Rock Hudson as CDR Jim Ferraday in Ice Station Zebra (1968)

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Rock Hudson as James “Jim” Ferraday, U.S. Navy Commander and nuclear submarine captain

The North Pole, Spring 1968

Film: Ice Station Zebra
Release Date: October 23, 1968
Director: John Sturges

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Despite its lukewarm critical reception at its release, Ice Station Zebra was not only among star Rock Hudson’s favorites of his own films, but it also includes among its fans director John Carpenter (who admits it’s somewhat of a guilty pleasure) and Howard Hughes. During the reclusive tycoon’s years hidden away in his penthouse at the Desert Inn hotel, Hughes would supposedly demand that the local Las Vegas TV station that he owned play the movie on loop, eventually owning a private print that he reportedly watched around 150 times on a continuous loop. “We all knew when Hughes was in town,” wrote Paul Anka in his autobiography My Way. “You’d get back to you room, turn on the TV at 2 a.m., and the movie Ice Station Zebra would be playing. At 5 a.m., it would start all over again. It was on almost every night. Hughes loved that movie.”

The object of Hughes’ obsession was based on a 1963 novel by Alistair MacLean, the Scottish author also behind classic military adventures like The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare that were also adapted into movies during the ’60s. Inspired by a few real-life Cold War incidents, the novel was adapted into a screenplay by MacLean as well as Douglas Heyes, Harry Julian Fink, and W.R. Burnett, with a few diversions from and additions to MacLean’s source novel, including the renaming of the leading character from Commander Swanson to Commander Ferraday.

The movie begins as Admiral Garvey (Lloyd Nolan) summons Commander Ferraday to his room for Scotch and a discussion of Drift Ice Station Zebra, which Ferraday recalls is a “British civilian weather station up at the North Pole… they’re in some sort of trouble up there” before he is swiftly ordered up to rescue the survivors… though the rescue is merely a subterfuge for the true, “vitally important” purpose of Ferraday’s expedition. Commander Ferraday is quickly placed at the helm of Tigerfish, a nuclear submarine which boards a platoon of Marines as well as the mysterious British agent “Mr. Jones” (Patrick McGoohan), “some sort of sneaky bastard involved in some sort of low skullduggery,” on Jones’ own admission. Along the way, they pick up the reserved USMC Captain Anders (Jim Brown) and the gregarious Boris Vaslov (Ernest Borgnine), “the damndest anti-Russian Russian you ever met,” according to Jones, both of whom are evidently to play a crucial role in the increasingly treacherous—and mysterious—mission.

Rock Hudson in Commander Ferraday’s khaki working uniform, complete with silver O-5 oak leaf collar devices and navy ballcap with “scrambled eggs” on the brim.

What’d He Wear?

After sporting a stylish tweed sports coat, striped tie, and trench coat for his evening meeting with Admiral Garvey, Ferraday spends the first half of Ice Station Zebra appropriately clad in a rotation of U.S. Navy working uniforms, primarily his khaki service shirt and trousers with a blue work jacket and N1 deck jacket, almost always with his blue “scrambled eggs” baseball cap, khaki web belt, and the well-shined black shoes of a naval surface officer.

It isn’t until the second half when Ferraday dresses for his wintry mission in the durable outerwear that led to Ice Station Zebra‘s unique position as “the all-time most parka-friendly film” according to Josh Sims in Icons of Men’s Style.

After surfacing Tigerfish through the ice where Ice Station Zebra was supposed to be, Ferraday briefly dons what appears to be a Navy-issue parka in olive drab when surveying the area. He then consults with Jones (himself dressed in some noteworthy fur winter gear), Vaslov, and Paul Zabrinczski (Ron Masak) to build the team that will be making the trek to get Jones to the station and rescue whatever survivors they find… all while suspecting a saboteur in their midst.

Vaslov, Ferraday, and Jones consider their next step upon breaking through the ice.

Ferraday and his team dress warmly for their mission, with Ferraday himself swapping out the olive parka for a heavier duty blue waterproof nylon parka and matching pants.

Though parkas had been authorized by the U.S. military for two decades by the time of Ice Station Zebra, the unique pullover parkas worn by Ferraday and some of his men (albeit in orange) seem to exist outside the established N-3B, B-9, M-48, M-51, and M-65 systems, all of which had a full front closure and were mostly issued only in shades of army green or the occasional white. In fact, a strong case could be made to define Ferraday’s hooded outerwear as an anorak—albeit with some parka-inspired sensibilities—due to its pullover nature and drawstring-cinched waist.

The parka patrol.

That said, there were stocks of a pullover garment designated “Parka, field, cotton, O.D.” authorized in 1943 for the U.S. Army in conditions of wind, rain, or snow, and suggested to be worn over a pile parka. Like Ferraday’s parka, it has a wide trapezoidal four-button “placket” section at the top as well as a large handwarmer pocket across the chest, accessed by a slanted flap on each side that closes though a single button. (For an example, see this rare piece available for sale from Overlooked Military Surplus or this M-1943 on WorthPoint.) There was also an experimental attempt around 1950 for the U.S. Army to develop the M-50 pullover parka and matching pants, though the top closure had graduated to snaps and the two pockets were moved below the waist. (See this M-50 set from U.S. Militaria Forum.)

Assuming that Ferraday’s garment was at least inspired by the M-1943 cotton poplin “pullover parka”, we’ll stick with that nomenclature when describing his blue nylon jacket. The hood is lined in woolen pile and trimmed with soft fur, and it can be tightened with a long blue drawstring that extends down to mid-chest. As I described, there is also a long trapezoidal “placket”-like panel that tapers down from around the neck with three rows of buttonholes that each fastens to a large plastic button, with an additional button on the top row with a slanted buttonhole to ensure extra insulation at the top as seen on the M-1943 parka. The set-in sleeves close at the cuffs with a single-button semi-tab.

Despite the differing color and material, Ferraday’s pullover parka shares much in common with the quarter century-old M-1943 Army pattern.

The popularity of winter sportswear has evolved the anorak and pullover parka into lighter weight territory more appropriate for sweating on the slopes rather than military-grade insulation for Arctic operations, generally rigged with zippers rather than buttons with nary a pile layer or fur trim to be found, as evident by these Adidas and Charles River Apparel examples.

While the colors are a darker, more muted navy, and the buttons extend all the way down to the waist, these sherpa-lined parkas from J. Crew Mercantile and Tommy Hilfiger at least reflect the spirit of CDR Ferraday’s M-43-inspired garment.

For additional warmth in the initial snowstorm, Ferraday wears a blue ribbed knit wool neck gaiter, also known as a half-balaclava, which covers all parts of his face south of the eye goggles from his nose down. These are still popular winter accessories, though typically in more modern construction like manmade fleece or merino wool.

Ferraday wears blue nylon pants that match his jacket, likely a pair of weather-resistant salopettes. Salopettes are essentially ski trousers with a high-bibbed waist that is either pre-fitted with suspenders (braces) or can be worn with them. If the trousers from the Army’s experimental M-50 set are any indication, these would have a zip fly and a drawstring waist with pairs of loops on each side to connect to heavy-duty suspenders.

The salopettes likely have leg ties or straps under each foot, to be worn inside his boots. Ferraday wears black heavy-duty snow boots with black laces tied through silver-toned D-ring eyelets.

“Now let’s see if we can catch ourselves a submarine,” quips Ferraday.

When he’s not in the heavy snow storm, Ferraday removes his heavy blue mittens, likely made from the same waterproof nylon shell as his parka and pants, and briefly wears them hooked via a long cord to the right button under the handwarmer pocket flap.

Underneath, he wears a pair of black leather gloves that are ribbed across the top of the fingers and hands and elasticized around the wrists for a warm, secure fit.

Ferraday finds a Russian detonator that he wisely—and slyly—pockets for future use.

Ferraday wears a pair of large gray ski goggles with a one-piece yellow plastic lens and an elasticized strap that secures them to his head. Based on the shape, style, and the two studs in the center above the nose, I suggest that these were made by H.L. Bouton Company of Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. Bouton was a popular mid-century company that sold both protective eyewear for both civilian and military usage. WorthPoint currently has Bouton ski goggles from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s available to view, with the latter most resembling Rock Hudson’s screen-worn eyewear.

We don’t see much of what Ferraday wears under his parka aside from the top of what appears to be a high-necked olive green henley shirt layered over a white cotton henley.

The full coverage of Ferraday’s Arctic gear covers his hands, but I would be remiss not to mention the wristwatch that Rock Hudson wears throughout Ice Station Zebra, a “reverse panda” steel chronograph with three white registers on a black dial. A closer look reveals a blue-and-red “Pepsi” bezel, the lack of numeric markers (including at 12:00), and a dark navy-and-gray striped nylon strap. This particular watch had been the subject of discussion at a few forums like The Military Watch Resource and Omega Forums, where users had seemingly narrowed the choices down to a Breitling Avi 765 Co Pilot or the more likely Heuer Autovia, specifically ref. 2446.

I’m inclined to agree with the latter suggestion, specifically adding that Hudson appears to be wearing a Heuer Autovia ref. 2446 made to resemble a GMT with a blue-and-red Pepsi bezel although the telltale white “GMT” lettering does not appear to be on the dial. (Check out a vintage Heuer Autavia 2446 GMT “First Execution” at Watch Pool 24, which describes the timepiece as a “Holy Grail” with only 10 of these first run still in existence today.)

Earlier in Ice Station Zebra, Ferraday gets to know as much as he can from the cagey “Mr. Jones”.

On the third finger of his left hand, CDR Ferraday wears a gold ring with a blue stone, resembling a class ring. I’m not sure if the character’s educational history was addressed in the novel, but it’s possible that this is meant to be his class ring from the United States Naval Academy.

What to Imbibe

“I’m a bourbon man myself, but when in Scotland…” Admiral Garvey utters in one of the film’s early scenes as he offers a dram of Haig Dimple to Ferraday. Marketed in the U.S. as “Haig & Haig Dimple Pinch”, this blended Scotch took the latter part of its name from the unique three-sided bottles with their dimpled sides that had been used from the 1890s.

Haig Dimple is a heavier, more expensive alternative to Haig Gold Label. The Gold Label variety can be found in contemporary espionage-themed movies like Our Man in Havana, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, and The Sea Wolves, while the distinctive-looking Dimple featured in many of Ian Fleming’s original James Bond novels and short stories as well as movies and TV shows like Across the Pacfic, The Godfather, Laura, Mad Men, The Thin Man and After the Thin Man, The Sopranos, and Breaking Bad, where Bryan Cranston’s Walter White asks for it by name in the series’ penultimate episode.

In Ice Station Zebra, Garvey pours his whisky into a copita glass, a short-stemmed glass often reserved for sherry or tasting whisky.

While Garvey drinks his over ice, Ferraday drinks his Dimple Pinch neat.

Given the film’s setting, Scotch whisky seems to be the great equalizer and Ferraday sneaks a small bottle of Ballantine’s Finest to Jones per his request, despite his understanding that consumption of liquor is forbidden on U.S. Navy submarines.

After a troubling near-disaster aboard Tigerfish, Jones turns to the solace of coffee… laced with plenty of Ballantine’s Finest.

I recently waxed poetic about the history and legacy of Ballantine’s Scotch in a post about Dean Martin’s red sports jacket in the second Matt Helm, Murderers’ Row, if you’d like to check it out.

The Gun

As an American military officer, it should be no surprise that CDR Ferraday arms himself with a Colt M1911A1, the venerable .45-caliber semi-automatic service pistol that had served the U.S. military since its initial development as the Model of 1911. The U.S. Army was the first to adopt it, with the Navy and Marine Corps following with formal adoption of the weapon in 1913.

The 1911-armed Ferraday and his M16-wielding Marines confront the Soviet force who meets them at Ice Station Zebra.

As he never needs to fire it on screen, the production team appears to have used a genuine .45-caliber M1911A1 and not a 9mm copy or a Spanish-made Star Model B as was often practiced in contemporary productions that didn’t want to gamble with trying to cycle then-unreliable .45 ACP blanks.

Perhaps for easier access or to keep it warm in the extreme cold, Ferraday foregoes a holster and pockets his M1911A1 in the handwarmer of his parka.

Ferraday keeps his pistol and detonator drawn… his finger dangerously close to the trigger on the former.

How to Get the Look

Rock Hudson as CDR Jim Ferraday in Ice Station Zebra (1968). Note the mittens hanging from his side.

Rock Hudson’s naval commander in Ice Station Zebra dresses for his Arctic adventure in a blue pullover parka (and matching salopettes) seemingly adapted from the 1943 pattern of U.S. military winter-wear that predated the more famous “snorkel” or “fishtail” styles to follow, accompanied by goggles, face mask, gloves, and heavy boots that don’t leave an inch of his skin unprotected until the snow storm passes.

• Blue waterproof nylon M-1943-style pullover parka with fur-trimmed and pile-lined hood, three-button top closure, handwarmer chest pockets with two slanted and single-button flapped openings, drawstring-cinched waist, and single-button semi-tab cuffs
• Olive green long-sleeve henley shirt
• White cotton henley undershirt
• Blue waterproof nylon salopettes
• Blue ribbed-knit wool half-balaclava/neck gaiter
• Black snow boots with silver-toned D-ring lace eyelets
• Gray plastic Bouton-style ski goggles with yellow one-piece lens and gray elasticized strap
• Black ribbed leather gloves with elasticized wrists
• Heuer Autavia 2446 GMT steel chronograph watch with blue-and-red “Pepsi” bezel, “reverse panda” black dial with three white registers, and dark navy-and-gray striped nylon strap
• Gold class ring with blue stone

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

We operate on a first name basis. My first name is “Captain.”

Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa in The Irishman (2019)

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Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa, pugnacious and passionate labor official

Detroit, Summer 1975

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

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

In addition to today famously being St. Valentine’s Day, it’s also the birthday of Jimmy Hoffa, who was born February 14, 1913, and was most recently portrayed by Al Pacino in The Irishman. The crime drama epic was released on Netflix more than three months ago with considerable fanfare, eventually garnering ten Academy Award nominations (but no wins) including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for both Pacino and Joe Pesci.

“Nowadays, young people, they don’t know who Jimmy Hoffa was. They don’t have a clue. I mean, maybe they know that he disappeared or something, but that’s about it. But back then, there wasn’t nobody in this country who didn’t know who Jimmy Hoffa was,” Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) introduces the labor leader in his narration.

The real Jimmy Hoffa in the early 1970s, sporting a short-sleeved, piped-placket polo and bit loafers very similar to how Powell and Peterson dressed Pacino for The Irishman.

Charles Brandt’s book I Heard You Paint Houses rose to the top of sales charts soon after its 2004 release, finally providing what some believed to be a definitive—or at least viable—solution to the nearly 30-year-old case of Hoffa’s disappearance. Brandt cited deathbed confessions and his own research to corroborate the theory that Hoffa was, in fact, murdered on orders of the mob with the triggerman none other than his bodyguard, confidant, and friend Frank Sheeran.

Fifteen years after the book was published, a new generation of viewers were introduced to the story via Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, spanning the last six decades of Sheeran’s life including his suggested involvement in the slaying of Jimmy Hoffa in a suburban Detroit residence on July 30, 1975. “This is according to the book,” Scorsese admits in the Netflix documentary The Irishman: In Conversation. “This might be as good as any. The point is, he disappeared.”

“The theories that he wound up in a drum somewhere on the East Coast is ridiculous,” De Niro adds. “And it’s such a simple story.”

The film depicts Sheeran arranging an ostensible peace meeting for Hoffa, who was to wait at the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township. Though the mobsters’ late arrival is a no-no in his world, the cantankerous Hoffa is somewhat calmed when he spies his pal Frank Sheeran sitting in the back of the red Mercury driven by his own adopted son, Chuckie O’Brien (Jesse Plemons).

It’s almost heartbreaking watching Frank muster the mannerisms to assure his old pal Jimmy that it’s safe to get into the car that will lead him to his death… and even showing him the .38 snub he’ll use to do it. Hoffa’s reasonable hesitation is assuaged by a subtle nod from Sheeran to indicate that it’s safe… but also perhaps signaling to Jimmy that the inevitable time has come: this is it.

After all, Hoffa had already been repeatedly warned: it’s what it is.

What’d He Wear?

Al Pacino spent much of The Irishman dressed in a rotation of business suits reflecting the real Jimmy Hoffa’s wardrobe of off-the-rack suits, all invariably—and inadvisably—worn with white socks. By default, I found myself more drawn to his less frequently seen casual wear, fashionably rooted in the mid-1970s but approached with a more timeless sensibility as the concept of a burgundy short-sleeved polo shirt, khakis, and horsebit loafers would be just as effective in the nearly half-century since Hoffa disappeared.

Despite his earlier-seen bombastic denouncement of any man who attends a meeting wearing less than a suit and tie—even in the heat of a Florida summer—Hoffa takes a casual approach for this mid-summer meeting in suburban Michigan with his short-sleeved shirt and slacks. While it’s possible that he may have a sport jacket waiting for him in his Pontiac, the mobsters in the Mercury work to quickly usher him into their car before he has time to reconsider the situation… or arm himself.

“He was wearing a pullover short-sleeve short shirt and dark slacks,” Sheeran recalled of the fateful afternoon in I Heard You Paint Houses. “He most definitely didn’t have his piece on him. Not in that outfit.”

The Irishman‘s Oscar-nominated costume designers Sandy Powell and Christopher Peterson designed an outfit for Pacino that took cues from Sheeran’s description of the real Hoffa on July 30, with the actual pieces featured on the movie’s official Instagram feed in December 2019.

Pacino’s burgundy knit shirt has a wide collar, piped on the ends in scarlet red and white, matching the piping on the narrow top placket with its three burgundy plastic 4-hole sew-through buttons. The ends of the short sleeves and hem are narrowly ribbed, and the even weave that texturizes the front of the shirt body is broken up on the right and left sides from shoulder to them with a long interlocking lattice stitch pattern.

Hoffa scans the inside of the car before entering.

Under the burgundy short-sleeved shirt, Pacino wears a white undershirt that is either a V-neck T-shirt or a sleeveless A-shirt as it doesn’t show under the open collar of his polo shirt. Though the burgundy shirt is untucked, he tucks the undershirt into his trousers.

Pacino wears tan low-rise trousers with pick-stitched edges, including the fly and the “frogmouth” pockets. Frogmouth pockets were a popular and sporty trouser detail, particularly in the late 1960s through the 1970s as pleats were decidedly giving way to plain fronts as the prevailing style, angling down on each side of the trouser front and often with a sharp, almost 90°-angled opening on the ends. These trousers also have jetted back pockets, plain-hemmed bottoms, and thin belt loops for Pacino’s black leather belt with its gold-toned single-prong buckle.

Thanks to the post on The Irishman‘s official Instagram feed, we know that the black leather moc-toe horsebit loafers worn by Pacino in this sequence were made by Florsheim, the venerable Midwestern brand founded in Chicago in 1892. Pacino’s screen-worn shoes have gold accent bits attached to thin straps over the vamps, but the company’s currently offered bit loafer—the Florsheim Tuscany Bit (available via Amazon or Florsheim)—appears to only offer shoes with silver-toned bit detailing.

Frank Sheeran paints yet another house.

Hoffa’s famous white socks are visible with all of his on-screen outfits, from suits to sports wear, prominently seen as he’s sprawled out inside the front door of the Detroit house where Sheeran kills him. However, a continuity error clearly depicts Hoffa wearing black socks when the mob packages him up to cremate him. In addition, you can also tell that his loafers were replaced with similar black horsebits but with a cap-toe rather than the moc-toe shoes Pacino was wearing when his character was killed.

Did some unknown mobster go so far as to change the deceased Jimmy Hoffa’s socks before he was cremated?

Hoffa wears a sporty gold wristwatch with a bulbous case and a beige crested dial with gold non-numeric hour markers, strapped to his left wrist via a black leather band. I enlisted the help of my friend Aldous Choi, whose horological expertise has been invaluable in identifying watches featured in BAMF Style posts. The unique crests on the dial—almost certainly a Teamsters logo in recognition of the union that Hoffa felt so passionately about—pointed Aldous in the direction of the custom presentation watches manufactured independently by Hamilton’s awards department.

“The problem with identification is that the awards department ran fairly independently from the regular company, often stocking models that the regular division stopped producing years earlier, and nothing they did was cataloged,” Aldous told me, pointing to the comprehensive Hamilton Chronicles site where he specifically pointed out two similar contenders from among the likely base models: a 1972 Dateline A-593 and a 1973 Auto Date Buccaneer. Several watchmakers specialized in presentation timepieces during the era, but both the look of Hoffa’s screen-worn watch as well as the character’s own “buy American” credos would support the theory of a Hamilton.

Note the unique crests on the dial, suggestive of a presentation watch from the Teamsters or another Hoffa-supporting organization.

Despite the roadblocks to definitive identification, I’m confident in Aldous’ theory as it would befit Hoffa’s character to have been presented with a gold watch, likely at a union function not unlike the “Frank Sheeran Appreciation Night” depicted on screen where Sheeran is presented with the gold Mathey-Tissot he wears over the last 30 years of his life (when not in prison, of course.)

Interestingly, Sheeran himself also seems to wear a Hamilton presentation watch crested with the IBEW logo (similar to this one) after he ascends to the presidency of his local in the 1960s.

Al Pacino in costume as Jimmy Hoffa on the set of The Irishman (2019). Note the sensors on his shoulders to assist the de-aging technology.

How to Get the Look

The Irishman‘s Oscar-nominated costume design team took inspiration from the real Jimmy Hoffa’s approach to dressing for developing Al Pacino’s summer-friendly casual outfit on what would turn out to be the last day of the famed labor leader’s life.

• Burgundy interlocking lattice knit short-sleeved polo shirt with large red-and-white-piped collar, three-button piped placket, and ribbed sleeve-ends and hem
• Tan flat front trousers with thin belt loops, frogmouth front pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather belt with gold single-prong buckle
• Black leather moc-toe horsebit loafers with gold bit detailing
• White ribbed socks
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
• Gold custom Hamilton presentation watch with round tan dial (with Teamsters logo) on black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, currently streaming on Netflix.

The Quote

Listen to me. Never put a fish in your car. You never get the smell out… Remember that. It’ll help you in life.

Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

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Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot, obsessive-compulsive Belgian detective

Orient Express, Winter 1934

Film: Murder on the Orient Express
Release Date: November 10, 2017
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Costume Designer: Alexandra Byrne

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Readers who have seen my posts focused on adaptations of And Then There Were None, Death on the Nile, and Evil Under the Sun are likely aware that I’ve been a fan of Agatha Christie’s mystery fiction since I was 10 years old. Thus, it’s a continued thrill to find her works thriving as studios on both sides of the pond continue to churn out lavish adaptations of her work a full century after she introduced the world to Hercule Poirot with the publication of her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in 1920. In particular, David Suchet has been performing yeoman’s work as the quintessential Poirot across 70 episodes of an ITV-produced drama series that successfully—and relatively faithfully—adapted every novel and story that prominently featured Christie’s master detective.

In the spirit of contemporary BBC adaptations like The ABC Murders, And Then There Were None, Ordeal by Innocence, and The Pale Horse, Kenneth Branagh helmed what’s now the fourth adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express, arguably Christie’s best-known novel famous for its then-groundbreaking solution. The novel was first brought to the screen in 1974 with Albert Finney as the eccentric but undoubtedly brilliant Poirot among an international cast that included Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Anthony Perkins, and Richard Widmark as the deservedly doomed American gangster Ratchett. Unlike previous adaptations, this Oscar-nominated hit received Christie’s rare of stamp of approval, though her sole protest lay with Finney’s facial hair:

It was well made except for one mistake. It was Albert Finney, as my detective Hercule Poirot. I wrote that he had the finest mustache in England—and he didn’t in the film. I thought that a pity—why shouldn’t he?

Evidently, Branagh sought to rectify this misstep by literally doubling down on Poirot’s famous whiskers, thanks to hair and makeup designer Carol Hemming.

“Three days free of care, concern, or crime,” promises Poirot’s libertine friend Bouc (Tom Bateman) when the detective agrees to travel back to London via the Orient Express. Unfortunately, the lawful bliss of Poirot’s luxurious journey is interrupted by the violent murder of a shady, gun-toting art dealer after the train has been stalled by a snow drift. Poirot hopes to let the local police handle it, but Bouc—fearing the police’s potentially racially prejudiced approach regarding the train’s diverse set of international passengers—insists that Poirot engage his “little gray cells” to solve the crime.

What’d He Wear?

Deviating from some of the fussier-dressed Hercule Poirot of previous adaptations, costume designer Alexandra Byrne took more inspiration from the character’s service history. “In working with Ken he was very keen for Poirot to have a military background,” Byrne shared for a March 2018 Zoomer article. “We felt that gave Poirot a kind of vanity through decision and through precision, replacing peacock vanity.”

This precision also implied a man with a limited yet tasteful wardrobe that he wore with care. In a Vanity Fair article that describes Poirot’s “slightly OCD, perfectionist streak veering slightly into the world of the luxurious,” Byrne also adds some context to Poirot’s screen closet:

“For an Englishman of the period”—or a Belgian living in the U.K., like Poirot—“the most important thing was that you were true to your class; you did not dress outside it. Poirot was a police inspector. He would have been making a good living, but he would have been upper-middle class, not upper class, and so would dress accordingly.”

“Men had two suits: their best suit and a worn-out suit as their leisure wear,” Byrne explained for The Hollywood Reporter. “I looked to the practicality of how men would dress on a train, what they would wear to keep warm.”

Hercule Poirot gives new meaning to what one wears when on a train.
Kenneth Branagh walked atop an actual train for this viscerally stunning scene with the support of a safety wire doing little to assuage his fear during the experience.

To ensure that all of the characters’ clothing delivered period sensibilities with a touch of modern relevance, Byrne and her team made nearly all of the costumes from scratch… thus, it was likely a blessing for the Oscar-winning designer that the majority of the action was set in a confined space with just over a dozen characters. On the other hand, this intimacy meant spending more time with these characters with more extended camera time focused on their costumes. Thus, Byrne enlisted Scottish mill Brydon Thompson to create period-perfect cloth for Poirot’s suits. “It was much heavier 18-ounce wool than is used in menswear tailoring now,” Byrne explained to Zoomer. “Today it’s a thick fluffy suiting, whereas in the 1930s, it was a much tighter, drier weave.”

Aside from the black dinner suit he wears when boarding the Orient Express after his interrupted dinner, Branagh’s Poirot wears only two lounge suits over the course of the movie: a charcoal plaid suit during the Jerusalem-set prologue and a dark navy herringbone flannel suit for the duration of his three days on the train.

This production photo of Kenneth Branagh aboard the set Orient Express showcases the fine texture of his crime-solving suit.

Both of Poirot’s lounge suits are tailored and styled similarly, consistent with Byrne’s direction of a man comfortable in uniform. The suits consist of single-breasted, two-button jackets with peak lapels, double-breasted waistcoats, and pleated trousers, an elegant and period-evoking formula.

The trend of a single-breasted jacket rigged with the traditionally double-breasted peak lapel has ebbed and flowed through the seas of menswear over the last century, first emerging during the 1920s 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 forrmality,” wrote Alan Flusser in Dressing the Man. Branagh’s peak lapels are wide and full-bellied, per 1930s trends, with slanted gorges that “point” the edges of the lapels toward each roped shoulder. Together, the emphasized shoulders, suppressed waist, and flared skirt build an athletic silhouette that establishes Branagh’s Poirot as more of a man of action than his fussier, epicurean predecessors.

Backed by his friend Bouc, Poirot shares news of Ratchett’s murder with the assembly of stranded passengers including the Norfolk jacketed Hardman (Willem Dafoe) to his left.

Poirot’s ventless jacket also has four-button cuffs, straight flapped hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket where he wears a white cotton handkerchief folded into a neat triangular point, the slightly more rakish alternative to the businesslike “TV fold” while considering less daring than the puffy flourish that dandier dressers like Fred Astaire opted for with their typically colorful pocket hanks.

He consistently wears his suit jackets open to show the matching double-breasted waistcoat that sweeps across his torso, an elegant alternative to single-breasted waistcoats that suggests an added touch of formality. The waistcoat has wide peak lapels and eight dark navy recessed plastic buttons, matching those on the front and cuffs of Poirot’s suit jacket, arranged in four rows of two buttons each. Poirot wears his silver-toned pocket watch in the left welted pocket, connected to a dark braided cord with a bolt ring that hooks just aside the second fastening button.

Poirot confronts conductor Pierre Michel (Marwan Kenzari) with a conductor’s uniform—missing a button—found in his compartment, consistent with the description Hildegarde Schmidt (Olivia Colman) provided of a suspicious man aboard the train around the time of the murder.

Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Byrne edified The Hollywood Reporter on how her approach to the details of Poirot’s suits reflected which side of the pond he called home. “There are many differences between American, English, and European tailoring in the ’30s. Trouser pleats on American trousers were set turned out, and English turned in.”

Branagh’s suit trousers as Poirot have double sets of forward-facing pleats that add generous but not excessively baggy space around his hips and through the legs to the bottoms finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

The long rise appropriately keeps the waistband covered by the waistcoat, ideal for three-piece suits but particularly so when the waistcoats are cut straight across the bottom; should the trousers fall too low, it wouldn’t be a small triangle of shirt showing but instead the even more sartorially offensive effect of the entire circumference of shirt visible between waistcoat bottom and trouser top.

I haven’t been able to ascertain if Poirot’s trousers are fitted with side-adjusters or a perfect tailored waistband or worn with suspenders (braces), though I suspect the latter. (Decorum during the era would have relegated suspenders to the role of an undergarment, which a proper gentleman like Poirot would strive to keep covered from the public.)

With his lounge suits, Poirot exclusively wears striped shirts with detached white point collars. Though shirts with detached collars as Poirot wears are all but extinct in the realm of accessible, ready-to-wear men’s clothing, the style lives on with “Winchester shirts” offering white collars—and occasionally cuffs—contrasting against different colored, striped, or patterned shirt bodies, popularized during the yuppie years of 1980s businesswear popularized by movies like Wall Street (1987) and American Psycho (2000).

On the first day of his Orient Express journey, Poirot wears a pale blue shirt with wide white stripes that are tri-split by two narrow gray stripes, worn as usual with his clean, stiff white point collar. His silk tie is the first in a trio of patterned silk neckwear he would wear with this suit, in this case a series of gray interlocking rings creating an “uphill”-direction stripe effect.

Poirot dismisses Ratchett’s offer. Not only is Poirot an investigator rather than a bodyguard, but he has no interest in protecting a shady criminal.

The next morning, Poirot awakens to discover that his neighbor, Ratchett (Johnny Depp) as bhas been murdered in his compartment. He soon takes charge of the investigation wearing a white shirt with bold, widely spaced striping in a brick red that—given the context—could be suggestive of the blood spilled in the case. (Is this an interpretive stretch on my part? Wouldn’t be the first time, if so…)

Poirot wears a gray woven silk tie patterned in rows of long black rhomboids that alternate between being horizontally and vertically oriented and are all detailed with a white dot in the center.

“He was obsessed with symmetry so the tie knot had to be symmetrical and carefully frame that huge mustache,” Byrne explained of Poirot to Grazia Magazine.

On the action-packed third day of the case, Poirot wears a bengal-striped shirt in slate blue and white, which we see to have self-shirted single cuffs worn with his standard silver-toned oval cuff links. His tie looks similar to what he wore the previous day, though the pattern appears to be a gray-on-gray diamond-shaped weave with small navy squares.

“Ken was very keen that the knot on the tie was immaculate and identical, part of a dressing routine,” Byrne shared of Branagh’s neckwear to Zoomer. “For example in the fight sequences when he loses a collar stud… [that’s] something that would be as distressing and invasive to Poirot as somebody having their front teeth knocked in!”

After a brief gunfight—a relative rarity in an Agatha Christie work—the left part of Poirot’s shirt collar has become detached from the gold collar stud and his tie is loosened. With his disheveled hair and haphazardly draped engineer’s coat, this is not how the Belgian typically likes to present himself, though the bullet wound in his arm may be of even greater distress at the moment.

Though Poirot’s shoes get some prominent—and memorable—screen time during the opening sequence in Jerusalem, we see just enough of them while on the Orient Express to recognize that he’s likely wearing the same black calf cap-toe oxfords with a perforated toe cap and brouging.

It’s not unreasonable to assume that Poirot has given his shoes a thorough cleaning since their fecal misadventures in Jerusalem.

The first topcoat that Poirot wears with this suit isn’t one of his own, nor is it one he would likely be wearing in any circumstances other than needing to hastily don a layer after taking a bullet to the arm. The dark navy waxed engineer’s coat has an Ulster collar with a throat latch, a single-breasted front, and set-in sleeves that are cuffed at the ends with a single button in the corner of each cuff.

“The idea of that came very much from Ken,” Byrne explained to Nathalie Atkinson for Zoomer, who was prompted to ask given Byrne’s experience dressing some of the “caped crusaders” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “He wanted Poirot to be disheveled for the first time and the cloak that he picks up is actually one of the crew’s cloaks—a waxed cotton protective cloak for one of the engineers on the train. He just wanted something over his shoulders in a way that Poirot doesn’t normally wear clothes.”

Caped crusader or disheveled detective?

Finally, when the time comes for Poirot to leave the train early to attend to a murder on the Nile (hmm…), he dons his own coat… and you can tell. The sharply tailored charcoal wool double-breasted Chesterfield has peak lapels with a long collar densely faced in astrakhan fur, which is derived from the pelts of the now-endangered Karakul sheep that are native to Central Asia. Despite its value and luxurious connotations, Sir Hardy Amies dismissed astrakhan in his 1964 tome ABCs of Men’s Fashion as merely something that “used to be used only on the collars of the overcoats of passé actor-managers.”

The structured coat’s sleeveheads are more heavily roped than the suit jacket beneath it. The coat has swelled edges on the lapels, semi-cuffed sleeve-ends, and on the pockets, including the welted breast pocket and the large hip pocket flaps. The back is half-belted at Branagh’s natural waist with a long single vent that extends up to just a few inches short of the half-belt.

Exit Poirot.

He appropriately dresses for the wintry outside air with black leather gloves and his black felt Lords hat, essentially a homburg with the differentiation of a pinched crown.

Between the astrakhan fur coat collar and his own double mustache, Poirot would be nicely insulated when stepping outside on a cold day.

Curious to learn more about the costume design in Murder on the Orient Express? Check out the links below, many featuring firsthand interviews with costume designer Alexandra Byrne!

• “How the Murder on the Orient Express Costume Designer Outfitted Daisy Ridley and Michelle Pfeiffer in Authentic ’30s Clothing” (Fawnia Soo Hoo for Fashionista, November 10, 2017)
• “Behind the Seams” (Divya Bala for GRAZIA)
• “How the Orient Express Costume Designer Used Detective Clues to Style the Cast” (Cathy Whitlock for The Hollywood Reporter, November 2, 2017)
• “How Costumes Reveal Character in Oscar Contenders Murder on the Orient Express and Mudbound“ (Bill Desowitz for IndieWire, November 22, 2017)
• “Costume Designer Alexandra Byrne Creates Sinful Style in Murder on the Orient Express“ (Susannah Edelbaum for “The Credits” by Motion Picture Association, November 10, 2017)
• “Check Out the Fashion Parade Onboard Murder on the Orient Express“ (Paulette Cohn for Parade, February 23, 2018)
• “Dressed to Kill: Inside the Lavish Costumes of Murder on the Orient Express“ (Valentina Valenti for Vanity Fair, November 8, 2017)
• “Fashion On The Orient Express: Part Two of Our Journey” (Nathalie Atkinson for Zoomer, March 1, 2018)

You can also find photos of this exact costume, including one with Byrne beside it, at Tanya Foster‘s recap of her experience aboard the Orient Express to promote the film.

What to Imbibe

I am of an age where I know what I like and what I do not like. What I like, I enjoy enormously. What I dislike, I cannot abide.

Poirot is speaking more generally about his dismissive distaste for conversing with Ratchett, but he could also be summing up the character’s own finely curated taste. I believe the prominent inclusion of Veuve Clicquot champagne was the result of product placement, but it’s certainly not out of character for the epicurean detective to appreciate the coupe he is offered by Bouc.

Poured a glass of Veuve Clicquot by his friend Bouc, Poirot raises a glass while enjoying his journey on the Orient Express.

The Veuve Clicquot story begins in 1772 when textile merchant Philippe Clicquot established a wine business that would eventually expand with the arranged marriage between his son François and Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, the 21-year-old daughter of fellow textile merchant Nicolas Ponsardin. In the years following the 1798 wedding, Clicquot’s champagne business began to grow and he eventually handed over the reins to his son, though François would die of typhoid in October 1805 when he was 30, only four years after gaining control of the company.

Distraught by François’s death, the retired Philippe decided to liquidate the company but François’s widow was determined to manage itself and presented a proposal to Philippe, who accepted. The widow Clicquot (or “veuve Clicquot” in French, hence the modern name) thus became the first female champagne producer as she led the booming company into the 19th century with the launch of Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin on July 21, 1810. The business was threatened in its early years by naval blockades aimed to prevent foreign sales, particularly to Russia, but Barbe-Nicole’s persistence not only ensured that her business would survive the war but it would play a vital role in establishing champagne as the preferred drink of the upper class.

The Gun

Hercule Poirot was never the sort of detective to regularly carry a gun, though the arms himself for the climax of Murder on the Orient Express with a Colt Police Positive Special that he took from “Gerhard” Hardman (Willem Dafoe), going so far as to identify that Hardman had not spent 30 years as a Pinkerton detective as he claims but instead had once been a police officer who had undoubtedly been connected to the Armstrong case at the center of Ratchett’s murder.

Poirot draws Hardman’s revolver on the assembled passengers. Note the length of the cylinder, which indicates the likelihood of Hardman’s revolver being a Colt Police Positive Special chambered in the more powerful .38 Special than the weaker rounds in a Colt Police Positive.

While the scene of Poirot seeing through Hardman’s cover by identifying his gun adds a degree of Sherlock Holmes-ian detection, it’s ultimately a fallacy much like the scene in GoldenEye where Russian gangster Zukovsky recognizes James Bond by his Walther PPK, stating that “only three men I know use such a gun… and I believe I’ve killed two of them.” A badass boast for sure but hardly creditable given that the decades-old weapon is one of the most popular among European militaries and police as well as civilians around the world. The same logic applies when Poirot observes of Hardman: “Your gun—the checkered grip, the blued finish—produced for the Police Positive edition. 1927 issue.”

To Poirot, this is evidence that Hardman could not have been a Pinkerton detective for “thirty years” leading up to the current date of 1934 as he’s armed with a revolver manufactured only for policemen seven years earlier. Poirot isn’t wrong that the details of Hardman’s Police Positive are consistent with the generation of Colt revolvers produced for the 1927 issue and marketed toward law enforcement, but it’s ridiculous to suggest that someone could only have one of these revolvers seven years later if he had been a policeman at the time, particularly for a police-adjacent function like a Pinkerton detective!

Had Poirot gone to the movies anytime over the few years leading up to the events of Murder on the Orient Express, he would have noticed gangster portrayed by Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, and Paul Muni carrying Colt police-issued revolvers as well… how confused he would have been!

How to Get the Look

Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

While I can’t help you with that mustache… Kenneth Branagh’s suits as Hercule Poirot successfully executed the costume vision of a man whose sartorial approach is driven more by military-like precision and perfection rather than “peacocking”. The luxurious period-popular styling of the single-breasted, peak-lapel jacket, double-breasted waistcoat, and pleated trousers may draw attention, but Poirot’s subdued suitings like this dark navy Scottish wool indicates refined sophistication rather than the attention-grabbing unorthodoxy for its own sake.

• Navy herringbone 18-ounce woolen flannel three-piece tailored suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with full-bellied peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Double-breasted 8×4-button waistcoat with peak lapels, welted pockets, and straight-cut bottom
  • Double forward-pleated trousers with side pockets and turn-ups/cuffs
• Striped cotton shirt with detachable white point collar and self-cuffs
  • Silver oval cuff links
• Gray silk tie with repeating pattern
• Black calf leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Dark navy dress socks
• Charcoal heavy wool double-breasted Chesterfield coat with astrakhan fur-collared peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, semi-cuffed sleeve-ends, and half-belted back with long single vent
• Black leather gloves
• Black felt Lords hat with black grosgrain ribbon

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie (as well as the 1974 version) and read the book.

The Quote

I do not approve of murder, my friend. Every day, we meet people the world would be better without, yet we do not kill them. We must be better than the beasts.

Tom Selleck as Nick Lassiter in Lassiter (1984)

Vitals

Tom Selleck as Nick Lassiter, debonair jewel thief

London, June 1939

Film: Lassiter
Release Date: February 17, 1984
Director: Roger Young
Costume Designer: Barbara Lane

Background

While we’re still in the midst of tweed-friendly weather, I’d like to respond to a few requests I’ve had to focus on Tom Selleck’s gentlemanly style in Lassiter as an American thief in England, a far cry from the Aloha shirts he was famously wearing on Magnum, P.I. at the same time.

Released today in 1984, Lassiter starred Selleck as the titular jewel thief—Nick Lassiter—crafted in the daring and debonair tradition of cinematic cat burglars like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief and David Niven’s “Phantom” in The Pink Panther. Much like his previous film, High Road to China, this movie compensated for the fact that Selleck had to pass on the role of Indiana Jones by giving him the role of a charismatic, resourceful, and risk-averse rogue facing danger from under the brim of a fedora in the years leading up to World War II.

The morning after a successful jewel theft, Lassiter is cornered by London policemen as he leaves his girlfriend Sara’s home and ushered to police headquarters, where he is swiftly fingered in a lineup and learns that he is being framed for a crime that may get him a life sentence… though Inspector John Becker (Bob Hoskins) hasn’t yet decided what the crime should be. Nervy FBI agent Peter Breeze (Joe Regalbuto) briefs Lassiter on his potential assignment, stealing $10 million of the $50 million in unset diamonds that Nazi Germany took from Czechoslovakia to finance espionage operations throughout Europe and South America. Forced to accept or else yield his freedom, Lassiter agrees and finds himself surveilling the German embassy where he encounters Kari Von Fursten (Lauren Hutton), the “wild” consular agent-turned-Nazi-assassin who specializes in dispatching her victims with a sharp object mid-coitus, not unlike Sharon Stone’s Catherine Trammell in Basic Instinct nearly a decade later.

I hadn’t heard of Lassiter before I started writing BAMF Style, and I was delighted that a number of commenters turned me onto this movie, a combination of Indiana Jones, The Sting, and To Catch a Thief, with a twist of James Bond, all set in London on the eve of World War II.

What’d He Wear?

Lassiter leaves Sara’s flat in a period-detailed tweed sport jacket with a checked shirt and knitted tie, a fine country combination that no doubt would have made the American considerably look out of place on the city streets of prewar London with its rigidly enforced business dress codes.

Loosening his collar and tie after a lineup, Lassiter looks considerably more laidback than the FBI agent sent to draft him into espionage.

Lassiter’s fawn-colored Donegal tweed sports coat has a 3/2-roll single-breasted front and sleeves finished with three-button cuffs. The jacket has three sporty patch pockets: one on the left breast and two large ones on the hips, each with a horizontal a few inches from the top. The back is split with a long single vent, extending up to Selleck’s natural waist where a full belt extends across the back of the jacket.

Lassiter should’ve known he couldn’t go three steps on a London sidewalk wearing a tweed jacket without actually being arrested for it. These guys certainly take their “no brown in town” maxim seriously!

Lassiter coordinates the bucolic informality of his tweed sports coat with a checked shirt and a taupe brown knitted silk tie, knotted in a tight four-in-hand.

The mint green shirt with its brown windowpane check overlaid on a fainter white grid check appears to be the same shirt that he would wear with his tweed casual blouson jacket during the film’s finale. This shirt has a point collar, front placket, and single-button rounded cuffs.

Lassiter’s khaki gabardine trousers bring tonal harmony to the outfit, just a few shades away from the jacket but enough of a textural contrast that his outfit doesn’t look like a mismatched suit. The lower rise of these double forward-pleated trousers are more appropriate for the 1980s than the 1930s, though Lassiter’s laidback demeanor—as well as the rough start to his day—could also account for him letting his trousers slouch a bit.

The trousers have straight pockets along the side seams, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms and are worn with a dark brown leather belt that closes through a gold-toned squared single-prong buckle.

If you’re going to wear such a country-friendly outfit, you may as well go all out. After all, a brown tweed jacket and knitted tie may look out of place on the streets of London, but the same outfit worn with black calf oxfords? Don’t even think about it… he wisely saves those for his dinner jackets and his dark navy chalk-striped double-breasted suit.

From the context of the rest of this outfit, Lassiter gets the color and the cloth right when he steps out in a pair of dark cocoa brown suede lace-up shoes, likely the same suede oxfords he later wears with his gray tweed suit.

Our hero completes his look with a taupe felt fedora, sharply pinched on the crown, self-edged, and banded in a wide strip of brown ribbed grosgrain silk, neatly bowed on the left side.

Indiana who?

Lassiter wears the jacket again a few days later during an argument with Sara (Jane Seymour) in her flat, intentionally loud enough to be overheard by the two Scotland Yard detectives staking out the apartment next door. He adds the layer of a light gray cotton knit long-sleeved V-neck sweater (or jumper, as his British acquaintances would call it.)

In this scene, Lassiter wears another knitted silk tie—this time in hunter green—with a slightly more urban-friendly shirt, white with a light gray mini-grid check. The shirt has button cuffs and a tab collar that fastens with a small button under the tie knot.

We get only a brief glimpse at Lassiter’s watch, a gold dress watch considerably more subtle than the dive watches that Magnum, P.I. audiences were used to seeing Selleck wear. The square-cased watch is strapped to his wrist on a gold expanding bracelet.

Lassiter’s gold watch flashes from his left wrist as he slides into the back of a police car.

How to Get the Look

Tom Selleck as Nick Lassiter in Lassiter (1984)

Tom Selleck’s gentleman thief hits the streets of prewar London in a country-friendly outfit—from his tweed jacket and checked shirt to knitted tie and suede shoes—that transcends Lassiter‘s 1939 setting and would look just as stylish more than 80 years later… though I’d suggest a less urban setting for such a ruggedly textured kit.

• Fawn-colored Donegal tweed single-breasted 3/2-roll sport jacket with notch lapels, patch pockets, 3-button cuffs, and full-belted back with long single vent
• Mint green brown/white-grid check shirt with point collar, front placket, and 1-button rounded cuffs
• Taupe brown knitted silk tie
• Khaki gabardine double forward-pleated trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Dark brown leather belt with gold-toned squared single-prong buckle
• Dark brown suede oxford shoes
• Taupe felt fedora with brown grosgrain silk band
• Gold square-cased dress watch on gold expanding bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I’m standing in a frame, Breeze, you’re gonna wrap me in a flag too?

Telly Savalas as Zeno in Escape to Athena (1979)

Vitals

Telly Savalas as Zeno, Greek resistance leader

“Somewhere in the Greek islands”, Fall 1944

Film: Escape to Athena
Release Date: June 6, 1979
Director: George P. Cosmatos
Costume Designer: Yvonne Blake

Background

Escape to Athena assembles an incredible cast for a World War II adventure comedy in the spirit of The Dirty Dozen… or am I just saying the latter because it co-stars Telly Savalas?

Savalas joins 007 alum Roger Moore and David Niven—real-life friends and future stars of The Sea Wolves—as well as Stefanie Powers, Richard Roundtree, Elliott Gould, Claudia Cardinale, and Sonny Bono(!) Less serious in tone than The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, or The Guns of Navarone, this farcical adventure focuses on the Allied prisoners (and their allies on the outside) as they hope to escape from Stalag VII Z, an almost resort-like Nazi POW camp on the Mediterranean focused on excavating ancient Greek artifacts under the direction of a romance–minded commandant played by no less than Sir Roger!

In case you didn’t believe me…

Despite the Alistair MacLean-inspired story, Escape to Athena ends up coming off more like a comedic send-up of Stalag 17 (complete with a joke cameo from William Holden), though Telly Savalas’ action scenes provide some genuine excitement.

Apropos the actor’s Greek roots, Telly plays the far more sympathetic role of a local resistance leader… and a lucky one at that, enjoying a romance with the local madam Eleana, played by Claudia Cardinale. It was Savalas’ unique style as the resourceful Zeno that spurred BAMF Style reader Scott to recommend the film to me for this particular post.

What’d He Wear?

Zeno begins the film wearing a unique brown leather jacket, well-worn in some areas—particularly the upper arms and on the pockets—far more than the usual patina, effecting the appearance of two-toned leather.

Zeno’s thigh-length ventless jacket is styled like a classic car coat with four large flat mixed light brown buttons from the wide shirt-style collar down to just above the waist, fastened through reinforced buttonholes. There is a yoke on the left shoulder only, and two large welts at the top of his chest pockets slant toward each armpit. Just below the last button, at hip level, is a square-shaped patch pocket on each side of the skirt.

A tall loop on each side of the waist, along the seam running from each underarm, suggests a long-lost belt. The set-in sleeves are reinforced with a seam around each forearm about six inches up from the ends, with the leather heavily worn on each upper arm.

At the start of Escape to Athena, Zeno and Eleana eye each other from across the street.

Zeno wears two different kinds of shirts throughout Escape to Athena: clingy knit turtlenecks and collarless button-up shirts.

The dark navy turtleneck jumper has set-in sleeves and a somewhat unflattering tightness that Zeno distracts from with four different crosses in a variety of shapes and sizes, worn on a variety of necklaces and chains including black and brown leathers, yellow cord, and gold chain link.

Zeno also his neckband shirts layered under a cardigan, suit jacket, or on its own for the climactic assault on the Nazi compound atop the fictional Mount Athena. In this latter situation, he wears a plain ice-white shirt unbuttoned at the top and at the cuffs with the sleeves rolled up each forearm. He tucks the shirt into his black and tan mixed wool reverse-pleated trousers, which have straight side pockets, no back pockets, and tall belt loops to accommodate a wide dark brown leather belt with a large brass single-prong buckle.

Zeno tucks his Walther into his trousers and carries his Sten gun as he leads Sgt. Nat Judson (Richard Roundtree), Bruno Rotelli (Sonny Bono), and Charlie Dane (Elliott Gould) into combat.

The trousers are tapered toward the leg, likely with plain-hemmed bottoms to avoid bunching when he tucks them into his black leather knee-high riding boots. The only time we see Zeno wear any different footwear are when he dances in black oxfords with his double-breasted suit during the celebratory finale.

Zeno approaches one of Eleana’s “girls”, tragically executed by the Nazis as a reprisal against the resistance efforts.

There are many names for the black mariner’s cap that Zeno wears with his coat, though the most appropriate moniker given the context would be “Greek fisherman’s cap” as this headgear had grew in popularity among Hellenic anglers toward the end of the 19th century. By that point, these peaked caps had already taken hold as inexpensive and practical workwear among seafarers and inland laborers across western Europe and Russia, where they would become a symbol of the communist revolution as worn by Bolsheviks like Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky as well as Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong. In addition to the informal nicknames of “Mao cap” and “Lenin cap”, these have also been called “fiddler caps” in tribute to Topol wearing a brown mariner’s cap in Fiddler on the Roof (1971) set during the Russian revolution of 1905.

Zeno’s peaked cap is all black wool including the soft felt flat-topped cover, the black braid across the front band, and the short felt-piped brim. While also seen in shades of blue, green, and brown, black is one of the most popular colors of Greek fisherman’s caps, including these three available via Amazon from Brixton, The Hat Depot, and Sterkowski.

What better way to establish a character as a Greek fisherman than to dress him in a Greek fisherman’s cap?

Zeno wears two bracelets on his right wrist, a thin gold round chain-link bracelet and a bracelet of coral red plastic beads that seems merely decorative until he uses it to fling a hard pebble up to a guard tower outside the POW camp with enough force to knock out a sentry.

The Gun

Zeno’s sidearm of choice in Escape to Athena is a Walther P38K, a short-barreled variant of the Walther P38 that had been developed by Walther to replace the expensive Luger as the standard service pistol of the Wehrmacht as the Germans armed themselves at the dawn of World War II.

Although the first design was ready in 1938—hence its original P.38 designation—requested changes by the Heer, including an external hammer, meant the pistol would not enter production until the middle of 1940. At that point, Germany had already declared war in Europe and officers were marching into battle with holstered Lugers as well as the more compact Walther PP and PPK pistols that would later be made famous by James Bond.

The use of a “Hollywood silencer” on Zeno’s Walther P38K is all too evident when it droops from the barrel of his pistol.

Despite essentially “competing” to replace iconic weapons like the Luger and PPK, the Walther P38 was well-received as an innovative sidearm as the first locked-breech semi-automatic pistol with a double-action/single-action trigger that allowed a user to de-cock a pistol with a round in the chamber and then, if needed, fire that round with a double-action operation. Previously, this capability was only offered on blowback pistols like the PP and PPK that were chambered for smaller calibers like .32 and .380 ACP; the more powerful 9x19mm Parabellum fired by the P38 required a short-recoil, locked-breech action.

A more compact variant of the P38—more specifically, its later evolution as the P4—was the Walther P38K, produced in a limited run from 1974 through 1981 and designated with a K for kurz (German for “short”) unlike the “K” in PPK which stood for Kriminalmodell as it was intended for detectives. According to Jim Campbell in a July 2017 American Rifleman article, the P38K was actually derived from the Walther P4 rather than the original wartime P38. You can read more about the Walther P38K here.

As the P38K was introduced in 1974, a full 30 years after the film was set and only five years before it was produced, Zeno’s use of the weapon is certainly anachronistic, though it could be argued that we’re meant to believe that he modified a full-barreled Walther P38 by trimming the barrel to a compact length.

Eleana presents Zeno with his suppressed Walther P38K, evidently having little regard for his safety as her finger rests on the trigger of the double-action weapon.

The resistance fighters, including Zeno and Eleana, also make use of Sten Mk II submachine guns. These 9×19 mm English-made submachine guns with their distinctive side-mounted magazines were commonly fielded by British and Commonwealth forces and their underground allies so it’s very reasonable that they would have been a favored weapon by Zeno and his colleagues.

How to Get the Look

Telly Savalas as Zeno in Escape to Athena (1979)

In contrast to his famously dapper duds on Kojak, Telly Savalas dressed in rugged, distinctive casual attire for his role as a Greek resistance leader in Escape to Athena, infusing the World War II-set adventure with contemporary 1970s fashion sensibilities as well as contextually appropriate items like a traditional Greek fisherman’s cap.

• Brown worn leather car coat with wide shirt-style collar, four-button front, slanted welted chest pockets, patch hip pockets, and set-in sleeves with wide self-cuffs
• Navy knit turtleneck
• Black-and-tan mixed wool reverse-pleated trousers with tall belt loops and straight side pockets
• Wide dark brown leather belt with large brass single-prong buckle
• Black leather knee-high riding boots with raised heels
• Black wool felt peaked Greek fisherman’s cap (or “mariner’s cap”)
• Coral red beaded bracelet
• Gold round chain-link bracelet
• Multiple necklaces with cross pendants

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

Johnny Depp as George Jung in Blow (2001)

Vitals

Johnny Depp as George Jung, ambitious pot dealer

Chicago, Winter 1972

Film: Blow
Release Date: April 6, 2001
Director: Ted Demme
Costume Designer: Mark Bridges

Background

In the centuries since pea jackets were first established by military mariners battling the cold, these short and warm coats have emerged as a winter staple for men and women around the world. While many maintain the original template, such as the 1940s Schott in 32-ounce melton wool that was handed down to me from my grandfather, the pea coat’s ubiquity has also inspired more fashion-forward variations like the leather-trimmed, peak-lapel Billy Reid coat that Daniel Craig wore in his third 007 outing Skyfall or this Disco-era jacket briefly worn by Johnny Depp in Blow.

Adapted from Bruce Porter’s 1993 book of the same title, Blow recounts the rise and fall of real-life American drug smuggler George Jung. Before he was reportedly earning millions each day smuggling cocaine for the Medellín cartel, “Boston George” was a high school dropout who’d been kicked out of the Marine Corps and moved from the suburbs of Beantown to the sunny eden of Manhattan Beach at the end of the swinging sixties. While there, Jung engineered a profitable smuggling operation that started with shipping marijuana to college campuses back east via stewardess’ unchecked suitcases and ended with stolen planes flying hundreds of pounds of pot out of Puerto Vallarta.

While Jung’s criminal career was indeed sidetracked when he was arrested in Chicago with 660 pounds of marijuana as depicted in Blow, the movie does not show the smuggler’s first significant legal trouble when he spent three months in a Mexican prison after the Federales busted him at an airstrip in the late summer of 1970. The three month stay began when the swaggering Jung was brought down to size by a strip search, a few electric shocks from a cattle prod to his thus-exposed gonads, and a 24-hour internment crunched into a wooden box with his head forced between his knees. Having adjusted his attitude toward his arresting officers after this introduction to the penal system, Jung evidently worked out a settlement to pay $50,000 for his eventual release following a three-month sentence.

And thus we get to the fall of 1972, when the real-life Jung was arrested in the Chicago Playboy Club with the aforementioned 660 pounds of marijuana and charged with intent to sell. Depp’s Jung expects no consequences for the violation and quotes Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie during his indictment, to which the stupefied judge (Dorothy Lyman) replies, “Gosh, you know, your concepts are really interesting, Mr. Jung… unfortunately for you, the line you crossed was real and the plants you brought with you were illegal, so your bail is $20,000,” before she bangs her gavel, leaving a gobsmacked Jung speechless before he’s ushered out.

While it may seem purely made up for the movies, this is one incident in Blow that is almost verbatim from how Porter presented it in his biography of George Jung. Evidently, his lawyers had worked out a deal with the U.S. attorney and all that Jung would need to do would be to give a repentant speech, apologizing for his mistake and concisely outlining his plan to clean up his life after the brief, agreed-upon sentence.

“George didn’t tell his lawyer, but he had a feeling when he entered the courtroom and saw the federal judge sitting up there that he wasn’t going to do the speech they’d agreed on,” Porter writes, recalling Jung’s lifelong struggle with authority figures, in this case presiding judge James Austin. “What he actually told the judge was: ‘Your Honor, I realize I broke the law, but I want to tell you in all honesty that I don’t feel it’s a crime. I think it’s foolishness to sentence a man to prison, for what? For crossing an imaginary line with a bunch of plants?’ George found himself expressing other general thoughts as well. He mentioned the Vietnam War, and something about how none of the real criminals in the world ever end up behind bars, a little distillation from the oral philosophy of Bob Dylan. You say that I’m an outlaw, you say that I’m a thief. Well, where’s the Christmas dinner for the people on relief?”

Austin’s bemused smile at first convinced Jung that his diatribe may have actually convinced the judge, who was evidently impressed by Jung’s “interesting concept”… though the scene then played out as it would on cinema as Austin reminded Jung that the line was not imaginary, the plants were indeed illegal, and thus the man standing before him had, in fact, committed a crime. Austin then added insult to injury by tacking an additional year onto the initial three-year sentence that the attorneys had worked out, recommending Jung to serve four years at the Danbury federal prison in southwestern Connecticut, unknowingly doing more to further Jung’s criminal career than to hamper it, as Depp’s Jung would narrate:

Danbury wasn’t a prison, it was a crime school. I went in with a bachelor of marijuana and came out with a doctorate of cocaine.

What’d He Wear?

They don’t call it the Windy City for nothing. Depp’s George Jung wisely bundles up for the Chicago cold in a navy wool coat clearly modeled after traditional pea coats and reefer jackets. The coat has broad lapels with deep notches, detailed with double-stitched edges

George’s grandstanding for the court receives a more lukewarm reception than he expected.

George’s jacket has a total of six buttons, organized in two parallel columns of three dark blue plastic sew-through buttons each decorated in what appears to be the classic naval anchor motif. In addition to the set-in hip pockets with flaps appropriately wide for the 1970s, the set-in sleeves are also finished with the unique detail of three buttons on each cuff, more typical to a suit or sport jacket than a pea coat.

Though some more traditionally inspired pea coats have lower external pockets with flaps, they almost always supplement open handwarmer pockets, which are the quintessential pea coat pocket. Additionally, pea coats almost never have buttons adorning the sleeve; if anything, cuffs are finished with the outerwear-friendly semi-tab that closes through a button like these pea jackets from Amazon Essentials or Match.

Layering for the chilly Chicago climate as opposed to the warm and sunny Puerto Vallarta paradise he calls home, George wears an ivory turtleneck under his pea coat. While the roll-neck and set-in sleeves are stitched in what looks like a classic vertical rib stitch, the body of George’s sweater is stitched from a more complex series of long, vertical crossed ribs to create an interlocking lattice-like effect.

Something tells me George would have to sweep that hair out of his face for the CPD to have a truly effective mugshot in their records.

The brief scene only shows glimpses of Jung’s wardrobe below the waist, though we can see he’s wearing dark navy flat front trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms that flare out just enough to avoid “bell bottom” territory while also draping over most of his black leather square-toed boots.

Jung is met by this then-girlfriend Barbara (Franka Potente) after posting bail.

Johnny Depp as George Jung in Blow (2001)

How to Get the Look

Though stranded in a Chicago courtroom rather than taking on the high seas, Johnny Depp’s portrayal of George Jung in Blow takes sartorial inspiration from centuries-old maritime garb with a trendy twist as he makes his nonsensical pleas for freedom.

• Navy wool pea coat with broad lapels, 6×3-button double-breasted front, wide-flapped hip pockets, and 3-button cuffs
• Ivory interlocking lattice-knit wool turtleneck
• Dark navy flat front trousers with flared, plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather square-toed boots

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read the book too!

The Quote

Well, in all honesty, I don’t feel that what I’ve done is a crime. And I think it’s illogical and irresponsible for you to sentence me to prison. Because, when you think about it, what did I really do? I crossed an imaginary line with a bunch of plants. I mean, you say I’m an outlaw, you say I’m a thief, but where’s the Christmas dinner for the people on relief? Huh? You say you’re looking for someone who’s never weak but always strong, to gather flowers constantly whether you are right or wrong, someone to open each and every door, but it ain’t me, babe, huh? No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe. It ain’t me you’re looking for, babe. You follow?

Rod Taylor as Bruce Templeton in The Glass Bottom Boat (1966)

Vitals

Rod Taylor as Bruce Templeton, charismatic aerospace lab chief

Long Beach, California, Spring 1966

Film: The Glass Bottom Boat
Release Date: June 9, 1966
Director: Frank Tashlin
Costume Designer: Ray Aghayan (credited with Doris Day’s costumes only)

Background

In the years since I’ve started this blog, I’ve discovered that there are many unsung “style heroes” that are often lost in the discussion of Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Steve McQueen, including actors like Rod Taylor who brought understated elegance to flatteringly tailored suits and timeless casual attire alike.

I was first familiar with Taylor in The Glass Bottom Boat, one of my grandma’s favorite movies and one that we used to watch until we wore the VHS tape thin. Last year, I was delighted to see that my friends Shawn Bongiorno and Ryan Hall had collaborated on a series of Instagram posts that highlighted a look from the movie, and that inspired us to put our heads together and take a deeper dive at a springtime essential that Taylor wears.

Rewatching The Glass Bottom Boat two decades after those weekends at Grandma’s house, the plot holds up as one of the better and funnier of Doris Day’s filmography from the era, a romantic comedy infused with space age style and wit from some of the most talented and recognizable comedic actors of the era like Dom DeLuise, Paul Lynde, Dick Martin, John McGiver, and Alice Peace. The plot centers around a flirtation between “space wizard” Bruce Templeton (Taylor) and his aerospace research lab’s latest PR fire, Jennifer Nelson (Day). He assigns her the secret—and ultimately fictional—Project Venus, ostensibly tasking her with writing his biography when it’s really just the researcher’s way of spending more time with the “kooky” young widow while conducting work like overseeing an evening test launch from his Long Beach lab.

What’d He Wear?

Taking a break from his natty tailored wear that includes business suits, blazers, and sport jackets, Bruce dons a beige Baracuta G9 blouson for his nighttime research. This was 1966, the same year that Frank Sinatra wore his own beige and navy Baracutas in Assault on a Queen and around the same time that Ryan O’Neal’s character Rodney Harrington popularized the jacket on Peyton Place, establishing the garment’s unofficial sobriquet as the “Harrington jacket.”

The British company Baracuta had introduced its cotton gabardine double-zip windbreaker in the 1930s, marketed for the golf course (hence the “G” in G9) though it soon found favor as a comfortable weather-proof style staple and inspired scores of copycats, particularly after the brand began exporting the G9 to the United States in 1954. Once the G9 went stateside and found fans among icons like Elvis Presley and Steve McQueen, there was no stopping its rise in popularity. (You can read more about the G9’s history at the official Baracuta website.)

In addition to the classic two-button standing collar, knit cuffs and hem, and slanted hand pockets with single-button flaps, Taylor’s raglan-sleeve Harrington jacket is clearly lined with Baracuta’s distinctive Fraser tartan plaid in red, green, navy, and white which had been approved by Lord Fraser shortly after the jacket’s 1937 introduction.

Bruce’s unzipped Harrington jacket reveals the Fraser tartan plaid lining characteristic to true Baracuta jackets.

More than 80 years after their introduction, Baracuta continues to offer the G9 in a continually increasing range of colors and fabrics, from a Rebel Without a Cause-inspired red to a warmer corduroy. The standard shell has evolved from its original cotton gabardine construction to a weatherproof blend of 50% cotton and 50% polyester as well as a breathable Coolmax® lining in a 65% cotton, 35% polyester blend.

“The Harrington jacket has to be my favorite casual jacket of all time,” my friend Ryan told me. “My earliest memories of the Harrington has to be the beige Merc brand Harrington worn by my grandfather when I was a child, my grandfather was born in 1932, around the same time as Rod Taylor and Steve McQueen,  so it is only natural that he would be drawn to the iconic jacket that was featured in so many films and television shows during the 1960s.”

Interested shoppers can find the classic Baracuta still available in addition to several other variations on the Harrington from reputable outfitters including Merc, the company that made the jacket worn by Ryan’s grandfather:

• Baracuta G9 in “natural” cotton/polyester (via Amazon or Baracuta)
• Ben Nevis Combat Harrington in beige polyester/cotton (via Ben Nevis)
• Ben Sherman Core Harrington in sand cotton (via Amazon or Ben Sherman)
• Farah Hardy Jacket in light sand cotton (via Farah Clothing)
• Fred Perry Check Lined Harrington in dark stone cotton (via Fred Perry)
• Grenfell Harrington in peached beige cotton (via Grenfell)
• Jump the Gun Harrington Raglan in beige cotton (via Jump the Gun)
• Lacoste Men’s Cotton Twill Jacket in beige cotton (via Amazon or Lacoste)
• Lyle & Scott Harrington in beige cotton (via Amazon)
• Merc Harrington in beige cotton/polyester (via Merc Clothing)
• Orvis Weatherbreaker in British tan nylon/cotton (via Amazon or Orvis)
• Peter Christian Harrington in sand cotton/polyester (via Peter Christian Outfitters)
• Private White V.C. “The Ventile” Harrington in sand cotton (via Private White V.C.)
• Tootal Modern Classic Harrington in beige cotton (via Tootal)

Taylor wears a light blue polo shirt with a long three-button top that extends down to mid-chest, and he wears all three of the widely spaced buttons undone. Bruce Templeton evidently keeps a few light blue pocket polos in his collection as he also wears a similarly colored short-sleeve polo later in the film for a laidback night lounging at home with Jennifer, though that polo shirt is a richer sky blue and only has a two-button opening as opposed to the three-button polo he wears with the Baracuta jacket.

Bruce wears dark gray trousers with a fit over his hips that suggests a darted front, the less-celebrated but certainly effective alternative to pleats or a traditional “flat front”. He wears the trousers with no belt, instead fastened around his waist with an extended square-ended tab that closes through a single button.

Assuming that these are the same trousers he later wears with his navy blazer, they would also have belt loops, front pockets but no back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

Bruce hands Jennifer a hard hat before the testing commences.

Bruce’s wristwatch throughout The Glass Bottom Boat is a slim gold dress watch with a gold dial and flat gold bracelet, concealed by the ribbed cuff on his jacket’s left sleeve for this particular sequence.

The scene’s brief opening shot suggests that Bruce wears the same black leather side-gusset loafers that he wears with his suits at work. Despite his vast wealth and wardrobe—Bruce tends to wear these same shoes with everything, though it would appeal to his sense of practicality to have one pair of shoes that he can effectively wear with Harrington jackets, dinner jackets, and everything in between. Though American businessmen led the way in de-formalizing office wear in mid-century, slip-on shoes grew increasingly fashionable for men around the world to wear with lounge suits against the gradually less formal backdrop of the 1960s professional world.

Jennifer and Bruce’s “meet cute” earlier in the movie when he pulled her stuck heel from a vibrating grate. He would wear thees same side-gusset loafers with essentially all of his on-screen wardrobe.

Bruce isn’t the only Baracuta wearer in The Glass Bottom Boat. We very briefly see his helicopter pilot, Jim, sporting a navy Baracuta G9 with the distinctive Fraser Tartan lining as he waits for Bruce to join him in the passenger seat.

Jim wears a navy Baracuta G9 not unlike Steve McQueen wore in The Thomas Crown Affair.

I found fellow Harrington jacket enthusiasts in the aforementioned Shawn Bongiorno and Ryan Hall, fellow style bloggers with fantastic Instagram pages. Like me, Ryan’s Instagram account @IconicFilmStyle highlights menswear featured in movies and TV shows while Shawn’s page @shawn.michael.bongiorno showcases Shawn himself wearing many outfits inspired by cinematic icons like Steve McQueen or the James Bond actors that Ryan and I write about.

Ryan explained their collaboration to me, saying that “Shawn has an offical stone-colored Harrington from Baracuta very similar to Rod Taylor’s and Steve McQueen’s. Shawn’s style is casual and relaxed. He takes a classic staple and blends it with modern items, which is great.”

Shawn expanded both on his own Baracuta and how he was inspired to model it after how Rod Taylor wore his in The Glass Bottom Boat:

Shawn presents his updated take on the Baracuta and blue shirt.

I got the Baracuta in Steve McQueen stone because it is iconic, like the Persol 714S, which were also popularized by McQueen. I learned about McQueen from his influence on how Daniel Craig as James Bond was dressed in Quantum of Solace. It was a revolutionary style to me and I fell in love with the simple elegance of it. I experiment a lot with understanding what my casual style is and is not. To me, the jacket is more on the rugged side of casual than the formal side, though it does have a sophisticated quality, but not so much that it can’t be paired with jeans.

Since I wear it exclusively with jeans, I would not likely pair it with a polo, because polos, for me, are best worn with shorts, unless the polo is knit or in some other way “unique”. The collar of a polo just emotes too much formality for me to pair one with jeans. Additionally, I don’t go for the preppy look, And a polo with a Harrington looks very preppy to me. I find the best shirt to pair a Harrington with is a T-shirt, because it brings out the rugged qualities of the Harrington and tones down its more sophisticated features.

I bought a Baracuta because it is the original. That’s something that I look for in every clothing purchase I make: history. I love the history of clothes, so I always tend toward the original manufacture of a garment, if available. That’s why I love pairing my Harrington with Persol 714S, Clarks original desert boots, and Sunspel T-Shirts (one of the original creators of the T-shirt, mind you). There is a heritage to these brands that match the heritage of the Baracuta, thus the look becomes inherently timeless and iconic.

For our recreation of the look from the movie, I relied completely on Ryan’s guidance, as I had never seen the movie or heard of Rod Taylor. I had the Baracuta on hand and I had a shirt in the right color from Orlebar Brown, my favorite clothing company and one of the pioneers of “resort wear.”

The look is probably not something I would go for with my own personal style, but I am willing to try anything once because you really don’t know how you feel about a look until you wear it out-and-about and you see how it makes you feel. I do, however, thank Ryan for bringing it to my attention, as it made me think about how I like to wear my Harrington; that is one of the things I love so much about our iconic film style collaborations.

And what encouraged Ryan to choose this look in the first place?

Being a huge classic film fan since I was a child, I was aware of how many iconic films the Harrington was worn in. I myself have a few Harringtons of various brands and colors, black and navy being the stand outs for me as I think I look better in darker, cooler colors rather then the lighter beige, tan, and stone. I’d been influenced to wear a Harrington by Steve McQueen with his navy Baracuta in The Thomas Crown Affair, a film I first saw when I was 12, and Daniel Craig’s dark navy Tom Ford Harrington in his second Bond film, Quantum of Solace.

I think it is important to take classic menswear items—especially ones made famous by iconic film stars—and make them your own… as not many of us are as naturally cool as Steve McQueen. Being comfortable and developing your own style is more important then trying to directly emulate these film stars directly.

How to Get the Look

Rod Taylor as Bruce Templeton in The Glass Bottom Boat (1966)

In The Glass Bottom Boat, Rod Taylor illustrates the stylish staying power of simple essentials like a neutral-colored Harrington jacket, light blue shirt, and gray slacks, an ensemble that worked as well more than half a century ago as it does when worn by sharp dressers like Shawn today.

• Beige waterproof cotton Baracuta G9 zip-up blouson-style windbreaker with two-button standing collar, slanted hand pockets with single-button flaps, ribbed cuffs and hem, and red Fraser tartan plaid lining
• Light blue short-sleeve polo shirt with three-button top and breast pocket
• Dark gray darted-front trousers with belt loops, front pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black calf leather side-gusset loafers
• Thin gold wristwatch with gold dial on flat gold bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Who could sleep when you’re plotting a rendezvous with Venus?

Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez in Argo (2012)

Vitals

Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez, CIA covert operations officer

Tehran, Iran, January 1980

Film: Argo
Release Date: October 12, 2012
Director: Ben Affleck
Costume Designer: Jacqueline West

Background

A month ago on my Instagram page, I posted about Ben Affleck’s tweedy look in Argo to coincide with the 40th anniversary of what became known as the “Canadian Caper”, the successful 1980 rescue of six American diplomats who had been taking refuge with Canadian diplomatic personnel after the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

The six diplomats—Bob Anders, Cora and Mark Lijek, Henry Lee Schatz, and Joe and Kathleen Stafford—had managed to escape after militants first stormed the embassy on November 4, 1979, evading the 444 days of captivity that befell more than 50 Americans who were detained in what would become known as the “Iran hostage crisis”. The escapees initially received help from the British embassy but deemed their situation too risky due to the militants’ raids of diplomatic compounds. Eventually, the sextet found a safer, longer-term solution sheltered at the homes of Canadian immigration officer John Sheardown and Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor.

Taylor first contacted the Canadian government, who expressed support for the sanctuary and instigated a plan to create six Canadian passports for the Americans to safely fly out of Iran. The joint Canadian-American operation also required the participation of the CIA, particularly the efforts of Antonio “Tony” Mendez, a decorated agent and expert in disguises and exfiltration.

Antonio “Tony” Mendez (1940-2019), as he appeared in a 2013 documentary after the film’s release shed light on his role in the “Canadian Caper”.

The 2012 film Argo, directed by and starring Ben Affleck, focused on the CIA’s role in assisting the six, taking some criticism for underplaying the part that Canada played in not only taking great risks to shelter the “houseguests” but also to arrange for their exfiltration. Of the depiction, Jimmy Carter—who had been the U.S. president at the time of the incident—even stated in a contemporary interview that “90% of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian… the movie gives almost full credit to the American CIA and, with that exception, the movie is very good.”

Despite the redirected focus, I found Argo to be a sharp, suspenseful, surprisingly funny, and more realistic look at covert operations than we’re used to seeing from Hollywood, earning accolades like Roger Ebert’s final “favorite movie of the year” title and the Academy Award for Best Picture.

“The only way out of that city is the airport,” Affleck’s Mendez informs his CIA superiors when outlining his exfil plan. “You build new cover identities for them, you send in a Moses, he takes ’em out on a commercial flight.” As in real life, Mendez serves as the ‘Moses’, working with Oscar-winning prosthetics pro John Chambers (John Goodman) and veteran producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) to convincingly establish the sextet’s new identities as a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a fictional science fiction epic called Argo.

“Don’t fuck up, the whole country is watching you… they just don’t know it,” advises Mendez’s boss Jack O’Donnell (Bryan Cranston), who adds after escorting Mendez to the airport: “I’m required to remidn you that, if you’re detained, the agency will not claim you.” Mendez deadpans in response: “Shoulda brought some books to read in prison,” to which O’Donnell adds a touch of gallows humor: “Nah… they’ll kill you long before prison.”

Mendez seems considerably more optimistic once he’s in the airport, calling Chambers to inform him: “We got a green light. Keep the office running ’til you hear otherwise.” Via Istanbul, Mendez eventually lands in Tehran, where Ken Taylor (Victor Garber) introduces him to the six diplomats he’ll be expediently training in their cover stories, while Mendez shares his own cover name: “Hi. My name’s Kevin Harkins, and I’m gonna get you home.”

One of my favorite sequences features the group preparing for the next morning’s exfiltration with drinking and music, specifically Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks”, a track that Affleck has admitted he was “desperate” to include in the movie. While the band agreed to the track’s inclusion, they did have one stipulation: the scene as shot showed Bob Anders (Tate Donovan) placing the needle at the start of the album rather than its proper place as the last song on the record’s second side. Appreciative of the band’s attention to detail, Affleck was reportedly more than happy to direct the required reshoot.

What’d He Wear?

When costuming Ben Affleck to play Tony Mendez, costume designer Jacqueline West sought to dress him in clothing similar to what the actual agent wore during his mission. According to Ewen MacAskill for The Guardian, the real Mendez’s wife Jonna—also a former CIA officer—was “appalled” to learn that her husband had still had those old clothes from more than 30 years earlier in the garage.

“Tony sent me the actual clothes he wore during the exfiltration,” West explained in an exclusive interview with Clothes on Film about her work in Argo. “The jacket was herringbone tweed Brooks Brothers… Bless their hearts, Brooks Brothers had all their initial patterns from the 1970s and they made all those jackets and suits for Ben.”

The article in The Guardian states that Mendez had worn his Harris tweed jacket with slacks and cordovan wingtip shoes, essentially a de facto uniform for CIA agents of the era. “That was our uniform,” Mendez explained. “The jackets were representative of our group. Those of us in the CIA who did overseas work, work in the field. If you were in the field during the Blitz, you wore a trench coat. If you were tracking Ivan [the Soviet Union and its allies], you had Harris tweed.”

The concept of a rugged CIA operative in the 1970s clad in tweed, knitwear, and denim recalls Robert Redford’s iconic look in Three Days of the Condor, and West has stated that she used the famous 1975 thriller to convince Affleck that the herringbone would be effective on screen. But would an outfit appropriate for Christmastime in New York translate to a mission to Iran?

We know it’s a cold January in Tehran as Affleck’s Mendez had indicated the visible snow on the ground, seen in an Iranian newspaper, to quickly quash an idea that the six diplomats could use the cover as crop inspectors. Thus, the durable Harris tweed would be a comfortable top layer for Mendez to wear with his jeans, heavy boots, and a rotation of casual open-neck shirts. Jacket lapels aside, the approach is among the more timeless outfits in Argo, particularly when compared to the excessively fashionable sportswear worn by some of the disguised diplomats.

Jacket #1: Brown-and-Black Herringbone Tweed

Based on my initial recollections of the movie, I was fully prepared to write about Affleck’s herringbone tweed jacket until, upon rewatching, I discovered that he wears no less than three different herringbone tweed jackets! All three are similarly cut, styled, and patterned with slight variations in color, the “warmest”  being the brown-and-black herringbone jacket worn for Mendez’s initial flight from Washington, D.C. to Istanbul.

Mendez’s light blue oxford cloth cotton shirt with its button-down collar, front placket, and button cuffs is an Ivy staple and likely another Brooks Brothers piece.

Mendez checks in with a British agent in Istanbul before continuing on to Tehran. Like a famous fictional spy who preceded him, Mendez chose Istanbul’s famous Hagia Sophia mosque for the rendezvous.

While he would continue to wear the dark jeans, brown belt, and brown boots for the rest of his mission, the brown-and-black tweed jacket and blue OCBD would not be seen again once Mendez leaves Istanbul.

Jacket #2: Gray-and-Black Herringbone Tweed

From his flight in to Tehran to his departure two days later, Mendez wears a gray-and-black herringbone jacket that gets the most screen-time of his trio of herringbone Harris tweed. All three jackets are single-breasted with broad notch lapels that, likely 4″ wide with swelled edges, are the most dated aspects of the outfit but would have looked out of place during the era if they had been more moderate in width.

The jackets have a welted breast pocket, straight hip pockets, and a long vent. The two buttons on the front and the four on each cuff are black woven leather.

Mendez gets an unwelcome phone call on the eve of his planned exfil.

Mendez’s first shirt with this jacket—worn for his arrival in Tehran and subsequently meeting the six diplomats—is a navy-and-red plaid with a thin white windowpane grid-check. This flannel shirt has a front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs.

Mendez flies into Tehran wearing a comfortable and colorful plaid flannel shirt under his tweed jacket.

Later, Mendez joins the six houseguests on “scouting” trip to convince the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance that their covers are legitimate, followed by a long evening to test and solidify their knowledge of their cover stories before facing airport security.

Apropos the full day of work, Mendez wears a classic work shirt in a rich blue chambray with a long point collar, front placket, and single-button cuffs, all fastening with cream-colored plastic two-hole buttons. The shirt has two patch pockets on the chest, one with a button-down flap on the right side and a button-through pocket on the left side.

A classic work shirt for a full day’s work.

One of the most frequently seen of Mendez’s shirts is an off-white cotton dress shirt with closely spaced hairline stripes that alternate between faded blue and faded salmon. In addition to wearing the shirt with neckties at CIA headquarters, he also wears the shirt twice while in the field. It has a long point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs.

Note the faded stripes that are barely discernible from a distance.

The hairline-striped shirt is most prominently seen during the climactic airport sequence as Mendez escorts the six diplomats onto their Swissair flight out of Iran. He layers a navy wool long-sleeved sweater over his shirt for the flight, allowing the long point collar to fall outside the sweater’s V-neck opening.

Tony and the six diplomats try to conceal their anxiety as the ticket agent encounters trouble finding their flight reservations.

Jacket #3: Black-and-White Herringbone Tweed

After the successful exfil of the six diplomats, Mendez dresses up his third and final-seen herringbone tweed jacket for the office with a tie and trousers rather than his more casual mission-wear of open-neck shirt and jeans. He wears the same hairline-striped shirt that he wore under his sweater during the departure flight but with a navy tie patterned with ornate magenta dotted-edge squares that each enclose a yellow four-pointed star.

Mendez sticks to his tweed when back at CIA headquarters after a job well done.

He wears the same brown leather belt but, rather than jeans, a pair of dark gray flat front slacks and cordovan wingtip derbies, no doubt reflecting the office “uniform” that Mendez referenced in the article in The Guardian.

Everything Else

Other than the trousers he wears when he has returned to CIA headquarters, Mendez almost exclusively wears dark blue jeans with his herringbone tweed jackets, a casual but texturally coordinating choice that harmonizes the rough and “fuzzy” finish of the woolen Harris tweed with famously durable denim.

Mendez wears a thick brown leather belt with a rectangular brass single-prong buckle and a thick brass keeper.

Mendez runs through the diplomats’ new cover identities with them one last time before their fateful flight in the morning.

The Nevada-born Mendez is shown wearing brown cowboy boots with decoratively stitched soles for many early scenes in his operation, though he changes into somewhat more practical brown lace-up hiking boots for much of his time in Tehran.

Mendez turns to the bottle after receiving some bad news.

A frequent Rolex wearer in real life and other movies, Ben Affleck sports a Rolex Sea-Dweller in Argo, which some eagle-eyed viewers have identified as the ref. 116660 Sea-Dweller DEEPSEA, a model not introduced until 2008. While that anachronistic model may have been worn in some scenes (like this!), many of the Tehran sequences appear to feature a period-correct Rolex diver, stainless with a black rotating bezel, black dial with a 3:00 date function, and a steel “Oyster”-style link bracelet.

Note the differences between the period-correct Rolex with its 40mm case (left) and the bulkier modern Rolex Sea-Dweller DEEPSEA with its 44mm case (right).

In 1966, Rolex introduced the first Submariner with a date function, the ref. 1680, signifying the timepiece’s transition from a functional diver’s tool to a more broadly marketed status symbol. The following year marked the introduction of the Rolex Sea-Dweller (ref. 1665), essentially a heavier duty Submariner Date with a thicker case and crystal though its date window it lacked the “cyclops” magnifier.

Both Deployant and Ben Affleck’s Watch Collection (at swisswatchexpo.com) has identified the period-correct Rolex to be a Submariner Date. However, the screen-worn watch appears to lack the “cyclops” magnifier that was present on the ref. 1680. While I’m inclined to defer to these experts, I have a suspicion that the older Rolex featured on screen might thus be a Sea-Dweller ref. 1665 rather than a Submariner Date… though I welcome any discussion or clarification from those in the know!

What to Imbibe

Damned with the knowledge that the CIA called off the mission (a fictional element added for additional dramatic tension), Mendez quietly lets the six “houseguests” gradually get into a drunken, hopeful bliss to the scratchy sounds of Led Zeppelin. “We were having a lot to drink,” Cora Lijek recalls with a smirk in a modern documentary. “I think we were excited about the departure… and nervous as well.”

Mendez sneaks out a bottle of Macallan single malt Scotch whisky from the Canadian ambassador’s stash for himself and spends the rest of his sleepless night consulting the bottle back in his hotel room.

The Macallan bottle in Argo appears to have a period-correct logo that doesn’t reflect the whisky’s age, instead following the word “MACALLAN” with the scripted words “Pure Highland Malt Scotch Whisky”.

Cora recalled that it wasn’t their pre-flight drinks were hardly the end of their imbibing: “Once we got out of Iranian airspace, Tony ordered Bloody Marys for us and it tasted great.”

“One of the best Bloody Marys I have ever had!” added Bob Anders, the senior member of the group, while Kathy Stafford also remembered “that cocktail over Turkish airspace was delightful, it was wonderful!”

How to Get the Look

Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez in Argo (2012)

While Ben Affleck’s outfit in Argo may call Three Days of the Condor to mind, costume designer Jacqueline West was primarily influenced by the tweed Brooks Brothers jacket that the real Tony Mendez wore on his CIA mission to Tehran in the winter of 1980, sported with Condor-approved jeans, brown leather boots, and a classic dive watch.

• Gray-and-black herringbone Harris tweed single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with wide notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and long single vent
• White hairline-striped cotton shirt with long point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Navy knit V-neck long-sleeve sweater
• Dark blue denim jeans
• Brown leather belt with brass rectangular single-prong buckle and brass keeper
• Brown leather hiking boots
• Rolex steel dive watch with black bezel, black dial (with 3:00 date function), and steel Oyster-style link bracelet

You can read more about West’s costume design and Harris tweed in Argo here:

• “Argo: Interview with Costume Designer Jacqueline West” by Lord Christopher Laverty for Clothes on Film, February 2013
• “CIA agents look better in Harris tweed: how Argo revived a Scottish classic” by Ewen MacAskill for The Guardian, April 2013

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. I also recommend reading the real Mendez’s book, The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA.

Reading was evidently a popular pastime for the six diplomats in hiding. Lee Schatz recalled that John Sheardown was “a voracious reader so he had a great collection of books”, and Kathy Stafford added that the personal libraries available to her likely assisted in the escape. “I’m sure that one of the reasons I was able to go through the airport without being nervous was because I read every John LeCarre book they had,” Stafford explained in a 2013 interview. “I realized from his books that, if you act like you know what you’re doing, then other people will think you know what you’re doing and they’ll think… fine.”

The Quote

Ar-go fuck yourself.

David Niven as Corporal Miller in The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Vitals

David Niven as Corporal Miller, British Army commando and explosives expert

Aegean Sea, Fall 1943

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

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Tomorrow would have been the 110th birthday of David Niven, the Academy Award-winning English actor, author, and decorated war veteran. Instead of looking at one of the famously debonair Niven’s tailored suits or elegant dinner jackets, let’s explore his scrappier seafaring attire as a covert commando in The Guns of Navarone, the 1961 adaptation of Alistair MacLean’s World War II-set adventure novel.

Niven co-starred as Corporal Miller, an explosives expert who taught chemistry before he enlisted in the British Army at a more advanced age than the typical NCO. In real life, Niven had distinguished himself during World War II when he re-enlisted the day after Britain declared war on German in 1939. The following February, he was recommissioned as a lieutenant into the Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort’s Own), though he soon transferred to the British Commandos to see more action. By war’s end, Niven had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was awarded the Legion of Merit, an American decoration presented to him by General Eisenhower himself.

Fiercely loyal with a cheeky sense of humor, the fictional Corporal Miller shared much with the actor who portrayed him. “I don’t mind him as much as he seems to mind me,” remarks the group’s captain, Keith Mallory (Gregory Peck), as the team fights Nazi patrol boats and nighttime storms crossing the Aegean Sea en route their mission to disable the titular German artillery on the fictional Navarone Island.

What’d He Wear?

Throughout the mission, Corporal Miller wears a black wool felt Basque-style beret, the only member of the group to do so while Captain Mallory and Spyros Pappadimos (James Darren) wear mariner’s caps often associated with Greek fisherman and Andrea (Anthony Quinn) and Brown (Stanley Baker) wear watch caps.

The iconic flat black berets like Miller wears originated with French and Spanish shepherds in the Pyrenees, with the first recorded commercial production starting in southern France during the 1600s. As industrialization grew, berets became mass produced with factories like Laulhère—established in 1840—still manufacturing traditional berets as well as innovating fashion-forward berets for non-traditional wearers.

While aboard the group’s fishing vessel, Miller wears a long black wool overcoat with a high and tight double-breasted formation of two rows of two buttons in addition to a full belt. The coat has large-flapped lapels with wide notches, set-in sleeves with plain cuffs, slanted hand pockets, and a long single vent.

The mix of seafaring gear among Mallory’s scrappy-looking crew includes pea jackets, knit beanies, and “Greek fisherman” mariner’s caps.

Although Miller was clad in the long black coat when crawling out of the wreckage of their sinking boat and scaling the mountainside, he has changed into a shorter, pea-length coat by the next morning. This dark navy coat appears to be made from a lighter-weight wool than the traditional melton cloth, possibly serge.

The maritime nature of the group’s mission would make a pea coat very appropriate, though Miller’s hip-length jacket has less in common with the traditional pea coat than the double-breasted coat Captain Mallory wears, though it does have the traditional ulster lapel with a broad collar to button at the top if needed. Aside from the top buttons, the double-breasted coat has three rows of two buttons each, supplemented by a full belt that Niven wears tied around his waist like a sash. The jacket also has slanted welt hand pockets and set-in sleeves that are finished at the cuffs with short semi-tabs that close through a single button.

In his shorter, pea-length coat, Miller was the only member of the group to change any part of his wardrobe from ship to shore.

Knotted around his neck to catch sweat as well as to given Niven some characteristically rakish flair, Corporal Miller wears a knotted scarlet red neckerchief. The dense kerchief, more like a lightweight scarf, is tucked into the top of his sweater.

Layered under Miller’s coat is a plain white cotton long-sleeved shirt, worn wide open at the neck to let the soft long-pointed collar lay flat over his sweater, a navy wool boat-neck jumper with set-in sleeves. Per the group’s disguise, Niven’s sweater is complete with the naturally worn holes of a true fisherman’s jumper, more than half a century before Chris Evans would don his famously “holy” Aran sweater in Knives Out.

Little is seen of Miller’s taupe brown wool flat front trousers, as he wears them tucked into his tall black leather cavalry boots.

The sextet poses with their Sten guns.

Strapped over his coat, Miller wears the standard 1937 pattern gun belt in khaki cotton webbing that was authorized by the British military during World War II. The wide belt has a brass hook-and-loop front buckle flanked by a brass keeper on each side.

Though not used here for obvious reasons, the 37 pattern gun belt also had brass buckles on the back that could fasten to a wearer’s suspenders (braces), if needed.

Miller wears these seagoing duds for much of their mission until the group is briefly captured by the Wehrmacht in the fictional Greek city of Mandrakos. Andrea Stavros (Anthony Quinn) dupes the Germans and manages to turn the tables, at which point Miller, Mallory, and the rest of the men seize their uniforms.

Despite his NCO rank, Corporal Miller dons the uniform worn by Hauptsturmführer Sessler (George Mikell), the cruel SS officer, and comments: “Not very hygienic, I must say. Shocking taste in undies, too.”

Corporal Miller doles out a parting shot at Sessler’s poor hygiene after disguising himself in the officer’s SS uniform.

The Guns

As the commandos are engaged in a British operation, they all carry weapons issued by the Commonwealth during World War II. Holstered to Corporal Miller’s gun belt is an Enfield No. 2, a top-break revolver developed during the interwar period as a lighter weight and lighter caliber alternative to the venerable .455 Webley service revolvers. Developed in 1928 but not produced until four years later, the Enfield was chambered in the .38/200 round, a British modification to the .38 S&W bullet.

Corporal Miller keeps his hand on his Enfield when Captain Mallory approaches Major Franklin, but eventually has no need to use it. The presence of a full hammer indicates that Miller’s sidearm is not the Enfield No. 2 Mk I* variant, which had a spurless hammer that could not be cocked by the user.

More significantly fielded by the commandos is the Sten submachine gun, named for its designers Major Reginald V. Shepherd and Harold Turpin as well as the RSAF Enfield factory where they were produced from 1941 through the end of the war. Though prone to jamming and other issues, the weapon’s low production cost, simple, easy-to-use design, and universality of its 9x19mm Parabellum bullet made the Sten series a popular choice not only for Commonwealth forces but also many armed resistance groups allied with them.

Production of the Sten was streamlined through 1940 and 1941 with the original wooden furniture and flash hider removed to expedite production, though the wooden furniture would be added back on for the later Sten Mk V variant. In the meantime, the modifications allowed for mass production of the new generation of Stens, and the Sten Mk II as carried by Corporal Miller and his fellow commandos was the most commonly encountered variant with more than two million manufactured.

Carried over from the earlier Lancaster submachine gun, the Sten’s side-mounted box magazine was one of its most distinctive features and would go on to be a prominent part of the British-issued Sterling submachine gun as well.

David Niven as Corporal Miller in The Guns of Navarone (1961)

How to Get the Look

Aside from some of the more commando-inspired elements of Corporal Miller’s outfit for his covert mission in the Greek mountains, David Niven’s dark wool pea coat, navy jumper layered over a white shirt with taupe trousers and black boots makes for a timeless “smart casual” ensemble. Feeling continental? Top it off with a black beret and a scarlet scarf.

• Dark navy wool serge belted pea coat with ulster collar, 6×3-button double-breasted front, slanted welt hand pockets, and single-button semi-tab cuffs
• White cotton long-sleeved shirt with soft collar
• Navy wool boat-neck sweater
• Scarlet red neckerchief
• Taupe brown wool flat front trousers
• Khaki cotton web 1937 pattern gun belt, with holster (for Enfield No. 2 revolver)
• Black leather knee-high cavalry boots
• Black wool felt Basque-style beret

Do Yourself a Favor and…

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

The Quote

Sir, I’ve inspected this boat and I think you ought to know that… I can’t swim.

Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc in Knives Out (2019)

Vitals

Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, “a private investigator of great renown”

Massachusetts, November 2018

Film: Knives Out
Release Date: November 27, 2019
Director: Rian Johnson
Costume Designer: Jenny Eagan

Background

Happy birthday to Daniel Craig, born 52 years ago today on March 2, 1968! While Craig is likely best known as the most recent actor to portray James Bond, one of his most celebrated recent roles has been his Golden Globe-nominated performance in Knives Out as Benoit Blanc, an idiosyncratic detective who describes himself as a “respectful, quiet, and passive observer of the truth.”

A deserved winner of Best Original Screenplay at the 92nd Academy Awards this year, Knives Out serves as a modern tribute to classic mysteries like the works of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, dripping with atmosphere and injected with plenty of twists, turns, and tongue-in-cheek fun thanks to Rian Johnson’s clever, original, and inspired direction and writing as well as a top-notch cast headed by Craig as the Southern-fried private eye Benoit Blanc.

Considered “the last of the gentleman sleuths” in a New Yorker profile (and a once-referenced Tweet to said profile), Blanc is called to the estate of the recently deceased mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) at the behest of an anonymous member of the household to probe further into the mysterious circumstances of the 85-year-old man’s violent death, which would have otherwise been ruled a likely suicide by local authorities.

“Something is afoot with this whole affair. I know it, I believe you know it too,” Blanc confides in Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), the deceased author’s loyal caregiver who becomes Blanc’s de facto Watson once he recognizes her “regurgitative reaction to mistruths.” The Craig-de Armas teaming provides an entertaining screen chemistry ahead of their next pairing in No Time to Die, Craig’s fifth and final film as James Bond, scheduled for release next month.

While Craig may be hanging up his Tom Ford dinner jacket after a record-breaking 14 years as the reigning 007, Rian Johnson has confirmed that we haven’t seen the last of Benoit Blanc.

What’d He Wear?

Knives Out‘s promotional artwork distorted the colors of Daniel Craig’s attire, portraying Benoit Blanc in a trippy palette of greens, yellows, and purples as opposed to the colder grays and blues that we see on screen.

Benoit Blanc was clearly written in tribute to classic fictional detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, though he bucks the modern trend of updating these sleuths as “men of action” i.e. Downey and Branagh, instead allowing our ostensible protagonist to settle into the grand tradition of the “armchair detective” who relies more on his observational prowess and dogged attention to detail when it comes to solving cases. He’s well-attired for sure, but in a manner that’s more lived-in than elegant, more reminiscent of Peter Falk’s rumpled raincoat as Colombo than Poirot’s fussy neo-Edwardian suits. We get the sense that Blanc dresses more for his own comfort than to satisfy any obsessive urges, acknowledging professional decorum with a jacket and tie but adhering more to a quirky and individualistic personal dress code that’s neither trendy, timeless, or anachronistic; instead, Blanc appears to be a product of his own time, having emerged from a unique slice of 2018 when eccentric private detectives still solve murders in grand country estates.

Costume designer Jenny Eagan explained to Digital Spy that casting Daniel Craig in the role meant revisiting Rian Johnson’s original vision of the stereotypical Southern gentleman in his white linen suit, instead opting for an outfit that would allow him to effectively blend in as much as a private detective would need to while still distinguished from the rest “little touches” such as his suspenders and pocket squares and the floral flourishes in his ties and socks. “It pushed it into that world of the Southern gentleman, but keeping him sort of discrete, so that he could move freely and not be noticed or detected as something other than a normal person on the street.”

Indeed, the audience benefits from spending three consecutive days with Benoit Blanc, and a pattern emerges for his creative sense of dress. His well-chosen jacket and trousers never change, providing a neutral yet defined palette that harmonizes with his habit for gently frayed and subtly patterned point-collared shirts, floral ties, and contrasting pocket squares, a daily uniform that allows him to look professional and yet completely at home as he reclines astride a piano in the shadows of Harlan Thrombey’s great room.

The Jacket

“You’re fulla shit. I don’t trust this guy in the tweed suit,” Richard Drysdale (Don Johnson) exclaims after growing impatient with Benoit Blanc. Richard is not an unfashionable man, finding comfort in knit quarter-zips and horsebit loafers as he and his family deal with the aftermath of his father-in-law’s death, but he’s perhaps tellingly inaccurate in his generalization of Blanc’s attire.

While neither tweed nor a matching suit, Blanc’s outfit still presents a “tweedy” image with his woven odd jacket and low-contrast trousers. It may indeed be easily mistaken for an albeit lighter-weight tweed two-piece suit until one looks closer, requiring an attention to detail worthy of the detective’s own observational skills. It’s no surprise that this was lost on Richard, whose own impatience in the field of observation would lead to his own demise in the film’s denouement.

So if not tweed, then what? Blanc appears to wear a dark gray woolen sports coat constructed of basket-woven hopsack, an underused open weave that adds a coarse and rugged tweed-like sensibility but is more breathable and cooler-wearing and thus makes a more fitting “three-season” jacket for Benoit Blanc, whose “gentlest of Southern lilt” as described in Johnson’s Oscar-winning screenplay screenplay suggests a home base in the humid subtropical Mississippi Delta. (Craig evidently patterned his accent on Mississippi-born historian Shelby Foote, though Johnson has joked that it became “Shelby Foote by way of Foghorn Leghorn”.)

While the hopsack weave can be patterned in large and loose gages, Blanc opts for tighter, smaller-scaled gages resembling “an appearance of minute squares” as described by Hardy Amies in ABCs of Men’s Fashion. Combined with the sober, businesslike overall dark gray color, the more structured appearance of the tight-gage hopsack weave creates a more professional air.

The roping on the jacket’s sleeveheads builds up Daniel Craig’s shoulders, a detail commonly but not exclusively seen on more formal or structured jackets. In addition to its less structured, sack-like cut, Blanc’s single-breasted jacket is dressed down with sporty details like black woven leather buttons and patch pockets. The notch lapels roll to two buttons on the front which match the three on the end of each sleeve.

The three investigators—Blanc, Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan), and Lieutenant Elliot (Lakeith Stanfield)—stand around a seated Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans).

Blanc’s style is one that can be easily adapted rather than strictly copied. Hopsack jackets can range in price from this affordable Buttoned Down charcoal wool jacket (via Amazon) to this charcoal wool/silk blend from Ermenegildo Zegna (via Neiman Marcus) at nearly $2,600.

A professional-looking hopsack jacket like Blanc’s gray sports coat provides a versatile layer appropriate for many climates and contexts, able to be dressed down or dressed up with a selection of your preferred type of shirt and tie pattern.

Day 1

We don’t see how Benoit Blanc packed for his trip, but—judging from the fact that he had one day to prepare—he seems to have made the laudable decision of finding a relatively neutral palette of an unchanging jacket, trousers, and shoes that could host a rotation of easier-to-pack shirts, ties, pocket squares, and (ostensibly) underwear.

Blanc chooses his most colorful of his screen-worn shirts for his initial meetings with most of the Thrombey family, dressed in a sky blue diamond-textured shirt. Like all of Blanc’s shirts seen on screen, the shirt has a long point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and rounded single-button cuffs, all gently frayed along the edges to that lends a broken-in quality. His khaki melange cotton pocket square, folded into triple peaks, is the first of three creative pocket hanks Craig wears in Knives Out, a delightfully jaunty contrast to the professional, TV-folded white and blue pocket squares he wears as 007.

Blanc also establishes his penchant for floral ties, wearing a black tie that spices up its staid ground with a field of duo-toned blue flowers covering the cravat. (At least one set photo suggests that the ground is actually a dark brown, though the same photo features Blanc wearing both belt and braces, an uncharacteristic sartorial redundancy corrected in the film and thus nullifying the screen-accurate veracity of the photo itself.)

Blanc’s sky blue shirt and blue-on-black floral tie for his introduction to the Thrombeys (as well as the audience) is arguably the most eye-popping of his underpinnngs as he opts for generally more subdued colors and patterns in the two days to follow.

If you’re in the market for floral neckwear à la Benoit Blanc, you’re in luck given their relative ubiquity among current menswear outfitters, including:

• Express “Narrow Floral Printed Silk Tie” in turquoise (via Express)
• Original Penguin “Lemongrass Floral Tie” in navy silk (via Amazon)
• The Tie Bar “Southey Floral Tie” in printed navy wool (via The Tie Bar)
• The Tie Bar “Walnut Street Tie” in navy cotton (via The Tie Bar)
• Twisted Tailor blue textured jacquard poly-blend tie (via ASOS)

Day 2

The following day, having pressed Marta into service as his ostensible “Watson”, Blanc dials down his tie and lets his pocket square claim the loudest pattern in his outfit, sporting a white-and-dark blue bengal-striped cotton pocket hank, unevenly tucked into his breast pocket in the manner of one attempting a straight TV fold under nervous duress. Of course, such a rigid, businesslike fold would be almost as uncharacteristic for our creatively dressed Blanc as a plain white pocket square, so the unevenly creased kerchief is more likely the product of Blanc’s pleasantly mild brand of sprezzatura than a failed attempt at formality.

Blanc and Marta are both caught off-guard when the will reading turns out to be considerably more exciting than the expected “community theater production of a tax return.”

Blanc’s white shirt is densely patterned in narrowly spaced horizontal rows of broken dark burgundy lines indented into the shirt for a seersucker-like texture that adds a hint of a pale lilac hue when the shirt is observed from farther away. Apropos the subtlety of the shirt pattern, Blanc also wears a more subdued floral tie, printed with downscaled burgundy flowers against a dark navy ground.

Marta is less than pleased when Blanc spots the recently broken trellis that climbs up the side of the Thrombey estate.

For floral ties in this subdued color scheme, check out these alternatives:

• Banana Republic “Floral Geo Tie” in navy-and-red woven polyester (via Banana Republic Factory)
• Michelsons of London large floral navy-and-red polyester tie (via KJ Beckett)
• Tommy Hilfiger “Classic Floral Tie” in navy-and-red woven silk (via Macy’s)

Day 3

On the third and final day of his investigation, Blanc wears an ice white melange shirt with a faded pale blue grid check that outlines the shirt into half-inch squares, each detailed with a pale blue-trimmed, white-filled dot in the center. The shirt is otherwise detailed like his others, with a long and soft point collar, front placket, and a breast pocket with a mitred-cornered bottom and a pointed yoke.

Blanc’s navy pocket square has taupe-sewn edges. A similar hank can be found from Budd Shirtmakers in navy silk with copper brown hand-rolled edges (via Budd).

This floral tie is the most objectively colorful of Blanc’s trio given the variety of shades present in the pattern, though the tie itself is relatively subdued with its red, gold, white, and green stenciled flower and leaf motif against a solid navy ground.

When his investigation reaches a climax, Blanc removes his coat, rolls up his sleeves, and tucks in the blade of his tie, providing the longest extended look of Blanc without his jacket on and revealing more of his trousers and suspenders than we’d seen up to this point.

The dark navy elastic suspenders (braces) are patterned in neat rows of seven widely spaced white pin dots, with silver hardware and black leather hooks that connect to buttons hidden along the inside of the trouser waistband. Albert Thurston has confirmed that they made the braces Craig wore in Knives Out; their site describes the color as black rather than the pin-dotted navy braces most prominently seen, though it’s possible that Craig wore solid black elastic braces in other scenes.

All knives point to Blanc, the center of his own “donut hole”.

Blanc delivered a suit-like effect by wearing dark gray trousers that barely contrast against his hopsack jacket, differentiated only by being a slightly warmer shade of gray woolen flannel. Like Richard, I had assumed that Blanc was wearing a matching suit when I first saw Knives Out in the theater, but reviewing it at home with the luxury of pausing to take Blu-ray screenshots proved that Craig indeed wears an odd jacket and trousers. “Slapdash suits” of low-contrast jackets and trousers are rarely advisable, but one could argue that Blanc salvages the integrity of the outfit by wearing contrasting fabrics that still harmonize due to coarser textures.

The trousers have a higher rise and a fuller fit than the tighter Tom Ford trousers that Craig has worn in his James Bond films of the 2010s, Skyfall and Spectre, though set photos from No Time to Die show Craig’s 007 enjoying retirement in Italy, clad more like Blanc than Bond in a looser-fitting corduroy suit with trousers held up by Albert Thurston braces.

Blanc’s dark gray trousers have belt loops that go unused to favor the navy suspenders and are fastened at the waist with a pointed waistband tab that closes through a single visible button. A shallow, single reverse-facing pleat flanks the fly on each side. The trousers have gently slanted “quarter top” side pockets and jetted back pockets with a button to close through the left pocket. The bottoms have a full break and are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

When crime-solving gets too intense, lose your jacket, roll up your sleeves, and tuck in your tie blade!

Everything Else

Blanc wears unique black oxford brogues with leather perforated wingtips, five-eyelet panels, and heel counters, though the vamps appear to be constructed from a napped cloth.

Being who he is, Blanc embraces his hosiery as yet another opportunity for colorful self-expression, even if his socks are rarely seen. A flash of azure from his ankles during the first day of the investigation hints at his sky blue socks which appear to be patterned with navy-and-white branches.

Blue is Benoit Blanc’s color of choice for his introductory scene, coordinating his shirt, tie, and socks with Daniel Craig’s bright blue eyes.

You’d think Blanc may have gotten a little thrill when the investigation of Thrombey’s upstairs hallway provided him with the opportunity to kick off his shoes and show off his socks, but Blanc seems to dress solely for his own satisfaction with little interest in whether or not Marta or the excitable Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) would take notice of his colorful hosiery. In this scene, he wears black socks with bright blue toes and heels, patterned with what appears to be large sunflowers.

Searching for sunflower-patterned socks yields more results tailored for women then men, though there are a few sharing similar details with Blanc’s socks such as these from Autumn Socks (via Poshmark), Gearfrost, PanPacSight (via Amazon), and TyQuii Socks (also via Amazon).

Likely the only actual tweed in his screen-worn ensemble, Blanc’s heavy tweed raglan coat is characteristically nonrestrictive and comfortably soft, constructed from a fuzzy, large-scaled brown-and-beige herringbone tweed. The distinctive coat is hardly something one would find off the rack at Macy’s or J. Crew, though suspiciously inexpensive replicas have abounded in the months since the film’s release from all the usual suspects, including Celebs Movie Jackets, Hollywood Jacket, and Ultimate Jackets.

Possibly vintage or the product of a designer like Craig’s favorite Brunello Cucinelli, the hip-length coat has notch lapels that roll to a four-button front that Blanc only buttons up when enjoying an evening cigar outside. The coat has a single vent and set-in side pockets with flaps that are invariably tucked inside the pockets themselves. The raglan sleeves are finished on each cuff with a squared-end semi-tab that closes through a single button.

Blanc’s hip-length herringbone tweed raglan-sleeve topcoat serves him as the perfect outer layer against a chilly New England autumn.

Thanks to the research of the fantastic @whatsdanielwearing Instagram account and confirmed by the current VIP Fan Auctions listing, we know that Blanc wore Cutler & Gross 1303-05 optical glasses with honey-colored tortoise Italian acetate “D” frames with shiny titanium lugs and temples.

Although out of stock as of this writing in February 2020, these handsome frames are still listed on the Cutler & Gross site.

Worn most prominently on the third day of his investigation, Blanc’s sunglasses are the same Cutler & Gross frames but with amber-tinted lenses.

Blanc evidently liked his Cutler & Gross specs so much that he got the same frames for his sunglasses.

Blanc wears a gold wristwatch on a textured dark brown leather strap, theorized by some Redditors to be a vintage Omega given Daniel Craig’s role as an ambassador for the brand who has frequently worn Omega watches both on and off the screen over the last 15 years.

How to Get the Look

Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc in Knives Out (2019)

Benoit Blanc dresses in less elegant clothing than audiences may be used to seeing Daniel Craig wear as James Bond, but the idiosyncratic detective looks ultimately more comfortable than 007 in his hopsack sport jacket, broken-in shirts, and tweed coat, all detailed with creative flourishes like floral ties and socks and a rotation of pocket squares.

• Dark gray hopsack wool single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
• White or light blue subtly patterned shirt with long point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and 1-button rounded cuffs
• Navy floral-patterned tie
• Dark gray woolen flannel single reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, pointed-end extended waistband tab, slightly slanted “quarter top” side pockets, jetted back pockets (with button through left), and turn-ups/cuffs
• Dark navy pin-dotted suspenders with silver-toned hardware and black leather hooks
• Black leather-and-cloth 5-eyelet wingtip oxford brogues
• Blue floral socks
• Brown-and-beige large-scaled herringbone tweed 4-button hip-length topcoat with notch lapels, flapped set-in hip pockets, raglan sleeves with single-button semi-tab cuffs, and single vent
• Cutler & Gross 1303-05 honey tortoise “D-framed” glasses with titanium lugs and temples
• Vintage gold wristwatch with round gold dial on textured dark brown leather strap

While many screen-worn items from Knives Out are available at the VIP Fan Auctions site now through March 31, it’s unfortunate that the only item from Blanc’s wardrobe appears to be his eyeglasses and sunglasses. (However, fans of Chris Evans will be delighted to see his famous Aran sweater—a product of French retailer The Kooples—among most other pieces from Ransom’s screen-worn wardrobe.)

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, newly released on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD, and streaming services.

I also enjoyed reading Ethan M. Wong’s observations of the menswear in Knives Out for STREET x SPREZZA, which includes an extended focus on Benoit Blanc’s daily attire.

The Quote

A donut hole in a donut’s hole. But we must look a little closer, and when we do, we see that the donut hole has a hole in its center. It is not a donut hole but a smaller donut with its own hole, and our donut is not a hole at all!

David Harbour as Jim Hopper on Stranger Things (Episode 3.04: “The Sauna Test”)

Vitals

David Harbour as Jim Hopper, small-town police chief

Indiana, Summer 1985

Series: Stranger Things
Episodes:
– “Chapter Two: The Mall Rats” (Episode 3.02, dir. The Duffer Brothers)
– “Chapter Three: The Case of the Missing Lifeguard” (Episode 3.03, dir. Shawn Levy)
– “Chapter Four: The Sauna Test” (Episode 3.04, dir. Shawn Levy)
– “Chapter Five: The Flayed” (Episode 3.05, dir. Uta Briesewitz)
– “Chapter Six: E Pluribus Unum” (Episode 3.06, dir. Uta Briesewitz)
– “Chapter Seven: The Bite” (Episode 3.07, dir. The Duffer Brothers)
– “Chapter Eight: The Battle of Starcourt” (Episode 3.08, dir. The Duffer Brothers)
Streaming Date: July 4, 2019
Creator: The Duffer Brothers
Costume Designer: Amy Parris

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Netflix recently announced that the fourth season of its sci-fi/horror runaway hit Stranger Things has commenced production, so we can likely expect it to hit within a year. In the meantime, as I’m enjoying a “spring break” of my own with a trip south to sunny Florida this week, I’m taking a much-requested look at the “cutting edge” Aloha shirt that Hawkins police chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour) wears in all but one episode of the series’ third season.

The third season premiere found a mustached Hop planted in front of his Sony Trinitron, hand in a bag of Tostitos as he watches the pilot episode of Magnum, P.I. (Fans of the series undoubtedly recognized Tom Selleck’s narration: “Don’t look at the dogs, work the lock… you looked at the dogs.”)

Parked in front of the tube munching on chips and salsa, Hopper drifts into the escapist world of Magnum, P.I. to distract himself from whatever is happening between Eleven and Mike behind him.

By the next episode, Hop has obtained his own Magnum-esque tropical-printed shirt, hoping to channel Selleck’s magnetism as he scores a dinner date with his recently single friend, Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder). However, Joyce is more concerned with the lack of magnetism in her life and inadvertently stands Hop up for their long-awaited date… but fate brings them back together in their joint search for answers.

Their combined investigation leads them to an affable Russian scientist named Alexei (Alec Utgoff), though the language barrier prevents their new Slurpee-loving friend from providing them with any immediate use. Hopper had already severed his connection with the mayor of Hawkins after a much-deserved ass-kicking, so he goes further rogue, clamping a Slim Jim in his mouth as he “commandeers” a yellow Cadillac convertible from a Sonny Crockett-wannabe named Todd and heads off in search of Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman) to request the conspiracy-peddling ex-journalist’s translation abilities.

Hop allows himself a “Magnum moment” as, clad in an Aloha shirt, he speeds out of a parking lot in a luxurious convertible.

The paranoid Murray provides invaluable help, though the not exactly-Slim Jim Hopper is less than flattered when Murray translates Alexei’s backhanded compliment:

He says he likes your courage. You remind him of a, uh, fat Rambo.

What’d He Wear?

Much of the action around Stranger Things‘ third and most recent season is set around the recent opening of the Starcourt Mall, a retail epicenter where our protagonists of all ages can loaded up on the latest from The Gap, J.C. Penney, RadioShack, and Sam Goody, before grabbing a Whopper, an Orange Julius, or a cone from Scoops Ahoy and heading home with their latest haul.

Hawkins’ youngest heroes all meet up at the mall during the second episode, appropriately titled “The Mall Rats”, but Hop sends his trusty office manager Florence (Susan Shalhoub Larkin) to do his shopping for him.

“Special delivery!” Flo calls out, a J.C. Penney bag in hand. Somewhat ironically in the middle of arresting a neighbor who was protesting the mall’s existence in town, Hop giddily grabs the bag and excitedly examines the contents: a vibrantly patterned Aloha shirt.

“That the right one?” Florence asks. “Oh, yeah,” Hop mutters in admiration, looking over the pastel shirt that his deputy, Powell (Rob Morgan), deadpans is “a lot of color for you, Chief.”

“It’s cuttin’-edge stuff, alright?” Hop retorts, retreating to the non-judgmental safety of his Chevy Blazer. “It’s cutting-edge!”

Amy Parris’ expert costume design team even added a manufacturer’s label similar to those seen on men’s sportswear during the era.

Costume designer Amy Parris explained to Fashionista ahead of the season’s release last summer that, of course, Hop was inspired by his latest TV hero. “I found a great image of Tom Selleck in the iconic moment of Magnum in the Hawaiian shirt, the light denim Wrangler jeans, a canvas belt, and topsider shoes,” Parris told Fashionista, who put her own twist on Magnum’s iconic style that could be more consistent with Hopper’s character rather than a straight cosplay-esque reproduction.

There were five multiples of the shirt to allow for damage during the various stunts as Hop faces off against Russians, monsters, and smarmy town mayor Larry Kline (Cary Elwes). This required plenty of fabric, so “Parris bought the last 20 yards of a vintage ’80s fabric and custom-printed each one in an original pattern designed by the team,” according to Fashionista. “The graphics even needed to be in the exact same location on each shirt for continuity.”

Although the shirt was created from an original design by Amy Parris’ costume team, its immediate popularity—per Esquire—before the season even streamed made it a popular choice for Halloween costumes last year as Spirit Halloween developed their own officially licensed replica, retailing for $24.99 as of March 2020. (You can buy it here!)

Additional replicas abound on Amazon, all with subtle differences in design and styling from companies like Costume Agent, Cutiee, Cynicismile, and Dark Paradide Vintage [sic], but the Spirit Halloween shirt appears to be the only officially licensed and the most screen-accurate version.

Of course, I would also invite those inspired by Hopper’s Aloha shirt to take a page from the chief’s own book by not directly copying one from a TV show but instead finding the perfect Hawaiian shirt for you. The best place is to start is the vast collection at AlohaFunWear, an authentic Hawaiian outfitter of festive and free-spirited fashions. For example, if you dig Hop’s green and pink approach, check out the Flamingo Island Pink Hawaiian Shirt, the Hibiscus Rainforest Pink Hawaiian Shirt, or the Pacific Orchid Pink Hawiaian Shirt.

Rather than trying to directly copy Magnum’s style, Hopper found a different Aloha shirt that was unique to him… though the closest of Selleck’s screen-worn shirts appears to be this large-printed top from the first season finale, “Beauty Knows No Pain” (Episode 1.18).

Ashamed and more than a little drunk after Joyce stands him up, Hop discards his “date night” outfit in the corner of his cabin before putting his police uniform back on the next day. When his police uniform gets soaked and muddy after he’s attacked by Grigori at Hawkins lab, Hopper has no choice but to dress back in the tropical-printed shirt and jeans, prompting Joyce to ask… “uh, what are you wearing?”

The original pattern developed by Parris’ costume team is a funky “Memphis design”, a popular ’80s aesthetic, consisting of pastel pink and mint green brush strokes against a white ground and overlaid with abstract black “squiggle” lines.

Hopper’s new shirt is short-sleeved, per quintessential Aloha styling and also for added comfort during a hot Hawkins summer, though Parris noted to Fashionista that “David liked the idea of being able to roll the sleeves of the shirt up, just so it’s a little bit more ’80s feeling.”

Also in the Aloha tradition, his shirt has a traditional camp collar as well as a plain front with mixed beige plastic sew-through buttons and a large matching breast pocket with a rounded bottom for Hop to keep his Camels. Although Hop wears the shirt tucked in at first (following Magnum’s frequent faux pas), it has a straight-cut hem that allows him to effectively wear it untucked as intended with Aloha shirts.

Surrounded by Murray Bauman’s TV sets, Hopper argues with Joyce in “E Pluribus Unum” (Episode 3.06).

Worn only for his date-that-isn’t-a-date with Joyce in “The Mall Rats” (Episode 3.02), Hop layers a summer-weight sports coat over his Aloha shirt and jeans, a look that Selleck himself would sporadically wear later in Magnum P.I.‘s run. Hop’s single-breasted, two-button sport jacket is made of a slubbed beige-and-cream cloth—either linen, raw silk, or a blend of both—with a welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, a single vent, and three buttons on the end fo each sleeve, smaller versions of the two flat off-white pearlesque buttons on the front of the coat.

This Joseph Abboud sports coat in a “tan tic” 58% wool and 42% linen hopsack blend (via Men’s Wearhouse) would be a suitable near-match for anyone inspired by Hop’s summer sport jacket, Aloha shirt, and jeans aesthetic.

Dressed for date night, Hopper lights a cigarette as he awaits Joyce’s arrival.

In addition to his loudly printed shirt, Hop goes “full Magnum” for the bottom half of his outfit, wearing a pair of light blue jeans with a khaki web belt and, initially, a pair of off-white boat shoes.

Camel in hand, Hopper tries to retain his dignity as he waits for Joyce.

Instead of TM’s signature Levi’s or naval dungarees, however, Hop wears a pair of classic Wrangler five-pocket jeans in a light blue denim wash that the brand currently markets as “bleach”. The jeans can be easily identified by the back, with the distinctive black tab (with yellow lettering) sewn above the left pocket, which also has the branded brown leather patch at the top. Each of the back pockets is decorated with the signature “W” double stitching and flat brass rivets in the upper corners.

Designed in 1947 by “Rodeo Ben” Lichenstein and mostly unchanged in the more than 70 years since then, the Wrangler 13MWZ Cowboy Cut® jeans are still widely available today, for sale via Wrangler or Amazon.

The butt of Hop’s S&W Model 66 sticks out from the top of his Wrangler jeans, identified by their signature brand marks on the back pockets and seams.

Also like Magnum, Hop wears a khaki cotton webbed belt with a gold slider buckle, similar to the belts authorized for Navy service uniforms and available commercially from government-contracted outfitters like Rothco.

Hop and Joyce prepare to pass the point of no return at the Hess farm in “The Flayed” (Episode 3.05).

Hop’s Magnum-inspired boat shoes are made of beige canvas, with brown laces and white outsoles and, of course, worn without socks.

An inebriated Hop kicks off his boat shoes at the outset of “The Case of the Missing Lifeguard” (Episode 3.03), concerned only with his recliner and his commandeered Chianti.

“But later he loses [the topsiders] and puts on his work boots that he likes and wears that through the rest of [the season],” Parris explained to Fashionista. Given the heavy action Hop faces from “The Case of the Missing Lifeguard” (Episode 3.03) onward, it’s perhaps fortuitous that he’s back in the heavy dark brown leather moc-toe work boots that he’s so comfortable wearing with his police uniform.

Based on the theories of other online investigators at The RPF, I suspected that he was wearing Crevo “Buck” boots (available via Crevo, Amazon, and DSW) during the first season, though at least one commenter noted that they were likely Red Wing 8″ boots. That said, the shift in costume designers from Kimberly Adams-Galligan and Malgosia Turzanska in the first season and Kim Wilcox in the second season to Amy Parris for the third season makes it reasonable to assume that his footwear would have shifted from season to season as well.

Indeed, his work boots look notably different for the third season, still well-worn dark brown leather with a moc-toe structure and derby-laced with four sets of brass eyelets and additional speed hooks up the shaft. Although he wears them in each episode, including with his police uniform, they’re most clearly seen in “The Battle of Starcourt Mall” (Episode 3.08) when he squishes the part of the Mind Flayer that had been embedded in the leg of his adopted daughter Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown).

Despite the implications of his rough-and-ready work boots, Hopper isn’t much of a mechanic and is forced to abandon his Blazer when it explodes in the woods.

Most of the principal cast received new wristwatches for the third season, with Hop trading in his trusty Timex Atlantis 100 with its built-in wristband compass for an all-steel digital watch on a steel bracelet. Sticking with budget brands, he swapped in the Timex for a Casio—the same brand that Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) and Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) wear—with Water Resist (WR) functionality.

As far as specific models, Redditors have suggested the A158 and B612W, both reasonable contenders with their black dials with digital displays and blue and yellow accents, though I’m inclined to agree with the theory that it’s a Casio B612W given the shape of the case and the placement of items on the face.

Hop’s new Casio is best seen as he applies crooked mayor Larry Kline’s finger to a cigar cutter. Note that Kline wears a mixed-metal Rolex Submariner, indicating the difference in status between the two men… though, interestingly, Hop’s new style idol Thomas Magnum was already wearing his own Rolex by this time.

During “The Battle of Starcourt” (Episode 3.08), the climactic finale fight, Hop is forced to bid farewell to his Magnum-inspired garb when he “improvises” and disguises himself, Joyce, and Murray in shot-up Soviet uniforms as they infiltrate the base under Starcourt Mall.

Hopper and Murray surprisingly manage to bluff their way past the Soviet sentries in their less-than-convincing disguises in “The Battle of Starcourt Mall” (Episode 3.08).

The Gun

Chief Hopper’s duty weapon had been a Smith & Wesson Model 66 revolver during the first season, which he lost and seemingly replaced with a Colt Python for the second season. By the start of the third season in the summer of 1985, Hop has evidently returned to carrying a Model 66 in his “Bill Jordan”-style basket-weave holster made by Tex Shoemaker.

The Model 66 was introduced in the early 1970s as a stainless version of the popular Smith & Wesson Model 19 “Combat Magnum”, chambered in .357 Magnum and available in a range of barrel lengths from the “snub nose” 2.5″ to the hefty 6″, though Hopper carries a duty-length 4″-barreled Model 66. When not on duty, Hop packs the same revolver but sans holster, carrying it with its distinctive squared walnut grips sticking out of the back of his jeans.

Hopper employs a Harries technique, aiming his S&W Model 66 and flashlight directly ahead of him, in “The Flayed” (Episode 3.05).

Although Die Hard wouldn’t be released for another three years, “The Flayed” (Episode 3.05) features a confrontation no doubt scripted in tribute to John McClane’s exchange with Tony Vreski, the first terrorist that he encounters in the Nakatomi Building. Hop gets the drop on Grigori (Andrey Ivchenko), a dangerous Russian agent who counters his non-threatening denim Harrington jacket (of all things) by stalking the basement under the Hess farm with a suppressed Tokarev pistol.

Hopper: You don’t put that thing away, I’m gonna blow some daylight into that thick skull of yours.
Grigori: No. You won’t do that.
Hopper: Why’s that?
Grigori: Because you’re a policeman. Policemen have rules.
Hopper: Oh yeah? (cocks the hammer) You wanna test that theory?

Hopper proves that he indeed would have shot but makes the mistake of giving Grigori until the end of a three-count, providing the Russian with enough time to gain the upper hand as he tosses the weapon from Hop’s grip. Though both Joyce and Grigori get their hands on it during the fight scene that follows, the weapon is ostensibly abandoned under the Hess farm.

Hop lets Grigori know he means business. Unfortunately for Hop, so does Grigori.

In the penultimate episode, “The Bite” (Episode 3.07), Hopper spends the Hawkins Fourth of July festival fighting with Russian assassins, knocking out an agent named Vasilev and taking his own suppressed Tokarev TT-33. The TT pistol was developed in the early 1930s by Fedor Tokarev to replace the aging Nagant revolver as the Soviet service sidearm, taking design cues from John Browning’s successful designs for the FN Model 1903 and the 1911 pistol. Though it never fully replaced the Nagant revolver and would be eventually replaced by the more compact Makarov PM pistol, the TT-33 remains popular for its rugged reliability and its powerful proprietary 7.62x25mm cartridge.

Hop and Grigori are thus both armed with “silenced” TT pistols as they stalk each other through the festival’s fun house in a sequence evocative of Orson Welles’ 1947 noir, The Lady from Shanghai.

Hop arms himself with Vasily’s Tokarev pistol, fitted with a suppressor.

During the season finale, “The Battle of Starcourt” (Episode 3.08), Dustin assigns Hop with “all the fighting and dangerous hero shit” so the erstwhile police chief appropriately arms himself with a custom AKMSU obtained from one of the downed Soviet agents that Eleven had killed via the flying red LeBaron convertible (identified by IMFDB).

The AKMSU was a Pakistani prototype developed by the venerated Russian firearms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov in the early 1980s as a compact carbine derived from his popular AKM rifle, chambered in the same 7.62x39mm round. Its full name translates to “Shortened Modernized Kalashnikov Automatic Rifle with Folding Stock”, a rather descriptive designation that neatly sums up the weapon. As only one of these carbines was ever produced, these weapons are likely standing in for the far more commonly fielded AKMS with an under-folded stock that had been introduced in 1959.

Hop adds insult to fatal injury by using one of the Russians’ own AKMSU carbines as he massacres them with a one-handed burst of automatic fire.

What to Imbibe

Poor Hop tries to look sophisticated before his date with Joyce in “The Mall Rats” (Episode 3.02), ordering Scotch for himself as well as “a bottle of red”, aided by an obsequious response from the waiter who can’t help but to pronounce Hop’s mispronunciation of “Chianti”.

Hop pours himself a mug full of Chianti when he gets home from his jilted date with Joyce.

Three episodes later, when the time comes for Hop to restore his energy in a 7-Eleven with Joyce and Alexei, he opts for a can of Jolt Cola. Considered the first carbonated energy drink upon its introduction in 1985, Jolt was marketed with the now-inadvisable slogan of “All the sugar, twice the caffeine!”

Rebranded as Jolt Energy, the drink its still available 35 years later and in more varieties than ever, including zero-carb energy drinks and even chewing gum.

Joyce, Hop, and Alexei recharge with Tab, Jolt, and New Coke, respectively. Note the series’ attention to detail by outfitting Alexei in a Russian-made Kirovskie Crab wristwatch.

Upon reaching Murray Bauman’s hideout and fueling himself (and Alexei) with Whoppers from the “nearest” Burger King, Hopper is forced to forego his preferred whiskey as all Murray has is vodka. Interestingly, he now has a handle of Stolichnaya rather than the fictional lookalike label “Slotichnaya” that was seen during the previous season, likely used as Murray had been providing alcohol for the underaged Jonathan and Nancy in that episode.

Given the Russian themes and enemies of the season, it’s particularly entertaining that our protagonists brace themselves with this definitively Russian vodka, which traces its origins to Moscow State Wine Warehouse No. 1 around 1901 although Stolichnaya vodka itself emerged sometime during the late 1930s or mid-1940s.

After decades of exclusively Russian sales, a 1972 barter agreement between the Soviet government and PepsiCo introduced Stolichnaya to the Western market in exchange for Pepsi-Cola’s importation to the U.S.S.R., in turn making Pepsi the first American consumer product to be produced, marketed, and sold in the Soviet Union. Thus, Roger Sterling’s habit of freely drinking Stoli during the 1960s-set series Mad Men is anachronistic, though it would have certainly been available for Murray Bauman to secure a few legally imported and purchased bottles by the mid-1980s.

Hop and Murray brace themselves with stiff shots of Stoli.

How to Get the Look

David Harbour as Jim Hopper on Stranger Things (Episode 3.04: “The Sauna Test”)

Jim Hopper illustrate that you don’t have to be a fit private detective living on a luxurious Hawaiian estate to feel at home in an Aloha shirt, sporting what the Internet celebrated as a tropical “dad look” in the all-but-exotic environs of small-town Indiana.

• Pastel pink and mint green “Memphis design”-printed Aloha shirt with camp collar, plain front, matching breast pocket, and rolled-up short sleeves
• Light blue denim Wrangler 13MWZ Cowboy Cut jeans
• Khaki cotton web belt with gold-toned slider buckle
• Dark brown leather moc-toe work boots
• Casio B612W steel-cased digital watch on steel bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, one of the most successful Netflix original shows.

I also highly recommend reading this comprehensive piece written by my friend Aloha Spotter, which shines additional light not only on Hopper’s shirt but Aloha attire worn by other characters and extras, from Dustin’s “cassette tape” shirt and the 7-Eleven clerk’s boldy printed uniform shirt to Lucas’ tropical ball-cap and smocks and shirts worn around Starcourt Mall.

The Quote

I can do anything I want, I’m chief of police…

Jon Hamm as Don Draper in “5G”, Episode 1.05 of Mad Men.

Vitals

Jon Hamm as Don Draper, mysterious advertising creative director

New York City, Spring 1960 and 1962

Series: Mad Men
Episodes:
– “5G” (Episode 1.05), dir. Lesli Linka Glatter, aired 8/16/2007
– “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07), dir. Tim Hunter, aired 8/30/2007
– “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05), dir. Jennifer Getzinger, aired 8/24/2008
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

Background

Happy birthday to Jon Hamm, born March 10, 1971, and arguably most famous for his Emmy-winning performance on AMC’s Mad Men as suave 1960s ad man Don Draper.

Donald Draper? What kinda name is that?

The appearance at Adam Whitman (Jay Paulson) in the series’ fifth episode, “5G”, adds credence to the brief moment two episodes earlier when the smooth operator we’d known as Don Draper is stopped on a train by an old Army pal who calls him “Dick Whitman”. After a brief glance around the train to ensure no one he recognizes is within earshot, Don acknowledges the man and continues with his day, albeit somewhat nonplussed that he hasn’t been able to outrun his past as quickly as he had hoped.

While “5G” is a more serious, high-stakes episode for Don, we get to see a more mischievous and admittedly petty side of the ad man two episodes later in “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07), one of my favorite episodes of the series.

Humiliated by his older colleague and frequent drinking buddy Roger Sterling (John Slattery) making a pass at Don’s wife, Don arranges an opportunity for him to turn the tables. Roger, assuming the two men have put bygones behind them, invites Don to the famous Grand Central Oyster Bar for the quintessential three-martini lunch, though the two men exchange more than their fair share of martinis, oysters, and even cheesecake. Don is sure to visibly keep pace with the swaggering older Roger: “I’ve always thought you were a man who could keep up, Don.”

Sure, a long lunch of martinis and oysters sounds fun… until you have to call the carpet cleaners.

When the two men return to the office in time for a meeting with the GOP to talk Dick Nixon’s 1960 election strategy, the elevator operator Hollis (La Monde Byrd)—a few extra greenbacks in his pocket thanks to an earlier arrangement with Don—informs them that the elevator is out of order. The two drunken, sweating ad men climb the 23 flights of stairs to the Sterling Cooper office, though the younger and considerably more fit Don makes a show of lighting a Lucky Strike during his ascent while the coughing, sputtering Roger claims he has lost his tie pin (which he wasn’t wearing) and hangs back to make his embarrassing final dash in solitude.

The duo finally reach the wood-paneled office and are duly introduced to their potential clients. Don may still be catching his breath, but he’s the vision of health compared to a pale Roger, sweat-stained through his three-piece suit, who staggers up to the men and makes his own introduction in the form of a seafood-flavored stream of vomit splashing onto the Grand Old Party’s pant legs.

Two years later, it’s Don whose drinking gets him into trouble when he’s out on the road with his latest mistress, Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw), the domineering wife of an obnoxious comedian in Sterling Cooper’s employ. Don had spent his first interactions trying to resist the woman’s overtures but he finds himself weakening by the events of “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05), finding a particularly kindred spirit as she doles out the Draper-like advice: “This is America. Pick a job and then become the person that does it.”

A posed shot of the awkward Sardi’s encounter in “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05). In the actual episode, Bobbie was seated across the table from Don rather than right next to him.

Any shot at bliss with this woman who also likes bridges and foreign films is ruined by an awkward reunion with Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff), now married to the bookish Tilden Katz, sending Don spiraling on an immediate path of self-destruction with Bobbie as cocktails at Sardi’s turns into passing the bottle behind the wheel of his Dodge, where her distracting ear-nibbling leads to the tipsy ad man totaling the sedan to the juxtaposing sounds of Percy Faith’s “Theme from A Summer Place“.

Fortunately for Don, this is 1962 and his blood alcohol content of .15%(!) is still within the legal limit and his only punishment is to pay a $150 fine. Unfortunately for Don, his $63 and “some subway tokens” aren’t enough to cover the fine—even in this more lenient of eras—and he has to call “an employee” to cover the remainder. When he picks up the phone, we aren’t yet sure who it’ll be. Roger Sterling? A trusted member of his creative team?

I’m sure that I wasn’t the only one surprised when Peggy Olson stepped into the station, considerably matured from the naive Brooklynite we met at the series’ outset and in the midst of her own romantic struggles. The mystery of why Peggy would drive out to Long Island in a car painstakingly borrowed from her brother-in-law with the $110 she could scrape together is soon solved with a flashback to a post-natal Peggy in the hospital, waking up to Don at her bedside, urging to her “get out of here and move forward. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.”

A year and a half later, he trades in his secret on her for her to keep a dangerous secret for him.

What’d He Wear?

The Suit

For these three pivotal moments across Mad Men‘s first two seasons, Don Draper dresses in an office-friendly pinstriped gray suit that was identified by a ScreenBid auction as a Calvin Klein suit, size 42R. Following the initial ScreenBid auction, the suit was included in another auction in November 2016 where the listing still exists on iCollector.com as of March 2020 with photos of the suit, including labels that identify it as a part of the “Academy Award Clothes” catalog.

Given that Calvin Klein himself had only turned 18 in November 1960 when the end of the first season is set, it’s not strictly a period suit but the cloth and cut are very evocative of a classic business suit from mid-century America, particularly the dawn of the ’60s when the longer, fuller-cut jackets of the fabulous fifties were giving way to the narrower, more minimalist styles associated with the early ’60s.

No gray “suit of armor” is enough to protect Dick Whitman from his past catching up with him in the form of his half-brother Adam in “5G” (Episode 1.05).

The 100% wool suiting is a light gray with a thin, closely spaced white pinstripe often called a “pencil stripe” as it isn’t quite as thin as a pin but not as wide as chalk. The light color and lightweight wool make this suit a fitting choice for these episodes, respectively set in the late spring of 1960 and ’62.

Don’s pencil-striped suiting is clearly visible in this Zippo-flicking shot from “5G” as well as the pale blue-and-gray striped lining inside his jacket sleeve.

Don must know it’s a worthwhile suit as he (or, perhaps more realistically, Betty) chose it for him to wear when the Draper family was posing for portraits that Betty had arranged in “5G” (Episode 1.05). In fact, this was my basis for a quintessential Mad Men-esque suit when I was shopping for something to wear for internship interviews and family weddings in the spring of 2009 and eventually found a similar suit with a two-button jacket at Banana Republic.

Don’s light gray thin-striped suit has a single-breasted jacket, fully cut with elegant drape through the chest, creating a fantastic silhouette with stronger shoulders and a more suppressed waist than the classic American “sack cut” that had been popularized by Brooks Brothers suits. The jacket has notch lapels, with a buttonhole through the left lapel, that roll to a full three-button front. Don always wears a white pocket square in a neat “TV fold” in the jacket’s welted breast pocket, and the jacket also has straight flapped hip pockets, long double vents, and three buttons at the cuff of each sleeve.

The dashing ad man in “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07).

After two appearances in the first season, this suit returns in the second season episode “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05) only to be ruined when Don crashes his Dodge on a drunken nighttime drive out to Long Island. The iCollector auction listing describes the damage as “a four-inch tear along the left shoulder seam”, which—aside from some wrinkles and dirt—appears to be the extent of the sartorial harm.

Peggy may be disheveled by the time she arrives at the police station to pick up Bobbie and Don in “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05), but at least she’s looking more put-together than they do.

Don’s matching suit trousers are flat-fronted with an appropriately medium-high rise. They have straight pockets along the side seams, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms.

Don is forced to retire his pencil-striped suit upon arriving home after the car crash.

One of Jon Hamm’s screen-worn belts as Don Draper, as featured in a ScreenBid auction after the series concluded.

Through Don’s trouser belt loops, he wears his usual leather belts with enclosed steel box-style buckles, typically coordinating his belt leather to his shoes by wearing a dark brown belt in “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07) but a black belt in “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05).

A black Brooks Brothers-branded belt was included in the aforementioned ScreenBid auction, likely of vintage provenance and finished with a dulled steel buckle with rounded edges and an embossed “L”.

Shirts and Ties

Until the show’s final season, Don exclusively wore white or off-white shirts to the office, reserving his blue or striped shirts for evening outings such as a double date with the Sterlings in “Ladies Room” (Episode 1.02) or a Valentine’s Day dinner out with Betty in “For Those Who Think Young” (Episode 2.01). Indeed, white shirts are essentially a uniform for Sterling Cooper’s creative and accounts teams circa 1960, with Don keeping a backup supply in his desk drawer as seen in the pilot episode, ensuring that his shirts and ties won’t clash after nights “staying in the city”.

Don’s white cotton shirts have narrow semi-spread collars, front plackets, breast pockets for his Luckies, and squared double (French) cuffs for a rotation of cuff links, despite his assertion in “Marriage of Figaro” (Episode 1.03) that he “was raised that men don’t wear jewelry.”

As seen in “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05), hallmarks of a Don Draper white shirt: front placket, breast pocket for cigarettes, and double cuffs. Through the lightweight cotton, you can also spy the outline of his usual white cotton short-sleeved crew-neck undershirt.

In “5G” (Episode 1.05), he wears a straight tie of solid navy silk, first seen in the first episode “New Amsterdam” (Episode 1.04) with his taupe 3/2-roll sack suit.

A few solid blue and navy ties that Don wore were auctioned off after the series, including a 3.75″-wide dark blue textured Dacron polyester Superba tie and a 2″-wide navy silk Calvin Klein tie, the latter of which likely being the neckwear featured in “5G”.

“5G” (Episode 1.05)

Though the photo is labeled “Ep. 107” and Don clearly wears the same shoes and socks from “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07), his tie is clearly the blue tie from “5G” (Episode 1.05).
Source: @janiebryant on Instagram.

In “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07), he wears a more complex tie, patterned in black, tan, and blue variated stripes following a “downhill” direction.

In November 2019, Mad Men‘s esteemed costume designer Janie Bryant posted two behind-the-scenes photos on her Instagram account of Jon Hamm in costume as Don Draper, commenting that “This photo is of Jon showing my set costumers exactly what cuff links I had him wear for that particular scene/script day. Jon and I always joked how Don Draper would match his socks to his trousers!”

Don definitely wears the same cuff links in “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07) and “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05), a set of white gold squares with a large purple square stone set in the center of each. He’s evidently had these fixed as these are the same finnicky cuff links that kept falling out of his shirt in “Marriage of Figaro”, fueling his flirtation with Rachel Menken when she flicked one back at him during a meeting and ultimately replaced them with medieval knights’ helmets in the same episode.

“Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07)

It may be significant or sheer coincidence that he’s wearing them again in “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05) when he encounters the new Mrs. Katz at Sardi’s, but the cuff links themselves hang in there better than ever, even staying fastened through each cuff throughout the ordeal of a car accident!

Don’s tie in “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05) is silver silk with neat rows of squares, extending five across beneath the knot and each consisting of four navy embroidered dots. This particular tie made its first appearance with Don’s silky gray windowpane suit in “Babylon” (Episode 1.06).

“The New Girl” (Episode 2.05)

Of Don’s ties with this suit, this lighter silver tie may be my least favorite as it blends together with the similarly colored suit and neutral shirt, not providing enough balance against Jon Hamm’s higher-contrast complexion, face, and hair.

Everything Else: From Head to Toe…to Wrist

“He doesn’t even wear a hat!” the aging Bert Cooper (Robert Morse) complains of JFK in “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07), illustrating just how revolutionary it would be for a man in mid-century America to take on the open air without covering his head. Throughout the decade, Don arrives at the office in his trusty trilby, rotating through a few different short-brimmed hats of varying felts, though the Stetson we see in these episodes of the first season is dark gray with a pinched crown and black grosgrain band, decorated with a feather on the left side.

Wearing his hat rather than carrying it in “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07), Don shows off his healthier respiratory system by lighting a Lucky during his 23-floor ascent with a sputtering Roger Sterling.

Though Kennedy’s presidency signaled the end of the headgear era for American business-wear,  raincoats have remained an obvious necessity due to their practicality. Following his anomalous attire of the pilot episode, Don’s preferred raincoat for the first few seasons was a taupe gabardine knee-length raglan coat with an ulster collar, four-button fly front, long single vent, handwarmer pockets, tab cuffs, and an iridescent red satin-finished lining.

Don’s predicament at the end of “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05) could be foreshadowed by the fact that he began the day by walking in with Fred Rumson, a notable alcoholic even by Sterling Cooper’s standards who would, in fact, be forced to resign after drunkenly peeing himself in the middle of a work day during the following episode.

As mentioned earlier, Don tends to follow the accepted menswear standard of matching his belts to his shoes. In “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07), he wears dark oxblood leather five-eyelet oxfords with a pair of tan socks that are patterned with broken brown vertical stripes.

Don and Roger continue their climb in “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07).

In “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05), Don again wears earthy striped socks with this suit, though his shoes are black leather apron-toe derbies. These may be the same three-eyelet apron-toe Florsheim derbies that were confirmed to appear three episodes later, or they may be other shoes from Draper-worn brands like Brooks Brothers or Peal & Co., an London shoemaker that closed in 1965 until the name was revived by Brooks later in the decade.

Don slides out of his black derbies in “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05).

While some debate persists, there was a general consensus that Don Draper’s wristwatch during the first season—or at least the first episode—was a steel Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox with a replacement black-and-white “tuxedo dial”, worn on a black leather strap, suggested by Joe’s Daily. The Memovox was a revolutionary timepiece upon its 1956 introduction as the first automatic watch with a mechanical alarm function.

João, a BAMF Style reader, commented on a previous article that Don’s wristwatch through most of the first season was not a Memovox but, in fact, more likely a Rolex Cellini with a 37mm or 39mm case, providing a link with an image of two screen-worn watches with a caption describing them as “a Rolex and an Omega.” I appreciate João’s comment as it forced me to take a closer look at the watch and, indeed, the face of Don’s watch appears to have the signature Rolex crown logo just below the 12:00 marker.

Long suggested to be a Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox, Don’s first-season watch may be indeed be a Rolex as the markings visible in this screenshot from “5G” indicate.

For the second and third seasons, Don has been confirmed to wear an 18-karat rose gold Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Classique, the classic dress watch with a swiveling “Reverso” case originally designed to protect the face during polo matches between British Army officers stationed in India.

Introduced in 1931, the Deco-styled watch took on a stylish second life as a status symbol rather than a hard-wearing wristwatch for officers, and the case-reversal functionality evolved to serve the more fashionable purpose of revealing a personalized image on the alternate side of the case. Worn on a brown crocodile strap, Don tends to keep his Reverso worn with its white rectangular dial facing outward, though his shirt cuff covers it for most of the time this suit is worn during “The New Girl”. Should one be interested in a pink gold Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso à la Draper today, be prepared to spend just under $20,000!

What to Imbibe

Roger: You ready for another? Or have you topped off your tank?
Don: You’re leadin’ this dance.

“I’m on the Roger Sterling diet,” Don assures his epicurean colleague when they’re out for oysters and vodka martinis at New York’s fabled Grand Central Oyster Bar in “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07). The episode’s title refers metaphorically to Roger’s embarrassment, though his true complexion takes on a pallid white as he vomits up the martinis and mollusks after Don’s gambit sends them walking up 23 flights of stairs to avoid being late for a meeting with the Nixon campaign.

Luckily, John Slattery didn’t need to upchuck dozens of oysters and a half-dozen martinis for this climactic scene in “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07). A tube was run up his clothing through the legs that combining a mixture of clam chowder and other foods that, at the appropriate moment, would be “vomited” out onto the floor.

While still not feeling his best, Don at least manages to keep down his lunch and still resemble a human while Roger comes face to face with the drawbacks of middle age, having only just “bragged” about his ulcer when he noticed Don keeping up with his countless rounds of martinis:

You keep matching me like this and you’ll have an ulcer of your own… any day now!

Roger should perhaps slow down his consumption of them, but his choice of vodka martinis is far more appetizing than the dash of Smirnoff added to his milk we witnessed at the beginning of the episode. Martinis and Gibsons, their onion-garnished cousins, are Roger’s cocktail of choice throughout Mad Men‘s seven-season run, and he makes clear his preference for vodka rather than gin. No matter which spirit he prefers, all serious martini drinkers can agree with Roger’s direction to the waiter: “Easy on the vermouth.”

Don maintains his distinctive drinking grip even with martini glasses, cupping his hand around the back of the glass and pouring the contents back into his mouth rather than holding it by the stem or side.

Once he’s off the “Roger Sterling diet”, Don Draper famously drank the venerable Old Fashioned cocktail, established as his favorite drink in the pilot episode and one that we find him drinking through the end of the sixth season. Even the martini-swilling Bobbie Barrett knows this in “The New Girl” (Episode 2.05), ordering for Don when he joins her at Sardi’s: “He’ll have an Old Fashioned.” Don eventually returns the favor by ordering their dinners: steak tartare for her and hearts of palm salad for him. Ugh. I’ll have what she‘s having.

Cheers!

Behind the wheel of his Dodge a few hours and one Rachel Menken sighting later, Don and Bobbie are passing a bottle of bourbon with an unclear blue-and-red label, though I suspect it’s the same fictional “Blue Hills” label seen when Betty had been prepping mint juleps for Sally’s birthday party in “Marriage of Figaro” (Episode 1.03). While the props team was ashamed of their user of fictional brands in that episode—including the “Fielding” beer that Don guzzles from the garage fridge—it makes sense to not associate a real brand with these two careless imbibers’ dangerous drinking-and-driving in “The New Girl”, particularly as it ends up in a crash.

Bobbie Barrett tempts Don into one of many ill-advised situations that can only lead to a disastrous outcome.

How to Get the Look

John Slattery and Jon Hamm in “Red in the Face”, Episode 1.07 of Mad Men. Note the clear gold stenciling of “Stetson” on the leather band of the gray trilby in Don’s left hand.

The quintessential American businessman, Don Draper kept his closet lined with several gray suits in all cuts, patterns, and shades, with this lighter gray pencil-striped suit standing out as a definitive mid-century office suit, ideal for maintaining sartorial professionalism during three-martini lunches or an after-hours rendezvous.

• Light gray narrowly spaced white-pinstriped wool suit:
  • Single-breasted 3-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket (with white cotton pocket square), straight flapped hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and long double vents
  • Flat front trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton dress shirt with semi-spread collar, front placket, breast pocket, and double/French cuffs with gauntlet button
  • White gold square cuff links with square purple stones
• Solid navy, variated-stripe, or silver patterned silk straight ties
• Black or dark brown belt with steel box-type buckle
• Black or oxblood calf leather lace-up shoes
• Tan socks with brown stripes
• Gray felt short-brimmed Stetson trilby with black grosgrain ribbon
• Taupe gabardine raglan-sleeve raincoat with ulster collar, 4-button fly front, handwarmer pockets, single-button semi-tab cuffs, single vent, and red iridescent satin-finished lining
• Steel-cased wristwatch with black-and-white “tuxedo dial” on black textured leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series, though you’ll only find this suit featured in the first and second seasons.

The Quote

Negotiating is a bore.

Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)

Vitals

Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth, swaggering Hollywood stuntman

Los Angeles, Summer 1969

Film: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Release Date: July 26, 2019
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Costume Designer: Arianne Phillips

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Tonight the night? Why not?

When Cliff Booth poses himself this question on the night of Friday, August 8, 1969, he was merely considering whether or not he should partake in an acid-dipped cigarette he bought from “a hippie girl” six months earlier, but the night turns out to be far more eventful than a mere drug experiment.

Brad Pitt may have asked himself the same question a month ago during the 92nd Academy Awards when he won his first Oscar for acting in recognition of his performance in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, the ninth film from Quentin Tarantino as the auteur added his own revisionist touch to a consequential year for American pop culture.

As today is Friday the 13th, let’s take a look at one of Cliff’s less celebrated outfits on what started as a very unlucky night for the stuntman… until he turned the tables thanks to that acid-dipped cigarette, his pet pit bull Brandy, and a few decades worth of combat-honed grit.

Out of Time You Keep Me Hangin' On

What’d He Wear?

While his movie star pal Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) has at least three costume changes over the course of the day, Cliff sticks with the same duds he wore when flying back from Italy for his day’s errands and the evening’s dinner and subsequent drinks with Rick. Characteristic for Cliff, it’s a relatively utilitarian and simple outfit, if a flashier alternative to the blue denim trucker jacket and jeans he wore with his black T for the movie’s first scene.

Made from a tightly woven white cotton twill, Cliff’s trucker jacket is otherwise consistently styled like the traditional Levi’s® “Type III” that has been a casual staple for men and women over the better part of a century. Cliff’s white jacket has six silver-toned rivet buttons up the front from the waist hem to the shirt-style collar, a more traditional trucker jacket detail than the zip-front of his blue denim Wrangler jacket from the opening scene.

The jacket also has two chest pockets that each close with a single button through a pointed flap, no hand pockets, and buttoned cuffs. There are two short tabs, each placed toward the back on each side of the hem, that fasten to one of two buttons to adjust the tightness around the waist.

Cliff gleefully picks up Brandy after having to spend six months away.

Cliff’s jacket may just be a Levi’s product, albeit with the distinctive red tag removed from the left pocket, and Levi’s still offers its Original Trucker Jacket in a white “steel hour” cotton denim (via Amazon or Levi’s). If you’re uncomfortable with going all-white, I also recommend the creamy “muslin” cotton canvas trucker jacket from J. Crew Mercantile (via Amazon), owned by yours truly which has proven to be a comfortable, lightweight layer in the summer.

When stripped down to just his black T-shirt and white jeans, Cliff’s outfit echoes what Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) wore to the movies earlier in the film and was photographed wearing for much of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood‘s promotional material.

Black T-shirts can range from less than $10  when purchased from the likes of Gildan, Hanes, H&M, and Uniqlo, up to around $100 from fashionable brands like James Perse (as favored by Hank Moody), Rag & Bone, and Sunspel. (There are likely companies selling plain black T-shirts for much more than that, but… come on.) A no-frills guy like Cliff would likely opt for the less-expensive end of the spectrum and, as GQ has observed, that wouldn’t be far from Brad Pitt’s own wheelhouse.

The black cotton T-shirt has a classic crew neck and short sleeves that flatter Cliff’s athletic physique.

“Uh… can I help you?”

Cliff returns from Rome wearing white jeans rather than his usual (and more characteristic) blue jeans. Why the switch? Perhaps to indicate some success, his BDE (it takes a bold man to wear white jeans), and to serve the narratively functional purpose of providing a clean palette for his blood to contrast against after he takes a knife to the hip during his fight with the crazed Manson family killers who show up at Rick’s doorstep.

The white jeans are likely cotton or an era-specific cotton/polyester blend, woven in a hairline-thin ribbing rather than the diagonal twill seen on most denim. Cliff’s pants are otherwise identically styled like traditional jeans with a five-pocket layout (including a coin pocket on the right side) and belt loops. His jeans are fitted through the hips and legs, slightly flaring out at the bottoms like a boot-cut.

If you’re looking to explore the world of white jeans, I identified a few potentials that could get you started:

• Calvin Klein Men’s Slim Fit Jeans in “Nantucket white” 98% cotton/2% elastane stretch blend (via Amazon)
• Goodthreads Men’s Standard Slim Fit Jeans in white “vintage” 98% cotton/2% elastane stretch blend (via Amazon)
• Levi’s 541 Athletic Fit Jeans in “white bull denim” 99% cotton/1% elastane stretch blend (via Amazon or Levi’s)
• Tommy Hilfiger Men’s THD Slim Fit Jeans in “snow white” 98.5% cotton/2.5% elastane stretch blend (via Amazon)

Despite being held at gunpoint, Cliff’s stunt training, war experience, and trusty pal Brandy gives him the upper hand against the jittery Tex.

Cliff’s familiar Stuntman’s Association Member belt buckle, a large brass oval with an embossed film camera in the center, is now worn on a python snakeskin belt, a distinctive touch that is certainly flashier but still consistent with his cowboy image and persona. (For an earlier look at Brad Pitt in snakeskin, check out the custom Anto shirt he wore at the end of Ocean’s Eleven!)

Real snakeskin belts like this matte python belt from W. Kleinberg (via Neiman Marcus) tend to be expensive, but you can also evoke the look with a snakeskin-effect belt like this affordable calfskin belt from LATICCI (via Amazon) or this reversible snakeskin-printed belt from I.N.C. (via Macy’s).

Acid-dipped cigarette or not… that’s gotta hurt.

Brad Pitt on the Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood set (Photo by SplashNews.com)

Cliff has also traded in his comfortable moccasin boots for a pair of equally on-brand engineer boots in a unique taupe lightly napped leather. The boots have hard dark brown leather soles and straps across the vamps with a hefty steel single-prong buckle.

These hard-wearing engineering boots had been originally developed in the 1930s for firemen on steam locomotives (that kind of engineer) and eventually became a favorite of the motorcycle subculture, worn by rebellious ’50s icons like Marlon Brando in The Wild One and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.

Finding engineer boots for men in this fawn-like leather is difficult, though brown boots abound like these Harley-Davidson “Brendan” 10-inch boots (via Amazon). For a different approach, Chippewa makes a sand-colored suede 11″ steel-toed engineer boot (via Chippewa) that may not be screen-accurate but would bring unique panache to an outfit.

Another detail indicating how much Cliff has changed are his sunglasses as he’s now wearing a pair of large gold rectangular frames, more like the glasses often associated with 1970s Elvis than the classic aviators he had been wearing six months earlier.

While Cliff may be diverting from his usual jeans, boots, and accessories (he isn’t wearing the corded bracelets on his right wrist either!), one item he hasn’t switched out is the gold-toned Citizen 8110 wristwatch that he wears on a brown leather 1 5/8″-wide cuff custom-made for Pitt by Red Monkey Designs.

Cliff’s Bloody Mary gives him a more comfortable ride in coach.

Though the screen-worn Citizen is vintage, the 8110 model itself wasn’t introduced until the 1970s as Citizen’s response to Seiko’s earlier “bullhead” design, and thus it’s technically an anachronism to see it on Cliff’s wrist. The 38mm case is gold-finished nickel with three black sub-dials and two top-placed pushers at 11:00 and 1:00, flanking the 12:00 crown and resembling bull horns… thus the “Bullhead” moniker.

What to Imbibe

From their respective seats in first class and coach, Rick and Cliff both drink Bloody Marys on their way back to Los Angeles from Italy, though Rick’s isn’t served to him as he’s forced to mix his own “bottomless Bloody Mary” with mini bottles of Stoli and canned tomato juice.

“The only thing the two men know of for sure? Tonight, Rick and Cliff will have a good old-fashioned drunk. Both men know once the plane touches down in El Segundo, it’ll be the end of an era for both of them. And when you come to the end of the line with a buddy who is more than a brother and a little less than a wife, getting blind drunk together is really the only way to say farewell,” narrates Kurt Russell.

The party begins at Casa Vega, a Mexican restaurant in the San Fernando Valley, where both Rick and Cliff drink more than a few Margaritas and make the responsible decision to take a cab rather than drive home.

Relatable.

So what’s the secret to a perfect Margarita? When he drunkenly stumbles home, Rick opts to mix some up in his blender—hilariously drinking from it as he barks at Tex’s loud car outside—but I try to stay away from frozen margs, sours mix, or anything that smacks of mass production for cheap consumption.

My trusted copy of Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s Guide advises 1.5 ounces of tequila, 0.5 ounces of triple sec, and one ounce of lemon or lime juice, shaken with ice and strained into a chilled, salt-rimmed cocktail glass. In The Gentleman’s Guide to Cocktails, Alfred Tong gets more specific and changes the ratio, calling for two ounces of white tequila, one ounce of Cointreau, and one ounce of lime juice, prepared similarly. I also like the creativity of “the only margarita recipe you’ll ever need”, according to liquor.com, which maintains Tong’s ratio but splits the ounce of Cointreau into a half-ounce of orange liqueur and a half-ounce of agave syrup.

Personally, I like to use the following, borrowing a ratio from Aliza Kelly Faragher in The Mixology of Astrology:

• 2 ounces of 100% agave silver tequila
• 1 ounce of Cointreau
• 3/4 ounces of fresh lime juice

With the margarita glass chilling, I mix that concoction with plenty of ice, then salt the rim of the glass, strain in the margarita, and finish it off with a slice of lime to garnish. (I’ve also experimented with “rinsing” the glass first with mezcal for a smoky touch. Recommended for me, not necessarily for all.)

How to Get the Look

Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio on the set of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)

Cliff Booth’s nearly matching white trucker jacket and jeans for this sequence create the effect of a leisure suit, which would prevail as one of the more unfortunate men’s fashion trends over the following decade. As Brad Pitt wears it better than most should, I’d recommend taking cues from the individual pieces in Cliff’s ensemble, building upon the neutral foundation of a plain black T-shirt to experiment with white denim rather than traditional blue, whether that means swapping out the jeans or the jacket.

• White cotton denim trucker jacket with shirt-style collar, six rivet buttons, two chest pockets (w/ single-button pointed flap), button cuffs, and button-tab side hem adjusters
• Black cotton crew-neck short-sleeve T-shirt
• White thin-ribbed cotton jeans with belt loops, five-pocket layout, and slightly flared boot-cut bottoms
• Python snakeskin belt with large brass Stuntman Association Member belt buckle
• Taupe suede leather engineer boots with steel-buckled vamps
• Gold rectangular-framed aviator sunglasses with wide arms
• Citizen 8110 Bullhead gold-finished nickel watch with 38mm “bullhead” case, gold dial with three black sub-dials, and custom brown leather cuff strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

And away we go…!

Charlton Heston as Robert Neville in The Omega Man (1971)

Vitals

Charlton Heston as Colonel Robert Neville, MD, former military scientist and resourceful survivor

Los Angeles, August 1977

Film: The Omega Man
Release Date: August 1, 1971
Director: Boris Sagal
Costumers: Margo Baxley & Bucky Rous
Tailor: Albert Mariani

Background

The second of three adaptations of Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend, The Omega Man stars Charlton Heston as Robert Neville, a survivor of a global pandemic. “The last man on earth… is not alone!” exclaimed the film’s advertising, and indeed Neville is forced to fortify himself into his home each night, warding off attacks from The Family, a violent cult of fellow survivors who—without the experimental vaccine that saved Neville—were mutated by the effects of the plague into nocturnal albinos.

Neville’s home seclusion is become unpleasantly close to reality as many across the globe are self-quarantining during the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. He tries to make the most of his solitude by cooking newly acquired sausages, putting some bossa nova on the hi-fi, and settling in for evening chess opposite a bust of Caesar that he adorns with the green “scrambled eggs” peaked cap he had formerly worn as a U.S. Army colonel:

How does that grab you, Caesar? Your move, Imperator.

What’d He Wear?

What day is it, anyway? Monday? Huh? The hell it is. It’s Sunday. Sunday I always dress for dinner.

When we make Robert Neville’s acquaintance, the colonel is dressed in a manner consistent with his military background in a khaki bush jacket, aviator sunglasses, and gun belt, so it’s surprising to see him “dress for dinner” in a velvet blazer, opera pumps, and—perhaps most shocking of all—a frilly shirt with ruffles bursting from the chest and cuffs.

The olive green velvet blazer blends ’70s trends with neo-Edwardian detailing like wide turnback (or “gauntlet”) cuffs in lieu of sleeve buttons and a tailcoat-inspired back. The blazer has broad notch lapels that roll to a single-breasted front with two unique gilt shank buttons that are an open framework of gold swirls snaking around the button. There is a welted breast pocket in addition to widely flapped hip pockets that gently slant backwards.

Not to be outdone by the rest of the jacket, the blazer’s distinctive back has two seams that curve out from each armhole and straight down the back, splitting out into long, closely spaced parallel vents that extend down from the waistline, where they are ornamented with a row of two gilt buttons to match those on the front.

Charlton Heston evidently kept pieces from this outfit after the production, wearing them to formal events, and both the velvet blazer and ruffled shirt were included in a Bonhams auction in March 2016, selling for a $6,000 premium. The auction listing describes:

Warner Bros., 1971. Olive green velvet single-breasted two-button blazer with a chartreuse silk lining bearing an Albert Mariani interior label; and a white dress shirt with Edwardian style ruffles sewn in to front and cuffs, adjustable snap catch at collar, sewn in label “Tailored especially for / Charlton Heston / Machin / Shirtmaker / Los Angeles / November 1970.” Accompanied by a copy of the film. Mariani, based in Beverly Hills, was also President Reagan’s longtime tailor. Heston can be seen wearing this jacket and shirt throughout a key early scene in this science fiction classic, and later wore these pieces to formal events.

Following the contemporary trend of ruffled-front dress shirts as worn by George Lazenby’s 007 in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Roger Moore on The Persuaders!, Neville wears a white cotton shirt with a fancy lace bib consisting of layers of ruffles, echoed by the lace trim on each of the single cuffs which have buttonholes that go unused. As stated in the auction listing, this shirt was made by Machin of Los Angeles, a now-defunct shirtmaker that had first opened shop in southern California around 1890.

Plenty of frills for an otherwise no-frills guy.

Neville treats the outfit like a black tie ensemble, sporting a pair of black formal trousers with the appropriate black satin side stripes and plain-hemmed bottoms that break high over his leather opera pumps. Also known as court shoes, these low-vamp slip-ons with their distinctive black grosgrain bows are the most formal footwear endorsed for men’s formal attire, de rigeuer with white tie and a formal alternative to well-shined oxfords with black tie.

Robert Neville may be “the Omega man”, but that appellation applies only to his survivorship and not his watch brand. (Honestly, if I had to pick between being the last man on Earth or wearing an Omega… I’d definitely take the watch!)

Neville wears a gold watch throughout the movie that is difficult to identify, made even harder to even see the piece due to his military-informed practice of wearing the dial on the inside of his wrist, though the fact that he wears his gold watch on an equally shiny gold bracelet would nullify the glare-reducing benefits of wearing his watch that way.

Neville returns to his chess game with Caesar.

The Gun

More annoyed than anything by The Family’s attempted attack on his fortified penthouse, Neville politely steps away from his chess game with Caesar and picks up an M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle to exercise a little crowd cult control.

The BAR was designed by the venerable John Browning, developed to be a handheld light machine gun effective for the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) during World War I trench warfare. Chambered in the same .30-06 Springfield round as the American service rifle and fed from twenty-round box magazines, the BAR was intended to deliver a machine gun’s potency with a rifle’s portability. Although the M1918 BAR was effectively fielded by some AEF troops, it wasn’t until World War II and the Korean War that it had become a standard-issue weapon in the U.S. Army arsenal with the 1938 authorization of the M1918A2 variant. By that time, the BAR had also gained a more sinister reputation as the weapon of choice for Depression-era desperadoes like Clyde Barrow.

Neville’s M1918A2 BAR is accessorized with an M3 active infrared scope and infrared lamp to help him better target his nocturnal enemies.

THE OMEGA MAN

While Neville keeps racks of properly stored firearms in his home, his seclusion gives him some leeway to be lax when it comes to gun safety, and he is seen keeping the BAR in ready position next to his open balcony door as well as an M3 carbine casually laid across an armchair next to the same door.

The experts at IMFDB suggest that the infrared scope on the BAR was taken from the M3 carbine as the M3 was essentially an M2 carbine modified with an infrared scope system, famously used by U.S. troops to spot Japanese soldiers infiltrating their lines at night during the Okinawan campaign. Like the M1 and M2 carbines, the M3 fired the rimless .30 Carbine cartridge specifically for this series of weapons.

Neville’s arsenal include the BAR (left, next to fire extinguisher) and an M3 carbine sans infrared scope (right, on chair).

Not surprising for a character played by Charlton Heston, later to be head of the NRA, Robert Neville knows his stuff when it comes to firearms, building an unorthodox combination that adds the M3 carbine’s night sight functionality to the BAR’s potency to create a weapon most effective for defending his home at long range against a large group of nocturnal attackers.

What to Imbibe

Blended Scotch whisky on the rocks is Neville’s drink of choice, though he switches from the Cutty Sark he drank upon arriving at home to a dram of J&B Rare for the second stage of his Sunday night in. One can imagine that, once he had stockpiled enough weapons and secured his home, requisitioning the supplies of local liquor stores would have been a top priority for the marooned Neville.

Glass of J&B in hand, Neville sets the tone for his evening in.

J&B was one of the most popular whiskies around the time The Omega Man was made, a noted favorite of Dean Martin and Truman Capote at the time. Justerini & Brooks had been pioneering blended whisky for nearly half a century by the time they introduced J&B Rare onto the American market at the end of Prohibition, a welcome commodity for a populace thirsty for legal booze in a country where many distilleries had been shuttered for more than a dozen years.

How to Get the Look

Charlton Heston as Robert Neville in The Omega Man (1971)

Dressing for his own amusement after two years in relative isolation, Robert Neville sits down for chess and dinner in a colorful velvet blazer and frilly lace shirt that would likely evoke Austin Powers in the minds of modern viewers rather than Charlton Heston.

• Olive green velvet single-breasted two-button blazer with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, wide-flapped slanted hip pockets, wide turnback/”gauntlet” cuffs, and double vents with two ornamental gilt buttons on waistline
• White cotton shirt with ruffled lace bib and cuffs
• Black formal trousers with satin side stripes
• Black leather opera pumps with black grosgrain bows
• Black dress socks
• Gold wristwatch with gold dial on gold bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Endgames are always full of surprises, aren’t they?

Ted Danson as Sam Malone on Cheers (Episode 2.10: “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Call You Back”)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, BAMF Style readers! What could be a more appropriate focus on this green-bedecked holiday than focusing on one of the most famous movie and TV bartenders rocking a green shirt?

Vitals

Ted Danson as Sam Malone, bartender and former baseball star

Boston, Early Winter 1983

Series: Cheers
Episode: “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Call You Back” (Episode 2.10)
Air Date: December 8, 1983
Director: James Burrows
Created by: Glen Charles, Les Charles, and James Burrows
Costume Designer: Robert L. Tanella

WARNING! Spoilers ahead! 

Background

Diane: This is the way I describe our reIationship. It’s more than “like”. Beyond fondness. Verging on deep affection. There’s a vitaI physicaI component, bordering on the passionate. However, it has not reached the IeveI at which we wiII abandon reservations about a compIete commitment. That’s how I see things.
Sam: (a beat) Ditto.

The hot-and-cold relationship between Sam Malone (Ted Danson) and Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) on Cheers set the precedent for many sitcom pairings to follow, a seemingly incompatible romantic coupling that fluctuates frequently throughout the series. The sexual tension between the bartender and the perpetual grad student reached a boiling point in the first season finale when the two agreed to make a go at it (“Diane and I decided we’re going to start messing around,” Sam announced to the bar in the following episode), though the couple can barely make it a few weeks without questioning everything.

Earlier in the episode, Sam gratefully⁠—but unconsciously⁠—declared “I love you!” to Diane after she gifted him hard-to-get tickets to a fight. After walking back his declaration, Sam and Diane agreed to take a week “off” from their relationship to determine exactly why they’re together. On the final night of the challenge, Sam has been out partying with Coach, Carla, Norm, Cliff, and Alan (Alan?), idling away their time at a strip club and playing all-night poker, only for Diane to visit Sam right at midnight to excitedly exchange each other’s thoughts about the meaning of their relationship… though, of course, Sam’s got nothing and is forced to stall until he proves unable to come through in the clutch.

“Honey…I have no idea why we’re together,” Sam admits, also laying bare the show successfully taking one of a sitcom’s greatest and most uncelebrated risks: pursuing the possibility that its two romantic leads may not actually be “meant” to be together. In my opinion, this gives Cheers a degree of emotional realism that elevates it above other sitcoms. While Ross and Rachel probably should not be together, Friends was still firmly rooting for its two characters while Cheers⁠—even early on in the Sam and Diane pairing⁠—recognizes the very valid factors that might make these two characters too fundamentally different to be in a healthy romantic relationship.

Meredith Blake nicely called this out in The AV Club‘s retrospective review of the episode:”Given the over-familiarity of the accidental ‘I love you’ premise, the open-ended, meandering quality of this episode surprised me somewhat. I expected a neat third-act resolution in which Sam unequivocally declared his love for Diane, but instead we get an episode that embraces narrative and romantic ambiguity. I tend to think of ’80s television as being obvious and formulaic in a way that quote-unquote good shows can’t get away with today, but Cheers really challenges this impression.”

Cheers co-creator James Burrows told The New York Times after Shelley Long left the show in 1987 that “the three of us have been with Sam and Diane a long time, and we’re a little tired of their shenanigans,” to which Les Charles added “a little bored and amazed America was so passionate about them.” A lesser show may have used Shelley Long’s return in the series finale to tie a neat, happy bow on Sam and Diane’s on-again/off-again dynamic, but anyone who has seen the final episode knows that the series took a more mature, realistic, and ultimately more satisfying direction.

What’d He Wear?

This particular shirt from Sam’s expansive wardrobe makes only a brief appearance, but it made an impression on me for its color, fabric, and flattering cut. He would later wear a red version of the same shirt under a blue puffer vest in the following episode, “Just Three Friends” (Episode 2.11).

Sam’s long-sleeved shirt is a rich forest green shade of pinwale corduroy, also known as “needlecord”, with a point collar, front placket, and two chest pockets. The shirt is detailed with mixed tan urea buttons that pop from the shirt’s placket, pocket flaps, and cuffs for an eye-catching contrast that also neatly coordinates with the rest of his outfit’s earthy tones.

Sam finds himself at a loss for words trying to validate his relationship with Diane.

Sam wears beige flat front trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms, side pockets, jetted back pockets (with a button through the left pocket only), and a coin pocket just below the right side of his belt line with a single-button flap. His surcingle belt is a prep style staple, consisting here of a khaki web body with a brown center stripe, fitted with brown leather ends that close through a long rectangular gunmetal single-prong buckle.

Mayday Malone where he’s most comfortable: behind the bar and talking to friends.

Boat shoes are Sam Malone’s preferred footwear when manning the bar at Cheers, consistent with his nautical enthusiasm while also serving the practical purpose of providing the barman with traction when working the potentially slippery floors behind the counter. Also known as deck shoes, these iconic shoes were developed in 1935 by New England renaissance man Paul A. Sperry. Sperry had noticed the relative ease with which dogs were able to traverse icy surfaces without slipping and used that to create the siped soles of what would become the famous Sperry Top-Sider, so named for ability to keep sailors stably afoot while walking the exposed “top side” decks above a boat’s waterline.

Sam wears a variety of boat shoes over Cheers‘ eleven-season run in colors ranging from dark shades of navy and black to multiple shades in the brown spectrum including a rich tobacco nubuck and, as seen here in “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Call You Back”, a drab khaki with a matching lace system and white outsoles. Complementing this classic prep staple, Sam wears argyle socks in tan-and-dark cocoa brown with burgundy overcheck.

Sam finds himself on the floor during one of many heated “what are we?” arguments with Diane, partly out of exasperation and partly because she pushed him.

This episode marked the first appearance of Sam Malone’s all-black wristwatch with its dark gunmetal case, black dial with white hands and hour markers, and black strap, differing from the mostly field watches on khaki and brown bands that he had worn for the season and a half leading up to this.

Danson would wear this watch for the duration of the season, aside from the twelfth and thirteenth episodes, until swapping it out for a gold dress watch on a tan strap for the third season.

Discarded as soon as they enter the bar and seen only in a wide shot, Sam wore a tan suede shirt-jacket with a point collar, seven black-finished snaps up the front, two patch pockets on the chest that each close with a straight, single-snap flap, and barrel cuffs with a single-snap closure and a second snap to close the gauntlet. The suede provides a fine textural complement to the needlecord shirt he wears under it.

So did Sam just close the bar when he was out gallivanting with its staff and regulars? That hardly seems like the most economical decision…

This suede “shacket” would show up on a few more occasions over the following season, including the episodes “Coach in Love, Part 2” (Episode 3.07) and “Teacher’s Pet” (Episode 3.16).

How to Get the Look

Ted Danson and Shelley Long on Cheers (Episode 2.10: “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Call You Back”)

Given Cheers‘ extended production over the uneven sartorial years of the 1980s into the early ’90s, Sam Malone was hardly a consistent style icon, but simple outfits like this St. Patrick’s Day-friendly garb that pun an interesting spin on his preppy template stand out against the abundance of bright plaid flannel shirts, gaudily patterned sweaters, and shirts with excessive pockets and redundant flaps that would make their way into Mayday’s wardrobe later in the series’ run.

• Forest green pinwale corduroy cotton long-sleeve shirt with point collar, front placket, two chest pockets (with single-button pointed flaps), and button cuffs
• Tan suede shirt-jacket with point collar, seven-snap placket, chest pockets with single-snap flaps, and single-snap cuffs
• Beige flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, right-side coin pocket (with single-button flap), jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Khaki-and-brown stripe webbed surcingle belt with brown leather fittings and long rectangular gunmetal single-prong buckle
• Khaki napped leather two-eyelet boat shoes with khaki lacing system and white outsoles with siped bottoms
• Tan-and-brown argyle socks with burgundy overcheck
• Gunmetal wristwatch with black dial (with white hands and hour markers) on black strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series, currently streaming on Amazon Prime and Netflix while also available on DVD.

The Quote

Just goes to show you, you could still have a good time without drinking as long as you’re surrounded by naked broads shakin’ their wallies in your face.

Max von Sydow as Joubert in Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Vitals

Max von Sydow as G. Joubert, French Alsatian contract assassin

New York City and Washington, D.C., Winter 1975

Film: Three Days of the Condor
Release Date: September 24, 1975
Director: Sydney Pollack
Costume Designer: Joseph G. Aulisi

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

You may be walking, maybe the first sunny day of the spring, and a car will slow beside you, and a door will open, and someone you know – maybe even trust – will get out of the car, and he will smile a becoming smile… but he will leave open the door of the car and offer to give you a lift.

Happy Spring to my BAMF Style readers in the Northern Hemisphere! Among the many screen credits of the late Max von Sydow, who died at the age of 90 earlier this month, was the taciturn professional assassin known as G. Joubert in the ’70s espionage thriller Three Days of the Condor.

While Joubert had offered the above informed warning to Joe Turner (Robert Redford) on a wintry morning in Maryland, his “first sunny day of the spring” description has become memorable in its own right, inspiring homages and spoofed deliveries from the like of Newman on Seinfeld.

Joubert’s movements and precision indicate his experience as a cunning, calculating contract killer, rarely impressed by the humans whose deaths he engineers en masse until he encounters the wily CIA researcher Turner, codenamed “Condor”, whose very inexperience makes him a fortunate yet unwitting foil to the seemingly unstoppable Joubert:

Condor is an amateur. He’s lost, unpredictable, perhaps even sentimental. He could fool a professional. Not deliberately, but precisely because he is lost, doesn’t know what to do.

What’d He Wear?

Joubert’s light taupe gabardine trench coat is a fashionable evolution of the Burberrys that protected British officers during World War I, re-designed with form over function having excised the functioning shoulder straps, D-rings, and storm flaps that delivered a practical purpose for military wearers but not minimalist assassins roaming the streets of New York City decades later.

The first we see of Joubert, he is walking away from the camera on a rainy morning in Manhattan, adequately protected with an umbrella and trench coat.

Joubert’s knee-length coat has the classic double-breasted front with six brown nut two-hole buttons arranged in a “keystone” of three rows of two, tapering down from a widely spaced top row to a more closely spaced bottom row around the belt line, just below the full belt that closes through a buckle. The coat also has broad, widely notched lapels with triple-stitched edges that he wears turned up in the back, slanted hand pockets on the sides below the belt line, and a long single vent that extends up to about a half-foot short of the belt in the back.

The set-in sleeves have a triangular semi-tab on each cuff that closes through a single button, and the shoulders are detailed with faux shoulder straps that are fused to the cloth beneath them unlike functional straps on military garments that would be used to attach epaulettes and rank insignia shoulder boards.

In solitude as his fellow hitmen storm the rest of the American Historical Literary Society, Joubert allows himself a rare moment without his signature specs on.

Joubert’s base layer with this outfit is a lightweight rust-colored ribbed-knit turtleneck.

Behind the scenes, Robert Redford and Max von Sydow call a truce from their characters’ deadly game of cat-and-mouse.

Joubert’s habit of keeping his trench coat buttoned up throughout his mission covers much of the layers beneath it, but we see enough of his intermediate layer to know that he’s wearing a light brown thin-waled corduroy sports coat, single-breasted with slim notch lapels and a welted breast pocket. (The behind-the-scenes shot of von Sydow conversing with Redford on set, at right, shows considerably more of the jacket than we ever see on screen.)

This may or may not be the same jacket that is again only briefly glimpsed under his winter-friendly houndstooth coat, but we know that Joubert wears his same signature hat and eyewear no matter what the rest of his outfit is.

Joubert’s brown velvet trilby has a narrow textured tan-on-rust band, evoking the look of a traditional Bavarian Tyrolean hat that nods to the character’s own vaguely Teutonic origins.

He also wears large tortoise square-framed glasses with thick lenses that create a disorienting barrier between the assassin and the audience, making it all the more significant when he removes them for a powerful conversation during the film’s final act, showing us that the seemingly unstoppable hitman is a human after all.

Joubert’s straight-leg trousers are a dark, cool shade of brown, tonally appropriate for the rest of this earthy-colored outfit. The plain-hemmed bottoms break cleanly over his snuff brown suede two-eyelet desert boots, worn with tan socks.

Unless properly treated, suede boots may not be the wisest choice for a rainy day like this, but they’re still a comfortable, stylish, and appropriate complement to this smart casual outfit.

In an interesting inversion of genre tropes, Joubert doesn’t signify his preparation to kill by donning a pair of sinister black leather gloves; rather, he sports a pair of short burgundy lambskin three-point gloves.

Joubert breaks the ice with Condor when he steadily bends down and, with his already gloved hand, picks up an errant black glove from the floor of the elevator they share. “Yours?” he asks, before delicately placing the glove on the handrai.

Joubert also wears an all-gold watch with round case and dial and a mesh-like bracelet on his left wrist.

CONDOR

The Gun

The first firearm we see Joubert wield is the distinctive Mauser C96, colloquially known as the “Broomhandle Mauser” for its unique rounded wooden grip said to resemble the handle of a broom. Per its official designation, the Mauser C96 was introduced in 1896 and would be produced for the next four decades until it was superseded by more modern weaponry as Germany amped up its arms production leading up to World War II.

Without additions like the shoulder stock or extended magazine, the typical C96 weighed about two and a half pounds and measured just over a foot long with its five-and-a-half inch barrel, comparable in mass to the M1911 service pistol but considerably heavier than World War II-era German sidearms like the venerable Luger or James Bond’s preferred Walther PPK, both weighing in at less than two pounds and between six and nine inches long, respectively.

Aside from the run of “red 9” pistols developed for the Imperial German Army, the Mauser C96 was chambered for the proprietary 7.63x25mm ammunition, an effective round though limited only to use in the C96 and unique other weapons of the era.

Joubert takes aim with his Mauser C96, fitted with scope and shoulder stock.

So why would a sophisticated assassin like Joubert be using a heavy, hard-to-conceal handgun that hadn’t been made in nearly half a century?

Aside from Joubert’s suggested shared heritage with the Mauser, the weapon’s long barrel and ability to be fitted with a mounted scope and shoulder stock—as he uses it—allows him the longer-range functionality of a rifle in the more compact packaging of a handgun. True, Joubert wouldn’t necessarily be able to snipe a target if needed, but he would have a more precise longer-range shot potentially accurate up to 200 yards as opposed to the compact Walther PPK’s effective range of, say, up to about 75 yards in the hands of an expert.

While it may take up more space than a PPK or its ilk, the Mauser C96 would give Joubert greater flexibility for finding scenarios to take out his valuable target while still likely fitting into one of the oversized pockets of his trench coat.

Despite Joubert’s thoughtful choice of weaponry, the wily Condor still manages to avoid being taken out during a risky visit to his late pal Sam Barber’s apartment complex.

How to Get the Look

Max von Sydow as Joubert in Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Three Days of the Condor is set just before Christmas, but Joubert’s trench coat, trilby, and turtleneck for walking the rainy streets of New York and Washington would be just as suitable for a dressed-down stroll on a spring day with April showers expected.

• Light taupe gabardine trench coat with widely notched lapels, keystone-formation 6-button double-breasted front, full belt with buckle, faux shoulder straps, set-in sleeves with single-button triangular semi-tab cuffs, and long single vent
• Rust-colored ribbed-knit turtleneck
• Light brown pinwale corduroy single-breasted sport jacket with notch lapels and welted breast pocket
• Charcoal twill flat front trousers with straight/on-seam side pockets, button-flapped back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Snuff brown suede two-eyelet desert boots
• Tan socks
• Brown velvet trilby with textured tan-on-rust band
• Tortoise square-framed glasses
• Burgundy lambskin three-point leather gloves
• Gold wristwatch with gold-mesh bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Kids… probably the same everywhere.

Timothy Dalton as James Bond in The Living Daylights (1987). Source: thunderballs.org.

Vitals

Timothy Dalton as James Bond, British government agent

Bratislava, Fall 1986

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

Background

Happy birthday to Timothy Dalton, born 74 years ago today on March 21, 1946! To celebrate the Welsh actor’s birthday, I want to revisit Dalton’s debut as James Bond, bringing a serious, Ian Fleming-influenced approach two decades before Daniel Craig would approach the role in a similar manner.

Dalton had long been a contender for the role, turning it down twice due to his youth when the filmmakers sought a replacement for Sean Connery and then for George Lazenby. When it was unclear if Roger Moore would return for his trio of 007 films in the ’80s, Dalton’s name came up each time, but it wasn’t until Pierce Brosnan was contractually obligated to turn down the role to return to Remington Steele in 1986 that a pathway was finally opened for Dalton, then 40 years old and seasoned enough to play the agent, to slip into Bond’s finely tailored dinner jacket for The Living Daylights.

The Living Daylights was inspired by one of Fleming’s own short stories, deriving from 007’s line in both the story and film when he quips that he must have “scared the living daylights” out of a beautiful female sniper that he was assigned to shoot during a KGB agent’s defection. Unable to fire the fatal shot in both instances, the line concludes the short story while the movie itself is only just beginning as Bond takes the next step to investigate the supposed sniper—a blonde cellist named Kara Milovy (Maryam d’Abo)—and her connection to the defector.

What’d He Wear?

Saunders: You’re bloody late. This is a mission, not a fancy dress ball.
Bond: We have time.

If Saunders (Thomas Wheatley), head of section V in Vienna, wasn’t impressed with Bond’s sharp attire in The Living Daylights, he should have waited to see Dalton in Licence to Kill when he would really have something to complain about! (Though Saunders’ comment could also be considered a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that, in Ian Fleming’s story, Bond and Saunders’ literary counterpart Captain Sendler merely spend their three days waiting in a drab Berlin apartment rather than meeting up at an opulent concert.)

Saunders’ criticism that “this is a mission, not a fancy dress ball!” is used by 007 sartorial expert Matt Spaiser to introduce his own article about Dalton’s first dinner jacket on his authoritative blog, The Suits of James Bond, which I highly recommend for anyone interested in learning more about James Bond’s clothing or tailored menswear in general.

Dalton’s first on-screen dinner jacket is arguably the most elegant of his two 007 outings, at least until he converts it into a tactical shooting jacket. But before that happens, Bond dresses quite appropriately for an evening concert in a black wool dinner jacket with a broad, satin-faced shawl collar that rolls to a satin-covered, single-button front. The ventless jacket has four satin-covered buttons at the end of each sleeve, jetted hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket that he wears with no pocket square, likely to avoid having a patch of visible white that he would just have to tuck away when taking up his position in the window.

The Living Daylights provides a reversal of sorts of the iconic Goldfinger moment when Sean Connery strips away his black tactical garb to reveal a white dinner jacket; Dalton’s more serious Bond is the type who converts his fashionable evening wear into something more functional for the job.

From Sean Connery’s first Bond appearance on, we’ve always been reminded of how much care Bond puts into his clothes, though Dalton’s Bond breaks the mold by showing how his clothing emphasizes function over form. Working under the assumption that he needs to conceal himself from a trained marksman across the street, Bond merely turns up the shawl collar of his dinner jacket, fastening it with a velcro strap that extends across the neck, thus shrouding his potentially conspicuous white shirt from the enemy sniper.

A dinner jacket with a tactically oriented shawl collar like this serves no practical purpose in the real world for most of us (though I’d love to hear your suggestions for when this could come in handy), but it’s a minor character detail that further illustrates the wonderfully escapist world of James Bond, a place of alluring international intrigue where elegantly dressed men and women break away from concerts, take up arms, and tensely oversee a defection from seedy upper floors.

Forget the tactile-neck, Sterling Archer. What you need is a tactile-tux.

The dinner jacket that folds into a sniper’s garment is a more cinematic version of the story’s black velvet hood that is already “laid out like sinister evening clothes” for Bond to wear during his three days of waiting in a drab rented apartment at the corner of the Kochstrasse and the Wilhelmstrasse overlooking “Checkpoint Charlie” in Berlin.

When the jacket’s shawl collar is worn correctly flattened against the rest of the jacket, we see Bond’s white formal shirt with its spread collar and narrowly pleated front fastened with mother-of-pearl buttons. The double (French) cuffs are fastened with a set of ornate gold links.

Saunders is just jealous that he doesn’t look as debonair as England’s star secret agent.

Luckily for the tactical requirements of 007’s mission, fashionable bow ties were back to a more reasonable size by the mid-1980s so the classic proportions of Dalton’s black satin bow tie keep it from interfering with his folded-over shawl collar as the oversized bow ties of a decade earlier—memorialized by many awkward prom photos from the ’70s—would have done. Dalton’s bow tie is shaped in the classic thistle, or “butterfly”, shape.

Like his wide-shouldered dinner jacket, Bond’s formal trousers have double pleats in accordance with fashions of the late ’80s, with the de rigueur satin stripe running down the length of each side to the plain-hemmed bottoms.

We can’t tell from any visible on-screen evidence if Bond’s trousers are fitted with side adjusters as on some of Dalton’s predecessors’ formal trousers, but we do see that he wears them with white suspenders (braces) that are fastened to the top of his trousers with silver clips. The more acceptably formal approach would have been for Bond to wear suspenders that button onto the waistband itself, and we know that this the clip-on faux pas is regularly practiced by Dalton’s Bond as we also see the clips on his trousers when he’s running through the Vienna amusement park in a different tuxedo later in the film. If Dalton’s Bond felt so compelled to wear clip-on suspenders, he could have at least mitigated the sartorial solecism by donning a cummerbund or the more Bond-approved formal waistcoat.

Unfortunately, the combination of Dalton’s Bond being a man of action and his preference for clip-on suspenders allows his trousers to sag to a less elegant lower rise.

Bond’s chosen footwear with both this dinner jacket and the later-seen notch-lapel jacket in Vienna are black patent leather slip-on shoes with a plain toe and a black grosgrain strap across the vamp.

Dalton the Fleming purist may have appreciated that the shoes were a consistent choice for the literary Bond’s eschewal of laced shoes, seeing these grosgrain-strapped shoes as a less fussy and more modern alternative to the classic opera pump, which is traditionally the most acceptable non-laced shoe for white tie and black tie dress codes.

“Pigs! Borscht! Cake! There must be another way!” Koskov complains of Bond’s experimental but ultimately effective method of securely transporting him out of Soviet territory via a literal pipeline to the west.

Bond’s wristwatches aren’t as prominently featured in The Living Daylights as they would be in other 007 adventures, leaving experts like Dell Deaton to exhaustively research what Dalton may have been wearing in scenes like this, where his jacket and shirt sleeves tend to cover his wrists for the majority of the screen time. Despite this, Deaton’s comprehensive blog states that there is a brief moment in the hotel room as Bond is preparing to take his rifle to the window when his stainless TAG Heuer Professional Diver can be spied on Dalton’s left wrist.

The prospect of spotting a watch on Bond’s wrist is further complicated when he dons a bulky black fingerless shooting glove on his left hand.

Bond would go on to wear two more dinner jackets in The Living Daylights, an extensively seen notch-lapel dinner jacket when taking Kara to the Vienna amusement park (and worn by Dalton for much of the film’s promotional photography) and a double-breasted dinner jacket with the appropriate peak lapels that is briefly and barely seen during the finale.

The Gun

The first firearm we see Timothy Dalton’s Bond is indeed a Walther, but it isn’t the compact PPK pistol that 007 had slung in his shoulder holster for the better part of a quarter century. Assigned to snipe an enemy from a hotel window, James Bond needs a high-powered rifle and for this he takes up the Walther WA 2000, a rare and distinctive-looking semi-automatic “bullpup” rifle made from the same German weapons manufacturer responsible for Bond’s trademark PPK.

THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS

Carl Walther GmbH Sportwaffen spent years designing what would become the WA 2000, reportedly developed in response to the infamous 1972 Summer Olympics massacre in Munich. By the late 1970s, many European militaries were adopting bullpup rifles like the Steyr AUG and the French FAMAS so Walther followed suit, designing their new rifle in a bullpup configuration that placed the action and magazine behind the trigger, building the rest of the weapon around the barrel. This popular bullpup design provided the advantageous capabilities and accuracy of a full-length barrel in a more compact package, though the completed WA 2000 was still a solid weapon that weighed more than 15 pounds even when unloaded, nearly double the weight of the successful AUG and FAMAS bullpups.

The closed-bolt WA 2000 fed from six-round box magazines of .300 Winchester Magnum ammunition, chosen for its long-range accuracy, which added nearly a pound to the rifle’s mass, though select models were also chambered for the 7.62x51mm NATO (.308 Winchester) and 7.5x55mm Swiss rounds.

Saunders: You’ll want the soft-nosed ones, I expect.
Bond: No, the steel-tipped. KGB snipers usually wear body armor.

Rather than the iron sights of a standard rifle, the WA 2000 was meant to be used strictly with mounted optical sights like the Schmidt & Bender 2.5–10x telescopic sight, which contributed additional weight to the heavy rifle.

The Walther WA 2000, as clearly branded in this intentionally framed shot, has a two-stage trigger for greater shooter control.

Despite limited adoption by a few police agencies in Germany, the Walther WA 2000 was too prohibitively expensive (and not robust enough to justify it) for widespread adoption by military and law enforcement units with only 176 rifles produced in two generations from 1982 through November 1988. However, like many distinctive-looking weapons, its representation in movies, TV shows, and video games presents the Walther WA 2000 to be considerably more available. According to IMFDB, The Living Daylights was the first screen appearance for the Walther WA 2000, followed swiftly by a supporting role in the 1988 TV adaptation of The Bourne Identity. Its ubiquity in the Hitman video game series assured it a spot in Timothy Olyphant’s hands when he played Agent 47 in the 2007 film adaptation.

One thing that may have tipped Bond off to the fact that Kara wasn’t a professional was her choice of armament. A bitter Bond expects there to be “plenty of time for a sniper to make strawberry jam” out of Koskov, a graphic description that would imply an enemy armed with an automatic weapon like the “Kalashnikov” AK-pattern rifle referred to in Ian Fleming’s short story. However, he spies the cellist taking up a position in the window with a bolt-action Winchester Model 70, a fine rifle for sure but undoubtedly out of place in the high-tech world of agents and assassins… especially when it’s loaded merely with blanks.

“That girl didn’t know one end of a rifle from the other,” Bond recounts to Saunders after intentionally shooting her Winchester instead of her. You can see the panel that will be “shot” away on the left side above the trigger.

Interestingly, Fleming’s short story actually arms Bond with a Winchester rifle, though it’s intended to be a more advanced one that Fleming describes as “mostly a .308-caliber International Experimental Target rifle built by Winchester to help American marksmen at World Championships, and it had the usual gadgets of superaccurate target weapons—a curled aluminum hand at the back of the butt that extended under the armpit and held the stock firmly into the shoulder, and an adjustable pinion below the rifle’s center of gravity to allow the stock to be nailed into its grooved wooden rest… the usual single-shot bolt action replaced by a five-shot magazine.”

M assures Bond that the rifle will be securely shipped to Germany via diplomatic pouch and, when 007 next shoulders the weapon, it’s been fitted with a “Sniperscope” that, along with the wooden and metal parts of the rifle, has been “painted a dull black” for additional evening concealment.

The Car

007’s main ride in The Living Daylights is an on-brand Aston Martin V8 that would be prominently featured both as a convertible and a hardtop, but Dalton the new Bond also breaks new automotive ground by featuring the agent behind the driver’s wheel of not one but two different Audis. The first and most prominently seen is a gray 1986 Audi 200 quattro four-door sedan, ostensibly owned by Saunders or used by him as a work car in Bratislava with license plates #W207-182 registered to Vienna. When Bond takes control of the mission, he also takes control of the car, a relatively subdued-looking but still luxurious choice, standing in for the sputtering black Opel Kapitan referred to as Captain Sendler’s escape car in Ian Fleming’s short story.

Still armed with his Walther WA 2000, Bond takes charge, immediately dismissing Saunders’ suggestion of attempting to smuggle Koskov in the trunk of his Audi.

Four different generations of Audi 100 and 200 models evolved from the introduction of this full-size sedan line in 1968 through the line’s final year of manufacture in 1994. All were built on the Volkswagen Group’s C platform, with the C1, C2, C3, and C4 platform designations correlating with each of the first, second, third, and fourth generations, respectively. Each generation, in turn, was also designated with a type number.

The first generation (F104), consisting only of Audi 100 models, was designed by Ludwig Kraus and powered by a limited lineup of four-cylinder engines. For the 1976 model year, the lineup was refreshed for the C2 generation (Type 43) that included five-cylinder engines and also saw the introduction of the top-of-the-line Audi 200 during the 1979 Frankfurt Auto Show.

Bond’s screen-driven Audis in The Living Daylights were produced during the C3 generation (Type 44), launched in September 1982 with a more aerodynamic design restyled for the ’80s. Beginning with the 1983 model year, the C3 generation also heralded the introduction of the “quattro” permanent four-wheel-drive drivetrain for Audi 100 and 200 models, having been developed by Audi earlier in the decade. The Audi 200 remained as an upmarket model, particularly when selected with the “Exclusiv” trim as driven by Bond and Saunders with its flared wheel arches and 16-inch BBS RS split-rim alloy wheels. According to Bond Lifestyle, the Audi 200 “Exclusiv” was the most expensive Audi ever made until the introduction of the Audi V8 in 1988. The 1986 Audi 200 quattro “Exclusiv” featured in The Living Daylights is now reportedly owned by the Audi Museaum in Igolstadt.

Saunders and Bond stand astride Station V’s Audi 200 quattro sedan.

1986 Audi 200 quattro

Body Style: 4-door full-size luxury sedan

Layout: front-engine, quattro four-wheel-drive (4WD)

Engine: 2144 cc (2.1 L) Volkswagen line-5 with Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection

Power: 180 hp (134 kW; 182 PS) @ 5700 RPM

Torque: 186 lb·ft (252 N·m) @ 3600 RPM

Transmission: 5-speed manual

Wheelbase: 105.8 inches (2687 mm)

Length: 189.3 inches (4807 mm)

Width: 71.4 inches (1814 mm)

Height: 56 inches (1422 mm)

The second Audi that Bond drives in The Living Daylights is another 200 Quattro, albeit an Avant estate wagon that is seen only in a single vignette as 007 surveils General Pushkin from the driver’s seat while parked in Tangier.

The Audi 200 was discontinued with the end of the C3 generation, and the C4 generation (Type 4A) introduced in the fall of 1990 included only the Audi 100, essentially a facelifted C3 that included a new V6 engine option. It was during the Type 4A period that Audi transitioned out of its existing model-naming system and developed the S4, A6, S6, etc. models that are familiar to modern Audi drivers.

How to Get the Look

Timothy Dalton as James Bond in The Living Daylights (1987)

In this day and age, very few of us are engaged in missions or attending fancy dress balls, but there will always be an argument to be made for owning a tailored tuxedo, and Timothy Dalton’s shawl-collar dinner jacket at the outset of The Living Daylights follows in fine 007 tradition.

• Black wool single-button dinner jacket with tactically convertible satin-faced shawl collar, welted breast pocket, jetted hip pockets, satin-covered 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
• White formal shirt with spread collar, narrowly pleated front with placket, and double/French cuffs
  • Gold ornate cuff links
• Black satin silk thistle-shaped bow tie
• White suspenders/braces with silver clips
• Black wool double reverse-pleated formal trousers with satin silk side striping and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black patent leather plain-toe slip-on shoes with grosgrain straps
• Black dress socks
• TAG Heuer Professional Diver stainless steel wristwatch with black bezel and dial on steel bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Stuff my orders! I only kill professionals. That girl didn’t know one end of her rifle from the other. Go ahead, tell M what you want. If he fires me, I’ll thank him for it. Whoever she was, it must have scared the living daylights out of her.

Steve McQueen as Steve Andrews in The Blob (1958)

Vitals

Steve McQueen as Steve Andrews, headstrong teenager

Chester County, Pennsylvania, Summer 1957

Film: The Blob
Release Date: September 12, 1958
Director: Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.

Background

As today would have been Steve McQueen’s 90th birthday, let’s take a look at his first starring role, a sci-fi/horror drive-in favorite called The Blob. A personal favorite of producer Jack H. Harris, The Blob was filmed on location in southeastern Pennsylvania on a low budget that, depending on the source, has been quoted as anywhere between $110,000 and $240,000, a cost kept low thanks in part to the low $3,000 salary that the then-struggling actor McQueen had accepted to afford short-term expenses like food and rent.

After two uncredited movie roles and scattered TV bit parts across the mid-1950s, McQueen’s credited feature film debut was in Robert Stevens’ 1958 crime drama Never Love a Stranger, which also featured his future Bullitt co-star Felice Orlandi. Less than a week after the premiere episode of Wanted Dead or Alive aired on CBS in September 1958, The Blob was released in theaters with “Steven McQueen” first-billed.

Fittingly, McQueen’s first feature film scene with star billing found him behind the wheel of a car, though perched atop the back of the seat as his teenage character—also named Steve—puts the moves on his timid girlfriend Jane (Aneta Corsaut). When a romantic “shooting star” appears to be a meteorite crashing to Earth, Steve slides down behind the wheel of his aqua-colored ’53 Plymouth convertible and takes off in the direction of where it landed… where he discovers a strange red amoebic blob that will eventually absorb many residents of his town.

Given that premise, McQueen was among those surprised by the independent production’s impressive $4 million box office performance, though The Blob was still a modest start for the Indiana-born actor who remains immortalized more than a half-century later as the “King of Cool”.

What’d He Wear?

The Blob has no credited costume designer, a common practice from these low-budget B-movies when actors often wore their own clothing, and thus it’s not surprising to see the 28-year-old Steve McQueen wearing a few of the staples that would become part of his signature as he matured into a style icon.

For what begins as a laidback summer date one Friday evening, Steve dresses simply but stylishly in accordance with the then-fashionable Ivy code of an Oxford-cloth button-down (OCBD) shirt and cinch-back trousers with the actor’s own preferred suede ankle boots.

Depending on the lighting, Steve’s cotton shirt falls along the light yellow spectrum from a cool pale ecru to a warmer, creamy peach (“peachy cream”, if you will), styled in the manner of a traditional OCBD with breast pocket, a box pleat running down the center of his back, and—of course—a button-down collar, with a third button through the back of the collar, a functional detail to keep skinny ties in place under the collar until Brooks did away with the button as ties grew too thick to be reigned in by a mere button during the late 1960s. The long sleeves have rounded barrel cuffs that each close through a single button that is placed asymmetrically high on each cuff, closer to the wrist.

Steve blows a taunting kiss from the cockpit of his Plymouth Cranbrook.

The shirtmaker is unknown, but it’s possible that it may be a Brooks Brothers item as we know McQueen was a frequent customer of the storied Manhattan-based clothier to the point that he even had a Brooks Brothers credit card. Indeed, it was Brooks Brothers that had revolutionized the button-down collar shirt, transforming what had been a functional fad among English polo players into an Ivy style staple over the first half of the 20th century.

Steve wears a white cotton short-sleeved T-shirt as an undershirt.

Note that McQueen’s right sleeve appears to have been mended at the shoulder.

Steve’s trousers are particularly contemporary to the era. At first glance, they appear to be your standard, run-of-the-mill gray slacks until we get a glimpse of a silver buckle from the center of his belt line. As we continue to follow Steve and his frenemies while they do battle with the titular blob, we see that at least three of them are wearing trousers with a back cinch-strap. (The other cinch-backed fellas are the plaid-shirted group leader, Tony Gressette, and the red-sweatered “Mooch” Miller, though Steve is the only one of the trio who foregoes a belt, thus proving that his own back-cinch is likely serving the practical purpose of tightening his trousers around the waist.)

Cinch-back trousers were a trend unique to this brief period in the mid-to-late 1950s, though the detail itself extends back even further to the early days of Levi Strauss & Co. “The now-legendary West Coast brand’s relationship with the back cinch dates back to as early as 1872, where its function was to tighten the waist in an age when belts were not commonplace,” wrote Austin Bryant in a Heddels focus on the cinch-back. A half-century later, during the years that followed World War I, belts were increasingly more commonplace on men’s trousers from suits to denim work-wear. This was the twilight of cinch-back practicality, as Levi’s began supplementing its cinch-back 501 jeans with belt loops in 1922, and by 1933, the brand would offer to physically cut off cinch-backs for customers who preferred belts. As menswear trended in favor of belts and World War II led to restrictions on materials for civilian clothing, Levi’s had no choice but to introduce the 1944 pattern of 501 jeans that were the first to be manufactured with solely belt loops and nary a suspender button or back-cinch to be seen.

Christopher Sharp’s comprehensively researched history for Ivy Style suggests that the style was revived around 1952 when Jesse Siegel introduced it on the backs of wool trousers and cotton chinos, marketing the “Ivy-Alls” for the sophisticated college set. “The strategy was simple,” Sharp quotes Siegel telling Forbes in 1966. “We took the basic cheap garment and put a little fashion in it.”

Steve’s cinch-back strap supplements the belt loops on his trousers, though he’s the only one of the group that seems to forego a belt and put his faith solely in the retention power of that strap.

While the collegiate cinched-back craze evidently petered out by the end of the fabulous fifties, a few men’s retailers still include retro-minded cinch-back trousers among their offerings:

• Levi’s® Vintage Clothing “Cinch Back Pants” in beige cotton/linen blend, from an original Levi’s pattern (via Levi’s)
• Orvis “Brushed Cotton Miner Pants” in gray cotton/synthetic blend (via Orvis)

Unfortunately, both products appear to be sold out at the time of this writing in March 2020, so I’d advise interested shoppers to monitor if they should become available again or mine the offerings of vintage retailers for an original pair from the ’50s like those worn by the sharply dressed Ethan M. Wong on his exquisite blog, Street x Sprezza.

The rest of Steve’s semi-solid slate blue flat front trousers are considerably less interesting. The fly has a hidden hook closure and a zipper, and the belt loops remain unused… after all, who needs a belt when you’ve got a properly adjusted cinch strap? The trousers also have slanted side pockets with a slightly rounded opening and jetted back pockets with a button through the left back pocket only. Generously cut through the hips and legs, the trousers have a gentle taper as they approach the pressed turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms.

I had some trouble ascertaining if Steve’s trousers with plain-hemmed on the bottoms or finished with turn-ups, but some angles show telltale breaks at the top of each cuff.

The shirt and trousers are consistent with Ivy style trends of the era, but Steve’s suede ankle boots would take a new life with McQueen’s growing reputation as a style icon. While the other elements that would long become linked with “Steve McQueen” style—the Persol shades, the shawl-collar cardigans, the tweed shooting jackets—had yet to be associated with the actor, The Blob marks an early appearance of the iconic Hutton “Original Playboy” boots that he would famously wear on- and off-screen for the next decade and beyond.

Debate endures about who actually made McQueen’s boots, with Sanders & Sanders and Hutton both emerging as the most popularly cited shoemakers. By following the lively and informed discussion among McQueen fans and footwear enthusiasts on the Steve McQueen Style blog, a consensus seemed to emerge that argued in favor of Hutton being the original manufacturer while Sanders & Sanders is credited for offering the closest currently available boot similar to what McQueen wore in movies like The Blob, The Thomas Crown Affair, and Bullitt as well as in real life and during his early television appearance with then-wife Neile Adams on the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode “Man from the South”. I also suggest you read what my friend at Iconic Alternatives had to say about what makes these boots special and where you can find a pair today.

McQueen’s famous boots had snuff brown suede uppers with two eyelets for matching laces. The charcoal crepe soles are the distinctive thick “bumper” soles that differentiate “Playboy” boots from similar chukkas or desert boots. Steve wears them in The Blob with burgundy cotton lisle socks that add a little-seen but much-appreciation subtle pop of color to this outfit.

McQueen’s signature “playboy boots”, as seen in The Blob.

After they are sent home by the police, Steve covertly arranges to meet with Jane later that night. He keeps his clothes on while pretending to be asleep for his parents’ benefit before he leaps out of bed, laces on his boots, and zips on a yellowed tan blouson jacket.

The U.S. military had introduced the nylon MA-1 bomber jacket over the previous decade to supersede the previous leather flight jackets, offering a lighter and more weather-resistant construction in a cost-effective package. Interestingly, these jackets bookend McQueen’s film career as he wears this bomber-inspired jacket during his first starring role in The Blob and would wear a sage green Alpha Industries MA-1 jacket in his final starring role, The Hunter, released just months before the actor’s death in 1980.

While not structured or styled to be a true bomber jacket, Steve’s tan suede blouson  in The Blob clearly took some design cues from the MA-1 with its ribbed-knit collar, cuffs, and hem in a tonal peachy-hued wool. The zip-up jacket has set-in sleeves and slanted hand pockets with open jetting rather than the MA-1’s pocket flaps.

The teens work with Lieutenant Dave (Earl Rowe), your friendly local police lieutenant, to defeat The Blob.

After finding stardom over the next decade, McQueen would be inextricably linked to his iconic timepieces like the actor’s own Rolex Submariner 5512 that appeared in The Hunter, the distinctive Heuer Monaco worn in Le Mans, a utilitarian mil-spec Benrus in Bullitt, and the luxurious Cartier and Jaeger-LeCoultre he wears in The Thomas Crown Affair. However, he had evidently not yet acquired his horological habit when The Blob was in production as he appears on screen bare-wristed, his only accessory being the actor’s own gold ring.

Worn on the third finger of his left hand, the traditional placement for a wedding band, this large ring is embossed with the actor’s own initials, the “S” overlaying the “M” in a configuration abstract enough that it doesn’t look like his character, Steve Andrews, is wearing an incorrectly monogrammed piece. In fact, the ring would appear in several of McQueen’s early roles, from the TV show Wanted Dead or Alive through his breakthrough role as the swaggering Captain Hilts in The Great Escape. You can see a closer shot of the ring in the Steve McQueen Online discussion forum.

Steve takes comfort with Jane and her rescued younger brother as the town works together to freeze the Blob, eventually transporting it to the North Pole (sorry, Santa) where it can’t do any more damage “as long as the Arctic stays cold.”

How to Get the Look

Steve McQueen as Steve Andrews in The Blob (1958)

For his first major starring role, Steve McQueen dressed with a balance of character-informed Ivy style and a touch of his own signature sartorial sensibilities that would define the King of Cool throughout his career and his enduring menswear legacy.

• Creamy yellow cotton long-sleeve shirt with button-down collar, front placket, breast pocket, and single-button rounded cuffs
• Tan suede zip-up blouson jacket with ribbed-knit collar, cuffs, and hem, set-in sleeves, and slanted jetted hand pockets
• Slate blue flat front “cinch back” trousers with belt loops, zip fly, slanted front pockets, jetted back pockets (with button through left), adjustable rear cinch strap, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Saddle brown suede 2-eyelet playboy boots
• Burgundy cotton lisle socks
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• Gold personalized ring with overlaid “S.M.” embossing

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. Even at this early stage in his career, much of McQueen’s delivery and mannerisms recognizably consistent with his later performances even if he would continue to develop his talent and charisma.

The Quote

How do you get people to protect themselves from something they don’t believe in?

Michael Imperioli with Drea de Matteo and Lola Glaudini on The Sopranos (Episode 4.02: “No Show”)

Vitals

Michael Imperioli as Christopher Moltisanti, Jersey mob acting capo

New Jersey, Fall 2002

Series: The Sopranos
Episodes:
– “No Show” (Episode 4.02, dir. John Patterson, aired 9/22/2002)
– “Whoever Did This” (Episode 4.09, dir. Tim Van Patten, aired 11/10/2002)
Creator: David Chase
Costume Designer: Juliet Polcsa

Background

Happy birthday, Michael Imperioli! Born 54 years ago today in Mount Vernon, New York, the actor won an Emmy Award for his role of hotheaded Christopher Moltisanti on HBO’s The Sopranos.

With Paulie Walnuts out of commission while he serves a jail sentence in Youngstown (in fact, actor Tony Sirico was out for the first half of the fourth season due to back surgery), Silvio Dante (Steven Van Zandt) breaks the news to the Soprano family—somewhat begrudgingly—that Christopher has been chosen to temporarily take over as capo of Paulie’s crew.

“That’s the way certain people want it and we trust there will be no ill will,” Silvio explains to his fellow mobsters, though he may be feeling some resentment toward the increasingly empowered young man himself.

Unfortunately, if there wasn’t any ill will before, Chrissy definitely stirs some up by letting the position get to his head, spending much of “No Show” (Episode 4.02) condescendingly telling more experienced mobsters like Patsy Parisi (Dan Grimaldi) to “use your head”. The smug acting capo’s arrogance comes to a head moments after his suggestion of a starting a poorly conceived rap career when he makes the equally poorly conceived faux pas of attempting to extend an intimate moment with his girlfriend Adriana (Drea de Matteo) to her friend Danielle (Lola Glaudini)… who’s secretly an undercover agent with the FBI.

Of course, the longer than the coked-up couple fights about it, the manipulative mobster manages to spin the story and convince Adriana that it was Danielle making a move on him, again invoking his condescending “use your head” expression for the second time not just in this episode but while wearing this outfit.

Christopher: Use your head, huh? What do I want with that skank when I got you?
Adriana: You were sayin’ she had a nice ass.
Christopher: I was tryin’ to say somethin’ positive ’cause she’s your friend!

What’d He Wear?

“First thing I’m doing is getting wings in my hair… You know, like Paulie,” Christopher jokes to Silvio. Joking aside, Christopher’s style does evolve in his new position of leadership not toward Paulie’s pressed silk tracksuits with suspenders and white plimsolls but toward his mentor, Tony Soprano, with his black leather sport jacket and dress shirts.

Unfortunately for some, the episode title of “No Show” doesn’t apply to how sleazily Christopher wears his shirts.

In two episodes across the series’ fourth season, Christopher dresses in a black leather single-breasted jacket that, for the sake of brevity and in accordance with common marketing shortcuts, could be called a leather blazer or sport jacket. The jacket has peak lapels that roll to a two black sew-through buttons. Like a conventional suit jacket or sports coat, it has a welted breast pocket and straight flapped hip pockets, though the short-vented cuffs have no buttons.

For the jacket’s most prominent screen time in “No Show” (Episode 4.02), he wears it with a plain white cotton shirt with a point collar, breast pocket, and a front placket worn with the top three buttons undone, showing off his chest and the gold religious pendant—perhaps with a likeness of St. Christopher—that he wears on a thin gold necklace. While this white shirt is already a surprisingly dressy choice for this outfit, the double (French) cuffs push it into excessively formal territory, though they provide the opportunity for Chris to show even more gold via his set of textured square links.

“Hooohhhhhh!”

The grid-like texture of Christopher’s gold cuff links coordinates with his yellow gold 18-karat watch. “The Cartier?” Adriana asks when Christopher complains that his watch was stolen in “The Strong, Silent Type” (Episode 4.10). She could have been a little more specific as Christopher wore a different Cartier every season, aside from the second season when he sported a Rolex Datejust.

Having worn two Cartier Tanks and a gold Pasha toward the end of the third season, Christopher graduates to a distinctive Cartier Pasha Grid, so named for the golden grid over its round cream dial. The 38mm watch is strapped to his left wrist via a gold five-piece bracelet with a double deployment clasp. He would continue to wear the Pasha Grid for the majority of the fourth season until it’s indeed stolen and never seen again. His final Cartier timepiece, a stainless Roadster Chronograph, would appear on his wrist throughout The Sopranos‘ sixth and final season. (Got $10,000 to spare? Check out this 2000s-era Cartier Pasha Grid for sale via The Real Real, discounted from the original retail price of around $31,000!)

Chrissy’s gold watch and cuff links can be spied on his left wrist during an intimate moment in “No Show” (Episode 4.02). If you think we’re too close to the action, just imagine how Agent Ciccerone, aka Danielle, feels…

“Like your pants. Leather?” he asks when flirting with Danielle at the Crazy Horse. Luckily, he didn’t see the need to match his coat with a leather bottom half, instead wearing a more traditional pair of black slacks. Of course, his belt and derby shoes are black leather, coordinating the gold squared single-prong belt buckle to the rest of his jewelry and accessories.

Bad idea, Chris. The guy never knows when he’s gone too far.

“A look? So now you’re a fuckin’ mind reader now?” he condescending says to Patsy from behind his sunglasses regarding his supposedly subconscious decision to ask Vito and Patsy to hijack from a construction site. With their narrow rectangular lenses and thin black metal frames, the sunglasses are typical for fashions of the early 2000s and, though their popularity has waned in recent years, prominent eyewear brands still issue sunglasses with this style such as the Ray-Ban RB3534 (via Amazon or Ray-Ban)

“Those who want respect, give respect,” Tony warned the doomed Richie Aprile (David Proval) two seasons earlier. Christopher does not seem to heed his uncle’s advice, letting his new position go straight to his head and showing plenty of disrespect by keeping his sunglasses on during a meeting with the associates who were passed over for his promotion.

Chris’ black leather sport jacket briefly shows up again when consoling Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano) after his son’s accident in “Whoever Did This” (Episode 4.09). Perhaps apropos the mournful occasion, Chris opts for a more funereal all-black ensemble that swaps out the “No Show” white shirt for a black mock-neck T-shirt, not unlike something that would, again, be found among Tony Soprano’s wardrobe.

By “Whoever Did This” (Episode 4.09), Paulie has returned and Christopher was one episode away from hitting rock bottom and needing to go to rehab.

When he’s officially promoted to capo at the start of the sixth season, Chris has lost some of his youthful swagger and ditched the leather blazer that went with it. In its place is a (mostly) sober man in a series of tasteful sport jackets, graying at the temples with a kid on the way, who has matured his moviemaking dreams from screenwriting and acting into the more realistic prospect of producing.

What to Imbibe

Like Tony Soprano at the track a few episodes later, Christopher grabs a bottle of Cristal champagne to celebrate his new promotion in “No Show” (Episode 4.02) with Adriana and the woman he knows as “Danielle”. It’s a good thing Chrissy likes the stuff because he ends up with Cristal all over him when Adriana throws her drink on him after he makes a move on Danielle.

The sort of scene that sends a guy straight to rehab… where Christopher would end up by the end of the season.

While a history enthusiast like Tony may appreciate Cristal for its pedigree as the official wine for the Imperial Court of Russia, the younger Christopher likely prefers it for its rap prestige as celebrated by Jay-Z in tracks like “Brooklyn’s Finest” feat. Notorious B.I.G. and “Excuse Me Miss” feat. Pharrell Williams.

How to Get the Look

Michael Imperioli as Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos (Episode 4.02: “No Show”)

The black leather blazer suggests a mobbed-up connotation, so it’s no surprise that Christopher Moltisanti—a hothead that we’ve observed yearning for underworld fame for four seasons—chooses to wear one after receiving a swift promotion in the fourth season of The Sopranos. Though he wisely balances the jacket’s relative flash with a toned-down white shirt and black trousers, he dresses the look intentionally to show off his gold jewelry and accessories that signal his success.

• Black leather single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, and short-vented cuffs
• White cotton dress shirt with point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and double/French cuffs
• Gold textured square cuff links
• Black flat front trousers with belt loops and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather belt with gold squared single-prong buckle
• Black leather derby shoes
• Black socks
• Thin gold necklace with a round gold St. Christopher medallion
• Cartier Pasha Grid 18-karat yellow gold wristwatch with a gold grid over a cream-colored dial on gold five-piece bracelet
• Black-framed sunglasses with rectangular dark green lenses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series.

The Quote

Use your head!

Laurence Harvey as Dove Linkhorn in Walk on the Wild Side (1962)

Vitals

Laurence Harvey as Dove Linkhorn, determined drifter

Texas to New Orleans, September 1933

Film: Walk on the Wild Side
Release Date: February 21, 1962
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Costume Designer: Charles Le Maire

Background

While this may not be the ideal weekend for an outdoors adventure, we can at least walk vicariously with Depression-era drifter Dove Linkhorn (Laurence Harvey), whose solo trek from Texas to New Orleans is interrupted by the arrival of the fiery and opportunistic runaway Kitty (Jane Fonda). The two hitchhike and hop trains together, though Dove turns down her advances as he sticks to his single-minded goal of tracking down the woman he had loved and lost, Hallie Gerard (Capucine).

Despite the cinematic symbolism of slowly lighting someone’s cigarette, Dove keeps his association with Kitty strictly platonic.

Based on a 1956 novel by Nelson Algren (who was born today in 1909), Walk on the Wild Side was a considerably sanitized adaptation though still considered pretty risque by 1962 standards, given Hallie’s occupation at a Big Easy brothel run by the iron-fisted madam Jo Courtney (Barbara Stanwyck). If you’re familiar with the book, then you’re also well-aware of how much the movie differs from its source material aside from retaining the same setting, character names, and select plot details. One can only imagine what Bosley Crowther of the New York Times would have thought of what he called a “sleazy melodrama” had many of the more lurid elements of Algren’s masterful novel been retained or more clearly illustrated on screen.

Of course, we also have the novel (and possibly film adaptation as well) to thank for Lou Reed writing his 1972 classic “Walk on the Wild Side”. The music heard in the movie itself may be one of its greatest assets, as the prolific Elmer Bernstein had been tapped to compose the score. With lyrics by Mack David, the title song was performed by Brook Benton and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song that year, losing to Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini’s “Days of Wine and Roses”.

Jazz organist Jimmy Smith recorded his own version of “Walk on the Wild Side” with Oliver Nelson’s band as the leading track on his album Bashin’: The Unpredictable Jimmy Smith, released in May 1962, only three months after the movie itself was released. This instrumental version just shy of six minutes would be used twice by Martin Scorsese, first in the soundtrack for The Color of Money (1986) and again in Casino (1995).

What’d He Wear?

Dove Linkhorn sets out on his journey from Texas dressed in the timeless gear of a hard-living traveler, spending his days in freight boxcars and his nights finding comfort amidst bales of hay with nothing above him but the stars. Denim is understandably the material of choice for Dove’s duds, having been time-tested over more than half a century by America’s most rugged laborers from cowboys and sailors to lumberjacks and miners.

Dressed for hard travels ahead, Kitty and Dove meet on the way to Louisiana and form their unholy road alliance.

It’s generally accepted that denim jackets were likely developed in the 1870s around the time that denim jeans increased in popularity thanks to mass production by Levi Strauss & Co., who is credited with the first riveted denim jacket as, “after all, it owned the patent on the device” according to Josh Sims in Icon’s of Men’s Style. In the century-and-a-half since then, all major denim outfitters—including the “big three” of Levi’s, Lee, and Wrangler—have developed and marketed their own unique spin on the garment that would become known as the “trucker jacket”. The history of the Levi’s denim jacket is relatively straightforward thanks to its clearly defined Type I, Type II, and Type III models introduced over the course of the course of the 20th century, but the evolution of Lee’s jackets are a little murkier.

To try to sort through Lee’s denim jacket history myself, I used Sims’ aforementioned book as well as denim expert Albert Muzquiz’s explorations for Primer and Heddels, writing in the latter that “Lee, unlike their competitor, Levi’s, hasn’t historically been as transparent about their brand’s history.” Luckily, Lee Jeans does offer a timeline on its current site.

The company we know today as Lee Jeans was launched as a Salina, Kansas, grocery wholesale business in 1889 by H.D. Lee, who eventually made the decision to produce workwear when his supply couldn’t keep up with his in-house demand, opening a garment factory in 1912. These early decades for Lee meant plenty of coveralls and overalls until the development of their “101” jeans in the mid-1920s. Lee’s first denim jacket was soon to follow, though the 91J “Loco” railroad jacket introduced in 1925 had little in common with the iconic Cowboy and Rider jackets to follow.

During the early years of the Great Depression, Lee modernized its offerings. The brand’s signature 101 jeans had been developed less than a decade earlier, so they slapped on a “J” ostensibly for “jacket”) and the Lee 101J “Cowboy” jacket was born. Within a year or two, Lee introduced a winter-friendly version of its new jacket, modified with the additions of a thick wool saddle blanket lining and corduroy collar designed to “help cowboys ride out a storm” as Muzquiz wrote for Primer, adding that this was the first denim jacket to feature a contrasting collar. Adding an “L” to denote these new lined versions, this warmer-wearing denim jacket was christened the Lee 101LJ. (According to Lee’s online timeline, the 101J arrived in 1934 and the 101LJ in 1935, though some sources cite slightly earlier dates.)

“Look at Slim in his New Lee Rider Jacket!” was Lee’s tagline when advertising to the rodeo crowd in the fall of 1948. (Sourced from Lee)

Muzquiz further researched for Heddels that the first usage of the phrase “Lee Riders” emerged after the corporation received a patent in 1935, though it would evidently be another decade until this appellation was officially designated to any of its products outside of colloquialism. In 1944, Lee lassoed all of its western-wear offerings and branded them under the “Lee Riders” lineup. Around that time, however, there was a new competitor on the scene when Wrangler jeans were first introduced to the American public in 1947, followed within a year by the Wrangler 124MJ denim jacket.

Inspired by rodeo star’s custom-slimmed Lee jacket, Lee returned to the drawing board and introduced the “New Lee Rider” 101J jacket, first marketed in 1948 for members of the Rodeo Cowboy Association and Cowboy Association of America, further validating its moniker. In addition to its slimline fit and double-pocket design (as opposed to the single chest pockets of earlier Lee jackets), the New Lee Rider was detailed with the distinctive zig-zag top-stitching down the placket and what Muzquiz described for Heddels as “its jauntily slanted yoke.” With the New Lee Rider, the brand was joining the ranks of its competitors by establishing its place among what would become known as the “trucker jacket” for decades to come.

Much like the ’30s series of jackets, the new version of the 101J was soon followed by an updated take on the lined 101LJ in 1949, boasting the same blanket lining and corduroy collar but with the newer zigzag stitch and slanted yoke. Beginning in November 1953, these new 101LJ jackets would be officially marketed as the Lee Storm Rider jackets.

Muzquiz rightfully concludes that “It was in this period that the jacket seems to have crossed the divide from pure workwear and cowboy clothing to a wardrobe staple,” as the Lee Storm Rider would be made famous by wearers including Kirk Douglas in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits (1962), Paul Newman in Hud (1963), and even Steve McQueen off-screen.

Unlike these contemporary-set films, however, Walk on the Wild Side is set during the early years of the Depression, making Laurence Harvey’s Lee Rider jacket a particularly curious choice. While it’s possible that Dove Linkhorn may have gotten his hands on a mint Lee 101J in the late summer of 1933, the 1950s-style Rider he wears on screen is considerably anachronistic for the setting, especially considering its worn state.

One of the first shots we get of Dove Linkhorn’s jacket clearly establishes it as a Lee Storm Rider as the riveted buttons are branded “Lee RIDERS”. While his wallet was undoubtedly meant to be the focus of this shot, the style blogger in me couldn’t help but to notice the branded buttons first!

Dove’s blue denim Lee Rider jacket is an iconic American garment with an authentic association of cowboys, railroad workers, and other hard-living figures of the Old West. Even if his choice was not anachronistically correct, costume designer Charles Le Maire undoubtedly knew that dressing Dove Linkhorn in a Lee “cowboy jacket” would visually communicate to audiences that this is not a man to be trifled with. (Lee still offers the 101 Rider as part of its European Collection, though you can find modern Lee cowboy jackets at Amazon.)

The two chest pockets indicate that Dove’s jacket was made no earlier than 1947 as it wasn’t until then that Lee made double-pocket denim jackets. Both pockets are positioned with the top of each flap along the seam of the inward-slanting horizontal yoke (“slanted for easy access – almost certainly for a pack of Marlboros,” as Lee themselves wrote), covered with a rounded-corner flap that closes through a single riveted button. A small black patch branded “Lee” is sewn along the bottom of the left pocket flap. The signature “zig zag” top-stitching along each of the six buttonholes also suggests a post-1947 manufacture. The jacket is reinforced around the waist hem with a short button-tab along the right and left sides to adjust the fit around the waist. Each set-in sleeve fastens at the end through a single cuff button, which Dove tends to wear unbuttoned with each cuff folded back.

One curious detail of Dove’s Lee Rider jacket is the collar. During this time period, Lee only offered two collars on its Rider jackets: a matching blue denim on the 101J and a tan corduroy collar on the lined 101LJ, this latter being the only contrasting collar offered on any denim jackets of this period. When I first viewed Walk on the Wild Side, I assumed that Dove’s contrast-collar Lee Rider was a corduroy-collared 101LJ, but a closer look at the collar via high-resolution video format illustrated that the collar appears to be merely be faded denim. I briefly entertained the thought that, as the collar has beared the brunt of his jacket’s abuse, the corduroy collar may have been removed but the jacket also appears to lack the Storm Rider’s signature blanketed lining, leading me to conclude that Dove Linkhorn must be wearing a late 1940s or 1950s-vintage Lee 101J Rider with a faded collar.

Dove settles up with Teresina (Anne Baxter).

While we know Dove’s jacket is blue as Lee wasn’t making denim jackets in any other color at that time, contemporary behind-the-scenes photos from the production also illustrate Dove’s light chambray work shirt to be blue, albeit a much lighter blue that was still consistent with the prototypical chambray shirts that had been popularized as a staple of U.S. Navy work-wear during the early decades of the 20th century. Like most military clothing, chambray shirts have become rugged civilian staples with most casual menswear brands offering their own takes, though this Wrangler Authentics shirt (via Amazon) seems to offer the color, details, and heritage consistent with what Laurence Harvey wears as Dove Linkhorn. (If you prefer button-through pockets and the screen-accurate dark blue buttons, you should also check out this Lucky Brand chambray shirt, also via Amazon.)

Dove’s pale blue chambray cotton shirt has a long point collar and two chest pockets, each closed with a single button through a narrow flap. The buttons on the pocket flaps, front placket, and cuffs are a contrasting dark blue plastic, sewn to the shirt with white thread through two holes.

Dove sheds his jacket when walking in the hot afternoon sun. The colors of both his and Kitty’s outfits are made clearer by this promotional photo (inset).

The Texan drifter wears cowboy boots with decoratively stitched shafts mostly covered by his jeans. The dark leather uppers and shafts are likely brown to coordinate with his belt leather, and the hard leather soles have slightly raised heels.

Kitty promises to get Dove “a pair of real city shoes and a real shirt” someday, though our protagonist looks comfortably at home in his double denim, work shirt, and cowboy boots.

Like his jacket, Dove Linkhorn’s jeans are also more contemporary to the film’s early 1960s production than the 1930s setting. While blue jeans had famously been a staple of American work-wear since Levi Strauss took their riveted denim trousers to a new level in 1873, they were still commonly fitted with cinch-backs and suspender buttons through the early years of the Great Depression. (For the record, Levi’s was an early pioneer of jeans for men who preferred belts, first offering belt loops in 1922 as a supplement to cinch-backs and suspender buttons, then offering to cut off back-cinch straps for belt-lovers by 1933, and finally doing away with the cinches and brace buttons altogether by 1944 with the introduction of the new 501®.)

While Levi’s is considered a denim pioneer for many valid reasons, it was Lee that revolutionized one enduring aspect of jeans: the zip fly. For more than 50 years, jeans had been rigged with the same style of button-up fly that was standard on all men’s trousers. This all changed in 1927 with the introduction of the Lee 101Z, the first blue jeans with a zip-fly, nicknamed the “Whizit” after a national contest hosted by Lee. It would be more than two decades before Levi’s would follow suit, responding to concerns from female wearers who found the button-fly to be, uh, immodest.

Dove’s jeans appear to have the “lazy S” stitch across each back pocket that became a signature of Lee jeans with the introduction of their new 101 Riders during the 1940s. By this time, Lee’s iconic but brief-lived “hair on hide” label had already been replaced by a branded cowhide label, and the increasingly obsolete cinch-back strap was also removed. (As with their Rider jackets, new vintage-inspired Lee 101Z jeans are available through Lee’s European store.)

Promotional photo of Jane Fonda and Laurence Harvey in Walk on the Wild Side.

Dove’s floral-embossed tooled leather belt, shown by contemporary set photos to be a medium brown leather, is really the only appropriate type of belt with this kind of Western-themed ensemble. The belt has a single plain leather keeper and a large etched steel buckle in a rectangular shape with convex-curved top and bottoms and sharp corners. (Is there a name for this unique shape?)

Dove completes his look with a well-worn cowboy hat in a simple tan felt, its wide brim so dramatically curled up that the hat seems to have aspirations of being a tricorne.

Laurence Harvey as Dove Linkhorn in Walk on the Wild Side (1962)

How to Get the Look

The rugged Western look of a denim jacket, chambray work shirt, tooled belt, and jeans is a timeless tribute to the cowboys of the old west, though a closer examination at Dove Linkhorn’s Lee Rider jacket dates the outfit as more contemporary to Walk on the Wild Side‘s early 1960s production than its Depression-era setting.

• Blue denim Lee 101J Rider “cowboy jacket” with faded collar, slanted front yoke with two chest pockets (with button-down flaps), six branded riveted buttons with zig-zag top-stitched placket, waist button-tabs, and single-button cuffs
• Pale blue chambray cotton work shirt with point collar, front placket, two chest pockets (with button-down flaps), and single-button cuffs
• Dark blue denim Lee 101Z Rider zip-fly jeans with belt loops and five-pocket layout
• Brown floral-tooled leather belt with large rectangular steel single-prong buckle
• Dark brown leather cowboy boots with decorative-stitched shafts and raised heels
• Tan felt cowboy hat with wide curled brim

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and Elmer Bernstein’s jazzy soundtrack.

Sources

Plenty of pros out there have done us all a service by putting their knowledge of denim down for internet posterity, providing invaluable sources as I was drafting this piece and researching the veracity of Dove’s Depression-era denim:

• “A Brief History of Lee Jeans” (Heddels, 2012)
• “The Fascinating Evolution of the Trucker Jacket” (Albert Muzquiz for Primer, 2017)
• “Lee Storm Rider Denim Jackets – The Complete Vintage Guide” (Albert Muzquiz for Heddels, 2019)
• “Lee Through the Years” (Lee Jeans, 2018)
• “Rider Jacket – History of an Icon” (Lee Jeans, 2018)