Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1967)

Vitals

Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock, nervous and aimless college graduate

Los Angeles, Summer 1967

Film: The Graduate
Release Date: December 22, 1967
Director: Mike Nichols
Costume Designer: Patricia Zipprodt

Background

Dustin Hoffman may be turning 83 today, but for many he’ll always be the young Benjamin Braddock, freshly home from college with his entire adult life—with all of its expectations and inevitable disappointments—to follow.

Benjamin’s first summer as a college graduate is spent with lazy days by the pool and covert nights with Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), the domineering yet vulnerable wife of his father’s law partner. The Braddocks, obviously unaware of their son’s ongoing assignations with her mother, pressure him into taking Elaine Robinson (Katharine Ross). A Berkeley student, Elaine would be a more suitable partner for Benjamin due to age, temperament, and several other factors, but the formidable Mrs. Robinson—we never do learn her first name—won’t have it.

Like everything else in his life, however, the situation is out of his hands and he finds himself calling on the Robinson household one summer evening to escort Elaine on a date. Draped in an animal-skin blanket and resentful scowl, Mrs. Robinson can barely hide her fury, with Bancroft beautifully adding a threatening menace behind her simple declaration: “I’m extremely upset about it, Benjamin.”

Reading between the lines, Benjamin knows his best opportunity out of the situation is to sabotage the date and, one wordless and reckless ride in his Alfa Romeo later, he’s sitting across from her at a burlesque club as a dancer presses her ample embonpoint into service, fervently brushing the top of a humiliated Elaine’s head with the tassels of her pasties. Benjamin tries to remain aloof, but Elaine’s pain breaks through the lenses of his sunglasses and he makes a 180° to salvage both the date and Elaine’s dignity. An earnest apology is followed by a kiss and fast food from the Hamburger Hamlet, where we see him feeling free to genuinely express his emotions for the first time since we met him:

I’ve had this feeling ever since I graduated. This kind of compulsion that I have to be rude all the time… it’s like I was playing some kind of game, but the rules don’t make any sense to me. They’re being made up by all the wrong people. I mean no one makes them up. They seem to make themselves up.

He’s on the potential verge of a revelation when they continue the date by going for drinks at the Taft Hotel, where Benjamin’s instant recognition to the staff as the frequent guest “Mr. Gladstone” forces Benjamin to admit to Elaine that he’s been having an affair with an older, married woman, but that he would be ending it.

What’d He Wear?

Benjamin’s agenda for his first date with Elaine may lack class, but he seems to be reserving his sense of good taste for his date night duds, a stylish Ivy-inspired ensemble that would be just as effective for a warm evening engagement more than 50 years later.

While seersucker had long been a staple of men’s workwear, it wasn’t until 1909 that tailor Joseph Haspel Sr. revolutionized the seersucker suit for men as a comfortable, cool-wearing alternative for businessmen baking in the New Orleans heat. Over the next half-century, the trend spread across the country and was firmly an Ivy League staple by the 1950s and ’60s when students like Benjamin wore orphaned seersucker jackets with odd trousers.

Benjamin’s single-breasted cotton sports coat for his date with Elaine is patterned in the classic seersucker white-and-blue “railroad stripe”. The notch lapels, which are welted with sporty swelled edges, neatly roll to the two flat clear plastic button closure, matching the two downscaled buttons spaced apart on each cuff. The jacket is also detailed with a single vent, roped sleeveheads, welted breast pocket, and flapped hip pockets that gently slant toward the back.

Elaine and “Mr. Gladstone” are greeted warmly—perhaps too warmly—upon arrival at the Taft Hotel.

Benjamin illustrates the versatility of a light blue oxford-cloth button-down (OCBD) shirt and dark navy knitted silk tie when he effectively wears the same shirt and tie here as we had also seen with his tweed jacket when he first joined Mrs. Robinson at the Taft. In both cases, the textured shirt and tie complement the jackets, be it the coarser tweed or the puckered seersucker.

As mentioned in the previous post about Benjamin’s tweed jacket but all the more relevant here, blue-and-white seersucker with a light blue OCBD and navy knitted tie would later be the signature look worn by Darren McGavin on Kolchak, though with matching seersucker suit trousers and a tattered, open-woven straw hat.

Benjamin’s gray flat front trousers provide a neutral balance with his more eye-catching top half. The trousers rise to Hoffman’s natural waist, where they’re held up by a black leather belt with squared silver-toned single-prong buckle.

As Benjamin waits for Elaine, Mrs. Robinson’s icy demeanor keeps the living room chillier than the summer night outside.

I don’t believe that Benjamin’s footwear get any screen time during this sequence, but I’m inclined to believe that he likely sported the same dark cordovan derby shoes and charcoal socks from his first date with Mrs. Robinson.

On Benjamin’s left wrist, he wears his usual steel wristwatch with its brown gradient dial and black leather strap, though his black wraparound sunglasses steal the spotlight as his most significant accessory during this sequence. This “wraparound” style was quickly becoming popular and 1967 was the same year that Ray-Ban introduced its wraparound Balorama frame which would be most famously worn by Clint Eastwood in the first two Dirty Harry movies.

Even Benjamin’s dark sunglasses aren’t enough for him to see past Elaine’s growing humiliation.

What to Imbibe

“What would you say to a short one?” the oblivious Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton) asks Benjamin before his date with Elaine. “Scotch still your drink?”

“Bourbon,” Benjamin corrects him, but—again—Mr. Robinson just continues pouring Scotch into Ben’s glass. With Mrs. Robinson staring icy daggers across the room, Benjamin was probably just grateful for any booze he could get!

How to Get the Look

Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1967)

Benjamin Braddock dresses to impress, even if that’s antithetical to his original goal for his date with Elaine, clad in American Ivy staples like seersucker sport jacket and tonally coordinated OCBD and knitted tie.

• White-and-blue railroad stripe seersucker cotton single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with “swelled edge” notch lapels, welted breast pocket, gently slanted flapped hip pockets, spaced 2-button cuffs, and single vent
• Pale blue oxford cotton shirt with button-down collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Dark navy knitted silk tie
• Gray flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather belt with squared silver-toned single-prong buckle
• Dark cordovan derby shoes
• Charcoal socks
• Steel wristwatch with brown gradient dial on black leather strap
• Black wraparound sunglasses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

My whole life is such a waste. It’s just nothing.

Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 4.13: “Tomorrowland”)

Vitals

Jon Hamm as Don Draper, Madison Avenue ad man

Anaheim, California, October 1965

Series: Mad Men
Episode: “Tomorrowland” (Episode 4.13)
Air Date: October 17, 2010
Director: Matthew Weiner
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

During my latest Mad Men rewatch while on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, I found myself so intrigued by the fourth season finale that I watched the episode back-to-back. For a show set so far into the past, it’s amazing how effective Mad Men can be at stirring a viewer’s enthusiasm for the future.

When this episode first aired in October 2010, I was beginning my senior year of college, as unsure about what my future would look like as it I was when I had first moved into my crowded dorm room three years earlier. I had no clear picture of what my “Tomorrowland” would look like, whether I’d manage to land a fulfilling job, a healthy romantic life, or even whether the ever-present specter of dark suicidal urges would cut both of those prospects from being fulfilled. I’d been watching a season of Don Draper weaving from rock-bottom lows to promising highs, and the once self-destructive ad man’s future looked brighter than ever as he ended the season with all signs pointing to a favorable future.

This trajectory began during a business trip-turned-family vacation to Disneyland, for which Don brings along his secretary Megan (Jessica Paré), who has already developed a respectful relationship with the Draper children… and a casually carnal relationship with their father. Megan’s presence with the family seems strictly professional, serving in the role of babysitter after Don’s ex-wife Betty (January Jones) had impulsively fired the children’s long-time nanny Carla (Deborah Lacey) and left Don in desperate need for someone to watch the kids while he conducts business.

The episode even seems to tease chemistry between Don and Megan’s college “frenemy” Camille, a blonde in the tradition of former Draper paramours Betty, Bethany Van Nuys, and even Dr. Faye Miller (on a purely aesthetic basis), but the show averts our expectations that Don would continue his pursuit of meaningless sex by revealing that it’s Megan he visits later that Saturday night, following his heart… not to say that other organs may not have still had a say.

Matthew Weiner was never casual with his episode titles and, while “Tomorrowland” carries the obvious associations with the futuristic section of Disneyland that will no doubt be on the Draper family’s agenda, it suggests Don designing the architecture of his own Tomorrowland. After nearly two years of depressive drinking and drifting, he’s finally found what could be the key to his elusive happiness… and, of course, he found it in California, the seaside state that has long represented his fondness for fresh beginnings.

What’d He Wear?

After rewatching the series earlier this year, I knew I would want to feature one of Don Draper’s dressed-down looks from “Tomorrowland” for a summertime #MadMenMonday post, so I posted an Instagram poll: should I write about this blue duotone shirt or his gun club check sport jacket and tie? More than half of the nearly 600 respondents voted for this shirt (and I thank you for choosing the less complicated outfit to describe!)

At first, I assumed this was the plaid sports shirt we had seen Don wearing during the solar eclipse in “Seven Twenty Three” (Episode 3.07) and again while journaling in “The Summer Man” (Episode 4.08), but the “Tomorrowland” notably lacks the high-contrasting brown checks.

This shirt is patterned in a large-scaled mottled blue two-tone check, alternating between a low-contrast teal and turquoise with a yellow windowpane grid separating these colors from each other. The short-sleeved shirt has a sporty collar that serves as a unique blend of a traditional camp collar and the elegantly rounded roll of a “Lido collar”. The shirt fastens with five flat clear plastic two-hole buttons up the front, with the top button located about two inches down from the neck; Don wears the button open, likely by design as the shirt may look awkward when fully buttoned. Don’s shirt is also detailed with a set-in pocket over the left breast.

An Army man, Don would be comfortable in the durable chino cloth trousers now colloqualized as “khakis”, so he continues lounging in his hotel room in a pair of beige chino cotton flat front trousers which he has self-cuffed at the bottoms. Though the trousers have belt loops, Don understandably foregoes a belt.

Le Carré and High Life for a lonely night in the hotel. Note the apparent continuity error where Don isn’t wearing his Rolex, though it would appear on his left wrist in the subsequent shot.

In addition to the pockets along the side seams, these trousers have jetted back pockets, and he folds the Disneyland brochure into the back right pocket to support his weak excuse of visiting Megan’s room to go over their plan for visiting the park the following day. (“Do you think I should be involved in such high-level decisions?” she sarcastically responds.)

Don puts on a pair of dark cordovan leather tassel loafers, ostensibly worn without socks, when he visits Megan’s room.

Megan brings Don out onto her balcony to “enjoy the view”.

After two years of wearing a gold Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso dress watch that had been personalized with an inscription from his now ex-wife, Don understandably abandoned that watch sometime after his separation from Betty and began wearing a Rolex Explorer, perhaps signaling that the newly single Don Draper would spend much of the fourth season exploring himself (I know it’s a stretch, but let me have this one!) The choice to rig Don with a Rolex also aligns him with James Bond, who would have been a major cultural icon by Mad Men‘s fourth season as Sean Connery had already played the globe-trotting 007 in three films, wearing a Rolex Submariner on his wrist for all three. (Bond’s literary creator, Ian Fleming, actually preferred a Rolex Explorer.)

Don wears a stainless steel Rolex Explorer I with the classic 36mm case that had been standard for much of the watch’s run since it was first introduced for Sir Edmund Hillary’s Mount Everest expedition in 1953. Worn on a steel Oyster-style link bracelet, the watch has a black dial with a luminous reverse triangle at 12 o’clock and the reference’s characteristic 3-6-9 Arabic numerals.

Don plans out a day at Disneyland with his kids Sally (Kiernan Shipka), Bobby (Jared Gilmore), and Gene, though an isolated night in a hotel room may be closer to the reality for many family vacations in 2020.

Rolex Explorer, ref. 1016, circa 1969 (Source: Hodinkee)

Some have argued that, while not impossible that Don Draper would have had this watch in 1965, it would have been highly unlikely for the typical American businessman—especially a more conservative “man in the gray flannel suit” type—to wear this kind of sports watch every day with everything from suits to sport shirts. (And, indeed, some have argued that it’s a more recent model that would be anachronistic anyway.)

In my mind, I’ve formed two possibilities:

1. Don, an avid reader, noticed Ian Fleming’s description of Bond’s “heavy Rolex Oyster Perpetual on an expanding metal bracelet” in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and decided that he had found the watch he needed for the next phase of his life.
2. During the early months of his newly single life in 1964, Don’s romantic entanglement with an international stewardess found him in Switzerland where the latest Explorer caught his eye from the Rolex boutique window.

Should the latter have been the case, it would make sense that he would abandon the watch when settling into his new life with a new woman for the seasons to follow.

What to Imbibe

Don Draper may be famous for reviving the Old Fashioned in pop culture (unless you’re one of those Wisconsinites who has been enjoying brandy and Sprite this whole time), but the erstwhile Dick Whitman almost just as frequently drank beer, whether fueling himself while building a playhouse for his daughter, journaling his summer of rejuvenation, or washing down an intriguing John le Carré paperback while trying not to think about the intriguing French-Canadian beauty in the adjacent room.

For moments like the latter, Don turns to the preeminent “champagne of beers”, Miller High Life.

Champagne of beers or not, Don realizes he’s more than willing to let his newly purchased sixer go untouched if Megan has already returned from Whisky a Go Go.

High Life has remained the flagship of the Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing Company since its conception in 1903. The high levels of carbonation in this 4.6% ABV pilsner created an abundance of bubbles that led to its original appellation of “the Champagne of Bottle Beers” before taking its catchier, shortened modern form.

Though Don is seen drinking all of the “big three” flagship American brews across Mad Men‘s seven-season run, it’s Miller High Life in both bottle and can form that he enjoys with the greatest frequency, beginning with “Flight 1” (Episode 2.02) and ending with this lonely night in the

Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 4.13: “Tomorrowland”)

How to Get the Look

“Tomorrowland” illustrates a comfortable and accessible way to emulate Don Draper’s timeless style without needing to keep your cuff links in place as his casual muted plaid sport shirt and ageless khakis suit him just as well for a night with family, lounging in solitude, or a romantic rendezvous.

• Teal-and-turquoise large-scale check (with yellow windowpane grid) short-sleeved sport shirt with Lido/camp hybrid collar, plain front, and set-in breast pocket
• Beige chino cotton flat front trousers with belt loops, zip fly, straight/on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, and self-cuffed bottoms
• Dark cordovan leather tassel loafers
• Rolex Explorer I with a stainless 36mm case, black dial, and stainless Oyster-styler link bracelet

While short-sleeved men’s shirts, specifically camp shirts, seem to be abundant from major retailers in summer 2020, your best bet for a shirt like this would still be to explore vintage outfitters like Rusty Zipper, where this Draper-style sport shirt is currently offered for $40.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the fourth season.

The Quote

I want to know if I can knock on this door again tomorrow night or if this is just what it is.

Ben Gazzara as Jackie Treehorn in The Big Lebowski (1998)

Vitals

Ben Gazzara as Jackie Treehorn, smooth pornography mogul

Malibu, California, Fall 1991

Film: The Big Lebowski
Release Date: March 6, 1998
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Costume Designer: Mary Zophres

Background

Jeff Bridges’ slacker at the heart of The Big Lebowski may not rank in the pantheon of style icons like Grant, McQueen, Newman, or Poitier oft cited in discussions of the best movie menswear, but Mary Zophres’ costume design in this cult classic from the Coen brothers is an exemplar in the power of using costume to establish character.

In addition to the Dude in his hoodies, shorts, and jelly sandals (as well as that cowichan cardigan!), we have the aggressive survivalist Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) whose gonzo-esque yellow-tinted aviators, fishing vest, and combat boots suggest that he’s the type of guy to keep a loaded .45 in his bowling bag even before he draws it. Bowling-obsessed Donny (Steve Buscemi) has an array of bowling shirts in every color to suit his favorite sport, super-assistant Brandt (Philip Seymour Hoffman) looks the part in his off-the-peg Brooks Brothers, and the millionaire Lebowski (David Huddleston)—ahem, the Big Lebowski—dresses to achieve in his business suits by day and opulent smoking jackets by night. Also worthy of mention is the tight purple jumpsuit worn by Jesus Quintana (John Turturro), which tells and unfortunately shows all we may have guessed about the convicted pederast.

While most of these characters are introduced as we meet them, powerful porn producer Jackie Treehorn stands out as an exception, receiving a degree of in-universe mythology as the enigmatic center who may hold the key to the film’s mysterious MacGuffin. As a result, we may already have a sense of what we expect Jackie to look like by the time Ben Gazzara steps from the shadows to greet the Dude at his Malibu beach party. (Gazzara, who was born 90 years ago this month on August 28, 1930, played the role to charismatic perfection, blending sinister charm with just enough offbeat mischief neatly suited to a Coen brothers joint.)

Jackie Treehorn’s brief but pivotal appearance illustrates how effective The Big Lebowski is at coordinating costume design, production design, soundtrack, and more to evoke mood. The screenplay itself sets the scene as “a party, lit by festive beach lights and standing kerosene heaters… 1960s mainstream jazz, of the Mancini-Brubeck school, has been piped down to speakers on the beach.” The scene continues into Jackie’s impossibly cool home, filmed in the Sheats-Goldstein residence that had been designed in the early ’60s by iconic architect John Lautner and thus the sort of abode where you’d expect to hear a steady stream of exotica from the hi-fi, whether it be Yma Sumac’s operatic soprano or Henry Mancini’s experimentations with the metallophone. (In addition to the three tracks heard in the film, I added Cy Coleman’s thematically appropriate “Playboy’s Theme” to the playlist below.)

Jackie Treehorn greets the Dude—and us—by stepping away from his hedonistic beach gathering; it’s telling that what Jackie calls a “garden party” is a bonfire-lit bonanza complete with Peruvian exotica and topless women being blanket-tossed into the air. He leads the Dude into his “completely unspoiled” pad, pontificating on the effect of video on the falling standards of pornography with a monologue that mirrors the philosophy of the similarly named adult entertainment magnate Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) in the previous year’s Boogie Nights.

Before the Dude can glean anything useful from the conversation, Jackie is summoned to the phone, where he jots down a brief note and excuses himself. Having grown genre-savvy since taking on the case of the kidnapped porn star, the Dude swiftly leaps up and rubs a pencil over the indentation on Jackie’s notepad, though even he is nonplussed by what the shading reveals…

While the Dude may have been genre-savvy enough to follow the investigative examples of Bulldog Drummond or Cary Grant in North by Northwest, his thirst outweighs caution as he willingly accepts a second White Russian from the acclaimed producer of Logjammin’ once he re-enters the room… only for the Dude to fall prey to that frequent pulp predicament of succumbing to a Mickey Finn slipped into his drink.

Indeed, Jackie does “mix a hell of a caucasian.”

What’d He Wear?

The screenplay introduces Jackie Treehorn as follows:

A man walks towards the camera through the pools of beach light. He is handsome, fiftyish, wearing cotton twill pants and a Turnbull & Asher[sic] shirt with a foulard knotted at the neck. Behind him, the woman rises and falls, appears and disappears.

Evidently, the Coens had envisioned Jackie as more of a dashing rake, clad in somewhat affected sportswear in contrast to the hedonistic debauchery around him. By the time Mary Zophres had worked her magic, Jackie has opted for something bolder, arguably more cartoonishly anachronistic and sleazy as it echoes a familiar look that Al Pacino wore in Scarface (1983) more than a decade earlier, more suggestive of Jackie’s shady dealings than the smooth bachelor persona suggested by the screenplay.

Of course, there’s nothing inherently sleazy or shady about a white suit, especially when worn in the appropriate setting of a southern California beach party. Jackie’s creamy off-white suit appears to be constructed from a slightly napped polyester blend, cut consistent with ’90s fashions as evident by the somewhat oversized jacket with its wide, padded shoulders with roped sleeveheads falling off the shoulder. The single-breasted jacket’s broad notch lapels roll to a low two-button stance. The ventless jacket is also styled with three-button cuffs, a welted breast pocket, and a straight jetted pocket on each hip.

Jackie’s bright scarlet red shirt is styled in the tradition of mid-century sportswear, a long-sleeved camp shirt worn untucked for a more free-flowing, casual appearance and a breach of sartorial tradition that signifies his additional comfort living beyond the boundaries of decorum. The four red plastic sew-through buttons fasten through horizontal buttonholes up the plain front.

The shirt has a traditional camp collar, also known as a Cuban or revere collar, which has been making a retro-inspired comeback on casual shirts in 2020 even beyond the traditional leisurewear domains of brands like Cubavera or Tommy Bahama as mainstream retailers like Abercrombie & Fitch, ASOS, and Banana Republic have proudly touted their camp-collared offerings this summer. (Though we’re still unlikely to see a Turnbull & Asser camp shirt anytime soon, even among their Weekend Collection, apropos the screenplay.) Unlike some camp collars, Jackie’s shirt does not have a small loop on the left side that would connect with a button under the right collar leaf.

Jackie’s shirt also has two patch pockets on the chest, each covered with a rounded-corner flap, and the squared barrel cuffs each close through a single button. The shirt also appears to be made from synthetic fabric, likely rayon.

The untucked shirt covers much of the top of Jackie’s matching suit trousers, though they do appear to be pleated with side pockets. The plain-hemmed trouser bottoms break over his shoes and socks, both tonally coordinated to match his suit. If his suit is a pale creamy shade off of white, Jackie’s patent leather loafers are a much richer cream—almost beige—with a cap toe and a strap across each vamp. His ivory socks continue the leg line between trousers and shoes with little contrast, though said hosiery are only seen when Jackie is seated due to the break of his trousers.

As Jackie takes an important call, note the Kahlúa and Smirnoff front and center on his home bar… as well as his coordinated shoes and socks to match his suit.

Jackie lets his clothes provide his flash, limiting his visible jewelry and accessories to a single gold ring on the third finger of his right hand. This ring appears to have a squared, diamond-encrusted face with a raised black stone in the center.

Go Big or Go Home

The Big Lebowski implies that Jackie Treehorn’s postmodern crib overlooks a beach in Malibu, though the Incan-inspired party where we meet Jackie was actually filmed at Point Dume off Westward Beach Road in Malibu, just under an hour due west of the Sheats-Goldstein residence that stands in for Jackie’s house. A promontory forming the northern end of Santa Monica Bay, Point Dume was named by Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver in 1793 to honor Padre Francisco Dumetz of Mission San Buenaventura and became a popular spot for whaling, rock climbing, and clothing-optional recreation consistent with how Jackie Treehorn’s guests tend to party.

Point Dume remains a popular filming location in movies and TV, providing the setting for pivotal scenes in Planet of the Apes (1968) as well as the backdrop of Tony Stark’s mansion in the Iron Man MCU films, consistent with the upper-class residential development in the area of the last few decades.

According to IMDB, the Coen brothers told production designer Rick Heinrichs that they had an Incan-inspired vision for Jackie Treehorn’s bacchanal filmed at Point Dume, a “very Hollywood-looking party in which young, oiled-down, fairly aggressive men walk around with appetizers and drinks. So there’s a very sacrificial quality to it.”

An equally popular filming location is the Sheats-Goldstein house that stands in for Jackie Treehorn’s “completely unspoiled” pad. Located at 10104 Angelo View Drive in Beverly Crest overlooking the San Fernando Valley, the 4,500-square-foot home was completely designed and built by architect John Lautner in the early 1960s, from the foundation to the furniture. Originally commissioned for the Sheats family, the residence was eventually purchased by its current owner, eccentric businessman James Goldstein, who continued to work with Lautner over the next two decades until the architect’s death. In 2016, Goldstein entrusted the home—then conservatively valued at $40 million per Observer—to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

The home is an example of Organic Architecture (a natural environment-driven philosophy exemplified by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater), constructed using poured-in-place concrete, steel, and wood with an open plan that harmonizes with the temperate southern California climate. Though the home relies on cross-ventilation rather than air conditioning for cooling, the floors are radiant heated with copper pipes that also serve to heat the pool.

The Big Lebowski‘s scenes at Sheats-Goldstein are primarily set in the triangular living room, which is open to the outside and skylit by “moving lights on the ground, giving the impression that one is walking in a primeval forest, made possible by 750 drinking glasses set as skylights into the concrete of the roof,” according to Arch Journey.

Jackie leads the Dude through his living room, filmed on location at the modish Sheats-Goldstein residence in Beverly Hills.

You can read more about the Sheats-Goldstein residence here:

• “The Dude Abides in Los Angeles” by Gustavo Turner (Discover Los Angeles)
• “The Goldstein Residence” (James Goldstein)
• “Iconic House Featured in ‘The Big Lebowski’ Gifted to LACMA” by Parker Richards (Observer)
• “Jackie Treehorn’s House and its Eccentric Owner” by Sam Bloch (LA Weekly)
• “LACMA Throws a Party to Celebrate Their Architectural Acquisition” by Chris Nichols (Los Angeles Magazine)
• “Want to Go to Jackie Treehorn’s House from The Big Lebowski?” by Chris Nichols (Los Angeles Magazine)
• “Sheats-Goldstein Residence” (Arch Journey)
• “Sheats-Goldstein Residence” (Wikipedia)
• “Sheats House” (wikiarquitectura)

Ben Gazzara as Jackie Treehorn in The Big Lebowski (1998)

How to Get the Look

The ultimate hedonist, Jackie Treehorn transcends time and traditional taste with his roomy off-white suit and untucked red camp shirt, looking just as comfortable as the Dude in his sweats while managing to be arguably dressier.

• Off-white napped polyester-blend suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button suit jacket with wide notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Pleated trousers with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Scarlet red long-sleeved camp shirt with two flapped chest pockets, plain front, and squared cuffs
• Cream patent leather cap-toe loafers with vamp straps
• Ivory socks
• Gold ring with squared diamond face

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, one of my all-time favorites.

The Quote

People forget that the brain is the biggest erogenous zone.

David Niven as Raymond in Bonjour Tristesse (1958)

Vitals

David Niven as Raymond, bon vivant widowed father

French Riviera, Summer 1957

Film: Bonjour Tristesse
Release Date: January 15, 1958
Director: Otto Preminger
Costume Coordinator: Hope Bryce

Background

Secluded for the summer at their villa in the Côte d’Azur, libertine Raymond and his equally free-spirited daughter Cécile (Jean Seberg) enjoy a comfortable and carefree season living la belle vie by the sea. In fact, Raymond and Cécile would have fared quite well had they needed to spend their summer in quarantine, as few outsiders enter their lives aside from whichever mistress (or two) Raymond is entertaining at the moment. These young women are typically no more than a few years older than Cécile, who grows particularly attached to his latest paramour, Elsa (Mylène Demongeot), to the extent that she joins Raymond in waking the vivacious blonde from her nude slumber and helps her apply sunscreen during one of their typical days spent on the beach.

While all may be cordial and close, there’s no getting between the fiercely intimate bond between Cécile and her father, of which Elsa comments: “You do not even need words… the perfect marriage!”

As one may imagine from this lifestyle, disruptions would be unwelcome, particularly when they arrive in the disciplined form of Anne Larsen (Deborah Kerr), a refined friend of Cécile’s late mother who can’t help but to be drawn despite herself to the playboy widow Raymond.

What’d He Wear?

On the Monday that Anne Larsen was set to arrive, Raymond—having ignored the telegram he received that morning, in typical fashion—spent far too long waiting for her at the station with Elsa, feeling “as limp as a piece of spaghetti” by the time he returns home after baking under the hot sun.

At least he’s dressed for such conditions in a coral-colored lightweight linen camp shirt, rakishly worn with the wide loop collar turned up in the back and with the sleeves unbuttoned at the cuffs and rolled up to the elbows. The shirt has six flat white buttons fastened through horizontal buttonholes up the plain front (with an additional button hidden under the right collar leaf that could connect with the loop on the left side), though Raymond only wears two buttons done toward the bottom of the shirt. The back is pleated on the sides, and the front is detailed with an open patch pocket on each side of the chest.

Deborah Kerr and David Niven on the set of Bonjour Tristesse.

Raymond typically wears shorts or swim trunks for casual days at home, though his trip into town to pick up Anne mandated slightly more decorous trousers so he opts for classic summer trousers in beige linen.

These reverse-pleated trousers are styled with a fashionably long rise to Niven’s natural waist where they are held up by a nearly matching beige leather belt, seen only when the wind blows around the untucked hem of Raymond’s shirt.

The trouser bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs), breaking high enough over the blue rope-soled espadrilles that appear to be Raymond’s go-to daytime footwear. These classic summer shoes date back to at least the 14th century, when they originated among peasants in France and Spain and even became a symbol of revolution by the late 1800s. Over the last century, espadrilles have emerged as a resort favorite, a classy European alternative to the venerable American boat shoes.

In the spirit of Niven’s comfortable and traditional rope-soled espadrilles in Bonjour Tristesse, you can find authentic Spanish-made espadrilles with blue canvas uppers and true jute soles from companies like Soludos and Viscata, though other retailers like ALDO, Geox, H&M, and TOMS also offer their own variations on this classic warm-weather footwear.

Bonjour Tristesse may be one of the earliest movies to feature a character wearing aviator-style sunglasses in a non-military context as Raymond returns home wearing a pair of classic gold-framed aviator sunglasses with a reinforced brow bar across the top, similar to the mil-spec AN6531 sunglasses that the U.S. military provided for Army and Navy aviators during World War II. This “anti-glare” eyewear had been developed by Bausch & Lomb, who patented their metal-framed shades as the “Ray-Ban Aviator” in 1939, creating what would become an iconic brand over the decades to follow.

Raymond wears a subtle and elegant gold dress watch on a dark brown leather strap which, based on Niven wearing Omega on- and off-screen through much of his life, led me to consider that the Bonjour Tristesse wristwatch may be a ’50s-era Seamaster like this.

How to Get the Look

David Niven as Raymond in Bonjour Tristesse (1958)

Whether or not you’re on board with the rakish way Niv wears his holiday linen (i.e. turning up the collar of his half-buttoned, untucked shirt), the pieces themselves are timeless summer classics from his light, festive-hued camp shirt to comfortable off-white trousers and espadrilles.

• Coral linen long-sleeved shirt with camp/loop collar, plain front (with six white buttons), double chest pockets, and button cuffs
• Beige linen reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Beige leather belt with single-prong buckle
• Blue canvas rope-soled slip-on espadrilles
• Gold-framed aviator sunglasses
• Gold dress watch on dark brown leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and Françoise Sagan’s novel.

With its small cast in a mostly isolated setting, Bonjour Tristesse is an ideal summer movie for an unprecedented season under lockdown where our libertines soon discover that the only threat to their peaceful—if somewhat problematic—co-existence is an outsider!

Elvis Presley in Fun in Acapulco (1963)

Vitals

Elvis Presley as Mike Windgren, expat singer, part-time lifeguard, and former circus performer

Acapulco, Summer 1963

Film: Fun in Acapulco
Release Date: November 22, 1961
Director: Norman Taurog
Costume Designer: Edith Head
Tailor: Sy Devore

Background

On the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death on August 16, 1977, I wanted to celebrate the entertainer’s legacy with a look at one of the singer’s under-celebrated summer films.

I imagine the debate about what to call the movie lasted no more than ten seconds (“What’s Elvis doing in this one?” “Having fun in Acapulco.” “There it is.”) Despite its banal title, Fun in Acapulco indeed lives up to its name as a fast and harmless romp in the sun with the King and some of the era’s most beautiful actresses including Elsa Cárdenas and Ursula Andress, freshly promoted to global icon after her bikini-clad introduction as the shell-collecting, knife-wielding Honey Ryder in the first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962).

Though the entire movie was set in Acapulco, Presley himself never traveled outside the United States for production as riots during his previous openings as well as a racist rumor spread by gossip columnist Federico de León established him as persona non grata in Mexico. Thus, while location filming commenced in Acapulco in January 1963, a double wearing the actor’s costumes stood in as Presley for these scenes, including an establishing shot at La Perla, a famous cliffside eatery known for its scenic views and diving entertainment.

La Perla features as a significant location in Fun in Acapulco, first seen as Presley’s character Mike Windgren escorts Margarita “Maggie” Dauphin (Andress) there for a date, bringing along his young pal Raoul (Larry Domasin). The trio is initially seated at a premium table, but the ghosts of Mike’s circus-performing past haunt him as he gets nervous about being seated so close to the cliffs. Raoul adds to his anxiety by volunteering the aspiring singer to sing for La Perla’s guests so, to honor his date, Mike serenades his fellow diners with “Marguerita”.

What’d He Wear?

By 1960, Elvis had followed the Rat Pack’s lead and firmly established himself as a customer of Sy Devore who was soon tailoring the King in addition to Frank, Dean, Sammy, and their contemporaries. A tailor by trade, Devore wisely expanded his capabilities to match the continuing trend toward informality and was crafting the King’s unique shirts and pullovers alongside the Rat Pack’s signature sharkskin suits and skinny ties.

For an evening at La Perla, Mike dresses in a short-sleeved sport shirt patterned in balanced block stripes of black, gold, brown, and taupe, all with a mottled effect. The flattering shirt has a short length with a hem cut straight across the bottom and fastens with five flat mother-of-pearl two-hole buttons up the plain front to mid-chest, where it gently cuts away to the collar without a button at the top like a subdued variation of the leisure-oriented Lido collar. Each of the short sleeves is notched on the outside, and there is a matching patch pocket over the left breast. Like many of Elvis’ other shirts in Fun in Acapulco, this one was likely made by Sy Devore.

Elvis shows the crowd at La Perla how to stylishly wear a bold-striped shirt, while the patron to the King’s left jealously seethes in his Fruit Stripe gum-inspired button-down.

There has been some lingering lore from the production of Fun in Acapulco that Elvis resented having to wear this particular shirt, feeling uncomfortable performing in something he wouldn’t normally wear (as cited in places like Always Elvis), but he begrudgingly had to wear it as his double had already worn it for the portion of the scene filmed on location at La Perla. As I haven’t seen any primary source material to support these claims, I wonder if Elvis’ actual dispute was regarding how the shirt was worn; perhaps the singer protested having to wear his shirt untucked to look consistent with how the double—who likely didn’t know any better—had worn it.

After all, it’s hard to believe that Presley or the draconian Colonel Tom Parker would not have vetoed a shirt that he didn’t like before it made it far into the production, even if it had been designed by the prolific Edith Head. Plus, Elvis had more eagerly worn an almost identically striped shirt for an earlier scene, albeit a long-sleeved shirt (with the sleeves rolled past his elbows) patterned with a slightly thinner stripe that replaced the black with the green. The only difference is truly that Elvis wore that first green-striped shirt tucked in through the duration of the scene and never had any scenes featuring a double wearing it to mess that up. (A possible rationale is that “Elvis the Pelvis”, who had risen to fame partly from gyrating through his performances, preferred to wear shirts either tucked in or cut even higher on his waist to avoid covering his notorious hips as he performed.)

Elvis wears a different block-striped colorway earlier in Fun in Acapulco. Other than the long sleeves rolled up past the elbow and the slightly thinner striping with green substituting black, there’s little difference between this and the “Marguerita” shirt.

The controversially untucked shirt covers the waist section of his cream-colored cotton trousers, fitted around the waist with the self-supporting “DAKS tops” system of button-tab side-adjusters introduced by Simpsons of Piccadilly in the 1930s. Likely also tailored by Sy Devore, these flat front trousers have gently slanted side pockets and button-through back pockets, finished with plain-hemmed bottoms with a high break.

As in Blue Hawaii, Elvis’ character makes the somewhat unseasonal decision to wear plain black shoes and socks with his summery outfits, but at least there is some thematic coordination between his black leather cap-toe derbies and the prominent black stripes of his shirt. (His brown leather loafers and taupe socks as worn with the green-striped shirt may have been a more harmonious choice here as well.)

Without his shirt tucked into his trousers, Mike runs the risk of the “my shirt tails flyin’ all over the place” as he later sings about in “Bossa Nova Baby”.

A noted watch enthusiast, Elvis likely wore one of his own timepieces in Fun in Acapulco, though it isn’t as distinctively identifiable as his Hamilton Ventura from Blue Hawaii. This chronograph has a traditional round stainless bracelet with a black steel dial and a steel expanding bracelet, of which he demonstrates the elasticity in a later scene.

What to Imbibe

“Margarita, por favor,” Maggie orders at La Perla, to which Mike somewhat densely asks: “He’s asking your name?” “No, silly, margarita is a drink made with tequila,” she responds. “Well, any drink named after you is good enough for me… two margaritas, please!”

It may seem inconceivable to modern audiences that Mike would be unfamiliar with the ubiquitous Margarita… and possibly even more absurd to see how they’re represented on screen as what looks like a shot or two of clear tequila, straight up in a coupe glass with salted rim and straw.

Mike and Maggie enjoy their so-called “margaritas”. That must have been one pure lime to yield such clear juice!

However, the margarita took a little more time to catch on during the 20th century unlike earlier-established classics like the Bloody Mary, Manhattan, and Martini. As with most cocktails, there are competing stories to claim its origins, though it seems evident that this refreshing combination of tequila, triple sec, and lime juice found its footing in Mexico sometime in the 1930s, working its way up opposite sides of the U.S. during the following decade with proven anecdotes in San Diego in 1947 and Galveston, Texas, in 1948.

Margarita: More than a girl’s name announces this Jose Cuervo ad from 1963, the same year that Elvis and Ursula Andress sipped theirs in Fun in Acapulco. Note the recipe calling for two different tequilas, triple sec, and lemon juice.

(According to a legend purported by Mark Bailey in Of All the Gin Joints: Stumbling Through Hollywood History, it was also around this time that tequila aficionado John Wayne was one of the first famous figures to try a margarita while partying at his Acapulco vacation house with Dallas socialites Bill and Margaret “Margarita” Sames.)

It would still take a half-decade before an official Margarita recipe would make its way into print, with the December 1953 issue of Esquire informing readers of their “lovely to look at, exciting, and provocative” drink of the month made from an ounce of tequila, a dash of triple sec, and the juice of half a lemon or lime.

This wasn’t the first mention of the drink in print as Jose Cuervo had been running ad campaigns as early as 1945 that declared “Margarita: More than a girl’s name.” These ads were still running two decades later when screenwriter Allan Weiss riffed on the same concept in Fun in Acapulco with his flirtatious dialogue between Mike and Maggie.

Mike: Margarita… it sounds like it was named after you! Mysterious, intriguing…
Maggie: It’s also sneaky, salty, and dangerous!

The margarita continued to be gradually embraced by the public, finally catching a foothold by the end of the 1960s and into the ’70s as traditional cocktail culture had given way to sweeter and more widely palatable concoctions like the Cosmopolitan, Kamikaze, Long Island Iced Tea, and Margarita.

How to Get the Look

Elvis Presley in Fun in Acapulco (1963)

While Elvis Presley may have taken issue with something about this shirt in real life, I think Mike Windgren’s “Marguerita” shirt in Fun in Acapulco is a tasteful and relatively timeless summer shirt, fashionably worn with cream-colored slacks. Both upbeat and offbeat, the shirt showcases enough unique pizazz that it would certainly warrant a place in the King’s wardrobe without being too over-the-top.

• Black, gold, brown, and taupe block-striped short-sleeved summer shirt with subtle Lido collar, plain front, and breast pocket
• Cream cotton flat front trousers with “DAKS tops” button-tab side adjusters, slanted side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather cap-toe derby shoes
• Black socks
• Stainless steel chronograph watch with black dial on steel expanding bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

Robert Redford as Hubbell Gardiner in The Way We Were (1973)

Vitals

Robert Redford as Hubbell Gardiner, privileged college student

Upstate New York, Spring 1937

Film: The Way We Were
Release Date: October 19, 1973
Director: Sydney Pollack
Costume Design: Dorothy Jeakins & Moss Mabry

Background

Happy birthday, Robert Redford! As the actor celebrates his 84th birthday today, and college students prepare to go back to school under surreal conditions, it feels right to take another look at Redford’s style as Hubbell Gardiner, a popular and privileged scholar athlete at “Wentworth College” (filmed at Union College in Schenectady, New York.)

Redford himself was born August 18, 1936, around the time that Hubbell would have been preparing to return to college for his senior year. Spain had been at war for just over a month while the rest of the world was gearing up for conflict, igniting the passions of radical students like Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand), who splits her time between anti-war activism, creative writing coursework, and slinging Cokes and cheeseburgers at a campus diner. Meanwhile, Hubbell’s WASPy friends can’t be bothered by such trivia as world affairs as they glide between sports and dances with plenty of irreverent jokes along the way.

The ostensible ringleader of his pals, whom screenwriter Arthur Laurents had based on a Cornell undergrad known as “Tony Blue Eyes”, Hubbell hints that there may be more beneath the surface of his easy smile and expensive clothes as he allows his interest to drift from his vapid friends toward the politically motivated Katie. She, in turn, seems to gaze back at Hubbell from the other side of the cafe counter with an interest that blends both loathing and lust, only exacerbated by his carefree teasing while placing his “decadent and disgusting” group’s order…

Hubbell: Two cheeseburgers and four Cokes.
Katie: Onion?
Hubbell: Yeah. In the Cokes.

What’d He Wear?

Appropriate for his social standing, Hubbell Gardiner is one of the most fashionable men on the Wentworth College campus, layering for chillier evenings in a colorful sweater knitted in the Fair Isle tradition, which had been popularized after the trendsetting Prince of Wales (later Edward, Duke of Windsor) began publicly wearing Fair Isle jumpers in the early 1920s.

According to Alan Flusser in Dressing the Man, the Prince’s choice was a tactical one; aware of his reputation as an arbiter of style and “hearing that the Hebrian farmers were in economic trouble, the Duke of Windsor donned one as the captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club in Saint Andrews in 1922, catapulting the sweater and the island’s economy into fast-forward.” (Edward himself doesn’t go unmentioned in The Way We Were either as Katie would take the time twice in the same conversation to inform Hubbell of his nuptials to Mrs. Simpson during a later scene.)

Hubbell’s long-sleeved V-neck wool sweater, with its colorful bands knitted in red, yellow, and blue against a stone gray ground, appears to be a genuine example of a sweater knitted in the true Fair Isle technique from the Shetland Islands as opposed to how the term has been colloquially expanded as a marketing shortcut in recent years.

J.J. (Bradford Dillman), Pony (Sally Kirkland), and Carol Ann (Lois Chiles) round out Hubbell’s core group of friends. Both women would later co-star with Redford in their subsequent films; Kirkland would appear as his date Crystal in The Sting (1973) and Chiles would play Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby (1974).

Underneath, Hubbell wears a pale ice-blue cotton sports shirt with a very wide camp collar laid flat over the top of his sweater. Like many classic camp shirts, this has a small loop on the left side of the collar to fasten the neck if needed. This long-sleeved shirt with button cuffs appears to be the same one that he wears under his other collegiate sweater vests.

The College Grad Meets the Leningrad.

Hubbell wears a tan “newsboy” flat cap with an eight-panel top that meets at a covered-cloth button in the center of the crown.

Hubbell’s golden tan corduroy trousers are rooted in the workwear of the era, co-opting the hard-wearing cloth that had been a staple for European sportsmen and laborers for decades. His flat front trousers have unique slanted pockets with button-down flaps, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms. Despite belt loops around the waist, he seems to forego a belt.

We don’t see Hubbell’s shoes with this sweater in the restaurant, but we can assume he is either wearing the same white sneakers (and white socks) from his earlier football game or the white bucks that were emerging as a campus staple throughout the 1930s, distinctive for their napped nubuck leather uppers and brick red outsoles.

Hubbell takes a tumble in his corduroy trousers during a casual game of football.

As with most of Robert Redford’s movies made after 1968, he wears the silver etched ring he received as a gift from a Hopi tribe on the third finger of his right hand.

Clad in what appears to be the same shirt but a different sweater, Hubbell nervously gnaws on his pencil as his story, “The All-American Smile”, is praised and read aloud by his writing professor.

While it makes sense that this colorful Fair Isle sweater would have been made or acquired for Redford’s character in The Way We Were, it makes a curious cameo appearance two years later in Three Days of the Condor (1975) where Redford’s CIA researcher Joe Turner is undoubtedly wearing the same sweater in his photo ID card!

Turner wears it in a similar fashion as Hubbell Gardiner, sporting it with an ice-toned button-up shirt with the wide collar points outside the sweater’s collar band, though the shirt in his ID photo appears to be a more contemporary ’70s dress shirt than the elegantly shaped loop-collar shirt from Hubbell’s collegiate days.

In Three Days of the Condor, Joe Turner’s ID for the CIA cover organization “Tentrex Industries” features Redford wearing his sweater from The Way We Were, though his hair has grown out to Condor length.

Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were (1973)

How to Get the Look

A veritable prince of his campus, Hubbell Gardiner follows the fashion set fifteen years earlier by the erstwhile Prince of Wales by layering a classic and colorful Fair Isle sweater, though adding his own rakish panache by sporting it over an open-neck shirt and with sporty corduroy trousers.

• Ice-blue cotton long-sleeve sport shirt with wide camp/loop collar, plain front, and button cuffs
• Red, yellow, and blue-on-stone gray wool Fair Isle-knit long-sleeve V-neck sweater
• Golden tan corduroy flat front trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets (with button-down flaps), jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White nubuck leather “buck” shoes with brick red outsoles
• White socks
• Tan newsboy cap
• Silver tribal ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

Toni Servillo as Jep Gambardella in The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) (2013)

Vitals

Toni Servillo as Jep Gambardella, cultured art critic and one-time novelist

Rome, Summer 2012

Film: The Great Beauty
(Italian title: La grande bellezza)
Release Date: May 21, 2013
Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Costume Designer: Daniela Ciancio
Tailor: Cesare Attolini

Background

I first learned of The Great Beauty when it added an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film to its many deserved accolades during the 86th Academy Awards. Impressed by its vibrant clothing and cinematography, and encouraged by friends and followers who were hoping to learn more about the film’s signature style, I recently had the privilege to watch Paolo Sorrentino’s masterpiece, winner of nine David di Donatello Awards.

It wouldn’t be inaccurate to consider The Great Beauty a spiritual successor the Fellini’s surrealist homages to Rome and creatively blocked auteurs from a half-century earlier—and one can easily envision the elevator pitch as “La Dolce Vita or 8½ for the post-Berlusconi era”—though that would overgeneralize the shimmering journey that Paolo Sorrentino presents.

The beautiful film is anchored by the central performance of Toni Servillo as the dapper but disillusioned Jep Gambardella, a popular columnist-cum-socialite whose 65th birthday awakens him to the superficiality of his achieved ambition as “king of the high life”. Jep’s elegant life, headquartered from an opulent apartment on Piazza del Colosseo with a terrace overlooking the Colosseum, is filled with friends who rule the Roman social scene but range in authenticity from the sincere but weak-willed playwright Romano (Carlo Verdone) and wealthy Viola (Pamela Villoresi) to the haughty and ultimately phony radical writer Stefania (Galatea Renzi).

Jep’s coterie begins to dissolve, with Stefania insulted by Jep calling out her hypocrisy and Romano fed up with the city itself, our depressed Italian Walter Winchell begins to make more genuine connections with people outside the material world of his socialite friends. The most significant relationship that blossoms is with Ramona (Sabrina Ferilli), a 42-year-old stripper who works in her father’s club who harbors dark secrets but opens her heart to Jep.

One brief but memorable scene finds Jep seated in a surreally large and empty boutique, helping Ramona find the perfect dress to wear for the upcoming funeral of Viola’s tormented son, who died by suicide. Many would likely not consider a funeral to be a social opportunity, but—as Jep advises Ramona in a masterful monologue—this is “a high-society event par excellence” with rules for how mourners should conduct themselves and dress.

What’d He Wear?

“The protagonist in The Great Beauty may be searching for substance, but boy, does he have style,” wrote Michael J. Agovino in December 2013 for his excellent profile of Jep Gambardella’s clothing that appeared in Esquire, featuring commentary and details from his digital interview with costume designer Daniela Ciancio, who was awarded her second David di Donatello for Best Costumes in recognition of her work on The Great Beauty.

One of the signature images from The Great Beauty is Jep, seated with casual dignity with a yellow sports coat, rectangular-framed glasses, and spectator shoes to break up the monochromatic all-white outfit. To be fully transparent, the first time I saw the image I assumed this was some Peter Sellers character I was yet unaware of, so rooted was Jep’s attire in that hip early ’60s period when Mastroianni’s characters were engaged in their own passeggiata.

Toni Servillo is dressed by Cesare Attolini for The Great Beauty in one of the tailor’s signature Neapolitan jackets.

The yellow jacket is a standout piece from Jep’s colorful wardrobe, designed in Ciancio’s words ” to reveal his soul—full and empty at the same time…for this purpose, I mixed Armani with the colored custom-made suit of the traditional Neapolitan brand Cesare Attolini.” As confirmed on the tailor’s website by a photo of Toni Servillo being fitted, this yellow sports coat was one of those colorful Attolini pieces.

The fictional Jep shares Sorrentino’s and Servillo’s Neapolitan origins, so it neatly fits that Signor Gambardella would have his suits and sport jackets tailored by the prolific Attolini, whose father Vincenzo had revolutionized Neapolitan tailoring in the 1930s.

Neapolitan style, particularly tailored jackets, are notable for unique details like the boat-shaped “barchetta” breast pocket and those distinctive soft shoulders, devoid of padding and constructed with a larger sleeve that naturally shirs against the smaller armhole on the body of the jacket; depending on intentional variances in its construction, this pleated effect can take the final form of the smooth “spalla camicia” or the bumped-shoulder “con rollino“.

Jep’s darted-front jacket is tailored from a yellow twill fabric, single-breasted with the traditional Neapolitan 3/2-roll front with the double back-stitched notch lapels rolling over the top of the three recessed creamy white sew-through buttons for a two-button appearance. In addition to the celebrated “barchetta” pocket over the left breast, the wide “tasca a pignata” patch pockets on the hips are also distinctive to Neapolitan tailoring, designed with rounded bottoms that Sonya Glyn Nicholson likened to the shape of a brandy snifter in her fantastic exploration for Parisian Gentleman. Jep dresses the widely welted breast pocket with a crimson red silk twill pocket square, puffed rather than folded in his usual rakish manner, and patterned in a pale yellow floral print that coordinates with his jacket while adding a welcome splash of contrasting color agains the bright outfit.

The long double vents are a break from traditional Italian tailoring, which was ventless during the heyday of the 1950s and ’60s, though double vents had emerged as a prevailing style among Italian tailors over the most recent decades. The sleeves are finished with four “kissing” buttons at each cuff, likely functional and fastened through contrasting brown-threaded buttonholes.

Jep’s habit of wearing a white or off-white shirt and trousers provides a subdued, neutral foundation to let his boldly colored jackets stand out. Under his yellow jacket, he wears a creamy off-white shirt with a structured semi-spread collar worn inside his jacket lapels. The shirt has a plain front and button cuffs.

Unless he’s dressed in a full suit, Jep typically balances his colorful jackets with gently napped cotton trousers in a soft eggshell white, his stylish continental answer to the way many Americans—among others—tend to press their khakis into service. Due to his relaxed but dignified posture, Jep’s waist line goes unseen but we can assume he wears the same brown leather belt with this outfit, tonally coordinating with his immaculate brown-and-beige spectator oxfords.

Ciancio confirmed to Esquire that Jep exclusively wore shoes from Hogan and Tod’s (both Tod’s Group brands), though I’m not sure which of these Italian shoemakers made this pair. The wingtip toes and heel counters are all a rich brown leather while the vamps are a warm beige. The top pieces around the shoe openings and the facing through which the black laces are threaded through five sets of eyelets are also brown leather, and the outsoles are a hard dark brown leather. Jep wears ivory socks that effectively continue the leg line into his shoes with more elegance than plain white hosiery.

Like his friend Romano, Jep frequently wears Ray-Ban eyewear, donning a set of rectangular glasses with dark tortoise acetate frames. Jep’s stainless steel watch has been tentatively identified as a Rolex, possibly an Air-King, by a reader who emailed Jake’s Rolex World last year. Fastened to his left wrist via steel Oyster-style link bracelet, Jep’s Rolex has a silver dial with non-numeric hour markers similar to a ref. 14010 Air-King.

How to Get the Look

Toni Servillo as Jep Gambardella in The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) (2013)

We know Jep Gambardella is a man who dresses with intention, but his embrace of his hometown Neapolitan tailoring keeps him looking natty yet nonchalant even in attention-getting pieces like a bright yellow sports coat, colorful silk pocket square, and spectator oxfords; Jep truly embodies the oft-overused (and misused!) term sprezzatura, the sartorial philosophy of putting excessive effort into looking like you dressed without effort.

• Yellow twill Neapolitan-tailored single-breasted 3/2-roll sport jacket with double back-stitched notch lapels, wide-welted “barchetta” breast pocket, rounded patch hip pockets, 4-button “kissing” cuffs, and long double vents
• Off-white cotton shirt with semi-spread collar, plain front, and button cuffs
• Eggshell white chino cloth flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark brown leather belt
• Brown-and-beige leather 5-eyelet wingtip spectator oxfords
• Tortoise acetate rectangular-framed Ray-Ban eyeglasses
• Rolex Air-King with stainless steel 34mm case, silver dial with non-numeric markers, and steel Oyster-style link bracelet
• Crimson red floral-printed silk twill pocket square

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

You can also read more about the style of The Great Beauty in Michael J. Agovino’s frequently cited Esquire article here and more about Neapolitan tailoring in Sonya Glyn Nicholson’s piece for Parisian Gentleman here. I also recommend this thoughtful tribute to the film’s style from The Tweed Pig.

The Quote

Many think that a funeral is a fortuitous event without any rules. That’s not true. A funeral is a high-society event par excellence. You must never forget that at a funeral, you are appearing on stage … You must patiently wait for the relatives to disperse. Once you are sure all the guests are seated, only at that point, may you offer your condolences to the family. In this way, everyone will see you. You take the mourner’s hands and rest yours on their arms. You whisper something to them, a comforting phrase, said with authority. For example, “In the days to come, when you feel the void, I want you to know that you can always count on me.” The public will ask, “What’s Jep Gambardella saying?” … You’re allowed to retire to a corner by yourself as if contemplating your sorrow. However, another matter must be approached with shrewdness. The chosen place needs to be isolated but clearly visible to the public. Besides, a performance is good when it is devoid of any superfluity. So, the fundamental rule: one must never cry at a funeral; you must never steal the show from the family’s sorrow. That is forbidden… because it is immoral.

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos (Episode 1.05: “College”)

Vitals

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, New Jersey mob boss

New England, Fall 1999

Series: The Sopranos
Episodes:
– “College” (Episode 1.05, dir. Allen Coulter, aired 2/7/1999)
– “Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11, dir. Henry J. Bronchtein, aired 3/21/1999)
Creator: David Chase
Costume Designer: Juliet Polcsa

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

No man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.

So preaches Hawthorne, seemingly speaking directly to Tony Soprano, in the denouement of the classic episode “College” (Episode 1.05) from the first season. Positioned as Bowdoin College’s most famous alum as Tony brings his daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) to visit the campus, Nathaniel Hawthorne also acts as a moral anchor to our protagonist after an unprecedented act of violence.

The fall 2020 semester will be a surreal experience for many returning to school across the United States as colleges adapt to remote learning or limited exposure in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, making the expected “back-to-school” keggers and social functions a relic of a not-so-distant past.

More than twenty years ago, audiences joined Meadow for her own surreal college experiences with a university tour with her father reveals more about him to her—and to the audience—than one would expect of the canned campus orientation. On August 22, the date established in-universe as Tony Soprano’s birthday (and creator David Chase’s actual birthday), let’s take a closer look at these pivotal scenes from the series’ first season.

“Good morning, rat.”

“College” remains not only one of The Sopranos‘ finest episodes but also arguably one of the greatest hours ever presented on TV. It’s a perfect execution of the medium at its best, a self-contained story that can be enjoyed on its own while also neatly fitting within the context and arcs of the continuing series.

The episode set a new standard for what audiences could expect not just of The Sopranos but of television and narrative fiction for the new millennium. Walter White, Vic Mackey, and other TV anti-heroes influenced by Tony Soprano over the last 20 years have desensitized viewers to protagonists committing murder, to the point where I was actually surprised when Mad Men‘s run completed without any intentional blood on our hero’s conscience (Private Dick Whitman’s accidental ignition of Lieutenant Don Draper notwithstanding.)

In their masterful volume The Soprano Sessions, Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall write about what they describe as the “seismic” effect of Tony committing on-screen murder in this episode: “Four episodes in, viewers had seen murder and violent death attributable to negligence or incompetence, but Tony didn’t commit any of the acts, nor was he directly responsible for their occurrence… And although it seemed unthinkable that he’d go through the series without ordering at least one person’s death—he’d toyed with the idea—a killing like this seemed equally unthinkable, because TV protagonists didn’t get down in the muck like that. That was what henchmen and guest stars were for.”

Unfortunately for reformed rat Fred Peters, née “Febby” Petrullio (Tony Ray Rossi), Tony Soprano isn’t willing to bend to the accepted mores of TV protagonists that had been established over a half-century. Spying the informant now living la belle vie as a half-assed realtor in Maine, Tony has a code to follow that overrules the desires of censors, advertisers, and HBO executives: you turn on the Mafia, you pay with your life.

In a way, Febby serves as an on-screen representative for an audience with old-fashioned sensibilities. Surely, Tony won’t actually kill him… he’s with this daughter, after all! And Febby himself, armed with a .22 target pistol and fueled by Fig Newtons, shares that he spared Tony’s life after seeing that he was with his daughter! But Tony extinguishes Febby’s life with uncompromising brutality and almost frightening glee that, had Dr. Melfi seen it, she would have known much sooner that her most menacing patient was truly sociopathic and beyond the scope of her abilities to treat and redeem.

“The scene lasts much longer than you expect, until the audience feels assaulted as well,” write Seitz and Sepinwall of Febby’s actual execution, commenting on the double-faceted shock of the murder deriving both from Tony committing it between bonding on a father-daughter road trip as well as “the way [Tony] seems to trade depression for euphoria when hurting people… he’s never been scarier.”

The act completed, Tony has effectively snuffed out Febby’s life and the relative comfort a viewer would have had in standing in his corner. He stands alone, allowing the viewer to decide: will you keep watching? What will it mean if you do?

Above Tony, a flock of ducks in V formation break the silence, recalling his deepest fears that his family is flying away from him. If his life continues this trajectory, won’t it be inevitable that he loses them?

What’d He Wear?

Aside from his dark suit and tie for a dressy dinner, Tony’s wardrobe for his New England college tour with Meadow consists of patterned polo shirts and pleated trousers, essentially the same as he wears for day-to-day life in Jersey.

On the morning that he executes Febby Petrullio, Tony dresses in a short-sleeved cotton golf shirt with a brown two-toned repeating chevron pattern that zig-zags across the shirt. The mini birdseye-patterned collar and bands at the end of each elbow-length sleeve are solidly shaded in the lighter of the two browns on the shirt, aside from the edges piped in the darker brown. The shirt has a three-button “French placket” at the top.

My friend who runs the @tonysopranostyle account on Instagram has suggested that the shirt was most likely made by Axis, the menswear brand that made many of the polos and button-up shirts James Gandolfini would wear across the series’ entire run. Searching eBay, you can find similar shirts from Axis such as these, neither an exact match but both available and affordable as of August 2020: (Shirt 1) (Shirt 2)

“Oh, I didn’t mean to verge!”

After his unprecedented act of violence in “College”, this shirt reappears in “Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11) when Tony is faced with another point-of-no-return decision regarding violence as he authorizes the murder of one of his closest friends, Pussy Bonpensiero, now suspected to be an informant. Tony’s famous impulses yield to reluctance when it comes to Pussy, though this is one case where he would have been wiser to listen to his subconscious; there must have been a reason he picked that shirt—which we last saw him wear while executing another “rat”—on the day that he chooses to make his decision about Pussy. (A season later in “Funhouse”, Tony’s subconscious grows impatient with subtlety, and he finally gets the message after a fever dream or two.)

An added touch of significance emerges in Tony’s dialogue with Paulie Walnuts (Tony Sirico), the trusted soldier he selects for the assassination. “You waited a long time for the stripes,” Paulie reminds Tony of his new elevated position in the DiMeo crime family. In criminal parlance, earning one’s “stripes” refers to rising to a position of leadership similar to a sergeant in the military, a rank denoted by a series of three chevrons—or “stripes”—on each sleeve. Only costume designer Juliet Polcsa can answer if it’s coincidental or meaningful that Tony is visibly sporting his “stripes” via his chevron-patterned shirt as Paulie reminds him of the perks of his leadership.

Dressed to lead, Tony drowns (and smokes through) his sorrows when confiding in Paulie that Pussy may be an informant in “Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11).

From the beginning of the series, Tony almost exclusively wears pleated trousers (or shorts, despite Carmine Lupertazzi’s word of sartorial warning), a style consistent with fashions of the show’s production timeline as well as a more flattering, comfortable option for a larger man like James Gandolfini. Tony’s trousers tended to be products of Italian label Zanella, which had expanded into the North American market during the 1970s and would rise to prominence during the pleat-happy era from the late ’80s through the ’90s when full cuts were especially fashionable.

In “College” (Episode 1.05), Tony wears triple reverse-pleated trousers almost certainly from Zanella in a light taupe wool, styled with straight side pockets, jetted back pockets with a button closure on the left, and turn-ups (cuffs). Coordinated with his shoes, his belt is black leather with a squared steel single-prong buckle.

In addition to a mob slaying, “College” finds Tony balancing his work demands with family issues like his wife’s favorite priest sleeping over and his daughter overindulging with new friends during a campus tour.

Tony wears black leather tassel loafers, an appropriately casual and comfortable shoe for his dressed-down outfit, though his misadventure with the doomed Febby Petrullio submerges his shoes in mud to the extent where he needs to scramble for an excuse to Meadow. Tassel loafers were innovated by Alden Shoe Co. and Brooks Brothers in the 1950s, a time when American business dress began trending toward the informal.

Tony’s moc-toe tassel loafers are additionally detailed with fringed “kiltie” flaps, a detail that had long been an element of Scottish golf shoes before it also became a mainstream addition to loafers in the ’50s. In December 2017, Brian Sacawa of He Spoke Style published a celebration of the kiltie tassel loafer’s return to fashion.

Allen Edmonds would eventually be established as Tony’s preferred footwear brand, and his kilted tassel loafers in “College” may also be a product of this venerable Wisconsin-based shoemaker. Tony wears his with plain black ribbed cotton lisle socks.

Tony’s tassel loafers vs. Febby’s boat shoes.

In “Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11), Tony wears his brown chevron-patterned shirt with different trousers, shoes, and belt. The charcoal trousers are styled differently from the earlier pair, fashioned with double reverse pleats (rather than triple) with the belt loops spaced to coordinate with the pleats in the front rather than equidistant around the waistband. Otherwise, they have a similar pocket layout and cuffed bottoms.

Tony wears split-toe derby shoes in a medium brown, coordinating with the leather of his brown leather belt with its squared, gold-toned single-prong buckle.

Pussy’s son Kevin (Giancarlo “John” Giunta) greets Tony when he makes a surprise visit to the Bonpensiero home in “Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11).

Tony wears all of his usual gold jewelry, including the St. Jerome pendant worn on a thin chain under his shirt and the bracelet on his right wrist which @tonysopranostyle describes as the ostensible result of “a Cuban curbed link chain and an Italian Figaro link chain with a twist.” Also on his right hand is the gold pinky ring with its ruby and diamond bypass settings.

On the opposite hand, Tony wears his gold wedding band and 18-karat yellow gold Rolex Day-Date “President”, identified as a ref. 18238. The executive appellation traces its origins back to the introduction of the Day-Date in 1956, when the unique “President” or “Presidential” semi-circular three-piece link bracelet was concurrently presented and—befitting its name—would indeed be worn by several who were elected to the highest office in the U.S.

What to Imbibe

In “Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11), Tony drinks and smokes alone in the main lounge of the Bada Bing, contemplating his next move. The Scotch is nothing unexpected, as that had been his crew’s favorite ever since we saw a fifth of Cutty Sark in the pre-credits sequence back in “46 Long” (Episode 1.02), though this makes the series’ first appearance of Johnnie Walker Black Label, which we would see Tony drink and keep on hand in his home and office for every season to follow. Black Label, a smooth blend of Scotch whiskies aged no less than 12 years, is a decent bridge between the lower-shelf blends like Cutty Sark and J&B and the more premium single malts like Glenfiddich and The Glenlivet that Tony would graduate toward over the course of the series.

We sense Tony’s anxiety over his decision regarding Pussy as he’s foregone his trademark cigars in favor of cigarettes! Aside from bumming one of Christopher’s Marlboros in the fourth season, we almost never see the Skip lighting a cigarette unless he’s at his most stressed. In this instance, he’s nervously working through a pack of unfiltered Lucky Strike cigarettes, later to be depicted as the favorite of the chain-smoking New York boss Johnny Sack.

Tony’s scotch and cigarettes in “Nobody Knows Anything”. Is he bracing for the decision he has to make or merely for his conversation with Paulie?

The events of the next episode, “Isabella” (Episode 1.12), only serve to exacerbate Tony’s anxiety, and we see him take a Natural American Spirit from the yellow pack supposedly belonging to Dr. Melfi’s son during his late night emergency session in her Saab.

How to Get the Look

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos (Episode 1.05: “College”)

This may be a run-of-the-mill outfit from early in The Sopranos‘ run, when Tony was still dressing down in polo shirts with greater frequency than the boldly printed silk button-ups we would see later in the series, but it packs significance for the pivotal scenes where James Gandolfini wears it.

• Brown chevron-patterned cotton 3-button polo shirt with solid brown collar and banded elbow-length sleeves
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
• Taupe wool triple reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black leather moc-toe kiltie tassel loafers
• Black ribbed cotton lisle socks
• Rolex Day-Date “President” 18238 self-winding chronometer watch in 18-karat yellow gold with champagne-colored dial and Presidential link bracelet
• Gold curb-chain link bracelet
• Gold pinky ring with bypassing ruby and diamond stones
• Gold wedding ring
• Gold open-link chain necklace with round St. Jerome pendant

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series. Particularly for fans of Gandolfini’s wardrobe and accessories, I suggest you follow my friend @tonysopranostyle on Instagram!

The Quote

What’d you guys do for 12 hours, play Name That Pope?

Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski (1998)

Vitals

Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, laidback stoner and bowler

Los Angeles, Fall 1991

Film: The Big Lebowski
Release Date: March 6, 1998
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Costume Designer: Mary Zophres

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today would have been the 100th birthday of Japanese baseball star Kaoru Betto who, despite his talents as one of the league’s earliest power hitters, may be most recognizable to many as his likeness graces the front of Jeff Bridges’ T-shirts in Cold Feet (1989), The Fisher King (1991), and most famously in The Big Lebowski (1998).

Born in Nishinomiya on August 23, 1920, Kaoru Betto made his Nippon Professional Baseball debut as an outfielder for the Ōsaka Tigers (now the Hanshin Tigers) in 1948. After two years with the Tigers, Betto moved to play for the Mainichi Orions (now the Chiba Lotte Marines) for the team’s inaugural season in 1950. Having attained a .335 batting average and 43 home runs during that first season with the Orions and leading them to victory in the first Japan Series, Betto was awarded the Pacific League’s first NPB Most Valuable Player. Betto finished playing after the 1957 season, focusing solely on managing. “The Gentleman of Baseball” died on April 16, 1999, a year after The Big Lebowski was released.

Kaoru Betto, playing for the Ōsaka Tigers in the late 1940s.

Though the shirt has become memorable and iconic in its own right, its actual appearance in The Big Lebowski is relatively brief. The Dude is summoned back to the Lebowski mansion, where Jeffrey “the Big” Lebowski (David Huddleston) dramatically informs him that his wife has been kidnapped and he requests the Dude’s help in finding her, further briefed by Lebowski’s devoted aide Brandt (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

What’d He Wear?

While it may not be as influential as the plain white tees worn by the likes of Marlon Brando or James Dean in the ’50s, The Dude’s raglan-sleeved baseball shirt certainly has a place among the pantheon of famous movie T-shirts. Stenciled with the cartoon likeness of the bespectacled Kaoru Betto at bat, the Dude’s shirt has become as much a cult favorite as the movie itself, with dozens of replicas available online in a variety of colorways.

Raglan T-shirts with ¾-length sleeves have long been the preferred undershirt of MLB players, likely chosen for the same reason Aquascutum had developed the sleeve for Lord Raglan a century earlier: extending the sleeve to the collar provides greater arm movement to the wearer, particularly essential for a sport involving plenty of throwing, catching, and sliding. For the sword-wielding 1st Baron Raglan, a British Army field marshal, this meant a newly commissioned coat. For our sandlot lords, the simpler T-shirt suffices.

The Dude’s shirt, like most baseball tees, is two-toned with a tan body and darker raglan sleeves and ribbed neckband. I had assumed these latter parts to be a tonally coordinated brown, though they take on a purplish cast under the brighter light of the Lebowski mansion hallway as seen here. Betto is stenciled in black on the front of the shirt, wearing his Ōsaka Tigers uniform and heralded by three Japanese characters that I’m unable to translate; I’ve seen claims that this roughly translates to “strongly influential” but I can’t back that up for myself.

In a 2014 Reddit AMA, Bridges confirmed that the shirt was one of many pieces that Mary Zophres picked out from the Bridges family collection, clarifying that “the baseball shirt with the famous Japanese baseball player on it I stole from my brother Beau, that is in the movie.”

The Dude checks out the “Big” Lebowski’s digs.

In what could be argued a harmoniously athletic-oriented coordination, the Dude wears the same garish weightlifter pants with his Betto shirt that he would later wear with his Cowichan cardigan. These elastic-banded cotton pants are patterned in light blue, purple, salmon, and blue stripes with a light blue stripe of stick figures alternating with a more abstract pattern. Like other items from the Dude’s eclectic wardrobe, they’ve been reproduced with varying authenticity by brands like Costume Agent (as seen on Amazon).

The Dude’s signature “jelly” sandals, constructed of transparent PVC, have been suggested to be another Bridges-influenced costume choice as the actor brought his own jellies to play the Dude when not wearing his white Otomix trainers. If you’re interested in a pair of jellies yourself, you can check out the dwindling stocks of Sarraizienne T-bar sandals from LaMeduse.com. (As the site explains, “Meduse in French means jellyfish because of the similarity between jellyfish tentacles and Medusa’s hair.”)”

Brandt’s Brooks Brothers suit may be more in line with how readers of this blog prefer to dress, but points are still deducted as the overly wound Brandt has buttoned both jacket buttons! The Dude, on the other hand, has nary a single button to be found on his loose ensemble.

More Bridges in Betto

Jeff Bridges had first debuted a Kaoru Betto baseball shirt on the big screen about a decade earlier in the little-seen crime comedy Cold Feet (1989) co-starring Keith Carradine, Sally Kirkland, Bill Pullman, Rip Torn, and Tom Waits. Bridges appears midway through the proceedings as an easygoing bartender whose dress and demeanor could suggest that this was the Dude himself in a past life, though the movie itself may not be worth enduring.

Bridges brought Betto back two years later for his far more prominent role in The Fisher King, wearing it under a black linen shawl-collar jacket and tucked into his pleated trousers when sharing an elevator ride with Michael Jeter, whose drag outfit was reportedly inspired by Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again. (I’ve also heard that Bridges wore a Kaoru Betto shirt in TRON: Legacy, though I haven’t seen it nor do I have easy access to it to confirm.)

Bridges rocks his Betto tees in Cold Feet (1989) and The Fisher King (1991).

These two older films clearly feature a different T-shirt, not only recognizably different for its black-sleeved, white-bodied colorway but also the narrower neckband and a lower placement of the Betto graphic. This nullified my initial thought that perhaps the Dude had just mixed this with other colorful shirts in his laundry one too many times as Zophres herself described the Dude to Another Man for the film’s 20th anniversary: “he does laundry every two months and never separates his whites, so it’s a mish mash of muddied color.”

One question that remains: did Jeff also grab this shirt from his brother Beau’s closet?

How to Get the Look

Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski (1998)

Trying to pull it all off at the same time would look too much like cribbing The Dude’s own effortless style (unless you’re in the market for a very comfortable Halloween costume…), but you could always pay tribute to El Duderino by subtly rotating some of his pieces through your wardrobe, whether that means pairing a Kaoru Betto T-shirt in your chosen color scheme with a pair of jeans or lounging around the house in the boldly patterned weightlifter pants that you wouldn’t dream of wearing in public.

• Tan (with brown ¾-length raglan sleeves) baseball T-shirt with Kaoru Betto graphic
• Blue/purple/salmon vibrantly crazy-striped “weightlifter” pants with drawstring waist and on-seam side pockets
• Transparent PVC “jelly” T-bar sandals
• Vuarnet VL1307 sunglasses with matte black plastic square frames, “saddle nose” bridge with molded plastic pads, and green polarized 58mm lenses

In the years since The Big Lebowski gained its cult following, Kaoru Betto T-shirts have become widely available as a staple of Dudeism fandom. I picked up my all-gray Betto shirt from The Dude’s Threads, which includes baseball tees among other Betto-printed gear from coffee mugs to COVID-influenced facemasks.

Other Betto shirts that will really tie your wardrobe together can be found on Amazon, Cult Classic Shirts, Found Item Clothing, or TV Store Online. Alternately, you could just pick up a brown-and-tan raglan T (like this from Merchology) and screen print your own image onto it… or you could go a different route and pick one up that features the Dude himself at bat.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, one of my all-time favorites.

The Quote

You mind if I do a J?

Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger (1964)
(Photo sourced from thunderballs.org)

Vitals

Sean Connery as James Bond, British government agent

Miami Beach, Summer 1964

Film: Goldfinger
Release Date: September 18, 1964
Director: Guy Hamilton
Wardrobe Supervisor: Elsa Fennell

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy birthday, Sean Connery! On his 90th birthday, let’s take a look at one of the Scottish legend’s most talked-about (and controversial) outfits as James Bond… and see how it can be updated for the modern Bond style enthusiast catching some late summer rays or rubdowns by the pool.

Following Goldfinger‘s memorable credits sequence bolstered by Shirley Bassey’s famous contralto, we find 007 in respite, enjoying the poolside amenities of the famous Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, particularly the tender touch of a voluptuous masseuse known only as Dink (Margaret Nolan) who receives an unfortunate dismissal so that Bond can engage in “man talk” with Felix Leiter (Cec Linder).

Bond’s impromptu investigation at the Fontainebleau introduces us to some of the most iconic figures of Bond lore—the avaricious Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) and the alluring but ultimately doomed Jill Masterson—as well as a “Bond, James Bond” introduction for the ages.

Goldfinger would be the last of his novels that Ian Fleming would live to see adapted to the screen as he visited the set like he had during Dr. No and From Russia With Love. The author’s death in August 1964 prevented him from seeing the final product that took global “Bond-mania” to a new level and remains the gold standard (if you’ll forgive the pun) of quintessential 007 cinema.

Ian Fleming joins Sean Connery and Shirley Eaton on the set of Goldfinger. The author who had penned 12 original Bond novels and 9 short stories lived to see the first two film adaptations of his most famous literary creation, though he would die one month before Goldfinger was released.

Aside from the narrative using Felix to sic Bond onto our greedily gilded villain rather than a canasta-playing American millionaire, Goldfinger remains relatively faithful to Ian Fleming’s source novel, right down to the black silk underwear he described Jill to be wearing when 007 caught her in the act of aiding her gold-obsessed confederate.

What’d He Wear?

One point of divergence between the novel and film is that the literary James Bond conducts his initial surveillance of Goldfinger while wearing his usual “dark blue tropical worsted suit”, while Connery’s cinematic version is arguably—and understandably—dressed for leisure. For a movie that includes not one but two black tie ensembles, already becoming a signature of 007 style, Bond is dressed for these iconic early scenes in Goldfinger not in a tailored dinner jacket but instead…

The light blue belted playsuit that Sean Connery zips up over his slate blue swim trunks in Goldfinger has been thoughtfully detailed in a 2012 post at Bond Suits, Matt Spaiser’s definitive blog exploring all things sartorial in the world of 007.

The simple one-piece garment worn on screen is made from terry cloth, the piled toweling fabric typically used for bath robes and towels, though it had become increasingly popular among men’s resort-oriented leisurewear by mid-century, modeled on screen by Alain Delon in Plein soleil (1960), Elliot Gould in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), and then Connery again with his terry cloth shirt in Diamonds are Forever (1971).

“Now start losing, Goldfinger.”

Like Mr. Bond keeping an eye on Goldfinger above, let’s take a closer look at the pieces in Bond’s Miami Beach fits and see how you can incorporate the same looks into your own wardrobe.

The Trunks

Let’s start with the item most likely to appeal to any man: swim trunks.

Connery wears a pair of slate blue swim trunks with a short inseam and a long rise to just about an inch below the actor’s navel, where it fastens solely with a single brass-toned button through a short, pointed tab.

It’s a good thing Bond’s playsuit has a triple complement of pockets as it appears that his trunks have none! Sans pockets, fasteners, or adjusters, these short and simple trunks are detailed only with a white contrasting double stitch around the waist, around each thigh hem, and down the side of each leg.

You’d think it’s Felix who’s the third wheel in this scenario, but Bond promptly (and quite disrespectfully!) dismisses Dink from the scene to engage in “man talk”.

Consistent with its recent 007 Heritage Collection releases, British beachwear guru Orlebar Brown offers the Goldfinger Swimshort ($395) in a mid-blue polyamide blend, continuing the color, snap closure, and contrast stitching from Connery’s screen-worn shorts while adding more modern-expected details like side pockets and a zippered back pocket. These elegant trunks are also designed with side adjusters that can reduce the waist up to 0.8″ for greater versatility of fit. If you’re not into the franchise-branded goods or the higher price tag that comes with them, you could opt for a set of OB’s Setter shorts ($275) in “blue haze” nylon, similarly styled but with multi-colored side stripes in lieu of the contrast stitching; the Goldfinger Swimshort is a variation of OB’s standard Setter, both with a 4.5″ inseam.

From southern California-based leisure outfitter Dandy Del Mar, we have the Riviera Trunks ($89) in “seagrass” teal blue nylon. These update the Goldfinger look with a white drawstring pulled through two pairs of brass-toned stainless aglets and detailed simply with white piping down each side seam. Dandy also adds a handy yet unobtrusive pocket on the back right and side pockets that open just ahead of the piped seams for a functional yet minimalist look à la Sir Sean. Having received a pair of my own, I can personally vouch that they blend comfort with a classic vibe that feels right whether lounging near the high-dive or hi-fi.

A third option comes from the athletic-minded Myles Apparel out of San Francisco, offering the Sutro Swim Trunk ($78) in ocean blue. In the spirit of Connery’s screen-worn trunks, these 5″-inseam shorts are the simplest of our trio of options with just a black-finished snap, sky blue side piping, and the same triad of side pockets and back pocket (with zipper) as seen across the others. As they tout, “we like to think this is what Cary Grant would’ve worn for a morning jog, an afternoon swim, and a nightcap by the bonfire.”

The Shoes

Goldfinger marks the debut of Connery’s favorite casual warm-weather footwear as Bond, classic espadrilles with jute-wrapped soles, light blue canvas uppers, and short white elastic side gussets that ease slipping them on and off. These are likely the exact same shoes that would subsequently appear among Bond’s beach wardrobe in Thunderball, one of the few times 007 would wear the same item in more than one movie.

Bond enjoys some poolside R&R in Dink’s hands.

For its 007 Heritage Collection, Orlebar Brown specifically cited Thunderball as the influence for these now-sold out Spanish-made slip-ons, which retailed for $225 and boasted “washed indigo” canvas uppers with the same white elastic inserts seen in both Goldfinger and Thunderball.

Even well-made espadrilles tend to be affordable, with several varieties available from Amazon including from Alexis Leroy, Kentti, and Soludos. If, like me, you prefer a darker blue, check out these from Soludos and TOMS.

Over the last decade, I’ve owned darker blue espadrilles from Ben Sherman, H&M, and Sperry. The Sperrys—featured below—are likely my ultimate favorite of the three, though the H&M pair were surprisingly comfortable and durable for their low cost. The Ben Shermans were decently constructed, but I found the heels to irritate the backs of my feet.

The Toweling Cover-up

Finally, the pièce de résistance: the cover-up piece that Bond wears over his swim trunks, alternately known as a romper, playsuit (by Bond Suits), or onesie (by Orlebar Brown). The brand of Bond’s toweling one-piece is likely lost to history (or buried in an EON Productions archive), but it bears a striking similarity to this yellow Caulfield by Town & Country playsuit of 1960s vintage, currently listed on Etsy. Evidently this brand specialized in mid-century men’s leisure wear as cursory searches for other Caulfield by Town & Country goods primarily yields vintage robes and pajama sets.

Made of light blue terry cloth toweling cotton, the garment is pulled on by stepping into the hip-length legs and zipping up the three-quarter length fly front. The silver-zip fly extends as high as the upper chest, where a camp collar lays flat at the top though a white-threaded loop on the left side suggests a hidden button under the right collar leaf to close at the neck should Bond so desire.

In addition to the patch pocket over the left breast, Bond’s piece has two side-entry patch pockets on the hips, similar to those found on a zip-up hoodie. The elasticized self-belt latches in the front through a gold-toned buckle, pulling the garment in at the waist for a somewhat more athletic silhouette.

Clad in his terry cloth romper, Bond takes in the attractive sights of Miami Beach.

While I’ve come to embrace terry cloth tops as essentials for an aquatic holiday, Connery’s zip-up one-piece may be purely a time capsule to many, as dated (but not quite as offensive) as Bond smacking Dink’s rear to dismiss her from the conversation.

Some may recall a thankfully short-lived attempt some three years ago to introduce the fashionable female romper into men’s summer style a half-century after Connery’s Bond had worn his own terry romper on screen. The RompHim didn’t take, there does seem to be a more classically inspired momentum behind the terry cloth revival as several brands have been leading the charge to incorporate terry cloth toweling back into men’s leisure-wear, such as Busbee McQuade, Dandy Del Mar, Eton Shirts, OAS Company, and Orlebar Brown.

Orlebar Brown’s “Goldfinger Onesie”

Option 1: The Full Playsuit

The latter company has been particularly conspicuous in its well-marketed tributes to reviving classic Bond style, with pieces inspired by Sean Connery, George Lazenby, and Roger Moore included across the regular installments added to Orlebar Brown‘s 007 Heritage Collection. In 2019, OB unveiled the “Goldfinger Onesie” in their signature Riviera blue cotton toweling, complete with three pockets, covered fly zip-up front, and self-belt with gold-finished buckle.

“Every guy wants to be James Bond. But would they pay $545 for his onesie?” asked Josh Axelrod in his NPR coverage of the collection’s release. Yet, despite this high price tag, this “all-in-one” has been sold out almost since its introduction.

Despite OB’s much-heralded official collaboration with EON Productions, this was far from the first attempt to recreate Connery’s terry cloth playsuit for a modern audience:

• In March 2017, William Charleton posted an ode to the practicality of Connery’s garment on his blog, modeling a costume-oriented version made by ZestyWear which is available for $124 on Etsy where it continues to rack up positive reviews supported by user-submitted images.
• Several months later, after the RompHim fad was in full gear, Volcano Designs of San Diego began offering its own 100% cotton toweling for $140, though I haven’t heard any firsthand reviews of this interpretation.

Your humble author (with quarantine-curated beard), clad in Dandy Del Mar’s matching sky blue Tropez terry set, Sperry espadrilles, and Doxa 300T Sharkhunter watch on shark mesh bracelet.
I also offer my apologies to Dandy Del Mar for not featuring their stylish models but instead my oafish likeness sporting their fine wares!

Option 2: Dandy Del Mar Shirt and Shorts

Whether you’re looking to save a few hundred dollars or would like a more versatile approach, I recommend the Tropez terry cloth shirt and shorts from Dandy Del Mar. I was introduced to this brand via their eye-catching Instagram ads several months ago and was pleasantly surprised when my girlfriend gifted me the sky blue Tropez shirt and shorts set for my birthday this year, unwittingly providing me with the alternative Goldfinger outfit I never knew I needed!

I can personally vouch for the Tropez terry cloth’s comfort and durability while enjoying a day in the sun, sand, or swimming pool or even a laidback evening at home with the right cocktails and music. The shirt and shorts together offer not just the chest and hip pockets that Bond had on his onesie, but also a button-fastened back pocket for wallet, phone, flask, or whatever your day of adventure or leisure requires.

The Tropez Terry Cloth shirt in soft sky blue sells for $109, while the matching shorts are a nice $69.

(Dandy Del Mar does offer a zip-up belted romper in Caribbean blue terry, but this offering seems reserved for women for now.)

All prices and availability above current as of August 2020.

While I wax poetic about certain brands, I have received nothing in return for their mention here nor do I receive any commissions from non-Amazon purchases made from this page… consider this, like most BAMF Style content, merely a labor of love.

Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger (1964), “convincing” a maid (Janette Rowsell) to let him enter Goldfinger’s room.

How to Get the Look

That’s what this whole post has been! But, if you want the literal breakdown of Bond’s screen-worn garb…

• Light blue terry cloth toweling cotton hip-length “playsuit” with camp collar, zip-up fly front, patch breast pocket, side-entry patch hip pockets, and self-belt with gold-toned buckle
• Slate blue short-inseam swim trunks with contrasting white stitching and short waistband tab with brass button
• Espadrilles with light blue canvas uppers, white elastic side gussets, and jute-wrapped soles

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Bond… James Bond.

Richard Gere as Julian Kaye in American Gigolo (1980)

Vitals

Richard Gere as Julian Kaye, high-price L.A. escort

Malibu, California, Spring 1980

Film: American Gigolo
Release Date: February 8, 1980
Director: Paul Schrader
Costumer: Bernadene C. Mann
Costume Coordinator: Alice Rush
Richard Gere’s Costumes: Giorgio Armani

Background

American Gigolo, which provided Richard Gere with his breakout role as a leading man, numbers among the many movies that felt appropriate to this year’s surreal summer. Set against the backdrop of high fashions and low tides in sun-drenched southern California, the noir-influenced circumstances that follow our hustler protagonist Julian Kaye add an increasingly eerie mood to the proceedings. Of course, being framed for murder and living through a global pandemic are two different sets of circumstances, but both make it hard to enjoy the high life no matter how beautiful one’s surroundings or wardrobe may be.

“The whole movie has a winning sadness about it,” wrote Roger Ebert in his contemporary and complimentary review. “Take away the story’s sensational aspects and what you have is a study in loneliness.”

Looking ahead to Gere’s 71st birthday on Monday, let’s explore one of Julian’s more dressed-down ensembles from a brief, beach-set scene.

What’d He Wear?

After the police have searched and ransacked his home, Julian drops in on his former madam and mentor Anne (Nina van Pallandt) to confide that he thinks he’s being framed for murder. Though he maintains a state-of-the-art wardrobe of sport jackets, suits, and ties, Julian proves that he can just as adeptly put together a fashionable and casual outfit of half-buttoned shirt and slacks for his visit to Anne’s beachside home.

While Giorgio Armani famously provided many of Gere’s costumes, I believe the shirt in this scene is the same Basile shirt spotted earlier when Julian is evaluating his vast wardrobe before a “date”. Specializing in ready-to-wear fashions for men and women, Basile was one of several Italian fashion houses—including Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, and Versace—that contributed to Milan gaining a foothold on the international fashion map during the 1980s. In fact, Lauren Hutton wore primarily Basile clothing as American Gigolo‘s female lead.

Note Basile’s distinctive tag sewn against the neckband of his purple shirt. The Italian brand’s logo has remained unchained in the 40 years since American Gigolo was released.

Julian’s shirt is a rich dark purple summer-weight fabric, prone to wrinkling with enough near-sheer and near-sheen to suggest linen, silk, or a blend of both in its construction. He wears the shirt have buttoned up the plain “French placket” front, leaving the soft, untethered point collar and dual chest pocket flaps to flutter in the beach wind. Gere wears the shirt’s long sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Julian finds Anne unsympathetic to his cause after he seemingly abandoned her to work for rival Leon.

Some men prefer one style of trouser fronts over another, but Julian’s trousers in American Gigolo range from flat fronts to single and double sets of pleats, alternately facing forward or to the rear. These beige linen trousers, with their flattering rise to the natural waist, are fitted with double forward-facing pleats. In addition to the straight side pockets, there is a button-through pocket over the back right, and the bottoms are finished with plain hems rather than cuffs.

Julian’s tan leather belt with its gold round-ended single-prong buckle coordinates with his shoes while also harmonizing against the tonally similar trouser fabric.

Note that Anne is reading an issue of New West, Clay Felker’s short-lived periodical that premiered in April 1976 as a West Coast-oriented offshoot of New York magazine. Famous for its exposes of Jim Jones and Jerry Brown, the general interest magazine would be redubbed California later in 1980 and would survive for more than a decade before finally ceasing publication in the summer of 1991.

For such a conspicuously branded movie, it may be incongruous that we never see Julian’s gold tank watch clearly enough to positively identify its maker, not helped by his habit of wearing it with the rectangular black dial on the inside of his left wrist.

Some have suggested Cartier and Omega as the likely manufacturers of this luxury wristwatch, though BAMF Style reader Chas pointed out that what appears to be a gold circular “C” on the gold single-prong buckle suggests Concord.

Roots Footwear provided all of the footwear that Gere wore in American Gigolo, including this pair of sandy tan suede lace-up shoes with hard dark brown leather soles.

How to Get the Look

Richard Gere as Julian Kaye in American Gigolo (1980)

Much of what makes Richard Gere’s costuming in American Gigolo significant is how much it augured the prevailing menswear for the ’80s, though certain outfits transcend the era specificity of the “Armani revolution” with sartorial approaches like this simple yet elegant and ultimately timeless shirt and trousers, perfect for a late summer afternoon on the beach be the year 1940, 1980, or 2020.

• Dark purple linen-and-silk long-sleeve shirt with point collar, plain front, and two flapped chest pockets
• Beige linen double forward-pleated trousers with belt loops, gently slanted side pockets, button-through back right pocket, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Tan leather belt with rounded gold single-prong buckle
• Sand-colored suede lace-up shoes
• Gold tank watch with a black rectangular dial on smooth black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Things are different… I’m more than what I’m used to be.

Elliott Gould as Captain “Trapper John” McIntyre in M*A*S*H (1970)

Vitals

Elliott Gould as Capt. “Trapper John” McIntyre, irreverent U.S. Army chest surgeon

Korea, Summer 1951

Film: M*A*S*H
Release Date: January 25, 1970
Director: Robert Altman

Background

Before there was Magnum, there was M*A*S*H, in which Elliott Gould set the “Gould standard” for effectively pairing a prolific mustache with an Aloha shirt. Robert Altman’s film was based on the then-recently published MASH: A Novel of Three Army Doctors by Richard Hooker, which would in turn be adapted into a long-running TV series that would last almost four times as long as the Korean War itself.

While maverick Army doctor “Hawkeye” Pierce was arguably the central figure (and increasingly the show’s moral fiber, under Alan Alda’s creative direction), I was also fond of his cinematic sidekick, Captain “Trapper John” McIntyre as portrayed by Elliott Gould, born 82 years ago today on August 29, 1938.

Trapper is the latest of a trio of new surgeons shaking up life at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, alongside the irreverent Hawkeye (Donald Sutherland) and good ol’ boy Duke Forrest (Tom Skeritt), who wouldn’t make it to the TV series. Captain McIntyre is called to camp after Hawkeye and Duke express the need for “an A-1 chest cutter,” and he wastes no time in establishing his caddish credentials among his hard-drinking, womanizing cohorts by decorating his cot with a pinup girl print—dwarfing photos of his family—and joining his colleagues for a PBR before producing his own jar of olives that would take the Swampmen’s signature martinis to the next level.

If this guy knew the clowns who were operating on him, I think he’d faint.

Trapper earns some leeway for his antics by swiftly proving his considerable abilities in the operating room, and he is even named chief surgeon over the objections of the “regular Army” zealots Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) and Margaret Houlihan (Sally Kellerman), the latter soon to be redubbed “Hot Lips” after her passionate and public tryst with the former. After Major Burns is led away in a straitjacket, the latest casualty of Hawkeye waging psychological warfare, Hot Lips proves to be a tougher nut to crack… until the Swampmen recruit a few of her fellow nurses for a racy gambit to publicly (or pubic-ly) settle a bet regarding whether or not she’s a natural blonde. (The humiliation seemingly serves as a hazing initiation for Hot Lips, who shifts her romantic attentions from the absent Major Burns to the extremely present Captain Forrest, actively cheerleads our protagonists during the climactic football game, and joins them in the poker game to follow.)

But to take a few steps back… following the shower incident, Trapper and Hawkeye are hitting golf balls from their makeshift driving range on the compound helipad—a scene that would be recycled for the opening vignette of the TV series—when they’re disrupted by a chopper landing. (“I wish they wouldn’t land these things here when we’re playing golf!” Trapper exclaims.) We learn that the frazzled lieutenant in the helicopter was indeed looking for his own A-1 chest cutter, personally selected by a Boston congressman to make haste for Japan to operate on his boy. One look at the fortunate son’s tests tells Trapper and Hawkeye that the young man’s injuries are far from life-threatening, but Trapper still enlists his buddy to join him as an assistant. After all…

How many times do you get to go to Japan with your golf clubs?

What’d He Wear?

The TV series would establish a favorite aloha shirt among all of its principal leads, though it’s solely Elliott Gould’s Trapper John who we observe embracing the spirit of the Hawaiian islands in the movie.

After arriving at the 4077th MASH that winter, Trapper waits until it’s seasonally appropriate to debut his floral duds, evolving his off-duty style from parkas and turtlenecks to a red floral shirt that he introduces worn open over his Army-issued undershirt and fatigue pants when overseeing the group’s prank on Hot Lips.

The irreverent medical staff of the 4077th line up to confirm whether Trapper or Hawkeye will win the Hot Lips-centric bet.

Trapper’s base layer is a khaki sleeveless undershirt, reflecting the olive drab cotton “A-shirt” tank tops that the U.S. Army had adopted and issued during World War II. Though ribbed A-shirts were authorized to wear via private purchase (per 90th IDPG), Trapper appears to wear the standard issue non-ribbed tank top with narrow shoulder straps where the armholes and neckband meet. Undershirts like these are still available from WWII surplus or reproduction shops like WWII Impressions.

Hawkeye and Trapper lounge in their undershirts while enjoying a day at the “beach”, reclining with beers on blankets at a chopper crash site. Perhaps anticipating a dip in the murky water near their feet, Trapper wears a pair of classically cut high-waisted swim trunks patterned in a green, bronze, and teal paisley print.

Fun in the sun with Hawkeye and Trapper.

While neither Hawkeye nor Trapper were ones for sporting much of their Army regulation dress, Trapper—like their TV counterparts—wears the rich olive green 8.5-ounce cotton combat trousers that were introduced in 1952 as part of the OG-107 Cotton Sateen Utility Uniform and would be a familiar item in U.S. Army attire through the 1980s, when it was superseded by the camouflage BDUs. This November 1952 introductory date makes it possible that our front-line MASH docs could be clad in OG-107 fatigues, though it’s more realistic that they would be wearing the green herringbone twill (HBT) combat uniform introduced during World War II and issued through the Korean War.

The OG-107 trouser design follows the layout introduced with the updated 1947 pattern of the HBT pants, which replaced the HBT’s familiar flapped “cargo pockets” on the front with higher patch pockets that had slanted open side entry while retaining the two back pockets that each close with a single-button flap. In addition, the OG-107 pants have a button fly and belt loops (without the HBT’s additional side adjusters), which Trapper typically wears sans belt. You can read more about the history of the OG-107 uniform, and specifically the trousers’ role in American culture outside of its military purpose, in this Heddels article by Charles McFarlane.

“Goddamn Army!”
Note the difference between Trapper’s rich olive OG-107 pants and Hawkeye’s more faded HBT cutoff shorts with their cargo pockets.

The straight-legged OG-107 trousers were designed to be worn tucked into boot tops, but Trapper doesn’t bother with that and wears his pants’ plain-hemmed bottoms over the shafts of his black leather lace-up combat boots. Trapper’s preference for black boots is yet another anachronism as the U.S. Army hadn’t even adopted black leather combat boots until 1958, five years after the Korean War ended, and accelerated their adoption by even dying earlier stocks of the previously issued M-1948 russet brown leather boots.

The “Boots, Service, Combat, Russet M1948” and their black leather successors were reportedly optimal for both garrison wear with their smooth, polished grain leather uppers and for long marches with the Goodyear-welt construction, diamond-treaded soles, and the ankle support provided by eleven lace eyelets up the calf. These black combat boots were further modified in 1962 with the elimination of the cap-toe and a height decrease from 10.5″ to 8.5”, which also reduced the lace eyelets from eleven to nine. This model was nicknamed the “McNamara boot” as a nod to the cost-cutting Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson from 1961 to 1968. Gould appears to be wearing these “McNamara boots” which Alan Alda would also wear as Hawkeye across the eleven seasons of the TV show to follow.

While Hawkeye seems to be wearing M-1943 Combat Service Boots from the WWII/Korean War era, Trapper appears to sport the more modern black “McNamara boots”.

Neither the movie nor subsequent series ever made much of an attempt to conceal the fact that they were made in the 1970s, keeping the characters’ hair and uniforms more contemporary to the Vietnam era without making a concerned effort to match regulations during the Korean War… though I’ve heard it suggested that this was intentional to keep the Vietnam subtext topical for audiences.

One prominent wardrobe item does ring of historic significance is Trapper’s red-and-beige aloha shirt. A stricter commanding officer than the pushover Henry Blake may have frowned upon how frequently his chief surgeon opted for his cheery civilian attire, though Trapper’s floral shirt reflects an off-duty favorite of Army personnel from the era. (And it’s while wearing this shirt that Trapper facetiously harangues the harried chopper pilot who arrived to spirit him away to Japan: “button up your shirt, for crying out loud, you’re in a military army!”)

These festive Hawaiian shirts had emerged as a favorite among servicemen stationed in the Pacific during World War II, as famously depicted among the like of Montgomery Clift and Frank Sinatra in From Here to Eternity (1953), which was released just more than a week after the Korean War had officially ended.

Patterned in a large-scaled coral red and beige floral all-over print, Trapper’s short-sleeved shirt is cut and styled in the aloha tradition with camp collar, elbow-length sleeves, and straight hem. The shirt buttons up a plain “French placket” front with a loop extending from the left side of the neck indicating a small button under the right side of the collar to close at the neck should the wearer so desire. The shirt also has two patch pockets over the chest.

Trapper brings Hawkeye to Japan to serve as his assistant slash golf partner.

Trapper frequently wears gold-framed aviator sunglasses with a reinforced brow bar that had been innovated with the development of the Ray-Ban Outdoorsman in 1939, shortly after Bausch & Lomb had officially launched its Ray-Ban line of eyewear. The prominent frontal brow bar and rounded ear hooks found on the Outdoorsman were also incorporated into the design of the AN6531 specs adopted by the U.S. government for its Army and Navy pilots during World War II.

More than 80 years after the frame’s inception, the RB3030 Outdoorsman remains a popular choice from the brand’s catalog (via Amazon or Ray-Ban) though lower-priced versions abound from brands like military outfitter Rothco.

Somewhere between Korea and Japan, Trapper loses the two braided hemp bracelets worn around his right wrist, a laidback, beachy affectation surely not in accordance with Army regulations!

Production still of Trapper and Hawkeye wreaking havoc on a helicopter pilot (clad in the full OG-107 uniform) sent to retrieve Trapper for his special assignment in Tokyo.

As much as Trapper John may eschew the trappings of his Army associations, his wristwatch appears to be one of the hand-wound A-11 field watches issued to U.S. Army personnel during the 1940s and ’50s, manufactured by major American brands like Bulova, Elgin, Hamilton, and Waltham, all standardized to follow the A-11 spec design of a 32mm case (typically in chromium-plated brass as steel was reserved for more essential war materiel), black dial with white numerical hour markers, and olive drab canvas strap.

You can read more about the history, design, and legacy of the A-11 spec watch at Worn and Wound.

While on special assignment in Tokyo, Trapper embraces the local culture by swapping out his aloha gear for a black-and-cream patterned yukata with coral red accents and trim.

A few production stills and behind-the-scenes shots show Trapper wearing his olive drab field jacket over his Aloha shirt with fatigue pants and boots, though this overall look unfortunately never makes it to the finished film.

While most of Trapper’s G.I. wear is too modern for the movie’s timeframe, his field jacket actually pre-dates the Korean War as he wears the M-1943 field jacket in “olive drab no. 7” (OD7) cotton sateen, modified from its M-1941 pattern predecessor by a longer length, hitting the upper thighs, and a drawstring waist that splits the two chest pockets and the two hip pockets, all closed with covered-button flaps. This iconic jacket also has shoulder straps (epaulettes), pointed single-button cuffs, and a covered six-button front fly with an additional button that closes over the neck.

Donald Sutherland, Sally Kellerman, and Elliott Gould on the set of M*A*S*H.

Due in part to their practicality, field jackets have transcended their military origins to become popular among civilians, with both the M-1943 and the more current M-1965 in frequent demand. Countless designers, fashion houses, and retailers have crafted their own approach to this venerable military outerwear, but the best-wearing examples prove to be original mil-spec or surplus jackets followed by relatively accurate reproductions such as these M43 jackets offered by Amazon, At the Front., and WWII Impressions.

What to Imbibe

“I don’t drink,” the pious Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) had groaned to his new bunkmates, sending The Swamp into distress as Hawkeye absorbed the news after a full day of surgery: “Jesus Christ, I think he means it.”

The later arrival Trapper John proves to be a far more fitting companion and drinking buddy for Hawkeye and Duke, all too happy to swill gin and Pabst New Ribbon with his fellow cutters. Trapper’s working through a can of the latter when Hawkeye offers the first test of Swampmanship: “Are you a beer drinker, sir, or would you like to share a martini with me?” To this, the taciturn surgeon responds with more enthusiasm that we’d seen from him yet:

Martini, that’d be- I’d love a martini.

“I think you’ll find these accommodating… they’re quite dry,” explains Hawkeye as Ho-Jon hands Trapper his gin.

“Don’t you use olives?” Trapper asks.

“Olives? Where the hell you think you are, man?” responds Duke. Though Hawkeye explains that certain concessions must be made, given the war and all, Trapper John instantly wins the hearts—and livers—of his astounded new roommates by pulling a jar of olives from his parka and dropping one into his coupe.

How to Get the Look

Elliott Gould as Captain “Trapper John” McIntyre in M*A*S*H (1970)

MASH‘s Hawkeye Pierce may have been the central character of the book, series, and movie, though—at least in the latter—it was always Elliott Gould as Trapper John that resonated most with me, trolling around the 4077th with his anachronistic sideburns and horseshoe mustache, clad in red floral-print aloha shirt and G.I. fatigues.

• Coral red-and-beige floral short-sleeved aloha shirt with camp/loop collar, two chest pockets, plain front, and straight hem
• Olive green cotton sateen OG-107 flat front pants with belt loops, button fly, patch side pockets, button-down flapped back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Khaki cotton sleeveless tank top
• Black leather plain-toe combat “McNamara boots” with nine eyelets
• Gold-framed aviator sunglasses with reinforced brow bar, similar to the Ray-Ban Outdoorsman
• Chromium-plated brass “A-11 spec” military field watch with black dial (with white hour markers) and olive drab canvas strap
• Double braided hemp bracelets

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, read Richard Hooker’s source novel, and catch up with the continued antics of the 4077th on the long-running series of the same name.

This may be a more niche interest, but I’ve discovered—thanks to Reddit and other web forums—that I’m not the only M*A*S*H fan interested in tracking down some of the Japanese versions of contemporary songs like “Chattanooga Choo Choo”, “Happy Days Are Here Again”, “The Japanese Sandman”, and “My Blue Heaven” that play over the 4077th’s loudspeakers to entertain the troops.

While those actual recordings still seem to elude us a half-century later, there does exist a 1930s-era version of the latter titled “Watashi no aozora” as recorded by Utako Matsushima that reflects the spirit, if not the exact tempo, of what Hawkeye and Trapper would have been hearing strained through the screened-in walls of the Swamp:

 

The Quote

Look, mother, I want to go to work in one hour. We are the pros from Dover, and we figure to crack this kid’s chest and get out to the golf course before it gets dark, so you go find the gas-passer and you have him pre-medicate this patient, then bring me the latest pictures on him; the ones we saw must be 48 hours old by now. Then call the kitchen and have them rustle us up some lunch—ham and eggs will all right, steak would be even better—and then give me at least one nurse who knows how to work in close without getting her tits in my way.

Sidney Poitier as Homer Smith in Lilies of the Field (1963)

Vitals

Sidney Poitier as Homer Smith, helpful handyman

Arizona, Summer 1963

Film: Lilies of the Field
Release Date: October 1, 1963
Director: Ralph Nelson
Wardrobe Credit: Wesley Sherrard

Background

“That is your car?” Mother Maria asks Homer Smith, to which he proudly corrects: “That’s my home!” With that attitude, Homer would have been well-prepared for a road trip decades later in the 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic found Americans taking to the road for their summer getaways in increased numbers said to recall the age of the mid-century “great American road trip.”

In his Academy Award-winning role, Sidney Poitier plays handyman Homer Smith, traveling through the Arizona desert when his station wagon’s dire need for water brings him to the Catholic convent overseen by the solemn Maria (Lilia Skala), who requests that the newcomer stop to assist with a roofing repair. His initial reluctant assistance leads to staying for dinner and an enthusiastic English lesson (“phonograph… record!”) to the German sisters, parlayed into spending the night camped out in the back of his Plymouth, where Mother Maria corners him the next morning and asks—er, orders—him to stay and build the nuns a chapel.

Lots of luck, Mother, I ain’t buildin’ no sha-pel!

Who needs an RV? Homer Smith makes the most of his spacious Plymouth Sport Suburban by converting the tailgate-accessed rear into his sleeping quarters and living space.

Mother Maria weakly tries to cite their language barrier as the reason Homer hasn’t been paid after two days of hard work on the “shap-el”, but he turns the tables by citing Luke 10:7 in both English and German: “And in the same house remained eating and drinking such things as they give the laborer is worthy of his hire.” In response, Maria cites Proverbs 1:4 (“Cast in thy lot amongst us, let us all have one purse”) and Matthew 6:28:

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

What’d He Wear?

Homer Smith dresses for the road in what could be argued as a major forebear of the leisure suits that would, for better or worse, dominate men’s fashion during the following decade. The individual pieces themselves work well on their own and have explored in some extent on BAMF Style earlier this summer, such as Johnny Depp’s off-white trucker jacket in The Rum Diary and Jean-Paul Belmondo’s beige Lee jeans in Pierrot le Fou.

Sidney Poitier brought both together for Homer’s desert journey, uniting the Lee 101 Westerner jacket and jeans just as the Kansas-based outfitter had intended when they first marketed these “Lee-sures” in the late 1950s, the moniker alone suggesting the connection to its more garish offspring that would become emblematic of Disco-era kitsch. Unlike those polyester monstrosities of the 1970s, the Lee Westerner jacket and jeans could still be worn together as tasteful and practical casual wear with a rugged and ranch-inspired flair.

When out west… Homer Smith’s Lee Westerner jacket and jeans prove ideal for traveling through the Arizona desert.

The beige Lee Westerner jacket was styled like the brand’s standard blue denim “Lee Rider” trucker jacket, differentiated by its Levi’s and Wrangler competition by the chest yokes that cut from mid-armhole to mid-chest on a slight slant toward the center, forming the top seam above each pocket flap. On each side, a wide vertical pleat extends down from under the pocket flap, over the chest pocket, and down to the waistband on each side.

The slim pocket flaps close through a single steel rivet button that matches the six up the front of jacket from waistband to neck via Lee’s signature “zig zag” placket on the left side. Toward the back on each side of the waistband is a short tab that adjusts the fit through one of two similarly branded buttons.

The jacket is also subtly branded with a small black patch with “Lee” embroidered in yellow thread, sewn onto the bottom of the left chest pocket flap and standing out against the light beige sanforized “Westweave” cotton sateen material.

Note the “wobbly Lee” branded buttons as well as the branded Lee patch sewn onto the left pocket flap.

Homer’s Lee Westerner jeans are made from the same beige sanforized cotton cloth, cut and styled like the familiar Lee 101 Riders that the brand had innovated forty years earlier during the 1920s. The layout follows the same format standardized by most five-pocket jeans, though the Lee front pockets traditionally have a deeper curve to them and, of course, the back pockets are detailed with the “lazy” S-curve stitch.

In addition to the small black branded patch sewn against the top of the back right pocket to match that on the jacket’s pocket flap, the jeans are additionally decorated with a Lee-branded leather patch along the back right waist line, covered in this instance by Homer’s slim black textured leather belt.

Homer packs up his home on wheels as he prepares to leave the sisters.

When he first arrives, Homer is dressed solely for road comfort, wearing only a plain white cotton short-sleeve crew-neck T-shirt under his Westerner jacket.

The first evening, Homer dresses for dinner with the sisters by layering a light plaid short-sleeved sports shirt over his undershirt, seen rotated through his wardrobe as his days with the nuns grow into weeks. Suggested to be two shades of blue by some contemporary artwork, the shirt has a breast pocket, a plain “French placket” front with clear plastic buttons, and a “convertible” point collar worn open and flat like the more casual camp or “revere” collar.

Homer’s sandy tan roughout leather boots are likely civilian-made ankle boots inspired by mil-spec service boots of a generation earlier like the Army’s Type III Roughout Service Shoes or USMC’s famous N1 “Boondockers”. Homer’s plain-toe derby boots are differentiated by the triple sets of speed hooks above the five-eyelet open lacing on each boot.

Close modern equivalents I’ve found are the Chippewa 1939 service boots, preferably in “Dublin tan” and the now-discontinued J. Crew “Kenton” plain-toe boots in sahara-colored suede, the latter worn by Daniel Craig in Spectre.

Given how busy the nuns keep Homer, we almost exclusively see him wearing those suede-finished work boots, but he does pull on a pair of black leather Chelsea boots when joining the sisters for “a Catholic breakfast” the morning after his arrival.

Homer cycles through several different pairs of crew socks in various shades, including a medium shade (likely taupe), white, and black as seen when Mother Maria finds him in the back of his station wagon that morning, clad only in his hosiery and white cotton undershorts.

Mother Maria gives Homer his privacy after she finds the young man sleeping in his drawers, likely the most comfortable option given the heat.

If Homer’s boots suggested past service in the military, his other garb all but confirms it. The other shirt he wears with this outfit is a tonally appropriate khaki cotton U.S. Army long-sleeved service shirt, styled with the traditional convertible collar, shoulder straps (epaulettes), and mitred-corner pocket flaps. While this may have just been a military-inspired work shirt, his sleeves show the traces of staff sergeant insignia (three chevrons and a lower rocker) having been removed.

Note the indication on Homer’s right shirt sleeve where he had previously worn what appears to be the insignia of an Army staff sergeant. Rather than tucking his shirt in, he wears it unbuttoned and knotted around his waist.

Whether also meant to be a holdout from his days in the military or merely another pair of trousers in his collection, Homer also wears a pair of khaki flat front trousers, styled with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and full, straight legs down to the plain-hemmed bottoms.

Aside from his old Army shirt, which he seems to wear almost exclusively with the matching khaki trousers, Homer tends to mix and match from his small but durable “road closet”, rotating through his undershirts and plaid sport shirt with both the beige Lee jeans and his old khaki slacks. He also wears the Lee jacket with his khaki shirt and slacks on at least one occasion.

Note the contrast between Homer’s bright Lee Westerner jacket and his darker khaki G.I. shirt and slacks.

The night before the newly completed “sha-pel” is ready to hold its first services, one of the sisters comments to Homer that it’s just like the night he had first arrived and, indeed, he’s even dressed the same, back in the matching off-white Lee Westerner jacket and jeans with just his undershirt. Poetically, he takes that moment to slip away.

Amen!

The Car

Homer’s home on wheels is a 1959 Plymouth Sport Suburban wagon, designed during that glorious mid-century era when station wagons received almost as much attention from automotive designers as the sleekest sports cars, a time that saw families hitting the road in stylish wagons like the Chevy Nomad, Ford Del Rio, and Mercury Commuter.

The Plymouth Suburban was introduced in 1949 as the first all-steel bodied passenger station wagon in the U.S., leading the charge away from the venerated but expensive “woodie” wagon’s hold on the market. The Suburban range expanded to a number of both two- and four-door models over the course of the decade, aesthetically evolving in accordance with the sleek, elongated, and fin-accented designs of the fabulous fifties.

Note the canvas water bag hung from the grille of Homer’s Plymouth Sport Suburban, an old trick that relied on evaporation and wind passing the moving vehicle to keep the water cool. Cold water could be an asset for hydrating one’s body or radiator when driving through a hot desert, as explained further at Moon-Randolph Homestead.

By decade’s end, the 1959 Sport Suburban was the top of Plymouth’s four-door wagon line with the aging L-head six-cylinder engine now edged out in favor of a trio of V8 engine options. Cosmetic changes from the 1958 model year most significantly included an “egg-crate” front grille and larger tail lamps befitting “the year of the fin”.

The most powerful engine option, the “Golden Commando”, was rated at 305 horsepower and exclusively mated to Chrysler’s three-speed TorqueFlite automatic transmission. The other two engine options were the 318 cubic-inch “Dual Fury V-800” with either a 2-barrel carburetor offering 230 horsepower or a 4-barrel that added an extra 30 horses; both 318s could be mated to the TorqueFlite, two-speed PowerFlite automatic, or four-speed manual transmissions.

Beginning in the 1962 model year, the Suburban model was discontinued and reincorporated as a trim line in Plymouth’s Belvedere, Fury, and Savoy lines, then exclusively under the Fury line from 1968 through 1978 when Plymouth finally retired the Suburban nomenclature.

How to Get the Look

Sidney Poitier as Homer Smith in Lilies of the Field (1963)

Homer Smith passes through Arizona in his matching Lee Westerner jacket and jeans, a rugged precursor to the leisure suit with workwear origins apropos the hardworking character’s background and his new vocation as a chapel builder.

• Blue two-tone plaid short-sleeve sport shirt with convertible collar, plain front, and breast pocket
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• Beige cotton sateen Lee Westerner trucker jacket
• Beige cotton sateen Lee Westerner jeans
• Slim black textured leather belt with rectangular single-prong buckle
• Tan roughout leather civilian service boots (with 5-eyelet derby lacing and 3 sets of speed hooks)
• Taupe ribbed crew socks

For their SS19 collection last year, Lee reissued the Westerner jacket and jeans with an “alabaster stone” satin twill set that also included a matching snap-front shirt, as covered by His Knibs, Long John, and Retro to Go. The shirt and jeans are still available from Lee’s site as of August 2020, though the jacket appears to have been a short-lived or limited-edition addition.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

If you also want to see a Lee Westerner jacket and jeans in full vibrant color, check out the King wearing it with a bright red shirt in the 1964 Elvis Presley vehicle Kissin’ Cousins… though I would argue that Lilies of the Field is a considerably more rewarding viewing experience!

The Quote

Can’t do good work without good tools!

Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun (1951)

Vitals

Montgomery Clift as George Eastman, dangerously ambitious factory executive

“Loon Lake”, Missouri, Labor Day 1950

Film: A Place in the Sun
Release Date: August 14, 1951
Director: George Stevens
Costume Designer: Edith Head

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

With Labor Day weekend ahead, today’s post explores the style from one of my favorite movies set across the late summer holiday. A Place in the Sun was adapted by Michael Wilson and Harry Brown from Theodore Dreiser’s novel An American Tragedy, which was itself based on Chester Gillette’s 1906 murder of his pregnant partner Grace Brown in the Adirondacks.

For those unfamiliar with the case , Gillette was in his early 20s when he took a job at his uncle’s skirt factory in upstate New York, where he quickly seduced the 19-year-old “factory girl” Brown. When she announced that she was pregnant the following spring, Brown was disheartened to discover that Gillette had no intention of marrying her and, in fact, may have been seeking a more glamorous romance with a wealthy socialite. An increasingly desperate Brown continued her pursuit of Gillette in hopes of an eventual marriage, to which he responded with planning a summer getaway for the couple into the Adirondacks. While rowing together in an isolated part of Big Moose Lake, Gillette clubbed Brown with his tennis racket, leaving her to drown. Though he foolishly tried to cover his tracks by initially registering at a nearby hotel under a false name, his failed coverup of the crime and Brown’s obvious head trauma when her body was discovered led to Gillette’s eventual arrest for murder. Gillette’s uncle, who owned the factory where he met Brown, refused to support his murderous nephew during the trial where additional damning evidence came to light. Gillette was swiftly convicted and executed in the electric chair at Auburn state prison in March 1908, ten days after what would have been Grace Brown’s 22nd birthday.

The lurid murder was glamorously reimagined for A Place in the Sun, starring Montgomery Clift as the ambitious George Eastman who, like the real Gillette, had found work at his wealthy uncle’s factory and soon became involved in a secret relationship with his co-worker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters). George’s rising position through the company introduces him to higher rungs of Carthage society and the acquaintanceship of the glamorous Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor), with whom he quickly grows enamored. George may lack Chester Gillette’s callous ruthlessness that drove him to plot and commit the murder of his pregnant girlfriend, but Alice’s eventual revelation and how it may threaten his budding romance with Angela has him rethinking the young woman’s value to him.

George delays any commitment to Alice while continuing to spend time growing closer to Angela, but Alice reaches her breaking point when she realizes that her boyfriend’s Labor Day weekend at the lake is being spent with Angela rather than his uncle Charles as he had told her. The truth of her lover’s deception finally made clear, Alice jumps on the bus to Loon Lake to confront the duplicitous George with an ultimatum: marry Alice, or she will go public with the news that she is carrying George’s child.

This set photo of Taylor, Clift, and Winters during production of A Place in the Sun suggests an unlikely alternate reality where tragedy could have been averted by George and Alice living peacefully with Angela as a close friend.

Inspired by a story Angela had told him earlier about a mysterious drowning on the lake, George begins hatching his desperate plot and impulsively putting it in motion, only to decide a little too late that he doesn’t want to go through with the murder after all!

What’d He Wear?

A Place in the Sun won six of the nine Academy Awards for which it was nominated, though Clift and Winters lost the Best Actor and Best Actress Oscars to Humphrey Bogart and Vivien Leigh, respectively. One of the half-dozen Oscars the movie did take home was for Best Costume Design (Black and White), honoring Edith Head with the fourth of eight total Academy Awards that the prolific costume designer would receive throughout her career.

George Eastman has come a long way from when he first arrived in Carthage wearing an old leather police jacket, plain undershirt, dusty flannel trousers, and motorcycle boots. Now, he’s carousing with the Carthage elite, all but initiated into the exclusive Vickers clan as he’s bedecked with a floral lei during the family’s Hawaiian-themed Labor Day dinner.

George gets an alarming phone call that requires him to surrender eventually not only his relationship with Angela but also that floral lei.

George has also appropriately updated his wardrobe to look suitable among his new social set, dressing for this dinner in a large-scaled glen plaid wool jacket that was typical of men’s fashions during the bolder, postwar era, illustrated by a similar sports coat modeled by no less than Cary Grant in Howard Hawks’ 1952 screwball comedy Monkey Business.

Clift’s sport jacket has a full cut with wide, heavily padded shoulders and plenty of drape, consistent with menswear trends of the early ’50s. The notch lapels are appropriately broad to coordinate with the cut of the ventless jacket, rolling to a closely spaced three-button front. The bold plaid and the patch pockets dress it down to a sporty level.

While I would argue that few garments or cuts could look unflattering on an actor like Montgomery Clift, the fashionably full cut of his plaid sport jacket envelops the actor and subliminally suggests that George Eastman may be out of his depth when dressing to impress the upper-class Vickers family and friends.

During the Vickers’ dinner party that George leaves to meet Alice at the bus station, he dresses the jacket up with a white shirt and dark tie, solid and subdued underpinnings that don’t clash with the striking plaid jacket, though the short, wide-bladed tie frequently pokes out over the jacket’s buttoning point.

The next morning, George reluctantly accompanies Alice to the Warsaw County courthouse where they discover (to her horror and his relief) that the marriage office is closed for Labor Day. He has since changed into a more casual white long-sleeved sports shirt with a wide camp collar. At first, I assumed that George had just been wearing this shirt the whole time, having discarded the tie and unbuttoned the loop collar to wear the collar flat atop the jacket lapels; however, the white shirt for his dinner party had double (French) cuffs while the Labor Day shirt clearly has squared button-fastened barrel cuffs, as we see when he’s rowing Alice to her doom.

Alice recoils after seeing the marriage office is closed for Labor Day, while George can now feel as relaxed as he looks in his open-neck sport shirt.

George’s trousers are a solid, light-colored grenadine that effectively balances the bolder jacket pattern while the lighter color also maintains the outfit’s summer-friendly resort aesthetic. Like that of his jacket, the cut of his high-waisted trousers are consistent with prevailing fashions as the ’40s advanced into the fabulous fifties with double reverse pleats accentuating the elegantly ample cut down to the bottoms, finished with turn-ups (cuffs) that break cleanly against the top of his spectator shoes.

Also known as “correspondent shoes” for their possibly apocryphal association with the proverbial “other man” in early 20th century divorce proceedings, George’s two-toned cap-toe oxfords are thus appropriate footwear given his scandalous impropriety.

Those shoes should have tipped Alice off that George had something less than savory in mind for their afternoon…

George’s hosiery doesn’t receive much screen time, though famous series of photographs that Peter Stackpole took for LIFE magazine of Monty and Liz on set during production of A Place in the Sun. While still in costume as George Eastman, Clift has swapped out the flashy spectator shoes for a pair of dark kiltie loafers. Due to the larger openings of these shoes and the playful nature of some of these photos, we can clearly see that Clift is wearing argyle socks in a high-contrast pattern.

How to Get the Look

Montgomery Clift as George Eastman in A Place in the Sun (1951)

While the ample fit of George Eastman’s Labor Day look dates it to A Place in the Sun‘s early 1950s production, his glen plaid sport jacket, open-neck shirt, and light trousers provide a timeless template for gents building an outfit for the long late summer weekend ahead.

• Large-scaled glen plaid wool single-breasted 3-button sport jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• White long-sleeved sport shirt with wide camp/loop collar, plain front, and squared button cuffs
• Light-colored gabardine double reverse-pleated high-waisted trousers with side pockets and turn-ups/cuffs
• Two-color cap-toe spectator oxford shoes
• Argyle socks
• Wristwatch on dark leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and Theodore Dreiser’s 1925 novel An American Tragedy that served as source material. The novel had also received a more straightforward adaptation with Josef von Sternberg’s pre-Code drama An American Tragedy (1931) starring Phillips Holmes, Sylvia Sidney, and Frances Dee in the roles that would be played by Clift, Winters, and Taylor, respectively.

If you’re interested in learning more about the actual Gillette-Brown case, I would suggest Craig Brandon’s Murder in the Adirondacks as a well-reviewed and recent volume.

The Quote

Things happen and you just don’t stay the same.

Cary Grant as Geoff Carter in Only Angels Have Wings (1939)

Vitals

Cary Grant as Geoff Carter, regional airline manager and pilot

South America, Spring 1939

Film: Only Angels Have Wings
Release Date: May 15, 1939
Director: Howard Hawks
Costume Designer: Robert Kalloch

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Calling Barranca, calling Barranca…

Set in the fictional “port of call for the South American banana boats”, Only Angels Have Wings begins with the arrival of Bonnie Lee (Jean Arthur), a Brooklyn musician who soon catches the eye of two American aviators, Joe (Noah Beery Jr.) and Les (Allyn Joslyn). While the daredevil duo gambles for the opportunity to take Bonnie to dinner, Cary Grant makes his swaggering introduction as Geoff Carter, a fellow pilot and manager of a regional mail carrier flying regular routes over the treacherous Andes Mountains.

Despite warnings about the fog, Joe is ordered into the air and—eager to make it back in time for his dinner date with Bonnie—foolishly attempts to land in the inclement conditions, clipping off a wing from his Hamilton monoplane before crashing to the horror of the gathered spectators… aside from Geoff, who remains strictly business: “Mike, get the wagon. Take along a big pair of shears in case you have to cut him out! Les, get the mail.”

Now, look, Dutchy. Joe died flying, didn’t he? Now that was his job… he just wasn’t good enough.

After witnessing the crash, Bonnie is put off by Geoff’s nonchalance but quickly learns to adapt to and embrace the flier’s mindset of fast living, rejoining the mourners for a rambunctious evening of steaks, spirits, and song.

The latter scene is a particular standout, with Bonnie tapping into her profession as an entertainer to “assist” Geoff as he tries to plod through a fellow flier’s request to hear Shelton Brooks’ Tin Pan Alley standard “Some of These Days”, which also happens to be a favorite of yours truly. Jean Arthur is at her most charming as she immediately takes command of the eighty-eight, doles out instructions among the band, and plants herself to tickle the ivories through a brief performance of “Some of These Days”, played to rowdy, toe-tapping exuberance and barely breaking to down a shot of whiskey with Geoff. She caps the concert by smirking at Geoff and flicking her eyes, not even needing to ask “how’d I do?”

Still mourning the young man she had just met, Bonnie catches herself after a few bars of the wartime dirge “Break the News to Mother”, then flips her switch back to party mode with a rousing rendition of “The Peanut Vendor”.

Once the crowd has mostly dispersed around midnight, she indulges herself in a nostalgic solo of “Liebestraum”, which joins “Some of These Days” among my top ten favorite musical compositions of all time. (If only I felt the same about “The Peanut Vendor”, the Bonnie would have been three for three… though there is something satisfying about watching Archie Leach bellow “pea-nuttt!”) Liszt’s masterpiece provides an appropriately doleful backdrop as Geoff, Dutchy, and Sparks sort through Joe’s personal effects, recovered from the crash site.

Following a shared drink and some Hawksian tête-à-tête, Geoff is summoned away for a late flight to make up for the lost Joe’s missed service (for which he sobers up by pouring ice water over his head), but Bonnie has already made up her mind to impulsively skip out on her 4 a.m. boat ticket out of Barranca and remain to pursue a life with the pilot… despite his protestations! Though Hawks was reportedly unimpressed with her performance, Arthur particularly excels as the witty, headstrong Bonnie who—in her smart checked tailored suit, serves as a prototype of the classic Hawksian heroine that would later be embodied by Lauren Bacall’s “Slim” in To Have and Have Not (1944).

This marvelously entertaining and criminally underrated Howard Hawks classic recalled one of my favorite pre-Code movies, Red Dust, starring a young, confident adventurer (Clark Gable) entangled in an enviable love triangle between an outgoing outsider (Jean Harlow) and an adulterous wife (Mary Astor) at a humid French Indochina rubber plantation. In the case of Only Angels Have Wings, we obviously have Grant as the adventurer, stationed at his own remote equatorial outpost as he balances the attentions of Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth, in one of her first major roles as the sultry young wife of his polarizing new pilot “Bat” Kilgallen, aka MacPherson (Richard Barthelmess).

(Yes, Hayworth’s character’s name is Judy, and no, Grant does not say “Judy, Judy, Judy,” in this, though some believe Only Angels Have Wings to be the origin of the famously misattributed quote that became an early example of the Mandela effect in action.)

Some men find themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Others find themselves between Rita Hayworth and Jean Arthur.

During the age where Bessie Coleman, Amelia Earhart, and Charles Lindbergh became living legends as conquerers of the skies, films centered around pilots (and the beautiful women who loved them) became de rigueur at American cinemas, a trend accelerated by inaugural Oscar winner Wings (1927) and Howard Hughes’ high-budget spectacle Hell’s Angels (1930). As with all fads in film, this also meant a rash of lower-quality fare, including the melodramatic Wings in the Dark (1935) where Grant himself had played a blind pilot opposite Myrna Loy, but leave it to flight enthusiast Hawks to deliver a stellar product like Only Angels Have Wings that balances his technical appreciation for aviation with his unique abilities for storytelling and encouraging the best from his actors and crew.

One of the top-grossing and better reviewed films of 1939, Only Angels Have Wings holds up more than 80 years later as charming, thrilling, and intriguing entertainment from some of the era’s greatest talents while also serving as a cinematic bridge between Howard Hawks’ formative films of the ’30s and the more mature period of his career to follow.

What’d He Wear?

Befitting his persona as a nonchalant nihilist, Geoff Carter affects the look of a high-flying cowboy at his remote outpost, appointing his classic leather flight jacket with a straw planter’s hat and studded gunbelt, a rakish prototype for cinematic adventurers to follow, most significantly Harrison Ford’s portrayal of Indiana Jones.

When we first meet Geoff, raining on Les and Joe’s parade as they flirt with Bonnie, he’s just in his shirt sleeves. The jacket makes its first appearance when his friend Kid Dabb (Thomas Mitchell) drapes it around his shoulders outside, citing the weather (“kinda cold out here…”)

Geoff and the Kid join fellow spectators as they try to guide Joe back to safety.

At first glance, Geoff’s leather jacket could be assumed to be an A-1, the button-front jacket originally produced for U.S. Army Air Corps pilots in 1927 until it would be superseded by the A-2 jacket four years later and often overshadowed by the iconic A-2 by virtue of the garment’s wartime service and appearance in movies like The Great Escape. However, during the A-1’s heyday, a variant of that original flying jacket was commissioned for U.S. Navy pilots, and would be designated the 37J1.

Few surviving examples of the relatively rare 37J1 exist today, though the known samples suggest that the most frequent hides used for the original jackets were capeskin and goatskin, both in a dark chestnut brown (per Headwind Mfg. Co., which offers its own reproduction of the 37J1 in both leathers.)

The 37J1 retains the overall cut, structure, and styling of the A-1 blouson jacket, including the button-up front and the knitted collar, cuffs, and waistband (save for the front section where two buttons close the jacket at the waist.) The most obvious visual differentiation between the 37J1 and the A-1 are the raised pockets. The A-1 specs included two external patch pockets, the bottoms of which were placed directly above the top edge of the ribbed waistband; the 37J1’s two pockets are placed a few inches higher, with the bottoms on the same horizontal axis as the next button up from the waistband. As with the A-1, each pocket closes with a single button through a pointed flap.

Geoff keeps his flight jacket buttoned up from waistband to collar when wearing it for its express purpose of flying.

Not counting those on the collar, Grant’s screen-worn jacket has six buttons—all threaded through two holes—from neck to waistband, which suggests either a civilian variation or a naval piece by a unique contractor as the typical mil-spec 37J1 had five buttons and two snaps (rather than buttons) to close at the waist.

A defining feature of the A-1 and 37J1 jackets is the knitting on the collar and cuffs, with only the knit cuffs retained for the subsequent A-2. This collar provides another point of differentiation between the A-1 and the 37J1 besides the latter’s higher pockets; while both jackets have two buttons placed on the right side, the tall A-1 collar has two loops to fasten both while the shorter ribbed collar on a 37J1 tapers toward the neck like a later MA-1 bomber jacket collar and seemed to have had a single snap to close at the neck

On the other hand, Grant’s jacket has this somewhat taller, A-1 style collar but with only one loop that would presumably be fastened to whichever button provided the desired fit for the wearer.

Note the unique knitted standing collar of Geoff’s jacket, not necessarily consistent with the double button-looped A-1 or a true naval 37J1 with its tapered, bomber-like collar and snap closure.

You can read more about the A-1’s place in the history of American flight jackets in this fabulously researched and illustrated article by Albert Muzquiz for Heddels. Produced first and in greater numbers, the A-1 is the more famous and widely available of the similar duo, even deemed the “best of the bombers” in Wei Koh’s great rundown for The Rake, while searching for 37J1 jackets yields both leather button-ups like Grant wears as well as khaki cotton zip-up deck jackets (like this from Aviator Mercantile Post) which suggests some confusion in either modern comprehension or contemporary designation as to how the Navy had named its flight jackets during its interwar salad days.

While information and replicas may be hard to come by in 2020, the 37J1 was evidently popular with the dashing pilots of Barranca Airways in 1939, as the ill-fated Joe Souther also wears one when flirting with Bonnie and flying off to disaster.

Much recent information about the 37J1 derives from the surviving garment from the collection of Rear Admiral John Jennings Ballentine, who rose from a pioneering pilot in the early days of U.S. Naval Aviation during World War I to commander of the Sixth Fleet after World War II. His hard-worn flight jacket is detailed over the left breast and on the back with the “Red Dragon” logo of the VT-2B torpedo squadron that then-Lieutenant Commander Ballentine commanded from July 1931 through December 1932.

Geoff Carter’s 37J1-style jacket is similarly marked up on the left breast and under the back yoke, painted with the left side of a Native American’s head and headdress in profile. This is suggested to have been inspired by the squadron insignia of the U.S. Army Air Service’s 103rd Aero Squadron, itself borrowed from the Lafayette Escadrille that produced many of the 103rd’s pilots after that famous French flight unit was disbanded. Five days after the armistice, Lieutenant Colonel Burt M. Atkinson reported that “pilots who served in this squadron have formed the backbone of American Pursuit Aviation on the front.” The 103rd’s insignia was later incorporated as the emblem of the 94th Fighter Squadron (which reconstituted the 103rd after the war) from 1924 through 1942, suggesting a more likely service history for Geoff Carter as Grant himself was not yet 15 years old by the time World War I ended.

Geoff Carter’s fading emblem covering the back of his jacket suggests a connection to the WWI-era 103rd Aero Squadron, which would have been incorporated into 94th Fighter Squadron well before the time Only Angels Have Wings was made.

Geoff exclusively wears long-sleeved shirts detailed with the appropriate military touch of shoulder straps (epaulettes) that are buttoned at the neck. Light in color, these shirts are likely khaki or at least somewhere on the beige-to-tan scale to coordinate with the tones of his trousers. These shirts have very long cuffs with spaced-out two-button closure, spread collars, and front plackets that Grant frequently wears buttoned to the neck as the actor frequently did when not wearing a tie or cravat.

Much as Geoff’s style of shirts never vary, nor do his trousers. He exclusively wears then-fashionable long-rise trousers with a full, voluminous fit aided by the single reverse-facing pleats. I believe I observed at least two pairs of these similarly styled trousers: one likely made from a khaki chino cloth and another pair in a lighter off-white shade that may have included linen in the construction; the earlier linen trousers have pleats placed about an inch back from the front belt loops while the khaki chinos have pleats flush with the first belt loops.

All of Geoff’s trousers have tall belt loops, slanted front pockets, jetted back pockets, and bottoms worn self-cuffed.

Production photo of Cary Grant and Jean Arthur in Only Angels Have Wings.

Geoff holds up his trousers with a wide dark leather belt that closes through a large squared single-prong buckle. He straps on an additional belt when arming himself however, buckling on a dark leather gun belt with a surprisingly flashy studded Mexican loop holster for his revolver. He shifts the gun belt’s dulled buckle off to the left with the holster itself worn over the filled cartridge loops that span the breadth of the belt from front to back around the right side. (Scouring the internet revealed a similar gun belt and holster available from The Last Best West, where it can be purchased in cross-draw or strong-draw configurations for either hand.)

Geoff steps outside to help Joe Souther safely navigate his return to Barranca.

Howard Hawks, Cary Grant, and Rita Hayworth during production of Only Angels Have Wings.

Geoff wears dark leather boots with calf-high shafts, similar to cowboy boots but with lower, flat heels. Based on how dark they appear on screen, they may be black or a very dark brown leather.

Many military flying boots of the eras had full zip fastening up the front (i.e. RAF 1930 pattern or these Converse aviator boots), though—while they have seams up the center of each instep—Grant’s plain-toed tall boots appear to be of the pull-on variety like the later 1936 pattern of RAF flying boots, which had a buckle strap to fasten around the top of each shaft.

Far more prominently seen on screen is Geoff’s prominently brimmed straw hat, similar to the palm leaf straw planter’s hats that are familiar headgear in South America, having also been a recognizable sight across the southern United States from the mid-18th century through the Civil War era.

If you’re in the market, Sunbody Hats offers a “Sam Houston” planter’s hat with a round 5¾” telescope crown and exaggerated 5″ pencil curl brim not unlike Grant’s.

Production portrait of Cary Grant in flier’s garb for Only Angels Have Wings.

Of course, up in the air, Geoff swaps out that wide-brimmed planter’s hat for a more suitable leather flight helmet, likely constructed of dark brown leather with a dense fur lining to keep his head warmly insulated at high altitudes.

Geoff’s steel-framed flight goggles have wide, ovular lenses and soft facepads likely made of rubber with chamois leather where it meets the skin for added comfort, a detail of contemporary U.S. military-authorized goggles as manufactured by contractors like American Optical and Charles Fischer.

Serving the double duty of protecting his neck and completing the dashing image of early flight, Geoff ties on what appears to be a classic white parachute silk aviator’s scarf, kept in one of his desk drawers.

He additionally prepares for flight by strapping on a wristwatch with a slim leather band, though we unfortunately don’t get any glances at this timepiece.

During the rainy climactic night, Geoff protects himself with a dark fedora and a dark lightweight raincoat that closes up the front with five unique metal toggle latches.

As with the first time Geoff wears his flight jacket on screen, he doesn’t bother to put his arms through the sleeves of his raincoat, though he still closes the top two fasteners over his chest.

The Gun

“Fliers! I was wondering why you were carrying those guns,” Bonnie exclaims after meeting Les and Joe, who responds: “Do you think we’re a couple of banana cowboys?”

Like his pilots, Geoff keeps a revolver carried in his studded gun belt. Based on the distinctive “diamond” grips when seen in his holster as well as the flat cylinder release and the lug securing its ejector rod, Geoff’s revolver appears to be a blued Smith & Wesson service revolver like the Smith & Wesson Military & Police, a .38 Special service revolver introduced to the market around the turn of the 20th century and later standardized as the “Model 10” when the venerated Massachusetts-based gunmaker began numbering its models in the 1950s.

After being strapped to Geoff’s side for most of the movie, Chekhov’s six-shooter makes its dramatic screen appearance when Bonnie pulls it from Geoff’s holster to prevent him from embarking on a nighttime flight in the middle of a dangerous storm.

Bonnie: “I won’t let you go. You’re not gonna go, Geoff, you’re gonna stay right here. I won’t let you kill yourself.”
Geoff: “You’re gonna do it to keep me from doing it.”

To protest being compared to “all the rest”, Bonnie realizes what she’s done and tosses the heavy revolver onto the table next to her… causing it to fire and launch a .38-caliber round into Geoff’s left shoulder!

A different revolver appears to have been substituted in for this shot, as the weapon now has all the signatures of an early 20th century Colt revolver, such as the distinctive branded medallion on the wooden grips and the non-lugged ejector rod. This revolver is likely a Colt Official Police, introduced in 1927 as a full-framed service revolver in .38 Special designed to challenge Smith & Wesson’s supremacy on the law enforcement market.

I suspect that a Colt Official Police was used for the close-up where Bonnie tosses Geoff’s revolver on the table with near-tragic results!

What to Imbibe

There’s always plenty of whiskey flowing through the headquarters of Barranca Airways, fueling late night parties and even later moments of solitude and introspection, inebriating the hard-living Geoff Carter just enough to maintain the base level of cynicism he needs to distract from the perils of his profession.

During Bonnie’s first night in Barranca, Geoff pulls out another bottle for the two to split and begins pouring: “Say when.” “When are you gonna get some sleep?” she counters. The two continue trading barbs as he tops off her whiskey with just a touch of water, keeping a solid 80 proof shot for himself.

Any ideas regarding the label of the bottle Geoff shares with Bonnie?

Just because it’s past midnight and Geoff has been drinking heavily doesn’t mean he’s going to turn down an opportunity to return to the air and make up for Joe Souther’s missed flight! Once the fog lifts, Geoff quickly sobers up by pouring a pitcher of cold water over his head. (While this makes for an entertaining scene, BAMF Style cannot legally endorse this “get sober fast” method and instead recommends actually drinking plenty of water and getting a full night’s sleep before even thinking about piloting your tin goose.)

A few nights later, Judy is already three sheets to the wind when she’s looking to crack a bottle with Geoff during one of her husband’s dangerous flights. He takes the bottle from her hands and attempts the same cold water trick to sober her up, though lore has it that this was actually devised by Howard Hawks as a diversion when he believed Rita Hayworth wasn’t performing her drunk scenes convincingly enough.

Geoff Carter administers his failproof system for sobering up, first to himself… and then to Judy!

Judy lends Geoff a match.

Even more plentiful than the booze are Geoff’s countless cigarettes, always pulled from his own pack of Lucky Strikes (with the distinctive pre-war green wrappers) but never with his own matches to light them.

Geoff: Got a match?
Bonnie: Say, don’t you ever have any?
Geoff: No… don’t believe in laying in a supply of anything.
Bonnie: Matches, marbles, money, or women, huh?
Geoff: That’s right.
Bonnie: No looking ahead, no tomorrows, just today.
Geoff: That’s right.

The significance of cigarette matches are a Hawksian signature, dating back to Paul Muni’s match and Osgood Perkins’ lighter competing for Karen Morley’s cigarette in Scarface (1932) and Bogie and Bacall’s incendiary match exchanges in To Have and Have Not (1944).

How to Get the Look

Cary Grant as Geoff Carter in Only Angels Have Wings (1939)

As the chief “banana cowboy” flying out of his remote outpost in South America, Geoff Carter cultivates a unique look that is part-pistolero, part-pilot, but all-adventure.

• Dark brown capeskin leather 37J1-style naval flight jacket with ribbed knit collar (with button-loop closure), cuffs, and waistband, six-button front, and two mid-torso patch pockets with single-button flaps
• Khaki cotton long-sleeved shirt with spread collar, shoulder straps/epaulettes, front placket, and long two-button cuffs
• Khaki single reverse-pleated high-rise trousers with tall belt loops, slanted front pockets, jetted back pockets, and self-cuffed bottoms
• Wide dark leather belt with large squared single-prong buckle
• Dark leather gun belt with cartridge loops and studded Mexican loop strong-draw holster
• Dark leather calf-high flying boots
• Palm leaf straw wide-brimmed planter’s hat

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, one of my favorites from the classic Hollywood era.

The Quote

Look, Dutchy… what’s the use of feeling bad about something that couldn’t be helped?

Daniel Craig and Léa Seydoux in the 24th official James Bond film Spectre (2015)

Vitals

Daniel Craig as James Bond, British government agent

Tangier, Morocco, November 2015

Film: Spectre
Release Date: October 25, 2015
Director: Sam Mendes
Costume Designer: Jany Temime

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Bond fever is heating up for the 00-7th of September in anticipation for No Time to Die, an excitement heightened by the official release last week of a new trailer and new poster that gave us another look at Daniel Craig in Bond’s black tie and assured audiences that we’ll still be seeing a release in November as scheduled.

Especially considering that Craig’s swan song (Swann song?) will be a continuation of his previous adventure as James Bond, I recently revisited Spectre. While fan reception to the 24th official film in the Bond series may have been as chilly as Bond’s trek through the Alps, I for one appreciated the assortment of versatile outfits consistent with Daniel Craig’s accessible approach to casual clothing from the start of his tenure.

One such outfit that emerged as one of the most popular (and regarding which I owe BAMF Style reader and friend Ryan an apology for this long-overdue response to his request!) was Bond’s dressed down layers upon arriving in Tangier with Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux). The sequence includes many of those elements that drew me into Craig’s portrayal back when Casino Royale premiered: the smaller “life of Bond” moments with a beautiful companion, an exotic location, a bit of humor, accessible style, and the booze and weaponry that underscore what keeps 007’s life dangerous.

While it may not seem like it, I do try to limit how much I write about James Bond; after all, anything you’d really need to learn about his clothing and accessories can be learned from pages like the fantastic Bond Suits and Bond Lifestyle. When I do decide to focus on Bond, I like to explore those scenes, outfits, or vignettes with some personal significance, and this sequence checks off all the BAMF Style-approved boxes.

After their explosive meeting in Austria, Dr. Swann brings Bond to the Hotel L’Américain in Tangier and the room once occupied by her terrorist mastermind father. The clues of Mr. White’s former tenancy aren’t immediately evident to 007, who yields only a dusty bottle of liquor for his efforts. He offers Madeleine a pour, which she turns down as she’s already deep into a bottle of red. Though she’s seeing double, the wine isn’t enough to for her to welcome Bond into her bed, shared hotel room be damned.

Madeleine: Don’t think for one moment this is where I fall into your arms, seeking solace for my dead daddy… You sit there, keep watch, that’s what you’re good at. Come anywhere near me, and I’ll kill you.
Bond: I don’t doubt it.

As Madeleine snoozes, Bond keeps his word and entertains himself by interrogating a mouse, though these hazy, half-drunken antics lead to his discovery of the secret room Mr. White had installed on the other side of the wall. (The reviewers behind the entertaining B Plus Movie Blog pointed out a question behind the logic here: “how does White get into this room? Seems like it was just behind the wall. Did he have to break and rebuild the wall every time he came here?”

Bond gains access by way of Craig’s preferred method of dealing with pesky walls as established back in Casino Royale and leads the now-awake Madeleine into what was evidently a very personal space for Mr. White where the reclusive terrorist stashed extra passports, family mementos, automatic weapons, and VHS tapes.

What’d He Wear?

Daniel Craig’s Bond arrives in Tangier wearing what could be argued an update of the last time the character had visited the city in The Living Daylights. In that film, Timothy Dalton had dressed for a mock assassination in a beige bomber-style jacket, a navy polo shirt with a long placket, beige pleated trousers, and brown boat shoes, even briefly donning a pair of sunglasses when attempting to make his escape.

Nearly thirty years later, Craig’s Bond is back in Morocco in what could possibly be a tribute to his predecessor, a similarly toned zip-up casual jacket and trousers with a somewhat unorthodox navy blue polo shirt, though costume designer Jany Temime shared that this was not a direct inspiration in an interview with The Bond Experience.

Coincidence or not, this wouldn’t be the last outfit in Spectre that appears to pay homage to Bonds of generations past; consider the parallels between Craig’s dark mock-neck jumpers and Roger Moore’s black turtleneck for the climactic battle in Live and Let Die or between Craig’s light brown odd jacket, trousers, and knitted tie with Connery’s similarly shaded tweed hacking jacket in Goldfinger. The case could even be made between Craig’s black three-piece suit, white shirt, and black tie for a gangster’s funeral in Rome and Connery taking a similar sartorial approach in his dealings with a mob-connected Las Vegas funeral home in Diamonds are Forever.

Between Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights and Daniel Craig in Spectre, the Bond franchise makes it very clear what sort of attire is expected for traveling to Morocco.

At this point—almost five years after Spectre has been released—most of the outfit itself has been well-documented, between an extensively detailed article by Matt Spaiser for Bond Suits (the foremost authority on all things related to Bond’s clothing), my friend Iconic Alternatives (the best source for budget-friendly alternatives to Bond’s screen-worn gear), and Bond Lifestyle (an established go-to for all accessories and items in the 007-verse) as well as some of the original manufacturers themselves.

One of these manufacturers was Matchless London, which prides itself as one of the oldest British motorcycle companies, having produced its first motorcycle in 1899 and soon following that up with its own line of clothing and outerwear focused on rider safety.

My friend Shawn Michael Bongiorno reconstructs Craig’s Morocco outfit from Spectre with the Matchless “Craig Blouson”, Orlebar Brown “Felix” polo shirt, Banana Republic trousers, Aldo boots, screen-accurate Tom Ford “Henry” sunglasses, and Invicta dive watch on NATO strap.

Matchless wisely capitalized on the fact that they made the tan suede jacket worn by Daniel Craig in these scenes, producing a limited run of 700 jackets marketed as the “Craig Blouson”. Essentially similar to the screen-worn jacket, these jackets only different with the addition of a small brass plaque with the brand’s “winged M” logo sewn onto the upper left sleeve directly atop the distinctive vented seam that runs the length of each sleeve. (Though Craig’s screen-worn jacket lacks this conspicuous branding, he has no problem drinking what is clearly a bottle of Heineken later that evening!)

Once I determined that I would be writing about Craig’s Moroccan casual wear, I checked in with my friend Shawn Michael Bongiorno, whose stylish Instagram account is worth a follow! I knew Shawn had one of Matchless’ original run of Craig Blousons, which he had once described as “like a glove for your body” as far as comfort, and I wanted to know more about what he thought. “It’s amazing how thin and light they made the suede while still extremely durable,” Shawn elaborated. “They really took a chance at something different, and it paid off big time.”

Craig’s screen-worn jacket was made of tan suede leather, lined in viscose, and styled in a very minimalist fashion. The soft standing collar that folds down toward the front and has a small hook closure. There are two slanted hand pockets, bisected by a faint stitch around the abdomen, from which the jacket is darted on the right and left sides of the back to pull in the jacket at the waist for a more athletic silhouette. The set-in sleeves are detailed with a stitched-over vertical vent that runs the length of each, though they’re otherwise unadorned at the cuffs with no tabs, buttons, snaps, or zips.

More about the Matchless jacket specifically can be read at Bond Lifestyle or Iconic Alternatives. You can also see the brand’s current expanded “Craig Collection” at the Matchless site.

Some have argued that Craig’s jacket may be excessively heavy for the Moroccan mid-day heat, however we know that Spectre‘s primary action is set through November as it all began with the Día de Muerto celebration in Mexico. While I’ve never traveled to this region myself, I don’t think it would be unreasonable for Bond to arrive wearing this relatively lightweight jacket over his short-sleeved polo in a city where the daily mean temperature for the month is around 60.6°F.

Dr. Swann and Bond arrive in style.

Spectre continued the tradition from Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace that dressed down Daniel Craig’s Bond in navy blue short-sleeved polos. The shirt that Craig wears for 007’s arrival in Tangier was made by Tom Ford, who had made Craig’s suits and much of his luxury wardrobe as Bond dating back to Quantum of Solace.

Made from a pique-knit blend of 57% cotton and 43% viscose rayon, this Italian-made shirt is unique detailed with an open V-neck similar to what is frequently described by many—including Iconic Alternatives—as a “Johnny collar”. The banded-end short sleeves and the long ribbing around the waist hem flatter the athletic physique that Craig had cultivated for the role.

When a guy like James Bond says he wants to take you to “a little hole in the wall”, he really means it!

Spectre allows Bond to realistically cycle through his clothing, rewearing tested-and-true pieces from his wardrobe rather than debuting a new outfit for every situation. In fact, aside from a romantic evening on the train that calls for black tie, Bond never changes any part of his clothing from the waist down during his and Madeleine’s entire journey through Morocco. (Aside from, one would hope and expect, his underwear and socks.)

The trousers and belt have been identified as products by Brunello Cucinelli, the Italian luxury “philosopher-designer” who launched his now globally renowned brand with his line of brightly colored cashmere sweaters in the late 1970s. (For what it’s worth, Bond Lifestyle has identified the product numbers as M067DF1050 C1581 and MAUIB324 C4001 for the trousers and belt, respectively.)

Chino-style trousers, often shorthanded to “khakis” even when not strictly khaki in color, have emerged in recent decades as some of the most versatile trousers a gent can have in his wardrobe, a versatility illustrated by Craig’s Bond who wears them effectively with this navy polo and suede jacket as well as a linen sports coat, white shirt, and tie. (In linking this outfit, I realize I wrote about it four years ago today; something about the 00-7th of September must bring out the Spectre fan in me.)

Dubbed the “Aged Gabardine Chino” by Brunello Cucinelli, these light taupe flat front trousers were constructed of 100% cotton gabardine with a gently faded effect as reflected in their marketing nomenclature. The lower rise of these trousers follows modern trends, and they have a slim and straight cut through the legs down to the self-cuffed bottoms. In addition to the slanted side pockets, there are two back pockets that each close through a single button. Though not an exact match, Cucinelli offers pima cotton gabardine flat front trousers with self-cuffed bottoms on its site catalog as of September 2020, with the “dove gray” color looking to be the closest match to Craig’s screen-worn pair. You can also look into the fine options explored by Iconic Alternatives.

The trousers have six belt loops, through which Bond wears the brown woven leather Cucinelli belt. Unlike some fully-braided leather belts, this one has a solid tab with holes for the polished gold buckle’s single prong.

Bond wears napped leather lace-up ankle boots, specifically the J. Crew “Kenton” model inspired by classic military service boots, specifically USMC “boondockers” from the World War II era. Constructed of “sahara” tan suede uppers with Goodyear-welted brick red mini-lugged “EVA” soles, these plain-toe boots have five-eyelet derby-style open lacing with three sets of brass speed hooks at the top of the short, ankle-high shaft.

Bond protects his eyes from the Moroccan sunlight with a pair of Tom Ford FT0248 Vintage Henry Wayfarer sunglasses, though the nomenclature is somewhat misleading as the “Havana” tortoise acetate frame shares more in common with the traditional browline-style Shuron Ronsirs and Ray-Ban Clubmaster models than the Wayfarer shape of Risky Business fame. The color code 52A of Bond’s sunglasses suggests smoke-colored lenses with gunmetal inserts along the bottom rims. Popularized by their use in Spectre, these are still available from the Tom Ford site for $430 as of September 2020, although some scavengers may have better luck scouring Amazon. More information is available on James Bond Lifestyle.

Spectre also marked the 20th anniversary of the Bond wearing Omega watches, and Daniel Craig works his way through Morocco with an Omega Seamaster 300 dive watch on his wrist. Powered by the Omega Master Co-Axial calibre 8400 movement, this watch has a brushed steel 41mm case, bi-directional black ceramic bezel with 0-11 hour markers (with a 0 at the 12:00 position), and a black dial with white hour markers at 3, 6, and 9 o’clock, strapped to his left wrist on a black-and-gray striped NATO strap. You can read more about the screen-worn watch and the SPECTRE Limited Edition model (reference 233.32.31.21.01.001)—sold to the public in a limited release of 7,007 pieces—at James Bond Lifestyle.

As James and Madeleine continue their journey by train, he wears the same outfit but has swapped in a fresh shirt, which Bond Suits suggested to be the “Morton” from Bond-approved brand Orlebar Brown, further investigated in a video by David Zaritsky for The Bond Experience.

Though long-sleeved, this light blue shirt is constructed from end-on-end linen to still wear cooly and comfortably under Bond’s suede jacket. It has a short point collar, plain “French placket” front, and adjustable button cuffs.

Especially given Madeleine’s firearm-related trauma, it might have been nice if he could have given her a head’s up that he was about to plop a 9mm on the table between them.

The Guns

As expected, James Bond keeps his familiar Walther PPK semi-automatic pistol, carried in the cognac suede Vega IB333 inside-the-waistband (IWB) holster and notably “wielded” against the mouse that scurries across the floor of their hotel room. Bond’s suede Vega IWB holster had made its first appearance with his larger Walther P99 in Casino Royale, making its welcome return for the more compact PPK six years later in Skyfall.

Once Bond gets a sense of what he and Madeleine will be up against after leaving Tangier, he finds her in her compartment aboard the train and sits across from her, placing a SIG-Sauer P226R on the table in front of them. While this is a hell of a way to greet someone, she is unfazed: “I hate guns.”

Also unfazed, Bond proceeds to give her an impromptu lesson in this particular weapon, its basic parts, and how to handle it:

SIG 226. Front sight, rear sight, hammer. Just point it, squeeze the trigger, and try not to close your eyes.

When there’s no Major Boothroyd around, Bond has to dole out the firearms instructions himself.

Madeleine leans back in her seat with a sigh and, once Professor Bond has completed his lesson, releases the magazine, ejects the round from the chamber, and clicks the now-empty pistol. “I don’t have to teach you anything, do I?” Bond suggests in amazement.

“A man once came to our house to kill my father,” Madeleine explains. “He didn’t know I was upstairs, playing in my bedroom. Or that Papa kept a Beretta nine-millimeter under the sink with the bleach… that’s why I hate guns.”

Bond smirks, confident in the knowledge that he has little to worry about as far as Madeleine’s skills in self-defense are concerned.

As a commander in the British Royal Navy and “former SAS type”, Bond would have been intrinsically familiar with the SIG-Sauer P226 service pistol and its accessory rail-equipped variant, the P226R, which had been adopted by the British armed forces in 2007. A non-rail P226 was extensively used in Quantum of Solace, first as the preferred sidearm of M’s personal bodyguard Craig Mitchell and then by Bond himself for the final act after he disarms an agent sent to arrest him and carries it into battle at Hotel Perla De Las Dunas. Developed in the mid-1980s as an evolution of the .45-caliber P220, the full-sized P226 was first chambered in 9x19mm Parabellum with .357 SIG and .40 S&W offerings available as those cartridges were developed over the following decades.

What to Imbibe

Bond begins his night of drinking with a bottle he digs out of its hiding place in Mr. White’s hotel room. Based on the glazed glass, the presumably clear contents, and the much-publicized brand partnership, I had assumed this was a bottle of Belvedere vodka, but it appears to ultimately be something else.

Daniel Craig returns as James Bond in No Time to Pour.

Of much less question is the bottle of Heineken, returning after making its somewhat controversial series debut as Bond’s lager of choice in Skyfall. Bond’s late night beer helps him discover Mr. White’s hidden space behind the hotel room when he pours some out from a bottle and watches it disappear into a mouse hole.

While the mouse luckily survives the encounter, James Bond should know better than to draw a loaded firearm after he’s been drinking!

How to Get the Look

Daniel Craig as James Bond in Spectre (2015)

Daniel Craig’s casual wear continues to be a sartorial standout of his James Bond tenure in Spectre, paying homage to his 007 forebears with this dressed-down outfit that blends rugged functionality with masculine elegance.

• Tan suede zip-up jacket with short standing collar, slanted side pockets, and set-in sleeves with plain cuffs
  • Matchless
• Navy cotton/viscose rayon blend pique knit “Johnny collar” V-neck short-sleeve polo shirt
  • Tom Ford
• Khaki cotton gabardine flat front straight-leg chino trousers with six belt loops, pointed waistband tab, slanted side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
  • Brunello Cucinelli
• Brown woven leather tab-ended belt with polished gold rectangular single-prong buckle
  • Brunello Cucinelli
• Vega IB333 cognac-colored suede IWB holster, for Walther PPK
• Tan sueded leather 5-eyelet, 3-hook plain-toe ankle boots with brick red EVA soles
  • J. Crew “Kenton”
• Tom Ford “Henry Vintage Wayfarer” FT0248 acetate-framed browline sunglasses with smoke lenses and gunmetal rims
• Omega Seamaster 300 SPECTRE Limited Edition (233.32.41.21.01.001) stainless steel wristwatch with black dial (and “lollipop” seconds hand) on black-and-gray striped NATO strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I promised him I’d protect you. The first thing to do is to teach you how to protect yourself.

Steve McQueen as Thomas Crown in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968). Note that he dresses his wrist with his Cartier Tank Cintrée rather than the Patek Philippe pocket watch he wears for the actual scene.

Vitals

Steve McQueen as Thomas Crown, millionaire criminal mastermind

Switzerland, June 1968

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

Background

I recently had the pleasure to join Pete Brooker and Matt Spaiser (of Bond Suits) on their excellent podcast From Tailors with Love for an entertaining and informative discussion of Steve McQueen’s suits and style in The Thomas Crown Affair. If you’re not already a subscriber, you can follow the fun via iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher, and check out highlights from yours truly’s appearance on the latest episode here.

What’d He Wear?

In all the excitement about talking Tommy Crown with Pete and Matt, I wanted to check in on the one remaining suit from the King of Cool’s on-screen wardrobe that hadn’t yet been featured on BAMF Style.

As opposed to those we discussed on the podcast, Crown’s chalkstripe suit could be argued as one of the character’s more conventional suits in terms of both suiting and styling. Given this, it makes sense that the suit has such little actual screen time, especially when compared to how much it featured in the film’s promotional photography. The context is also significant, as Crown dons this suit when venturing outside “his world” in Boston, relying on it to signify his status while in Switzerland managing the latest ill-gotten additions to his vast wealth.

Tailored by Douglas Hayward, Crown’s business suit is constructed from a dark navy worsted flannel patterned with a medium-spaced white chalkstripe, defined by Alan Flusser in his seminal Dressing the Man as “a stripe of ropelike effect similar to the mark made with a tailor’s chalk,” more substantial than the stripe commonly known as pinstripe. Though I believe this scene in The Thomas Crown Affair is technically set during springtime due to the early June setting, navy chalkstripe worsted suiting is suggested by Flusser to be an ideal fall fabric with this heavier flannel cousin optimal for winter dressing.

On screen, Crown wears this suit with a pale ecru shirt detailed with semi-spread collar and double (French) cuffs, though he wears a similarly detailed shirt in sky blue for the promotional artwork which coordinates with the navy shade in the dark suit. He also wears a dark navy woven silk tie.

Unlike many well-dressed movie characters who stick to a suit template of sorts, Crown enjoys variety in his tailoring, sticking only to the criteria that his suits have three pieces including single-breasted jackets. Beyond that, we see a range of details whether that’s the number of vents or cuff buttons on suit jackets, the structure of his waistcoats, and even whether his trousers have a flat front or are fitted with darts (though we never see him in pleats.)

This suit jacket has notch lapels which just narrowly fit seven stripes across at the widest point, where the lapel meets the collar. The lapels break well above the two-button stance. The wide shoulders give Crown the appearance of power, roped at the sleeveheads and finished at each cuff with two non-functioning buttons, and the back has a single vent in keeping with the American business suit tradition. In addition to the straight flapped hip pockets, the jacket has a welted breast pocket that Crown dresses with a dark navy polka-dotted silk pocket square.

The suit’s matching five-button waistcoat lacks the unique hallmarks of Crown’s other suits as it is single-breasted (as opposed to the double-breasted waistcoat of his navy suit), has a traditional notched bottom (unlike the straight-cut waistcoats of his plaid and solid gray suits), and isn’t rigged with lapels like that of his brown suit. Perhaps to make up for this lack of deficiency in distinctive detailing, Crown again carries his gold Patek Philippe pocket watch, worn with a “double Albert” chain across his waistcoat with his Phi Beta Kappa fraternity fob.

Steve McQueen poses with his character’s luxurious Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow coupe to promote The Thomas Crown Affair.

Crown’s flat front suit trousers are almost certainly fitted with side adjusters on each side of the waistband, cut straight through the legs to the plain-hemmed bottoms. He appears to also be wearing the same distinctive shoes from the opening sequence, the black calf derbies detailed with perforated medallion “wingtip” toes then a long, sleek vamp back to the single row of black lacing high on the instep.

Crown carries a navy gabardine raincoat that he may have been wearing when outside.

Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

How to Get the Look

Thomas Crown leaves his distinctive details and bolder colors at home for a brief business trip to Switzerland, dressing in the traditional business kit of a conservative chalk-striped flannel three-piece suit… though he allows for some personal details like that polka-dot pocket square, the Patek Phillippe pocket watch, and his unique semi-brogue shoes.

• Dark navy chalkstripe flannel three-piece tailored suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, single vent, and 2-button cuffs
  • Single-breasted 5-button waistcoat with notched botom
  • Flat front trousers with side adjusters, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Pale ecru cotton shirt with semi-spread collar, plain front, and double/French cuffs
  • Mother-of-pearl cuff links
• Navy woven silk tie
• Black calf leather semi-brogue wingtip derby shoes with single-row lacing
• Dark navy dress socks
• Patek Philippe gold vintage hunter-case pocket watch on thick gold “double Albert” chain with Phi Beta Kappa key fob
• Navy polka-dot silk pocket square

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, and subscribe to From Tailors With Love! You’ll get to hear me, Pete, and Matt discuss menswear, movies, McQueen, and more in the latest episode.

Pierce Brosnan as Julian Noble in The Matador (2005)

Vitals

Pierce Brosnan as Julian Noble, tired hedonistic hitman and “magnificent cold moron”

Mexico City, Spring 2004

Film: The Matador
Release Date: December 30, 2005
Director: Richard Shepard
Costume Designer: Catherine Marie Thomas

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

After this week’s 00-7th of the month post featured the reigning James Bond wearing a light brown suede zip-up jacket, I wanted to address a different way of approaching that look from Daniel Craig’s predecessor. The Matador starred Pierce Brosnan in one of his first post-Bond roles, inverting his own suave screen image by portraying a chain-smoking, nail-painting assassin “soiling” his way through life. (And thank you to BAMF Style readers Ryan and R.M. for long ago suggesting this film for a post!)

Indeed, the porn-stached and ill-mannered killer Julian Noble shares little in common with 007 aside from his dangerous profession and a penchant for drinking. There seemed to be an ongoing campaign after Brosnan found success as Bond where filmmakers asked themselves “how debauched and despicable can we make Pierce Brosnan’s character while still making it impossible to root against him?” leading to his welcome turns in movies like The Tailor of Panama (2001), After the Sunset (2004), and The Matador (2005), playing crude, cheeky criminals drinking, smoking, and womanizing their way through the tropics.

Julian’s career keeps him on the move, including a job in Mexico City where his handler reminds him that it’s his birthday (evidently born on March 20, Julian Noble shares his special day with Carl Reiner, Fred Rogers, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Chester Bennington.) After completing the hit, Julian celebrates by way of progressive drunkenness in his hotel room, but there isn’t enough tequila in Mexico—nor enough lock pickers, disguise artists, or prostitutes in his little black book—to make him feel any less alone as he rings in another year around the globe. Thus, our friendless “facilitator of fatalities” takes his troubles to the hotel bar and one of several margaritas to follow, making the acquaintance of traveling businessman Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear), a modest and mild-mannered family man who couldn’t be more drifferent than his debauched drinking companion.

One too many genital jokes—including a very ill-timed quip regarding a “fifteen-inch schlong”—sends Danny into quick retreat. Julian makes amends the following day via profuse apologies and tickets to a bullfight, where he unburdens himself by letting a disbelieving Danny in on the secret of his life’s work (“I’m not psychotic, Danny… psychopathic, maybe, but not psychotic!”) and even a demonstration in how he gets the job done:

I’m a big fan of the “gotta pee” theory of assassinations…

What’d He Wear?

We meet Julian Noble as he awakens beside a prostitute in his Denver hotel room, inspired by her colorful toe polish to put off his gruesome task for the day by spending the morning painting his own little piggies. After peeling off a few well-earned Benjamins for the young woman, he collects himself and leaves the room to wire a target’s car to explode.

Julian wears a black ripple-textured “popover” shirt with a long, narrow placket of tiny buttons, as well as black trousers and presumably black belt. Thee all-black underpinnings are typical of movie assassin wardrobes, though Julian Noble quickly illustrates that he’s far from typical by breaking up the look with a burnt orange suede jacket that’s established as one of his signature style pieces.

An explosive introduction to Julian Noble and his work.

As opposed to more subdued rust or tobacco tones of brown suede, the burnt orange is hardly the kind of jacket that would fail to attract attention if our hitman hopes to blend in with the crowd, though we get the sense that “blending in” isn’t exactly Julian Noble’s modus operandi.

A Premiere Props auction listing confirms that the orange goatskin suede jacket, size 44, was made by Hugo Boss.

Like most leathers, suede isn’t typically ideal for layering in warmer weather, though a lighter-weight material like Julian wears could be comfortable in Mexico City’s daily mean temperature around 65°F that the city experiences in March (per Wikipedia). The roomy jacket extends just slightly longer than his waist, no doubt a practical layer should Julian need to carry a sidearm for one of his deadly jobs.

Two kinds of tourists: two wildly different sartorial approaches. Danny’s traditional “American family man” garb may be the more tactful choice for a hitman hoping to avoid detection, but Julian’s swaggering suede-and-stripes may be better for attracting the right kind of attention.

Julian would be further comforted by the ventilated underarms, as four metal grommets under each armpit ease the airflow. These underarm vent sections are set apart by the same contrast top-stitching present on all edges as well as down the sleeves and across the front and back, where they’re used to designate details like horizontal front and back yokes and a placket effect flanking the zip-up front.

Apropos the shirt-jacket (“shacket”) lightness and structure, the jacket has a shirt-style collar that lays flat. The set-in sleeves are undecorated aside from the aforementioned stitching that connects to the back yoke and runs down the length of the sleeve to the plain-finished cuffs, which are similarly contrast-stitched around the openings but otherwise left unadorned by button, snap, or zip. In addition to at least one concealed breast pocket on the inside of the jacket, there are two hand pockets on the outside, contrast-stitched on each side of the vertical opening with small rivets at the top and bottom.

Julian makes his case over Coronas to recruit Danny as an accomplice to assassination. Note the details of Julian’s jacket like that contrasting stitching, the underarm ventilation, and the side pockets.

Julian brings the jacket with him to Mexico, though he abandons the dark shirt and trousers in the Mile-High City and adopts a more colorful, summery wardrobe appropriate for the warmer environs. Details about his striped shirt and trousers have been confirmed by an auction listing on Nate D. Sanders, where both pieces sold for more than $1,000 in May 2013. (The other shirt that Julian wears in Mexico is similarly colored but patterned like snakeskin; this will likely receive its own future post as he doesn’t wear it with the suede jacket.)

Pierce Brosnan’s screen-worn striped Kenneth Cole shirt and pale gray elastic-belted Prada trousers, as auctioned by Nate D. Sanders.

The short-sleeved shirt, made by Kenneth Cole, is patterned in an unbalanced stripe pattern that repeats from wider mottled red and tan stripes, then thinner blue and red stripes, all against a white ground. (The unique stripe can be seen in close-up here.) Though the shirt is a size XL, certain aspects of the fit still look undersized on Brosnan like those mid-bicep short sleeves that secure with a single-button closure around the bands, suggesting more of a fashion-oriented shirt than a classic summer sports shirt.

The shirt has five mixed brown plastic buttons up the plain front, the highest button at mid-chest before breaking away into an open V-neck with a flat two-piece collar that lacks the notch of a classic camp collar (also known as a “resort” or “revere” collar) and lacks the elegant roll of a traditional one-piece “Lido” collar. The shirt also has a breast pocket and a straight hem, meant to be worn untucked as Julian wears it.

Months pass between Julian and Danny’s interactions until the lonely hitman shows up at the Wright family homestead around Christmas, having flown straight from Budapest after learning that his inability to complete the last job has landed him in danger. Though his leather car coat and its supporting layers are appropriate for a Colorado winter, Julian enlists Danny for the proverbial “one last job” that takes the duo to a race track in Tucson.

Back on the job in Tucson, Julian also enlists his suede Hugo Boss jacket into service.

Though it won’t be a very cool yule for his target, Julian appropriately dresses for the holiday season in his brick red knit V-neck sweater, detailed with narrow, reverse-facing pleats down the front center and short raglan sleeves, with ribbed bands above the elbows that mimic the tight ribbing around the neckline. The Premiere Props auction listing for the jacket, shirt, and trousers confirms that this is another Kenneth Cole item, size large.

While the effect of their “team uniform” is somewhat lost with Julian not wearing his jacket here, the newly mustached Danny echoes Julian’s outfit with his own olive bomber-style jacket over a red T-shirt.

Julian’s favorite trousers in warmer cities like Mexico City or Tucson are light stone gray-colored flat front pants by Prada, finished with plain-hemmed bottoms. These have an integrated elastic belt striped in slate, beige, and burgundy, as well as a zip-closed back right pocket in addition to the side pockets.

At least two pairs of these trousers were used during the production, with one pair sized 34 (likely U.S.) auctioned with the Kenneth Cole striped shirt from Mexico City and another pair sized 52 (likely Italian) auctioned with the brick red Kenneth Cole short-sleeved V-neck worn in Tucson.

Our disillusioned and unmotivated hitman slumps down on the job in Tucson, metaphorically (and symbolically) imprisoned by his own depression.

According to IMDB, Pierce Brosnan credited his work with costume designer Cat Thomas as instrumental to building the character of Julian Noble, starting from the ground up when “she found these Italian retro sixties zip up Chelsea boots, and that gave me the walk.”

The zippers that open and close along the inside of each boot upper means they’re not truly made in the Chelsea boot tradition, but these dark burnished burgundy leather cap-toe ankle boots still have a serious retro vibe. Thanks again to Premiere Props, we know that Julian’s boots were made by Gianni Barbato, size 43.5 (roughly 9½ U.S. or 8½ U.K.) with 1¾” raised heels.

These boots are best showcased when Julian makes his memorable strut through the lobby of his Mexican City hotel, otherwise clad only in the short black briefs he wears as underwear, made by Mondo di Marco (per iCollector), size large with barely discernible blue side piping.

Julian Noble, having a normal one.

Though most of the other pieces in Julian’s wardrobe have had their makers identified, his various accessories and jewelry seem to defy confirmed recognition. From place to place, he wears a pair of black acetate-framed sunglasses in a rectangular aviator-style shape with silver arms, suggested in a Superfuture forum to be either Dior Homme or Stussy Flander.

Of all of Julian’s jewelry, the one piece we seem to never see him without is a gold choker-style necklace, consisting of round chain links and an elongated lobster clasp.

Julian’s habit of wearing exclusively open-neck or V-neck shirts ensures that his necklace will always be visible… though striding half-naked through a hotel lobby works to these ends as well.

Julian regularly wears two yellow gold rings, both with black onyx-filled faces. On his right pinky, he wears a wide ring with a ribbed band and cushion-shaped bezel.

On the third finger of his left hand, he wears a distinctive “Oxford oval”-shaped signet ring with a mounted gold figure of what appears to be a voluptuous naked woman with outstretched arms mounted against the ovular black-filled surface… just the sort of affectation that would appeal to our serial womanizer.

Julian’s usual preparation for a long-distance assassination includes removing both of his rings, placing them on a ledge next to his rifle… perhaps a dangerous tactic as these would leave significant evidence behind if he had to abandon his sniper’s nest in a hurry.

After seeing the decade’s work of detective work at the watchuseek forums, I became pretty certain that I wouldn’t be the one to break the news confirming Brosnan’s exact watch in The Matador. Speculation continues to run wide, with Bulova emerging as a likely contender after the Longines Dolcevita theory was seemingly nixed, though others like Audemarks Piguet, Girard Perregaux, Raymond Weil, Seiko, Tissot, Vacheron Constantine, and Versace all became part of the conversation. (The presence of a Citizen banner during the climactic sequence in Tucson may also suggest a product placement deal that meant Julian Noble wore one of these on his wrist?)

Julian’s mixed-metal wristwatch consists of a brushed steel tonneau-shaped case with a polished gold-finished tonneau-shaped fixed bezel, matching the five alternating rows of steel and gold-finished links in the watch’s “rice-grain” bracelet. The black tonneau-shaped dial is detailed with gold hands and gold non-numeric hour markers, the 12:00 hour denoted by overlaid lines that appear to create an “X” which may hold a clue toward the manufacturer.

Arguably the best shot of Julian’s watch in The Matador neglects to also feature his rings, as he’d previously removed those (as he usual does) when preparing to take his shot.

Luckily for us all, BAMF Style readers include some very eagle-eyed watch spotters who may no doubt be able to shed some light on Julian Noble’s mysterious watch!

The Gun

When I first built the IMFDB entry about firearms in The Matador, I had assumed by the shape and stock of Julian’s rifle that he armed himself for these various jobs with a weapon from Accuracy International, the British company formed in 1978 that—as its name implies—specializes in long-range sniper rifles. I was soon informed by a fellow user of the site that the actual rifle is a Remington Model 700 AICS, identifiable by the Model 700’s bolt action and built on the Accuracy International Chassis System (AICS), a configuration that incorporates the distinctive look of AI weaponry with the Remington’s mechanics.

Taking aim in Tucson. Note the opening in the stock through which Julian places his right thumb, a distinctive characteristic of Accuracy International rifles that made its way onto the AICS chassis for this Remington Model 700.

The Model 700 is Remington’s flagship model, offered in a variety of calibers, though the most typical for the Model 700 on the AICS chassis seems to be the rimless 7.62×51 mm NATO military round, which had been introduced in the late 1950s with the American M14 battle rifle and a cousin of the popular .308 Winchester hunting cartridge. The ammunition is fed from a five-round box magazine just ahead of the trigger guard, manually operated by a bolt on the right side.

The chassis system itself seems to typically sell for at least $1,000, as this lineup on OpticsPlanet.com suggests. The polymer frame is available in black, tan, and olive green finishes, and Julian always affixes his rifle system with a scope, suppressor, and bipod for a quiet and accurate shot.

What to Imbibe

If James Bond has been deemed an alcoholic by the Medical Journal of Australia, then Julian Noble would likely be a medical miracle with his substance abuse issues. Over the course of The Matador alone, we see plenty of indulgence. He attempts to drown out his lonely birthday sorrows with considerable amounts of tequila, though it only exacerbates them, as well as a slew of margaritas “con mucho sal” from the hotel bar.

“Margaritas always taste better in Mexico.” Julian comments to Danny, though I’ll leave his follow-up answer a mystery for those who haven’t yet seen the movie.

The next morning, Julian drinks Modelo Especial Mexican beer during his famous strut through the hotel lobby in his underwear, keeping the can in hand as he kicks off his boots and jumps into the pool.

I hope Julian realizes that Modelo isn’t going to taste quite the same after dropping into the pool with it…

Perhaps avoiding hard liquor after embarrassing himself with Danny the previous evening, Julian sticks to cerveza, though plenty of it. He drinks Corona Extra after the bullfight, poured into goblets while out enjoying the afternoon with his new friend and then, later, straight from the bottle when in Danny’s hotel room.

Julian “sobers up” after a long night of drinking by switching to beer?

Back in the states, we saw a fifth of Maker’s Mark bourbon with its distinctive red-waxed neck, kept by the bed in his Denver hotel room where he awakes at the movie’s start.

Julian wakes up with a nearly empty bottle of Maker’s Mark within arm’s reach.

When he isn’t chain-smoking his Camel Light cigarettes, Julian borrows a vice from Brosnan’s Bond by enjoying a Montecristo cigar, identified as the famous Cuban brand’s “White Label” series by its white band that indicates a Ecuadorian-grown Connecticut shade wrapper.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but Julian’s obsessive references to male genitalia may suggest Freud was onto something as the assassin offers one of his Montecristos to his new pal Danny.

How to Get the Look

Pierce Brosnan as Julian Noble in The Matador (2005)

Julian Noble’s daily dress consists of bold yet comfortable fashions that neatly cater to the larger-than-life side of his personality rather than suggesting a hitman hoping to stay under the radar.

• Burnt orange goatskin suede zip-up jacket with shirt-style collar, contrast top-stitching, vertical side pockets, and plain cuffs
  • Hugo Boss
• Rust-and-white multi-striped shirt with wide flat collar, five-button plain front, and short sleeves with button-tab bands
  • Kenneth Cole
• Pale stone-gray flat front trousers with integrated elastic striped belt, side pockets, zip back-right pocket, and plain-hemmed bottoms
  • Prada
• Dark burgundy brown leather cap-toe zip-up ankle boots
  • Gianni Barbato
• Black underwear briefs
  • Mondo di Marco
• Gold round chain-link choker-style necklace
• Gold ribbed pinky ring with black onyx-filled cushion bezel
• Gold “Oxford oval”-shaped signet ring with gold naked woman mounted against black onyx face
• Gold-and-steel tonneau-shaped wristwatch with black dial (with gold non-numeric hour markers and hands) on two-tone “rice-grain” bracelet
• Black acetate-framed rectangular aviator sunglasses with silver arms

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I kill people… doesn’t that seem a wee bit psychopathic to you?

Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004)

Vitals

Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, eccentric and ambitious aviation and movie mogul

Los Angeles, September 1935

Film: The Aviator
Release Date: December 25, 2004
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Sandy Powell

Background

85 years ago today on September 13, 1935, a sleek silver aircraft rocketed through the air over Santa Ana, California, at a record-breaking speed over 350 miles per hour, making four passes over Martin Field before a crash-landing that deposited its owner—one of the wealthiest and most ambitious men in America at the time—into a beet field, alive and hardly discouraged. As Howard Hughes’ colleagues ran over to extract the 29-year-old entrepreneur and aviator from the wreckage of the H-1 Racer, he hardly had his own safety in mind, issuing the command: “We can fix her, she’ll go faster!”

“Fastest man on the planet,” Leonardo DiCaprio’s Hughes brags about himself to his then-girlfriend Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) in The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s biopic that famously matched each scene’s photography to the color process available to cinematographers at that time. Of the 11 Academy Awards for which The Aviator was nominated, it won five for some of its most celebrated aspects: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Supporting Actress for Blanchett.

“The span of their romance would coincide with the peak of Hughes’ global celebrity,” wrote Karina Longworth of Hughes and Hepburn’s relationship in Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood. “His daring feats in the realm of aviation and reports of his movie star girlfriend combined for a potent image of a 1930s idol.”

Indeed, the [relatively] more nonchalant Hughes we see during these mid-1930s sequences seems to accurately portray his persona at the time as a Hollywood playboy, undoubtedly eccentric but not yet transformed by his severe OCD into the manic recluse that would emerge over the following decade.

Per the usual for Scorsese fare, the soundtrack is also a winner, blending diegetic music of the era like Django Reinhardt’s gypsy jazz with newly recorded arrangements featuring today’s artists like David Johansen of New York Dolls crooning the Fats Waller and Andy Razaf-penned “Ain’t Cha Glad?” setting the scene for Howard and Kate’s date night in.

Indeed, while the 1935 tests for the H-1 monoplane may have resulted in a crash-landing, Hughes’ modifications to the aircraft would have it ready to fly again soon when he set the transcontinental speed record twice in the following two years in the H-1, ultimately beating his own record by flying from L.A. to New York City in less than eight hours on January 19, 1937. Despite this success, Hughes would be disappointed to learn that the U.S. Army was not interested in purchasing its design when ramping up its air fleet in anticipation of World War II.

What’d He Wear?

The real Howard Hughes, standing with the H-1 Racer in September 1935.

Photographs and footage from the real Howard Hughes’ test of the H-1 on September 13, 1935, show the young man dressed somewhat incongruously for flight with a beige blouson jacket partially buttoned over a dark double-breasted suit, leather flight helmet in hand.

For The Aviator‘s depiction of the scene, costume designer Sandy Powell approached the outfit with more of an eye for practical sensibilities, similar in spirit but different in execution from what the real Hughes had worn and arguably different from the leather “barnstormer” flying jacket we saw him wearing on the set of Hell’s Angels nearly a decade earlier.

Powell dressed DiCaprio in the pleated trousers of the stone gray woolen flannel suit Hughes had worn when meticulously inspecting the aircraft, affecting an adventurous, proto-Indiana Jones look with a flight jacket layered over an open-neck shirt and topped with a brown felt fedora snagged from the head of his chief engineer, Glenn “Odie” Odekirk (Matt Ross).

Odie surrenders his fedora to help Hughes complete his adventurous look.

By the 1930s, aviation had been firmly established to the point that the military standardized leather flight jackets for its pilots, beginning with the leather A-1 with its button-up front and its iconic successor, the zip-up A-2 that would famously dress the U.S. Army Air Forces pilots well into World War II. Not all flight jackets were made of leather, however; the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps both authorized khaki cotton blousons like the 37J1 and the M421 for their pilots. Neither the real Hughes nor the DiCaprio depiction wear either of these specific garments, but the influence is evident.

DiCaprio’s screen-worn flight blouson has a khaki cotton shell with a dark brown ribbed hem to secure the jacket around his waist. The jacket has a convertible collar, which can be worn fastened over his neck with a top button closure or flat like lapels as Hughes wears for the flight. The jacket closes with a zip-up front, the most typical fastening mechanism from the early 1930s onward, replacing the button-up front found on earlier jackets like the leather A-1 and the garment worn by the actual Hughes for this 1935 test flight. The set-in sleeves are finished with two stacked buttons to securely close over the cuffs. Similar to the A-1 jacket, there are two inverted box-pleat patch pockets with mitred bottom corners placed just atop the waist hem; both of these pockets close with a single button through a pointed flap.

Hughes takes command in the H-1 cockpit.

Unlike the aforementioned Dr. Jones in his adventure-seeking khaki bush shirts, Hughes dresses for flight in one of his usual white cotton dress shirts with a sharp point collar worn open at the neck for the flight, also detailed with a breast pocket, plain “French placket” front, and button-closed barrel cuffs that emerge stained from the crash.

His sleeve still stained from the crash, Hughes brushes off the day’s events when debriefing with Katharine Hepburn.

Rather than any aviation-intended footwear like flight boots or the like, Hughes takes the controls in a pair of everyday semi-brogue oxfords with brown calf leather uppers that show his burgundy-on-beige mini-grid socks. A cap-toe differentiates the semi-brogue (or “half-brogue”) from the full brogue with its familiar wingtip design, though both obviously feature the decorative perforations and serrated edges that characterize “broguing”.

The semi-brogue style was reportedly pioneered by London bootmaker John Lobb in 1937 as a hybrid shoe adding the character of a full-brogue wingtip to a dressy cap-toe oxford, though this date means it would be slightly anachronistic for Hughes to be wearing it two years earlier… though it’s not inconceivable that our very particular—and wealthy—protagonist would have been able to commission his own custom semi-brogues without informing the rest of the men’s footwear world. (Okay, it’s probably an anachronism, but still…)

Pedal to the metal.

As explained earlier, Hughes’ double reverse-pleated trousers are part of a stone gray flannel double-breasted suit he had worn earlier when inspecting the H-1 pre-flight.

These trousers have straight side pockets, jetted back pockets (with a button to close the left pocket), and the bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs), consistent with trending details of the era. The trousers are held up with a brown braided leather belt that closes through a gold-toned single-prong buckle.

The full stone gray flannel suit is seen during a few earlier occasions, beginning with Hughes’ meticulous inspection of the H-1’s flush rivets and his meeting with TWA executive Jack Frye (Danny Huston) to discuss flying around the world in the substratosphere (“above the weather!”), resulting in his eventual $15 million purchase for controlling interest in the airline.

The double-breasted jacket reflects the sharp silhouettes of this “golden era” of menswea, built by wide, padded shoulders accentuated by roped sleeveheads and broad, sharp peak lapels with straight gorges. The ventless jacket has a traditional 6×2-button closure with a row of vestigial buttons above the two rows of functioning buttons in addition to a welted breast pocket, jetted hip pockets, and four buttons detailing each cuff. With his usual white shirt, he wears a tie that appears to be “uphill” block-striped in rust and teal with narrow yellow border stripes.

Hughes consults with Jack Frye of TWA.

Hughes pulls on the suit for another late night inspection, though he foregoes a tie and wears his striped shirt open at the neck, a precursor of the de facto uniform he would later adopt of double-breasted suits, open-neck shirts, and white Keds sneakers. Styled like his usual shirts with point collar, plain front, button cuffs, and likely a breast pocket, this shirt is patterned with rust brown striping against a pale blue ground.

How to Get the Look

Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004)

As Howard Hughes in The Aviator, Leonardo DiCaprio dresses down the mogul’s usual business look with a touch of adventure via a rugged khaki flight jacket characteristic of this interwar era.

• Khaki cotton zip-up flight blouson with convertible collar, two inverted box-pleat hip pockets (with single-button flaps), two-button cuffs, and dark brown ribbed waist hem
• White cotton shirt with point collar, plain front, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Stone gray woolen flannel double reverse-pleated suit trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Brown braided leather belt with gold-toned single-prong buckle
• Brown calf leather cap-toe semi-brogue oxfords
• Burgundy-on-beige mini-grid socks
• Brown felt fedora with brown grosgrain band

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. I also enjoyed reading Karina Longworth’s well-researched Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood, an extensively detailed exploration of Hughes’ notorious life in Hollywood including his romances with Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and scores of other actresses ranging from forgotten ingenues to revered icons.

You can also find footage of the H-1 trials in the 1940 aviation drama Men Against the Sky, distributed by RKO Radio Pictures, the company that Hughes would acquire eight years later.

Robert Shaw as RAF Squadron Leader “Skipper” in Battle of Britain (1969)

Vitals

Robert Shaw as “Skipper”, RAF Squadron Leader

England, Summer to Fall 1940

Film: Battle of Britain
Release Date: September 15, 1969
Director: Guy Hamilton
Wardrobe Credit: Bert Henrikson

Background

Although the battle was waged for more than three months in 1940 over British airspace, September 15 has been established as Battle of Britain Day in recognition of the No. 11 Group RAF repelling two waves of German attacks on London. The Germans had instigated their air and sea blockade earlier that summer, followed by Luftwaffe air raids that started with ports and shipping centers, eventually moving further inland to airfields, factories, and ultimately civilian areas. Hitler had intended to gain air superiority over England prior to an invasion dubbed Operation Sea Lion, but a strong national defense from the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy successfully routed the Luftwaffe and prevented this full-scale invasion of the United Kingdom.

This British victory was considered an early turning point in favor of the Allies during World War II that inspired Winston Churchill to famously declare: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

On the 29th anniversary of this famous British defense against Germany in the skies over London, the United Artists war epic Battle of Britain with a star-studded cast including Sir Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Trevor Howard, Christopher Plummer, and Robert Shaw. The latter portrays a talented and brash Squadron Leader, said to be inspired by South African fighter ace Sailor Malan, commander of No. 74 Squadron RAF during the actual Battle of Britain.

What’d He Wear?

We meet Robert Shaw’s “Skipper” as he climbs out of his Spitfire after landing among his cohorts in France, including RCAF Squadron Leader Colin Harvey (Christopher Plummer). It’s May 1940, a dangerous time for a British officer in France, and he’s given the order to retreat. “Where to, sir?” asks Pilot Officer Archie (Edward Fox), to which Skipper responds: “Why don’t you follow me and find out? Come on, idiots!”

Throughout his duration on screen, Skipper almost exclusively wears the ivory ribbed wool “submarine sweater”, considerably pilled due to his implied hundreds of hours in the air. Ribbed through the body, this turtleneck jumper has wider ribs on the full roll-neck, the rolled-back cuffs, and the waist hem. Shaw’s sweater is somewhat oversized, as evident by the seams of the set-in sleeves a few inches down his biceps from the shoulders.

Skipper’s pilled and worn submariner’s sweater appears to have seen plenty of action already by May 1940.

Per its name, the submariner’s sweater was first authorized for Royal Navy crewmen but became popular across the sea and air arms of the British military, encouraging the RAF to issue its own “22G/63 Frock, White, Aircrew” jumper, though this had a wide, 2″-tall standing collar and an oversized fit to be worn over a service uniform as opposed to than these classic Royal Navy rollneck worn under tunics of cinematic RAF pilots like Shaw in Battle of Britain and James Garner in The Great Escape. Modern shoppers interested in their own off-white submarine sweaters can check out the offerings from Outdoor Knitwear, which has reportedly manufactured the Royal Navy’s wool submariners’ sweaters “for many years”. Given its popularity, many other versions are also available from Amazon, Silvermans, and What Price Glory.

Skipper wears his RAF service uniform trousers tucked into the tops of his black leather flying boots. These ¾-length boots appear to be the fleece-lined 1936 pattern authorized by the RAF, which have a shallow front vent cut into the top of each shaft with a short leather belted strap to close and adjust the fit over the wearer’s calves.

Service tunic in hand, Skipper alights from his Spitfire.

Skipper wears the Royal Air Force’s No. 1 Service Dress uniform, a blue-gray jacket and trousers meant for wear “in temperate regions”, though Skipper foregoes the uniform’s designated shirt and tie in favor of wearing his submariner’s sweater at all times.

The service dress jacket or tunic is single-breasted with four gold crested shank buttons and a self-belt with a tall, gold-toned double-prong buckle, though Skipper never fastens the buttons and lets the belt hang freely rather than closing his jacket with it. The four main external pockets all have flaps that close through a single button, with the box-pleated breast pockets each covered by a gently scalloped flap while the larger bellows pockets on the hips have plain rectangular flaps to close.

Positioned on the upper chest above the left breast pocket flap are the badges and awards befitting Skipper’s service as a decorated RAF pilot, including the exalted silk aircrew brevet badge consisting the letters “RAF” embroidered in white inside a brown wreath with a white King’s crown embroidered atop it, all flanked by white embroidered swift’s wings on each side. Below his wings badge is a single row of Skipper’s awards. From left to right:

• Distinguished Flying Cross (white and purple wide-scaled “downhill” stripes): The DFC has been continuously awarded by the Commonwealth since June 1918 for “exemplary gallantry during active operations against the enemy in the air.” Not present for most of Battle of Britain, Skipper appears to have earned his DFC by the end… or, more likely, he had lost it from his uniform and finally had it replaced.
• General Service Medal (purple, green, and purple): The GSM was established in January 1923 to recognize Army and RAF participation in minor campaigns after World War I. Based on Skipper’s age and the most recent conflict, he likely earned his “for service in the British Mandate of Palestine between 19 April 1936 and 3 September 1939, during the Arab Revolt.” The GSM would be retooled in 1962 with the colors inverted and the center section (now green) expanded.
• King George VI Coronation Medal (blue center with white, red, and white striped sides): More than 90,000 coronation medals were awarded to the Royal Family and selected officials and service members as a personal souvenir from the coronation of George VI and Elizabeth on May 12, 1937.

Note Skipper’s row of ribbons: DFC, GSM, and Coronation Medal.

On each jacket cuff, Skipper wears the sleeve insignia for his rank of Squadron Leader, a NATO OF-3 rank equivalent to a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy or a Major in the British Army or Royal Marines. The sleeve insignia consists of two narrow sky blue rings against a black band with a thinner blue band between them.

Skipper wears the standard forward-pleated trousers of the No. 1 service dress uniform, though his untucked jumper covers the waist so we can’t tell if he’s wearing belt, braces, or neither.

When outdoors and not flying, Skipper wears the regulation RAF headgear for No. 1 Service Dress, a peaked officer’s cap with blue-gray barathea wool cloth cover and brim, bedecked on the front with the RAF officers’ badge with gilt crown, eagle, and oak leaf embroidery.

Earlier in the film, Skipper hasn’t yet earned his DFC.

Early on the climactic morning of September 15, 1940, Skipper leaves his home in his No. 1 Service Dress and jumper, supplemented with his Irvin flying jacket draped over his shoulders. These dashing jackets were developed by American aviation pioneer Leslie Irvin, who began producing them in 1931 to respond to a growing need for pilot warmth in sub-zero temperatures of poorly insulated cockpits.

“Made from heavyweight sheepskin, its thick natural wool provided incredible insulation,” describes the official Irvin flying jackets site. “And, while the sheepskin was considered heavyweight the jacket itself was comparatively light and remarkably comfortable. Irvin insisted on the most supple sheepskin: in a cramped cockpit movement was already restricted and no pilot or crew would want to be constrained further still. The Irvin jacket was a masterpiece of design, maximum warmth and comfort combined with maximum mobility.” Irvin flying jackets are available today from Aviation Leathercraft as well as Aero Leather and What Price Glory.

The zip-up jackets also have long zippers on the ends of each sleeve and a single-prong self-belt that fastens around the waist. There are no pockets, as the coat was originally meant solely to be worn in-flight over an aviator’s uniform when there would be no need to access one’s personal effects. Given the context of Battle of Britain, it’s no surprise that plenty of Irvin flying jackets are featured, most notably worn by Christopher Plummer’s character.

The closest we get to seeing Skipper wear his iconic Irvin flying jacket.

Up in the Air

On the day of the Germans’ ultimately failed Adlertag (“Eagle Day”) attack on August 13, 1940, Skipper jumps into action when alerted to the squadron scramble, dressing for flight over his usual unbuttoned uniform tunic and rollneck, first by donning the orange life preserver vest famously dubbed the “Mae West” for its effect of transforming wearers’ silhouettes to resemble the famously voluptuous actress.

Rather than the correct 1932 pattern or even the improved 1941 pattern issued the year after the battle, Skipper’s Mae West appears to be an anachronistic postwar 22c/1350 life preserver, designated “Waistcoat, Jacket, Life-Saving, Aircrew, Mk 3” as seen here and worn by many of Shaw’s fellow high-flying cast-mates in Battle of Britain.

During World War II, pilots were known to color their older pattern life preservers in a bright yellow or orange to aid being seen and saved from the sea, but the 22c/1350 was already made in an eye-catching orange rubberized cotton, fitted with white canvas ties, drab khaki waist straps, and a short three-button front tab. The “horse collar” vest is filled with three buoyancy bladders, one in the collar behind the neck and a larger one over each breast… hence the reference to Miss West.

“Don’t just stand there, get one up!”

While flying his Spitfire, Skipper wears the requisite RAF-issued flight helmet, goggles, and oxygen mask. His dark brown leather helmet appears to be an early example of the chamois-lined Type B, fastened by a buckled strap under the chin and detailed with zipped earpieces.

Skipper’s flight goggles appear to be the simplified Mk VII (22c/827), detailed with brown leather padding over the nose and a drab webbed strap around the back of the head. The Mk VII was introduced in July 1942, nearly two years after the Battle of Britain and thus another anachronism. (You can see an example of the Mk VII from HistoricFlyingClothing.com and read more about early 20th century military flight goggles and more from MilitarySunHelmets.com.)

Skipper flies in Type B helmet and Mk VII goggles.

Skipper’s olive drab cloth oxygen mask resembles the typical Type D mask used during the Battle of Britain, though it has short tabs on the sides for one of three snaps to close against the outside of the helmet rather than the Type D’s double-snap sides that connect to the inside of the flying helmet. The front is fitted to take a black-painted 10A/ integrated microphone authorized by the Air Ministry.

Skipper’s russet brown leather gauntlets are seen while flying, almost certainly worn over the double layer of chamois gloves and silk inners. These appear to be the correct 1933 pattern rather than the 1941 pattern with the slanted zip openings that would be implemented and issued following the Battle of Britain.

More great examples of Allied flying gear from this period can be found from this page promoting the “Hell’s Angels” 303rd Bomb Group, a provisional American unit that was activated in England during World War II, flying more than 300 combat missions, more than any other B-17 group in the European Theater.

Skipper’s Uniform

Robert Shaw as RAF Squadron Leader “Skipper” in Battle of Britain (1969)

While you wouldn’t want to steal RAF valor by strutting about in a secondhand service uniform, you can take some style notes from how Robert Shaw rakishly wears his Squadron Leader’s garb, layering for the transitional season ahead with a leather flight jacket (an Irvin, perhaps?) over an off-white turtleneck with rugged slate-toned trousers and well-traveled boots.

• Blue-gray wool serge RAF service uniform jacket with notch lapels, self-belt with double-prong tall gold buckle, four-button single-breasted front, box-pleated chest pockets with scalloped button-down flaps, bellows hip pockets with rectangular button-down flaps, and single vent
  • RAF Squadron Leader sleeve insignia
  • Royal Air Force (RAF) padded “wings” patch
  • Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) ribbon
  • General Service Medal ribbon
  • King George VI Coronation Medal ribbon
• Ivory ribbed-knit wool turtleneck Royal Navy submariner’s sweater with long set-in sleeves
• Blue-gray wool serge RAF uniform trousers with fitted waistband, double forward pleats, straight/on-seam side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black RAF 1936 pattern flying boots with plain toe and buckle-tab top strap
• White ribbed-knit wool knee-high socks
• RAF peaked officer’s cap with blue-gray barathea wool cover and peak with gold-embroidered badge and black patent leather strap
• Dark brown heavyweight sheepskin Irvin flying jacket with fleeced wool lining, zip front, sleeve zippers, and self-belt with single-prong buckle

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

First we knew the bastards had overrun us is when we were trying to land!