Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 7.14: “Person to Person”)

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Jon Hamm as Don Draper, former ad man in search of himself

Bonneville Speedway, Utah, to California, Fall 1970

Series: Mad Men
Episode: “Person to Person” (Episode 7.14)
Air Date: May 17, 2015
Director: Matthew Weiner
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Moving forward has been the theme of Don Draper’s life, a trajectory made plainly simple at the start of the final episode of Mad Men as a denim-clad Dick Whitman barrels toward the viewers through the desert at more than 130 miles per hour.

Back in New York, Don’s naïve secretary Meredith (Stephanie Drake) shares her concern with Roger Sterling that her former boss may have died, ultimately suggesting that “I hope he’s in a better place.” Geographically, maybe. Mentally, absolutely.

Dick—that’s Don to you and me—appears to be living the life he was meant to live, speeding a muscle car through the Utah desert in a scene reminiscent of Vanishing Point. Not far from the Bonneville Speedway, Don has abandoned the trappings of his Madison Avenue life of lies as he helps two aspiring racers build their dream car out of an aqua blue 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS, impressing them with his automotive knowledge.

Much as he did when we met him ten years earlier in the pilot episode, Don Draper looks to be on top of the world, though it’s now the world on his terms and not the terms he thinks are expected of him. As in “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”, Don is depicted enjoying a drink (an Old Fashioned in 1960 vs. a can of Schlitz in 1970) while showing off his knowledge to two men (waiters in 1960 vs. racers in 1970) to the tune of a popular song communicating each respective era’s approach to love (Don Cherry’s crooning “Band of Gold” in 1960 vs. The Doors’ fuzzy but radio-friendly hit “Hello, I Love You” in 1970.)

In Don’s mind, this is probably the best place he’s ever been in, far from the corporate trappings of McCann-Erickson, where his erstwhile SC&P colleagues are fighting for relevance against a backdrop of tacky Halloween decorations. Don’s new life is nothing glamorous, to be sure, but glamour had always been part of his disguise. He’s now free to be Dick Whitman, the happy-go-lucky mechanic who swills Schlitz and enjoys one-night stands without the guilt of a lonely wife at home. Don’s “better place” is shattered when, in the midst of an excited phone conversation with his daughter Sally (Kiernan Shipka), he learns that his ex-wife Betty (January Jones) is within six months of dying from lung cancer… and that there’s nothing he can do to make anyone feel better about it.

In the premiere episode of the second half of the final season, Don scoffed at Ted Chaough’s tired suggestion that “there are three women in every man’s life,” but The AV Club reviewer John Teti notes that this theme comes full circle in the final episode of the series as “Don places phone calls to three women, and each call provides Don an essential glimpse of the life he left behind.” The first two calls, first to Sally and then to Betty after learning of her condition, shatter his remaining illusion that he can still return home to “save the day”. Bobbie Barrett’s words about “being bad, then going home and being good” have resonated with him for the better part of a decade, and it was always part of his emotional escape strategy. Now, he’s forbidden to return home to avoid forsaking the status quo to which children have adapted in his absence.

The next we see Don, he’s made it to his usual safe haven of California, seeking refuge with Stephanie Horton (Caity Lotz), the young woman who remains his last link to Anna Draper. Penney’s bag in hand like a hobo, Don is grumpy and reticent, but Stephanie knows she has to labor to break through his wall. “What’s going on?” she asks. “Nothin’ much—I’m retired,” he responds quickly. “Been on the road.” Though Stephanie is dealing with some problems of her own, she’s able to sense that her de facto uncle in in trouble, suggesting that he join her at “some kind of retreat” up the coast.

What’d He Wear?

For the start of the final episode, Don Draper has traded in the previous episode’s “suburban dad” road-wear of Derby jacket, sport shirts, slacks, and penny loafers for a greaser-inspired getup.

Like the first scene itself, the outfit is an inversion of his business suit from the first episode. “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” introduced us to the 1960 Manhattanite Don Draper, the quintessential “man in the gray flannel suit” who could sell any pitch. Ten years later, we begin our final chapter with Don now dressed in another matching jacket, trousers, and white shirt, though it’s a “denim sandwich” combination of a trucker jacket, jeans, and undershirt, more appropriate for the Bonneville Salt Flats than a boardroom.

Dick/Don schools a couple of youngsters seeking his financial and mechanical assistance for an upcoming race at El Mirage.

Immediately after the finale aired, Jake Woolf asked GQ readers: “Was Don Draper’s Jean Jacket the Best Part of the Mad Men Finale?” Hyperbole aside, there was something refreshing about seeing Dick in the blue-collar comfort of the venerable trucker jacket that has been a staple of denim specialists like Levi’s, Lee, and Wrangler across the 20th century. (Read more about the evolution of the Levi’s trucker jacket at Brag Vintage as well as the timeline of Levi’s, Lee, and Wrangler models written by Albert Muzquick for Primer!)

The distinctive red tag on the left pocket flap makes it clear that Don’s blue stonewash denim trucker jacket is a Levi’s product, an evolution of the “Type III” jacket that the brand introduced in 1967, though close-ups from the ScreenBid auction photos show that the jacket has an anachronistic post-1971 “Levi’s” red tag rather than the pre-1971 “LEVI” red tag; in fact, the pockets and details of Don’s jacket indicate an item no older than the 1980s. (Read more about the ScreenBid auction, where this jacket was described as a size 46L, here.)

The waist-length jacket is lined in red and black buffalo plaid flannel through the inside and under the collar, most visible when a drunken Don rests in his room after hearing Betty’s bad news with the discarded jacket thrown over a chair in the corner of the room (see here!) Flannel-lined trucker jackets like Don’s were popular from the late ’60s through the 1980s, though it appears that the only flannel-lined trucker jacket that Levi’s currently offers (as of November 2019) has a snap-up front rather than the classic riveted button closure, available here.

Don’s jacket has six branded copper rivet buttons up the front as well as a single-button closure on each cuff and a short tab on each side of the waistband to adjust the fit on one of two buttons. The two chest pockets are outlined with bronze stitching and covered with a pointed flap that closes through a single button matching the six down the front. The jacket also has two vertical hand pockets, positioned behind the tapered “V”-shaped stitching that extends down the front of the jacket from under each chest pocket flap.

Note the red under each collar leaf, hinting at the red-and-black buffalo plaid flannel under each collar as well as throughout the inside body of the jacket.

A denim jacket and jeans is already a considerably dressed down alternative to Don’s closet of tailored business suits, but Don makes an extra leap down the chain of formality in “Person to Person” by wearing his undershirts as outerwear, rarely sporting anything under his trucker jacket other than the white cotton short-sleeved T-shirts he had previously worn only as undershirts since the first episode of the series. (According to ScreenBid, these shirts were made by Fruit of the Loom.)

Don sporting only a white undershirt under his trucker jacket illustrates how much he has stripped himself down to the audience and to himself, no longer covering up the layer that had long been buried by the tailored trappings of “Don Draper, award-winning ad man”… he’s now just Dick Whitman, a guy who loves cars.

A distraught Dick is in no place to continue helping his new pals build out their Chevelle.

“You hung up my jeans,” a surprised Don comments to an all-but anonymous blonde, Eve (Fiona Gubelmann), with whom he shares his bed in the Utah motel. Also made by Levi’s, these blue stonewash denim jeans have the standard belt loops and five-pocket layout that have been the standard since Levi Strauss & Co. modernized the 501® in 1947, removing archaic additions like the back cinch or suspender buttons. According to ScreenBid, Don’s bootcut jeans are a size 36×33.

Don wears a thick dark brown leather belt with a large squared brass single-prong buckle, coordinating his dark brown leather plain-toe work boots. These boots are derby-laced with three sets of eyelets and three sets of speed hooks. The same boots and jeans would return at the end of the episode, worn with Don’s brown, blue, and white plaid flannel shirt during his tearful “person to person” telephone call to Peggy.

Just one of the guys.

Don occasionally takes some breaks from denim, balancing his trucker jacket and undershirt with a pair of light khaki chinos and his previously worn brown loafers when he shows up at Stephanie’s doorstep in L.A. These flat front chinos have side pockets, jetted back pockets (with no buttons), and a fitted waistband with no belt loops. They are straight through the legs and plain-hemmed on the bottoms, breaking over his black Gold Toe socks and his walnut brown Brooks Brothers penny loafers.

Presumably, Don’s jeans and sport shirts are in that well-traveled Penney’s bag.

Don’s sunglasses make their final appearance on Stephanie’s threshold, serving the dual purpose of function (shielding his eyes from the bright California sun) and form (one final attempt to hide his inner sadness.) As confirmed by my friend, eyewear expert Preston Fassel, Don’s gold-framed aviator sunglasses during the seventh season are the Ray-Ban Caravan model, a fashionable evolution of the American Optical Flight Goggle 58 military shades that Don wore earlier in the show’s run.

Though he’s given up his luxury lifestyle, fashionable suits, and shiny Cadillac coupe, Don wisely holds onto his Omega Seamaster DeVille, the classic timepiece evoking timeless, understated luxury that dressed his wrist from the fifth season premiere through the end of the finale. The stainless steel Omega has a slim 34mm case, black cross-hair dial with 3:00 date window, and textured black leather strap. It was among four watches that appeared on the series included in a December 2015 Christie’s auction, where it sold for $11,875. According to the auction listing, “the watches were leased to the show by vintage watch specialist Derek Dier, who has supplied watches to the movie industry, noted musicians, actors, writers, artists, international dignitaries and Fortune 500 CEOs. Mad Men Property Master Ellen Freund worked with Dier to select the watches.” The Christie’s page further describes the watch as: “Signed Omega, Automatic, Seamaster, De Ville, Ref. 166.020, Movement No. 23’943’081, Circa 1960.”

Don wears his same white cotton boxer shorts.

Stephanie wakes Don up with a late night invitation to join her up the coast. Note his unfiltered Old Golds on the coffee table in front of him.

Much later that night, Stephanie and Don arrive at the coastal retreat, the latter dressed again in his trucker jacket and jeans while having also added a layer with the short-sleeved plaid shirt that should be familiar from “The Milk and Honey Route” (Episode 7.13). Apropos the time of year, the shirt is autumnally colored in a hunter green, orange, black, and white plaid.

An agenda packed with sun salutations at dawn, a silent meal, and seminars like “Anxiety and Tension Control” and “Divorce: A Creative Experience” threaten to awaken Don’s cynicism, but Stephanie smacks his wrist with a demand that he “be open to this!”

The plaid shirt and jeans combination makes one brief final appearance in a vignette of Don at sunset, overlooking Anderson Canyon from Big Sur, presumably just one morning of sun salutations away from total enlightenment…and the development of an iconic Coca-Cola commercial.

This doesn’t show us much more of the outfit, but I just think it’s a pretty shot. Kudos to cinematographer Chris Manley.

The Car

It’s not #CarWeek, but let’s take a brief look at the metallic blue 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS that Don speeds through the Utah desert at the beginning of the episode.

Note the “SS” emblem but lack of “454” badging accompanying it, telling us that this Chevelle was likely fitted with a 396 cubic inch engine.

Chevrolet introduced the Chevelle as the only all-new model in the U.S. auto lineup for 1964, a mid-sized model that offered everything from two-door coupes and convertibles to four-door sedans and station wagons, taking on rivals like the Ford Fairlane and Plymouth Belvedere. The Chevelle was also an early contender in the growing muscle car segment that would hit its zenith around 1970. The “big block” 396 cubic-inch V8 engine was available as a performance-oriented option from the beginning, carrying over into the second generation of redesigned Chevelles for the 1968 model year.

The following year, Chevrolet touted the Chevelle as “America’s most popular mid-size car” and, for 1970, introduced the powerful 454 cubic inch engine as a top performance package for the Super Sport (SS) models, offered in the LS5 engine at 360 horsepower or the tough-as-nails LS6 engine reportedly underrated at 450 horsepower. While Don drives a Chevelle with SS badging, the side fender badging lacks the “454” under “SS” that would indicate one of these beefed-up versions; thus, we can deduce that Don’s Chevelle SS is fitted with either one of a pair of 396 V8 options, still no slouch at 350 to 375 horsepower, respectively. Given that the Chevelle belongs to a pair of prospective race car drivers, let’s assume it’s the more powerful option, a 402 cubic-inch big block still marketed as a “396”.

1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454

Body Style: 2-door hardtop sport coupe

Layout: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

Engine: 402 cubic inch (6.6 L) Chevrolet “396” V8 with four-barrel carburetor

Power: 375 hp (279.5 kW; 380 PS) @ 5600 rpm

Torque: 415 lb·ft (563 N·m) @ 3600 rpm

Transmission: 4-speed manual

Wheelbase: 112 inches (2845 mm)

Length: 197.2 inches (5009 mm)

Width: 75.4 inches (1915 mm)

Height: 52.6 inches (1336 mm)

As federal regulations and restrictions put a chokehold on American muscle cars, the decade to follow saw increased gas prices and emissions concern lead to a decrease emphasis on performance as one-time juggernauts like the Chevelle, Charger, Challenger, and Mustang became mere shadows of their once-powerful selves.

What to Imbibe

Do you have any liquor? I’ve been drinkin’ beer all night.

By “Person to Person”, Don Draper gives no indication of missing the staunch bottle of Canadian Club from his office desk or his go-to order of a strong Old Fashioned at the local oak-paneled watering hole. In the finale episode of Mad Men, Don drinks nothing but beer, most prominently Schlitz.

Having learned not to drink and drive after a 1962 crash with Bobbie Barrett, Don wisely waits until after he’s parked the Chevelle to crack into his first Schlitz of the day.

Schlitz can trace its origins to the brewery founded by August Krug in 1849, though it wasn’t until 1856 that the brewery’s 25-year-old bookkeeper Joseph Schlitz assumed management responsibilities, two years before he married Krug’s widow Anna Maria Krug. Though Schlitz died at sea in May 1875, a week shy of his 44th birthday, Schlitz rose to become the world’s top-selling brewery in the years following Prohibition, a standing that was only assisted by the introduction of the Old Milwaukee value brand during the 1930s. The brewery’s popularity was hurt by a 76-day strike that gave Anheuser-Busch the upper hand through the 1950s, but, 100 years after Schlitz’s death, Schlitz was still the #2 brewery in America.

An aggressively risky ad campaign launched by Leo Burnett and another massive strike led to Schlitz’s decline by the 1980s, when it was sold to Stroh Brewery Company and repositioned as a “bargain brand” that all but extinguished the once-powerful brand’s status.

Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 7.14: “Person to Person”)

How to Get the Look

The final episode of Mad Men introduces us to a reinvented Don Draper now living his truth as Dick Whitman and looking far from the slick ad man we met at the start of the series set a decade earlier, swapping out his tailored suits for a trucker jacket and jeans.

• Dark blue stonewash denim Levi’s trucker jacket with six copper rivet buttons, two single-button flapped chest pockets, two vertical jetted hand pockets, adjustable waist hem tabs, and red-and-black buffalo plaid flannel lining
• White cotton crew-neck T-shirt
• Dark blue stonewash denim Levi’s jeans
• Dark brown thick leather belt with squared brass single-prong buckle
• Dark brown plain-toe work boots with three-eyelet derby lacing and three speed hook sets
• Black dress socks with gold toes
• White cotton boxer shorts
• Omega Seamaster DeVille wristwatch with stainless 34mm case, textured black crocodile strap, and black dial with date indicator
• Ray-Ban Caravan gold-framed aviator sunglasses

If denim-on-denim isn’t your style, get your comfiest pair of flat front khakis and swap out the work boots for more chino-friendly penny loafers.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the whole series… or just the final season, if you still haven’t caught up or need to complete your collection.

The Quote

A lot has happened.

Humphrey Bogart as Dixon “Dix” Steele in In a Lonely Place (1950)

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Humphrey Bogart as Dixon “Dix” Steele, frustrated screenwriter who’s “been out of circulation too long”

Los Angeles, Summer 1949

Film: In a Lonely Place
Release Date: May 17, 1950
Director: Nicholas Ray

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

As #NoirVember continues, we shift our sartorial focus to a seminal figure in the development and enduring popularity of film noir: Humphrey Bogart. In movies like The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Big Sleep (1946), Bogie cemented the wisecracking private eye persona often driving the heart of this subgenre, but he did not play a detective in the suspenseful thriller considered to be among his best, In a Lonely Place.

This 1950 noir co-starred Gloria Grahame and directed by Nicholas Ray, her husband at the time, though both Bogie and screenwriter Edmund North had envisioned the then-Mrs. Bogart, Lauren Bacall, to take the role of the “sultry and smooth… striking-looking girl with high cheek bones and tawny hair” as the character of Laurel Gray was described in the North’s screenplay. While Warner Brothers refused to lend Bacall to Bogart’s Santana Productions, Bogie was able to keep the leading role to deliver one of the most explosive and authentic performances of his prolific career.

Many—including Louise Brooks—have cited the introspective role of Dixon Steele as the closest that Bogart ever came to portraying himself, a charming yet insecure artist who felt isolated from much of the rest of the world and protective of the quality of his work in an industry that was increasingly less interested in the integrity of one’s craft.

“The parallels between Steele and Bogart are striking—the aloofness, the lightning-quick intelligence evident even in hack work, the flashes of humor and warmth,” wrote A.M. Sperber and Eric Lax in their biography of the actor. “All of which suggests that Dixon Steele may be the closest Bogart came to portraying his own inner turmoil, his difficulty with woman, and his often resentful dependence on an industry that rewarded lavishly and punished fearsomely.” Bogart was also known to dole out some fearsome punishment himself, particularly as the result of excessive drinking or during his tempestuous third marriage to Mayo Methot.

Lauren Bacall’s memoirs include a few incidents of Bogie’s frightening rage, often the result of excessive drinking, countered by an almost hopelessly romantic side. Though protective of both his work and his loved ones, Bogart never seemed to flex the domineering muscle that Dix Steele wielded so wantonly.

In fact, the violently possessive Dix seems to share that trait more with director Nicholas Ray, who insisted his then-wife Gloria Grahame include in her contract to work on the film that he “shall be entitled to direct, control, advise, instruct and even command my actions during the hours from 9 AM to 6 PM, every day except Sunday… I acknowledge that in every conceivable situation his will and judgment shall be considered superior to mine and shall prevail.” The insultingly draconian contract stipulations indicate just how fissured the still-fledgling Ray-Grahame marital union was at the time and, though they would briefly reconcile after secretly separating during In a Lonely Place‘s production, the two irreconcilably split when Ray discovered Grahame in bed with his 13-year-old son Tony, whom she would marry nearly a decade later.

In a Lonely Place begins as we follow Dix Steele on his way to meet friends for drinks, and the screenwriter’s simultaneously cold, cynical, and confrontational personality is established while his Mercury convertible is stopped at a red light. Beside him, a starlet from his latest film excitedly calls out to him, though Dix apologizes for not recognizing her as he makes it a point to never watch his own movies. Suddenly, the woman’s husband irrationally yells at our hero to stop “bothering” his wife, and Dix can’t help but to needle the bombastic blowhard until the man speeds away.

Upon his arrival at Paul’s, his favorite L.A. watering hole and a thinly veiled pastiche of Bogie’s usual haunt Romanoff’s, Dix isn’t even spared the criticism of children. “Don’t bother, he’s nobody,” a pigtailed girl tells a young autograph-seeker, and Dix can’t help but to agree though he still signs the boy’s autograph book with his full name… with an exclamation point!

Dix Steele and friends.

Dix encounters considerably more enthusiasm inside the club, where the ingénue hat-check clerk, Mildred Atkinson (Martha Stewart… no, not that one), requests more time with the novel that Dix’s pals want him to adapt for the screen. Only halfway into his G&T, Dix’s combative nature again gets the best of him when he attacks a boastful director who mocked his washed-up old pal Charlie (Robert Warwick), a “movie idol of the roaring ’20s!”, who’s been reduced to a brandy-swiller reciting tired prose. According Sperber and Lax, Dix’s protective attitude over the old man mirrored the real-life friendship between Humphrey Bogart and Robert Warwick as the latter “had encouraged the young Bogart not to give up during a difficult period early in his stage career and helped him get parts.”

“There goes Dix again,” comments Frances Randolph (Alix Talton), the glamorous brunette in a nearby booth who has her own troubled history with the brooding writer and his dark side. The club’s owner, Paul (Steven Geray), is also no stranger to Dix’s aggression, though he asks that he try to restrict his brawling to the parking lot and to “take it easy” while he orders him some ham and eggs. Too tired and upset to read the book he’s being hired to adapt, Dix asks the bright-eyed Mildred to accompany him to his “sorta hacienda-like” home at the Beverly Patio Apartments, where she could explain the story to him. It turns out to be a fateful decision when Mildred is found murdered the next morning in Benedict Canyon… and Dix becomes the prime suspect with only his alluring new neighbor Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) providing any shred of an alibi.

What’d He Wear?

It’s appropriate that Humphrey Bogart would bring his own distinctive style to the role to which he related so strongly, continuing his usual practice of wearing mostly his own clothing in his movies rather than the wares of a costume designer. Indeed, a few Bogie standards appear across In a Lonely Place such as the heavy twill sport jacket worn during the beach party (which the actor wore when photographed for the February 12, 1949, cover of Photoplay magazine) and a patterned sports coat that’s undoubtedly the same light gray-blue jacket he would later wear in The Barefoot Contessa.

It wasn’t just Bogart’s dressed-down sport jackets that he brought to the big screen. Approaching middle age, the actor’s roles were drifting closer to those of thoughtful observers than action heroes and with this maturation, he evolved his style from sharply striped suits and long ties to staid solid suits complemented by patterned bow ties that delivered a professorial whimsy to otherwise serious characters like the intrepid district attorney in The Enforcer, the unromantic Linus Larrabee in Sabrina, and—of course—Dixon Steele.

Dix Steele’s full-fitting dark suit seems to be reserved solely for going out for drinks, be it a boisterous celebration with friends or a quiet date. Until a suit proven to be this one appears correctly identified in an archive or auction, the true color is lost to history. The rest of the details are much clearer, starting with the single-breasted jacket. The ventless jacket is structured with wide, padded shoulders that give the lean-framed Bogart a more imposing silhouette. The notch lapels roll to a low two-button stance. He wears a white linen pocket square in the welted breast pocket, and the straight hip pockets are jetted with no flaps. Each sleeve is finished with four buttons on the cuff.

Dix Steele at the beginning of In a Lonely Place, down on his luck but not without sarcastic swagger.

The trousers have forward pleats, likely a double set on each side of the fly per Bogart’s usual. Through the belt, he wears a brown leather belt that contrasts against the darker suit and closes through a curved single-prong buckle. The trousers have side pockets and are finished with turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms.

By the end of In a Lonely Place, Dix’s paranoia and self-loathing have reduced him to a temperamental thug.

One of the first things Dix does upon returning to his apartment with Mildred is to retreat into his bedroom and take off his shoes, tossing each one across the room. His dark leather oxfords appear to have a cap toe and are worn with dark socks.

We can feel the relief as Dix slips off his shoes upon getting home, unconcerned with how his guest will perceive it.

Dix wears a plain white cotton shirt with a long point collar, plain front, breast pocket, and button cuffs. Aside from the distinctive collar with its era-specific shape and length, the details of the shirt are not unlike the standard off-the-rack offerings at any American department store, though you can be assured that considerably finer craftsmanship and fabric was used to create Bogart’s shirt.

Released just after his 50th birthday, In a Lonely Place marked the first film of Bogart’s final decade and the first of his “bow tie movies” where the actor almost exclusively wore bow-tied neckwear with his lounge suits. While patterned bow ties may carry a tame or preppy connotation these days, the esteemed Sir Hardy Amies suggested otherwise in his 1964 tome ABC of Men’s Fashion, writing that “on less genial characters, it can have an aggressive air and can arouse some kind of resentment at first meeting of a new acquaintance.”

Dix Steele makes his on-screen introduction wearing a pointed-end (or “diamond-tip”) bow tie in a dark silk twill, patterned with large white polka dots.

Classic Bogie: gold shiner gleaming from the same hand that simultaneously holds his drink and his cigarette. Never before or since has a polka-dot bow tie looked so badass.

After the opening scene, Dix spends most of his screen time either casually dressed or inside, neither of which call for a hat. Thus, viewers are only graced with familiar sight of Bogie in a beautifully shaped fedora during the opening scene of him motoring his Mercury convertible to Paul’s. The dark felt hat has a sharply creased crown, a dark grosgrain band of moderate width, and grosgrain edges.

Bogart had famously worn a Borsalino fedora in Casablanca (1942) nearly a decade earlier, and the prolific Italian hatmaker recently capitalized on this association with its introduction of “The Bogart”, a classically styled fedora in a gray “Sebino” felt mixture of hare and rabbit fur, unveiled in September 2018.

Don’t let the bow tie fool you… Dix Steele’s road rage is nothing to trifle with!

Either unaware of uncaring of how the young Mildred will interpret his changing into loungewear for their late night discussion of Althea Bruce, Dix changes out of his suit jacket, bow tie, and oxfords and into a plaid silk shawl-collared robe and dark leather slippers, though still wearing the same white shirt and suit trousers and he had on before. “I took off my shoes and put on this robe because I like to be comfortable when I work,” he assures a suspicious Mildred.

The evening proceeds with Dix getting steadily drunker as he listens to Mildred tell Althea’s tale, though he interrupts to correct her pronunciation (“Althea”, not “Alathea”) and when she puts far too much energy into re-enacting Althea’s death by drowning as she screams “Help! Help! Help!” Her suspicions abated, Mildred begins showing a romantic interest just in time for Dix to shut her down and send her around the corner to a taxi cab stand to make her way home… which she never does, landing the last man known to see her alive—and while she was screaming for help, no less—under considerable suspicion.

Dix has no way of knowing that his acquaintance from earlier in the night had been brutally murdered by the time he answers his door at 5 a.m. to find his cop friend, Detective Sergeant “Brub” Nicolai (Frank Lovejoy), eager to bring him in for questioning. “I’ve been asleep for hours,” Dix informs him. “With your clothes on?” counters Brub, alerting Dix that this is more than just a social call.

Given that Dix does his best work when he’s comfortable so he slips into a silk robe when it’s time to work… wouldn’t more offices be productive if they adopted a silk robe-and-slippers dress code?

About three weeks after Mildred’s murder, Dix and Laurel are deeply in love and always by each other’s side, including a date to a swanky nightclub where “Queen of the Boogie” Hadda Brooks serenades them with Ray Noble’s 1938 ballad “I Hadn’t Anyone Till You” over highballs. Given the occasion, Dix again wears his dark lounge suit and white shirt, this time with another diamond-tip bow tie and a white boutonnière on his left lapel.

Laurel and Dix at their happiest.

The third and final occasion calling for Dix’s dark suit and bow tie is his and Laurel’s engagement party at Paul’s, attended only by a few close friends like Mel, Charlie, and his ex-flame Fran, who unknowingly stirs the pot by mentioning the script that Laurel had snuck to Dix’s agent Mel Lippman (Art Smith). He wears yet another pointed-end bow tie, this one patterned in a complex mini-check resembling a small-scale shadow plaid with a dark double grid-check overlaying it.

Dix, too paranoid to enjoy either his engagement party or his natty bow tie.

The movie ends with an increasingly paranoid Dix nearly strangling Laurel and bringing their love affair to a screeching halt just before they get a call absolving Dix of suspicion in the murder that had been increasingly driving them apart. The original ending was far darker, culminating in Dix actually killing Laurel during their argument and swiftly arrested by Sgt. Nicolai, who had come to personally tell him that he was cleared of Mildred’s murder. This scripted ending was filmed first before Ray—who hated it—improvised the new ending. Still, some frames exist that depict a worn-looking Bogie, his bow tie undone, sitting on the bed next to what is presumably Laurel’s corpse.

This production still from the aborted murder finale was still used as promotional art and serves as the basis for the cover of the Criterion Collection’s home media release.

Another accessory linked to Bogart is his father’s ring, gifted to the actor upon the death of Belmont DeForest Bogart in 1934 and worn in many of his subsequent movies over the following decades. The gold ring has three square stones across the front, two rubies flanking a center diamond.

Many replica makers have tossed their hats into the proverbial ring (pun intended), offering replicas of various quality on Amazon, The Hollywood Collection, and The Hollywood Originals, though I would imagine many skilled jewelers could make a high-quality tribute ring for any Bogie-head looking to emulate this icon.

Don’t do it, Dix!

Dix’s wristwatch is a chronograph with a round white dial with three registers at 3:00, 6:00, and 9:00, worn on an exotic leather strap.

Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart at Walter Huston’s funeral, April 1950. (Colorized photo found on Pinterest)

Color Suggestions

A colorized photo of Bogart and Edward G. Robinson at Walter Huston’s funeral shows the actor wearing a similar outfit of a blue-gray suit, white shirt, and navy polka-dot bow tie. I’m not sure the source or provenance of the colorization, but it provides a reasonable basis for a possible color combination for those seeking to echo what the actor may have been wearing.

As Walter Huston died in April 1950, just a few months after In a Lonely Place production wrapped, it’s possible that Bogart wore some of the same pieces to mourn his friend and fellow actor.

Another possibility is that he’s wearing the same navy blue suit that would appear in full color for a scene in The Barefoot Contessa, a movie with proven sartorial overlaps with In a Lonely Place that was only released three years later. Bogart’s Harry Dawes is only briefly seen wearing this navy suit, though the ventless, two-button jacket and double-forward pleated trousers worn with brown leather belt share unmistakable stylistic similarities to Dix’s suit.

Bogie in The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

If I had to guess… I’d say the suit in In a Lonely Place was a dark navy blue.

What to Imbibe

Dix Steele orders a Gin & Tonic when out with his pals, including “popcorn salesman” director Lloyd Barnes (Morris Ankrum) who orders a Stinger—a light drink as frothy as the movies he directs—and Dix’s mild-mannered agent Mel Lippman who orders milk to treat his ulcers.

Dix and Charlie, deep in their gin and brandy, respectively.

Back at his apartment, Dix mixes himself another highball, presumably another G&T as we see a bottle of dry gin among the items on his bar. Mildred, who doesn’t drink, needs assurance that Dix’s motives are pure before excitedly requesting “a ginger ale with a twist of lemon… that’s known as a Horse’s Neck!”

Promotional photo of Humphrey Bogart and Martha Stewart in In a Lonely Place (1950)

Dix would probably prefer the Horse’s Neck “with a Kick”, described by Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s Guide as two ounces of bourbon in an ice-filled Collins glass topped off with ginger ale and a spiraled lemon rind over the rim. According to Aliza Kelly Faragher in The Mixology of Astrology, “its defining feature is the presentation: a long strip of lemon peel draped over the side of the glass to represent a horse’s neck.”

For what it’s worth, Ms. Faragher classifies the drink as one she would recommend to a Sagittarius, which was the star sign of Gloria Grahame, born November 28, 1923.

How to Get the Look

Humphrey Bogart as Dixon “Dix” Steele in In a Lonely Place (1950)

To dress like Dix Steele is to dress like Humphrey Bogart, with a simple high-contrast combination of a dark single-breasted suit and plain white shirt forming the foundation and adding character by tying on a nearly patterned bow tie. To finish the look, fold a plain white linen pocket square into your suit jacket’s breast pocket, don a personal piece of jewelry like a gold ring that’s been passed down through the family, and—perhaps most important of all—have a comfortable robe waiting for you to return home.

• Dark navy wool suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Double forward-pleated high-rise trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with long point collar, plain front, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Dark polka-dot or mini-checked bow tie
• Brown leather belt with curved metal single-prong buckle
• Dark leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Dark dress socks
• Gold ring with two ruby stones flanking a center diamond stone
• Chronograph watch with white triple-register dial and dark exotic leather band
• Dark felt fedora with dark grosgrain band and edges

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. In a Lonely Place was made exactly 70 years ago with production from October 25 through December 1, 1949.

The Quote

There’s no sacrifice too great for a chance at immortality.

Desi Arnaz as Nicky Collini in The Long, Long Trailer (1954)

Vitals

Desi Arnaz as Nicky Collini, civil engineer

Northern California, Late Summer 1953

Film: The Long, Long Trailer
Release Date: February 18, 1954
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Costume Designer: Helen Rose

Background

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege to write about many movies that carry meaningful or nostalgic significance for me, but one that has gone sadly under-discussed (until now) is The Long, Long Trailer, a movie that I would watch so frequently with my grandma—who was born 98 years ago today—that we wore the VHS tape nearly to shreds.

Watching this movie again after more than 20 years was a welcome blast from the past, a nostalgic sensation not only for the personal reasons cited above but also as a glimpse into the glory days of “the great American road trip” during the postwar boom when roadside Googie architecture sprang up to meet the increasing need for motels and diners offering respite and rest for weary motorists.

A time capsule to this fabulous fifties zeitgeist, The Long, Long Trailer was loosely based on Clinton Twiss’ 1951 novel of the same name, adapted as a colorful vehicle (pun!) to capitalize on the star couple who was revolutionizing television with I Love Lucy, though this Anso Color flick allowed audiences to see for themselves just how red Lucille Ball’s famous hair really was… though not as much as more saturated Technicolor, to director Vincente Minnelli’s dismay.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz on the set of The Long, Long Trailer (1954)

The filmmakers did little to conceal that audiences were coming to see Lucy and Ricky, naming our heroes”Tacy” and Nicky”… though there are a few moments where the cast—including Ball—slip and refer to Desi Arnaz’s character as “Ricky”! The movie has a surprisingly noir-ish start (appropriate for #NoirVember), as we meet our disillusioned protagonist, dressed in fedora and trench coat, as he searches for his wife one rainy night. Unable to find her, he lights a cigarette and begins narrating his story to a stranger in a motel lobby… though the soundtrack’s chipper leitmotif of “Breezin’ Along with the Breeze” reminds us that we’re in for an adventurous romantic comedy rather than a brooding thriller.

The source of Nicky’s disillusionment is a trailer, the 32-foot New Moon that he purchased at his wife’s dogged insistence and which swiftly split up the newlywed couple like a jack-knifing trailer rig with improperly applied brakes.

It wasn’t always all bad, though. We are treated to a few sensationally shot sequences of Nicky and Tacy finally living the idyllic life on the road that she had envisioned, stopping at the most scenic spots to pick out souvenir rocks from their travels, always blissfully unaware of how much this will weigh down their already three-ton trailer, particularly when they need it to be the most nimble!

We get signs of trouble in paradise, particularly when the persistent Tacy insists on driving (“Oh, come on now, I’m a good driver! I’ve been driving since I was 15… and in Los Angeles! What more could you ask?”) and all of Nicky’s fears are confirmed when she follows a reckless takeoff with speeding up the highway and weaving over the center line to pass other cars. While careless behind the wheel, she turns out to be capable and confident, though Nicky needles her just enough to the point that she slams on the brakes—including the trailer brakes, of course—and hops into the back seat, leaving him to take over again.

The night proves to be an awkward one as the quarreling couple tries to sleep in different rooms, though the close quarters of their home on wheels makes such a petty protest difficult. The couple reconciles after Tacy determines that the root of their arguments is too much time on the road before they can settle in for supper and sleep. Thus, Tacy resolves to cook while he drives, aiming to have dinner ready for them as they stop for the night.

Tacy and Nicky put their plan in motion for her to cook dinner as he drives… though she realizes far too soon (and he realizes far too late) that it was a bad idea.

Excited by the prospect of capping off a long, hard drive with beef ragu, angel food cake with fresh strawberries, and Caesar salad (with grated Parmesan cheese, not crumbled Roquefort!), we are treated to the memorably madcap sequence of Nicky blissfully singing his own hungry take on “La Cucaracha” as poor Tacy—in the lace-trimmed, green plaid garb of the “ideal” ’50s housewife—is tossed around the kitchen of their trailer coach.

Each bump in the road not only ruins dinner but also Tacy’s once-indefatigable optimism, and when Nicky parks the rig and bursts into the door of their trailer, he’s greeted not with the scrumptious scent of beef ragu but with a sunken living room covered with food… and a pie in the face, for good measure.

The conclusion of Nicky and Tacy’s failed attempt at “meals on wheels”.

Even Tacy is forced to admit that her idealization of life as a “trailerlite” was far from reality, though she’s reluctant to part with the dream even when Nicky gets a tempting offer to sell the trailer and cut their losses just before their treacherous drive across the desert mountain range that will take them to their new Colorado home. Tacy insists on keeping the trailer, so Nicky offers a compromise: she must get rid of the dozens of rocks and canned goods (the fruits of her latest hobby) that perilously weigh the rig down.

In a great and legitimately gripping sequence, Nicky and Tacy try to distract themselves as they ascend the 8,000-foot mountain by making nervous small talk about the book she’s been reading while she’s all too aware that the trailer is still loaded down with the souvenir rocks and canned fruits she just couldn’t bear to abandon… making the journey all but impossible and all but ending their fledgling marriage as a furious Nicky discovers the contraband and jettisons the rocks and jars all over the mountainside.

The New Moon makes its climb, pulled along by Nicky’s 1953 Mercury Lincoln.

Some may consider it interesting that, though a major point was made of the Collinis needing to purchase their cream-colored new Mercury convertible as a car heavy enough to pull the trailer, the 125 horsepower generated by the Merc’s flathead V8 engine wasn’t enough to properly power both the car and trailer up the mountain, so the filmmakers repainted and rebadged an otherwise similar-looking 1953 Lincoln Capri for these scenes as the Lincoln’s 205 horsepower engine was a better match for the hauling duties required by the scene.

The Mercury was likely an example of product placement, but both Lincoln and Mercury are divisions of the Ford Motor Company so one wonders why the filmmakers didn’t think to place our protagonists in the higher-powered Lincoln the whole time and avoid the continuity error.

What’d He Wear?

Once he and Tacy begin their new life on the road, Nicky Collini leaves his sharp suits hung in the admittedly limited storage space of their New Moon trailer and dresses for their journey in casual staples right from the pages of a Sears catalog.

Nicky makes frequent use of a sky blue nylon blouson, a waist-length zip-up jacket with knit collar, cuffs, and hem likely inspired by the contemporary MA-1 bomber jacket developed for American military pilots and a precursor to the famous Derby jacket that would be introduced in San Francisco about a decade later. Apparently, this jacket is a favorite among “trailerites” as Mr. Judlow (Oliver Blake), the final trailer park manager that Tacy and Nicky encounter, seems to be wearing almost the exact same one, with only the waist hem ribbing differentiating the two.

Nicky’s jacket is detailed with dark navy ribbed-knit cotton on the collar and cuffs and around the hem, though the ribbed section extends all the way around the waist unlike the MA-1 or the Derby, which break in the front on each side of the zipper. Nicky’s jacket also has a hand pocket on each side with a vertical opening just above the hem.

A hungry Nicky can’t help but to sing in excitement as he considers the warm, home-cooked dinner in his near future.

Nicky seems to prefer plaid and checked sport shirts with large camp collars for their travels. The first one that he wears with this jacket is a two-tone blue plaid shirt with a white overcheck, worn buttoned up to the neck where a loop on the left side connects to a button hidden under the right collar leaf, a device also known as a “loop collar” for obvious reasons. The rest of the shirt buttons up a plain front (French placket) with large white “pearlesque” sew-through buttons. Nicky’s shirt also has two set-in chest pockets covered with rounded-corner flaps.

Yet another argument.

The second shirt that he wears with this jacket, during the catastrophic dinner prep-while-driving scene and the climactic mountain climb, is a white shirt patterned in a gray mini-grid check. This shirt is evidently one of Nicky’s favorites as he also wears it with his brown leather flight jacket and navy loafer jacket, and it was the first casual shirt we observed him wearing when he brought breakfast in bed to Tacy the morning after their wedding.

Ready for their nomadic life, Nicky no longer dresses for the day in suits and brings his wife breakfast in bed in a checked camp shirt and pleated trousers with a matching belt hitched off to the left side of his waist. By the time they get on the road, even the trousers would be swapped out for more casual and rugged jeans.

Like the blue plaid shirt, this grid-check shirt has a large loop collar that he wears both buttoned to the top and open at the neck. The two patch pockets on the chest have a rectangular flap closure with no button to fasten. The long sleeves are fastened at each squared cuff through a single button.

Nicky surveys the trailer coach one last time before preparing for the long, treacherous journey ahead. If only he had looked in the stove, under the couch, or in a closet, he could have saved them both considerable stress!

In contrast to the fashionable suits and sport jackets that Desi Arnaz wore in real life, on I Love Lucy, and through the early scenes of this movie, Nicky starts almost exclusively wearing blue jeans after beginning his life on the road with Tacy, specifically dark selvedge denim jeans from Levi Strauss & Co., evident by the distinctive red LEVI-branded tag on the back right pocket that the company introduced in 1936. Though they had been around for eight decades at the time that The Long, Long Trailer was produced, Levi’s jeans were still a primarily West Coast fashion. In 1954, the same year that The Long, Long Trailer was released, Levi’s sought expansion to the East Coast and developed the 501® Z with a zip fly aimed to be more accessible to new audiences.

Nicky’s 501® button-fly jeans are consistent with the modernized pattern introduced after World War II, devoid of archaic details like back cinch and suspender buttons and styled with the now-familiar five-pocket layout with the double-needle Arcuate stitching that had been introduced on this postwar version as an evolution of the single-needle stitching that had been used for the distinctive Arcuate stitching since Levi Strauss & Co.’s early days.

Nicky helps himself to a sample of Tacy’s long-awaited home-cooked dinner.

Nicky’s jeans are made with 10 oz. selvedge denim from Cone® Mills of North Carolina, which has been a Levi’s brand partner for more than 100 years and their exclusive denim provider since 1922, the same year that Levi Strauss & Co. introduced belt loops to its coveralls, though the suspender buttons would be retained for another quarter century until the post-World War II modernization.

Nicky wears a thick black leather belt with a steel-toned single-prong belt buckle with mitred corners.

Having reached the summit of the 8,000-foot mountain, Nicky steps out for a break… only to realize the problems he thought were behind him are quite literally behind him in the trailer.

The black belt coordinates with his black leather cap-toe boots with a raised heel also known as a “Cuban heel”, apropos Desi Arnaz’ native nationality.

In a furious (and actually reasonable) state of rage, Nicky tosses out the heavy collectables that Tacy had secretly stored away.

Perhaps best seen when Nicky attempts his first awkward shower in the trailer, Nicky wears a large silver medallion on a silver chain around his neck. It’s been reported that he wore a gold St. Christopher pendant in real life, engraved with the word “Darling”, though I would imagine that this silver-toned medal is a different one. As Desi Arnaz also carried an Elgin pocket watch with St. Christopher’s likeness on the back, it’s likely that the same saint is represented on this necklace.

Interestingly, St. Christopher is considered the patron saint of transportation and traveling, though that doesn’t account for the string of bad luck that Nicky and Tacy seem to encounter when traveling across the country in their latest mode of transportation.

Nicky’s medallion slips through the front of his shirt as he keeps an eye on the impending rain.

Throughout the movie, Nicky wears a gold rectangular watch with a light silver square dial on a beige leather strap.

Nicky tries to make conversation, but Tacy’s having none of it.

In all scenes following Nicky and Tacy’s wedding (and, in an interesting continuity error, some scenes prior), Nicky wears a plain gold wedding band that was likely also Arnaz’s real-life wedding ring.

Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball in The Long, Long Trailer (1954)

How to Get the Look

As a reluctant road tripper honeymooning in his new home on wheels, Desi Arnaz embraces the comfortable practicality of mid-century casual wear with his typical attire of a nylon jacket, checked camp shirt, selvedge jeans, and boots.

• Sky blue nylon waist-length jacket with navy ribbed-knit cotton collar, cuffs, and waist hem with vertical hand pockets
• Blue plaid or gray-on-white grid-check long-sleeved camp shirt with loop collar, plain front, two flapped chest pockets, and 1-button cuffs
• Dark blue selvedge denim Levi’s 501® jeans with belt loops, button fly, five-pocket layout, and self-cuffed bottoms
• Thick black leather belt with steel-toned, mitred-corner single-prong belt buckle
• Black leather cap-toe “Cuban heel” boots
• Silver necklace with large St. Christopher medallion
• Gold wedding ring
• Gold rectangular watch with light silver square dial on beige leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye (1973)

Vitals

Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe, wisecracking private investigator and “born loser”

Los Angeles, Summer 1972

Film: The Long Goodbye
Release Date: March 7, 1973
Director: Robert Altman
Men’s Costume Designer: Kent James (uncredited)

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

I’m pleased to address a repeated request from BAMF Style leaders like Brandon and Craig to take a look at Elliott Gould’s scrappy attire as an equally scrappy Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye, maverick auteur Robert Altman’s adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s 1953 pulp novel of the same name.

It’s okay with me…

A generation after the golden age of noir in the 1940s and early ’50s, an unofficial cinematic revival began re-adapting hard-boiled detectives for the silver screen. Early contenders in this neo-noir subgenre include Harper (1966), starring Paul Newman as Ross Macdonald’s eponymous private eye, followed by Frank Sinatra’s back-to-back movies as Miami detective Tony Rome. The decade closed with Marlowe (1969), a refreshed look at Raymond Chandler’s arguably greatest creation, updated for the ’60s and portrayed by James Garner, ostensibly auditioning for his future role on The Rockford Files. Directed by Paul Bogart, Marlowe had been the first major cinematic adaptation featuring Chandler’s famous detective in more than 20 years, aside from a single season of an ABC series starring Philip Carey, and served to re-introduce audiences to the wisecracking investigator.

The Long Goodbye would be the first of several 1970s productions to center around Philip Marlowe. Robert Mitchum would dust off his venerable noir chops to portray the detective twice, once in the period-set thriller Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and again in a re-imagining of The Big Sleep (1978) that updated the setting to contemporary England. Before those, Mitchum had been the initial choice for executive producer Elliott Kastner when casting The Long Goodbye, though Mitchum was reluctant at the time, paving the way for Elliott Gould to reteam with M*A*S*H director Robert Altman and make the role his own. Kastner considered the eventual casting a blessing, appreciating that Gould “had a kind of dandruff on his shoulders, if you know what I mean.”

Prolific screenwriter Leigh Brackett, a co-writer of the original Bogie and Bacall version of The Big Sleep (1946), again put her deft hand to work at adapting Chandler for the screen. By retaining the Los Angeles setting so integral to Chandler’s works and Marlowe’s seedy world but updating the timeframe to the early 1970s—specifically around midsummer 1972—Brackett’s script allowed for satirical contrasts of just how much the world had changed in 20 years… and how much of an anachronistic oddball a guy like Philip Marlowe would be. Indeed, Robert Altman was so enthusiastic about highlighting this dissonance that he nicknamed Gould’s portrayal “Rip Van Marlowe”, suggesting that the character had been asleep for 20 years, waking up in a polyester-clad world of hippies, health foods, and yoga.

Production photo of Elliott Gould as “Rip Van Marlowe”, awakening to the changing times.

Initial receptions to what Altman would call “a satire in melancholy” ranged from lukewarm to ice cold, forcing United Artists to reconsider how the film was being marketed. After its re-release, more positive reviews appeared from stalwart critics like Vincent Canby, Roger Ebert, and Pauline Kael, though audiences were still unsure of how to react to our anachronistic protagonist driving his 1948 Lincoln, grumbling about his lost cat, and chain-smoking unfiltered Camels through a now health-conscious California that, though branding itself as a brave new communal world, was an increasingly self-obsessed culture where “nobody cares but me,” as Marlowe observes.

“The picture almost got destroyed out here,” Gould himself recalled decades later in an interview with the BBC’s Brett Berk. “I think a lot of people didn’t know what we were doing.”

“The Long Goodbye sits at all these intersections: of Altman and Chandler, of Altman and noir, of the 1950s (when the novel was written) and the 1970s, of old and (at the time) new Los Angeles. The film has many points of entry, including Elliott Gould’s eccentric, loopy, intensely likable performance as Chandler’s private eye, Philip Marlowe,” wrote Mike Hale for The New York Times in a 2014 retrospective review, which continues:

“There are so many levels on which to appreciate the film,” said the musician Gabriel Kahane, who collaborated in the programming of Sunshine Noir. “One is the rewriting of Marlowe as this kind of sharp-tongued Jewish guy.”

The series accompanies Mr. Kahane’s performances there of his new album, “The Ambassador,” a song cycle that explores the history and fantasy of Los Angeles, and he said that for him the real appeal of The Long Goodbye was the way it transformed the noir narrative for a more cynical, more ruthlessly capitalistic era. “At the center of it is the way noir means something fundamentally different in the 1970s because of our collective consciousness about how the economy has shifted,” he said. “The film is at once neo-noir and an elegy for the golden age of noir.”

Working from a screenplay by Leigh Brackett that ruthlessly distilled Chandler’s novel, Altman rendered the streamlined story — Marlowe gives a friend a ride to Tijuana, the friend is accused of killing his wife and then turns up dead himself, Marlowe sets out to prove the friend’s innocence — as a series of mostly comic set pieces. He simultaneously satirized the post-hippie self-absorption of Southern California, registered the narrow-minded brutality of the cops and gangsters, and signaled his fondness for an old Hollywood that was already history in 1973.

Mr. Gould’s Marlowe, always dressed in black suit [sic] and tie despite the blinding light and driving a hulking 1940s Lincoln, is the last honest man in this sun-kissed cesspool. He’s an avatar of the midcentury noir hero, out of step but also thoroughly up-to-date, a hipster in the original sense. He rolls with whatever the city and the times throw at him — the blissed-out women next door doing yoga in the nude; the vicious mobster who strips in a fake-sensitive display of honesty — shrugging and repeating the mantra: “It’s O.K. with me.” Until, in the end, he discovers that some things just aren’t O.K.

#Noirvember continues with a look at this unconventional entry in the private eye genre, a welcome contribution from seminal noir figures Raymond Chandler and Leigh Brackett, filtered through the characteristically subversive lens of Robert Altman, who died of complications from leukemia 13 years ago today on November 20, 2006.

What’d He Wear?

“You know, you don’t tie in. This suit, the name Philip Marlowe… what the hell are you from?” asks an aggressive interrogating detective, lampshading Marlowe’s anachronistic character in a world that’s moved on from gumshoes to groovy hippies and gas crises. Poor Marlowe—though he doesn’t seem to care one bit—is constantly out of place, whether he’s in a town full of weirdos like 1970s L.A. or heading south of the border, clad in his oppressively hot but relentlessly patriotic red, white, and blue as he searches for clues about his pal Terry Lennox’s fate.

Marlowe in Mexico.

But enough commentary… let’s get to the crux of what BAMF Style’s about. Is Marlowe wearing a suit?

In fact, no. It’s actually a mis-matched jacket and trousers that were hand-selected by Elliott Gould, according to Christopher Laverty of Clothes on Film, who identified the jacket as a slightly darker navy than the trousers as opposed to reviewer Mike Hale’s inaccurate description of Marlowe’s “black suit.” While I certainly knew that Marlowe’s jacket and trousers weren’t black, I have to admit that I hadn’t noticed the contrasting pieces, but—given Mr. Laverty’s authority on the subject—I took a closer look and indeed noticed the difference between the cloths of each respective piece, particularly under the blazing California sun during his afternoon drinking session with Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden) and, later, when chasing after Eileen Wade’s (Nina van Pallandt) retreating gold Mercedes-Benz convertible under the L.A. street lights.

It’s significant—and perhaps even poetic—that Gould’s Marlowe doesn’t even own a navy suit, considered an essential foundation for any gentleman’s wardrobe. “Rip Van Marlowe” is hardly a gentleman though, more a guy going through the motions to wear a jacket and tie because he must. And why must he? Because Raymond Chandler wrote him that way.

Marlowe’s navy blue single-breasted jacket is made from soft-napped flannel with a high-fastening three-button front that balances Gould’s lanky 6’2″ frame. The somewhat ill-fitting jacket has substantial notch lapels, stitched less than a half-inch from the edges for a sporty “swelled” effect that was a popular detail of 1970s menswear.

The jacket has a welted breast pocket and straight hip pockets with rumpled flaps that tend to stick out from the sides like wings. The sleeves are finished with three spaced buttons on each cuff, and the back is split with a long single vent. Eagle-eyed experts may be able to recognize the maker of Marlowe’s jacket when the white label is briefly seen on the inside of the right breast when he slides the jacket off in Marty Augustine’s office.

Marlowe takes a drag from one of many, many unfiltered Camels, the same brand that had been suggested by Raymond Chandler as the literary Marlowe’s choice in Farewell, My Lovely and The Little Sister.

Marlowe’s slightly lighter blue flat front trousers have a low rise without a belt, braces, or side-adjusters to suspend the trousers to a higher point on Gould’s waist. The trousers have “frogmouth”-style front pockets and two back pockets with a button through the left. The bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs), a somewhat old-fashioned detail by the 1970s that suggests the garment to be a product of the previous decade.

Marlowe kicks his feet up when drinking with the gregarious guzzler Roger Wade.

“This is my good shirt,” Marlowe protests when a grumpy LAPD officer tells him to wipe his fingerprinting ink on it. Indeed…it may be his only shirt. Marlowe wears a white cotton shirt with a long point collar, front placket, and breast pocket. The sleeves end with squared barrel cuffs with two buttons to close.

The Long Goodbye proves that there are worse things than the common nightmare of being naked in public… such as being fully clothed but surrounded by near-naked henchmen intent on castrating you in the tradition of the mohels in their families.

Roger Wade: I wish you’d take that goddamn J.C. Penney tie off, eh? And settle down with me, and what you and I are gonna do is have a little old-fashioned, man-to-man drinking party.
Philip Marlowe: That’s okay with me, but I’m not gonna take my tie off.

Even at 3 a.m. when he rolls out of bed to pick up cat food, Marlowe is sure to toss his already-tied cravat around his neck for the trip to the 24-hour grocery store, sticking to an outdated, genre-informed sense of decorum—one to which he feels compelled to later educate Harry the hoodlum (David Arkin)—even if he falters in his half-assed execution. Marlowe certainly cares a lot about that tie, desperately flinging it off of his neck to protect the silk when he makes his frantic and futile dash into the ocean to try and prevent a suicidal Roger Wade from throwing himself to the mercy of the Pacific waves… well, Roger had always wanted him to take that tie off.

The narrow tie is crimson red silk with a motif of red, white, and blue American flags made barely discernable by the post-flashing techniques of cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond which dampened the color black on screen and softened more intense colors to the point of appearing nearly pastel. The small flags are bannered in widely spaced-apart stripes following a “downhill” direction.

Philip Marlowe doesn’t let a little thing like getting hit by a car get in the way of enjoying a cigarette.

Most “flag ties” commercially available are hardly as subtle as Marlowe’s, ranging from at least organizing its patriotic pattern (as on this Jacob Alexander tie) to going unapologetically American in its presentation (as on this collage-covered tie from PARQUET.) Vineyard Vines also offers a “Flags & Stars” printed silk tie that, like Marlowe’s tie, illustrates its national banners against a red backdrop, though hardly anything about this tie could be considered subtle.

Marlowe’s undergarments are seen most clearly when he’s in various forms of captivity, first jail and eventually the hospital after he’s waylaid by a yellow Mustang while in pursuit of Eileen’s Mercedes, as seen above. He spends his days in a white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt and “tighty-whitey” white cotton briefs.

Checking himself out of the hospital.

Marlowe walks through L.A. and Mexico in a pair of much-traveled black leather apron-toe derby shoes, worn with thin black socks.

Rip Van Marlowe.

Shining from the third finger of Gould’s right hand is a large and ornate gold ring, its provenance and significance unknown though it recalls the decades-earlier glory of men like the Rat Pack who wore their pinky rings with pride.

Rather than try to ape the distinctive smoking style of his predecessor Humphrey Bogart, Elliott Gould develops a unique “smoking face” for his take on Philip Marlowe.

Marlowe also wears a classic dress watch evoking an earlier era of elegance, a gold tank watch with a silver square dial on a black leather strap, not unlike the Cartier Tank that adorned the wrists of such gents as Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, and Rudolph Valentino. Philip Marlowe—particularly Gould’s scruffy “Rip Van Marlowe”—is hardly a suave screen lothario, but he’s a product of an era that celebrated such debonair class.

It makes sense that Marlowe wears the same thing throughout the movie as, when we see the luckless detective try to return home with his newly cleaned laundry, he’s assailed by Marty Augustine’s henchmen who strew his clothes all over the floor of his apartment before they tear the place apart.

The Car

While the Marlowe of Chandler’s novel makes frequent reference to his trusty “Olds”, an aging Oldsmobile convertible, the “Rip Van Marlowe” of Altman’s The Long Goodbye pilots a forest green 1948 Lincoln Continental convertible through the streets of Los Angeles.

In his 2014 interview with Brett Berk for BBC, Gould confirms the Continental’s model year, adding that “It was my car. I wouldn’t have used that car. Bob wanted to use it. I didn’t even charge him for it. But that was Marlowe absolutely: a stranger in a strange land. A guy out of time and place.”

From the cockpit of his Continental, Marlowe gives a few tips to the hapless henchman Harry.

Though several generations of the Lincoln Continental were produced across the 20th century, it would be difficult to surpass the iconic status of the original, first produced for the model years 1940 through 1942—designed by Bob Gregorie—and again after World War II for the 1946 to 1948 model years, redesigned by Raymond Loewy. 1948 marked the final model year not just for the Continental but also the last time—as of 2019—that a major American automaker had produced a car with a V12 engine.

1948 Lincoln Continental Convertible Cabriolet

Body Style: 2-door convertible

Layout: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

Engine: 292 cu. in. (4.8 L) Lincoln-Zephyr “Model H” V12

Power: 125 hp (93.2 kW; 127 PS) @ 4000 RPM

Torque: 220 lb·ft (298 N·m) @ 2000 RPM

Transmission: 3-speed manual

Wheelbase: 125 inches (3175 mm)

Length: 219.6 inches (5578 mm)

Width: 77.8 inches (1976 mm)

Height: 63.1 inches (1603 mm)

According to IMDB, Marlowe’s ’48 Continental—with its telling license plate of “PVT 101” (or “private eye 101”)—had been repainted yellow and placed in The Harrah Collection’s National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada. If you’re interested in reading more about this make and model, check out my earlier #CarWeek post about the 1941 Lincoln that James Caan drove as Sonny Corleone for the famous “tollbooth scene” in The Godfather (1972).

The Gun

For being a noir-esque detective story, there’s relatively few firearms in The Long Goodbye, with the majority relegated to the various gun racks at Roger Wade’s home or in the Mexican police station. It isn’t until the final act that a gun truly comes into play when Philip Marlowe pulls a 4″-barreled Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver from the back of his waistband.

“Yeah, I even lost my cat…”

In contrast, Raymond Chandler describes a half-dozen different firearms in the novel The Long Goodbye, including at least two curious references to “a Mauser P.P.K.” in the hands of both Roger Wade and Terry Lennox, mixing up the German manufacturers of the Mauser HSc and Walther PPK. Chandler’s Marlowe arms himself with two different revolvers, beginning with “a tough little short-barreled .32 with flat-point cartridges” when he drives to Dr. Verringer’s estate in chapter 19 and, in chapter 47, he packs “a gun in a belt holster on the left side, butt forward, a short-barreled Police 38.”

Aside from the holster, this latter weapon and its context of preparing for a climactic confrontation was likely what inspired the filmmakers of The Long Goodbye to arm Elliott Gould with a .38 Special police revolver like this venerated handgun introduced by Smith & Wesson for the law enforcement market in 1899.

A 1970s-era bottle of Aalborg aquavit not unlike the one Wade shares with Marlowe.
(Source: Master of Malt)

What to Imbibe

Roger Wade: I got champagne, beer, Scotch, bourbon, aquavit, port…
Philip Marlowe: What are you drinking?
Roger Wade: What I’m drinking is called aquavit.
Philip Marlowe: Well, I’m drinking what you’re drinking.
Roger Wade: God bless you, I like to hear that. You know, there’s an awful lot of people, you say, what do you want to drink? “Ooh, I want this, I want that, and a twist of lemon.” Balls!

The literary Philip Marlowe may be a famous imbiber, but he can hardly match the hard-drinking, Hemingway-esque author Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden), with whom he imbibes in aquavit as the gregarious and poetically profane writer continues refilling their mugs from a chilled bottle of Aalborg.

Also known as “akvavit”, reportedly derived from the Latin aqua vitae for “water of life”, this spirit dates back to at least the 16th century as a staple of Scandinavian culture, distilled from either grain or potatoes and flavored with a variety of herbs and spices.

Aalborg, the distillery headquartered in the Danish town of the same name, distills their aquavit with amber. (For the record—and perhaps not coincidentally—Aalborg was determined to be the “happiest” European city in a European Commission study.)

Roger Wade refills Marlowe’s mug with aquavit.

Though it unfortunately didn’t make it to the screen adaptation, Chandler’s famous commentary on the gimlet appears in the third chapter of The Long Goodbye as Marlowe joins Terry Lennox for a drink on a “wet March evening.”

We sat in a corner of the bar at Victor’s and drank gimlets. “They don’t know how to make them here,” he said. “What they call a gimlet is just some lime or lemon juice and gin with half a dash of sugar and bitters. A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow.”

Questionable comparison to the venerable martini aside, Terry has excellent taste as the gimlet is a simple and classic cocktail worthy of anyone’s time. The IBA has updated the proportions from the sweeter days of the 1930 edition of The Savoy Cocktail Book championed by Lennox to be two parts gin and one part lime juice, but the essence remains the same. Both ingredients are to be shaken with ice, poured into a chilled cocktail glass, and—should one be so inclined—garnished with a lime slice.

Marlowe comments that “although [Lennox] wasn’t English, he had some of the mannerisms.” The gimlet too shares Terry’s dubious English origins with the perhaps apocryphal suggestion that Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Gimlette, KCB, of the British Royal Navy had stumbled upon the modern gimlet when he added lime curvy to his shipmates’ daily gin tot to combat scurvy.

Gould’s despondent-looking Marlowe, drowning his post-jail sorrows in a highball rather than the gimlet specified by Raymond Chandler.

Marlowe would certainly be well-protected against scurvy after the events of The Long Goodbye, drinking gimlets in tribute to his pal Terry in chapters 22 and 46.

“A gimlet,” I said. “No bitters.”

He put the little naplkin in front of me and kept looking at me. “You know something,” he said in a pleased voice. “I heard you and your friend talking one night and I got me in a bottle of that Rose’s Lime Juice. Then you didn’t come back any more and I only opened it tonight.”

“My friend left town,” I said. “A double if it’s all right with you. And thanks for taking the trouble.”

If you’re not in the mood for citrus or you have a more cavalier approach to the formidable threat of scurvy, you can follow the example of Gould’s Marlowe who stumbles into a dive after three days in the pokey, aiming to reacclimate his liver to the private eye lifestyle by ordering a highball concocted of Canadian Club whiskey and ginger ale:

I think I’ll have a drink… C.C. and ginger.

Finally, as a a drenched Marlowe and Eileen stand on the beach behind the Wade compound, they attempt to warm themselves by drinking brandy by Korbel, a California brand that many may know better today for its budget-priced sparkling wine, manufactured using the méthode champenoise process. While Korbel’s champagne has been the winery’s best-known output since 1882, its brandy is particularly popular in the state of Wisconsin, home of the brandy-and-Sprite Old Fashioned.

The brandy inebriates Marlowe to the point that he’s cursing out the police and threatening to sicc then-governor Ronald Reagan on them.

For what it’s worth, Marlowe does get to meet a California governor in the following scene…as future “Govern-ator” Arnold Schwarzenegger makes an uncredited appearance as one of Marty Augustine’s thugs.

How to Get the Look

In his novel The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler didn’t go into as much detail when describing Philip Marlowe’s clothing as he famously did in The Big Sleep, adding only passing references to his jacket, tie, and dark sunglasses, giving Elliott Gould free reign to develop his own look as the iconic detective.

Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye (1973)

“Slapdash suits” of semi-matching jackets and trousers are rarely advisable, so—for all intents and purposes—it behooves me as a style blogger to insist that anyone inspired by Marlowe’s all-American red, white, and blue garb should at least don a suit of matching pieces before looking for that patriotic tie and chunky gold ring to bring the look together.

• Navy blue napped flannel suit:
  • Single-breasted 3-button jacket with swelled-edge notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, spaced 3-button cuffs, and long single vent
  • Flat front low-rise trousers with fitted waistband, frogmouth front pockets, jetted back pockets (with button-through left pocket), and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with long point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and 2-button squared barrel cuffs
• Crimson red silk tie with American flag motif
• Black calf leather apron-toe derby shoes
• Thin black socks
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
• White cotton briefs
• Large ornate gold ring
• Gold tank watch with silver square dial and black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read Chandler’s 1953 novel.

(And, if you’re Steven Soderbergh, text Elliott Gould back! He wants to play Marlowe again!)

The Quote

Yeah, I get the picture. Case closed, all zippered up like a big bag of shit.

Steven Van Zandt as Silvio Dante on The Sopranos (Episode 6.03: “Mayham”)

Vitals

Steven Van Zandt as Silvio Dante, Jersey mob consigliere and “acting boss”

New Jersey, Spring 2006

Series: The Sopranos
Episode: “Mayham” (Episode 6.03)
Air Date: March 26, 2006
Director: Jack Bender
Creator: David Chase
Costume Designer: Juliet Polcsa

Background

Happy birthday, Steven Van Zandt!

While The Sopranos introduced him to new audiences after the show’s premiere in 1999, “Little Steven” had been a longtime guitarist with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Van Zandt first toured with the Boss in the 1970s before embarking on his own successful solo career and launching a series of ventures where he could share his encyclopedic knowledge of rock and pop music as a radio host, Sirius program director, label producer, and more! Miami Steve had never formally acted before taking the role of Silvio Dante on The Sopranos, and the cool-headed (but cold-hearted) consigliere quickly rose to become a fan favorite, known for his bouffant and his bold, idiosyncratic fashion sense that wasn’t unlike the man portraying him.

After five seasons behind the scenes of the show’s fictional DiMeo crime family, Silvio received his moment in the spotlight after mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) was comatose from a shooting incident at the start of the sixth season. The loyal Silvio was tapped to serve as the family’s “acting boss” until Tony’s recovery… no doubt to the delight of Stevie’s fans in the music world where he had first rose to fame working with a different kind of Boss.

“I never saw myself as that kinda guy,” Silvio explains to his wife Gabriella (Maureen Van Zandt, Steven’s real-life wife), regarding the opportunity. “I’m more behind the scenes… advice, strategy.” Despite Silvio’s reluctance, he does share that he had reportedly been a contender to fill Jackie Aprile’s shoes when that fellow well-coiffed mobster died of cancer years earlier, creating a brief leadership vacancy that Silvio had considered taking.

Of course, we see that sometimes the most talented employees aren’t always management material, and the stress of Silvio’s new job triggers an asthma attack that lands him in the same hospital as his recuperating boss.

What’d He Wear?

Let’s start at the beginning of Silvio Dante’s day, when Benny Fazio (Max Casella) comes to pick up the new acting boss as he’s having his breakfast of Kashi and coffee, dressed in the lush loungewear of a black-and-gold cross-streaked silk robe with solid black satin shawl collar, cuffs, and pocket piping. Between the lapels of the robe, we see that Sil wears as much gold jewelry as his boss, if not moreso as he has doubled up on the number of gold necklaces with both a gold cross and a gold pendant—likely with the likeness of a Catholic saint—that hangs slightly lower over his chest.

Sil begins his big day with the most important meal.

From there, we go upstairs and get a much-needed glimpse into Silvio Dante’s massive, colorful wardrobe as he picks out the suit that will guide him through his first day as acting boss. Series costume designer Juliet Polcsa had explained to The Independent in 2014 that “Stevie Van Zandt felt some of his character’s sartorial choices should be influenced by the way De Niro dressed in the film Casino,” and that flashy old Vegas sense of sartorialism clearly drives his outfit in this scene.

We’re treated to some delightful scenes of Silvio and his wife Gabriella “Gab” Dante—made all the more fun by the knowledge that they’re portrayed by real-life married couple Steven and Maureen Van Zandt—as she tenderly helps him get ready for his first day “on the job”, towing the line between a sweet, supportive partner and a more influential Lady Macbeth who admires his “strength in crisis” and reminds him that he wouldn’t sneeze at the opportunity to sit in “the big seat” on a more permanent basis.

“The times make the man, honey. Not the other way around,” advises Gab.

First day at a new job? Sure, a gray suit is always a good idea- oh, I see where you’re going with this one, Silvio.

As a flashy mobster, Silvio eschews the gray worsteds or flannels that you or I may select to make a good impression on our first day at a new job, instead sporting a slick shark gray two-piece suit in a nubby black-streaked and white-flecked suiting suggesting dupioni silk, the “luxurious shantung-type silk fabric made from a double silk fiber from two cocoons nested together,” as described by Alan Flusser in Dressing the Man. “Mayham” isn’t the only appearance of this particular suit, which Silvio also effectively wears with the jacket orphaned in other episodes.

The single-breasted jacket has wide, razor-sharp peak lapels that roll to a single button, covered in the same silk cloth as the rest of the suit. The wide shoulders are padded to build Silvio’s intimidating silhouette, though the shoulders threaten to swallow his neck when Silvio burrows his head in the midst of his trademark scowl. In the jacket’s welted breast pocket, Silvio wears a burgundy silk pocket square that effectively coordinates with his colorfully abstract tie without matching it.

Silvio’s suit jacket has four functioning buttons on each cuff, also covered in the same silk cloth as the single button on the front. The jacket is split with long double vents, and the straight hip pockets are each covered with a flap.

Sil arbitrates a situation among his capos Bobby and Vito in the hospital break room.

Sil’s matching suit trousers have a single forward pleat on each side of the fly and wide belt loops around the waist, though he opts to wear suspenders (braces) that fasten to buttons along the inside of the waist instead. Finished with turn-ups (cuffs), these trousers have slightly slanted side pockets and slim-welted back pockets.

Gabriella helps Silvio get ready in the morning.

The suspenders are a dark brown twill fabric, possibly silk as suggested by the sheen, with a crossed pattern in scarlet red. Silvio’s suspenders have gold adjusters on the front with a dark brown leather back patch and matching dark brown leather ears that attach to three double sets of buttons.

Although the material of the suit makes it flashy, gray is still a relatively conservative color for Silvio, so the mobster adds characteristic color with an unorthodox coral-colored shirt with a slightly iridescent shine that suggests silk or a high-twist cotton.

As this is hardly a standard color for men’s dress shirts, gents hoping to tap into their inner Silvio Dante will likely either have to have their shirt made-to-order or made-to-measure or, on the opposing end of the quality spectrum, gamble with an off-the-rack alternative like this inexpensive Berlioni “convertible cuff” shirt made from a polyester/cotton blend. Despite the Italian brand name, the shirt’s material and the controversial convertible cuffs would likely disqualify it from a place in Silvio’s closet.

Silvio’s shirt has a spread collar, breast pocket, and a plain front that buttons up with white pearlesque plastic buttons.

Silvio stands among his enviably varied closet.

As Silvio prepares for his day, Gabriella lovingly adorns his shirt’s double (French) cuffs with a set of gold oval links, filled with red stones each accented with a diamond in the center.

And then there’s Silvio’s tie… To describe the pattern, one’s tempted to use the words “zebra-striped,” though I don’t believe there’s any naturally occurring zebra in the wild with a multi-colored coat like Silvio Dante’s bold neckwear. The black wavy stripes overlay the tie’s gradient-striped ground that fades from ivory to orange to red to burgundy, repeating and alternating its stripe under a chaotic field of black zebra stripes.

Sil embraces the private solitude of the men’s bathroom.

A discreetly photographed aerial shot when Silvio ducks into a bathroom stall with his coffee and newspaper reveals his black polka-dotted boxer shorts, though director of photography Phil Abraham thankfully keeps the camera from further invading Mr. Dante’s privacy.

While Sil’s the stall, we get a glimpse of all that his colleagues can see of him during their impromptu conference, the apron-toe fronts of his black leather loafers.

Mobsters may choose to present themselves in garish silks and pastels like Silvio Dante, dressed-down track suits like “Paulie Walnuts” and Christopher Moltisanti, or more subdued sport jackets and slacks like Tony Soprano and Johnny Sack, but one constant staple across all degrees of la cosa nostra dress code seems to be an abundance of jewelry, preferably yellow gold.

Given that his left wrist is occupied by his watch, Silvio dresses his right wrist with a flat gold herringbone bracelet, a slimmer and sleeker alternative to the chain-link bracelets favored by his criminal colleagues.

Silvio wears two rings—both gold, of course—though neither seems to be a wedding band. On the third finger of his right hand, Sil wears a large gold ring with a square-cut diamond. On the opposing hand, Silvio wears a slimmer-framed cross ring on his pinky.

One of many cups of coffee fueling Silvio’s day as boss.

In the fourth season of The Sopranos, Silvio stopped wearing the all-gold watch with the diamond-crusted bezel that he had worn for the first three seasons and replaced it with a black-and-gold watch consisting of a black case with a black dial and black bezel with gold number markers and a gold crown. The watch is secured to Sil’s left wrist on a gold mesh bracelet and can be clearly seen during a, uh, pivotal scene in the series’ penultimate episode, “The Blue Comet” (Episode 6.20).

How to Get the Look

Steven Van Zandt as Silvio Dante on The Sopranos (Episode 6.03: “Mayham”)

Che palle! Silvio Dante’s style was unparalleled on The Sopranos, and he takes the opportunity upon reaching his highest on-screen rank to blend a more businesslike approach to his usual brash and colorful attire… though Sil’s idea of a gray suit for a day at the office differs from what the rest of us may consider appropriate. Then again, few of us are mobsters.

• Shark gray streaked dupioni silk suit (with self-covered buttons):
  • Single-breasted 1-button jacket with wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, functional 4-button “surgeon’s cuffs”, and long double vents
  • Single forward-pleated trousers with wide belt loops, inside-waistband suspenders buttons, slightly slanted side pockets, slim-welted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Coral silk shirt with spread collar, plain front, breast pocket, and squared double/French cuffs
• Zebra-striped tie on an ivory, orange, and burgundy gradient-faded ground
• Dark brown silk twill suspenders with red cross-pattern motif, gold adjusters, and dark brown leather back patch and attachment ears
• Black leather apron-toe loafers
• Black polka-dot boxer shorts
• Gold necklace with cross
• Gold necklace with round saint pendant
• Gold flat herringbone bracelet
• Gold ring with square-cut diamond, right ring finger
• Gold cross pinky ring, left hand
• Black wristwatch with black rotating bezel (with gold number markers) and black dial on gold mesh bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series.

“What, you speakin’ Norwegian?” is Silvio’s comeback during an attempt at conflict resolution between Bobby Bacala and Vito Spatafore, perhaps foreshadowing Van Zandt’s eventual show Lillyhammer. This entertaining fish-out-of-water comedy series was touted as “the first time Netflix offered exclusive content,” premiering in North America exclusively on Netflix in February 2012, a full year before the streaming service premiered its first original series, House of Cards.

For fans of Silvio, The Sopranos, and Little Steven, I highly recommend checking out Lilyhammer, in which Van Zandt stars as a mobster very similar to Silvio Dante that becomes a Mafia target and enters the federal witness protection program, through which he is transferred to Lillehammer, Norway.

The Quote

You know me… all I ever wanted was to carve out a little piece.

Sean Connery as Jim Malone in The Untouchables (1987)

Vitals

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

Canadian border, September 1930

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

Background

Recently recruited off the streets of Chicago, aging beat cop Jim Malone is more than happy to bring his grizzled brand of tough justice to the Canadian border to assist federal agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) and their small but effective band of “untouchable” lawmen in stopping an illegal shipment of liquor from making its way into the United States.

While staking out the border, Malone taps into his extensive experience of walking the cold Chicago late night beat to offer sage wisdom to his younger colleagues, from stamping their feet to keep warm to not excessively checking their guns. Thus, when the time comes, the four dedicated officers are as ready as they can be, rerouting the criminals with enough firepower that sends them either scrambling on foot or straight to the morgue.

“Alright, enough of this running shit!” Malone shouts to Al Capone’s bookkeeper, George (Brad Sullivan), one of the lucky members of the former group. Malone drags George back to the cabin for an interrogation designed to get the bookkeeper to turn on his infamous criminal boss, but the Mounties’ white-handed methods hardly intimidate their captive… leading Malone to take matters into his own hands with the help of his .38 and a freshly dead gangster he found on the porch.

What’d He Wear?

With the post-Thanksgiving hunting season imminent, let’s take a look at Jim Malone’s warm, comfortable, and classic layers as he joins his fellow “untouchables” essentially hunting bootleggers at the Canadian border.

Malone’s outer layer is a barleycorn tweed coat in a cool shade of brown, styled in the unorthodox combination of double-breasted coat with notch lapels. The broad lapels with their wide notches roll down to a low button stance that consists of a top row of two widely spaced vestigal buttons above four buttons in a two-by-two square formation.

Between his heavy layers and foot-stomping tactics, Jim Malone must be keeping quite comfortably warm.

Malone’s coat blends outerwear sensibilities with the detailing and cut of a sport jacket, creating a unique cut suggestive of a well-traveled, experienced professional who knows how to get the most mileage out of his limited clothing.

The ventless back has an actual half-belt that hangs around the back of the waist, comprised of two straps that fasten in the center on a single button. Each sleeve tightens with a slim, single-button semi-tab around the cuff—a device more informed by the coat’s outerwear context—and the jacket has two flapped bellows pockets on the hips.

Jim Malone issues sage advice to his brother-in-arms, fellow Chicago cop George Stone (Andy Garcia).

Malone keeps his neck and chest warm by tying on a soft wool scarf, widely striped in navy blue and hunter green with slim beige and red accent stripes in between them.

Malone loves the smell of illegally imported Canadian whisky in the morning.

Added warmth comes from Malone’s intermediate layer, a gray shawl-collar cardigan knitted in heavy-ribbed wool with five brown “knobby” leather buttons on a strip down the front of the sweater. The cardigan has raglan sleeves that Malone rolls back at each cuff and two set-in hip pockets with his silver key chain clipped to the welt over his left pocket.

“Now, don’t let him clean himself until after he talks.”

Malone wears a pale blue cotton shirt that resembles the color and fabric of his Chicago police uniform, and indeed it may be the same. If so, it would have shoulder straps (epaulettes) that fasten at the neck in addition to two box-pleated chest pockets, each covered with a mitred-corner flap that closes with a single button.

The shirt has a large semi-spread collar, front placket, and rounded single-button cuffs. As with his pale green R&O Hawick shirt, Connery tends to wear this shirt buttoned up to the neck.

Earlier, Malone—fresh off his long beat—is surprised to greet Eliot Ness at his home, imploring Malone to join his small but incorruptible band of tough and honest crusaders.

Malone wears taupe woolen flannel trousers with double reverse pleats that are both consistent with the era’s menswear trends and a functional detail that allows a more generous fit for an aging man with an increasing midsection.

Malone maintains his curious practice of wearing both belt and braces as we see the dark leather eyes of his suspenders that connect to buttons along the inside of his trouser waistband when he raises the bottom of his cardigan to tuck his .38 back in. Then again, it may be this cavalier practice of carrying his sidearm like this that necessitates the addition of his belt, likely the same black belt he wears with his everyday corduroy jacket ensemble in Chicago. The belt would keep his trousers more closely pressed to his waist, providing stronger traction for the revolver, while the suspenders would do the yeoman’s work of actually keeping the trousers up.

No, it’s not the belt and braces combo that has left his colleagues wordless…

While his trousers are likely not actual riding breeches, Malone tucks the bottoms into the tops of his combat boots to keep the cuffs from interfering while he’s on horseback, causing the ample-fitting legs to bag out over his ankles like jodphurs or plus fours.

Malone tucks the bottoms of his trousers into his black leather cap-toe combat boots, likely also the same derby-laced boots that he wears with his Chicago outfit.

Malone stands over a dead gangster who still has some potential for utility.

A man of modest means, Malone wears a plain tweed newsboy cap often associated with the less affluent population of the era. The mixed brown woolen tweed cap has eight panels that connect under a cloth-covered button at the top. It was included in an auction with the rest of his Chicago-worn clothing, where it was listed as an “AKERI Sportsman Extra Quality” snap cap.

The Guns

Oh, what’s the matter? Can’t you talk with a gun in your mouth?

One of the most memorable character-establishing moments of The Untouchables begins when Jim Malone grows increasingly impatient with mob bookkeeper George’s smug refusal to cooperate. Recalling the dead gangster on the porch that Ness had shotgunned earlier in the day, Malone steps outside and drags the corpse to its feet with its back to the window, giving George and Malone’s fellow interrogators a picture-perfect view of Malone jamming his Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver into the dead man’s mouth, giving him until the count of three to help them decipher the ledger they captured.

“One… two… three!”

Obviously, dead men don’t talk (or wear plaid) so Malone counts from one to three without getting an answer and—BLAM!—blasts the back of the already dead gangster’s throat into the room, frightening not only the captive George but also the Mounties who assisted with the operation. George is convinced and, despite the newly formed puddle in his pants, is all too eager to cooperate… while the chief Mountie shares his disapproval of Ness’ and Malone’s methods. “Yeah?” Ness counters. “Well, you’re not from Chicago.”

Malone isn’t above going beyond the rules in his quest to carry out justice, but it is unlikely that he would use his service weapon in such a brazen manner. Combined with his unorthodox carry method of tucking it into his trouser waistband sans holster as well as the fact that the Chicago Police Department’s issued sidearm during this era was a Colt Police Positive and not a Smith & Wesson, it can be deduced that this 4″-barreled, blued steel .38 Special—which would have still been designated the Smith & Wesson “Military & Police” revolver—is Malone’s personal sidearm.

Like any Prohibition-era crusader worth his salt, Malone is also a deft artist with a Thompson submachine gun, also nicknamed the “Chicago typewriter” for its prevalence in the gangland violence of Malone’s hometown. Dubbed “the gun that made the twenties roar” by historian William J. Helmer in his book of the same name, the Thompson submachine gun revolutionized firearms in both criminal combat and military warfare over the early half of the 20th century.

Despite its geographical moniker, the “Untouchables”—notably Malone and fellow CPD officer George Stone (Andy Garcia)—use their tommy guns to greatest effect during their mission at the Canadian border.

Thompson in hand, Malone briefly confers with his colleague Ness during the border battle.

A prop hard rubber Thompson replica that Sean Connery carried on horseback during these action sequences was auctioned by Profiles in History in July 2005 alongside a Smith & Wesson revolver prop credited as his from the production, though this .357 Magnum revolver’s shorter barrel and shrouded ejector rod make it look like a different model than his .38.

How to Get the Look

Sean Connery as Jim Malone in The Untouchables (1987)

Apropos his rugged nature, Chicago beat cop Jim Malone fills his limited wardrobe with durable pieces like his woolen tweed cap, his everyday corduroy jacket, and this unique double-breasted cross between a sports coat and winter outerwear that he layers over a striped scarf and shawl-collar cardigan for an action-packed raid at the Canadian border.

• Brown heavy tweed double-breasted coat with wide notch lapels, padded shoulders, 6×3-button front, flapped bellows hip pockets, single-button slim tab cuffs, single-button half-belted ventless back
• Pale blue cotton shirt with large semi-spread collar, wide front placket, and rounded button cuffs
• Gray heavy ribbed wool knit shawl-collar cardigan with five brown woven leather buttons and two welted hip pockets
• Taupe woolen flannel double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops and straight/on-seam side pockets
• Dark suspenders
• Black leather belt with steel single-prong buckle
• Black leather derby-laced cap-toe combat boots
• Dark brown tweed newsboy cap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

What the hell… you gotta die of something!

Al Pacino tangos with Gabrielle Anwar in Scent of a Woman (1992)

Vitals

Al Pacino as Frank Slade, blind and bitter retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel “who likes to spit in everybody’s eye”

New York City, Thanksgiving 1992

Film: Scent of a Woman
Release Date: December 23, 1992
Director: Martin Brest
Costume Designer: Aude Bronson-Howard
Tailor: Martin Greenfield

Background

On the eve of Thanksgiving, today seemed like a fitting occasion to address one of the most requested suits I’ve heard from readers: Al Pacino’s freshly tailored Glenurquhart check three-piece suit as the cantankerous Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman. Pacino turned in a landmark performance in his prolific career, winning his sole Academy Award after six nominations (with one additional nod the same year for Glengarry Glen Ross), a result of the intense method actor’s painstaking research in meeting with clients of New York’s Associated Blind to understand life—from mood to mobility—as a person without sight.

After 26 years in the Army, a nearly blind Frank “Don’t Call Me ‘Sir'” Slade spends his days sitting in the darkened corner of his modest home, filling lowball glasses to the brim with Jack Daniel’s, berating his family, and spitting anger at anyone brave enough to visit him, including Charlie Simms (Chris O’Donnell), the mild-mannered prep school student hired by Frank’s niece Karen to take care of her uncle through Thanksgiving weekend. “His bark is worse than his bite,” Karen (Sally Murphy) assures Charlie, who soon finds himself swept away on an unpredictable ride to “freak show central… New York City” with the colonel, who is seeking one “little tour of pleasures” before committing suicide.

This movie was considered by Wook Kim for TIME to have one of the top 10 Thanksgiving scenes as Frank and Charlie—both outfitted in stylish new duds—divert from their high-living interlude in New York City to pay a surprise visit to Frank’s “miserable” brother, W.R. Slade (Richard Venture), “the original bulging briefcase man,” and his family for a contentious Turkey Day:

Say hello to the potluck party from New York City!

At least they had moved onto dessert and coffee before Frank’s rambling got too hostile…

While the Thanksgiving dinner is memorable, entertaining, and a deep dive into why Frank Slade is who he is, Scent of a Woman‘s arguably most famous sequence finds Frank and Charlie arriving for afternoon drinks at the Pierre Hotel when Frank sniffs out “a nice soap-and-water feeling down there,” inviting the lovely Donna (Gabrielle Anwar) to drink with them and eventually to join him on the dance floor. Donna may think she’s doing a favor for an aging blind man who has to ask for assistance from Charlie (“I need some coordinates here, son”) before Frank wows both her and the crowd with an impressive tango to “Por Una Cabeza” that reportedly took two weeks of practice and three days to film.

No mistakes in the tango, Donna, not like life. Simple. That’s what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, get all tangled up, you just tango on.

What’d He Wear?

♫ It’s a lovely day today, so whatever you gotta do, you got a lovely day to do it in, that’s true… ♫

Frank Slade didn’t include among the description of his “little tour of pleasures” that he would begin the day by getting tailored for a fine suit, but Charlie awakens the next morning to find Frank gleefully trying on this Glenurquhart check three-piece masterpiece.

“This is Sophia, Charlie,” introduces Frank. “She’s a magician with a needle. Sophia’s working me up a little glen plaid number, and I’ve asked her if she’d put something together for you.”

“Standard issue for an upscale urban assignment!”

This statement suit’s classic styling recalls a bygone era of elegance, elevating it beyond the 1990s production and setting, taking the viewer to a time when being a man meant not only knowing how to drink but also knowing how to dance. Similar finery may have hung in the closets of Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, or Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and seeing the plaid three-piece suit in service alongside Bradley Whitford’s baggy denim shirt and vaguely geometric-patterned tie serves only to bear Pacino’s suit farther aloft.

Patterned in a sharp black-and-white glen plaid with a pink overcheck, Pacino’s wool three-piece suit in Scent of a Woman has caught the eye of many a style enthusiast. The suit was the focus of a fine appreciative piece by Benedict Browne for The Rake in 2018, though Browne’s description of the “Prince of Wales check suit with lovely, subtle and fine tangerine overcheck” begs the question: what’s the most accurate way to describe Frank Slade’s plaid suiting?

Though I’ve seen the appellation “Prince of Wales check” broadly applied to everything from a basic two-color glen plaid to the arguably incorrect houndstooth check, let’s allow one of the film’s tailors himself define the pattern. In addition to Martin Greenfield, whose venerated Brooklyn shop tailored Pacino’s suits including this famous three-piece, Alan Flusser contributed some clothing to Scent of a Woman. In his seminal style tome, Dressing the Man, Flusser defines the Prince of Wales check:

The name widely, but incorrectly, applied to the glenurquhart check and similar checks with a colored overcheck. The authentic Prince of Wales check was designed by King Edward VII, grandfather of the famous Duke of Windsor, when he was Prince of Wales, as livery for his shootings at Abergeldie House in Scotland’s Deeside. It is of similar pattern to the glenurquhart but nearly twice its size, on repeat with colors of red-brown on a white ground, with a slate gray overcheck.

To accurately define the Glenurquhart check, Flusser sends us deeper into his glossary, informing us that it’s “a woolen or worsted suiting or coating material made with the ever popular glen plaid with an overplaid effect weave in both warp and filling directions.”

Thus, would Flusser call Pacino’s famous suit a true Prince of Wales check? I would be cautious, for fear of misusing sartorial terminology is a high crime in the court of public opinion when it comes to certain segments of men’s style enthusiasts. Frank’s own description of the suit as “a little glen plaid number” is a safer bet, though the pink overcheck takes it into Glenurquhart check territory.

Martin Greenfield described in his 2014 memoir, Measure of a Man:

Given the film’s famous tango, we took extra care to create a suit that looked spectacular while still allowing Al to move freely for those all-important scenes. Afterward, Al said to me, “Martin, I’ve never danced in a suit like the one you made for me.” A terrific compliment from a terrific actor—and dancer!

Al Pacino is far from being among the taller Hollywood actors to grace the silver screen, but Alan Flusser himself describes in Dressing the Man how a suit can be tailored to flatter a shorter and slimmer man like the 5’7″ Pacino, suggesting that “the single-breasted, three-button jacket would be welcome here, as when worn unbuttoned”—as Frank always does—”each side forms a panel down the front that creates an illusion of verticality.” In Frank Slade’s case, the wide peak lapels gently roll over the top button, creating a 3/2.5-roll effect that doesn’t obscure the top button like a full 3/2-roll though it discourages buttoning the top.

Rigging Frank’s single-breasted suit jacket with peak lapels, typically a double-breasted rever, suggests the interwar “golden era” of menswear when the style was at its peak… if you’ll forgive the pun. Though the single-breasted, peak-lapel jacket has been the subject of infrequent revivals, first in the 1970s and again during the most recent decade, Flusser noted in 2002 that “this mildly offbeat suit model remains pretty much confined to the custom-tailored crowd… rarely found on ready-to-wear racks.”

“Flaps or patch pockets add weight to the jacket’s proportionally smaller hip, effecting a better overall balance between the top and bottom halves of the jacket,” Flusser adds in his evaluation of how to tailor for a body type like Pacino’s, and indeed the straight pockets on the hips of Frank’s jacket are each covered with a flap. The jacket also has a welted breast pocket, four-button cuffs, and long double vents. The wide, well-built shoulders of the jacket, slightly roped at the sleeveheads, add breadth to Pacino’s shoulders to shape his silhouette into a more flattering and subtly imposing hourglass type.

Frank prepares to wow Donna, Charlie, the audience, and—perhaps most significantly—himself by dancing an expert tango in his beautifully tailored suit.

The addition of a waistcoat (or vest, as we Americans have colloquialized) enhances the throwback nature of Frank Slade’s suit, though the opening of his single-breasted waistcoat is slightly lower than the high-fastening models popular during the interwar era. Frank’s waistcoat has six buttons, and he correctly wears the lowest unbuttoned over the notched bottom. There are four welted pockets—two on each side—and the back is lined in a dark gray satin to match the jacket lining, with a strap across the back of the waist with a buckle to adjust the tightness through a buckle.

While some men recoil at the thought of “old-fashioned” pleated trousers, Flusser celebrated their revival in Dressing the Man, stating that “the most fortuitous development in recent trouser fashion occurred in the eighties, when pleats and suspenders returned dress trousers to the flattering sanctuary of the man’s natural waist.”

Frank’s trousers, which properly rise to Pacino’s natural waist with the top neatly covered by his waistcoat, are classically designed with two forward-facing pleats that work in harmony. Farther back, a vertical pocket is cut along each side seam with two jetted pockets on the back seat. The bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs), another polarizing detail that makes modern men scoff but can add a degree of elegance when properly employed.

Pleated trousers provide more mobility for a tango dancer to more effectively (and elegantly) showcase his skills. Just saying.

Frank’s belt loops go unused in favor of suspenders (braces) that connect to buttons along the inside of his trouser waist line, beginning with a wide set of khaki rayon suspenders with a white elasticized strap between the brown leather back patch and the single set of ears in the back. These light brown suspenders have gold-toned adjusters and leather details—two sets of ears in the front and one in the back, as well as the back patch—in a light brown shade of leather often called “English tan.”

“A belt can never match the suspender in allowing the pleated trouser to fulfill its aesthetic function,” writes Flusser.

WIth this suit, Frank primarily wears a white cotton shirt with a wide front placket and button cuffs, though the most significant detail is the natty addition of a tab collar. Popularized by the Prince of Wales (of course!) during the waning years of the roaring ’20s, the tab collar sits somewhere on the spectrum of sophisticated to fussy, suggesting a gentleman who wears his clothes with attention and care as a correctly worn tab collar with flatteringly knotted tie can have a very neat appearance… while any misstep in a tab collar completely ruins the effect, making it a particularly bold and ultimately effective choice for a man without sight.

After a trip to the barber, Frank allows his tab collar to go unfastened for only these few seconds before rebuttoning it under his tie knot.

“Bay rum… Windsor knot…” Frank talks himself through his final preparations before his appointment with the escort. Luckily, Frank is at least incorrect about his latter point, instead wearing his maroon polka-dot tie in a classic four-in-hand knot rather than the wider Windsor. His tie is patterned in a field of substantial white polka dots, organized in staggered rows.

Polka-dot ties are a classic pattern that are thankfully abundant among the offerings of neckwear manufacturers, from high-quality tie makers like Sam Hober and Turnbull & Asser to more budget-friendly products offered by The Smart Man (with matching pocket hank) and The Tie Bar.

Note that, while Frank wears the same tie on Friday as he did on Thursday, he has changed into gray-and-black striped suspenders.

Frank foregoes a pocket hank for his surprise visit to his brother’s Thanksgiving dinner, perhaps a subtle nod to his disregard to that branch of his family, though he would dress the following day with a white pocket square neatly folded into the jacket’s welted breast pocket.

When visiting the high-priced escort that Friday evening, Frank swaps out the white pocket square for a more romantic “red foulard” display kerchief, though he corrects Charlie’s assurance that it’s “real dark red” by clarifying:

Burgundy, Charlie. Burgundy.

Though Frank’s tie and pocket hank share a burgundy-tinted ground, he avoids the faux pas of matching them exactly, choosing a solid and brighter burgundy for his pocket square that contrasts but coordinates with his maroon polka-dot tie.

“26 years in the service, never let an aide shine my shoes,” Frank notes after the shoeshiner finishes his work on the colonel’s brown wingtips. Made from chestnut brown calf leather, Frank’s oxford-laced wingtip brogues are accordingly perforated and serrated along the edges with a decorative perforated toe.

Why are these imitation punchings such an integral part of the beloved brogue? They recall the functional perforations of the bróg shoe that originated centuries earlier in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, drilled into the then-deerhide shoes to allow water to drain out after a day traversing particularly wet terrain. Today, the brogue still suggests a more rugged connotation than its more formal bal-type and derby cousins, though any man expecting his Allen Edmonds or Cleverley brogues to self-drain after a rainy commute to work would be sorely disappointed.

Frank finds particular pleasure in enjoying a simultaneous shoeshine and a shave.

Frank wears his brown oxford brogues first with black ribbed cotton lisle socks, changing into navy socks on Saturday that are best seen as he stumbles around Manhattan in a melancholic haze after his Ferrari test drive is brought to an abrupt end.

Frank’s undershirts are exclusively white cotton short-sleeved T-shirts, though he alternates between a V-neck style and a round crew-neck style, the latter most prominently seen when he wakes up on Saturday afternoon.

“You ever given any thought to a braille watch, Frank?” asks Randy (Bradley Whitford), Frank’s rightfully resentful nephew. “Stevie Wonder wears one, or do ya rank on him too?”

While Frank doesn’t share his thoughts on Stevie Wonder, he foregoes a watch with his sole accessory being the sterling silver chain-link ID bracelet on his right wrist, ostensibly engraved with his name and rank in the spirit of the military identification bracelets associated with American servicemen.

“Know what this is, Randy? It’s a Ranger chokehold I’m teaching those second lieutenants.”

Frank wears a stylish double-breasted overcoat that’s evidently also the product of his tailor, made from a fawn-colored soft woolen cloth. The coat mimics the suit jacket beneath it with structured shoulders and elegant peak lapels, though in this case they roll to the top of two fastening buttons on the six-button double-breasted front.

The coat has a long single vent, three-button cuffs, and straight flapped hip pockets in addition to a flapped ticket pocket on the right side.

Frank Slade’s family doesn’t seem too pleased to greet him at home for the holidays.

To combat the chill of late autumn in New York City, Frank frequently dons a burgundy scarf also made from a soft wool, likely cashmere, with fringed ends. He typically wears the scarf draped around his neck but untied, perhaps to avoid covering the details of his suit, shirt, and tie beneath his coat.

Frank wears black leather three-point gloves, so named for the three lines of decorative stitching on the dorsal side.

These gloves are made for driving…

We arrive at Saturday, the day that Frank never expected to live through, expecting only to wake, don his dress blues, and shoot himself. Luckily, Charlie was there to find one more thing to live for, the possibility of driving a Ferrari. Frank dresses for the occasion in his new tailored three-piece suit, though he presses a new shirt and tie into service. With its tab collar and button cuffs, the shirt is styled similarly to his white shirts though patterned with slate-blue bengal stripes on a white ground.

Frank pulls a tie that I believe we had seen hanging next to his closet as Charlie packed him for the trip, a black or dark navy foulard silk tie with a repeating pattern of small bronze square-within-a-square designs on rows that alternate between standard squares and squares rotated at 45°.

Frank returns to his hotel suite in a daze on what he expects to be the last day of his life.

What to Imbibe

“Try to keep him down to four drinks a day,” Karen requests when Charlie begins his first day as Frank’s caretaker. “If you can keep him down to 40, you’re doing good,” her husband Donny (Michael Santoro) adds, arguably unhelpfully. It’s going to be a hard task for the young man, as Frank Slade keeps both his home and his liver well-stocked at all times. His home bar has several bottles on display, including two kinds of Scotch (J&B and Johnnie Walker Red Label), Beefeater gin, and Martini & Rossi sweet red vermouth, though it’s John Daniel’s that fuels him each miserable day.

Wait… don’t I mean Jack Daniel’s? “He may be Jack to you, son, but when you’ve known him as long as I have…” Frank jests.

Frank Slade’s old pal John Daniel’s gives him the extra liquid courage to crudely hold court at his brother’s Thanksgiving dinner.

Jack Daniel’s gets plenty of screen time and screen mentions, though Frank Slade’s boorish behavior under its influence doesn’t give the brand much equity from its appearance on screen. He tends to drink it on the rocks, ordering a double on the rocks when at a restaurant, though the ice seems to melt when he’s enjoying one glass far too many at his brother’s Thanksgiving dinner table.

“Where’s the booze? Flowin’ like mud around here!” Frank often asks, first within a minute of ordering his drink at the Oak Room and then again upon making his unwelcome surprise appearance at his brother’s White Plains home. “I meant to pick up some vino on my way up, but I blew it!”

The Gun

Charlie: Where did you get a gun, Colonel?
Frank: “Piece” or “weapon”, Charlie. Never a “gun”.

The weapon—or piece, if you will—that Frank Slade plans to use to “blow my brains out… on my big, beautiful bed at the Waldorf” is a Colt MK IV Series 80, a civilian model of the venerable M1911A1 service pistol that the U.S. Army had used for more than a half-century before phasing it out in favor of the Beretta-based M9 pistol during the 1980s. The pistol can be identified by its shining blued steel finish, white three-dot sights, and gold Colt medallions on the wooden grips.

It could be argued that, with his finger on the trigger of a loaded .45, Frank has a considerably cavalier attitude about gun safety… though we know he’s not particularly concerned at the moment.

Friday morning, the day after Frank crashed his brother’s Thanksgiving dinner, Charlie wakes up to the sound of Frank disassembling his Series 80 in the bedroom of their shared suite at the Waldorf. “Time me!” Frank barks, and Charlie steps closer to watch Slade swiftly and expertly assemble and disassemble the weapon, all the more impressive as he’s doing so without sight. “That felt like 25,” Frank observes, citing his ability to reassemble the piece in less than 30 seconds. “You ought to be able to do a .45 in 25.”

Frank Slade reassembles his .45 in about 25 seconds, commenting that he must have been “rusty” if it was taking him five seconds longer. Note the loaded magazine that Frank will insert into the well when he completes the task.

I’m a Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army, I’m not giving my fuckin’ gun to anyone… now, what are you drinking?

The Colt MK IV Series 80 is presented as though it were Lieutenant Colonel Slade’s issued sidearm as an Army Ranger, though the U.S. military never authorized the Series 80. This civilian series began in 1970 with the introduction of the Colt Government MK Series 70 with accurized split barrel “collet” bushing, superceded in 1983 with the development of the MK IV Series 80, considered the first major improvement of the classic 1911 design as it introduced an internal firing pin safety and new half-cock notch on the sear. Although the collet bushing had the intended effect of improving accuracy, it proved to be prone to breakage and was dropped in favor of the original bushing in 1988.

For the most part, the Colt MK IV Series 80 follows the same specifications as the classic M1911A1 with an 8.5″ overall length and a 5″-long barrel, though the magazine carries an additional round of .45 ACP, bringing the total magazine capacity to eight rounds. Other versions of the Series 80 were built to chamber 9×19 mm Parabellum, .38 Super, and even 10 mm ammunition, though the .45-caliber option would be the only choice for an officer like Frank Slade as:

An officer never relinquishes his .45.

The Car

Charlie goads a despondent, suicidal Frank out of bed on Saturday morning with the promise of a ride, aware that a Ferrari is “a very, very distant second” to women on Frank Slade’s list of things he likes. They head to a New York City Ferrari dealer, where the salesman Freddie Bisco (Leonard Gaines), who is proudly “known from coast to coast like butter and toast,” is reasonably hesitant to let a 17-year-old and his blind companion test drive the prized Ferrari Testarossa.

Frank: How many Ferraris you sold this month ?
Freddie: That’s not relevant to this discussion.
Frank: Freddie, the 80s are over. Are you tryin’ to tell me these are just walkin’ outta the store?
Freddie: This is a Ferrari, this is the finest machinery made in the automobile industry.
Frank: Well, if you like it that much, why don’t you sleep with it. Why are you sellin’ it?

Eventually, Frank works his charm—and a $2,000 bribe—on Freddie Bisco, and he finds himself a still-gloomy passenger as Charlie tamely navigates the bright red 1989 Ferrari Mondial t cabriolet through Manhattan.

“Drop her into neutral, slide her into second… pop the clutch,” Frank advises when Charlie stalls out, and the student realizes that the old soldier will need a turn at the controls to truly turn his mood around. After a doddering start, Frank gets the feel behind the wheel and slides the Ferrari into high gear, speeding through the streets and narrowly missing potentially fatal obstacles.

Charlie: You’re gonna get us killed!
Frank: Don’t blame me, Charlie, I can’t see!

While the Ferrari Mondial series never reached the prestigious heights of iconic Ferrari models like the 308 GTS, F40, or Testarossa, Mark Pearson wrote for a May 2015 issue of Autocar that “…the V8 sings and the chassis is a delight, with many thinking it sweeter in the ride and handling than the equivalent two-seat models…Find a good one and you’ll get one of Ferrari’s most reliable and inexpensive cars.”

The first Mondial was introduced in 1980, boasting a design by by Leonardo Fioravanti of Pininfarina in Turin, with whom Ferrari had been working nearly 30 years. The somewhat heavier car met with some criticism for perceived compromises like the four-seat layout, and Ferrari quickly went back to the drawing board to roll out the better-received Mondial Quattrovalvole (QV) for the 1982 model year, introducing a convertible cabriolet the following year. In 1985, Ferrari boosted the V8 engines powering both the 328 and the Mondial to 3185 cc (3.2 L), redesignating the latter as the Mondial 3.2.

For the 1989 model year through 1993, the marque produced the final—and some consider best—evolution of the Mondial, the Ferrari Mondial t, with “t” indicating the shape formed by the relationship of the transverse gearbox to the newly longitudinal mid-engine. The Mondial t was the only generation of the model where convertible production surpassed hardtop coupes with 1,017 cabriolets produced as opposed to only 858 coupes. In 1991, Car & Driver reported that “not only does the Mondial t Cabriolet offer all the right pieces, but it also tingles your soul with all the right sensations,” which is evident as we see an excited Frank Slade come alive while piloting the car through New York’s narrow alleyways.

1989 Ferrari Mondial t

Body Style: 2-door cabriolet (2+2 seater)

Layout: mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

Engine: 207.8 cubic-inch (3.4 L) Tipo F119D/G V8

Power: 300 hp (224 kW; 304.5 PS) @ 7200 rpm

Torque: 238 lb·ft (323 N·m) @ 4200 rpm

Transmission: 5-speed manual

Wheelbase: 104.3 inches (2650 mm)

Length: 178.5 inches (4535 mm)

Width: 71.3 inches (1810 mm)

Height: 48.6 inches (1235 mm)

More than 20 years after the movie was made, the screen-used Ferrari Mondial t could be visited at the Ferrari Museum in Maranello, Italy. (Source: Herald Sun)

How to Get the Look

Okay, Sophia, suit him up! Make him pretty!

Al Pacino tangos with Gabrielle Anwar in Scent of a Woman (1992)
Photo by Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock

Scent of a Woman presents Al Pacino at his most stylish, taking Thanksgiving dinner and a subsequent tango to the next level in this classic Glenurquhart check three-piece suit, tailored to perfection by Martin Greenfield.

• Black-and-white (with pink overcheck) Glenurquhart check plaid wool three-piece tailored suit:
  • Single-breasted 3/2.5-roll jacket with peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and double vents
  • Single-breasted 6-button waistcoat with four welted pockets, notched bottom, and adjustable back strap
  • Double forward-pleated trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with tab collar, front placket, and single-button cuffs
• Maroon polka-dot silk tie
• Khaki rayon suspenders with gold adjusters and brown leather attachment ears and back patch (with white lower back strap)
• Brown calf leather wingtip oxford brogues
• Black ribbed cotton lisle socks
• White cotton short-sleeve undershirt
• Sterling silver military ID bracelet
• Fawn soft woolen double-breasted overcoat with 6×2-button front, peak lapels, straight flapped hip pockets with flapped ticket pocket, 3-button cuffs, and long single vent
• Burgundy cashmere scarf with fringed edges
• Black leather three-point gloves

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. If you’re interested in learning more about style and supporting the sartorial craftsmen who have dressed some of the most fashionable gents of the silver screen, I recommend Martin Greenfield’s Measure of a Man and Alan Flusser’s Dressing the Man as required reading… and as fine Christmas gifts for the style enthusiasts in your life!

The Quote

Hoo-ah!

Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Vitals

Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button, reverse-aging adventurer

Paris, Spring 1954

Film: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Release Date: December 25, 2008
Director: David Fincher
Costume Designer: Jacqueline West

Background

As holiday shoppers are lining up (or logging in) on Black Friday this year, let’s take a look at a creative approach to wearing black as sported by Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Benjamin looks just a little too dashing as he arrives at a Parisian hospital to visit the childhood friend he has grown to love, Daisy Fuller (Cate Blanchett), who is convalescing from a car accident that crushed her leg and thus ruined her dancing career.

Marlon Brando, photographed by Virgil Apger, September 17, 1952.

What’d He Wear?

The first thing that Daisy notices when Benjamin visits her is just how much younger he looks since the last time their paths had crossed, and the difference really is notable thanks to Greg Cannom’s Academy Award-winning makeup and the Oscar-winning visual effects team of Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, and Craig Barron, though sartorial enthusiasts may have been more drawn to Benjamin’s slick attire of a dark suit and polo shirt accented by a brown leather belt and brogues.

Costume designer Jacqueline West received a deserved Academy Award nomination for her work in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which she told Variety in 2008 was inspired by popular actors across the decades of Benjamin’s life, from Gary Cooper in the 1940s to Steve McQueen in the 1960s, paying particular homage to the latter’s famous casual style with pieces like his navy shawl-collar cardigan, brown leather flight jacket, and tan Baracuta G9 “Harrington jacket”.

Diahann Carroll and Paul Newman in Paris Blues (1961)

Ms. West also suggested Marlon Brando as her muse for Benjamin’s style during the 1950s, and there’s a photo taken by Virgil Apger of the then 28-year-old actor in a dark striped suit, dark polo, and lighter-colored belt and brogues that had to be a direct inspiration for this outfit. Brando even wears a pair of lighter-colored socks that clearly contrast with the rest of his dark outfit, as Benjamin does.

While Ms. West didn’t mention it to Variety as a direct inspiration, Paul Newman’s wardrobe in Paris Blues (1961) shares undeniable similarities with Benjamin Button’s attire for his visit to the hospital, right down to the camel coat that Newman occasionally wears over his dark flannel suit and charcoal knit polo as jazz musician Ram Bowen.

You can read more about Newman’s style in Paris Blues at Style in Film and, I’m sure, my own eventual post about it!

Given the timing of this post on Black Friday, lets’ start by looking at the only piece of Benjamin’s wardrobe that’s actually black: his black polo shirt that appears to be knit in a soft material like cashmere or merino wool. Likely long-sleeved, this shirt has a three-button top though Benjamin only wears the lowest button fastened.

Rather than a completely funereal black suit, Benjamin achieves a similar cool effect by wearing his black polo with a dark charcoal gray woolen flannel suit. The single-breasted suit jacket has a generous fit characteristic of the 1950s with wide, padded shoulders. The ventless jacket has notch lapels that roll to a likely two-button front with a welted breast pocket and sporty patch pockets on the hips.

Benjamin’s suit trousers have reverse pleats that contribute to their full fit, finished at the bottom with turn-ups (cuffs). Like Brando above, Benjamin wears a slim brown leather belt that contrasts against the dark suiting and shirt.

Benjamin looks both somber yet slick and youthful for his visit to Daisy’s hospital bed.

Benjamin coordinates his belt to his dark brown wingtip derby brogues, the ideal shade of brown to harmonize with the dark outfit while contributing just enough of a colorful contrast to make the overall look more interesting. His pale gray socks look vintage, detailed on the outer ankles with an indigo-stitched pattern.

The adventurous Benjamin struts up to the hospital’s main entrance wearing a pair of gold-framed aviator sunglasses with dark gray lenses and additional bridge support with what Ray-Ban called an “enhanced brow bar” when marketing their Outdoorsman frame that is similar to what Benjamin wears here. You can still purchase the Ray-Ban Outdoorsman (from Amazon or Ray-Ban), an evolution of the original “Skeet Glass” frame introduced for sportsmen by Bausch & Lomb 80 years ago in 1939.

Benjamin wears a broad-fitting camel coat, a holdout from the boxy fashions introduced with the “Bold Look” in 1948, with the wide, buttressed shoulders that defined trendy men’s fashions into the 1950s. The single-breasted coat has notch lapels with a three-button fly front, straight flapped hip pockets, and roped sleeveheads.

A brief vignette after the hospital sequence gives us a better look at the overcoat as Benjamin wears it over a beatnik-friendly black roll-neck jumper.

How to Get the Look

Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

If Black Friday doesn’t inspire you to try channeling Benjamin Button’s dark and dressed-down suit, consider the fact that black is considered a slimming color…and many of us have bellyfuls of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pie that we’re trying to recover from.

• Charcoal woolen flannel suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button suit jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Reverse-pleated high-rise trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black knit long-sleeve polo shirt with 3-button top
• Dark brown leather belt with small steel single-prong buckle
• Dark brown calf leather wingtip derby-laced brogues
• Light gray vintage socks with indigo ankle stitching
• Camel wool single-breasted 3-button overcoat with notch lapels and straight flapped hip pockets
• Gold-framed “brow bar” aviator sunglasses with dark gray lenses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 short story.

The Quote

Sometimes we’re on a collision course, and we just don’t know it. Whether it’s by accident or by design, there’s not a thing we can do about it.

Bing Crosby as Bob Wallace in White Christmas (1954)

Vitals

Bing Crosby as Bob Wallace, Broadway crooner and World War II veteran

Pine Tree, Vermont, December 1954

Film: White Christmas
Release Date: October 14, 1954
Director: Michael Curtiz
Costume Designer: Edith Head

Background

Happy December! To some, the start of December after Thanksgiving marks the start of the Christmas season, while others (like Mariah Carey) kick off their holiday season a month earlier as soon as Halloween is over. To compromise, today’s post for December 1 explores Bing Crosby’s style in White Christmas, arguably a holiday classic, though the outfit in question is his only on-screen ensemble (aside from his army uniforms) that doesn’t include a single piece of holiday red.

Bing Crosby brought his tasteful and interesting sense of dressing to the screen, following many established sartorial conventions while not being afraid to experiment with color. One color convention he doesn’t defy is the somewhat outdated English maxim of “no brown in town”, reserving Bob Wallace’s natty brown striped suit for occasions outside the city that still call for a full suit, such as a dinner with his colleague Phil Davis (Danny Kaye) and the Haynes sisters at his former commanding officer’s Vermont hotel.

Much later, after Bob and Phil have joined forces with the sisters to develop an act to perform at the hotel, he again pulls out the suit for a cast party where Phil and the younger Haynes sister, Judy (Vera-Ellen) announce their surprise engagement, proving that the best things really do happen while you’re dancing! Unfortunately for our protagonists, the “engagement” was only a sham in order to get Bob and older sister Betty (Rosemary Clooney) to commit to each other, backfiring horribly when Betty returns to the Big Apple just before the Christmas Eve show.

What’d He Wear?

This suit that Bing frequently wears during his adjournment in Vermont is made from a cool shade of chocolate brown suiting with a subdued stripe pattern that alternates between a chalk stripe and a wider stripe. The suit is tailored with a flatteringly full fit common to the era, from the wide-shouldered suit jacket to the pleated trousers finished on the bottoms with turn-ups (cuffs). I’m not sure how much of his look in this film was influenced by its venerable costume designer Edith Head or by Crosby’s preferred tailor at the time, H. Huntsman & Sons of Savile Roe, but we can be assured that he was in good hands either way.

The single-breasted suit jacket has notch lapels that roll to a point above the low, two-button stance. There is a straight flapped pocket on each hip with a flapped ticket pocket higher on the right side, in line with the top button. There are three buttons on each cuff and a welted breast pocket, where Bing rakishly wears a white linen hank neither puffed nor creased into any of the traditional pocket square folds.

Bob warily considers Betty’s cold-hearted dismissal of him after the news of Phil and Judy’s “engagement”.

Bing’s pale ecru cotton shirt coordinates with the warmth of his brown suit, worn with a light “old gold” silk tie with a hairline uphill-direction repeating stripe. Like his other button-up shirts, this plain-front shirt has a spread collar with leaves that come to a point at the neck to create a triangle under the tie knot and double (French) cuffs, worn first with flat gold disc cuff links (during dinner) and again with blue glass cuff links (after the engagement party), ostensibly the same ones he wore earlier with his powder blue sport jacket.

One could be forgiven for thinking Bob’s suit to be a full three-piece, as Bing curiously wears an odd waistcoat made from a solid brown cloth that’s just a shade warmer than the rest of the suit. The waistcoat (colloquialized as a “vest” here in the United States) doesn’t contrast enough with the rest of the suit to be a recommended direction, though Crosby wears his with unapologetic panache. Sporting an odd waistcoat in a similar color as a suit threatens to make its wearer look uninformed, attempting too hard to transform a two-piece suit into a three-piece without the matching garments to do it.

Bing’s waistcoat further sets itself apart from the suit with its six flat gold-toned buttons, echoing the tie color and correctly worn with the lowest undone over the notched bottom.

Phil: “How much is ‘wow’?”
Bob: “It’s right in between, uh, between ‘ouch’ and ‘boing.'”
Phil: “Wow!”

Bing wears black leather cap-toe oxfords that harmonize with the suit’s cooler, city-friendly shade of brown. Throughout White Christmas, Crosby wears colorful hosiery that pops from his ankles in bright hues like red and yellow, in this case sporting a more subdued tan that are tonally coordinated with his outfit while still contrasting from his trouser cloth and shoe leather enough to catch the eye.

When Bob leaves Vermont to return to New York City and settle his disagreements with Betty, he carries his coat and hat, in this case a rich camel peak-lapel overcoat and dark brown fedora, just a shade warmer than his brown suit, with a brown grosgrain ribbon.

Coat and hat in hand, Bob recovers from his spat with Phil by endorsing his plan to distract General Waverly: “Break your arm, your ankle, or your neck… but don’t break anything valuable.”

On his left wrist, Bing Crosby wears a gold watch with a curved brown tooled leather strap that appears to be his own timepiece as it appeared in some of Crosby’s other movies of the period, including High Society, where he follows the same practice of wearing it with the dial on the inside of his wrist.

How to Get the Look

Bing Crosby as Bob Wallace in White Christmas (1954)

Bing Crosby shows us an interesting way to wear brown in White Christmas, blending city-inspired sartorial sensibilities with a low-contrast waistcoat for a unique and eye-catching ensemble.

• Chocolate brown alternating-stripe wool tailored suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets and flapped ticket pocket,
  • Pleated trousers with turn-ups/cuffs
• Brown solid waistcoat with six flat gold buttons and notched bottom
• Pale ecru cotton shirt with spread collar, plain front, and button cuffs
• Light old gold hairline-striped silk tie
• Black leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Gold wristwatch on tooled brown leather curved strap
• Brown felt short-brimmed fedora with brown grosgrain band
• Camel wool overcoat with peak lapels

Bing’s low-contrast shirt and tie and the low-contrast odd waistcoat against his suit are two sartorial gambles that he somehow manages to pull off, though a safer tactic for one inspired by Bob Wallace’s style may be to swap the tie and waistcoat in favor of a darker tie and a lighter waistcoat, perhaps tan.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, and have a very happy holiday season!

The Quote

You oughta consider yourself lucky… you might have been stuck with this weirdsmobile for life!

Robert Redford and Camilla Sparv with her Porsche on the set of Downhill Racer (1969)

Vitals

Robert Redford as Dave Chappellet, U.S. Olympic ski team star

Wengen, Switzerland, Winter 1967

Film: Downhill Racer
Release Date: November 6, 1969
Director: Michael Ritchie
Costume Designer: Edith Head (uncredited!)
Wardrobe Credit: Cynthia May

Background

Let’s kick off a winter #CarWeek with an Alpine vibe, specifically the yellow Porsche that Robert Redford motors through the Alps after a day on the slopes with Camilla Sparv in Michael Ritchie’s directorial debut, Downhill Racer.

Loosely based on Oakley Hall’s 1963 novel The Downhill Racers, the movie became a pet project for Redford once he was attached to star, and he managed to persuade James Salter to pen the adaptation without the famous novelist having read Hall’s source material. Redford and Salter worked closely together, accompanying the U.S. ski team in the winter of 1968 and co-developing the lead character of David Chappellet as a composite of real-life skiers like Billy Kidd and Spider Sabich as well as Buddy Werner from Colorado, who had died four years earlier of suffocation when he was trapped in an avalanche.

What’d He Wear?

As skiing grew in popularity across the 20th century, clothing manufacturers continued innovating in search of the ideal attire for this athletic Alpine activity, evolving away from thick wools to waterproofed and synthetic fabrics that were lean and light enough for a more aerodynamic profile that also kept its wearer surprisingly warm in the snowy environment. By the 1960s, skiing had officially arrived among the haut monde and fashion designers had to be conscious of not only how to make skiwear waterproofed and comfortable but also stylish.

“I am sure that this sport owes something of its popularity to the attractiveness of the costume,” wrote Sir Hardy Amies in ABCs of Men’s Fashion, five years before the release of Downhill Racer. “It has been admitted that the best outfits come from abroad, where the mountains are. And it is from there that the fashions come. We must not be too proud to learn from them.”

Given his authority of the overall subject of menswear and the contemporary relevance of his scripture, it will be Sir Hardy’s words that guide this analysis of David Chappellet’s recreational skiwear when not participating in an official competition.

Dave and a teammate prepare to hit the slopes before they’re distracted by squealing tires.

Chappellet’s go-to casual winter jacket in this sequence and other scenes is a waist-length shell jacket made from navy blue water-resistant nylon with a lighter construction than the heavier quilted “puffer jackets” often associated with down jackets. The jacket has a double closure with five squared snaps up from the waist to the neck plus one more on the tab of the standing collar, which is lined in a soft dark navy felt.

A straight yoke runs across both shoulders, and each of the set-in sleeves closes with a snap on the cuff, and the side pockets are each covered with a double-snap flap. The “action back” panel is pleated on the upper sides to provide more freedom of movement when skiing, though Chappellet takes the coat off when skiing with Carole Stahl (Camilla Sparv).

Dave bids Carole farewell as she retakes the controls of her bright yellow Porsche.

As a shirt, there is nothing smarter than a polo-necked sweatshirt in cotton or wool. White is never wrong; pale blue more than pleasant; and scarlet possible when you’ve got beyond the scarlet stage yourself. Conversely you might try a white sweater (Acrilan) with a navy blue shirt. Some ski-pants have appeared with bands down the sides in a contrasting color like scarlet. They are very smart indeed, but only if you have good legs and know how to control them.

— Sir Hardy Amies

Over the course of Downhill Racer, Chappellet finds occasion to sport all three turtleneck colors suggested by Sir Hardy, wearing white for his competition scenes, scarlet red in more casual settings under a light brown herringbone sports coat, and often a navy blue jumper as well. In this instance, he appears to be wearing a black thinly ribbed lightweight turtleneck (or “polo-neck”, which you may have deduced to be synonymous) under his anorak.

Such things as Anoraks are tricky. One is grateful for the nylon and like substances in which they are made, as they are so light in weight. But such materials don’t always dye well into dark colors; navy blue, in particular, often has a gray tinge. If you’re in trouble I would go for black, to match your gloves; or if you find this funeral, a light khaki, like a raincoat.

While not opting for khaki as Sir Hardy suggests, Chappellet wears a nylon waterproof anorak in a cool sky blue that flatters Redford’s complexion and coordinates with the other darker blue elements of his ski outfit. This lightweight pullover garment has a half-zip opening with a long silver-toned zip pull, a zippered breast pocket on the left side, side vents, and set-in sleeves that fasten for an adjustable fit on one of two snaps. It lacks a hood like the traditional anorak, lending Chappellet a sleeker and more aerodynamic silhouette as he glides down the hills.

Dave regards his stylish ski partner.

The key is, of course, set by the trousers. Aided by stretch-clothes these must be skintight and smooth everywhere. Refinements of cut and fit can only be achieved by specialized bespoke tailors (the best are int he more elegant resorts, such as St. Moritz and Davos; but some excellent ones come from London, too); but the stretch-cloth is a great help to the off-the-peg trade. All such trousers are correctly made in dark colors, as pale ones soil at the first fall. It follows, therefore, that black and dark blue are greatly used and nothing looks better against the white snow. I cannot admire alternatives, such as dark green or dark red.

— Sir Hardy Amies

The 1950s were a trailblazing decade for ski pants, beginning with Maria Bogner—mother of the legendary Willy Bogner—marketing Helanca pants made from a stretchy blend of wool and coiled nylon that were being exported to the U.S. in 42 colors by mid-decade. DuPont’s introduction of spandex in 1959 revolutionized the ability for skiers to don a tight costume that would stretch with them while retaining its shape.

Following Sir Hardy’s advice, Chappellet wears tight navy ski pants with the waistband covered by his untucked anorak and the bottoms tucked into his boots, first a pair of black ski boots while on the slopes and followed by a pair of taupe suede cowboy-style boots.

Dave and Carole’s interlude is interrupted by an American reporter (Kathleen Crowley).

Chappellet wears black leather lined gloves with ribbed padding on the dorsal sides and elasticized knitting at the wrists. Visible atop the right glove are thin multi-colored stripes between the thick padded ribs with red, yellow, and blue among the colors visible, though his gloves are hardly as boldly designed as these KOMBI rainbow-striped ski gloves from the 1970s. Each of Chappellet’s gloves has a small silver carabiner clip to fasten them together.

With his gloves off, Redford reveals that he’s wearing his trademark silver ring, making its sophomore film appearance after he first sported it in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, released just a month earlier. “It’s a very small silver ring that was given to me by Hopi Indians in 1966,” Redford told The Hollywood Reporter. “Every film I have done since 1968, I’ve had that ring on my right-hand ring finger.”

Chappellet also wears a steel wristwatch with a round silver dial on a steel bracelet, tucked away under the right sleeve of his anorak.

Dave fixes Carole’s black ski boot into her bindings.

Although Dr. Bob Smith, an orthodontist and avid skier, had developed the first fog-free snow goggles with his innovative double lens design in 1965 (according to Smith Optics), Chappellet sticks to his tortoise Cébé round-framed sunglasses with reflective lenses, identifiable by the shape of the frame and lens as well as the two vertical silver pins on each side of the frame. (For more competitive skiing, he would indeed wear white Carrera ski goggles.)

To read more about this iconic Cébé frame, check out this listing from French Part of Sweden.

Carole’s Porsche is reflected in Dave’s mirrored lenses.

You can read more about the history and evolution of ski clothing for both men and women at Love to Know (by Lucy Johnson), Shrimpton Couture (Parts 1 and 2), and The Vintage Traveler.

The Car

Dave Chappellet and a fellow ripper are preparing to ski when the sound of squealing tires diverts their attention to Carole’s “Bahama yellow” 1968 Porsche 911 T Sportomatic coming toward them. Daredevil driver Dave is particularly captivated by the gorgeous blonde and her gorgeous blonde sports car, asking her “Is this yours?” She smiles: “Yes… like it?” and he really does.

After a seductive day on the slopes together, Carole is driving Dave home when she agrees to stop the car mid-drive and let Dave have some time behind the wheel.

There was some debate on IMCDB regarding the exact year and model of the car with theories ranging from a slightly older Porsche 912 to a then-new Porsche 911 S, though the site’s index recognizes it as a ’68 Porsche 911 T with a four-speed “Sportomatic”, a semi-automatic four-speed transmission with a torque converter and automatic clutch.

Porsche introduced its now-legendary 911 at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1963, beginning production the following autumn when it became an almost instant favorite for competitive drivers. The Porsche 911 was distinctive for its rear-mounted, air-cooled engine with a flat-6 “boxer” cylinder configuration, though a nimble entry-level variant with a four-cylinder engine—the aforementioned Porsche 912—was produced for the 1965 to 1969 model years. The 912 would be phased out by the introduction of the 911 T, which was powered by a 110-horsepower “boxer-6” as a downscaled complement to the standard 130-horsepower engine now designated for the 911 L.

1968 Porsche 911 T Sportomatic

Body Style: 2-door fastback coupe

Layout: rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

Engine: 121.6 cu. in. (2.0 L) Porsche “boxer” flat-6 with six Weber 40 IDA 3C carburetors

Power: 146 hp (109 kW; 148 PS) @ 6100 RPM

Torque: 145 lb·ft (197 N·m) @ 4200 RPM

Transmission: 4-speed “Sportomatic” automatic

Wheelbase: 87 inches (2211 mm)

Length: 163.9 inches (4163 mm)

Width: 63.4 inches (1610 mm)

Height: 52 inches (1320 mm)

I’m far from an expert on the Porsche 911, especially when compared to the knowledge of many Porsche enthusiasts out there, so the best I can do is present the evidence suggested by the IMCDB contributors who generally seem to agree that this is a Porsche 911 variant from the late 1960s with the “Sportomatic” semi-automatic transmission. Beyond that, there is debate regarding the model year (1968 vs. 1969), the exact model (911 S vs. 911 T), and whether or not it is a long wheelbase model.

Some of the commentary seems contradictory to me (if it is a long wheelbase model, which everyone seems to agree upon, it seems like it would have to be a 1969 Porsche, when the B series elongated the wheelbase to 89.3 inches), so I welcome any Porsche experts or fans to weigh in with their theories about the Downhill Racer 911!

How to Get the Look

Robert Redford and Camilla Sparv in Downhill Racer (1969)

“The tight trousers and the sweaters are very much part of the picture of modern dress,” wrote Sir Hardy Amies of skiwear in 1964, and David Chappellet (Robert Redford) pays heed to both its aerodynamic and aesthetic benefits as he dresses in various shades of waterproofed blue while romancing Carole Stahl (Camilla Sparv) on the slopes in Downhill Racer.

• Navy nylon waist-length winter shell jacket with standing collar, zip/snap front, hip pockets (with double-snap flaps), set-in sleeves (with single-snap cuffs), and pleated “action back”
• Sky blue lightweight waterproof nylon hoodless anorak with half-zip opening, zippered breast pocket, and side vents
• Black thinly ribbed knit turtleneck jumper
• Navy spandex ski pants
• Taupe suede cowboy boots
• Black leather lined rainbow-ribbed ski gloves
• Cébé tortoise round-framed sport sunglasses
• Silver tribal ring
• Steel wristwatch with round silver dial on steel expanding bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

Thank you to my friend Wendi who sent me a DVD of Downhill Racer and thus made it possible for me to write about Redford’s style as David Chappellet!

James Cagney leans on the door of a LaSalle as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931)

Vitals

James Cagney as Tom Powers, dangerous gangster and bootlegger

Chicago, Spring 1920

Film: The Public Enemy
Release Date: April 23, 1931
Director: William A. Wellman
Costume Designer: Edward Stevenson
Wardrobe Credit: Earl Luick

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today is the 86th anniversary of the 21st Amendment that repealed Prohibition, the 13-year ban on the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. Even before Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933, the wave of organized crime it inspired across the country was a popular subject for movies of the era, with Warner Brothers taking the lead with hits like Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and Scarface that made stars out of intense actors like Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney.

The latter was particularly renowned for his performance in The Public Enemy, a “ripped-from-the-headlines” tour de force of violence based on an unpublished novel written by two former newspapermen who had witnessed firsthand the impact of Al Capone’s brutal stronghold on Chicago during the beer wars of the roaring ’20s.

As #CarWeek continues, let’s flash back to the Prohibition era as Cagney’s Tom Powers hopes to make an impression with his new tailored suits and shiny new touring convertible. Soon after he’s acquired each, Tom flaunts his wealth at a “black and tan” nightclub to the tune of “Toot, Toot, Tootsie”, one of several anachronisms as this 1922 song scores Tom’s arrival in a 1930 model car… far advanced for the scene’s supposed setting of early 1920.

Tom struts into the club, arm in arm with his cheery pal Matt Doyle (Edward Woods, who was originally supposed to have Cagney’s role), where the two easily pick up Mamie (Joan Blondell) and Kitty (an uncredited Mae Clarke), though Tom’s relationship with the latter swiftly goes as sour as the grapefruit he would infamously mash into her face.

Cagney wrote in his autobiography that Mae Clarke’s ex-husband, Lew Brice, so enjoyed this scene that he would arrive in the theater just in time to see his ex-wife smashed in the face by a grapefruit before he would leave, returning again for another showing.

Before the grapefruit incident, Tom and Matt are all charming, using their newfound influence at the speakeasy to get Mamie and Kitty’s sleeping dates sent home (“Listen, why don’t you send them two smack-offs home to their mothers? They’re no good to the joint anymore!”) before Tom cuddles up to Kitty and instantly wins her heart with an infallible pickup line:

You’re a swell dish. I think I’m gonna go for you!

The afternoon after he effectively ends their relationship with the business end of a grapefruit, Tom and Matt are back in their luxurious LaSalle tourer when Tom spots voluptuous Texan blonde Gwen Allen (Jean Harlow) on the street beside them. “How goes it, babe?” Tom calls out from the car. Gwen’s receptive to joining the smooth young gangster, though she’s “not accustomed to riding with strangers.”

“We’re not gonna be strangers,” he assures her with a smile. The two slide into the back seat with a gregarious Matt chauffeuring, though—like scores of Uber passengers nearly a century later—Tom has no time to talk:

Stick to your drivin’, mug!

What’d He Wear?

Like many a swaggering young movie gangster to follow—from Paul Muni in the following year’s Scarface to the teenage Henry Hill (Christopher Serrone) in Goodfellas—Tom Powers’ first stop after his initial taste of success is to pick up some new duds. Tom and Matt’s trip to the tailor was one of three scenes either excised or markedly cut down when submitted to the MPAA for the film’s 1954 re-release as the effeminate tailor’s mannerisms and innuendo were a violation of the Motion Picture Production Code, also known as the “Hays Code” after MPAA president Will H. Hays. While the 1927 list of “Don’ts and Be Carefuls” had technically been in effect since February 1930, it wasn’t until censorship czar Joseph Breen began strictly enforcing the Code in 1934 that it had its draconian impact, rigidly shaping American cinema for thirty years to follow.

While Matt Doyle’s request for five sleeve buttons may have been a violation of good taste, the enforcers of the Hays Code were more concerned with the portrayal of the tailor—and said tailor’s interest in Tom’s muscle—defying the Code’s provision against “any inference of sex perversion”.

A staple item of Tom Powers’ new wardrobe is a knee-length polo coat made from a heavy, light-colored woolen cloth that’s likely a light golden brown shade associated with camelhair. “Camelhair is the real thing—a rich, golden-fawn colored cloth that is the natural color (cleaned up a bit of course) of the soft hair from the underside of a camel,” defined Hardy Amies in ABCs of Men’s Fashion, in which the droll sartorialist concluded: “This makes it expensive.”

Per its name, the polo coat originated among English polo players as a warm garment to wear between chukkas. Brooks Brothers takes credit for establishing the garment stateside in 1910, around the time when polo migrated across the pond and style-conscious spectators began adopting the coat as outerwear. By the end of the roaring ’20s, the more practical polo coat eclipsed the raccoon coat as the Ivy-preferred outerwear of choice.

Once the polo coat—also known as a camel coat in reference to the camel’s hair construction—became a sideline style staple, a button-closure was added as a more practical means of closing the coat rather than the belted wrap coat often worn by polo players. In some cases, the buttons replaced the belt while other camel coats, like Tom’s coat, were rigged with both buttons and belt. Tom’s full self-belt is suspended by tall loops above the waist, wrapping around the top of the three two-button rows and fastening through a single-prong buckle.

Two polo coats, though Tom projects an ultimately neater appearance with his buckled belt. With its softer-cornered Ulster collar and white-toned buttons, Matt’s coat resembles the original Brooks Brothers polo coat developed in the 1910s.

“From the early twentieth century until well after the Second World War, the polo coat was the all-enveloping outdoor equivalent of the bathrobe, donned by sportsmen to prevent a chill after sweating int he saddle or on the tennis court,” described Esquire‘s The Handbook of Style. “Characterized by its roomy double-breasted cut, big, lumpy patch pockets, and a full or half belt, it is habitually made of a thick plush wool or camel hair to give instant warmth after the melee.”

The coat sleeves fasten over the cuffs with tabs that close on one of two buttons, both spaced far apart; Tom wears the tab fastened to the closest button for the loosest fit over his cuffs. There are large patch pockets on the hips that are covered by a flap that has prominently “swelled” edges as seen on the rest of the coat from the broad peak lapels to the cuff tabs.

Matt wears no outer layer over his tweed three-piece suit while Tom keeps his sporty polo coat in rotation.

Tom’s new coat is first seen when he arrives at the black and tan club, worn over what is ostensibly a new three-piece suit colored in a medium-to-dark wool styled similarly to the darker suit he would later wear for his brother Mike’s homecoming dinner. Magnoli Clothiers includes the “Cagney suit” in its collection, no doubt inspired by the “golden age” tailoring that Cagney wore during the decade, though the Magnoli suit has a three-button front while Tom Powers’ suit in this scene has a single-button jacket.

For his visit to the nightclub, Tom wears dark shoes with dark thin silk socks and a dark homburg hat.

The style of Tom’s suit is anachronistically more reflective of 1930 fashions than the scene’s setting a decade earlier, though the single-breasted, peak-lapel suit jacket emerged during the ’20s as a natural evolution of the increasingly popular peak-lapel dinner jacket. “By rigging a single-breasted jacket with a double-breasted rever, this lapel treatment virtually neutralized the double-breasted edge in formality,” wrote Alan Flusser in Dressing the Man, and the style also amplified the flattering athletic silhouette of strongly built shoulders and a suppressed waist.

Cagney’s single-button suit jacket has broad peak lapels with high gorges on a slant that pushes the sharp peaks to within a few inches of each roped shoulder. In the jacket’s welted breast pocket, Tom wears a pocket square of light, colorful silk. The ventless jacket has straight jetted pockets on the hips and three-button cuffs with the buttons placed closely together but spaced far up each cuff. The suit has a matching six-button waistcoat with the lowest button undone over the notched bottom. The flat front trousers are finished on the bottoms with turn-ups (cuffs).

Tom wears a white shirt with a long point collar and double (French) cuffs, though the sleeves of his suit jacket cover enough of Tom’s shirt sleeves that his cuff links go unseen. His multi-striped tie is colored in at least three different colors in high-contrasting light, medium, and dark shades striped in an “uphill” direction.

Matt and Tom sport their new suits, each rigged with single-breasted, peak-lapel jackets though Matt’s lapels are a more archaic shape while the sharp peaks of Tom’s lapels have transcended the decades and remain the more fashionable of the two styles on display.

Harlow, Woods, and Cagney behind the scenes.

Later, when Tom meets Gwen during his daytime ride with Matt, he wears a lighter-colored three-piece suit in what appears to be a lightweight flannel. Tom doesn’t remove his overcoat during the sequence, so the only details discernible on screen are the fact that it’s a three-piece suit and that the generously fitting trousers have turn-ups (cuffs), though a behind-the-scenes photo (at right) reveals more of the outfit, including a single-breasted waistcoat and jacket with notch lapels and gently flared cuffs, possibly the same suit that Cagney wears in this publicity photo for Warner Bros. & Vitaphone Pictures.

Tom wears an off-white shirt—possibly ecru, light blue, or light gray—with a slim, rounded club collar with a wide spread as opposed to the longer point collar of his earlier shirt. He wears another striped tie, this one patterned in a series of light, low-contrast “downhill” stripes. Though he again wears dark lace-up shoes, he tops this daytime look with a lighter felt fedora with a high crown, unpinched crown, and narrow brim.

On Tom’s left wrist, he wears a metal wristwatch on a metal bracelet.

The Car

Hey, stoop! That’s got gears, that ain’t no Ford!

Tom Powers is rightly proud of his new ride, a 1930 LaSalle All Weather Phaeton “Fleetway”, the most expensive of the six Fleetwood-built models offered by LaSalle for the 1930 model year. The car, and even the marque itself, are anachronistic for a scene meant to be set shortly after Prohibition went into effect in January 1920, though audiences a decade later would recognize the LaSalle as a burgeoning status symbol for a young man on the rise.

Three years after Harley Earl introduced the 1927 LaSalle as Cadillac’s “junior” marque, the European-inspired LaSalle had risen to a position of considerable popularity, if not enduring prestige. The 1930 LaSalle, designated Model 340, was available in a dozen body styles, half with coachwork by Fisher and half by Fleetwood including the “Fleetway” All Weather Phaeton”topping out the offerings at a retail price of $3,995 according to Concept Carz. Nearly 15,000 Model 340 LaSalles were manufactured in 1930, though only 250 were the built-on-demand All Weather Phaeton, according to The Cadillac Database.

As a companion to the more expensive Cadillac, the LaSalle was powered by the same 90-degree L-head V8 engine, which generated 90 horsepower in 1930. When General Motors brass observed sales falling on the Cadillac during the Great Depression as buyers turned to the less expensive LaSalle, the LaSalle brand was reimagined for the 1934 model year when it was more aligned with the affordable Oldsmobile marque than the luxurious Cadillacs. By the end of the decade, however, the LaSalle was again reconfigured to resemble the Cadillac but it wasn’t enough to save the brand and General Motors discontinued LaSalle production in 1940.

A 1930 LaSalle All Weather Phaeton, body style 4080, similar to the one belonging to Tom Powers in The Public Enemy, was sold by Hyman Ltd. with the listing including a stunning photo and valuable information about this rare automobile, including the custom touches that include “chrome wire wheels, wide whitewall tires, dual side-mounts, luggage trunk, rollup division window and an opening vee-windshield.”

1930 LaSalle Model 340 All Weather Phaeton Fleetwood “Fleetway”

Body Style: 4-door convertible phaeton sedan

Layout: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

Engine: 341 cubic inch (5.6 L) Cadillac “90° L-head” V8

Power: 90 hp (66 kW; 90 PS) @ 3000 rpm

Torque: 208 lb·ft (282 N·m)

Transmission: 3-speed syncromesh manual

Wheelbase: 134 inches (3404 mm)

Length: unknown

Width: unknown

Height: unknown

Tom gets frustrated when the nightclub’s valet grinds the LaSalle’s gears when he attempts to start it and park the car, famously barking at the man that it “ain’t no Ford!” as the Model T was famous for its foolproof planetary two-speed transmission. The LaSalle, on the other hand, was rigged with Cadillac’s innovative three-speed syncromesh transmission whose operation is clearly outlined in pages 14 and 15 of the 1930 LaSalle Operator’s Manual, digitally archived by the GM Heritage Center:

1. Make sure that the transmission lever is in neutral.
2. Place the throttle lever about one-fourth the way down from the idling position.
3. In cold weather, move the ignition control lever all the way to “Starting.”
4. Switch on the ignition.
5. Unless the engine is still warm, pull back the carburetor enriching button and hold it back. If the engine is still warm, do not pull back the enriching button unless the engine fails to start on the normal mixture.
6. Push the starter pedal forward and hold it until the engine starts. Release it immediately as soon as the engine starts.
7. Let the carburetor enriching button partly in as soon as the engine starts, and all the way in as soon as the engine is warm enough to permit it.
8. Note whether pressure is indicated on the oil pressure gauge, and stop the engine at once if no pressure is indicated.
9. Move the throttle lever up to the idling position as soon as the engine is warm enough to permit it.
10. If the spark lever was moved to “Starting” or “Retard” move it to the best position in the “Driving” range.

… maybe Tom should have just parked the car himself, though the model’s promotional materials assure the reader that “even a novice can shift gears as noiselessly as an expert.”

How to Get the Look

James Cagney as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931), sporting his lighter flannel suit and fedora with a club-collared shirt under a camel polo coat.

Tom Powers celebrates his newfound success by upgrading his daily kit to a rotation of natty three-piece suits and striped ties, all enveloped in the cozy comforts of a camelhair polo coat that kept many a Jazz Age gent warm and stylish from campus to club.

• Medium-dark wool or light flannel three-piece tailored suit:
  • Single-breasted 1-button suit jacket with wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Single-breasted 6-button waistcoat with notched bottom
  • Trousers with turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with long point collar or narrow club collar
• Multi-striped tie
• Suspenders
• Dark leather oxford shoes
• Dark silk socks
• Light felt high-crowned fedora or dark homburg
• Camelhair double-breasted polo coat with wide peak lapels, 6×3-button front, self-belt, flapped hip pockets, set-in sleeves with 1-button tab cuffs, and single vent
• Metal watch on metal bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

What do you mean, you could go for her yourself? You could go for an 80-year-old chick with rheumatism.

Timothy Dalton poses with an Aston Martin V8 as James Bond in The Living Daylights (1987)

Vitals

Timothy Dalton as James Bond, British government agent

Bratislava to Vienna, Winter 1986

Film: The Living Daylights
Release Date: June 27, 1987
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Emma Porteous
Costume Supervisor: Tiny Nicholls

Background

For a wintry #CarWeek post on the 00-7th of December, let’s look back to Timothy Dalton’s first—and best, in my opinion—adventure as James Bond in The Living Daylights, adapted and greatly expanded from Ian Fleming’s short story of the same name, though the primary plot of Fleming’s story is used up during the pre-credits defection sequence.

After noticing that reportedly a KGB sniper was a beautiful blonde cellist during the opening defection, Bond returned to Bratislava to meet the woman, Kara Milovy (Maryam D’Abo), in person. He persuades her to accompany him to Vienna, evading and eventually out-driving their KGB pursuers in 007’s tricked-out Aston Martin, which had been “winterized” and loaded with gadgets by Q (Desmond Llewelyn), MI6’s esteemed and exhausted quartermaster.

Bond’s Aston Martin V8 is ostensibly the same convertible Volante model he had been driving earlier with a hardtop added, though many experts have noted that the coupe is an entirely different car… which makes more sense. After generations of 007 movies bringing the Goldfinger-era Aston Martin DB5 out of storage for Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig to drive, the 1980s Aston Martin V8 is finally getting some retro-styled love with a confirmed appearance alongside the classic DB5, the DBS Superleggera, and the innovative 2021 Valhalla model in the upcoming No Time to Die, the 25th official James Bond movie and reportedly Daniel Craig’s swan song in the role.

More than 30 years before its return to the Bond franchise, the Aston Martin V8 made its last appearance in The Living Daylights during a fun scene developed by director John Glen where James and Kara are forced to abandon the snowbound sports car and continue their journey to the elegant Palace Schwarzenberg in Vienna via cello… yes, cello.

Glad I insisted you brought that cello.

What’d He Wear?

While fine tailoring is often timeless, casual clothing—even when made by top brands or designers—is often most vulnerable to the trends at the time it was made. In The Living Daylights, Timothy Dalton more successfully balances casual attire that it contemporary without falling victim to fads than he would in Licence to Kill, his subsequent and final adventure as James Bond.

An understated highlight of Dalton’s clothing in The Living Daylights is the leather car coat and layered crew-neck sweater that he wears when absconding from Bratislava with Kara. It could be argued that the larger fit of his clothing betrays its 1980s provenance or that the choice of colors could make the ensemble more memorable, but this casual outfit always struck me as consistent with Dalton’s more serious characterization of James Bond.

Practical and understated, the outfit is something that a spy in Bond’s position may have realistically worn, stylish enough to be suitable for his urban surroundings while rugged enough to keep him warm and comfortable when the mission takes 007 beyond city limits… and national borders.

Made from a supple black leather, Bond’s hip-length car coat has five flat black plastic two-hole sew-through buttons that close on a wide front placket from the bottom hem up to the neck, where the wide standing collar has an additional button that closes through an extended tab on the left side. All of the coat’s edges—including on the pointed pocket flaps, cuffs, and cuff straps—are “swelled” with stitching about a half-inch from each edge.

A swollen seam around the waist line suggests a hidden elasticized drawstring to tighten the fit, separating the slanted chest pockets above the waist line from the flapped patch pockets below the waist line. Each set-in sleeve ends with a strap on the cuff that can fasten onto one of two buttons to adjust the fit over each wrist.

The ideal casual outfit is still dressy enough to not look too out of place when checking into a palatial hotel… the kind of place with a Cartier display case.

While the details and fit of Bond’s coat may be specific to the mid-1980s time frame, leather car coats are still very much in style and widely available three decades later. Amazon has a few options that can suit your needs:

• BGSD Men’s “Chad” car coat in black lambskin (Amazon): Perhaps the most like Dalton’s coat, though it only has the two outer zip pockets and no flapped hip pockets
• BGSD Men’s “Kyle” car coat in black lambskin (Amazon): Closer to Dalton’s pocket style, though the snap/zipper front differs from Dalton’s button-up front
• Decrum car coat in black lambskin (Amazon): Minimalist take on Dalton’s coat with only two outer zip pockets and a button/zip combination front
• Jos. A. Bank Reserve Collection Walker-length leather jacket in black lambskin (Jos. A. Bank): Dalton-esque in its features, right down to the tab cuffs, though a sleeker, modernized fit
• Reed Men’s 34″ raglan car coat in black lambskin (Amazon): The fit and heft of the jacket resemble Dalton’s, though differs with its raglan sleeves, zip/snap fly front, and lower slash pockets

The coat was auctioned in December 2001 by Christie’s, who listed the garment as “a three-quarter length black leather jacket with concealed zip and button fastening, with black ‘art’ silk lining” and established the maker to be Kenzo, a French luxury brand. Japanese-born designer Kenzō Takada had founded his eponymous fashion house in 1970, expanding from handmade women’s clothing to include designs for men in 1983.

Hardly seen under Bond’s layers is his base layer, a light gray cotton shirt with a point collar and adjustable rounded barrel cuffs that close on one of two buttons. The shirt itself is a relatively pedestrian choice, not unlike this off-the-rack Calvin Klein shirt one could find among the shelves at Macy’s or the digital offerings at Amazon. It’s a far cry from the elegant and unique shirts made by the likes of Frank Foster or Turnbull & Asser for Dalton’s predecessors though it’s perhaps for the best that a finer shirt wasn’t relegated to poking out the top and sides of a heavy sweater à la Jerry Seinfeld.

The soft collar occasionally curls out from where Bond wears it tucked under the crew neck of his sweater. A more sophisticated approach for this dressed-down outfit may have been a shirt with a tall button-down collar like the light gray Brooks Brothers shirt Cary Grant wore for the final act of North by Northwest, as the button-down collar would keep the points in place under the sweater while also providing a more structured neck.

While perhaps one of the more understated outfits of the Bond series, Dalton’s casual cool-weather ensemble from The Living Daylights received renewed attention connected to the release of N.Peal‘s 2019 cashmere collection “inspired by 50 years of Bond”, capitalizing not only on Daniel Craig wearing the brand in Skyfall and Spectre but also the recent focus on heritage Bond style.

“We have recreated this classic fisherman’s rib round neck sweater in 50% cashmere, 50% superfine merino,” wrote N.Peal about their charcoal gray sweater, which Matt Spaiser reviewed on his outstanding site, The Suits of James Bond. (Matt’s expert analysis on this whole outfit can also be read here!)

Dalton’s on-screen sweater is a charcoal gray shaker-stitched ribbed wool sweater with a reinforced crew neck and raglan sleeves. If you’re in the market for a similar sweater but without the expense budget that MI6 allots 007, you want want to consider:

• Fujito Crewneck Ribbed Sweater in charcoal wool/nylon “with Donegal flecking” (No Man Walks Alone): With the weight, ribbing, and raglan sleeves, this is one of the best Dalton-like sweaters I’ve seen, though it’s a bit on the trendy side
• Goodthreads Men’s Lambswool Crewneck Sweater in charcoal lambswool (Amazon)
• J. Crew Factory Crewneck Sweater in “charcoal Donegal” merino wool/nylon blend (J. Crew Factory)
• Patagonia “Off Country” Crewneck Sweater in “forge grey” cotton/polyester blend (Back Country)
• Pendleton Men’s Shetland Crewneck Sweater in “midnight camo” 100% Shetland wool (Amazon)
• Penguin “P55” 100% Lambswool Crewneck Sweater in dark charcoal heather (Penguin)

Dalton shares a laugh behind the scenes with co-star Maryam d’Abo. (Source: Thunderballs)

Bond wears charcoal flannel trousers that are both tonally and texturally coordinated with the rest of the outfit. They have a flat front and a full fit through the legs down to the plain-hemmed bottoms. In addition to the side pockets, the trousers have button-through back pockets that can be seen as he and Kara make their clunky escape from the snowbound Aston Martin. While the coat and sweater cover the waist line of the trousers, we can assume that he wears them like a belt as he does with his other trousers in The Living Daylights; if so, it could be argued that the belt would likely be black to coordinate with the rest of the outfit and his shoe leather.

And speaking of Bond’s shoes… the agent seems to wear a whopping three different pairs across the sequence, though his intended footwear does seem to be a pair of low-slung black leather shoes as he wears in the city-set scenes, always with black socks.

At Kara’s apartment in Bratislava (or “Bratislavia” as she misspells in her cello case), Bond bends over to pick up a smashed photograph of Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé, who turned 75 on Thursday!), giving us a look at his black leather apron-toe shoes that appear to be slip-on loafers. By the time he arrives in Vienna, he’s stepping out of his and Kara’s hitchhiked ride in a pair of black calf cap-toe oxfords. Further confusion is added by a series of contemporary publicity photos that seem to feature 007 wearing black apron-toe derby shoes.

Left: In Bratislava, Bond’s shoes have a moc-toe with a seam running around the top of each.
Right: In Vienna, Bond seems to have changed into a different pair of black cap-toe oxfords.

So, which shoe is it… the moc-toe loafer or the cap-toe lace-up? And wouldn’t either of them have been poor protection for Bond’s feet when he and Kara ditched the Aston Martin in the snow and rode her cello into Austria?

Indeed they would have, and that’s why a third set of shoes were introduced to the mix, a pair of heavy black ankle boots, best seen on screen during the aforementioned cello ride. The uppers are likely a water-resistant leather while the black rubber lug soles no doubt provided Timothy Dalton with better insulation and traction in the wintry weather our heroes encounter between Bratislava and Vienna.

More behind-the-scenes fun with d’Abo and Dalton as she snaps a photo of Bond keeping warm with a cigarette and a pink scarf wrapped around his head. Note the lug-soled ankle boots, a warmer and drier option than his derbies would have been for these snowy scenes. (Source: Thunderballs)

While the filmmakers likely didn’t intend on style bloggers with Blu-ray players to catch the discontinuity of Bond’s footwear, they made sure that the character’s hands would at least keep warm by rigging 007 out with a pair of black soft leather three-point gloves, the moniker referring to the triple stitched lines on the dorsal side of each glove.

While not driving gloves per se, Bond’s black leather gloves serve him ably as he maneuvers his Aston Martin on the icebound lake.

The Living Daylights does not prominently feature 007’s timepiece beyond the TAG Heuer wristwatch worn through the opening scenes. According to Watches in Movies, Dalton wore not the character’s signature Rolex Submariner that would reappear in Licence to Kill but instead a Cartier tank watch. While perhaps a surprising choice for the character given his history for sports watches, it makes sense when considering the prominent placement of the Cartier display behind Bond inside Palace Schwarzenberg.

Timothy Dalton as James Bond in The Living Daylights (1987). Note his shirt’s adjustable barrel cuff visible under the sleeve of the sweater.

The Gun

James Bond’s signature Walther PPK doesn’t appear on screen during this sequence, though we can assume 007 has it tucked away somewhere under his warm layers. The blowback-operated PPK was developed in the early 1930s as a more compact alternative to the slightly larger Walther PP, both intended for use by European military and police forces.

The PPK grew to early infamy as a sidearm favored by German military officers and was, in fact, used by Adolf Hitler to commit suicide in 1945. The reliable and concealable sidearm took on a second life when Ian Fleming was advised by his friend, Major Geoffrey Boothroyd, to replace the literary James Bond’s .25-caliber Beretta with the comparatively more powerful Walther PPK, becoming 007’s signature weapon from Doctor No forward.

With a few exceptions, such as the Walther PP carried by Sean Connery in Dr. No and the Walther P5 carried by Roger Moore in Octopussy, the PPK was 007’s standard on-screen sidearm for the first 35 years of the Bond cinematic series. While he doesn’t draw or use the PPK during these actual scenes, Timothy Dalton posed extensively with it while wearing this outfit for publicity photos for The Living Daylights. The PPK carried by Dalton’s Bond has a blued finish, dark brown grips, and is ostensibly chambered in the same 7.65mm (.32 ACP) caliber as Bond had carried for more than a quarter-century up to that point.

The Car

I had a few optional extras installed…

Like the first two Bonds before him, Timothy Dalton’s 007 drove an Aston Martin in The Living Daylights, specifically a 1985 Aston Martin V8 hardtop coupé in a gunmetal gray that recalls the color of the literary James Bond’s favorite Bentley.

According to the movie, this hardtop V8 is the same as the convertible V8 Volante that Dalton drove earlier on screen, merely modified by Q Branch with “winterized” modifications including retractable outrigger skis, spiked Pirelli tires, rocket propulsion, and defense mechanisms ranging from bulletproof windows (“amazing, this modern safety glass!”) and fireproof body to hubcap lasers, heat-seeking missile launchers, and a self-destruct system.

Bond’s parked Aston Martin V8 on the streets of Bratislava.

By the mid-1960s, Aston Martin was seeking to take on its increasingly powerful competition by introducing a sports car powered by a V8 engine though the marque’s latest model, the DB6, was incapable of fitting an eight-cylinder engine. After the Milan design house first contracted to design the replacement went out of business, venerated designer William Towns was quickly brought in to design the larger, more modern-looking grand tourer that would be designated the DBS.

The first Aston Martin DBS was produced for the 1967 model year, though the hasty production timeline meant the car was powered with the same 4.0 L straight-six engine as the DB6. Two years later, Tarek Marek’s 5.3 L V8 engine was ready and dropped into a similar-looking car that would be designated the Aston Martin DBS V8 when introduced for the 1969 model year. The six-cylinder DBS (which appeared in the 1969 Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and the DBS V8 were produced concurrently for the next few years until Aston Martin phased out the six-cylinder DBS and renamed its flagship model the Aston Martin V8 in April 1972. The timing was concurrent with David Brown leaving Aston Martin, ending the marque’s practice of naming its cars “DB” until development of the Aston Martin DB7 more than two decades later.

Production of the Aston Martin V8 continued throughout the 1970s with improvements and variations made throughout the decade including the introduction of a “Volante” convertible during the fourth generation, also known as the “Series 4” or “Oscar India” specification, which had been introduced in October 1978 at the Birmingham International Auto Show. The most obvious external visual differentiation is the closed “power bulge” on the bonnet—a graceful evolution of the open hood scoop on the Series 3—and the addition of an integral rear spoiler. On the interior, the cloth seats were replaced with supple leather while wooden trim made its first return since the DB2/4 model in the 1950s.

Only 352 of these Oscar India fourth generation cars were manufactured during the 1978 to 1985 production run, most mated to a three-speed Chrysler “TorqueFlite” automatic transmission though some still used the ZF five-speed manual, attaining top speeds of around 150 mph.

Bond’s Aston Martin in high-flying action
(Source: Thunderballs)

1985 Aston Martin V8 “Oscar India”

Body Style: 2-door coupe

Layout: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

Engine: 5340 cc (5.3 L) Tadek Marek V8 with four Weber 42DCNF90/150 carburetors

Power: 290 hp (216 kW; 294 PS) @ 5500 RPM

Torque: 321 lb·ft (435 N·m) @ 3000 RPM

Transmission: 5-speed ZF all-syncromesh manual

Wheelbase: 102.75 inches (2610 mm)

Length: 183.75 inches (4667 mm)

Width: 72 inches (1829 mm)

Height: 52.25 inches (1327 mm)

The fuel-injected fifth generation of the car, colloquially designated Series 5 or Mk IV, was introduced in January 1986 at the New York Auto Show, visually differentiated from its predecessors by a smoother hood as the streamlined Weber/Marelli carburetor system had no need for the power bulge introduced during the Oscar India series. After 20 continuous years of production, the Aston Martin V8 was retired in 1989 and replaced by the Aston Martin Virage.

At least four Aston Martin V8 cars were used during the production of The Living Daylights, including three hardtop coupes and a Volante convertible that had personally belonged to Aston Martin Lagonda’s then-chairman Victor Gauntlett. You can read more about the on-screen Astons at IMCDB.

Bond’s gadget-laden Aston Martin V8, rigged with retractable skis and rocket propulsion.
(Source: Thunderballs)

The same registration from the V8 used in The Living Daylights, B549 WUU, will appear on this model in No Time to Die, as seen in the film’s official trailer released on Wednesday, December 4.

Prince Charles and Daniel Craig on the No Time to Die set earlier in 2019, flanked by the 1964 Aston Martin DB5 and the 1980s Aston Martin V8.

How to Get the Look

Timothy Dalton and Maryam d’Abo in The Living Daylights (1987)

Consistent with his grounded approach to the role, Timothy Dalton’s darkly subdued and ultimately practical leather-and-wool layers as 007 in The Living Daylights suggests a realistic outfit for a spy in his situation and serves as a forerunner of the dark coats and sweaters that Matt Damon would wear as Jason Bourne decades later.

• Black soft leather hip-length car coat with standing collar, five-button front, slanted chest pockets, patch pockets (with pointed flaps), and set-in sleeves (with single-button semi-strap cuffs)
• Light gray cotton shirt with point collar and rounded adjustable-button barrel cuffs
• Charcoal gray ribbed Shetland wool sweater with crew neck and raglan sleeves
• Charcoal flannel flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather belt
• Black leather ankle boots with black rubber lug soles
• Black socks
• Black leather three-point gloves

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. Early versions of the script had planned for this to be a reboot of the series, ending with 007 receiving the details of his mission to Jamaica that would form the plot line of Dr. No, but this concept was evidently abandoned until Daniel Craig took over the role for Casino Royale.

The Quote

Must be an atmospheric anomaly.

Robert De Niro as Frank Sheeran in The Irishman (2019)

Vitals

Robert De Niro as Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran, tough truck driver-turned-Mafia enforcer

Philadelphia, winter 1956 through spring 1961

Film: The Irishman
Release Date: November 1, 2019
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Design: Sandy Powell & Christopher Peterson

Background

Martin Scorsese’s latest crime epic, The Irishman, has been the subject of several requests since it was released on Netflix at the beginning of November. With one of my favorite directors helming some of my favorite actors in a subject and setting that held personal interest for me, The Irishman had been eagerly anticipated by me since the project was first announced… though I admit that I did have some hesitations about the running time and the advanced ages of all involved. As it turns out, the very factors I was most concerned about are what arguably contributed to the film being a modern masterpiece.

All aged over 75, the director and his three leads are able to take a more authentic approach to what Scorsese himself has called “a reflective movie… a retrospective, so to speak, of a man’s life, and the choice that he’s had to make.” The 209-minute epic is Scorsese’s longest film to date, his ninth movie with Robert De Niro and his fourth overall collaboration with both De Niro and Joe Pesci, who came out of retirement to play the shrewd mob boss Russell Bufalino, alternatively known as “McGee” or “The Old Man”. Despite the two men’s overlapping subject matter and reputations over the last half-century, The Irishman also marked the first collaboration between Scorsese and Al Pacino, who brings his bombastic energy to the role of defiant and controversial Teamster official Jimmy Hoffa.

Based on Charles Brandt’s I Heard You Paint Houses, positing Jimmy Hoffa’s bodyguard and friend Frank Sheeran as the man responsible for the labor leader’s famous 1975 “disappearance”, The Irishman spans nearly 60 years from a young Sheeran’s 411-day service as a U.S. Army NCO serving in Anzio during World War II up to the eve of the former hitman’s death at the age of 83. Describing it as “a classic story about loyalty, brotherhood, and betrayal,” Robert De Niro plays Sheeran, the titular Irish-American in an Italian-American world, nodding to three decades earlier when De Niro portrayed the self-described “Irishman” Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas, though Sheeran is a surprisingly different character.

Thinking back on his life of crime and killing, Sheeran may share Jimmy Conway’s lack of remorse, but it isn’t due to the violent sociopathy or lust for larceny that drove his character in Goodfellas. Instead, Sheeran is presented as a man who truly knows no other options. He grew comfortable with killing and learned to mentally justify it at a relatively young age during his rough wartime service, and he has a simple, pragmatic approach to life, far from the calculating and often sadistic Jimmy Conway.

It was like the army… you followed orders, you did the right thing, you got rewarded.

The movie is framed in flashback, first of an aged Sheeran recalling his life from a funeral home and, inside of that, framed by his fateful road trip with Buffalino to a family wedding in the summer of 1975. During the latter, the two gangsters are waiting by the side of the road for their wives to finish their smoke breaks when they realize they’re near the Texaco station and Stuckey’s restaurant where their paths had first crossed about 20 years earlier when Frank was a simple truck driver, a decade returned from World War II. The meeting happens almost exactly as Sheeran described it to Brandt for the ninth chapter of I Heard You Paint Houses:

The day I met Russell Bufalino changed my life… I was hauling meat for Food Fair in a refrigerator truck in the mid-fifties, maybe 1955. Syracuse was my destination when my engine started acting up in Endicott, New York. I pulled into a truck stop and I had the hood up when this short old Italian guy walked up to my truck and said, “Can I give you a hand, kiddo?” I said sure and he monkeyed around for a while, I think with the carburetor. He had his own tools. I spoke a little Italian to him while he was working. Whatever it was, he got my horse started for me. When the engine started purring, I climbed down and I shook his hand and thanked him. He had a lot of strength in that handshake. The way we shook hands—warmly—you could tell that we both hit it off with each other.

Frank Sheeran’s first handshake with Russell Bufalino made an impression on the young truck driver after the gangster’s mechanical abilities got his “horse” up and running again.

Soon after, we find Sheeran making the acquaintance of a Philadelphia mobster and chicken store owner known as “Skinny Razor” (Bobby Cannavale) for his physique and his method for swiftly preparing chickens for his customers. By December 1956, Sheeran and Skinny Razor are embroiled in a steak scam that finds Sheeran in hot water with his company. Face-to-face with connected union lawyer Bill Bufalino (Ray Romano), Sheeran passes an unspoken test by fervently refusing that he would ever “give names”, even if it would save his jobs:

No. No names.

Once he’s earned the trust of Russell, Skinny Razor, and the Philadelphia mob helmed by Angelo Bruno (Harvey Keitel), Frank Sheeran finds himself taking on jobs that raise the violent stakes of his criminal involvement.

What’d He Wear?

For a three-and-a-half-hour mob epic requiring more than 100 wardrobe changes for its lead character alone, three-time Academy Award-winning costume designer Sandy Powell brought on her stalwart collaborator Christopher Peterson as co-designer. Though Powell had worked extensively with Scorsese before, The Irishman was a decided change of palette from her previous production, Mary Poppins Returns.

“It’s a complete antithesis to Mary Poppins Returns,” Powell told Jazz Tangcay in a November 2019 interview for Variety. “The palette was determined by the period, and Rodrigo Prieto did that with the effects he was creating. The ’50s in my mind had a lot of blues and grays. In the ’60s, a lot of the colors were mustards and olives. That’s also reflected in the background and the crowd. The ’70s had burgundy and browns. That, in my mind, is where the color palette came from.”

One look that unified these palettes was the brown leather jacket that Frank Sheeran wore across many early scenes set from the mid-1950s through his brief role in the organization of the Bay of Pigs fiasco in the spring of 1961, driving a truckload of armed guerrillas from Baltimore to Jacksonville.

“While Russell and Hoffa and capos from the Bufalino family wore a certain kind of armor, we tried to put Frank in a younger man’s wardrobe at the beginning of the film,” Christopher Peterson shared in a November 2019 interview with Bill Desowitz for IndieWire. “And eventually, as he rose in power, he started adopting that same kind of look. But he had a leather jacket early on that grew a bit out of a uniform that Teamsters wore at the time along with their caps.”

Frank meets a friendly face over the engine of his truck.

“There were so many, but the outfit that sums up his youngest look is when he’s got the leather jacket and the cap,” Sandy Powell shared in a November 2019 interview with BFI. “That was something that was very hard to get right. And we had to make that. To find a leather jacket from the ’50s in good condition is impossible.”

Powell and Peterson’s team created a remarkable hip-length jacket made from tough brown leather that appears to be cowhide. The jacket zips up the front, beginning a few inches up from the bottom just below the waist line, up to the neck. The jacket has at least five external pockets, with two set-in pockets on the hips covered with pointed flaps and a slanted hand pocket in front of each hip pocket. There is also a zippered pocket on the left chest that

We’re treated to a classic De Niro face as Frank Sheeran feigns ignorance regarding why his truck is empty.

As seen in a post on The Irishman‘s official Instagram page, the jacket is lined in a light brown piled fleece that adds extra insulation and warmth, as well as intimidating heft.

Each set-in sleeve is finished at the wide cuff sections with two small, leather-covered buttons. The ventless back has a semi-belt across the back that is also detailed with a vestigal leather-covered button at each end.

This well-traveled leather jacket is the first item we see “young” Sheeran wearing when the film first flashes back from his 1975 road trip to two decades earlier on a highway outside Philly, where Sheeran makes the acquaintance of mobster Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) over his truck’s busted timing belt.

For made of the leads and supporting characters, hundreds of shirts were made for the production by Geneva Custom Shirts, the New York-based shirtmaker responsible for dressing scores of gents on all sides of the law in Scorsese-world for decades with Goodfellas, The Aviator, and Boardwalk Empire among their many credits.

During his on-screen tenure as a truck driver, Sheeran wears a dark gray melange flannel shirt with a long point collar, a plain (French) front with smoke gray two-hole plastic buttons, and two low-slung patch pockets on his chest. He wears the top button undone to reveal a stark white cotton crew-neck undershirt. Of all the visible shirts he wears with this jacket on screen, only this dark gray shirt buttons to the neck sans loop.

Topping his look is his peaked cap with its soft charcoal gray eight-panel cloth cover (with a cloth-covered button at the top center), perforated with two grommets on the front of the crown and one on each side above the brass studs fastening the black leather hat band that stretches across the front. The cap also has a black worn leather brim.

Shirt #1: A subdued mottled charcoal that essentially serves as his work uniform.

After Sheeran’s scam with Skinny Razor has been discovered by his employer, he meets with Bill Bufalino (Ray Romano), the mob-connected lawyer representing the Teamsters union. For this meeting, he wears an eye-catching woolen flannel long-sleeved shirt in a golden yellow and black plaid with a brown pixilated “shadow effect”. The shirt has a fashionably wide camp collar (also known as a loop collar for the small loop device fastening the left side of the shirt to the button buried under the right collar leaf), a plain front with mixed brown plastic four-hole buttons, and two patch pockets on the chest.

Shirt #2: A colorful off-duty plaid for meeting with his union lawyer.

In yet another self-referential touch, Sheeran is tasked by Russell Bufalino to drive a rig from Philly to Baltimore in the spring of 1961 to meet “a fairy named Ferrie,” referring to David Ferrie, the shady pilot who has been connected with both the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the assassination of John F. Kennedy… of course, Joe Pesci himself had brilliantly played Ferrie in Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991).

Sheeran leaves Philadelphia and Baltimore wearing this same shirt under his trusty leather jacket, though he’s removed the jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves by the time he reaches the sunny environs of the “dog track outside Jacksonville” where he’s to drop off the armed guerrillas riding his truck into the care of prickly CIA agent E. Howard Hunt (Daniel Jenkins)—a decade predating his Watergate infamy—who brushes him off into an old Dodge sedan to drive back to Philadelphia. Sheeran describes the mission, and his thoughts on Ferrie and Hunt, in “Respect with an Envelope,” the fifteenth chapter of I Heard You Paint Houses.

Whether it’s the Pittsburgher in me being naturally drawn to black-and-gold or not, this is among my favorites of the shirts that De Niro wears in The Irishman. While you could pick up a similarly colored plaid flannel shirt in a pinch—such as these affordable but modern-inspired alternatives from Amazon Essentials, High Entity, Quiksilver, and Urban Pipeline (via Kohl’s)—this woolen flannel shirt with its distinctive mid-century fit, long-pointed loop collar, and shadow plaid design would take some labor to add to your collection. Searching vintage outfitters is always a good solution, though you could scan the wares of Pendleton Woolen Mills who continues to offer similar garments with their signature “board shirts”.

Sheeran isn’t impressed by E. Howard Hunt, whose surgically reduced ears don’t live up to his reputation.

Note the studs on De Niro’s collar, shoulders, and chest that would be used for the digital de-aging. Photo by Jose Perez.

Once Sheeran is firmly embedded with the Philadelphia mob, he wears a burgundy shirt with a subtle indigo shadow plaid effect. The shirt has a loop collar like the yellow-and-black shirt, though his tough leather jacket pushes the top of the shirt together to resemble a point collar with a loop more than a camp collar.

Like the charcoal work shirt, this shirt has a plain front that fastens with smoke plastic two-hole buttons. There is a patch pocket on each side of the chest, and the sleeves fasten with button cuffs. He wears the top button open to reveal his light gray heathered cotton undershirt.

Burgundy shadow plaid shirts are a worthy addition to a working man’s wardrobe. Though the pocket, placket, and collar differ from the specific shirt worn by De Niro, this Faherty Brand twill flannel shirt (available from Huckberry) takes proud inspiration from work shirts of the ’50s.

Though Sheeran is working much for the gangsters who he meets in their silk suits at the Villa Di Roma restaurant, he is still very much a working man and tends to forego the fedoras and homburgs of his criminal colleagues in favor of more labor-friendly headgear such as the dark navy ribbed knit cap he wears for scenes set on colder days and nights.

Sheeran’s “beanie” evokes the wool watch caps that Frank would have grown familiar with during his service in the military, and genuine U.S.-issue watch caps by Rothco are still available from retailers like Amazon.

Shirt #3: A subdued but stylish plaid as Sheeran transitions from working man to made man*. (*Yes, I know that the Irish-American Sheeran was never formally “made” in La Cosa Nostra…)

Sheeran cycles through his shirts when wearing his leather jacket, though he seems to always wear the same trousers, a pair of full-fitting dark gray flannel flat front slacks with wide but short belt loops, gently slanted side pockets, and cuffed bottoms with a full break. He also wears the same belt, a well-worn strap of slim black leather with a dulled brass single-prong buckle.

Frank Sheeran’s wardrobe. Source: @TheIrishmanFilm Instagram.

In September 2019, just over a month before the movie premiered, the official Instagram account of The Irishman posted an incredible flatlay of Frank Sheeran’s early trucker outfit, including his panel cap, leather jacket, scarf, trousers and belt, a pair of phantom sunglasses, and even his boots and wristwatch.

Thankfully, the shoes included in the flatlay were De Niro’s screen-worn combat boots and not the giant platform shoes that the actor wore to lift him closer to the real Sheeran’s 6’4″ height. Once the Internet caught hold of set photos featuring the tall shoes, the normally reticent De Niro even laughed about them during his April 2018 appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

The actual black leather combat boots have seven-eyelet derby-lacing, not unlike the “service shoes” that Sheeran would have been familiar with wearing during his Army service. The plain-toe boots have black leather soles with chevron-shaped ridges.

Sheeran’s field watch also reflects his military pedigree, evoking the A-11 timepieces worn by Allied GIs during World War II. This wristwatch has a steel case with a crown and a round black dial with white numerals and a white inner ring of markers. The watch is worn on an olive drab strap that looks in the Instagram post to be a ribbed nylon NATO strap similar to this Crown & Buckle strap (seen on Huckberry), though NATO straps of this color abound on Amazon with affordable pieces like this PBCODE strap. While the term would be anachronistic for this particular era in The Irishman, the modern NATO strap with metal keepers evolved from the AF0210 pass-through straps developed around 1945 and authorized by the British Army for their “W.W.W.” specification watches. You can read more about the history of NATO straps at The Spring Bar.

Frank gets his Dodge out of Dodge.

As Frank would rise in the world of the mob, he would change out his practical field watch for dressier watches such as the gold tank watch with the rose-colored dial and black exotic textured leather strap that he wears throughout the ’60s and, eventually, the flashy gold Mathey-Tissot he would receive at his testimonial dinner in 1973 and wear for the duration of his life.

Another relic of Frank’s early days is the gold wedding ring symbolic of his first marriage to Mary (Aleksa Palladino), which he would cease wearing in favor of a flashier four-stone gold ring on his right hand and the bespoke 14-carat, diamond-studded gold “liberty coin” ring that Russell gifts him at the same dinner where he received the Mathey-Tissot watch.

When making his rounds on colder days, Sheeran protects his neck with a gray, black, and golden brown plaid scarf with thin white stripes bisecting the black sections, made from a soft woolen twill flannel suggestive of cashmere.

Frank warily eyes his boss from under the brim of his peaked cap.

While neither of these reflects the exact pattern of Frank’s screen-worn wool scarf, there are a few alternatives in similar color schemes that include:

• INCA Brands “storm” tartan plaid flannel scarf (Amazon)
• Jos. A. Bank black, tan, and light gray plaid cashmere scarf (Jos. A. Bank)
• Pendleton tan and gray plaid “whisperwool” scarf (Amazon)
• The Men’s Store at Bloomingdales gray, black, and tan “big plaid” cashmere scarf (Bloomingdale’s)

During a few vignettes of Frank’s nighttime missions, be they hits or his ill-advised recon against the Cadillac Linen Service in Delaware, Sheeran bundles up with his leather jacket zipped up over the scarf and topped with a fawn-colored felt fedora with a narrow grosgrain band and grosgrain edges, all in a light brown that barely contrasts against the rest of the hat.

You can read more about The Irishman‘s costume design in these contemporary features and interviews with Sandy Powell and Christopher Peterson:

• BFI
• Esquire UK
• The Hollywood Reporter
• IndieWire
• MR PORTER
• Variety

The costume designers also cited the invaluable help of assistant costume designer Brittany Griffin who also happened to be Frank Sheeran’s granddaughter and was able to share archival photographs and even items that belonged to her grandfather.

What to Imbibe

Frank joins his pals for shots in a Philadelphia bar… though the bottle is surprisingly revealed to be Glenlivet 12-year-old single malt Scotch whisky, the same bottle that “Skinny Razor” (Bobby Cannavale) keeps on his table while they’re intimidating a welcher named Lou.

“Skinny Razor” enjoys some afternoon Glenlivet as Frank brings Lou in to account for himself.

Scotch—particularly single malt Scotch—is a curious chase for what Frank and his colleagues shoot and chase with Budweiser after long days on the road, but…

The Car

Cars are a major status symbol in American organized crime, a point illustrated by Scorsese’s close-ups of pinkie-ringed fingers closing the doors of a shining Cadillac in Goodfellas or the “Cadillac vs. Lincoln” argument between Al Pacino’s character and his criminal colleagues in Donnie Brasco. Decades before he would acquire the Lincoln that would put him away for nearly two decades, Frank Sheeran drove the mean streets of Philadelphia in a black 1951 Hudson Hornet sedan.

Frank Sheeran’s six-year-old Hudson Hornet looks pristine as he glides it through the Philly streets.

1951 was the first year for the sleek Hornet, which embodied the popular low-slung “Ponton” body style of the fabulous fifties with its “step-down” design that Hudson had first used for its Commodore model three years earlier. Though Hudson Motor Car Company was hardly a prestige brand and was—in fact—on its last legs by the 1950s, the unique-looking Hornet earned the car a positive reputation among those who valued luxury and performance. Offered in multiple four-door and two-door body styles, including a convertible of the latter, this generation of 1951-1954 Hudson Hornets is considered an envied collectable today.

The model survived the marque’s 1954 merger with Nash-Kelvinator to form American Motors Corporation (AMC), though production ceased for good in June 1957.

1951 Hudson Hornet 7A

Body Style: 4-door sedan

Layout: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

Engine: 308 cu. in. (5.0 L) Hudson “H-145” straight-6 with Carter WGD 776S 2-barrel carburetor

Power: 145 hp (108 kW; 147 PS) @ 3800 RPM

Torque: 257 lb·ft (348 N·m) @ 1800 RPM

Transmission: 4-speed “Hydramatic” automatic

Wheelbase: 124 inches (3150 mm)

Length: 208 inches (5283 mm)

Width: 77.5 inches (1968 mm)

Height: 60 inches (1524 mm)

The Gun

“Just show it to him, don’t use it,” Skinny Razor tells Frank Sheeran after handing him a nickel Colt revolver to intimidate Lou, though Sheeran clarified to Brandt that he recalled the welcher’s name to be Romeo. At this stage in Sheeran’s career, he hasn’t yet been asked to kill for the mob and he even explains in I Heard You Paint Houses that Skinny Razor’s advice was typical of that era in organized crime: “That’s the way it was in those days. You showed a gun. Now they don’t show you the gun, they just shoot you with it. In those days they wanted their money today. Now they want their money yesterday.”

Based on the profile, grips, and cylinder release of the revolver Frank is given, it’s likely an early 20th century Colt Official Police chambered in .38 Special.

Finally, Sheeran is asked to paint his first house for the hit on “Whispers DiTullio” (Paul Herman), who had reportedly earned his nickname when his halitosis reduced his permissible speaking to no more than a whisper. For the hit, De Niro’s Sheeran paraphrases some of the real hitman’s advice from the book:

In a case like this, the best thing to do is you use somethin’ brand new. Right out of the box. Otherwise, you don’t know where it’s been, you don’t know who’s used it, what crime it was connected to, that’s suicide. So… I recommend somethin’ new, straight out of the box. Stone cold. Clean.

After the hit, Sheeran pulls up to a bridge overlooking the Schuylkill River where he hops out of his car and tosses the revolver into the water, adding context in his narration:

Naturally, the next thing you wanna do is throw the thing away. You wanna get rid of it! There’s a spot in the Schuylkill River where everyone uses. If they ever send divers down there, they’d be able to arm a small country.

Sheeran’s snub lands toward the left side of the frame, among a sea of revolvers and shotguns.

Based on the profile of the revolver that Sheeran sends into the river, it appears that he used a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Model 36 “Chiefs Special” revolver, a .38 Special with a five-round cylinder and two-inch barrel, to kill Whispers. According to I Heard You Paint Houses, it was actually “something like a .32, the kind of gun the cops used to call a woman’s gun because it was easier to handle and had less of a kick than even a .38… I never could find my .32 after that, the one that Eddie Rece had given me to show to that Romeo in Jersey. It must have ended up someplace.”

How to Get the Look

Robert De Niro as Frank Sheeran on the set of The Irishman (2019). Photo by Jose Perez.

Throughout the 1950s scenes in The Irishman, Frank Sheeran’s daily “uniform”—first as a trucker and then as a rising star in the Philadelphia mob—is a classic brown leather jacket, gray flannel slacks, and black combat boots with a rotation of durable work shirts and hats.

• Brown cowhide leather hip-length jacket with shirt-style collar, zip-front, slanted left chest zip pocket, flapped set-in hip pockets, slanted hand pockets, set-in sleeves (with two leather-covered buttons), and ventless back (with two vestigal leather-covered buttons on the semi-belt)
• Shadow plaid work shirt with wide camp collar (with loop), plain front, double chest patch pockets, and button cuffs
• White or light gray heathered cotton crew-neck short-sleeve T-shirt
• Dark gray flannel flat front trousers with wide belt loops, slightly slanted side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black leather belt with brass squared single-prong buckle
• Black leather plain-toe combat boots with 7-eyelet derby lacing
• Charcoal cloth-cover peaked cap with black leather band and black leather brim
• Gray, black, and gold plaid soft woolen twill scarf
• Gold wedding ring
• Steel military-style field watch with black dial (with white number markers) on olive drab ribbed nylon NATO strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, currently streaming on Netflix. I also recommend reading I Heard You Paint Houses, the 2004 memoir by Charles Brandt that inspired The Irishman.

The Quote

I work hard for ’em when I ain’t stealin’ from ’em.

Clint Eastwood as Dr. Jonathan Hemlock in The Eiger Sanction (1975) (Source: MovieStillsDB.com)

Vitals

Clint Eastwood as Dr. Jonathan Hemlock, college art professor and former assassin

Swiss Alps, Summer 1974

Film: The Eiger Sanction
Release Date: May 21, 1975
Director: Clint Eastwood
Costume Supervisor: Glenn Wright

Background

December 11 is International Mountain Day, an observance established by the United Nations in 2003 to encourage sustainable development of mountains and recognize the importance of protecting the resources they provide and the populations that depend on them.

One of the most famous movies about mountain climbing is The Eiger Sanction, directed by Clint Eastwood who also stars as former assassin and expert climber Jonathan Hemlock. Hemlock is called back into service by C2, the shadowy government agency that would hire him to perform his “sanctions”. After learning that his new target is responsible for the death of a former friend, Hemlock eagerly agrees to take on the task of eliminating him, even if it means the veteran climber will need to ascend the treacherous Eiger mountain of the Bernese Alps, a summit that Hemlock had tried—and failed—to climb twice before.

“If the target’s trying to climb the north face of the Eiger, chances are my work would be done for me,” Hemlock says to his superiors, no doubt referring to the 41 climbers that had died attempting to climb the Eiger’s treacherous north face in the forty years prior. Indeed, between 1935 and May 2019, at least 64 climbers are known to have died in their attempts, earning the Eiger’s north face—the biggest in the Alps—the nickname of Mordwand, German for “murder wall.”

“There comes a time in some movies when sheer spectacle overwhelms any consideration of plot, and Clint Eastwood’s The Eiger Sanction is a movie like that,” wrote the movie critic Roger Ebert in 1975. Indeed, while the story was silly, the movie did well at the box office thanks to the efforts of the real climbers who provided the spectacular camera angles, took the risks and provided Eastwood with advice, which was usually implemented.

— Chic Scott, Rock and Ice

What’d He Wear?

Hemlock ascends the Eiger with three other climbers, still unaware which of the three—the desperate Frenchman, the arrogant German, or the impulsive Austrian—is his ultimate target. He dresses in rugged layers for the hard work ahead with extra layers to account for the temperature changes he would encounter the higher he ascends the north face.

Hemlock wears a bright blue down jacket, constructed of a polyester outer layer insulated by down feathers that give the coat its colloquial name. While these “puffer jackets” have become popular winter outerwear for men and women, they indeed originated for mountain climbing when Australian chemist George Finch wore his innovative green “eiderdown coat” made by SW Silver & Co. for the 1922 British expedition to ascend Mount Everest.

At the outset of the expedition, the scrappy Finch had been mocked by the tweedy gentlemen who rounded out the group, though they came to appreciate the windproof garment to the point that Finch proudly noted in his journal that “everybody now envying… my eiderdown coat, and it is no longer laughed at.” After his reported rival George Mallory failed to reach the Everest summit in his tweed suit, Finch managed to reach a height of 8,630 meters with the assistance of his down jacket and oxygen system, though his exhausted partner forced their retreat. An avalanche that killed seven of the group’s porters eventually aborted the expedition and, following a series of tours, Finch returned home to his family and his young son Peter… who would grow up to become a five-time BAFTA Award-winning actor and would receive a posthumous Academy Award for his explosive performance in Network.

Adventurers to follow would develop similar jackets, including Eddie Bauer, who patented his “Skyliner” concept in 1939 after a freezing night in his waterlogged wool inspired him to create a weather-resistant coat insulated with down feathers that would be evenly distributed with quilting and with ribbed knitting on the collars and cuffs. Finch himself emerged in the early 1950s to advise Sir Edmund Hillary’s successful Everest expedition, for which New Zealand company Fairydown modernized Finch’s original eiderdown jacket to develop a product similar to the puffer coats that remain popular more than a half-century later.

Clad in blue down jacket, green helmet, and durable cords, Dr. Hemlock ascends the treacherous Eiger Mountain’s north face.

Nearly a hundred years after George Finch was laughed by his fellow climbers, the down jacket remains a winter outerwear staple seem everywhere from summit to supermarket. There are no shortage of styles available, from compact “packable” zip-up coats to full-length parkas with fur-lined hoods with endless combinations of pockets, quilting shapes and scales, and more. Thus, if you’re looking to channel the Jonathan Hemlock look with horizontally oriented quilting, a simple zip-front closure, and a standing collar sans hood, you won’t have to look hard before finding an affordable product from a reputable brand:

• Amazon Essentials down jacket in blue nylon with 90% duck down (Amazon)
• Calvin Klein Men’s Alternative down jacket in “marlin blue” nylon (Amazon)
• Columbia Men’s Frost Fighter Insulated Puffer down jacket in “azul” blue nylon with synthetic polyester insulation (Amazon)
• Dockers “The Noah” Classic Packable down jacket in royal blue nylon with ultra loft down alternative insulation (Amazon)
• Lacoste “Easy Pack” down jacket in “inkwell” blue nylon (Amazon)
• Marmot Men’s Calen Insulated Puffer down jacket in blue sapphire nylon with Primaloft Black insulation (Amazon)
• Nautica Arctic down jacket in “bright cobalt” blue polyester (Amazon)… as long as you don’t mind the conspicuous branding on the left sleeve!
• Pro Club down jacket in royal blue nylon with 80% duck/20% feather down (Amazon)
• The North Face Men’s Aconcagua down jacket in blue nylon with RDS-certified goose down (Amazon or The North Face)
• The North Face Men’s Morph down jacket in blue nylon with RDS-certified goose down (Amazon)
• Tommy Hilfiger Men’s Classic puffer jacket in navy nylon with down feather insulation (Amazon)… it’s a little darker with a snap fly added for extra closure.
• Wantdo Packable down jacket in sapphire blue nylon with 80% white duck down (Amazon)

Why not add a hood? It would save you from needing to add a hooded extra layer as Hemlock does when the weather gets rough!

• Adidas Men’s BQ8549 Climawarm Nuvic down jacket in “collegiate royal” blue with down filling (Amazon)
• Eddie Bauer Men’s Peak XV down jacket in “ascent blue” nylon with RDS-certified down insulation (Amazon)
• J. Lindeberg down jacket in “pop blue” polyester with 90% down insulation (Amazon)

Under his down jacket, Hemlock’s protective base layer is a navy blue ribbed turtleneck jumper with long sleeves that extend a few inches longer than the sleeves of his coat. The recent renaissance of the men’s turtleneck means an abundance of affordable options of varying quality popping up on Amazon, frequently from unrecognizable but surprisingly well-reviewed names like Daupanzees, FISOUL, GIVON, JINIDU, PrettyGuide, Rocorose, and Yesasyou in addition to more familiar brands like Abercrombie & Fitch, ASOS, Charles Tyrwhitt, Express, Gap, Jos. A. Bank, Paul Fredrick, and Paul Jones, to name a few.

Durable corduroy has long been a trusted fabric for climbing garments, so Dr. Hemlock wears a pair of golden tan corduroy trousers for his climb. Corduroy climbing pants are still available from specialized retailers like Moon Climbing (who offers the corduroy Abel Pant, though it appears to be sold out as of December 2019) and Pilgrim, which offers four colors of the Salathe Corduroy Climbing Pant including a Hemlock-esque khaki.

Hemlock’s flat front pants appear to be specifically designed for climbing with shortened bottoms that tighten high on his calves with velcro straps to keep from interfering with his footfall as he takes step after precarious step up the mountain.

Hemlock wears taupe-colored thermal hiking socks in a mixed wool blend, widely ribbed to stay up over his calves and keep him insulated. Hosiery like these remain a staple of outdoors and work-wear brands like Carhartt, Emprella, L.L. Bean, Smartwool, Wigwam, Woolrich, typically made of a blend that includes predominantly merino wool in addition to nylon and elastane or spandex for appropriate stretch.

Boots are among the most important apparel that can make or break a mountaineer’s trek. Hemlock wears a pair of brown nubuck leather hiking boots with coral red round laces that are laced through four metal D-ring eyelets and one set of speed hooks, then three additional sets of speed hooks up the shaft. Necessary traction is added by the heavy black rubber lug soles, which are each adorned with a yellow shape in the center that is likely the octagonal signature mark of Vibram soles.

The boots have a golden leather collar where the fuzzy beige synthetic “sherpa” lining emerges from the top. The lining is likely of the removable sort, so that it can be easily removed from the boot shell and—should it become wet—can be dried inside a wearer’s sleeping bag, making the removable lining of “double boots” ideal for multi-day expeditions like Hemlock’s.

Hemlock’s brown leather double boots with removable lining and red laces on a D-ring and speed hook system were typical of the era and particularly suitable for climbing with their Vibram soles.

This style and even lace color was very common for mountain-climbing boots of the 1970s, such as these vintage finds from BetaMenswear, Dexter, G.H. Bass, and Stellina. Danner recently delved into their archives to revisit this iconic look for the Mountain Light Cascade boots for men and women, including a custom pair they developed for Reese Witherspoon to wear in Wild (2014). Timberland also followed suit with the introduction of their “1978 Waterproof Hiking boots”, available from Amazon and Timberland.

Available from Amazon and Danner, the Danner Mountain Light Cascade Clovis is handmade in Portland, Oregon, of brown full-grain leather with waterproof GORE-TEX lining and black rubber Vibram Kletterlift outsoles. Like Eastwood’s screen-worn boots, they are laced through a system of round silver D-ring eyelets and speed hooks up the shaft.

When the group encounters snow and ice on the side of the mountains, Hemlock and his cohorts strap on crampons, a traction device similar to ice cleats. Though crampon technology has evolved with the development of step-in attachments and hybrid systems, the strap bindings seen on Hemlock’s crampons were still the most common by the mid-1970s.

Hemlock’s crampons are essential for climbing the icy mountainside.

While many consider falling to be one of the greatest dangers a climber faces, many can attest to the danger of items—such as rocks or equipment—falling from above. To combat that danger, protective helmets are essential equipment for climbers.

If REI’s current lineup or Outdoor Gear Lab’s list of favorites are any indication, modern climbing helmets have evolved to look more like bicycle helmets, though Hemlock protects his head with what it essentially a green hard hat not unlike the headgear commonly associated with construction workers, fitted into place with a drab chin strap.

As the conditions get snowier, Hemlock dons a pair of snow goggles. Not unlike the Cébé goggles that Robert Redford wore on the slopes in Downhill Racer five years earlier, Hemlock’s goggles look more like a pair of tricked-out sunglasses than the eyewear commonly associated with ski or snow goggles.

Higher altitudes mean lower temperatures so Hemlock adds the layer of a hooded shell jacket in a similar shade of blue as the down jacket he continues to wear under it. This added jacket has a large hood and a black-taped zipper down to the bottom with six black velcro patches for additional closure. Below the cinched waist are two large patch pockets, each with a double-velcro flap to close, with a vertical entry for a handwarmer behind each pocket.

Hemlock layers up below the waist as well with navy snow pants over his corduroys and tall crimson red knee gaiters with blue-and-yellow bottoms that cover the tops of his mountaineering boots, now fitted with the aforementioned  crampons to add traction on the ice. The waterproof soft-shell nylon gaiters close with four snaps, with the lowest snap on the narrow yellow portion covering the bottom edge of each gaiter.

Additional warmth comes from the large light gray knitted wool mittens that Hemlock wears in the snowiest, coldest weather.

The Gun

Dr. Hemlock pockets his usual sidearm, a blued Smith & Wesson Model 40 Centennial revolver with a snub-nosed 1-7/8″ barrel, likely chambered in .38 Special though the Model 40 was available in a range of calibers from .22 Long Rifle and .22 Magnum up to .357 Magnum.

Introduced in 1952, the 100th anniversary of Smith & Wesson (hence the “Centennial” moniker), this latest addition using the manufacturer’s compact “J-frame” differentiated itself with its fully enclosed hammer that kept the weapon from snagging on clothing when drawn from a pocket. As an added safety measure for shooters not used to this double-action only (DAO) style, Smith & Wesson incorporated the “lemon squeezer” grip safety from its turn-of-the-century top-break revolvers to prevent the weapon from being discharged unless it was the intent of whoever was holding it.

Hemlock’s Smith & Wesson Model 40 clatters to the ground next to the discarded blue jacket.

This particular weapon is a wise choice for Hemlock given the nature of his mission. Not only are revolvers traditionally a durable choice, but the enclosed hammer would allow Hemlock to be quick on the draw when pulling from his pocket, particularly in shaky situations such as when suspended from a rope in the icy air thousands of feet above the ground.

Clint Eastwood as Dr. Jonathan Hemlock in The Eiger Sanction (1975)

How to Get the Look

Clint Eastwood’s mountain climbing attire as Dr. Jonathan Hemlock in The Eiger Sanction was anchored by a blue down jacket, navy turtleneck, and khaki corduroy trousers that transcends his ascent to be a practical cold-weather casual outfit once he’s back on the ground… assuming he survives the trek, of course.

• Blue nylon down jacket with standing collar, black-taped zip front, slanted side pockets, and set-in sleeves
• Navy blue ribbed-knit long-sleeved turleneck
• Golden tan corduroy flat front climbing pants with slanted side pockets, flapped back left pocket, and shortened bottoms with velcro calf straps
• Brown nubuck leather mountaineering double boots with coral red round laces (through a system of D-ring eyelets and speed hooks), removable “sherpa” fur lining, and black rubber lug Vibram soles
• Gold-cleated clampons with brown buckle straps
• Taupe mixed wool-blend ribbed thermal socks
• Green hard hat-style climbing helmet with drab chin strap
• Black-framed vintage snow goggles

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. While many elements may not have stood the test of time, the climbing sequences remain spectacular nearly 50 years later… as does the late George Kennedy’s larger-than-life performance as Hemlock’s charismatic old pal.

Fans should probably also watch “The Archer Sanction,” the sixth season episode of Archer that lifts the general plot and drops it into Sterling Archer’s hilariously absurd world of espionage.

In Memory of David Knowles

David Knowles (1947-1974) was an expert mountaineer who joined Mike Hoover and Clint Eastwood for production of The Eiger Sanction. On August 13, 1974, the second day of principal photography on the mountain, a large rock broke free and smashed into the team, fracturing Hoover’s pelvis and killing the 26-year-old Knowles. Following an impromptu wake, Eastwood considered canceling the production but the climbers assured him that completing the production would assure that Knowles’ death would not be in vain. You can read more about the incident here.

John Saxon as Lt. Ken Fuller in Black Christmas (1974)

Vitals

John Saxon as Ken Fuller, intrepid police lieutenant

Toronto…or some small American college town near the Canadian border, Christmas 1973

Film: Black Christmas
(U.S. title: Silent Night, Evil Night)
Release Date: October 11, 1974
Director: Bob Clark
Wardrobe Credit: Debi Weldon

Background

The second remake of Bob Clark’s cult holiday horror classic, Black Christmas, was released in theaters today, more than 45 years after the original starring Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, and John Saxon as police lieutenant Ken Fuller. Clark had changed the script’s original title, Stop Me, to Black Christmas to tap into the irony of such sinister events darkening an otherwise festive holiday. Christmas would prove to be a fruitful source of inspiration for Clark as he would go on to direct the now-classic (and considerably less violent) A Christmas Story (1983).

Black Christmas would become not only a trailblazer in the slasher genre but also an early installment in the burgeoning “holiday horror” subgenre that also included contemporaries like Home for the Holidays (1972) starring Sally Field and Silent Night, Deadly Night (1972) with Patrick O’Neal. Clark got his start with horror cinema in the early 1970s and, after the production of Deathdream, he moved his operations to Canada to take advantage of the substantial tax benefits. His subsequent movie, Black Christmas, hardly disguises its Toronto production with plenty of “oots” and “aboots” and names like Graham and Mrs. MacHenry, though Lieutenant Fuller muddies the issue of setting by keeping an American flag prominently placed on his desk.

The level-headed lieutenant was originally to be played by Edmond O’Brien, though the actor’s failing health due to Alzheimer’s Disease surprised the producers when he showed up on set. With little time to spare, compose Carl Zittrer called John Saxon—an actor 20 years O’Brien’s junior who had already read the script— to offer him in the role, giving Saxon two days to travel from New York City to Toronto to begin shooting.

Inspired by the urban legend of “the babysitter and the man upstairs” as well as an actual series of killings committed by “Vampire Rapist” Wayne Boden around Quebec’s Westmount neighborhood, Black Christmas focuses on a sorority house where, after a series of threatening phone calls, the inhabitants are stalked and murdered by a deranged intruder who takes sadistic delight in picking them off one by one. While few take the threat seriously until it’s too late, the girls have an ally in Ken Fuller, the police lieutenant who balances an easygoing personality with a no-nonsense professionalism as he takes action to try to prevent additional murders.

Black Christmas stirred controversy when it was scheduled to make its televised debut (under the title Stranger in the House) in January 1978, only two weeks after Ted Bundy terrorized the Chi Omega house on FSU’s campus, murdering two women in their sleep in an incident eerily mirroring the events of Black Christmas. (As a compromise, NBC gave its affiliates in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia the option to air Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze instead.) While the film was hardly a critical or box office success when it was released, its reevaluation over the decades since has established it as a cult classic, ranked among Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

What’d He Wear?

While the wardrobe for Black Christmas was credited to Debi Weldon, who also appeared uncredited as one of the sorority sisters, the film’s small budget of around $620,000 meant many actors were encouraged to provide their own clothes for their characters to wear. I’m not sure if Saxon was among the cast members who provided his own clothing, though I liked his earthy ensemble of a large-checked sports coat with an understated shirt, tie, and trousers. Given that some of the elements of his wardrobe, particularly the shirt, overcoat, and hat, are suggestive of an older man, I suspect that Ms. Waldon or someone else from the costume department had originally selected Fuller’s wardrobe for an older actor like Edmond O’Brien to wear.

Patterned in a large-scaled brown-and-black basket-woven check, similar to a broken houndstooth pattern, with a black and green plaid overcheck, Lieutenant Fuller’s single-breasted sport jacket has notch lapels that roll to a two-button front. Due to how the shots are framed, it’s hard to discern other details other than the welted breast pocket and long double vents.

Saxon enjoys a chuckle at the expense of the foolish Sergeant Nash (Doug McGrath).

Under his jacket, Fuller wears his snubnose revolver holstered under his left armpit in a tan chamois leather shoulder rig with an adjustable white ribbed nylon strap. The holster suspends his piece in the manner similar to the “quickdraw” holster that Steve McQueen famously wore in Bullitt (1968), adapted from the rig worn by his real-life contemporary, the Zodiac-chasing inspector Dave Toschi of the San Francisco Police Department.

Fuller wisely balances the bold check of his jacket with a subdued shirt, tie, and trousers to avoid the potentially chaotic effect of too many conflicting patterns. His ecru poplin shirt has a spread collar of moderate width, though it looks considerably narrow when compared to the wide collars that were fashionable at the time, during the height of the disco era. The shirt has a plain (French) front and single-button rounded cuffs.

His charcoal tie is divided into uphill-direction stripes by narrow black stripes that have such a low contrast against the charcoal ground that the tie often looks solid at a distance and in certain light. Bronze box shapes are intermittently placed along the tie’s charcoal stripes, adding a touch of tonal coordination with his brown jacket and trousers.

Fuller wears dark brown straight-leg trousers with frogmouth front pockets, a popular full-top style of trouser pocket that was popular from the 1960s into the ’70s and were particularly flattering with the tight-hipped trousers of the era as they wouldn’t flare open like side pockets. In lieu of a belt, Fuller’s flat front trousers have buckle-tab side adjusters.

Fuller’s leather lace-up shoes are a lighter brown than the rest of his outfit. Based on the profile of his shoes seen as he approaches Peter Smythe’s piano, they appear to be derby-laced low shoes though any further detail is next to impossible due to the angles available on screen and the lack of production photos showing more of John Saxon’s costume.

One of my favorite parts of Fuller’s outfit is the dark brown wool bridge coat he wears when he’s out investigating the crimes. This large double-breasted coat originated as a part of military uniforms and was still popular, particularly among officers of European military forces, well into the 20th century. Fuller’s coat has a broad Ulster collar similar to a pea jacket, a full fit without notable waist suppression, and flat black plastic sew-through buttons in parallel columns that characterize the coat as a bridge coat rather than the similar greatcoat which has buttons placed in a keystone formation up to the top.

The traditional bridge coat and greatcoat have been generally eclipsed by shorter, more commute-friendly topcoats like car coats and walkers, though certain fashion houses have maintained this classic style such as Rubinacci with their authentic Italian Casentino wool Ulster coat (via The Rake) and the admittedly short but similarly styled custom coats offered by Hockerty. You can also take a more military approach with the wool greatcoats available from Kent & Curwen, though such a grand coat with its shoulder straps and maritime-inspired gilt buttons needs to be worn with the correct panache to prevent its wearer from looking like Dwight Schrute.

Clad in his bridge coat and gloves, Fuller meets with sorority sisters Jess Bradford (Olivia Hussey) and Phyllis Carlson (Andrea Martin) to get a sense of who may be terrorizing the house.

Fuller wears a black leather three-point gloves, named for the triple lines of stitching that taper toward the wrist on the dorsal side of each glove.

Fuller’s gloves keep him warm during the holiday season while also preventing him from compromising the crime scene with his own fingerprints.

Of all of Lieutenant Fuller’s attire, the dark brown tweed trilby with its pinched crown and self-band seems the most out of place, suggesting that the costume was meant for the much older Edmond O’Brien rather than the younger John Saxon who was still under 40 at the time of the production and a decade beyond the decline of hat-wearing culture among fashionable gents in North America.

While many aspects of Fuller’s attire aren’t prominently seen on screen, his frequent phone calls give us plenty of time with his silver-toned wristwatch with its light silver round dial. The case and bracelet are likely stainless steel, with the latter resembling the five-piece link “Jubilee” bracelet that Rolex introduced on their Datejust model in 1945.

Is Lieutenant Fuller a Rolex wearer?

If Fuller’s watch is a Rolex, it was likely the owned property of John Saxon rather than a piece purchased for the production as there would be no reason to purchase a Rolex for the character, even if they were considerably less expensive in the early 1970s, even when accounting for inflation.

What’d Barb Wear?

You’re a real gold-plated whore, Mother, you know that?

I can’t let a discussion of Black Christmas go without a shoutout to the sublime Margot Kidder and her entertaining performance as the brash and boozy Barb, one of the sorority sisters targeted by the mysterious caller. The acerbic alcoholic spends most of her time drinking anything from pulls of Labatt’s 50 ale in the police station to G.H. Mumm champagne straight from the bottle. After Timothy Bond added the university setting at the behest of producers Richard Schouten and Harvey Sherman, Bob Clark added Barb’s constant drunkenness as comic relief, further attracting Kidder to the role “because she was wild and out of control” and eventually winning her a deserved Canadian Film Award for Best Performance by a Lead Actress.

In the opening Christmas party scene, Barb lounges from drink to drink in a barely buttoned blue oxford-cloth button-down shirt, leaving the collar also unbuttoned to lay flat and wide over her shoulders and showcasing a black velvet neckband bedazzled with a shiny brooch reading “YES” from the center of her neck.

“That was fun,” Margot Kidder recalled to The AV Club of her time filming Black Christmas. “I really bonded with Andrea Martin, filming in Toronto and Ontario. Olivia Hussey was a bit of an odd one. She was obsessed with the idea of falling in love with Paul McCartney through her psychic. We were a little hard on her for things like that.”

Barb’s look has tragically dodged iconic status, and I remain hopeful each year to see an attendee at a Halloween party (or, perhaps even more appropriately, a Christmas party) channeling Barb’s insouciant look with a cigarette in one hand and champagne coupe spilling from the other.

The Gun

Outside of his shoulder holster, Lieutenant Fuller’s sidearm is seen only in silhouette, but the elongated ramp-style front sight and secured ejector rod suggest a relatively recent Smith & Wesson revolver chambered in .38 Special and with a 1 7/8″ or 2″ barrel. While the six-shot Smith & Wesson Model 10 “Military & Police” is a possibility, the more compact silhouette suggests the five-shot Smith & Wesson Model 36 “Chiefs Special”, built on Smith & Wesson’s smaller J-frame.

His Smith & Wesson .38 drawn, Fuller hopes to close in on the killer.

After Smith & Wesson resumed civilian production following World War II, they recognized the need for a concealable and durable police revolver to contend with the iconic Colt Detective Special snub-nosed revolver that could fire the powerful .38 Special ammunition that had become the standard for American law enforcement. Smith & Wesson’s existing compact I-frame was deemed unsuitable to handle the powerful load, so the manufacturer developed the J-frame for this new revolver, sacrificing one extra slot in the swing-out cylinder to allow it to reliably fire the substantial .38 Special.

The revolver was introduced at the International Association of Chiefs of Police convention in 1950, where the attendees gave it their blessing and voted to christen it “Chiefs Special” (not “Chief’s Special” or “Chiefs’ Special”, mind you.) Though the revolver received its new Model 36 designation when Smith & Wesson began numbering its models later in the decade, the Chiefs Special moniker stuck and remains to this day.

How to Get the Look

John Saxon as Lt. Ken Fuller in Black Christmas (1974)

Bold checks were increasingly fashionable during the ’70s, and John Saxon shows how to wear a large-scaled check sport jacket with taste in 1974’s Black Christmas by keeping the rest of his outfit subdued and classic without surrendering to the excess-driven menswear trends of the decade.

• Brown-and-black basket-woven check (with black and green overcheck) single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, and long double vents
• Ecru poplin shirt with spread collar, plain front, and single-button rounded cuffs
• Black-on-charcoal uphill-striped tie with bronze box motif
• Dark brown flat front trousers with buckle-tab side adjusters, frogmouth front pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Brown leather lace-up shoes
• Steel wristwatch with round silver dial on steel “Jubilee”-style bracelet
• Tan chamois leather “quickdraw” shoulder holster with white ribbed nylon suspension strap
• Dark brown wool double-breasted bridge coat with wide Ulster collar and set-in sleeves with two-button cuffs
• Dark brown tweed trilby with self-band
• Black leather three-point gloves

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Nash, I don’t think you could pick your nose without written instructions.

As this week is arguably seeing a number of Christmas parties ramping up at offices around the world, let’s dust off last year’s concept of exploring the famous workplace celebrations at the Scranton branch of the fictional—and highly inept—paper company Dunder Mifflin on NBC’s The Office.

“The holidays have been kind to The Office,” wrote Nathan Rabin for The AV Club in his contemporary review of this episode—which he bestowed with an impressive A- grade—in December 2009. “Some of my favorite episodes take place on Halloween and Christmas, holidays that afford the show an opportunity to break up the visual monotony of business attire and workaday drudgery and indulge in killer sight gags involving Dwight dressed as a malevolent, mean-eyed elf, Michael as a half-assed God figure and geese running amok in unlikely places.”

One of The Office‘s better of its seven Christmas-themed episodes was “Secret Santa”, midway through the show’s sixth season. Perpetual prankster Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) has been promoted to co-regional manager alongside Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and also finds himself co-leading the party planning committee with Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson). Jim and Dwight seemingly put aside their differences to take on the Sisyphean task of motivating their uninspired office for the company’s time-honored holiday party tradition…

Jim: It is office camaraderie.
Dwight: It is warm feelings.

Ho ho ho and happy holidays!

Tidings are all but good when Michael’s “hurt, petulant Jesus” goes too far roasting Phyllis in “Secret Santa” (Episode 6.13).
Left to right: John Krasinski as Jim Halpert, Jenna Fischer as Pam Beesly, Phyllis Smith as Phyllis Lapin (as Santa), Creed Bratton, Mindy Kaling as Kelly Kapoor, Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute, B.J. Novak as Ryan Howard, and Kate Flannery as Meredith Palmer.

Series: The Office
Episode: “Secret Santa” (Episode 6.13)
Air Date: December 10, 2009
Director: Randall Einhorn
Creator: Greg Daniels
Costume Designer: Alysia Raycraft

Things have changed plenty at Dunder Mifflin since the first few Christmas parties we spent with the Scranton branch. The first holiday episode of The Office, the second season’s masterpiece “Christmas Party”, included a disastrous game of White Elephant and the first appearance of both Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration, and a topless Meredith. The following year, the Scranton employees were still getting acquainted with their merged colleagues from Stamford and, thanks to Michael Scott’s loneliness, also spent the Christmas party getting acquainted with two hibachi restaurant waitresses in the episode appropriately titled “A Benihana Christmas”.

By the sixth season, the employees of Dunder Mifflin Scranton have engaged in the time-honored office tradition of a “Secret Santa” gift exchange that lends the episode its name, hoping to keep spirits bright despite the prospect of Dunder Mifflin going out of business.

While the employees had far more on their minds, let’s again delve into how the men of Dunder Mifflin Scranton dressed for their office party, aside from the uniformed warehouse workers and Michael himself for reasons to be explored after we determine the rankings. As with the Benihana Christmas episode list, points are awarded for incorporating a festive holiday aesthetic into an office-appropriate outfit without going overboard into the tacky realm, which brings us to the bottom of the list…

9. Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson)

My diabolical plot is on hold for Christmas. My heart just melts with the sound of children singing… not really. I’m just tired. The days are short. I don’t know, maybe I’m depressed.

Infamous around the office for his mustard-colored short-sleeved shirts (specifically of the “spicy brown” variety), assistant to the regional manager Dwight Schrute is hardly the best dresser at Dunder Mifflin Scranton, though being so would hardly align with his aspirations. That said, Dwight puts surprising effort into his attire for this holiday party, though this effort is spent in all the wrong directions. He revives the elfish accessories of a pointy green felt hat—complete with a bouncy red pom—and disturbingly lifelike pointy ears from the second season episode “Christmas Party” (Episode 2.10), then supplements his yellow (perhaps more of a Dijon?) shirt with Christmas-themed suspenders and bow tie.

As Andy Bernard illustrated in “A Benihana Christmas”, poor neckwear choices can ruin an otherwise nice holiday outfit, so Dwight isn’t doing himself any favors with this rigid red-and-green striped bow tie that would make an unwelcome return the following year in “Classy Christmas” (Episodes 7.11 and 7.12). His red suspenders, bedecked with Santa faces, could be forgivably cheesy if they were hidden by his brown suit jacket but, exposed as they are—and worn with a belt, no less!—Dwight looks like he would fit in better as a server at Ed Debevic’s than a party attendee.

Change from “A Benihana Christmas” ranking: -2 (technically still #9 but having two less characters to rank means Dwight’s place at the bottom is essentially a double demotion)

Like one of Santa’s elves…

8. Creed Bratton

What if you’ve been really, really bad? More “evil” than strictly “wrong”.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. While Dwight may be a characteristically bad dresser, Creed Bratton was deemed by BAMF Style the surprising dark horse winner with his understated holiday attire in “A Benihana Christmas”. Yet, as Creed’s questionable mental state continues to decline over the course of The Office, so does his sense of taste when dressing for workplace Christmas parties, countering his classic micro-checked brown sport jacket and beige spread-collar shirt with a tacky tie.

oh how the mighty have fallen. as creed’s questionable mental state continues to decline over the course of the office, so does his sense of taste when dressing for office christmas parties, dropping from his ‘dark horse’ win for his “A Benihana CHristmas” style to one of the more reviled approaches to the christmas party in “secret santa” thanks to a tacky tie that says ‘merry christmas’ in a snow-capped block text that alternates green and red on a black ground. it’s a shame, because the subdued micro-check jacket and taupe-ish spread-collar shirt are nice.

Change from “A Benihana Christmas” ranking: -8

Given his nefarious misdeeds, Creed has trouble believing he’s in for anything better than a lump of coal.

7. Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner)

Michael, it’s me, Kevin. Phyllis says I’m too big for her lap.

Christmas-themed ties are tricky territory as they often have a propensity for tackiness, but Kevin at least manages to find one more suitable than Creed’s, though it should come as no surprise that Kevin would be sporting a Jerry Garcia tie… which is considerably better than many alternatives when it comes to yule-themed neckwear. Jerry Garcia silk ties like Kevin’s, with a green Christmas tree covered in lights brush-painted onto a red ground, are always making rounds on sites like Poshmark (see here and here), should one be so inclined to channel everyone’s favorite perverse but well-meaning paper company accountant with a penchant for chili.

The banal Kevin continues to surprise by sporting the tie with an above-average ensemble that elevates him in the sartorial rankings, anchored by a dark brown rope-striped worsted suit more formal than his usual sport jackets and a plain, unostentatious white shirt that doesn’t interfere with his loudly printed tie.

Change from “A Benihana Christmas” ranking: +3

As Kevin mulls over what to ask Santa, episode writer Mindy Kaling can be seen laughing over Brian Baumgartner’s shoulder. Kaling also wrote, produced, and directed episodes for the series.

6. Toby Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein)

This must be obvious how wrong this is…

As he did in “A Benihana Christmas”, Toby dons a neatly patterned Christmas-themed tie with a tasteful sport jacket and tonally coordinated shirt with more success than Creed or Kevin. However, the dancing Santas organized in rows over a bottle green ground isn’t quite as tasteful as the more subdued nutcracker tie seen a few years earlier.

Change from “A Benihana Christmas” ranking: -3

Poor Toby could have been in Costa Rica the whole time…

5. Stanley Hudson (Leslie David Baker)

Are we supposed to applaud you for taking a giant diaper off a fake tree?

Maybe I’m just a sucker for Stanley Hudson’s subdued approach to life, which makes it an even greater joy to see the unceasingly bored salesman decked out in a jaunty example of what some may consider the archetypal “ugly Christmas sweater”. Leave it to Stanley to find the path of lowest effort, even when it comes to dressing for his office holiday party, and he can leave his jacket and tie at home to let his festive sweater shine.

And what a sweater it is! A plain light gray ground lets the design do all the heavy lifting, accented with scarlet ribbed crew neck, cuffs, and hem, and a zig-zag bordering the top and bottom of the decorative pattern taking front and center… that pattern being two white reindeer flanking a white snowflake that matches the snowflake on each sleeve. This soft, shaker-stitched knit sweater is a surprising choice for the unenthusiastic Stanley, and it may be a gift from his girlfriend Cynthia that he’s wearing out of obligation… or a gift from his wife Teri that he’s wearing in attempting amends for his relationship with Cynthia.

Change from “A Benihana Christmas” ranking: -1

Stanley looks just as excited to be wearing that sweater as one would expect.

4. Jim Halpert (John Krasinski)

You can’t yell out “I need this, I need this,” as you pin down an employee on your lap.

Finally, some spirited holiday color from Jim Halpert! After five seasons of sticking with his conservative whites, blues, grays, and browns for Dunder Mifflin Scranton’s myriad holiday celebrations, the new co-manager embraces his position akin to Michael Scott and ties on some welcome red neckwear. It doesn’t go overboard, but Jim’s crimson cravat is just bright enough to look more festive than the average office drone’s classic red “power tie”. Like Creed’s winning outfit in “A Benihana Christmas”, Jim’s all gray suit and shirt provide an easy foundation that lets the tie jump out as a particularly festive addition.

While there may be some fit issues with Jim’s attire, particularly a shirt one size too large, this is a welcome change from the laidback Mr. Halpert and an easy queue for anyone to follow when dressing for the office Christmas party.

Change from “A Benihana Christmas” ranking: +1

THE OFFICE

3. Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez)

I know what I’m doing, Pam.

Even if Oscar doesn’t approach his accounting job at Dunder Mifflin with much enthusiasm, the fact that he dresses for the “Secret Santa” Christmas party in a fun ensemble beyond than his usual office garb shows that he’s putting in an effort to look spirited. Oscar’s corduroy jacket with a duo-toned lilac shirt and tie combination looks festive, if not particularly Christmassy… though one could argue that the corded jacket skews toward olive green, if you’re looking to stretch this ensemble into the spectrum of holiday colors. No wonder Matt the warehouse guy was impressed!

Change from “A Benihana Christmas” ranking: -1

Oscar reluctantly lets Pam play matchmaker for him at the Christmas party.

2. Andy Bernard (Ed Helms)

I begged Dwight and Jim to give me Erin for Secret Santa. And I decided to give Erin the twelve days of Christmas. Is it my fault that the first eight days is basically thirty birds?

Andy Bernard likely puts more attention into how he dresses than any of the men at Dunder Mifflin Scranton, sometimes taking one sartorial risk too many, though this textured, layered outfit shows signs of considered improvement over his ensemble in “A Benihana Christmas”. The cheap tie has gone the way of Andy’s wall-punching anger and the now-affable prepster is decked out in a mix of Brooks Brothers and J. Press, swapping out the shiny polyester-looking striped tie for a more subdued bow tie. Each piece works well together and is fine on its own, from the tan corduroy 3/2.5-roll sports coat with elbow patches and the lightweight cream long-sleeved V-neck sweater beneath it to the colorful (but not garish) striped bow tie and the French blue OCBD.

While festive, I docked a few points for Andy’s surprising lack of holiday color, though one could argue that he addresses that with the bright red scarf as he leads the twelve drummers that complete his Christmas gift to Erin in the parking lot. Still, you’d think a cheesy guy like Andy would show a little more holiday spirit in the colors of his outfit, and Michael’s observation a few episodes later that the way Andy dresses “reminds me of Easter” reminds us that there’s not much specific to the Christmas holiday in Andy’s ensemble. (Unless you consider the forest green sweater vest and navy sport jacket he wore during the cold open tree reveal scene!)

Both pieces of Andy’s neckwear are patterned in the Argyll and Sutherland regimental stripe, consisting of wide navy and forest green stripes separated by thin beige and red stripes. This repp tie and bow tie are still available from Brooks Brothers.

Change from “A Benihana Christmas” ranking: +9

Andy realizes his attempt at a romantic Secret Santa gift isn’t having quite the intended effect.

1. Ryan Howard (B.J. Novak)

Uh, I have actually been to Rock Center, and this is nothing like that.

What a long, strange journey the erstwhile temp has been on since we last saw him as a newly promoted salesman in “A Benihana Christmas”. Unqualified for his own ambitions, Ryan Howard quickly let his ensuing corporate promotion go straight to his head until he was removed from Dunder Mifflin in a haze of illegal drugs and fraud. His tenure with the aborted Michael Scott Paper Company hinted at redemption, but—alas—Ryan’s quick success seemed to have arrested his development and nurtured the entitled young man’s resentment and, by the sixth season, he has evolved into a psuedo-hipster hell-bent on exacting revenge on anyone forcing him to perform actual work… namely Jim Halpert.

Thus, it grieves me to say that Ryan does strike a fine balance between incorporating holiday color in a relatively subdued, creative, and tasteful fashion, putting his own unique hipster-informed spin on an office-friendly outfit with a soft moss green sleeveless five-button cardigan, accented by darker olive edges and pocket welts, over a scarlet shirt and dark green two-toned silk tie. I hate to give the top spot to such a little shit, particularly in the context of how his style completely devolves into a desperate hipster aesthetic over the rest of the season, but alas, it’s nice to see this young cynic embracing the holiday colors.

Change from “A Benihana Christmas” ranking: +8

Ryan’s red and green stands out as he sits flanked by Oscar and Kelly in their respective shades of purple.

Dishonorable mention: Michael Scott (Steve Carell)

If this were Russia, yeah, sure, everybody would go to one Santa. And there would be a line around the block, and once you sat on her lap and she asks you what you wanted, you would probably say “freedom”… at which point the KGB would arrest you and send you to Siberia. It’s a good thing Russia doesn’t exist anymore.

Thanks to an ever-changing corporate structure, the departure of Holly Flax, and his usual annoyances (namely Toby), Michael Scott is at his most unhinged during this year’s Christmas party, and his frustration with the long-suffering Phyllis finally getting the chance to play Santa (and successfully so) sends him into a downward spiral of misery and despair. To protest Phyllis, Michael turns his own Santa Claus suit inside-out, draping himself in shiny off-white vestments and tying a decorative rope around his waist to declare himself to be Jesus Christ… albeit a version of Jesus with both the power of flight and the ability to heal “leopards” [sic].

Michael is still dressed as “hurt, petulant Jesus” when he makes the call to Dunder Mifflin CFO David Wallace and learns the fate of the company.

After his humbling call with David Wallace, Michael abandons his holy garb and zips a navy cotton hoodie over his white undershirt.

Happy holidays, BAMF Style readers!

I hope all of you, particularly fans of The Office, enjoyed this exploration into another classic holiday episode.

If you haven’t seen The Office, do yourself a favor and check it out on Netflix (while you can) or find the complete series on DVD.

Richard Burton as Paul Andros in The V.I.P.s (1963)

Vitals

Richard Burton as Paul Andros, millionaire industrialist

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

As December continues and plans are being made to travel home for the holidays, we’d be well-served to recall Anthony Asquith’s paean to the Jet Age, The V.I.P.s, a lavish and star-studded drama released five years after more passengers were making their transatlantic crossings by air than by sea.

Also known as Hotel International, The V.I.P.s was released in September 1963, just three months after Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton scandalized the silver screen in Cleopatra. Though Cleopatra met with polarizing reviews, the buzz around Taylor and Burton’s illicit affair generated enough buzz about their subsequent cinematic collaboration, though The V.I.P.s was a relatively tame effort when compared to the Egyptian epic that had been the most expensive movie ever made at the time of its release.

It was, in fact, a Hollywood scandal that inspired Terence Rattigan to draft his screenplay, taking cues from his friend Vivien Leigh’s attempt to leave Laurence Olivier and abscond with her lover, Peter Finch. When Leigh and Finch’s flight out of London was delayed by fog, Olivier was able to confront them at the airport and convince Leigh to return home with him.

V.I.P. couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor on set in London, circa December 1962.

Though Burton and Taylor had been cheating on their respective spouses with each other, Burton was ironically cast in the Olivier role as the jealous husband while the debonair Louis Jourdan co-starred as Taylor’s paramour. You can read more about this lavish production in Sam Kashner’s 40th anniversary retrospective for Vanity Fair, “A FIrst-Class Affair”.

What’d He Wear?

Acclaimed as a Shakespearean actor who excelled in period productions such as Henry V of England, Hamlet, and King Arthur on the stage and Alexander the Great and Mark Antony on screen, Richard Burton descended onto the tarmac during this century in The V.I.P.s, providing the opportunity for the actor to show off his tailored duds in full Metrocolor.

A client of the esteemed Douglas Hayward in real life, Burton portrays a wealthy and successful magnate who outfits himself in the latest finery though with an eye for timeless taste rather than adhering to trends. Burton’s attire is anchored by a charcoal flannel suit, an undisputed staple of a gentleman’s wardrobe.

A dramatic moment between husband and wife.

The single-breasted suit jacket has lapels of a moderately narrow width that gently roll to the center of his three-button front. The double-vented jacket is rigged with three buttons per cuff.

In addition to the requisite welted breast pocket and flapped hip pockets, Burton’s suit jacket has a flapped ticket pocket above the right hip pocket. This hallmark of English tailoring is quite suitable for Burton’s kit here as his character is, indeed, traveling and could make good use of this pocket for his BOAC boarding pass.

A shirtmaker’s respective talent can make or break a simple staple like a plain white shirt, so Burton opted for the best by seeking the wares of his usual shirtmaker, the esteemed Frank Foster of London. Frank Foster confirmed via two Instagram posts (in February 2017 and March 2019) that they crafted Burton’s elegant white cotton shirt with its semi-spread collar and double (French) cuffs that he fastens with a set of gold links, each adorned with a silver sphere in the center.

Some consider it gauche for a pocket square to exactly match the color, pattern, and fabric of the necktie, but Paul Andros unapologetically does just that, sporting a crimson silk pocket hank folded into a single point emerging from the welted breast pocket of his jacket. His straight crimson silk tie is held to the chest by a black tie tack.

Evidently, red silk pocket squares are the uniform of Frances Andros’ lovers as both Paul and Marc Champselle (Louis Jourdan) wear them.

The charcoal suit’s matching trousers are finished with plain hems that break just below the tops of his shoes, a pair of tragically under-showcased black calf double monk shoes that appear to be similar to the ones he was photographed wearing with a similar outfit while escorting Taylor to the June 1963 fight between Muhammad Ali and Henry Cooper and during their 1964 wedding.

A pair of black dress socks cover any exposed leg line between the trouser bottoms and shoe tops.

Arguably the most distinctive piece of Burton’s wardrobe in The V.I.P.s is Paul Andros’ grand topcoat, a black knee-length affair lined in burgundy silk with a shawl collar made of black astrakhan fur, derived from the pelts of the now-endangered Karakul sheep, native to Central Asia. The most valuable astrakhan was considered to be from newborn or fetal lambs, which produced the tightest and shiniest of this fleece-like fur.

As Sir Hardy Amies would pen the following year in his seminal sartorial tome, ABC of Men’s Fashion, “Astrakhan used to be used only on the collars of the overcoats of passé actor-managers. Now reappears on the gayest of youthful overcoats and of course as fur hats.” You can read more about the history and process of extracting astrakhan fur in this well-researched piece for The Dreamstress.

When worn closed, Andros’ single-vented coat fastens high on the chest with a three-button single-breasted front. The set-in sleeves are roped at the sleeveheads and finished at the cuffs with a single-button strap.

Should the astrakhan fur collar prove inadequate for wintry insulation, Andros dons the additional seasonally appropriate layer of a dark red scarf, made of a soft wool that is likely a luxurious cashmere. Fringed at the edges, Andros’ scarf is just a slightly deeper shade of crimson than his tie.

Paul wears a gold ring with a square diamond-studded face on the third finger of his right hand, though I’m not certain if this is meant to be a character affectation or was Burton’s own property. He also wears a gold square-cased watch on a gold bracelet on his left wrist.

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, photographed by Everett during their 1964 wedding.

The outfit must have been particularly meaningful for Richard Burton, as he wore a similar ensemble—if not the exact same suit, shirt, and tie—for his wedding to Elizabeth Taylor on March 15, 1964… his second wedding and her fifth.

The two were married at the Ritz-Carlton in Montreal, though Burton’s garb tended to be ignored in favor of the actress’ canary yellow “babydoll” dress that was designed by Irene Sharaff, who had also designed the costumes for Cleopatra, the film that brought Burton and Taylor together.

Given their bond through Roman history, the two should have taken greater stock in the fact that the first of their two marriages was on the Ides of March.

The Gun

“I didn’t know people ever really carried these things,” comments Marc after Paul places his FN Model 1910 (“that thing in your pocket”) on the table. It’s a sign of the times that Paul Andros is just casually walking around Heathrow Airport with a loaded handgun… perhaps if The V.I.P.s would be remade today, Paul would be a considered a security threat if he was walking around the terminal carrying toothpaste in a tube larger than three ounces.

Marc Champselle inspects Paul Andros’ Browning pistol.

Also known as the “Browning Model 1910”, this unique semi-automatic pistol marked a departure for American firearms designer John Browning. Browning had previously enjoyed business on both sides of the Atlantic with Colt Firearms producing his designs in the United States and Fabrique Nationale (FN) of Belgium manufacturing his goods in Europe. As Colt was already producing the wildly successful Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless pistol in both .32 ACP and .380 ACP, the manufacturer ostensibly had no need for Browning’s latest blowback-operated pistol that would be chambered in both calibers. On the other hand, FN was interested in producing Browning’s latest design, so he elected to patent the Model 1910 to be produced exclusively by FN for the European market.

The striker-fired pistol contained the “triple safety” hallmarks of Browning’s designs—namely a grip safety, magazine safety, and external lever—though it differentiated itself from earlier models with an innovative location for a spring surrounding the barrel, a design aspect that would be later found in successful pistols like the Walther PP and PPK and the Makarov PM.

FN Model 1910, serial #530203, currently on display at Morges military museum. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The FN Model 1910 was revolutionary both in its design and its execution, used in at least three infamous political assassinations across the early 20th century: Gavrilo Princip and his fellow Black Hand conspirators were armed with .380 ACP Model 1910 pistols when he killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo in June 1914, Paul Gorguloff used one during the assassination of French President Paul Doumer in May 1932, and a .32-caliber Model 1910 was reportedly in Carl Weiss’ hand when he shot Louisiana Governor Huey Long in September 1935.

At the time of the Model 1910’s development, the word “Browning” was virtually synonymous with semi-automatic pistols due to the ubiquity of the designer’s groundbreaking weapons around the world, including its less sophisticated predecessor, the FN Model 1900. First manufactured in October 1912, the FN Model 1910 would be produced until 1983 with several longer-barreled variants introduced across its lifetime. You can read more about the FN Model 1910 and how it compares to the Browning “Old Model” in Ed Buffaloe’s entry for Unblinking Eye.

What to Imbibe

Pay no attention. Drunks cry very easily. It’s only the whisky.

Not unlike the actor potraying him, Paul Andros is often at his most comfortable with a drink in his hand… even when it’s a glass of White Horse that his wife’s lover had brought to her hotel room. Paul later orders yet another glass of White Horse when he’s penning his letter downstairs in the hotel lobby, turning away the soda that is offered along with it.

Paul Andros pours himself a dram.

White Horse blended Scotch whisky was first produced by James Logan Mackie in 1861, a hundred years before it would be famously drank by Jackie Gleason as pool hustler Minnesota Fats in The Hustler (1961) opposite Paul Newman. Bottles of White Horse can also be spied poured by presidential candidate Grant Matthews (Spencer Tracy) in Frank Capra’s State of the Union (1948), and enjoyed without ice by gangster Nicky Grillo (Jamie Grillo) in the fourth episode of Magic City‘s second season. Perhaps as a nod to the whisky’s wartime role as a favorite of the U.S. Army Air Forces’ 467th Bombardment Group, the British spymaster Colonel Cadogan (Julian Glover) drinks a dram of White Horse from a bottle in his office in the underrated World War II espionage series Wish Me Luck.

How to Get the Look

Richard Burton as Paul Andros in The V.I.P.s (1963)

While The V.I.P.s was not explicitly set during the holiday season—indeed, I believe I pinpointed the action to be January—Richard Burton’s charcoal suit and red accessories would be a sleek and unquestionably fashionable alternative to the legions of tartan plaids and ugly Christmas sweaters you’ll doubtlessly encounter at an upcoming holiday function.

• Charcoal flannel tailored suit:
  • Single-breasted 3-button suit jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets and ticket pocket, 3-button cuffs, and double vents
  • Trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton shirt with semi-spread collar and double/French cuffs
  • Gold cuff links with silver spherical centers
• Crimson red silk tie
  • Black tie tack
• Black calf leather double-monk shoes
• Black dress socks
• Black knee-length topcoat with astrakhan fur collar, high single-breasted 3-button fastening, set-in sleeves (with 1-button tab cuffs), and single vent
• Crimson red cashmere scarf with fringed edges
• Gold ring with square diamond-studded face
• Gold square-cased watch on gold bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

With the truth, we don’t have much hope, but with lies, we have none.

Safe travels!

Joe Pesci as Russell Bufalino in The Irishman (2019)

Vitals

Joe Pesci as Russell Bufalino, shrewd and pragmatic Mafia boss of northeast Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Christmas 1960

Film: The Irishman
Release Date: November 1, 2019
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Design: Sandy Powell & Christopher Peterson

Background

Nearly 30 years after he and Daniel Stern embarked on their first foolhardy attempt to ruin Christmas for Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci was given the opportunity to redefine his yuletide association via a brief vignette in The Irishman, Martin Scorsese’s latest crime epic and the subject of frequent requests from BAMF Style readers.

It’s Christmas 1960, more than a month after Pennsylvania mob boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) cheered on John F. Kennedy’s win for the U.S. presidency. Russell and his pal Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) aren’t yet away of JFK’s plan to appoint his brother as United States Attorney General… and a particularly aggressive A.G. when it comes to organized crime. Ignorance being bliss in this instance, Russell and Frank enjoy a pleasant holiday evening at home with their families.

Russell and Frank bookend their families’ shared Christmas celebration from their comfortable seats.

Russell is riding high after his role in JFK’s election, but he finds it far easier to help a man he never met win a presidential election than it is to win the affection of Frank’s shrewd daughter Peggy. Despite his gift of brand-new skates (with a $100 bill inside!), Russell is still unable to get through to Peggy, who—despite being only 11 years old—refuses to see him as a benevolent uncle and instead resents him for representing her father’s violent side.

What’d He Wear?

Thanks to the myriad holiday specials that the likes of Perry Como and Andy Williams hosted through the 1960s and 1970s, the image of the classic, Rockwell-ian Christmas at home is hardly complete without the avuncular patriarch in an easy chair, clad in a cardigan and possibly nursing a pipe. While he doesn’t have the pipe, the 57-year-old Russell Bufalino is our de facto patriarch for this yuletide scene and dresses appropriately in a seasonally appropriate color-blocked cardigan and coordinated printed silk tie.

Joe Pesci, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, and Kathrine Narducci line up for an on-set photo. Note the tracking markers on the tops of Pesci’s and De Niro’s costumes, to be used for the de-aging technology.

Russell’s knit wool cardigan is primarily burgundy, though the front is vertically striped in wide color blocks that split each front panel into blocks of burgundy, gray, and black from outside to center. The five-button sweater is no-frills, devoid of pockets or additional details other than the ribbed cuffs. While I suggest that the cardigan is likely made from wool or a wool blend, it also reminds me of the fuzzy cardigans from that era that I inherited from my grandfather, all branded from various acrylic fibers like Dacron and Orlon.

Thanks to the renaissance of the shawl-collar cardigan led by celebrities like Daniel Craig, the simpler collarless cardigan has taken a back seat as menswear brands roll out their warmer, winter-friendly lineups. While mining vintage retailers is probably your best bet for finding something similar to Pesci’s screen-worn sweater, there are still a few options out there in the same spirit of Russell’s collarless, colorful Christmas cardigan:

• Alfani (Macy’s house brand) two-tone burgundy cardigan (Amazon)
• Ermengildo Zegna burgundy and patterned-front knitted silk cardigan (Amazon)
• HOUBL burgundy, gray, and black argyle cardigan (Amazon)
• LINGMIN burgundy, gray, and black argyle cardigan (Amazon)

Just want a burgundy cardigan without the fuss of the colors and patterns? Check these out:

• Buttoned Down five-button cardigan in merino wool (Amazon) and cashmere (Amazon)
• Cashmere Boutique cashmere five-button cardigan (Amazon)
• Chaps cotton five-button cardigan (Belk)
• Classics by Palmland acrylic six-button cardigan (Amazon)
• Kallspin wool/viscose blend five-button cardigan (Amazon)
• Quinn wool/cashmere five-button cardigan with gray fleck and sleeve stripe (Nordstrom Rack)
• Shephe cashmere five-button cardigan (Amazon)
• State Cashmere cashmere five-button cardigan (Amazon)
• Uniqlo lambswool five-button cardigan (Uniqlo)

Under his cardigan, Russell gives himself a considerable palette with a simple pale gray shirt, no doubt among the hundreds made for the production by Geneva Custom Shirts. The shirt has a point collar but plenty of tie space to accommodate the wide Windsor knot of Russell’s tie, a printed silk piece so rooted in retro goodness that it has to be vintage.

The tie is patterned below the knot with two white shapes resembling vertically extended hexagrams (or snowflakes, if you’re looking to stretch it into a seasonal context), each shadowed in black. The entire tie is patterned in a series of tonal swirls, interrupted only by a triangular set of lines over each hexagonal pattern and extending up from the blade.

Russell keeps his outfit interesting and colorful despite limiting his palette to only the varying tones of three different colors.

Russell balances the colorful upper half of his outfit with a subdued lower half, nodding to the gray shirt and center stripes of his cardigan with his dark gray micro-checked wool trousers that rise high to Pesci’s natural waist, per the trending fashions circa 1960. The trousers are worn with a narrow black leather belt, coordinating with the black bicycle toe oxfords and black silk dress socks visible under the short break of his trousers’ cuffed bottoms.

The multi-camera crew films The Irishman‘s Christmas scene, as seen in The Irishman: In Conversation, Netflix’s brief documentary about the making of the film.

While Russell would be reasonably proud of the gold “liberty coin” ring that he would gift to Frank more than a decade later, the low-key mafioso forgoes jewelry for his holiday celebration with no visible rings. If he’s wearing a wristwatch, it’s concealed under the ribbed cuffs of his cardigan and his shirt’s long sleeves.

Joe Pesci and Stephanie Kurtzuba on set of The Irishman (2019)

How to Get the Look

Joe Pesci’s color-blocked cardigan and colorful vintage tie for a mid-century Christmas celebration in The Irishman give the actor a refined reprieve from the threadbare tweed coat and far-too-flammable ribbed beanie associated with Pesci’s previous holiday-adjacent role, hapless burglar Harry Lime in the Home Alone series.

• Burgundy, gray, and black color-block striped knitted wool five-button cardigan sweater
• Pale gray cotton shirt with point collar and button cuffs
• Vintage bright red silk tie with retro white-on-black shadowed patterns
• Dark gray micro-checked wool high-rise trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black narrow leather belt with thin steel single-prong buckle
• Black bicycle-toe 5- or 6-eyelet oxford shoes
• Black silk dress socks

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, currently streaming on Netflix.

The Quote

I heard you like to skate.

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos (Episode 6.12: “Kaisha”)

Vitals

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, New Jersey mob boss

North Caldwell, New Jersey, Christmas 2006

Series: The Sopranos
Episode: “Kaisha” (Episode 6.12)
Air Date: June 4, 2006
Director: Alan Taylor
Creator: David Chase
Costume Designer: Juliet Polcsa

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

On #SopranosSunday with Christmas just a few days away, let’s check in with everyone’s favorite mob family for the second and final holiday-set episode of The Sopranos‘ epic run.

I’m a sucker for Christmas scenes, and I always appreciate “holiday adjacent” movies like The Thin Man, Three Days of the Condor, The Godfather, Goodfellas, and—of course—Die Hard that add a certain mysticism by setting some or all of the action at Christmas, a time of wonderment and hope but often not without melancholy. Although we only spend the last five minutes of the episode in the midst of true yule celebrations, “Kaisha” is framed by family holidays, beginning with the bombing of Phil Leotardo’s New York restaurant just before Thanksgiving and continuing over the weeks to follow throughout the holiday season as the all-too-human characters of Soprano-world navigate the stressful spectrum that ranges from loveliness to an abundance of loved ones.

The third season’s “…To Save Us All from Satan’s Power” had leaned more heavily into sprinkling in some broader Christmas humor, whether with the scenes of a mobster in a Santa suit greeting neighborhood kids, Tony and Furio sporting Santa hats as they argue about who was to be the designated driver, or the remix of “The Little Drummer Boy” playing in a strip club as the guys down shots of rum.

As the finale of the penultimate season, “Kaisha” is a more introspective episode that sets up The Sopranos‘ masterful final run through the end of the series, though we do get some delightfully crude Chrimbo commentary from the always reliable Paulie Walnuts, fondly recalling the time that “Heh, I fucked a girl wearin’ a Santa hat once. It was too distracting. I kept losin’ my hard on.”

The Soprano family Christmas celebration takes over the first floor of the McMansion at 633 Stag Trail Road (actually 14 Aspen Drive), drifting from the family room where Bobby’s bored kids flip between A Christmas Carol and Casablanca on Tony’s TV, through the kitchen where the women are preparing the holiday feast, to the living room where Bobby Bacala (Steven R. Schirripa) excitedly recalls his youth when WABC would “track” Santa Claus via Air Force radar.

Despite the promises of peace in the new year after Tony’s heart-to-damaged heart chat with Phil Leotardo, there’s personal tension in the air, notably between Tony and his erstwhile protégé Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) as the latter has begun a clandestine relationship with Julianna Skiff (Julianna Margolis), a sharp real estate agent who had just rejected Tony’s own advances. The personal tensions are only exacerbated when Tony’s youngest, AJ (Robert Iler), arrives with his new girlfriend Blanca (Dania Ramirez) and her young son Hector.

An artificially effusive Carmela (Edie Falco) puts on her usual welcoming smile, but anyone who’s overheard her at a church luncheon knows the other shoe’s about to drop, and she takes the first opportunity alone with Tony to bemoan that “she’s ten years older than him and she’s Puerto Rican,” to which Tony responds, “Dominican… maybe.” Knowing Carmela’s soft spot, he adds, “…’least she’s Catholic.”

In their insightful essay about the episode in The Sopranos Sessions, Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall note that:

This newly responsible version of their son proves to be a monkey’s paw situation to Tony and especially Carmela, who wanted AJ to start taking life seriously, but doesn’t approve of the root cause of the change…

In that way, AJ’s situation isn’t that different from that of Tony’s unofficial other son Christopher, who is also struggling to get better, while being dumped on for the methods he uses along the way. The wiseguys all mock Christopher’s twelve-step activities, which only leaves him more isolated and more inclined to seek the comfort of someone like Julianna, while the more Tony and Carmela look down on Blanca and Hector, the more likely AJ seems to prefer their company to those of his parents.

Aside from Meadow, who phones in her yuletide greetings from California, the holidays bring everyone together and the growing Soprano/DeAngelis/Moltisanti/Baccalieri clan takes their positions on couches and carpet in front of the immaculately decorated tree in the Soprano living room, sitting as silent as the night Frank Sinatra describes on the soundtrack. It’s the last on-screen Christmas that the Soprano family would share and—for at least three heads of household in the room—quite possibly the last Christmas they’d be alive to spend with their families. Blanca breaks the ice by telling Carmela, “You have a gorgeous home,” to which the dutiful homemaker automatically responds with “Thanks,” before truly hearing what was said, observing her surroundings, and acknowledging earnestly: “We do.”

The series gives us this one final moment of peace with the Soprano family, with Meadow conspicuously absent (perhaps foreshadowing her absence in the series’ famous final scene), and the soundtrack fades from Ol’ Blue Eyes to a reprise of “Moonlight Mile”, the appropriately reflective ballad by The Rolling Stones that framed the beginning and end of the episode. While clearly not a Christmas song, this closing track from the Stones’ 1971 masterpiece album Sticky Fingers is worthy of a listen any time of the year, whether you’re indulging in nostalgia for the past, living in the present, or looking ahead to an uncertain future.

What’d He Wear?

“Tell her I kept my promise, I’m wearin’ yer present from Paris,” Tony asks Carmela to inform Meadow during her Christmas call. It’s never made clear whether Carmela—a woman of questionable taste—had meant the black Basque-style beret to be a heartfelt holiday present or a gag gift, but kudos to Tony for embracing the spirit of the season of giving and wearing the hat, if somewhat begrudgingly, for a portion of the family’s holiday celebration.

The news of his rival Phil’s heart attack is the best Christmas gift that Tony could have asked for, and even an uncharacteristic beret can’t dampen his spirits… though his nephew dating the woman who rejected his own advances threatens to curb his yuletide cheer.

Tony wears a fashion-forward dark striped shirt for Christmas dinner, patterned with burgundy and taupe stripes over a dark brown ground, with each “stripe” actually consisting of a thick stripe bordered on each side by a thinner one of the same color. (The unique shirt reminds me of one that I had also acquired in 2006, wearing it to a spring dance when I was a high school junior and again two years later during my grandmother’s annual outing to see The Nutcracker… a yuletide context à la Tony.)

The shirt has a then-trendy two-button spread collar and three buttons on each mitred cuff, a unique touch that suggests a shirtmaker inspired by Turnbull & Asser‘s signature three-button squared barrel cuff, though the mitred corners of Tony’s shirt cuffs add length to the sleeves that are most flatteringly balanced by a larger-framed man like James Gandolfini. The buttons on the collar, cuffs, and up the plain (French) front are all off-white plastic, fastened through white-stitched buttonholes that accentuate the contrast against the rest of the dark shirt.

Tony and Carmela confer on AJ’s new situation.

If the muted burgundy stripes on his shirt are Tony’s “holiday red”, he supplies the complementary green with his olive-colored slacks. He wears these trousers with a dark brown leather belt with a polished steel single-prong buckle, covering the extended waistband tab with its single-button pointed tab.

These double reverse-pleated trousers have slanted side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms.

The family watches as Hector excitedly runs toward the Christmas tree.

Tony wears a pair of cap-toe oxford shoes in a mid-brown shade of calf leather, similar to what Tony-approved shoemaker Allen Edmonds calls “dark chili” on similar shoes like its Park Avenue Cap-Toe Oxford (also available on Amazon.) Tony’s dark socks appear to be a maroon cotton lisle, a subtle nod to the festive colors associated with the season.

Even for a quiet evening at home, Tony Soprano doesn’t miss an item of his usual complement of gold jewelry including St. Jerome pendant and rings, though the wide coverage of his three-button shirt cuffs all but hides the gold chain-link bracelet on his right wrist. On the opposing wrist, Tony wears his usual Rolex Day-Date “President”, the yellow gold chronometer that had adorned his wrist since the show’s second episode. The Rolex “President” or “Presidential” dates back to the 1950s when a gold Day-Date with this distinctive link bracelet was gifted to Dwight Eisenhower, and it has been associated with several American heads of state in the decades to follow from Tony’s own beau idéal JFK to LBJ.

Tony Soprano wears a ref. 18238 Rolex Day-Date, differentiated from the oft-misidentified 118238 by its polished lugs and heavier bracelet (thank you, BAMF Style reader Chris!) The 18-karat yellow gold watch has a champagne-colored gold dial with a long display for the day of the week across the top and a date window at 3:00.

THE SOPRANOS / KAISHA

If you’re looking for a last-minute gift but aren’t looking to drop the five to ten thousand dollars a used Rolex President would set you back, may I suggest one of these gold-plated steel alternatives from Seiko? The quartz Seiko SGF206 is strapped to a Jubilee-like bracelet while the automatic Seiko SNKK52 has a bracelet that more closely resembles the President while the dial itself is considerably different. As of December 2019, each watch is less than $150.

A bottle of The Glenlivet, 12 Years Old, as it was labeled and sold in the mid-2000s around the time “Kaisha” was produced.

What to Imbibe

When Christopher isn’t hogging “all the ice” for his Coca-Cola, Tony pours himself a dram of 12-year-old Glenlivet single malt Scotch… neat, of course.

Over the course of the series, Tony’s Scotch preference evolves with his status, from bottom-shelf Cutty Sark in the first season when he’s a capo under Uncle Junior, with J&B bridging the gap as he is increasingly seen enjoying Johnnie Walker Black Label, a more exclusive blend, from “Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11) through the final season of the series. Beginning at the end of the third season, we begin to see more single malts among his office collection and in his glass, specifically 12-year-old Glenfiddich, Macallan, and—of course—Glenlivet.

What to Listen to

Who else? Frank Sinatra provides the backdrop for the last on-screen Soprano family Christmas, beginning with the last of three versions of “The Christmas Waltz” that Ol’ Blue Eyes would record over his prolific career. In her AV Club review of the Mad Men episode “Christmas Waltz”, Emily VanDerWerff nicely summed up the song for The AV Club as “one of those carols that hasn’t been over-recorded but is just familiar enough to be recognizable to just about anybody who hears it” with a “lovely, wistful quality” echoed not only by the Mad Men episode she was reviewing but also the finale of “Kaisha” as The Sopranos closed its penultimate season.

The wintry waltz was conceived on a hot summer day in 1954 when songwriters extraordinaire Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne were contacted with the demand that Sinatra wanted a Christmas song. Sinatra, whose comeback star was explosively rising on the heels of his recent Academy Award win and his string of successful concept albums for Capitol, was not a man to be refused at the time, even when Cahn insisted to Styne that it would be next to impossible to compete with the massive success of “White Christmas”.

Frank took to the studio on August 23, 1954, to record his first version of “The Christmas Waltz”, arranged by Nelson Riddle, which would be released as the B-side to his own rendition of “White Christmas”. Three years later, Gordon Jenkins arranged a new version featuring Sinatra and the Ralph Brewster Singers for Frank’s Christmas album for Capitol, the seminal A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra. (The album’s closing track, “Silent Night”, can also be heard in this episode.)

More than a decade later, it was another warm August day when Frank gathered in the studio to record “The Christmas Waltz”, now joined by the Jimmy Joyce Singers and his three kids—Frank Jr., Nancy, and Tina—all lending their talents to the appropriately titled album The Sinatra Family Wish You a Merry Christmas that would be released the following year with “The Christmas Waltz” as the penultimate track.

While it may not have the ubiquitous staying power of Bing Crosby’s signature ballad, “The Christmas Waltz” is at least a longtime holiday favorite of mine and often the first song I play to kick off my Christmas season on November 1st (yes, I’m one of those people.)

How to Get the Look

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos (Episode 6.12: “Kaisha”)

Tony Soprano would never be the sort of man to emblazon himself in a bright red and green on Christmas, though he does nod to holiday colors with the muted burgundy stripe in his shirt and his olive trousers for a stylishly understated and comfortable ensemble that even an ill-informed beret can’t tank.

• Dark brown (with burgundy and taupe alternating stripe sets) shirt with spread collar, 2-button neck, plain front, and 3-button mitred cuffs
• Olive double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Dark brown leather belt with polished steel squared single-prong buckle
• Brown calf leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Dark maroon dress socks
• Black wool Basque-style beret
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
• Rolex Day-Date “President” 18238 chronometer watch in 18-karat yellow gold with champagne-colored dial and “President” link bracelet
• Gold open-link chain bracelet
• Gold pinky ring with ruby and diamond stones
• Gold wedding ring
• Gold open-link chain necklace with round St. Jerome pendant

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series, and follow my friend @TonySopranoStyle on Instagram!

Looking for the perfect last-minute gift for the mob boss or proud patriarch in your life? Carmela Soprano seems to endorse the black beret, but you don’t need to travel all the way to Europe and the cold stones of Paris… for less than $10, you can get one on Amazon Prime that can be at your doorstep by Christmas Eve!

The Quote

Merry Christmas, baby.

Bing Crosby is joined by an exuberant Danny Kaye in White Christmas (1954)

Vitals

Bing Crosby as Bob Wallace, U.S. Army captain and popular entertainer

European Theater, Christmas Eve 1944

Film: White Christmas
Release Date: October 14, 1954
Director: Michael Curtiz
Costume Designer: Edith Head

Background

Merry Christmas Eve! The prologue of perennial holiday cinema classic White Christmas begins exactly 75 years ago today, Christmas Eve 1944, as the title card tells us…

Private First Class Phil Davis is proudly assisting Captain Bob Wallace, evidently a known entertainer on par with Al Jolson, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, or—um—Bing Crosby, as they host a “yuletide clambake” for the men of the fictitious 151st Division, providing the type of entertainment that Davis boasts would cost $6.60 or even $8.80 stateside. The guest of honor, the division’s beloved commanding officer Major General Tom Waverly (Dean Jagger) is late to arrive, but he makes his way up to the stage just in time for the “slam bang finish” after Bing’s sentimental and definitive rendition of the title song, “White Christmas”.

“Crosby sings it to soldiers in the opening World War II sequence, as he had done for real a decade earlier, and the camera pans across the men listening and yearning for home, many with their eyes closed,” wrote Jeremy Arnold in Christmas in the Movies: 30 Classics to Celebrate the Season. “The set looks artificial, like a conjured memory impression, showing the point to be not realism but the nostalgia that the song and setting evoke.”

The events of the evening unite Wallace and Davis together for life after the jittery young private saves the crooning captain’s life by pushing him out of harm’s way as a brick wall nearly falls into them during the aerial attack. The next day, on Christmas, Captain Wallace dons a camouflage neckerchief as he visits Phil in the infirmary… and a legendary partnership is born!

In reality, Christmas Eve 1944 was just over a week after the German military launched a surprise offensive that began a month of brutal winter combat which would become immortalized as the “Battle of the Bulge” and would deliver a pyrrhic victory for the Allies as the largest and bloodiest single battle bought by the United States during World War II and the third deadliest campaign in American military history.

What’d He Wear?

Bob and Phil don seasonally festive garb over their fatigues in the form of the red jacket and requisite stocking cap from a makeshift Santa suit, consistent with the enduring Santa Claus image popularized by Thomas Nast at Harper’s Weekly and Haddon Sundblom’s Coca-Cola advertising.

Apropos his in-universe rank and status, Bob sports what appears to be the better of the two garments, a crimson pullover tunic with a shirred horizontal front yoke and a button-up placket that extends from the neck down to the waist, decorated with two large white “buttons” on the front that match the piled fleece-like trim and tassel of his nightcap. While Phil’s red pullover V-neck tunic is unadorned at the shoulders, Bob’s are decorated with two white fuzzy lines on each, perhaps indicating where he’d otherwise be wearing the double-bar insignia of a U.S. Army captain if he was sporting his service uniform.

PFC Davis and Captain Wallace kick off a decade-long partnership by entertaining the troops on Christmas Eve. While Bob may have the better costume, Phil deserves a few points for going the extra mile by piling white fur trim into the tops of his combat boots. Both performers also strap their ammo belts over their respective Santa suits.

At the conclusion of the instrumental dance number that opens the film, the performers ditch the Santa outfits worn over their combat uniforms and Bob takes center stage in his field jacket, jeep cap, and the ammo belt that been fastened over the waist of his Santa suit.

Captain Wallace wears a standard issue M-1943 field jacket in olive drab, the U.S. Army’s designation for the dull shade of green used for combat fatigues from World War II through the 1980s. At the outset of the war, GI fatigues were made from olive drab #3 (OD3) cloth until olive drab #7 (OD7) was introduced in 1944. The field jacket remains one of the most recognizable aspects of the iconic M-1943 uniform pattern, also referred to as the M1943 or M43, the Army’s attempt at a standardized combat uniform that could serve all functional areas in all climates by constructing its pieces from a light-wearing but wind-resistant cotton sateen cloth.

The length of the jacket was extended from the M-1941 field jacket onto the thighs, with the earlier garment’s single slash pocket on each side replaced by four reinforced bellows pockets, each covered with a pointed flap that closes through a hidden button. There are two pockets stacked on each side with one above and one below the cinched waist, adjusted by an inside drawcord. The field jacket has a convertible revere collar that can be buttoned to the neck or worn open at the neck and laid flat like the lapels of a suit jacket or sports coat. Below the neck, the jacket fastens with six drab plastic sew-through buttons covered by a front fly. The jacket also has epaulettes (shoulder straps) and the set-in sleeves are finished with button cuffs that can be closed on one of two buttons.

Due in part to their practicality, field jackets have transcended their military origins to become popular among civilians, with both the M-1943 and the more current M-1965 in frequent demand. Countless designers, fashion houses, and retailers have crafted their own approach to this venerable military outerwear, but the best-wearing examples prove to be original mil-spec or surplus jackets followed by relatively accurate reproductions such as these M43 jackets offered by Amazon, At the Front., and WWII Impressions.

♫ I’m dreaming of a field jacket / Just like the ones troops used to wear… ♫

Buttoned to the neck under his field jacket, Bob wears the olive brown woolen flannel service shirt in the M-1937 pattern. The M37 field shirt was designed with a structured convertible collar that could be worn open at the neck sans tie or buttoned up and worn with a tie. Given the informality of the context, Bob would have no need for a tie but buttons his shirt all the way to the neck likely for warmth. Pinned to his right collar leaf, he wears the twin silver bars denoting his rank of Captain, while the left collar leaf is adorned with the golden crossed rifles indicating his branch of service in the infantry.

Bob never removes his jacket to show more of the shirt, but we can assume that it has the two flapped patch pockets on the chest and button cuffs that were standard across the M37 shirts. At the Front offers several reproductions including the WWII M37 Wool Shirt, the cotton US Flannel Shirt, and the WWII US Army Officer Wool Shirt (and the cotton alternative US Officer Flannel Shirt), both of the latter with epaulettes added.

The skirt of Bob’s field jacket covers much of the identifying details of his trousers, but we can be relatively sure that he’s not wearing the same herringbone twill (HBT) combat pants as PFC Davis wears, as Bob’s trousers lack the telltale bellows pockets on each thigh that are seen on Phil’s OD7 pants. Bob likely wears the cotton field trousers that were introduced with the M-1943 uniform which, unlike the HBT pants, have side pockets and welted back pockets. In addition to the belt loops for officers like Bob to wear their standard-issue khaki cotton web belts with gold-finished buckles (differentiated from blackened metal enlisted belts), the M-1943 field trousers had adjustable tabs on each side to cinch the fit around the waist by fastening the short tab to one of two buttons. (As with many other items in Bob’s uniform, you can read more about these pants and order a pair for yourself at At the Front or WWII Impressions.)

Bob wears well-shined russet brown leather derby-laced shoes, likely the “low quarter” service shoes that officers typically wore with service or dress uniforms. They are perhaps too formal to accompany the field jacket and jeep cap, a combination that would call for service boots like the rubber-soled cordovan Type II ankle boots that were introduced shortly before the U.S. entered World War II, replacing the earlier leather-soled versions. 1944 was the year that the Army authorized replacing the Type II Service Shoes with “roughout” reverse upper shoes and boots as Phil appears to be wearing, but Bob sticks with the earlier polished grain service shoes that lend him a nattier stage presence for his Christmas Eve clambake.

For the most part, Bob seems to be wearing these shoes with the issued olive drab socks… but one quick glimpse—a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment—shows a flash of red between the bottoms of his trousers and the low tops of his shoes as Phil saves his life from the falling wall, suggesting that Bing Crosby was already wearing the colorful hosiery that Bob Wallace would so proudly wear during his civilian life a decade later.

In addition to the bright red socks, Bob appears to now be wearing burgundy calf oxfords rather than the derby-laced service shoes of the previous scene.

Despite their gap in ranks, both Captain Wallace and PFC Davis wear ribbed knit “Jeep caps” for their Christmas Eve show. Officially designated the “Cap, wool knit, M1941”, these brown caps—officially made from olive drab #3 (OD3) wool—were introduced by the U.S. Army in February 1942 and meant to be an intermediate layer that provided padding underneath heavy “steel pot” helmets with a six-stitch “starfish pattern” atop the hats to coordinate with the webbed helmet linings.

Jeep caps became popular headgear on their own as soldiers would sport them without their helmets (think “Radar” on M*A*S*H), much to the particular consternation of General George S. Patton. Patton, who was borderline obsessive about his and his subordinates’ appearance in uniforms, so despised the unpolished look of jeep caps that he would personally remove them from the heads of soldiers and imposed fines on their wearers. The punctilious general must have been considerably relieved when the jeep cap was phased out of service in favor of the more structured field cap that was issued with the M-1943 uniform.

Davis and Wallace can be grateful that the fictional General Waverly was considerably more accepting of jeep caps than the very real General Patton.

First over their Santa jackets and then over their field jackets, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis wear the wide web cotton M-1936 pistol belt with three rows of grommets equally spaced around the belt with a brass hook closure in the front. While Phil appears to be wearing the khaki version, Bob’s duller-colored pistol belt is likely the olive drab #3 with its gunmetal-finished hardware that started to appear around 1943, according to At the Front. Neither man actually wears a pistol holstered on the belt, instead they wear the two standard flapped canvas pouches. On the right front side of Bob’s belt, he wears a long olive drab M-1924 first aid pouch with “U.S.” stamped in black (though this is worn in the center of his back when strapped over his Santa jacket); directly to the left of the front buckle, he wears a double pouch ostensibly to carry two magazines for his unseen M1911A1 pistol.

Luckily for Wallace and Davis, they grab their M1 helmets just as they wrap up the performance with the rousing “Old Man” number, and they thus have their helmets in hand when the enemy shelling at the conclusion of the song sends everyone strapping on their helmets and running for cover. Both men wear their helmets over the jeep caps, fulfilling the intended purpose of the latter. Bob has his rank insignia painted in white on the front of the olive drab steel helmet.

Wallace and Davis’ helmets undoubtedly prevented them from getting even more wounded after the famous falling wall incident that indebted Bob to Phil for life.

The next day, Captain Wallace visits the infirmary to check on Davis after the private saved his life. He wears essentially the same attire, his field jacket still scuffed from the previous day, but sports his garrison cap (also known as a “side cap” or “field service cap” to the English) with the twin silver bars for his rank of Captain affixed to the left side. The cap is made from the same dark olive drab wool serge as Army service uniforms of the era that have a brown cast.

The most notable addition to Bob’s wardrobe, and one that has not gone unnoticed by the White Christmas-watching Twitterverse (as first called out by @ElisaBecze in 2011 and again mentioned by @DanSchkade last November), is the silk scarf that Bing wears tied around his neck like a day cravat, patterned in a multi-green camouflage. While almost certainly not a standard issue part of the M-1943 uniform, Bing’s camo silk scarf was mentioned as one of the reasons “why White Christmas is awesome” in the Life of Ando blog, published just a few days before Christmas 2009, and—as of December 2019—there’s an entire Twitter account (otherwise unrelated to the movie or actor) called Bing Crosby’s Camo Ascot.

Bob reviews the duet that Phil intends for them to perform together.

The long sleeves of Bob’s field jacket fully cover his wrists throughout these scenes, so we can’t tell if he’s wearing the same gold wristwatch on a curved brown tooled leather strap that Bing would wear throughout White Christmas as well as some of his other movies throughout the period.

Bing Crosby as Captain Bob Wallace in White Christmas (1954)

Captain Wallace’s Festive Fatigues

Combined with the green of his combat uniform, Bob’s red Santa suit jacket and stocking cap makes the outfit both festive and seasonally appropriate for his Christmas Eve revue!

• Olive drab (OD7) cotton M-1943 field jacket with 6-button covered-fly front, four bellows pockets with covered-button pointed flaps, cinched waist with inside drawcord, and adjustable button cuffs
• Brown wool flannel M-1937 uniform shirt with convertible collar, front placket, two button-down flapped chest patch pockets, and button cuffs
  • Silver double-bar Captain (O-3) collar device pinned to right collar
  • Golden crossed rifles infantry insignia pinned to left collar
• Olive drab (OD7) cotton flat front M-1943 field trousers with belt loops and adjustable button tabs, side pockets, welted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Khaki (OD9) M-1937 cotton web trouser belt with brass knurled-bar buckle
• Olive drab M-1936 cotton web pistol belt with brass hook-and-closure, carrying:
  • Olive drab canvas M-1924 first aid pouch
  • Khaki canvas double magazine pouch (“Pocket, Magazine, Web, M-1923”) for two M1911 magazines, worn on left side
• Brown ribbed knit wool M-1941 “Jeep cap”
• Dark cordovan brown leather cap-toe derby-laced ankle boots (“Service Shoes, Type II”)
• Olive drab wool socks
• Green camouflage silk scarf

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, and I hope that all who celebrate have a very Merry Christmas!

The Quote

Okay, dynamite, we’ll give it a whirl, huh?