short-sleeved shirt and knee-length shorts was indeed popular among the Asiatic fleet during the 1920s, often privately ordered for officers and seaman from Chinese tailors, as seen in this illustration.

  • White canvas twill “Dixie cup” cap
  • Cream cotton twill short-sleeved shirt with non-notched camp collar, four-button plain front, and mitred breast pocket
  • White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
  • White flat front shorts with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, and jetted back-right pocket
  • White cloth belt with rounded gold-toned single-prong buckle
  • Black leather cap-toe derby shoes
  • White crew socks
  • White cotton boxer shorts with three-button fly

The outfit becomes Holman’s default daily attire for warm days aboard the San Pablo, matching the similar shirts and shorts worn by his shipmates, always with the white Dixie cup though a white pith helmet was also frequently worn with this dress during the era.

THE SAND PEBBLES

The shirt has been auctioned at least twice, first by Nate D. Sanders in June 2014 when it was incongruously matched with a pair of white pants from Holman’s SDW or “undress white” uniforms, then later in November 2014 by Bonham’s where it sold for $3,125 as part of the “TCM Presents… There’s No Place Like Hollywood” auction.

Though two different auctions over the span of less than six months, it appears to be the same shirt as both listings identify it as being numbered “2400-2” in a tag attached to the cuff. There’s some discrepancy between the two listings, with Nate D. Sanders describing the shirt as linen while Bonham’s seems to more accurately describe the cloth as cotton, though both seem to be the same off-white shirt made by Western Costume Co. specifically for Steve McQueen to wear in The Sand Pebbles. (I will add that the photography of the Bonham’s listing makes the shirt look like a richer cream color, per the description. Anomaly, or different shirt?)


Service Dress Blue (SDB)

After being absent for the first 2/3 of the movie, the classic U.S. Navy enlisted service dress blues—colloquially known as the “crackerjack” uniform after the sailor-suited character on Cracker Jack packages—makes its first appearance during Holman’s courtship of Shirley on shore. As the ensuing scenes are set through the winter and into early 1927 as the San Pablo must remain moored on the Xiang River at Changsha, Holman and his shipmates exclusively wear the blue winter uniform when seen in service dress until the gunboat leaves the hostile environment of Changsha.

THE SAND PEBBLES

Steve McQueen in the Navy's centuries-old enlisted service dress blue during production of The Sand Pebbles.

Steve McQueen in the Navy’s centuries-old enlisted service dress blue during production of The Sand Pebbles.

The enlisted service dress blues is one of the oldest U.S. military uniforms in existence as, with only slight changes, it can trace its origins beyond the days of Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet” and even before the Civil War when the Union Navy successfully blockaded the Confederate states all the while capturing or sinking enemy vessels. The U.S. Navy first regulated uniforms for enlisted men in 1841, more than 20 years after bell bottoms had already been in practice.

The uniform evolved over the decades with shifting headgear, trouser buttons removed and re-added, and different stripes, stars, and rate badges authorized until more or less evolving into the “crackerjack” jumper with white-taped collar and cuffs, 13-button “broadfall” trousers, black neckerchief, and round, visor-less white canvas cap by the end of the 19th century.

  • White canvas twill “Dixie cup” cap
  • Navy wool serge pullover jumper with triple white-taped V-neck “sailor collar” (with squared back flap detailed with two white stars) and 2-button cuffs (trimmed with triple white tape
    • Machinist’s Mate, 1st Class rate badge (white crow, white propeller, three red chevrons) on upper left sleeve
    • Two red service stripes on forearm of left sleeve
  • Black silk neckerchief
  • White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
  • Dark navy Melton wool double-breasted pea coat with convertible collar, 10-button front, and slanted hand warmer pockets
  • Navy wool serge flat front trousers with 13-button “broadfall” front flap, welted front pockets, jetted back right pocket, laced back gusset, and flared plain-hemmed “bell bottoms”
  • Khaki cotton canvas 2¼”-wide gun belt with three rows of grommets and brass clip-buckle
  • Black leather cap-toe derby shoes
  • Black socks
  • White cotton boxer shorts with three-button fly

Explore current U.S. Navy regulations for the men’s enlisted Service Dress Blue uniform here and read more about the history and symbolism about “The Crackerjack” here.

The unique broadfall trousers remain an enduring element of the Navy’s enlisted uniforms, though it wasn’t until 2012 that a hidden zippered fly was added, sewing the flap into place and reducing the iconic 13 anchor-motif buttons to merely non-functional decorations, responding to rumors that had been floating around the functional modernization of this uniform element for at least two decades.

“Undress Blue”

As the weather gets even colder, Holman and his fellow USS San Pablo sailors don heavy pea coats and swap out their undershirts for heavy dark navy long-sleeve T-shirts with higher mock necks. He wears the “undress blue” simplified version of the uniform, a pared-down version of the SDB uniform similar to the “undress white” as it lacks the collar detail and has 3/4-length sleeves sans piped cuffs. McQueen’s screen-worn undress blue jumper was included in a June 2018 auction, though icollector reports that the item was not sold.

Holman stuffs his savings into his broadfell trousers.

Holman stuffs his savings into his broadfell trousers.

Holman wears his undress blue jumper and long-sleeved undershirt during cold weather, so his preferred outerwear with this uniform is a classic heavy pea coat.

The Pea Coat

The pea coat has been associated with sailors for nearly as long as the U.S. Navy has been in service, though it wasn’t until the early 20th century that the branch officially adopted the trusted outerwear that had been keeping British sailors warm for half a century. Since the 1720s, this short, double-breasted coat made from heavy navy-colored cloth has been referred to as a “pea jacket” or—somewhat later—“pea coat”, reportedly an abbreviation of the coarse “pilot cloth” used in the construction of early USN pea coats, though there are multiple theories about the origins of the name. Traditionally, the Navy constructed its pea coats from a heavy (30-32 oz.) woolen Melton cloth.

Holman takes no chances for his trip ashore, dressing to protect himself against the weather and hostile locals, respectively, in his warm pea jacket and gun belt.

Holman takes no chances for his trip ashore, dressing to protect himself against the weather and hostile locals, respectively, in his warm pea jacket and gun belt.

Though it had been commonly associated with naval outerwear for more than a century, the pea coat wasn’t officially authorized by the U.S. Navy until 1866, and it remained “the only prescribed outer clothing for enlisted personnel in cold weather” for the next 20 years, according to Naval History and Heritage Command.

Jake Holman’s pea coat is traditionally styled with ten buttons, including two buttons at the neck to close the coat over the throat for warmth. Further down, there are two parallel columns of four buttons each and a straight, flapped pocket on each hip. These lower pockets indicate that Holman appears to be correctly wearing a pre-1941 pea jacket, as these pockets were omitted under 1941 regulations in lieu of only the hand warmer pockets along the side seams.

His holstered 1911 tucked into his pea coat, Holman checks in on Frenchy and Maily's apartment. The visit would prove to be disastrous.

His holstered 1911 tucked into his pea coat, Holman checks in on Frenchy and Maily’s apartment. The visit would prove to be disastrous.

Venerable American brand Schott was among the manufacturers who constructed pea jackets for American service members during the early 20th century which adds a particularly strong pedigree to the Schott 740 in their current lineup, a traditionally designed and constructed ten-button pea coat made from heavy 32 oz. Melton wool. The pea coat that I wear on winter’s coldest days is a vintage Schott that my grandfather picked up while serving in the Pacific theater during the later days of World War II.

The Guns

Once Lieutenant Collins fears a potential mid-winter mutiny while moored outside Changsha, he orders all of his top men to “start wearing sidearms”, including Ensign Bordelles (Charles Robinson) and Chief Petty Officer Franks (Barney Phillips). The timing coincides with Holman strapping on a gun belt as part of his being assigned the rotating duty of transporting mail to the U.S. consul in Changsha.

While the standard U.S. military sidearm in 1926 would have been the esteemed M1911 pistol or the recently improved M1911A1, The Sand Pebbles followed the example of many other films of the era by using a cosmetically similar Star Model B, a Spanish-made semi-automatic pistol chambered in 9×19 mm Parabellum that, save for its brass external extractor and lack of a grip safety, resembles John Browning’s 1911 design.

Holman straps on a sidearm for his journey ashore.

Holman straps on a sidearm for his journey ashore.

Due to the difficulty of getting an actual 1911 to cycle .45-caliber blanks during this era, many Hollywood productions turned to the Star Model B and its somewhat more reliable 9mm blank ammunition, notably The Wild Bunch (1969) and Dillinger (1973), though this was still evidently in practice as late as The Untouchables (1987), about a decade after Hollywood had finally mastered bona fide .45-caliber 1911s firing on screen.

For more routine duties, Jake Holman would typically arm himself with the M1903 Springfield Mk. 1 bolt-action rifle, whether it’s joining Frenchy for a landing at Paoshan or taking up arms to defend the USS San Pablo from riotous crowds on shore.

Holman adjusts the rear sight of his commandeered M1903 Springfield rifle to ensure that he has an accurate shot to put Po-han out of his misery.

Holman adjusts the rear sight of his commandeered M1903 Springfield rifle to ensure that he has an accurate shot to put Po-han out of his misery.

One particular example of the latter was after Holman and Frenchy returned to the gunboat only to realize that the locals have taken hold of Holman’s engine room protégé Po-han and began torturing him in sight of the crew. Though Lieutenant Collins orders his men to hold their fire in the hopes of avoiding an international incident, Holman can’t bear the sight of watching his loyal friend and colleague being lynched and grabs another Springfield from a fellow sailor to obey Po-han’s dying wish for someone from the ship to put him out of his misery.

Disgusted with what he felt forced to do, Holman then discards the rifle by tossing it overboard.

Holman aims at his tortured friend.

Holman aims at his tortured friend.

Officially designated the “United States Rifle, Caliber .30-06, Model 1903,” the M1903 Springfield was officially adopted into U.S. military service on June 19, 1903, replacing each branch’s then-service rifle. Development of the M1903 Springfield had been three decades in the making, following quality issues with the existing rifles and inspiration from Mauser rifles wielded by America’s international allies and foes. The bolt-action rifle fed from a five-round stripper clip of powerful rifle ammunition, upgraded in 1906 to the now-standard .30-06 Springfield round that stayed in U.S. military service for more than a half-century and remains a popular civilian cartridge for sportsmen and hunters to this day.

Although the M1903 Springfield was supplanted by the semi-automatic M1 Garand as the infantry service rifle by World War II, the slightly modified M1903A3 Springfield remained in service alongside the Garand through the duration of the war while the M1903A4 Springfield was often pressed into service by snipers. Springfield Armory finally ceased production of the M1903 pattern in 1949, though they still found limited use by ground forces and snipers serving in Korea and Vietnam, and the Navy carried stocks to be used as anti-mine rifles.

As senior petty officer remaining for Collins’ boarding party during the final rescue mission, Holman again carries an M1903 Springfield rifle, but the bolt action and limited capacity would hardly give him enough firepower when defending himself as he draws fire from the Nationalist soldiers.

Holman wisely swaps out his Springfield for the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) that Lieutenant Collins had previously taken from Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Bronson (Joe Turkel), giving himself ample firepower during his memorable “last stand” at the China Light mission.

The fully automatic BAR with its twenty-round magazine gives Holman a much stronger degree of personal protection against enemy forces than his five-shot bolt-action rifle would have.

The fully automatic BAR with its twenty-round magazine gives Holman a much stronger degree of personal protection against enemy forces than his five-shot bolt-action rifle would have.

The China Light last stand isn’t the first time Holman is armed with a BAR in The Sand Pebbles. In preparation for the Yangtze River battle that would claim the lives of many of the USS San Pablo crew, Lieutenant Collins orders Holman to “set up a BAR position forward!” and the engineer ably defends himself and his boat from the attacking Chinese militia.

Note the anachronistic flash hider, a feature of the M1918A2 BAR that wasn't authorized until 1938, more than a decade after The Sand Pebbles is set.

Note the anachronistic flash hider, a feature of the M1918A2 BAR that wasn’t authorized until 1938, more than a decade after The Sand Pebbles is set.

When the United States entered World War I in the spring of 1917, it carried only limited stocks of the machine guns that were deemed essential for trench warfare. Troops were forced to do battle with automatic weapons lent from British or French allies, chambered for ammunition incompatible with American-supplied armaments. Esteemed weapons designer John Browning tasked himself with solving this problem, having previously presented the U.S. government with two designs for automatic weapons. One of these, a water-cooled machine gun, would eventually be adopted as the M1917 Browning; the other, a shoulder-fired automatic rifle, so impressed the crowd who observed his demonstration that it was immediately adopted as the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle.

The selective-fire, air-cooled Browning Automatic Rifle fires from an open bolt, fed by a 20-round box magazine of .30-06 Springfield ammunition that weighs nearly a pound and a half when full, contributing to the titanic mass of this 16-pound weapon. The M1918 BAR was late to arrive at the front, first arriving in France in July 1918, four months before the Armistice, but it became a popular weapon that continually evolved over the interwar years, serving most prominently during World War II and the Korean War before it was phased out among “second line” troops in the early years of the Vietnam War.

The BAR may have found its greatest infamy as the preferred weapon of Depression-era bank robber Clyde Barrow who, despite his diminutive size, fielded the BAR with great effect during numerous gunfights with local police over his two-year crime spree with Bonnie Parker, often liberating BARs from military armories and modifying them for deadlier effectiveness. Police being frequently outgunned by outlaws like Bonnie and Clyde led to police departments and federal agencies supplementing their aging stocks of six-shooters and shotguns with selective-fire weapons like the BAR or Thompson submachine gun, and at least one member of Frank Hamer‘s posse that took down Bonnie and Clyde on May 23, 1934, was armed with a Colt Monitor R80, Colt’s own “machine rifle” inspired by the BAR.

What to Imbibe

Jake Holman and his fellow sailors are often seen drinking beer from dark brown bottles with a “U.B.” yellow-and-blue label, consistent with Holman’s request for “a U.B. and whiskey” when visiting Baxter’s bar.

Holman enjoys a U.B. with Frenchy.

Holman enjoys a U.B. with Frenchy.

U.B. almost certainly refers to a product of the United Breweries Group, an Indian-based conglomerate founded by Thomas Leishman in 1915 when he merged five regional breweries to manufacture beer primarily for the British military serving in the region until after Indian independence in 1947, the same year that 22-year-old Vittal Mallya was elected the company’s first Indian director. Mallya’s steady acquisitions eventually included food, agricultural, manufacturing, and pharmaceutical companies.

More than 100 years after the company was founded, the UB Group maintains its market leadership with its flagship product—Kingfisher—sold in more than 50 countries around the world.

Steve McQueen as Jake Holman, Machinist's Mate, 1st Class, U.S. Navy, in The Sand Pebbles (1966)

Steve McQueen as Jake Holman, Machinist’s Mate, 1st Class, U.S. Navy, in The Sand Pebbles (1966)

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. Fans should check out this great fan site dedicated to all things The Sand Pebbles.

The Quote

I didn’t come all the way from the fleet to have it good. I’m an engineer.

Footnote

While The Sand Pebbles reunited The Great Escape (1963) co-stars Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough, McQueen and Simon Oakland would appear together again in Bullitt (1968) two years later.

Stranger Things: Hopper’s Season 1 Corduroy and Flannel

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David Harbour as Jim Hopper on Stranger Things (Episode 1.07: "The Bathtub")

David Harbour as Jim Hopper on Stranger Things (Episode 1.07: “The Bathtub”)

Vitals

David Harbour as Jim Hopper, small-town police chief

Indiana, Fall 1983

Series: Stranger Things
Episodes:
– “Chapter Four: The Body” (Episode 1.04, dir. Shawn Levy)
– “Chapter Five: The Flea and the Acrobat” (Episode 1.05, dir. The Duffer Brothers)
– “Chapter Six: The Monster” (Episode 1.06, dir. The Duffer Brothers)
– “Chapter Seven: The Bathtub” (Episode 1.07, dir. The Duffer Brothers)
– “Chapter Eight: The Upside Down” (Episode 1.08, dir. The Duffer Brothers)
Streaming Date: July 15, 2016
Creator:
 The Duffer Brothers
Costume Design: Kimberly Adams-Galligan (Episodes 1.01-1.04) & Malgosia Turzanska (Episodes 1.03-1.08)

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

With Halloween just around the corner, let’s check in on the strange occurrences—er, stranger things—happening around the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, in the days following Halloween 1983.

Set during the “golden age” of sci-fi and horror, Stranger Things is both an homage to these classic genres as well as its own intriguing standalone story in the spirit of John Carpenter, Stephen King, and Steven Spielberg. The series premiered in July 2016 and, as of October 2019, remains the oldest Netflix original series on the air, having outlasted previous stalwarts like House of CardsOrange is the New Black, and Narcos that had all preceded it.

Stranger Things immerses the audience in the early ’80s youthful zeitgeist of synthesizers, teenage crushes, and pop culture phenomena like Star Wars that don’t distract Will Byers’ friends too much from trying to find their missing comrade, balancing nostalgia with a genuinely intriguing and original story. A highlight is the emotional, energetic performance of Winona Ryder (who celebrates her 48th birthday today) as Joyce Byers, Will’s desperately devoted mother who refuses to believe her son is dead, even after what is purportedly his corpse is pulled from a quarry. Hawkins’ cynical police chief, Jim Hopper (David Harbour), operates with logic and intuition before emotion, but he avoids dismissing Joyce, sensing that she legitimately believes that her son is still alive after encountering the disgusting monster that tore through her wallpaper into the living room that she had festooned with Christmas lights in hopes of continuing to communicate with her missing son.

Hop’s hunch becomes a lead after he learns that the state took over Will’s autopsy, and the burly police chief sets out to conduct his own undercover mission, settling next to Indiana State Police officer David O’Bannon (Ron Roggé) at the Hideaway, a local watering hole, and guiding their casual conversation over whiskey and Schlitz toward the topic of O’Bannon’s discovery of Will’s “corpse” in the quarry. After O’Bannon stalls, Hop resorts to more drastic measures, pummeling the corrupt trooper against the brick wall outside the pub until O’Bannon admits just enough to lay the groundwork of a conspiracy.

Hopper finds himself knocking out state troopers left and right, having to dispatch yet another officer guarding the coroner’s lab after the chief finds himself tongue-tied trying to lure the officer away without violence. The uniformed troopers are far from his most dangerous antagonist though, taking on the shadowy government figures behind the Hawkins National Laboratory and, ultimately, the predatory “Demogorgon” at the center of Hawkins’ latest catastrophe. It would be too much for Hopper and his slow-witted deputies to handle, but luckily the determined chief finds allies in Will’s young friends Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), as well as the supernatural stranger “Eleven” (Millie Bobby Brown) whose psychokinetic powers prove to be the strongest asset against the group’s foe, both human- and non-human alike.

What’d He Wear?

In a decade of acid-washed denim, baggy pastel suits, Members Only jackets, and hammer pants, a trendy dresser in the 1980s was often no more than an embarrassing yearbook photo for generations to come… or at least fodder for your kids to raid the back of your closet for their upcoming ’80s party. Yet, Jim Hopper proves that it was possible to dress down during the “Greed decade” without being a neon-lit tribute to tackiness.

Aside from a few vignettes of the police chief at home enjoying one too many beers or bed companions, Jim Hopper spends the majority of the first three episodes in his khaki police uniform, consisting of shirt, trousers, Bill Jordan-style holster by Tex Shoemaker, and Crevo Buck work boots. Chief Hopper’s uniform has become popular among cosplayers, and a thread at The RPF is full of intricate details about Hop’s wardrobe and how to recreate it, all carefully researched by hardcore fans of the show and character.

We first see Hop’s civilian attire of rugged corduroy and flannel when he’s technically off-duty, drinking at the Hideaway to glean information from state trooper David O’Bannon. Hopper doesn’t yet know what his evening—or week, for that matter—will entail, so he’s wisely layered in utilitarian and durable clothes to carry him through whatever adventures are prescribed to make Hawkins a safer place.

...though he has to draw a few guns in his pursuit of a safer Hawkins.

…though he has to draw a few guns in his pursuit of a safer Hawkins.

Like so many others in Hawkins, as observed by Nate Rogers for FLOOD, Hopper chooses corduroy outerwear to take on the Demogorgon, specifically a rich chocolate brown medium-waled ventless jacket styled like a heavier version of a classic chore coat with its button-up front and external pocket layout.

It’s a classic style that’s difficult to find new, as most modern corduroy casual jackets tend to be inspired by blazers or trucker jackets, though there are a few of the latter that are similar to Hopper’s first season jacket like these from Elwood Clothing and Trimthread. Farfetch offers this sherpa-lined corduroy “safari jacket” from Ami Paris that takes a fashion-forward spin with its four bellows pockets and covered fly, though Hop would likely balk at the $1,115 price tag.

If you’re seeking to truly crib Hop’s look, your best bet will be searching vintage shops or patrolling sites like eBay and Poshmark in the hopes of finding items like this Banana Republic field coat that—leather collar aside—shares plenty of style details with the off-duty look favored by Hawkins’ chief of police. Outdoors outfitters like Lands’ End, L.L. Bean, and Orvis may also continue to update their selections of barn coats and field jackets.

Flanked by his deputies in a shot channeling Tarantino, Hopper discovers the stash of monster-hunting equipment in Jonathan Byers' trunk.

Flanked by his deputies in a shot channeling Tarantino, Hopper discovers the stash of monster-hunting equipment in Jonathan Byers’ trunk.

Hopper’s brown corduroy chore jacket has four brown sew-through buttons spaced up the front from the waist line to his neck. A set-in pocket over his left breast closes with a single-button flap, and the patch pockets on each hip also close with a single-button flap. Just above the flapped pocket on the right side is a slanted welt that opens into an additional hand pocket. The set-in sleeves close at the cuff through a single button on a short pointed semi tab.

Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) stands with Hopper as he watches Martin Brenner's henchmen search the Wheeler home.

Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) stands with Hopper as he watches Martin Brenner’s henchmen search the Wheeler home.

Hopper wears a cotton flannel shirt in blue and ivory shadow plaid. The shirt has a tan-lined collar and is semi-yoked at the shoulders, though the curved seam doesn’t interrupt the pattern of the shirt across the chest from the front placket to the seams around the set-in sleeves.

The bully Troy Walsh (Peyton Wich) piques Hop's interest with an off-hand comment about the short-haired girl with special powers.

The bully Troy Walsh (Peyton Wich) piques Hop’s interest with an off-hand comment about the short-haired girl with special powers.

The shirt has seven blue plastic two-hole sew-through buttons up the front placket, and Hopper leaves the top few undone over his henley undershirt. The two box-pleated chest pockets have single-button flaps rounded at the corners, and the sleeves close at the cuffs through a single button.

Joining forces: Hop and Joyce listen to Jonathan and Nancy's observations from encountering the Demogorgon.

Joining forces: Hop and Joyce listen to Jonathan and Nancy’s observations from encountering the Demogorgon.

While blue plaid flannel button-up shirts are plentiful, including these similar options from Burnside and L.L. Bean, Hop’s shirt benefits from the added character of the rounded shoulder seams, the box-pleated pockets, and the tan collar lining seen as he insouciantly wears the shirt only semi-buttoned over his henleys.

By the end of “The Bathtub” (Episode 1.07), Hopper has peeled off his flannel shirt and layers only the corduroy jacket over his henley as he goes off to find the gate into the Upside Down. Back at Hawkins Middle School, Eleven has picked up the chief’s discarded shirt and wears it for warmth throughout the episode, including her disintegration back into the Upside Down at the close of the episode. (In a nice continuity nod, Eleven is still wearing the shirt—though it is now considerably dirtier—in the “Trick or Treat, Freak” (Episode 2.02) flashback set shortly after this episode.

Eleven, clad in Hop's flannel in "The Upside Down" (Episode 1.08, referring to the episode title not the location). It would be a welcome added layer as she finds herself hiding in the woods for weeks after the incident at Hawkins Middle School.

Eleven, clad in Hop’s flannel in “The Upside Down” (Episode 1.08, referring to the episode title not the location). It would be a welcome added layer as she finds herself hiding in the woods for weeks after the incident at Hawkins Middle School.

Removing his plaid flannel overshirt leaves Hopper to confront the sinister Hawkins lab leadership in a navy “waffle-knit” thermal long-sleeved henley, the second—and darker—of the two henley shirts that he wears as undershirts with this outfit. Hop’s shirt has long set-in sleeves with elasticized cuffs and three faux-wood two-hole sew-through buttons at the top.

As henley shirts continue to enjoy a resurgence in popularity, most major menswear outfitters include them among their offerings with the waffle-knit thermal being particularly popular as the year transitions into colder months through the autumn. The garment’s popularity makes it easy to look for navy waffle-knit henleys with Hop-approved details like contrasting buttons and set-in sleeves, so check out these selections from Banana Republic, Gap, Goodthreads, and Old Navy, or this ribbed-knit henley from Vintage 1946.

A defiant smoke during his interrogation.

A defiant smoke during his interrogation.

Hopper wears the navy-colored henley in the last half of the first season, having changed out of the sweaty off-white henley that he wore when captured at Hawkins lab “The Body” (Episode 1.04) and thus when waking up in a frantic sweat on his living room couch at the beginning of “The Flea and the Acrobat” (Episode 1.05). This lighter henley shirt looks similar to the undershirts he wears with his khaki police chief uniform.

Like the navy shirt, Hop’s “natural”-toned ivory henley has long set-in sleeves and a three-button top, though the weave is a vertical rib, similar to the Billy Reid long-sleeved henley in “natural” cotton/poly (Nordstrom Rack) or the Banana Republic ribbed henley sweater in a “cargo khaki” cotton blend. An affordable alternative to both is the Hanes Beefy henley in “pebblestone heather” cotton/poly (Amazon).

Hopper panics after waking up back home after an action-packed night at the Hawkins lab.

Hopper panics after waking up back home after an action-packed night at the Hawkins lab.

The roomy fit of Hopper’s henleys cover the waistband of his dark blue jeans, which look to be relatively run-of-the-mill without any of the common visual identifiers of the major American denim brands like Lee, Levi’s, or Wrangler. The shirts also cover his waist line, though if he is wearing a belt, it’s possibly the same brown X-stitched one that he wore with light wash jeans for a morning smoke in the first episode, “The Vanishing of Will Byers” (Episode 1.01). Should anyone be interested, the same scene communicates to viewers that Hop’s preferred underwear are “tighty-whiteys”, specifically white briefs with thini yellow and navy lines around the waistband.

STRANGER THINGS

Hopper’s dark brown leather work boots appear to be the same that he wears with his police uniform, which The RPF has deduced to be Crevo “Buck” moc-toe boots. In addition to the Crevo site, these boots are available from retailers including Amazon and DSW.

These boots have dark brown leather uppers with a 5½”-tall shaft and derby-laced with yellow-and-brown tube laces through seven pairs of eyelets.

Hardly an ideal lifestyle.

Hardly an ideal lifestyle.

Hopper also carries over the same wide-brimmed felt hat that he wears with his uniform. Given how much David Harbour himself was invested in his character’s hat, it’s no surprise that it’s something the character wears daily and not just as part of his work uniform.

Shortly after the show’s first season was released in the summer of 2016, Harbour expanded on the development of Hopper’s hat in an exclusive interview with Marc Ciafardini from GoSeeTalk.com. Harbour had envisioned “an iconic hat, like the pork pie in The French Connection, or Indy’s fedora,” for Hopper and—with the Duffer brothers’ blessing—approached hatmaker Orlando Palacios of Worth & Worth:

…Orlando says, “great, maybe it’s his dad’s hat. There’s a hat called the open road that Eisenhower used to wear.” So we developed this open road hat that was great, and we had three of them made for the character… Orlando is an extraordinary artist, and he’s really detail-oriented, so if you look carefully at the hat, you’ll see the remnants of a band, which is an invisible band – that’s created when things are faded when the Sun hits them. So we decided that at one point it was his father’s hat, and then the band fell off, but Hopper still wears it.

Hopper’s custom hat is made from an olive-tinted taupe fur felt similar to the “Caribou” color of the modern Stetson Open Road, though the experts at The RPF have identified the Stetson Stratoliner as a better alternative that better reflects the softness of the original hat. It has a “teardrop” C-crown like a classic fedora, but the lack of a band and the 2.75″-wide brim adds more of a cowboy touch.

"In many ways, Hopper likes to hide and he doesn’t want people to see the pain that he experiences every day and doesn’t want people to see what he’s feeling. So he has this big wide brim, a 3 inch rim that he can pull down and hide behind." David Harbour explained to GoSeeTalk.com.

“In many ways, Hopper likes to hide and he doesn’t want people to see the pain that he experiences every day and doesn’t want people to see what he’s feeling. So he has this big wide brim, a 3 inch rim that he can pull down and hide behind.” David Harbour explained to GoSeeTalk.com.

A heartbreaking detail of Hopper’s character is the aqua blue braided bracelet constantly seen on his right wrist. Though David Harbour would later explain the significance to INSIDER, eagle-eyed first season audiences may have spotted that Hop’s daughter Sara was actually wearing this bright blue hair tie the day her parents noticed she was sick, featured in a flashback in the season finale, “The Upside Down” (Episode 1.08).

“It’s something subtle we do, and in fact if you watch the first [scene] of Jim Hopper in season one, he wakes up in the morning and before he even checks his watch he touches that bracelet on his arm,” Harbour told INSIDER following the second season premiere. “It’s the first thing that he does every morning because he never wants to forget her. Sara and the death of his daughter is his grounding place for reality.”

Fans have commented on The RPF that the hair tie appears to be a blue braided “hair elastic” by Scünci, the ConAir brand that’s arguably a market leader in the women’s hair accessory segment. (Amazon)

His daughter's blue hairband on his right wrist, Hop's Timex digital watch on his left wrist can be identified by the blue "ATLANTIS" seen above the display.

His daughter’s blue hairband on his right wrist, Hop’s Timex digital watch on his left wrist can be identified by the blue “ATLANTIS” seen above the display.

Stranger Things accurately captures the mania for digital watches in the early 1980s, a time when even James Bond had been wearing digital watches for more than half a decade. In addition to Dustin, Mike, and Will who all sport digital watches (Lucas wears a gunmetal field watch), Chief Hopper keeps time with a Timex Atlantis 100 strapped to his left wrist on a compass watchband.

The sporty Timex Atlantis digital watch is still in production in various forms more than 35 years after Stranger Things was set, virtually unchanged with its silver case, black resin top ring, and four pusher buttons. One of the most recent iterations of the Atlantis, the Timex Men’s Expedition Atlantis, is a reliable and very affordable digital chronograph available on Amazon. Of course, you could also hold out for an actual Timex Atlantis 100 like Hop wears, as recently seen at Bob Ward’s.

Knowing the location of true north isn't going to help corrupt Indiana state trooper O'Bannon any as Hopper pummels him in an alley... though the prominence of the compass in this scene (itself a motif used by the boys to find "the gate") could be suggestive to the audience and Hopper himself that his private investigation is heading in the right direction...

Knowing the location of true north isn’t going to help corrupt Indiana state trooper O’Bannon any as Hopper pummels him in an alley… though the prominence of the compass in this scene (itself a motif used by the boys to find “the gate”) could be suggestive to the audience and Hopper himself that his private investigation is heading in the right direction

Resourceful lawman and outdoorsman that he is, Hopper customized his Timex by swapping out the standard band for a black strap with a built-in mini-compass. This small black compass, worn on a black strap with single-prong buckle, has white and green markers against a black dial, similar to the SE-CCV15 watchband compass (Amazon).

What to Imbibe

Cheers!

Cheers!

Pick your poison! When we are introduced to Jim Hopper in the post-credits scene of the first episode, “The Vanishing of Will Byers”, the chief’s living room is littered with empty cans of Hamm’s and Schlitz beer. When he finally does get to work, there’s a bottle of Jameson whiskey on his desk as he’s typing up Will’s missing persons report.

Hopper’s apartment is in the same state of alcoholic disarray when he wakes up on the couch the morning after he was knocked out at the Hawkins laboratory. His coffee table is a mess of pill bottles, Schlitz cans, an errant Jameson bottle, and a deck of his go-to unfiltered Camels.

A vintage issue of The Saturday Evening Post adds Reagan-era verisimilitude, though it's surprisingly weathered for the Saturday, November 26, issue... considering that the scene is set Friday, November 11.

A vintage issue of The Saturday Evening Post adds Reagan-era verisimilitude, though it’s surprisingly weathered for the Saturday, November 26, issue… considering that the scene is set Friday, November 11.

We also spy Hop’s handy knife, a Sheffield Superior Folder, and the very knife that he had used the previous night to discover that Will Byers’ “corpse” was indeed a fake.

The Gun

Police chief Jim Hopper carries his duty sidearm, a 4″-barreled Smith & Wesson Model 66 revolver, chambered to fire .357 Magnum ammunition. It’s an appropriate sidearm for the early-to-mid 1980s when most American police officers, specifically in small towns like Hawkins, Indiana, were still carrying classic American six-shot revolvers before the nationwide transition to semi-automatic pistols.

Hopper draws his Smith & Wesson Model 66 after he spots a mysterious sedan in "Chapter Four: The Body" (Episode 1.04).

Hopper draws his Smith & Wesson Model 66 after he spots a mysterious sedan in “Chapter Four: The Body” (Episode 1.04).

Smith & Wesson had introduced the Model 66 in 1971 as a stainless steel version of the Model 19, itself a .357 Magnum evolution of the Model 15 “Combat Masterpiece” in .38 Special, though the Model 15, Model 19, and Model 66 were all built on Smith & Wesson’s medium-sized “K” frame. The Model 19 and Model 66 have both been colloquially referred to as the “Combat Magnum” for their ability to fire .357 Magnum rounds. Production of the Model 66 ceased in the early-to-mid 2000s, but the revolver was reintroduced in 2014, first with a 4.25″ barrel before a snub-nosed 2.75″-barreled version joined the lineup three years later.

Though he seems to opt for waistband carry when off-duty, Hop’s duty uniform includes a light brown basket weave “Bill Jordan” border patrol holster worn on the right side of his belt that had been made for the production by Tex Shoemaker & Sons, a venerated leather maker in California’s San Gabriel Valley that sadly closed its doors in the fall of 2017, not long after creating Jim Hopper’s holster.

David Harbour as Jim Hopper on Stranger Things (Episode 1.06: "The Monster")

David Harbour as Jim Hopper on Stranger Things (Episode 1.06: “The Monster”)

How to Get the Look

While dressing like a Stranger Things character could make a very specific Halloween costume, Jim Hopper’s eschewal of trends transcends the series’ 1980s setting as his off-duty ensemble of corduroy jacket, plaid flannel shirt, henley, and jeans would be just as effective, utilitarian, and casually stylish today.

  • Chocolate brown corduroy chore coat with four-button front, set-in chest pocket (with single-button flap), slanted welt right-side hand pocket, two patch hip pockets (with single-button flaps), and single-button cuffs
  • Blue-and-ivory shadow plaid flannel shirt with curved shoulder yokes, front placket, two box-pleated pockets (with single-button flaps), and rounded button cuffs
  • Ivory ribbed-knit or navy waffle-knit thermal 3-button henley shirt with long set-in sleeves
  • Dark blue denim jeans
  • Brown X-stitched belt with single-prong buckle
  • Dark brown leather moc-toe work boots with 7-eyelet yellow-and-brown tube laces and non-slip rubber outsole
  • Olive taupe fur felt “open road”-style C-crown fedora with no hatband
  • Aqua blue braided elastic hair-tie, worn as a bracelet
  • Timex Atlantis 100 digital watch in silver gray case with black resin top ring and four silver pusher buttons on a black customized compass watchband

Visit The RPF if you’re interested in an expertly researched cosplay guide into Jim Hopper’s police uniform as well as some casual attire.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, one of the most successful Netflix original shows.

The Quote

I don’t have a problem. I’m just a concerned citizen.

Dr. Loomis in Halloween (1978)

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Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis in Halloween (1978)

Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis in Halloween (1978)

Vitals

Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis, determined psychiatrist

Illinois, Halloween 1978

Film: Halloween
Release Date: October 25, 1978
Director: John Carpenter
Wardrobe Credit: Beth Rodgers

Background

Happy Halloween!

Based on a timely recommendation that I received from my friend @agentlemansarmour leading up to Halloween last year, I’d like to commemorate October 31 this year with a look at John Carpenter’s Halloween, the influential 1978 horror flick cited as kicking off the “Golden Age” of slasher movies and one of the most successful and profitable independent films of all time, grossing more than $70 million with a budget of less than $325,000. The suggestion particularly requested a look at the fall-friendly tweed jacket and raincoat worn by the movie’s ostensible protagonist, knowledgable psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis as portrayed by Donald Pleasence, who would reprise the role four more times before Malcolm McDowell took over for Rob Zombie’s 2007 reboot.

Seeking a stately British presence, Carpenter had first approached Peter Cushing then Christopher Lee—who later told Carpenter and producer Debra Hill that he regretted his decision—for the role before he approached Donald Pleasence, who had reportedly agreed to star after his guitarist daughter Lucy shared her appreciation of Carpenter’s score for Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). As Pleasence was arguably the biggest star on set, Carpenter was initially intimidated by the Tony-nominated actor but was delighted by Pleasence’s good-hearted nature and thoughtful approach to the character of Sam Loomis. It was reportedly the low salary that Cushing had cited for his refusal to take the role, but Pleasence received $20,000 for his appearance; adjusted for inflation to nearly $80,000 today, this is hardly a payday to sneeze at for five days of work.

After the Halloween 1963 prologue that depicts a pre-teen Michael Myers (Will Sandin) killing his teenage sister Judith (Sandy Johnson), Dr. Loomis is the first face we see in the “present day” as he accompanies nurse Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens) to Illinois State Hospital on the eve of Halloween 1978, preparing her for her encounter with a now-grown Michael Myers (Nick Castle) on the 15th anniversary of his first murder. Loomis is one of the few who is convinced that the cold-hearted Michael is “purely and simply evil” and should never see another minute of freedom, but it’s the process of returning to take the killer to court that facilitates the opportunity for his escape. Hours later, Michael is back in his fictional hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, where he crosses paths with kindhearted babysitter and archetypal “Final Girl” Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, in her cinematic debut), the only Haddonfield resident who seems to share Dr. Loomis’ suspicions, though even she is dismissive that the masked figure is the “bogeyman”… at least until he starts killing her friends.

Sheriff Brackett: I have the feeling that you’re way off on this.
Dr. Loomis: Then you have the wrong feeling.

The skeptical sheriff would be proven wrong in the most tragic way possible after the brutal murders of three local teenagers (as well as the Wallace family dog and one undiscussed mechanic who, in death, provided Michael Myers with his now iconic boilersuit), prompting Laurie and Loomis to join forces in their attempts to stab, shoot, and ultimately eradicate this monster in their midst.

What’d He Wear?

John Carpenter’s decision to contain the action to mostly a 24-hour period was prompted by budgetary reasons as this meant reducing the number of costume changes required, though many actors still wore or purchased their own clothing, with Jamie Lee Curtis’ entire wardrobe purchased at J.C. Penney for less than $100 and Michael Myers’ iconic “Captain Kirk” mask purchased for a mere $1.98 from a Hollywood Boulevard costume shop.

Given his seniority in the cast and the prominence of the character, it’s possible that Donald Pleasence’s costume as Dr. Sam Loomis was more strategically chosen, designed, or purchased. Loomis’ earthy tweed jacket and tie bring an appropriately professorial and grounded touch to the character that also subconsciously aligns him with the county policemen in their khaki uniforms.

Dr. Loomis wears a rich chocolate brown sports coat made from a rugged Donegal tweed, woven in a woolen twill flecked with colorful threads in many colors including red and green, the former echoing the bold but barely seen scarlet red inside lining. The single-breasted jacket has natural shoulders and broad notch lapels that roll down to a two-button front. The sleeves are finished with three-button cuffs and there is a single vent in the back. Though there is no breast pocket, the sporty flap-covered bellows pockets on the hips bring additional character to this piece.

Smith's Grove Sanitarium administrator Dr. Terence Wynn (Robert Phalen) accompanies a gruff Dr. Loomis out to his rented BMW. The briefly seen character of Dr. Wynn would get a much deeper—and darker—role in future sequels in the franchise as well as Rob Zombie's 2007 reboot.

Smith’s Grove Sanitarium administrator Dr. Terence Wynn (Robert Phalen) accompanies a gruff Dr. Loomis out to his rented BMW. The briefly seen character of Dr. Wynn would get a much deeper—and darker—role in future sequels in the franchise as well as Rob Zombie’s 2007 reboot.

Dr. Loomis’ ecru shirt harmonizes with the brown themes of his outfit. The shirt’s large point collar is very consistent with fashions of the mid-to-late 1970s with considerable tie space for Loomis’ wrinkled dark brown tie, possibly constructed from cotton with a broad width also consistent with ’70s trends. The shirt has a front placket and squared button cuffs.

Dr. Loomis just misses the sight of his stolen station wagon... and the recently escaped Michael Myers behind the wheel.

Dr. Loomis just misses the sight of his stolen station wagon… and the recently escaped Michael Myers behind the wheel.

While set photos reveal that Pleasence’s shirt did not have a breast pocket, behind-the-scenes shots from Halloween II (1981) show Pleasence wearing a shirt with a breast pocket, though the rest of his costume in the sequel is otherwise generally the same as it directly follows the events of this movie.

The lack of contrast between Dr. Loomis’ dark brown lower-rise trousers and his similarly colored jacket would be a problem if not for the textural contrast delivered by the tweed jacket. His flat front trousers are worn with a dark brown leather belt with a gold-toned single-prong buckle. The trousers have frogmouth welted front pockets which curve up to about an inch shy of the belt line, and the bottoms are plain-hemmed.

Donald Pleasence on set filming Halloween with executive producer Irwin Yablans. Note the trouser details seen here that aren't evident on screen. (Source: @TheLaurieStrode1978 Facebook account)

Donald Pleasence on set filming Halloween with executive producer Irwin Yablans. Note the trouser details seen here that aren’t evident on screen. (Source: @TheLaurieStrode1978 Facebook account)

Given the abundance of brown across the rest of his outfit, Dr. Loomis makes a reasonable choice to sport his well-worn brown calf apron-toe derby shoes that get their most focused screen time during his visit to Judith Myers’ recently vandalized grave at the Haddonfield cemetery, filmed at the Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery that had also made a cinematic appearance in Hitchcock’s Family Plot (1976), two years earlier.

Dr. Loomis makes the unwelcome discovery that Michael Myers has already dug up his sister Judith's tombstone.

Dr. Loomis makes the unwelcome discovery that Michael Myers has already dug up his sister Judith’s tombstone.

When evening falls, Dr. Loomis wears the same lightweight raglan-sleeve raincoat that had gotten drenched the prior evening, the quintessential “dark and stormy night” that precipitated Michael Myers’ escape. Stalking the streets of Haddonfield in search of the murderer, Loomis looks a bit like the classic noir hero, furtively keeping his .38 at the ready under the folds of his beige raincoat… though the rumples and wrinkles are a bit more Colombo than Marlowe.

HALLOWEEN

The lightweight balmacaan-style coat has a soft Prussian collar, long vent, and five sew-through buttons on the covered-fly front. Each raglan sleeve has a single-button pointed-tab strap at the cuff. (Pleasence would go on to wear a similar raincoat in Halloween II, albeit of a slightly heavier construction with a wider collar and set-in sleeves, rather than raglan sleeves.)

This classic, simple, and timeless coat design is a helpful addition to any man’s wardrobe. An affordable option with many details consistent with Pleasence’s screen-worn coat is a taupe polyester/nylon knee-length raincoat from Adam Baker by Cianni, available on Amazon for $129.99 as of October 2019.

HALLOWEEN

Dr. Loomis wears a gold watch on his left wrist that gets little screen time other than a glimpse at the round white dial and the gold bracelet when he takes aim at Michael Myers. Given the “Jubilee”-style bracelet and the fact that many of the actors wore their own clothing and accessories, it’s reasonable to deduce that Donald Pleasence is wearing his own personal yellow gold Rolex Datejust, a wristwatch that Jake’s Rolex World photographically confirms that he owned around this time of his life.

Dr. Loomis takes aim.

Dr. Loomis takes aim.

The raincoat was one of few character elements that Rob Zombie maintained for his 2007 re-imagining, dressing Malcolm McDowell’s Dr. Loomis in a light khaki trench coat over a black turtleneck sweater.

The Gun

“You must think me a very sensitive doctor,” Dr. Loomis titters to Sheriff Brackett after drawing his revolver when a ball thrown through the window interrupts their nighttime tour of the decrepit Myers house. “Oh, I do have a permit,” Loomis assures him, flashing the slip of paper that allows him to carry the Smith & Wesson Model 15 that he would again draw and fire during the film’s famous climax.

Production photo of Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis in Halloween, aiming his Smith & Wesson Model 15 at Michael Myers.

Production photo of Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis in Halloween, aiming his Smith & Wesson Model 15 at Michael Myers.

After World War II, Smith & Wesson evolved its .38-caliber revolver offerings beyond the venerated Military & Police model, introducing the K-38 Target Masterpiece in 1947 so named for being a .38 Special revolver built on the brand’s medium-sized “K” frame. Impressed by the accuracy of the 6″-barreled Target Masterpiece, police departments and federal agencies requested a service-friendly model with a 4″ barrel and a Baughman Quick Draw front sight as opposed to the Patridge front sight, and the K-38 Combat Masterpiece was developed two years later to meet this demand.

When Smith & Wesson began numbering its models in 1957, the K-38 Combat Masterpiece took on new life as the Model 15, which would be continually reproduced until December 1999. (The K-38 Target Masterpiece would be known as the Model 14.) The Smith & Wesson Model 15 was a popular police sidearm for many decades, and even the U.S. Air Force authorized Model 15 revolvers for police use across the latter 20th century.

HALLOWEEN

According to the eagle-eyed viewers who logged the film’s weaponry on IMFDB, Dr. Loomis’ Model 15 is fitted with target grips rather than the “more common slimline Magna grips of the same era.” Loomis would carry the same Model 15 in the direct sequel, Halloween II (1981), where the good doctor recalls that “I shot him six times! I shot him in the heart! He’s not human!”

The next time Dr. Loomis appears in the series, in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), he has updated his sidearm to a semi-automatic Smith & Wesson 639 pistol with pearl grips. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) arms Loomis with an M1911A1 pistol, and Pleasence’s final appearance as Loomis in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) features him back to a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, in this case a Model 10 with a four-inch barrel.

How to Get the Look

Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis in Halloween (1978)

Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis in Halloween (1978)

Donald Pleasence’s countrified attire as Dr. Sam Loomis is not without its trendy 1970s elements—notably the width of the jacket lapels, shirt collar, and tie blade—but the psychiatrist takes a timeless approach with a staid brown tweed sports coat worn with tonal shirt, shoes, trousers, and tie… not to mention the raincoat that briefly serves to transform him into a pistol-packing noir hero.

  • Brown mixed Donegal tweed single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with wide notch lapels, flapped bellows hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Ecru shirt with large point collar, front placket, and squared button cuffs
  • Dark brown cotton tie
  • Dark brown flat front trousers with belt loops, frogmouth welted front pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
  • Dark brown leather belt with gold-toned single-prong buckle
  • Brown calf leather apron-toe derby shoes
  • Beige lightweight balmacaan-style raincoat with Prussian collar, covered-fly 5-button front, slanted side pockets, single-button pointed-tab cuff straps, and single vent
  • Rolex Datejust yellow gold watch with round white dial on gold Jubilee-style bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Death has come to your little town, sheriff. You can either ignore it, or you can help me to stop it.

Footnote

While Dr. Samuel Loomis’ name was inspired by John Gavin’s character in Psycho (1960), the passionate psychiatrist isn’t the only character in Haddonfield whose name has a classic Hollywood connection. The sheriff, Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers), shares his name with the prolific female writer known as “Queen of the Space Opera” for her many planetary romance science fiction works as well as contributions to the script of The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Ms. Brackett’s credits also include The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959), and The Long Goodbye (1973), and the young Tommy Doyle was named after Detective Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey) in Rear Window (1954).


The Aviator: Leo’s Plaid Loafer Jacket

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Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004)

Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004)

Vitals

Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, eccentric and reclusive aviation mogul

Los Angeles, November 1947

Film: The Aviator
Release Date: December 25, 2004
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Sandy Powell

Background

On this day in 1947, Howard Hughes successfully tested his H-4 Hercules flying boat after a half-decade of development. The 26-second flight off Cabrillo Beach defied critics who had decried the “Spruce Goose” as a waste of more than $23 million, including government funds allocated to the now-unnecessary craft during wartime. Though completed more than two years to late to be of any strategic value to the United States during World War II, Hughes was considered vindicated by the short but successful flight and continued to maintain the birch-framed aircraft for nearly three decades to follow with hundreds of employees working in secret in a climate-controlled hangar, finally disbanded after Hughes’ death in 1976.

This event served as the climactic finale in The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s epic 2004 biopic that starred Leonardo DiCaprio as the eccentric mogul. The film shows Hughes called to testify in front of a Senate committee chaired by Senator Owen Brewster (Alan Alda, in an Academy Award-winning performance) to account for his seemingly capricious spending on the expensive project… reportedly at the direction of Hughes’ business rival, Pan Am chief Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin).

After the flight on November 2, 1947, DiCaprio’s Hughes disembarks and greets well-wishers and allies, including his right-hand man Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly), engineer Glenn Odekirk (Matt Ross), and glamorous former flame Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale), all against the backdrop of the lush big band standard “Moonlight Serenade”, which had been established as the signature anthem for Glenn Miller and his Orchestra after the band recorded it in April 1939.

 

What’d He Wear?

Among the five Academy Awards received by The Aviator was the Oscar for Best Costume Design, recognizing Sandy Powell’s recreation of Hollywood during its stylish “golden age” from the waning years of the roaring ’20s to the immediate post-WWII era. For the final scene, Powell took inspiration from what the actual Howard Hughes wore when successfully piloting the “Spruce Goose” during his historic November 1947 flight.

The real Howard Hughes in the cockpit of the Spruce Goose in 1947 (left) and Leonardo DiCaprio recreating the moment, expertly outfitted by costume designer Sandy Powell (right).

The real Howard Hughes in the cockpit of the Spruce Goose in 1947 (left) and Leonardo DiCaprio recreating the moment, expertly outfitted by costume designer Sandy Powell (right). Note that DiCaprio’s jacket has a plaid body while both tones of Hughes’ jacket appear to be a solid-colored wool.

It makes sense that a figure so tied to the history and culture of early Hollywood would sport a jacket that carries its name. As American culture shifted its attention from the East to the West Coast over the early 20th century, Hollywood came in focus as a leading fashion center for the country as millions took their sartorial direction from the glamorous movie stars and their attire both on and off the silver screen. The warm weather and the laidback nature of the stars’ work meant an increasingly lax concern for formality as traditional business suits and neckties gave way to unstructured jackets and open shirt collars as well as untucked sport shirts and neck scarves.

The classic “Hollywood jacket” was a precursor to the leisure jacket that, for better or worse, would take the ’70s by storm and re-associate the term with that somewhat tackier Disco-era evolution. Most popular from the late 1940s through the 1950s, these classic unstructured sport jackets were characterized by their contrasting collars and sleeves. Their loose, shirt-like fit echoed the casual sport shirts that were increasingly worn during this postwar era and led to their alternative appellations of loafer jacket or slacker jacket. (Howard Hughes may have been eccentric, but his obsessive dedication to his work made him anything but a loafer or slacker!)

Where Hollywood and aviation intertwined: Howard Hughes' tumultuous real-life relationship with Ava Gardner was depicted on screen with Kate Beckinsale playing the sultry screen siren.

Where Hollywood and aviation intertwined: Howard Hughes’ tumultuous real-life relationship with Ava Gardner was depicted on screen with Kate Beckinsale playing the sultry screen siren.

Promotional photo of Leonardo DiCaprio during production of The Aviator. Though dressed in Hughes' attire from these later 1947-set scenes, he is not mustached as he would be in the film to reflect Hughes' actual appearance at the time.

Promotional photo of Leonardo DiCaprio during production of The Aviator. Though dressed in Hughes’ attire from these later 1947-set scenes, he is not mustached as he would be in the film to reflect Hughes’ actual appearance at the time.

While some have argued that “Hollywood jackets” refer specifically to belted or half-belted leisure jackets, there is some consensus in the menswear community that all of these two-toned, unstructured leisure jackets of the era could be accurately called loafer jackets.

DiCaprio’s thigh-length loafer jacket as Howard Hughes follows the classic two-toned look with a brown collar and sleeves that contrast with the tweedy bronze-colored plaid body, which consists of a brown, rust red, and tan check on a warm light brown ground. The cloth appears to be a lightly napped wool gabardine.

The jacket’s characteristic camp collar resembles a sport shirt more than the traditional sport jacket. Hughes’ jacket has four brown sew-through buttons up the front, a single button on each cuff, and a welted breast pocket and open patch pockets. Manufacturers of these jackets  would occasionally trim or cover the pockets in the same contrasting cloth as the collar and sleeves, though Hughes’ pockets match the plaid body of his jacket.

Hollywood jackets and loafer jackets continue to have a following today, as illustrated by this engaged forum on The Fedora Lounge that dates back to 2005 (with many references to this jacket specifically), and menswear writer Ethan M. Wong has also featured an outstanding gabardine-and-suede jacket in his post about unique vintage outerwear for Street x Sprezza. While the best option for gents interested in a true Hollywood jacket would be to shop vintage (like this piece from Vintage Haberdashers), reVamp Vintage Recreations offers the “Grant Jacket” in a variety of fabric and color combinations for modern men interested in evoking classic Tinseltown or adding a rockabilly touch to their wardrobe.

To balance the unique, multi-faceted jacket, Hughes wears a plain white cotton shirt with a dramatically large point collar, consistent with late 1940s fashions, worn open at the neck. The shirt buttons up a plain front and has a breast pocket and button cuffs.

THE AVIATOR

Apropos the Hollywood jacket, Hughes wears a pair of full-fitting, high-waisted trousers with dropped belt loops, a style colloquially known as “Hollywood trousers” (as demonstrated by how modern reproductions are marketed by Magnoli Clothiers.) These camel tan slacks have double reverse pleats with the first pleat on each side located directly under the first belt loop, dropped about a half-inch from the top of the waistband though Hollywood pants from the ’30s and ’40s were occasionally designed with more than an inch-wide gap between waistband and belt loops.

Hughes wears a brown woven leather belt with a brass double D-ring buckle, the infinitely adjustable fastening that developed in the military and became a fixture of civilian belts around this time.

Leonardo DiCaprio and John C. Reilly on set of The Aviator.

Leonardo DiCaprio and John C. Reilly on set of The Aviator.

As Hughes’ paranoia, agoraphobia, and obsessive tendencies are depicted increasing on screen, he begins wearing white Keds sneakers almost exclusively, though he appears to be wearing a pair of brown leather lace-ups for the 1947 flight of the “Spruce Goose”, though the shoes are draped by the full break of his trouser bottoms.

Hughes in the fuselage of the Hercules before its historic maiden flight, decked out in shades of brown from head to toe, presenting a surprisingly grounded sartorial approach for a man hoping to get his "Spruce Goose" into the air. Though Glenn Odekirk is shown in the scene (as Matt Ross' head can be seen here), Odie was not actually on the famous flight as Hughes wanted to remove any doubt that anyone but he was at the controls.

Hughes in the fuselage of the Hercules before its historic maiden flight, decked out in shades of brown from head to toe, presenting a surprisingly grounded sartorial approach for a man hoping to get his “Spruce Goose” into the air. Though Glenn Odekirk is shown in the scene (as Matt Ross’ head can be seen here), Odie was not actually on the famous flight as Hughes wanted to remove any doubt that anyone but he was at the controls.

Hughes completes his look with a dark brown felt fedora, detailed with pinched “teardrop” crown, self-edged brim, and a low-contrast dark brown ribbed grosgrain band.

"Everybody works for you, Howard," Hughes is assured by Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly), here conferring with chief engineer Glenn Odekirk (Matt Ross) before the two quickly usher an increasingly panicking Hughes out of public view.

“Everybody works for you, Howard,” Hughes is assured by Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly), here conferring with chief engineer Glenn Odekirk (Matt Ross) before the two quickly usher an increasingly panicking Hughes out of public view.

Leonardo DiCaprio and John C. Reilly on set of The Aviator (2004)

Leonardo DiCaprio and John C. Reilly on set of The Aviator (2004)

How to Get the Look

Hollywood jackets and loafer jackets evoke a distinctive era in American history during the post-World War II cultural boom, a style that transcends Hollywood glamour, the rise of rockabilly style, and eccentric workhorses like Howard Hughes, who famously wore his earthy two-toned loafer coat with a fedora and open-neck shirt during the brief 1947 flight of the “Spruce Goose” as depicted in The Aviator.

  • Bronze-colored tweedy plaid 4-button loafer jacket with brown gabardine camp collar and sleeves (with single-button cuffs), welted breast pocket, and patch hip pockets
  • White cotton shirt with long point collar, plain front, breast pocket, and button cuffs
  • Camel tan double reverse-pleated high-rise “Hollywood trousers” with dropped belt loops, slanted side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
  • Brown woven leather belt with brass double D-ring buckle
  • Brown leather lace-up shoes
  • Dark brown felt fedora with dark brown ribbed grosgrain band

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

The way of the future… the way of the future.

True Detective – Rust Cohle’s Navy Corduroy Jacket

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Matthew McConaughey as Rustin "Rust" Cohle on True Detective (Episode 1.02: "Seeing Things")

Matthew McConaughey as Rustin “Rust” Cohle on HBO’s True Detective (Episode 1.02: “Seeing Things”)

Vitals

Matthew McConaughey as Rustin “Rust” Cohle, nihilistic Louisiana State Police homicide detective

Louisiana, January 1995

Series: True Detective
Episodes:
– “The Long Bright Dark” (Episode 1.01, aired 1/12/2014)
– “Seeing Things” (Episode 1.02, aired 1/19/2014)
– “The Locked Room” (Episode 1.03, aired 1/26/2014)
– “Who Goes There” (Episode 1.04, aired 2/9/2014)
– “The Secret Fate of All Life” (Episode 1.05, aired 2/16/2014)
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Creator: Nic Pizzolatto
Costume Designer: Jenny Eagan

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Time may or may not be a flat circle, but birthdays come around every year and today is Matthew McConaughey’s 50th!

Born November 4, 1969, in Uvalde, Texas*, McConaughey spent the first two decades of his career bringing a likable presence to movies that ranged from heavy drama (AmistadA Time to Kill) to frothy rom-coms (How to Lose a Guy in Ten DaysFailure to Launch) and plenty in between.

After a two-year acting hiatus following Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, the actor began focusing on more serious fare like The Lincoln Lawyer, kicking off what many—including Rachel Syme for The New Yorker—deemed “the McConaissance” with roles in Magic MikeThe Wolf of Wall Street, and ultimately his Academy Award-winning performance in Dallas Buyers Club.

* McConaughey shared his birthplace with Willis Newton, the real-life bank robber he portrayed in The Newton Boys.

It was on the heels of McConaughey’s Oscar win that he wowed HBO audiences as the nihilistic policeman Rustin “Rust” Cohle in True Detective, a role that would earn McConaughey even more deserved accolades including Emmy and Golden Globe nominations in addition to winning the Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series. Also nominated for the Emmy was McConaughey’s co-star Woody Harrelson, who played opposite him as veteran Louisiana State Police detective Marty Hart.

Rust Cohle: This place is like somebody’s memory of a town, and the memory is fading. It’s like there was never anything here but jungle.
Marty Hart: Stop saying shit like that. It’s unprofessional.

McConaughey and Harrelson’s chemistry shone brightly as the two disparate personalities converge and diverge over two decades of a dark, twisted homicide investigation, with Cohle’s haunted solitude often serving as the foil to the gregarious good ol’ boy Hart, putting a new spin on the mismatched cop cliché. With its Lovecraftian mythology, bravura acting, haunting atmosphere and cinematography, and Pizzolato and Fukunaga’s boldly dedicated auteurism, the first season of True Detective remains a high water mark in what some have called the second Golden Age of Television… or at least the Golden Age of TV opening credits.

What’d He Wear?

Matthew McConaughey on the set of True Detective (Source: PacificCoastNews.com)

Matthew McConaughey on the set of True Detective (Source: PacificCoastNews.com)

After our introduction to a scraggly, aged Rust Cohle in 2012, we flash back seventeen years to his partnership with Marty Hart investigating homicides for the Louisiana State Police. According to a Costumer Designers Guild article, costume designer Jenny Eagan received guidance from a former Louisiana homicide detective who served during the show’s time-frame, incorporating the detective’s feedback with her own sense of Rust Cohle’s simple, gritty approach to dressing that contrasted with Hart, whose houndstooth sport jackets, striped button-down shirts, and paisley ties would have been straight off the rack in a 1995 Macy’s.

“Rust is a guy who doesn’t care about his look,” Eagan shared with Emily Zemler of ELLE magazine for an interview published in July 2014. “Marty cared a little more about himself–he had a wife and maybe his wife bought things for him.”

“Cohle was such a complex character, and yet I knew he’d be so simple in the way that he dressed. It was all about utilitarianism for him. That’s what made him comfortable,” Eagan told Slate in a March 2014 interview. “We certainly didn’t want to dress him toward a particular fashion. In the mid-’90s, men were wearing pleated pants. Suits were boxy and squared out. That was nothing that Rust was going to be interested in. He was going to want to go to one store and pick up one of each item of clothing and wear them all indefinitely.”

Eagan had the particular challenge of making sure that the costume design, while accurate, was subdued enough to match the show’s dark, gritty tone and avoid overpowering the nuance of the plot. For Rust Cohle, this meant a limited but frequently cycled collection of corduroy sport jackets, solid shirts, textured ties, and flat front trousers with a single belt and a well-traveled pair of boots anchoring them all.

The Navy Corduroy Jacket

Rust Cohle’s penchant for corduroy, a durable but admittedly hot-wearing fabric, would keep him toasty in Louisiana’s humid subtropical climate, but the bulk of the 1995 action is set across the wintry months of the year from January through early spring. There’s no snow on the ground, but the air would have likely been brisk enough to keep Cohle from overheating in his hard-wearing fabric of choice.

“Subconsciously, as a viewer, it didn’t hit me until recently that almost every investigative scene involving Matthew McConaughey’s emotional scrapyard of a character, had him donning a well-cut, tailored corduroy jacket, as if that was the only thing keeping him from seeping slowly into the dark world Rust Cohle had created for himself after the premature death of his only child,” wrote “Tomboy Tarts” in a Medium post published shortly after True Detective‘s first season concluded. Across the 1995-set scenes of the season, Cohle wears three similarly cut corduroy sports coats: two in earthy tones of olive and brown and one in navy blue, a slightly less common color for corduroy.

Cohle at Pelican Island in "The Locked Room" (Episode 1.03).

Cohle at Pelican Island in “The Locked Room” (Episode 1.03).

This dark navy corduroy sport jacket has notch lapels of moderate width that roll to a low two-button stance with the top button in line with the hip pockets, though Cohle wears the jacket open at all times. The low stance is contemporary with 1990s fashions, though Eagan explained to the Costume Designers Guild her rationale for eschewing the double-breasted jackets that were popular during the decade: “A double-breasted sport coat would have been far too flashy for a detective and could have hindered their ability to get to their weapon.”

Made by K&P Costume Company of North Hollywood, Cohle’s navy corduroy jacket has a welted breast pocket, jetted hip pockets, and a single vent. The number of buttons on the sleeve seems to vary; while the jacket tends to be seen with three-button cuffs, some shots (particularly of Cohle’s left sleeve while driving their car as Hart fights a hangover) show four buttons on the cuff instead.

Cohle enters the burned-out church at the end of "Seeing Things" (Episode 1.02).

Cohle enters the burned-out church at the end of “Seeing Things” (Episode 1.02).

Corduroy jackets in warm shades of brown and tan are an Ivy style staple. If you’ve already got one in your collection, consider putting a creative twist on it à la Rust Cohle with a sports coat in navy blue corded cloth:

Production photo of Matthew McConaughey sporting Rust Cohle's pale blue shirt and loosened striped tie, both made by Anto, in "Seeing Things" (Episode 1.02)

Production photo of Matthew McConaughey sporting Rust Cohle’s pale blue shirt and loosened striped tie, both made by Anto, in “Seeing Things” (Episode 1.02)

Shirts and Ties

Costume designer Jenny Eagan expanded on the philosophy that drove her decision-making for Rust Cohle’s costumes in a July 2014 interview with Emily Zemler of ELLE magazine:

Rust is the kind [of guy] who knew there was a dress requirement. They had to wear a tie, they had to wear a shirt, they had to cover their weapon so they needed a windbreaker or a blazer. He knew that those were the rules he had to follow. I felt he walked into a store and said, “Give me two of those, two of those and two of those.” He’s not going to think about it. And then he’d mix and match every day. If you really watch the show, I just mixed and matched things. They each had maybe four different shirts and three blazers. I just rotated them around with ties.

These rotating shirts and ties that Cohle wears almost exaggeratedly, defiantly loosened were made for the series by Anto Beverly Hills. While Cohle tended to stick to blues and grays with his navy jacket and light shades of brown with his earthy corded jackets, there is a realistic degree of overlap across his wardrobe, which Eagan told Zemler she tracked with a comprehensive chart in the wardrobe trailer.

Consistent with Eagan’s recollection, I counted four different shirts and three different ties that McConaughey wears with the navy corduroy jacket; the four shirts are a slate gray mélange, ice blue, pale blue, and a heathered tan, while his textured ties are a slate gray stripe wool, taupe-on-charcoal grid-check wool, and brown grenadine. Eagan explained to Costume Designers Guild that she “made Matthew’s ties, because [she] couldn’t find any ties of the period that were subtle enough but with texture.”

“The Long Bright Dark” (Episode 1.01)

Given how long it’s taken for me to reconcile my nature, I can’t figure I’d forgo it on your account, Marty.

After identifying the murder victim from the macabre scene they encountered in Vermilion Parish as 28-year-old Dora Kelly Lange, Cohle and Hart make a disturbing visit to the coroner’s office before sharing their newfound knowledge in two briefings, first a comprehensive internal meeting with the rest of LSP CID followed by a press briefing.

Cohle takes off his navy corduroy jacket for his rides in Hart’s unmarked cruiser between each duty, sporting a slate gray shirt with a heathered stripe effect, similar to this cotton shirt by Tommy Hilfiger. The shirt has a point collar, plain front, breast pocket, and button cuffs. His textured tie, likely wool, is patterned in narrow balanced stripes of two alternating shades of gray, following an “uphill” direction.

"I don't dream. I just sleep."

“I don’t dream. I just sleep.”

The press briefing provides one of few times that Cohle actually wears his shirt buttoned to the neck with the tie fully tightened, aware that he must keep his appearance professional to be taken seriously… despite having just mocked Hart’s assumption that Cohle strives for professionalism.

Cohle joins Hart behind Quesada as the LSP conducts their briefing to the press.

Cohle joins Hart behind Quesada as the LSP conducts their briefing to the press.

Gray is the color of the day for Cohle, as he also wears a pair of dark gray trousers with a high waist. Eagan intentionally avoided the popular pleated style of the era, and Cohle’s flat front trousers are more flattering for McConaughey’s lean frame while also consistent with Cohle’s minimalist, non-trendy sense of style. These trousers have narrowly welted “frogmouth” front pockets, two button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

“Seeing Things” (Episode 1.02)

Most of the time, I was convinced, shit, I’d lost it… but there were other times, I thought I was mainlining the secret truth of the universe.

The next episode begins with Cohle and Hart visiting Dora Lange’s headache-stricken mother, Mrs. Kelly (Tess Harper), as their investigation into her murder continues. Under his navy corded sports coat, Cohle’s ice blue (or “ice white”) shirt is a pale blue shade away from white. The shirt has a point collar—worn unbuttoned at the neck, of course—and a plain front and button cuffs. His charcoal wool tie is patterned with a subtle taupe grid-check, and he wears the same dark gray trousers seen in the previous episode.

TRUE DETECTIVE / 102

After weeks of canvassing with few promising developments, Cohle and Hart’s boss Major Ken Quesada (Kevin Dunn) brings in a task force issued by Governor Tuttle. The proposed replacement team stirs resentment between Cohle and Quesada, though cooler minds prevail and Hart manages to squeeze two additional weeks out of Quesada, giving them until the end of the month to solve the case. Cohle and Hart follow a lead regarding a tent revival that lands them at a burned-out church in Eunice, Louisiana, that reveals itself to be chock-full of clues.

In addition to the navy corduroy jacket, Cohle wears a pale blue shirt—not as light as the icy shirt from the beginning of the episode—with a front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs. The textured gray duo-tone striped tie returns from the first episode, and he wears a pair of tobacco brown flat front trousers styled similarly to the gray pants he’d been wearing with the navy jacket to this point.

"You know me, I don't see the connection between two dead cats and a murdered woman... but then, I'm from Texas."

“You know me, I don’t see the connection between two dead cats and a murdered woman… but then, I’m from Texas.”

“The Locked Room” (Episode 1.03)

World needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.

The third episode picks up where the previous episode left off as Cohle and Hart’s investigation at the burned-out church continues into the evening with backup on the scene to gather evidence, thus they’re wearing the same clothes from the closing scenes of “Seeing Things”.

Cohle’s navy corduroy jacket doesn’t re-appear until more than halfway through “The Locked Room” as the lonely nihilist decides to “put [his] insomnia to good use,” spending his late nights searching through old case files until one evening’s investigation is interrupted by the alarm on his watch (despite the Lorus diver he wears not being equipped with such a function.) The alarm calls him to a double date engineered by Marty and Maggie at Longhorn’s, a C&W-themed bar, where Cohle talks synesthesia and getting drunk in front of Notre Dame with Maggie’s friend before leaving early to resume his gruesome research.

He appears to be wearing the same pale blue shirt as seen earlier in the episode, now paired with the taupe-on-charcoal grid-check wool tie and his gray flat front trousers.

TRUE DETECTIVE / 103

The next day, when Hart is hungover from his late night of drunkenly attacking his mistress Lisa (Alexandria Daddario) and her new boyfriend, Cohle drives them two hours away to Pelican Island to meet with a lead, a grizzled fisherman whose granddaughter ran off with Reggie Ledoux. Their canvassing leads them to Light of the Way Christian Academy, where Cohle briefly talks to scar-faced groundskeeper Errol Childress (Glenn Fleshler) before he’s summoned back to Hart’s car to hunt down Reggie Ledoux, who just became the pair’s best suspect for the brutal killings.

Cohle wears the same navy corduroy jacket, charcoal checked tie, and dark gray trousers as he did the previous day, though he’s changed his shirt into the heathered slate gray shirt from the first episode.

Production photo of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in "The Locked Room" (Episode 1.03).

Production photo of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in “The Locked Room” (Episode 1.03).

“Who Goes There” (Episode 1.04)

They really should have a better system for this.

Cohle begins phasing out his navy corduroy jacket in the fourth episode, with its sole appearance in “Who Goes There” around halfway through the episode. Cohle and Hart have planned their gambit for Cohle, under the guise of a leave of absence, to re-infiltrate the Iron Crusaders biker gang where he used to work undercover. To do so, he needs drugs as bait for the bikers… and to get his hands on quality drugs, he takes the evidence room key from an unwitting fellow detective to swap out some high-quality product with mixed stuff that will languish in the evidence room.

Though Cohle wears his usual gray flat front trousers with the navy corded sports coat, he sports a tan shirt and brown grenadine tie that he typically reserves for his brown or olive corduroy jackets.

TRUE DETECTIVE / 104

“The Secret Fate of All Life” (Episode 1.05)

I can say that I walked away from the experience with a greater respect for the sanctity of human life.

The navy corduroy jacket’s final appearance is brief, worn with the same tan shirt and the taupe-on-charcoal wool tie as he gives his deposition to the police shooting board after the death of Reggie Ledoux.

Cohle accounts for his and Hart's gunfight with Reggie Ledoux in "The Secret Fate of All Life" (Episode 1.05).

Cohle accounts for his and Hart’s gunfight with Reggie Ledoux in “The Secret Fate of All Life” (Episode 1.05).

Constants

Rust Cohle keeps a truly minimalist wardrobe, seemingly wearing the same belt and boots with all of his outfits in these 1995 scenes. The black leather roper boots have a plain toe, low shafts, and a red branded rectangle centered on the bottom of each outsole. His trousers are gently flared at the bottoms to accommodate the boots.

Cohle’s plain black leather belt has a steel single-prong buckle, which he loads up with the tools of his profession. To the right of the buckle is his Louisiana State Police badge, a distinctive gold badge shaped like the state of Louisiana against a black leather holder. He also wears his radio and pager on his belt and, across the back, he wears his holstered Glock 17 (indeed the issued duty sidearm of the LSP), his handcuffs, and a spare magazine for the Glock.

Cohle keeps his jacket off in the LSP station, revealing the tools of his trade around his belt.

Cohle keeps his jacket off in the LSP station, revealing the tools of his trade around his belt.

Cohle’s stainless steel dive watch has been the subject of much speculation in the years since the show first debuted on HBO. Many brands are still tossed around as possibilities, including Citizen, Orient, Seiko, Timex, and even Rolex. However, the speculation all but ended when an e-true detective, “AJMc” on the WatchUSeek forum, reported that he received confirmation from the show’s property master Lynda Reiss that the watch supplied for Matthew McConaughey was indeed a Lorus dive watch from the mid-1990s.

Based on this information and the appearance of Rust’s stainless watch with its black bezel, black dial with cyclops at the 3:00 date window, and “Mercedes” hands, the model was deduced to likely be the Lorus Tidal LR 0021 diver.

Cohle takes a turn behind the wheel of Marty Hart's unmarked Chevy Caprice, airing just a few months before the first of McConaughey's several commercials featuring the actor sharing his wandering thoughts from behind the wheel of a new Lincoln.

Cohle takes a turn behind the wheel of Marty Hart’s unmarked Chevy Caprice, airing just a few months before the first of several commercials featuring Matthew McConaughey sharing his wandering thoughts from behind the wheel of a new Lincoln.

One of the strongest arguments that Citizen proponents used was the fact that McConaughey is clearly wearing a ridged black resin Citizen PVC sport strap with the words “WIND VELOCITY” printed in white on the end of the strap with smaller measurements (m/sec in white, knots in yellow) further toward the inside of the wrist that help validate the theory. (See here.)

However, the word of the prop master and the fact that “LORUS” can be faintly read on the dial in some production stills and screenshots overrule theory, and we can all sleep well knowing for sure that Matthew McConaughey wore an era-correct Lorus dive watch on a resin Citizen strap for his role as Rust Cohle on the first season of True Detective.

A long night in "The Locked Room" (Episode 1.03).

A long night in “The Locked Room” (Episode 1.03).

One additional constant? Cohle exclusively wears white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirts.

What to Imbibe

Rust Cohle was famous for his Lone Star beer, particularly in the 2012 sequences where he downs a six-pack of tall boys over the course of his interrogation with detectives Gilbough and Papania. In 1995, we see him drinking plenty—beginning with “Who Goes There” (Episode 1.04)—to steel himself for the re-infiltration of the Iron Crusaders. Like his partner Marty Hart, Jameson Irish whiskey fuels much of Cohle’s preparation and we also can spy him drinking a can of Schaefer Light beer at the bar with Marty.

How to Get the Look

Matthew McConaughey as Rustin "Rust" Cohle on HBO's True Detective (Episode 1.03: "The Locked Room")

Matthew McConaughey as Rustin “Rust” Cohle on HBO’s True Detective (Episode 1.03: “The Locked Room”)

Though his wardrobe was designed to accommodate the minimal thought that Rust Cohle would put into dressing, Cohle keeps his outfits relatively coordinated, saving the earth tones for his brown and olive corduroy jackets and using grays and blues to coordinate with this navy corduroy jacket.

  • Navy corduroy single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Light blue or gray shirt with point collar, front placket, and button cuffs
  • Gray-toned textured tie with subtle pattern or stripe
  • Dark gray flat front trousers with belt loops, narrowly welted “frogmouth” front pockets, button-through back pockets, and “bootcut” plain-hemmed bottoms
  • Black leather belt with steel single-prong buckle
  • Black leather plain-toe roper boots
  • White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
  • Lorus Tidal stainless steel dive watch with black bezel and black dial (with 3:00 “cyclops” date window) on black resin Citizen “Wind Velocity” strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the first season of True Detective. While the series’ following two seasons were met with cooler receptions among audiences and critics, True Detective‘s landmark first season was universally praised. All eight episodes were directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, who is directing Daniel Craig’s final James Bond film, No Time to Die, set for release in April 2020.

You can also read more insight from costume designer Jenny Eagan regarding most major characters in True Detective‘s first season at these links that were cited throughout the post:

The Quote

I don’t sleep. I just dream.

Why James Bond?

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On the 00-7th of November with six months until the release of No Time to Die, I’m briefly diverting from my usual content and hope that you’ll forgive a brief, somewhat personal essay reflecting on the relevance of James Bond’s style

Roger Moore and Britt Ekland in his second film as James Bond, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Roger Moore and Britt Ekland in his second film as James Bond, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The first James Bond movie I had ever seen was The Man with the Golden Gun. I was at my friend Nate’s tenth birthday party, a month shy of turning 10 myself, and the entire group of about a half-dozen adolescents were transfixed for two hours by the increasingly grainy VHS from Blockbuster that took us to an escapist world of wit, style, thrills, and Britt Ekland in a bikini. I had certainly been familiar with Bond before that, as the agent had been part of pop culture for nearly four decades before I first saw Roger Moore’s sophomore adventure in late June of 1999.

The next three years, my budding interest in menswear would continue to develop I was exposed to Edith Head’s Depression-influenced designs in The Sting (1973), the lavish resort-wear in the John Braborne/Richard B. Goodwin-produced adaptations of Agatha Christie’s mystery novels, the roaring twenties brought to life by Theoni V. Aldredge and Ralph Lauren in The Great Gatsby (1974), and the mobbed-up fashions of Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995), but I like to think that Bond started it all.

My first exposure to Bond on the big screen came on New Year’s Day 2003, when family tradition dictated that my mother and sister see the latest rom-com as my dad took me to whatever major action movie was playing. In this case, it was Pierce Brosnan’s swan song as 007, Die Another Day. While not the greatest of the Bond franchise, the impact of a stylish, well-tailored suit made an impact on me with moments like a freshly shaven Brosnan striding through a Hong Kong hotel lobby in a dark navy Brioni suit, clean white shirt, and red power tie, a marked contrast from the scraggly bearded man in his wet pajamas who had walked in a few days prior.

Pierce Brosnan wears Brioni in Die Another Day (2002), his final film as James Bond and the first 007 flick I'd seen in theaters.

Pierce Brosnan wears Brioni in Die Another Day (2002), his final film as James Bond and the first 007 flick I’d seen in theaters.

Daniel Craig's attitude and style in his first 007 movie, Casino Royale (2006), provided my first "aspirational" James Bond experience.

Daniel Craig’s attitude and style in his first 007 movie, Casino Royale (2006), provided my first “aspirational” James Bond experience.

Nearly four years later, I was tuning out the annoying static of critics and “fans” complaining about a blond James Bond (remember that?!) and was looking forward to seeing Casino Royale with my friends after Thanksgiving in 2006… and it was Casino Royale that changed everything. I may have been an impressionable teen who fell for the franchise’s uncanny ability to tap into each era’s respective zeitgeist, but Casino Royale made me truly aspire to be Bond for the first time since I had watched the series.

Like Daniel Craig’s Bond was rebooting the character (balancing an infusion of Bourne-inspired fast action and practicality, post-9/11 cynicism, and classic Bond elements), I too was starting fresh with the franchise.

My friend Ian, a fellow Bond fan who had more childhood-instilled knowledge about the movies than I did, agreed to be my guide to discovering classic 007 and we headed to Iggle Video… where all of Connery’s canon was already rented aside from a scratchy VHS of Diamonds are Forever. Ian suggested picking up a Roger Moore alternative, but I had already seen two of Sir Roger’s installments, and I needed to experience the original Bond—the rugged Scot who had inspired so many misquotes and poor “shaken, not schtirred” impersonations—so I settled in for two campy but classic hours of a toupéed Connery trading bon mots with Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd while Jill St. John’s Tiffany Case seemed to lose a few too many brain cells as her once-savvy but still seductive smuggler flew from Amsterdam to Las Vegas.

For those of you keeping track at home, four of the first five James Bond films that I saw were Diamonds are ForeverThe Man with the Golden GunMoonraker, and Die Another Day… and yet I kept watching the series, proving that even a less-than-average Bond movie can be more entertaining than whatever Rotten Tomatoes or your hipster friend is telling you to watch!

As the post-Casino Royale Bond fever dissipated in the waning weeks of 2006, I was finally able to truly start at the beginning. The iconic moments that have made the series such an essential part of pop culture—the original “Bond, James Bond” introduction in Dr. No, Auric Goldfinger explaining “no, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die,” Roger Moore’s Lotus diving underwater in The Spy Who Loved Me—began to fall into place and I found myself wanting to be part of the action, spending evenings dressed to the nines awaiting danger at a foreign casino with a martini at my elbow, a Walther PPK under my arm, and a gorgeous femme fatale on my arm.

"Bond, James Bond." Sean Connery made his iconic introduction as James Bond in Dr. No (1962).

“Bond, James Bond.” Sean Connery made his iconic introduction as James Bond in Dr. No (1962).
(Source: Thunderballs.org)

Favorites emerged with From Russia with Love and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the faithful adaptations of Fleming’s novels that—like Casino Royalehad balanced a comparatively grounded espionage story with the fantastic elements that make James Bond so unique. Faithful BAMF Style readers have no doubt encountered mention of my high school hobby of making amateur movies with friends, and an adaptation of From Russia with Love appeared next on our docket. As I researched for the “role”, I found myself paying greater attention to the clothes, salvaging one of my dad’s gray herringbone suits from the ’80s and pairing it with a pale blue cotton shirt that reminded me more of Connery’s—despite the lack of cocktail cuffs—and a darker tie that no doubt came from the racks Kaufmann’s or Macy’s rather than from among the bespoke offerings of Turnbull & Asser.

The "adaptation" of From Russia with Love that my friends made in high school took cues from the original movie as well as some inspiration from Dr. No and Connery's other Bond movies.

The “adaptation” of From Russia with Love that my friends made in high school took cues from the original movie as well as some inspiration from Dr. No and Connery’s other Bond movies.

By the time Quantum of Solace had been released in the fall of 2008, I was in my sophomore year of college and a full-fledged Bondie, having seen each of the first 21 movies at least three times with scattered viewings of the 1954 Casino Royale TV special, the putrid 1967 Casino Royale comedy, and the unofficial Never Say Never Again. While it would take a strong argument to place Quantum of Solace in the same league as Casino Royale, the filmmakers had stayed relatively consistent with Daniel Craig’s casual style, introducing a wave of dark blouson jackets and shawl-collar cardigans as well as a return of the khaki and cream jean-like trousers that we had first seen in Casino Royale. Sure, the suits and the opulence were still there, but here was an aspirational figure who still dressed accessibly (as my friends at Iconic Alternatives and My Budget Bond can attest!)

The number of navy blue polos in my wardrobe tripled. Sneakers collected dust as I sought out desert and chukka boots to wear with my casual attire. I paid more attention to my watches and parted ways with the digital Timex Ironmans (Ironmen?) that had dressed my wrist since I was ten. The pooka shell necklace, worn to fit into my high school job at Hollister? Gone. So too were the ripped jeans and logo-emblazoned polos with random words claiming association with an “Athletic Dept.”

James Bond helped me evolve my adolescent style into that of an adult, and at just the time I needed it. Winters in bright puffer coats and summers in flip flops were upgraded to pea coats and espadrilles, respectively… and I was starting to notice that Bond was far from the only best-dressed man in movies or TV.

Around the same time, I had been growing a collection of JPGs on my computer—mostly screenshots from DVDs with the occasional production image—of outfits that I liked from movies. Little did I know, but this was the fledgling fashion bud that would blossom into BAMF Style. The clothing recorded in these images ranged from the impractical (Robert Redford’s pink linen three-piece suit in The Great Gatsby) to the super-practical (Daniel Craig’s dark polos and cream jeans in his first two Bond movies.) As I worked on transitioning my almost-exclusively American Eagle and Hollister wardrobe of plaid cargo shorts and “Zuckerberg specials” (hoodies and T-shirts), I was intrigued by the timeless attire that many movie heroes were wearing on screen without looking too affected.

Throughout the process, I learned that it doesn’t take a Bond-sized budget to dress well, it just takes attention to detail and perhaps a cinematic nudge to get one paying attention.

Daniel Craig runs through Venice Casino Royale (left) and the author sporting a 007-inspired outfit for a considerably less stressful outing to The Frick Pittsburgh's Car and Carriage Museum in September 2018 (right). My ensemble consisted of a blue pique Club Room long-sleeved polo, heathered gray Express short-sleeve T-shirt, dark blue Dockers chinos, and black Nike Air sneakers.

Daniel Craig runs through Venice in Casino Royale (left) and the author sporting a 007-inspired outfit for a considerably less stressful visit to The Frick Pittsburgh’s Car and Carriage Museum in September 2018 (right).
My ensemble consisted of a blue pique Club Room long-sleeved polo, heathered gray Express short-sleeve T-shirt, dark blue Dockers chinos, and black Nike Air sneakers.

Photo folders became PowerPoints and Excel spreadsheets, which ultimately found their current incarnation as BAMF Style, launched in September 2012. I’m grateful for all of my readers, commenters, and the engaged community, particularly as I had originally envisioned this as a low-key site for me to organize and comment on the most influential or interesting outfits to me at the moment, beginning with Cary Grant’s North by Northwest suit, Steve McQueen’s iconic Bullitt look, and Robert Redford’s fascinating layers in Three Days of the Condor, before I branched out into the world of James Bond.

There are many other experts who have a far more definitive word on Bond: James Bond Lifestyle was one of the first sites I found online dedicated to these special elements of the series; regarding 007’s actual clothes and tailoring, no one is more authoritative than Matt Spaiser at The Suits of James Bond; finding affordable alternatives to bring these clothes into your closet is a particular talent of my friend John at Iconic Alternatives; and David Zaritsky has mastered living The Bond Experience with his site of the same name.

Another Daniel Craig-inspired look in practice, this time embracing the layered pea coat, sweater, and tie from Skyfall.

Another Daniel Craig-inspired look in practice, this time embracing the layered pea coat, sweater, and tie from Skyfall.

Many more are out there, but I’m grateful to the fellow 007 fans who have welcomed me into such a particular community and have made me feel far from alone in my passion for the stylish fashions of the James Bond franchise. It’s an exciting time to be a Bond sartorial enthusiast as some of the brands who have dressed Daniel Craig’s Bond, specifically Orlebar Brown and N.Peal, are wisely tapping into the growing enthusiasm for classic Bond style by collaborating with the franchise and supplementing the wares they’ve provided for Craig with throwback tributes inspired by the clothing worn by Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton in their 007 films.

Now, more than two decades after the first time I saw a Bond movie, I’ve found how incorporating little bits of Bond or Bond-inspired lifestyle can enhance one’s life, whether it’s embracing the NATO watch strap (without going diving in a $10k Omega), being selective about food and drink (without getting punched by bartenders for ordering a martini “shaken, not stirred”), or just paying a little more attention to what you’re wearing and how you’re presenting yourself.

As we look ahead to the release of No Time to Die in April 2020, I bid farewell to Daniel Craig, whose tenure as James Bond—in years, the longest to date—inspired me to become a full-fledged 007 fan and, in tandem, inspired a passion for menswear and style that led to the development of a blog that has brought me seven years (and counting) of happiness.

Thank you for indulging my personal reflections on why Bond style means so much to me… back to regular content tomorrow!

Alain Delon in Le Samouraï

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Alain Delon as Jef Costello in Le Samouraï (The Samurai) (1967)

Alain Delon as Jef Costello in Le Samouraï (The Samurai) (1967)

Vitals

Alain Delon as Jef Costello, slick, taciturn, and meticulous contract killer

Paris, April 1967

Film: The Samurai
(French title: Le Samouraï)
Release Date: October 25, 1967
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

On Alain Delon’s 84th birthday, let’s explore Le Samouraï, arguably one of the best, most influential, and most stylish roles of Delon’s career and the frequent subject of requests from BAMF Style readers like Marcus and Mohammed.

Despite being Jean-Pierre Melville’s tribute to 1940s noir, Le Samouraï was also the maverick director’s first color production as he had evidently elected not to film in black-and-white. The color photography allows Melville to make the most of his shadowy settings from Jef Costello’s gray, barren apartment to the throwback glamour of the Parisian nightclub.

Delon stars as Jef Costello, a cold contract killer whose solitary lifestyle nods to Japanese lone warrior mythology—hence the title—and whose personal style co-opts the classic American noir anti-hero. Melville had written the script and developed the character specifically for Delon, stripping away the persona that the actor had cultivated over the previous decade as a charming if mischievous romantic who—even as a criminal—could win over the audience with a knowing smirk or grin.

The collaboration between Melville and Delon was a match made in cinematic heaven, evident from the day that Melville brought his script for Delon to read in person. After Melville shared the title with Delon, the actor escorted the director back to his bedroom, populated solely by a leather couch and a samurai blade on the wall: Melville had found his perfect Jef Costello. The result, which has influenced directors from the Coens and Scorsese to Tarantino and John Woo, is a spare yet stylish neo-noir that rightly maintains its 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. To learn more, I invite you to read James Roberts’ excellent 2017 essay for Glide magazine, which discusses Le Samouraï with far more eloquence than I could muster.

"There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle... Perhaps..." — Bushido (Book of the Samurai)

“There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle… Perhaps…”
— Bushido (Book of the Samurai)

The film begins on Saturday, April 4*, with Jef Costello fully dressed, laying prone on the bed in his sparse flat, chain-smoking Gitanes as his caged bird serenades him. At 6 p.m., he rises, meticulously dons his trench coat and fedora, and leaves the apartment. After stealing a Citroën sedan, he drives to a wordless exchange with his underworld contact (André Salgues), who gives Jef new license plates, forged identity papers, and a .38-caliber revolver. Jef’s next stop is to the apartment of glamorous prostitute Jane Lagrange (Nathalie Delon) to establish his alibi for the following hours before finally making his way to Martey’s, the nightclub that would be the setting of his first on-screen murder. Jef sneaks down into the club’s basement and into the manager’s office, where he confronts Martey himself.

Martey: Who are you?
Jef: It doesn’t matter.
Martey: What do you want?
Jef: To kill you.

Martey reaches for his own revolver, but there’s no outdrawing Jef, who kills the nightclub owner with three shots. Once the relatively clean hit is complete, Jef disposes of his gloves, gun, and stolen car before meeting up again with his underworld cronies for a smoky 2 a.m. card game. A police dragnet rounding up all the usual suspects includes Jef, who finds himself in a room with dozens of other men dressed in raincoats and hats per the description given by Valérie (Cathy Rosier), the attractive pianist with whom Jef locked eyes after leaving Martey’s office. Magically, most of the eyewitnesses fail to identify him (with one even misremembering the killer to have a mustache), and his pre-arranged alibi with Jane is the final piece of the puzzle that leads to Jef’s release from custody…but the police superintendent (François Périer) remains suspicious of the laconic young man, and the game is afoot!

Jef easily loses the police tail, but an additional complication arises when he meets a representative of his client on an overpass near the elevated rail station. “It’s done,” Jef informs him, but there’s still more to be done in the eyes of the client, who attempts to tie off loose ends by double-crossing Jef and shooting him. Jef overpowers the gunman, who escapes, but not until after getting a shot off that tears into Jef’s left arm… tearing a hole into the sleeve of his trench coat and penetrating the hitman’s protective armor.

What’d He Wear?

The killer is described as tall, young, wearing a raincoat and hat.

Despite being more than a half-century old, fashion writers still take the time the explore Le Samouraï‘s killer style every few years: Sarah Maher for Refinery29 in 2008, Calum Marsh for Esquire in 2013, Style in Film in 2015, and Jonathan Heaf for British GQ last year. Now, after several requests from BAMF Style readers, it’s my turn to take a comprehensive look at Jef Costello’s trench coat and fedora, updated by Alain Delon a generation after Humphrey Bogart had established it as a staple of the “noir hero” uniform in movies like Casablanca, The Big Sleep, and Sirocco.

Of all the gin joints...

Of all the gin joints…

The trench coat is one of the most enduring and iconic pieces of men’s outerwear, tracing its unquestionably British origins back to the middle of the 19th century where Aquascutum and Burberry continue to battle for credit of the initial creation. John Emary of Aquascutum (Latin for “water shield”) developed a groundbreaking water-resistant wool ankle-length coat in the 1850s that the company cites as the precursor what we call the trench coat, though it wasn’t until 1879 that Aquascutum’s competitor Thomas Burberry invented the innovative gabardine fabric that would make the garment so effective against the elements and was meant to replace the stinky rubber that was used to construct most raincoats up to that point. The War Office received Burberry’s design for an officer’s raincoat in 1901, intended to be a lighter weight alternative to the heavy regulation great coats already authorized by the British Army that blended in the functionality and wearability of the waterproof regulation cape.

What emerged as the classic “trench coat” was modernized during World War I, optimized for protecting wearers during trench warfare with oversized pockets and D-rings for accessories. An additional wartime modification was the addition of shoulder straps (epaulettes) for rank insignia, though these have remained an enduring characteristic of civilian trench coats.

Thanks to marketing shortcuts and colloquialism, the term “trench coat” is often inaccurately applied to simple raincoats or dusters, but Jef Costello’s coat is a classic trench coat in every sense, detailed with the storm flaps, shoulder straps, D-ring belted front and belted cuffs, and traditional ten-button, double-breasted front associated with the garment.

LE SAMOURAI

Costello’s coat is made from a tightly woven cotton gabardine twill in a light sandy shade of khaki, one of the most traditional colors for a trench coat. There is a storm flap (or “gun flap” as it would cover the butt of a shouldered long arm) over the right shoulder and a straight-bottomed storm flap across the back. The two external pockets are slanted and positioned just below the belt, each with a storm flap detailed with a small button at the top and bottom that can be buttoned up from the outside to protect the contents from rain.

The double-breasted front consists of ten mixed beige plastic four-hole sew-through buttons, arranged in two parallel columns of five buttons each, with two rows below the belt and three above it up to the neck, where a hook-and-eye throat latch closure can securely fasten in addition to the top row of buttons, though Costello typically leaves this undone even when he wears it closed over his chest. There is also a tab under the left side of the collar with three buttonholes that could be used to close the collar around the neck.

Costello’s coat has the traditional double-layered shoulder straps that button onto the coat at the neck. The self-belt extends around the coat’s waist line with the brass D-rings added during World War I to carry equipment like map cases, swords, and—perhaps apocryphally—hand grenades. The end of each raglan sleeve is fastened with a mini-belt that closes through a single-prong buckle. Like the belt around the waist, the belted cuffs have a brown leather-covered buckle.

Costello stands among the usual suspects in a police lineup.

Costello stands among the usual suspects in a police lineup.

Costello only wears the trench coat for the first half of the movie, hanging it up after the left sleeve is damaged by a bullet during a scuffle with the unnamed blonde gunman representing his client.

The popularity of Delon’s costuming has endured for more than a half-century and remains a popular subject of discussion regarding iconic movie menswear, though some question remains regarding who manufactured the coat. Aquascutum and Burberry have both been suggested as possible contenders due to their respective roles in the trench coat’s development, with Jonathan Heaf writing for British GQ that he leaned toward the former, citing the centralized and closer placement of the buttons.

Aquascutum and Burberry continue to be contenders in the modern trench coat game, with the closest classic examples being:

  • Aquascutum Bogart Trench Coat in a camel polyester/cotton blend (Aquascutum, $1,250)
  • Aquascutum Corby Double Breasted Trench Coat in a camel polyester/cotton blend (Aquascutum, $1,105)
  • Burberry Long Chelsea Heritage Trench Coat in honey cotton gabardine (Burberry, $1,990)
  • Burberry Long Kensington Heritage Trench Coat in honey cotton gabardine (Burberry, $1,990)
  • Burberry Westminster Heritage Trench Coat in honey cotton gabardine (Burberry, $2,190)

Some indication may come from the brief glimpse we get of the lining when Costello is asked to exchange his coat and hat with another man when Jane’s paramour, Weiner, is called in to review the lineup. Interestingly, Costello’s coat from the mid-back down is lined in a brown shadow plaid that looks to be neither the distinctive Burberry house tartan plaid or the Aquascutum brown, navy, and tan club check, though this latter check—the Club 92—was reportedly not introduced until 1967, the same year that Le Samouraï was produced and released.

If this style of plaid lining was indeed used by Aquascutum prior to the introduction of the Club 92 check in 1967, that would clearly identify them as the maker of Jef Costello's trench coat.

If this style of plaid lining was indeed used by Aquascutum prior to the introduction of the Club 92 check in 1967, that would clearly identify them as the maker of Jef Costello’s trench coat.

While every noir-esque anti-hero needs his badass longcoat, a smart fedora is equally as important. Jef Costello opts for a self-edged fedora in gray wool felt with a wide black ribbed grosgrain silk ribbon. The low crown is less pinched than the traditional fedora with more than an inch across the front separating the dent on each side.

Costello doesn't flinch in the face of death.

Costello doesn’t flinch in the face of death.

Given Alain Delon’s then-upcoming role opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo in Borsalino, it would be reasonable enough to assume that Jef Costello topped his head with a sharp gray fedora from that iconic Italian hatter; however, we get a glimpse of the gold branding on the inside of Costello’s hat when he surrenders his fedora to the hat-check clerk at Martey’s nightclub before the final scene.

Appropriately enough, there had also been an ongoing discussion at The Fedora Lounge regarding Delon’s hat, where brighter minds and better informed hat-spotting eyes than mine may be able to best deduce from the hat’s profile and gold manufacturer’s mark who crafted the distinctive hat atop Delon’s head in Le Samouraï.

Unlike his previous visits to Martey's, Costello checks his hat at the door, giving us a look at the inside.

Unlike his previous visits to Martey’s, Costello checks his hat at the door, giving us a look at the inside.

Much as he wears the trench coat and fedora associated with the American noir protagonist, Jef Costello also wears the quintessential American men’s shirt, a cotton button-down shirt.

After John E. Brooks had spotted English polo players buttoning their collars to the bodies of their shirts, Brooks Brothers introduced the button-down collar shirt to the American menswear market, where it became a respected and oft-duplicated staple of Ivy and “trad” style. Costello’s white cotton shirt has a button-down collar with an elegant roll, a breast pocket, and single-button rounded cuffs.

LE SAMOURAI

Simplicity is the key of Jef Costello’s style game, and he opts for a solid dark textured tie that can’t fail with any outfit, particularly his preferred white shirts and dark gray suits. Costello’s go-tie tie appears to be a black grenadine silk, though the harsh lights of the garage make both the tie and his second overcoat appear to be a dark, inky shade of navy blue.

You can find quality black grenadine ties for less than $100 from many reputable neckwear experts, including:

  • Aklasu ($80)
  • Beckett & Robb ($98)
  • Elizabetta ($88)
  • J. Press ($98)
  • John Henric ($69)
  • Kent Wang ($75)
  • Sam Hober ($95)
Note the blue-ish cast of Costello's coat and tie as he awaits his latest license plates and revolver.

Note the blue-ish cast of Costello’s coat and tie as he awaits his latest license plates and revolver.

Costello’s first suit, the one he wears under the trench coat, is a shark gray pick-and-pick wool, apropos his profession and reputation as a silent killer.

The single-breasted suit jacket has moderate notch lapels that roll to a two-button front, a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back.

LE SAMOURAI

Costello’s single reverse-pleated trousers have a fitted waistband with a narrow tab that extends to close on one of two buttons placed to the right of the fly. The trousers have slightly slanted side pockets, button-through back pockets, and wide turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms.

LE SAMOURAI

With both of his suits, Costello wears black leather cap-toe oxfords with thin black silk socks.

Alerted by his bird, Costello looks for the recording device that the detectives left in his apartment. Note that these are the trousers of his darker gray suit that he wears with the charcoal Chesterfield.

Alerted by his bird, Costello looks for the recording device that the detectives left in his apartment. Note that these are the trousers of his darker gray suit that he wears with the charcoal Chesterfield.

After he returns home from the scuffle that got him shot in the arm, Costello strips off his trench coat, suit jacket, and white shirt to reveal a plain white short-sleeved undershirt. This cotton crew-neck T-shirt has banded sleve ends.

A Sunday nap.

A Sunday nap.

On Sunday night, having slept away most of the day after treating his gunshot wound, Costello hangs up his damaged trench coat and changes into a charcoal wool Chesterfield-style coat that becomes his outerwear of choice for the remainder of the film.

Costello’s coat also a welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, three-button cuffs, and a single vent. We get a glimpse at the manufacturer’s label stitched above the inside breast pocket, revealing what appears to be “EDDY” stitched in light gray with red bars along the top and bottom of the label. Though this overcoat has notch lapels that lack the formal velvet collar associated with the traditional Chesterfield, the covered fly on the single-breasted front is a traditional element.

Costello's dark Chesterfield-like coat makes its debut when he returns to Martey's.

Costello’s dark Chesterfield-like coat makes its debut when he returns to Martey’s.

Costello also changes out of his shark gray suit for the second half of the film, wearing a similarly tailored and styled suit though in a dark charcoal worsted just a shade away from black, communicating his deadly business. This charcoal gray suit with its single-breasted, two-button jacket and pleated trousers is almost identical to the lighter gray suit except that the bottoms are plain-hemmed rather than cuffed.

Costello spends time in Valérie's apartment.

Costello spends time in Valérie’s apartment.

No matter which suit or coat he’s wearing, Costello always prepares for a hit by donning a pair of white cotton unlined dress gloves. It’s a darkly humorous choice when one considers the idiom “taking off the white gloves,” which means preparing to ramp up a fight; in Costello’s case, putting on white gloves mean that he’s about to carry out his deadly duties.

Costello very deliberately dons his white gloves for one last assassination.

Costello very deliberately dons his white gloves for one last assassination.

Jef Costello supplements his simple and elegant sartorial approach with a cushion-shaped Baume & Mercier wristwatch, worn on the inside of his right wrist on a black textured leather band. The round white dial has black Roman numerals.

5:51 p.m.

5:51 p.m.

In some shots, there is a plain gold ring—likely a wedding band—on the third finger of Delon’s left hand. It’s likely an oversight, though it does add an interesting suggestion to Jef Costello’s unexplored personal history.

The Copycat

The blonde gunman (Jacques Leroy) who ruins Jef’s trench coat and gray suit with a bullet through the left sleeve dresses similarly to Jef, first seen in a gray flannel suit, white shirt, and black tie not unlike Jef’s Saturday evening attire.

The next day, the gunman is waiting for Jef in his apartment, dressed in a trench coat very similar to the one that Jef famously wore through the first half of the movie, though the gunman’s coat appears to be a Burberry product as evident by the brand’s distinctive tartan plaid lining seen as Jef kicks him into his kitchen.

This unnamed blonde gunman learns the hard way that Jef Costello does not like to be copied...or shot at or threatened.

This unnamed blonde gunman learns the hard way that Jef Costello does not like to be copied…or shot at or threatened.

Are these the de facto “uniforms” of assassins in the Melville cinematic universe? Or is the blonde gunman himself trying to be more like his target?

The Gun

Despite the French production and setting, Jef Costello is armed for each assassination with a classic American police revolver, the Smith & Wesson Model 10 with a four-inch barrel. Introduced in 1899 as the “Military & Police Model”, Smith & Wesson was still producing this tried-and-true .38 Special six-shooter nearly three quarters of a century later. Other silver screen killers may have favored more modern sidearms by the 1960s, such as James Bond with his famous Walther PPK, but Costello characteristically opts for a trusty, reliable piece like his spiritual predecessors in his shadowy subgenre.

Quicker on the draw, Costello kills Martey with three shots from his .38, setting the events of the movie in motion.

Quicker on the draw, Costello kills Martey with three shots from his .38, setting the events of the movie in motion.

Costello actually uses two different Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolvers over the course of Le Samouraï, each one issued to him by the garage keeper. He uses the first one to kill Martey, disposing of it by tossing it from a bridge into the river.

Costello fires his first Smith & Wesson Model 10 at Martey.

Costello fires his first Smith & Wesson Model 10 at Martey.

While the profile of both revolvers look mostly identical, note the slight changes in the front sight and hammer to differentiate between the two props.

The first revolver (above) is likely an older model manufactured before the mid-1950s when Smith & Wesson transitioned from the rounded “half moon” front sight as seen above to the ramped front sight of the second revolver (below). The first revolver also has a straighter hammer while the second revolver has a more ergonomically friendly spurred hammer.

Framed in a shot to echo the first shooting, Costello fires his second Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver at Olivier Rey.

Framed in a shot to echo the first shooting, Costello fires his second Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver at Olivier Rey.

When Costello checks the load in his Smith & Wesson, we see that it’s loaded with six Gévelot rounds of .38 Special.

The significance of this shot increases when it is mirrored a few scenes later after the police superintendent checks to see if Costello's revolver was loaded.

The significance of this shot increases when it is mirrored a few scenes later after the police superintendent checks to see if Costello’s revolver was loaded.

What to Imbibe

When Jef returns to Martey’s, he requests simply “a whiskey” and is given a highball glass filled with ice and what appears to be Scotch. The bartender places a bottle of soda water next to the drink, but Jef never gets a chance to actually imbibe as the chief bartender (Robert Favart) who was in on the plan to hire him greets him with: “If you were the man wanted by the police, you could say the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.”

While one bartender pours, another warns.

While one bartender pours, another warns.

Jef Costello doesn’t seem to be much of a drinker as it is, instead stocking up on plenty of bottled Evian water and packets of Gitanes cigarettes at his home.

How to Get the Look

Alain Delon as Jef Costello in Le Samouraï (The Samurai) (1967)

Alain Delon as Jef Costello in Le Samouraï (The Samurai) (1967)

Alain Delon channels classic film noir anti-heroes with his trench coat and fedora, worn over a simple but effective gray business suit, white button-down shirt, and black grenadine tie.

  • Shark gray worsted wool suit
    • Single-breasted 2-button suit jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, ventless back
    • Single reverse-pleated trousers with extended waistband tab, slightly slanted side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
  • White cotton shirt with button-down collar, breast pocket, and 1-button rounded cuffs
  • Black grenadine silk tie
  • Black leather cap-toe oxford shoes
  • Black silk socks
  • White crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
  • Khaki gabardine cotton trench coat with 10-button front, epaulettes, storm flap, self-belt (with leather-covered single-prong buckle), slanted storm pockets, belted cuffs, back storm flap, and single vent
  • Dove gray wool felt fedora with wide black grosgrain silk band
  • Baume & Mercier platinum cushion-cased wristwatch with white round dial (with black Roman numeral markers) on textured black leather strap
  • Gold wedding band

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. It would influence scores of filmmakers to come, and many elements of the plot would be adapted by Walter Hill for the great 1978 neo-noir The Driver starring Ryan O’Neal.

Can’t get enough of Delon in a trench coat? Check out Le Cercle Rouge, also directed by Melville!

The Quote

I never lose. Not really.

Fred MacMurray’s Flannel Sport Suit in Double Indemnity

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Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff in Double Indemnity (1944)

Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff in Double Indemnity (1944)

Vitals

Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff, slick insurance salesman

Los Angeles, May through July 1938

Film: Double Indemnity
Release Date: July 3, 1944
Director: Billy Wilder
Costume Designer: Edith Head

Background

What’d you think I was, anyway? A guy that walks into a good-lookin’ dame’s front parlor and says, “Good afternoon, I sell accident insurance on husbands. You got one that’s been around too long, one you’d like to turn into a little hard cash? Just give me a smile and I’ll help you collect?”

Let’s finally kick off Noir-vember with the quintessential film noir, Double Indemnity, the quotable masterpiece from the pen of James M. Cain, adapted for Billy Wilder’s screen direction by pulp writer Raymond Chandler and photographed by inventive cinematographer John F. Seitz. Double Indemnity is the one that has it all: the seductive femme fatale (Barbara Stanwyck), the wisecracking protagonist willing to murder for her (Fred MacMurray), and the intrepid investigator, though in this case it’s not a trench coated private detective but an energetic, experienced, and irascible insurance claims manager played by Edward G. Robinson at his best.

In addition to its first-rate cast, Double Indemnity boasts all the usual elements of noir from sordid murder and sexual innuendo (mostly to skirt the Hays Code) to shadowy, Venetian blind-filtered cinematography and smoking… plenty of smoking, from Fred MacMurray’s smooth single-hand match-lighting for Robinson’s “two for a quarter” cigars to his own endless Chesterfields that dangle from his mouth throughout.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY

Though Chandler’s novels like The Big Sleep were respected in the industry, he was a relative newcomer to Hollywood that needed considerable guidance writing a screenplay as opposed to a novel. He resented how closely he needed to collaborate with Wilder, disliking the Austrian-born director’s approach to work though Wilder wisely worked to keep Chandler happy, well aware that the talented writer’s gift for language and dialogue would take Double Indemnity to the next level. At Chandler’s initial urging, both men eventually recognized that Cain’s dialogue would need considerable finessing, and Cain himself was quite pleased with how his novella was adapted for the screen, explaining that “It’s the only picture I ever saw made from my books that had things in it I wish I had thought of. Wilder’s ending was much better than my ending, and his device for letting the guy tell the story by taking out the office dictating machine—I would have done it if I had thought of it.”

Cain based his source material on several real-life crimes from the era, notably the famous case of Ruth Snyder, the housewife who conspired with her lover to kill her husband, though the homely Mrs. Snyder was considerably less sultry and far less effective than Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson as it reportedly took eight attempts for Ruth and her paramour, a married corset salesman named H. Judd Gray, to kill the man. As in Double Indemnity, there was an insurance angle as Mrs. Snyder was able to enlist the help of an unscrupulous insurance salesman—though without any promise of romantic involvement—who sold her a policy that would pay double indemnity should her husband fall victim to an act of unexpected violence. Finally, Ruth and Judd successfully garroted Albert Snyder in March 1927, a week before Ruth’s 32nd birthday. She wouldn’t live to be 33 as he suspicious behavior landed both she and Gray under surveillance and eventually in custody, where the two turned on each other not unlike MacMurray and Stanwyck’s tempestuous couple at the black heart of Double Indemnity. Ruth Snyder and H. Judd Gray were both convicted and sentenced to death in the electric chair. Mrs. Snyder’s 1928 execution at Sing Sing was famously photographed by Tom Howard by the New York Daily News and would become one of the most famous photos of the roaring ’20s, emblematic of the increased sensationalization of crime during the era.

Ten years after Judd Gray followed Ruth Snyder to the electric chair in real life, our fictional anti-hero Walter Neff is riding the elevator up to the 12th floor of the Pacific Building for a late night visit to his employer, Pacific All Risk Insurance Company, which “knows more tricks than a carful of monkeys.” Bleeding from the shoulder, Neff knows he has some explaining to do—though he doesn’t like to call it a confession—as he prepares to illuminate his boss on “that Dietrichson claim.”

Office memorandum. Walter Neff to Barton Keyes, claims manager. Los Angeles, July 16, 1938…

What’d He Wear?

Legendary costume designer Edith Head continued her collaboration with Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, dressing the seductive femme fatale in a manner both appropriately suburban and just suggestive enough that no man—or audience member—could resist her devious charms. (Read more about Missy’s wardrobe in this fantastic analysis from Girls Do Film!)

In contrast to Mrs. Dietrichson who never repeats an outfit across the two months depicted on screen, Walter Neff cycles through four different outfits: his everyday herringbone striped flannel suit, a heavy herringbone tweed sports coat, a navy three-piece suit worn when disguising himself as the doomed Mr. Dietrichson, and the light tweedy flannel two-piece suit that gets ruined by a bullet to the left shoulder. While all of these pieces are worthy of discussion, let’s start with the latter.

Neff’s light-colored napped woolen flannel suit has a ventless three-button jacket styled with sporty details like a patch breast pocket and patch hip pockets. The shoulders are wide and padded with heavily roped sleeveheads, and each sleeve ends with three-button kissing cuffs. The black-and-white cinematography hides the color, though some contemporary promotional artwork shows MacMurray wearing what appears to be this suit colorized to a light brown, though light gray would also be a reasonable contender given his frequently wearing it to the office.

Hard at work.

Hard at work.

The suit’s matching trousers have an appropriately long rise for the era, rising to MacMurray’s natural waist where he wears a medium-colored leather belt—likely tan or light brown but possibly also gray—that closes with a curved metal single-prong buckle. The double forward-pleated trousers have side pockets and turn-ups (cuffs) that break high over his shoes.

Neff changes back into his comfortable flannel suit after an evening of murder and deception.

Neff changes back into his comfortable flannel suit after an evening of murder and deception.

In addition to the framing scenes of a wounded Neff recording his confession (sorry, Walter, but it is) in his office, this suit makes two earlier appearances in Double Indemnity. The first is exactly a month before on the afternoon of June 15, 1938, the day that he and Phyllis would kill her husband. Neff is loitering in his shared office—his hat on, true noir protagonist that he is—when Barton Keyes bursts in, simultaneously congratulating Neff on his second consecutive office sales record and offering him a $50 cut in salary to be his claims assistant. The phone rings, not that Keyes lets it interrupt his flow, handing the headset to Neff after making his pitch: “There’s a dame on your phone!” Of course, it’s Phyllis, sharing the update that the murder will occur that evening, but for Keyes’ benefit, Neff claims it to be a date named Margie (“Margie! I bet she drinks from the bottle,” Keyes memorably exclaims.)

For this day in the office, Neff wears a solid off-white shirt with a large semi-spread collar, plain front, and button cuffs. Neff’s tie is patterned in a balanced “downhill” block stripe of three repeating colors, though each dark shade is too low of a contrast for easy differentiation in the black-and-white movie, so it could be mistaken for a solid-colored tie.

Neff makes plans for the evening with "Margie", who tells him to wear a navy blue suit to match Mr. Dietrichson's traveling outfit.

Neff makes plans for the evening with “Margie”, who tells him to wear a navy blue suit to match Mr. Dietrichson’s traveling outfit. Note the leather band of Neff’s watch on his left wrist under the shirt’s barrel cuff.

Later that night, Neff changes out of the navy suit he wore to pose as Dietrichson on the train and back into this tweedy flannel clobber, sans tie, for a late-night meal at his favorite local drugstore. This shirt appears to be more of a pure white than the shirt he wore to the office, likely the same shirt he wore with the navy suit in the preceding scenes.

"I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man."

“I couldn’t hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man.”

A few weeks later, Lola Dietrichson (Jean Heather), has started making waves after sharing with Neff that she witnessed her stepmother trying on her black veil two days before the suspicious death of her father. To keep the young woman distracted, Neff begins escorting Lola on dates around the city including a Sunday drive to the beach, where he wears this suit for a brief vignette in his ’38 Dodge coupe.

Neff wears another widely striped tie, though the two colors of this horizontally ribbed tie are light and dark for a much clearer visual contrast.

"The next day was Sunday and we went for a ride down to the beach. She had loosened up a bit, she was even laughing. I had to make sure that she wouldn't tell that stuff about Phyllis to anybody else. It was dynamite, whether it was true or not."

“The next day was Sunday and we went for a ride down to the beach. She had loosened up a bit, she was even laughing. I had to make sure that she wouldn’t tell that stuff about Phyllis to anybody else. It was dynamite, whether it was true or not.”

Which brings us to… late afternoon on Friday, July 15, 1938. Neff is leaving the office and runs into Keyes in the lobby, where the excitable claims manager shares that he’s all but solved the Dietrichson case, identifying Phyllis’ co-conspirator… as Nino Zachetti (Byron Barr), a hotheaded former medical student who had been dating Lola until the seductive Phyllis realized what an asset his affection could be to her nefarious ends.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY

Neff wears a light-colored shirt—possibly light gray, taupe, or blue—with a spread collar, plain front, breast pocket, and button cuffs. He again wears a dark, low-contrast striped tie with two colors of very wide repeating block stripes.

Neff plots his next step, having just learned that not only is he not under suspicion but that Keyes had inadvertently provided him with the perfect scapegoat for his crimes.

Neff plots his next step, having just learned that not only is he not under suspicion but that Keyes had inadvertently provided him with the perfect scapegoat for his crimes.

“Hang on to your hat, Walter!” exclaims Keyes, no doubt aware of his colleague’s penchant for keeping his lid on inside, even at the office. “That Dietrichson case just busted wide open!”

Keyes doesn’t need to ask twice for Neff to hang onto his hat as the insurance salesman makes a habit of almost always wearing his hat, even when hanging around his office, echoing one of Raymond Chandler’s numerous complaints about Billy Wilder: “I can’t work with a man who wears a hat in the office. I feel he is about to leave momentarily.”

Neff appears to wear the same hat throughout Double Indemnity, a dark felt fedora with a high and sharply pinched crown. The band is a dark ribbed grosgrain that matches the trim along the edges of the hat brim and is detailed with a large bow on the left side.

As the blood accumulates over his left shoulder, Neff begs Keyes for four more hours to allow him to get to the border and escape into Mexico.

As the blood accumulates over his left shoulder, Neff begs Keyes for four more hours to allow him to get to the border and escape into Mexico.

Neff attempts to use his Friday evening to tie up loose ends but finds himself to be someone’s loose end himself when Phyllis puts a .38 into his left shoulder. She may not be able to fire that second shot, but he doesn’t hesitate, dropping her with two and pocketing the revolver in his suit jacket.

Whether it’s a futile attempt to conceal his bloody bullet wound or to warm himself against the chill of his rapidly approaching death, Neff—”looking kinda all in at that”—has caped himself with a heavy wool raglan coat as he returns to the Pacific Building, depositing the coat by the door as he slumps into his chair to dictate his confession. The three-button coat has notch lapels, a narrow single-button tab on each cuff, and a single vent.

Neff wraps himself in a raglan for his fateful return to the Pacific All Risk Insurance Company, a decision that seals his fate.

Neff wraps himself in a raglan for his fateful return to the Pacific All Risk Insurance Company, a decision that seals his fate.

Neff wears dark leather cap-toe oxford shoes. The shade of leather is dark enough to suggest black, through a rich brown or burgundy leather could be very complementary with Neff’s rugged napped suit, sport jacket, and trouser fabrics.

"All washed up," the doomed Walter Neff realizes that his escape will be more difficult than he anticipated as "somebody moved the elevator a couple of miles away."

“All washed up,” the doomed Walter Neff realizes that his escape will be more difficult than he anticipated as “somebody moved the elevator a couple of miles away.”

An interesting detail of Neff’s wardrobe throughout Double Indemnity is the large wedding ring on the third finger of Fred MacMurray’s left hand, undoubtedly the actor’s own ring from his then-marriage to Lillian Lamont as Walter Neff was an obvious bachelor with no suggestion or a current or past wife.

What to Imbibe

“Come on, I’ll buy you a martini, Walter,” offers a celebratory Keyes on what would be the last day of Phyllis’ and Walter’s lives. Walter declines, but Keyes is insistent: “with two olives!”

Though Walter Neff rejects Keyes’ suggestion of martinis, it’s not because our antihero has anything against drinking. Far from it, in fact, as he tends to spend any idle moment drinking when he isn’t smoking (or murdering.) He muses about rum, beer, and pink wine, though it’s bourbon that stars as Neff’s drink of choice when it’s the only spirit he has in the apartment for Phyllis’ evening visit.

The Gun

Phyllis prepares for Neff’s arrival by placing a nickel-plated revolver under the cushion of her usual lounge chair in her living room. The small-framed revolver with its ivory grips has been identified by IMFDB as a Smith & Wesson .32 Hand Ejector, Third Model, a small but reliable six-shooter built on what would be known as Smith & Wesson’s I-frame.

Phyllis prepares for what would be Walter Neff's last visit to the Dietrichson residence.

Phyllis prepares for what would be Walter Neff’s last visit to the Dietrichson residence.

After several iterations of the Smith & Wesson .32 Hand Ejector, the Massachusetts-based manufacturer introduced the “Third Model” in 1917 and would go on to produce more than a quarter of a million before ceasing production in 1942 when the majority of American weapons manufacturing refocused on weapons for the war effort.

This early generation of the Smith & Wesson .32 Hand Ejector, Third Model, was offered in barrel lengths of 3.25″, 4″, and 6″, though the short 3.25″ barrel was most common. The revolver carried six rounds of .32 S&W Long ammunition, an accurate but relatively anemic cartridge that could explain how Neff would be able to survive for a few hours with a round in his chest until, left untreated, he would bleed out.

"Why didn't you shoot again, baby? Don't tell me it's because you've been in love with me all this time."

“Why didn’t you shoot again, baby? Don’t tell me it’s because you’ve been in love with me all this time.”

Smith & Wesson would revive production of this .32-caliber revolver after the war with an I-framed revolver that would be known as the Smith & Wesson Model 30. In 1960, this weapon was reconfigured on the slightly larger J-frame and re-designated the Smith & Wesson Model 30-1, which would be produced until 1976. By then, the .32 S&W Long round was 80 years old, having been introduced by Smith & Wesson in 1896 when it was standardized by then-New York City Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt as the authorized cartridge for the NYPD’s Smith & Wesson and Colt New Police revolvers.

I own a blued Smith & Wesson .32 Hand Ejector, Third Model, manufactured in 1932 and with a 3.25″ barrel. The .32 S&W Long round is easy to fire and, even in double-action, there is very little recoil and the accurate round hits right on target with every shot.

Studio portrait of Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck—with her prop Smith & Wesson .32—in Double Indemnity (1944)

Studio portrait of Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck—with her prop Smith & Wesson .32—in Double Indemnity (1944)

How to Get the Look

Unlike Clark Gable’s well-traveled tweeds in It Happened One Night, Walter Neff keeps his clobber looking pressed and perfect for sales calls to potential clients… and fateful encounters with platinum blonde femmes fatale with a penchant for anklets.

  • Light napped woolen flannel sport suit:
    • Single-breasted 3-button jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button “kissing” cuffs, and ventless back
    • Double forward-pleated high-rise trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
  • Off-white cotton shirt with spread collar, plain front, breast pocket, and button cuffs
  • Dark block-striped tie
  • Medium-colored leather belt with curved metal single-prong buckle
  • Dark leather cap-toe oxford shoes
  • Dark socks
  • Dark wool raglan coat with single-breasted three-button front, notch lapels, single-button tab cuffs, and single vent
  • Dark felt fedora with dark ribbed grosgrain ribbon and edges
  • Wristwatch on leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and James M. Cain’s original novella!

The Quote

I’m all through thinking, baby.

Footnote

When Neff is dictating his confession for Keyes, he shares that the date is July 16, 1938, which would have been Barbara Stanwyck’s 31st birthday. The frequent and consistent use of dates throughout Double Indemnity got me interested in constructing a timeline, for anyone who may be interested:

  • Tuesday in late May 1938 (likely May 24): Walter Neff meets Phyllis Dietrichson when he stops by the Dietrichson home for a routine auto insurance renewal
  • Thursday in late May 1938 (likely May 26): Walter returns to see Phyllis in the afternoon, per her call, and they hatch a plan that evening to murder her husband
  • “a couple of nights later”: Walter pitches an accident policy to Dietrichson with Phyllis and Lola at witnesses
  • around June 8, 1938: Walter and Phyllis meet “accidentally on purpose” at Jerry’s Market
  • Wednesday, June 15, 1938: Keyes pitches the claims assistant position to Walter; Walter and Phyllis murder Mr. Dietrichson and place his body on the train tracks
  • Friday, June 17, 1938: After Phyllis’ confrontation with Norton, Keyes starts “digging into” the Dietrichson murder
  • Saturday, July 9, 1938: Having moved out of the Dietrichson home, Lola goes to Walter’s office and he escorts her to dinner that night; also, Nino’s first recorded visit to Phyllis’ home
  • Sunday, July 10, 1938: Walter takes Lola out for a Sunday drive to the beach…and Nino returns to Phyllis’ home (again, off screen)
  • Monday, July 11, 1938: Walter and Keyes meet with Mr. Jackson, the proud son of Medford, Oregon, and Walter meets with a sunglasses-wearing Phyllis at Jerry’s Market
  • Thursday, July 14, 1938: After “three or four” dates that week, Walter and Lola go into the hills above the Hollywood Bowl
  • Friday, July 15, 1938: Walter and Phyllis’ shadowy final meeting leaves her dead and him mortally wounded
  • Saturday, July 16, 1938: Walter leaves a confession on his dictaphone for Keyes, who arrives at the office in time to find his wounded colleague attempting to make a futile escape
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