Dean Martin in Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)

Vitals

Dean Martin as Dino, smooth crooner with a passion for booze, golf, and women

Between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, Fall 1964

Film: Kiss Me, Stupid
Release Date: December 22, 1964
Director: Billy Wilder
Wardrobe Credit: Irene Caine & Wesley Jeffries
Tailor: Sy Devore

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

To celebrate the legendary Dean Martin, born on this day in 1917 in Steubenville, Ohio, today’s post explores when the chsaismatic Italian-American entertainer played… himself! Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond based their screenplay for Kiss Me, Stupid on Anna Bonacci’s play L’ora della fantasia, molding the scoundrel at the film’s center around Martin’s hypersexed persona, an image that Dino himself was all too happy to lampoon, right down to incorporating his trademark dinner suit and Dual-Ghia convertible.

We begin during Dino’s actual act at the famous Sands Hotel and Casino in Sin City, where—surrounded by showgirls, of course—he’s serenading the crowd with his rendition of “‘S Wonderful” before breaking into his usual schtick of boozy jokes and announcing his next picture with Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Joey Bishop… “it’s called Little Women.” He saunters off stage, making dates among the bevy of showgirls named Mitzi, Sylvia, Janet, and Juicy Lucy before spiriting himself west in that stylish Dual-Ghia.

At sunrise, Dino encounters a Highway Patrol roadblock in the desert, but this ain’t Vanishing Point so he’s free to coolly lean up in his deconstructed dinner suit, his sunglasses perched on his forehead, and quip: “What’sa matter? That Sinatra kid missing again?” The sergeant redirects Dino to a detour that takes him by way of a small Nevada town named Climax, to which Dino responds: “That’s the only way to go.”

Turns out, this is one Climax that Dino would wish he had turned down, as two down-on-their-luck songwriters dupe him into staying overnight in the dusty burg. One of them, oafish mechanic Barney (Cliff Osmond), misplaces a part of the Dual-Ghia’s engine, buying them enough time to pitch him on their hopeful hit “I’m a Poached Egg”, written for the movie by Ira Gershwin, using one of his brother George’s unpublished memories. With little options, Dino accepts their “hospitality” but reinforces that he can’t go the entire night without having sex or he’ll have crippling headaches.

Let that sink in…

…okay, we’re back! To satiate Dino’s carnal appetite, the prickly piano teacher Orville Spooner (Ray Walston) who makes up the other half of the songwriter duo offers up his wife (what?!) but, for the sake of his marriage, sends her from the house crying after a contrived argument on their fifth anniversary and hires the town hooker “Polly the Pistol” (Kim Novak) to stand in as his wife.

Orville: Oh, you’ll like it! It’s not very big, but it’s clean.
Polly: (suspicious) What is?

Okay, that one was actually pretty good.

Despite some shakiness behind the scenes—Novak coming out of a two-year hiatus to replace Marilyn Monroe after her death, and Walston stepping in for Peter Sellers after the comedian suffered a series of 13(!) heart attacks—this weird sex comedy surpassed my expectations, thanks in part to how much fun it was watching Dean Martin satirize his own image. Though Wilder didn’t speak much of Kiss Me, Stupid after its release, he did reflect on his admiration for Martin when interviewed by Cameron Crowe decades later, recalling that “there was much more, 90 percent more, to him than just the jokester. I am a sucker for Dean Martin. I thought he was the funniest man in Hollywood.”

What’d He Wear?

This represents a unique example of where one could argue the outfit has transcended the movie, as I feel like more have some the image of Dino perched at the bar with his Jack Daniel’s in hand than have Kiss Me, Stupid. The disparity is understandable as the movie hardly ranks among the best of Billy Wilder’s canon, which includes Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Stalag 17, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment, but it’s worth watching to see the entertainer satirize his own image as the libidinous and laidback lounge lizard.

Given that he was playing an exaggerated version of his stage persona, Dino almost certainly wore his own clothing which would have been tailored by the legendary Sy Devore, who also cut for the rest of his Rat Pack pallies among other Hollywood royalty.

Dino tipples some Jack Daniel’s at The Belly Button, the kind of place that advertises on its customers’ ability to “drop in and get lost”. This set photography illustrates the colors of his outfit, which—being primarily black, white, and gray—looks essentially the same in the black-and-white movie as it does in full color!

For his long night in Climax, Dino slips into a sport jacket patterned in a complex, layered plaid wool. The most visible check is a shadowed four-line black-and-white windowpane, overlaid against a black-and-white fine-checked ground configured in a grid-like variant of the traditional glen plaid pattern.

The double-vented jacket has notch lapels that roll to the single button positioned at Dino’s waist line, and the shoulders are wide and padded. The patch pockets maintain an appropriately sporty look, and Dino dresses the patch pocket over his left breast with a rakishly arranged black linen pocket square.

Dino looks over his date for the evening, believing Polly the Pistol to be Orville’s wife.

“Him and his Rat Pack, they think they own the Earth!” bemoans Orville. “Riding around in their white chariots, raping and looting, and wearing cuffs on their sleeves!”

Orville’s final gripe refers to the unique gauntlet cuffs (or “turnback cuffs”) affixed to the end of each sleeve on Dino’s sports coat. This neo-Edwardian detail had undergone a revival through mid-century and the height of the Rat Pack’s fame in the early ’60s, ranging in width and subtlety as typically found on their dinner jackets. (Even James Bond wore gauntlet cuffs during this time, as explored by Matt Spaiser for Bond Suits.)

Dino’s gauntlet cuffs represent the excess of this sporty style, with the turned-back portions wider than some trouser cuffs and uniquely shaped with two suggestive bumps. Each cuff cuts away at each sleeve seam, where there are two recessed two-hole “kissing” buttons.

Note Dino’s irregularly shaped gauntlet cuffs that so distress Orville.

Our laidback lounge singer dresses for a casual evening in a light gray knitted short-sleeved polo shirt, a style popular during this period of the early ’60s that has also been seeing a recent retro-inspired renaissance. He buttons both of the smoke-gray plastic buttons that are sewn onto the short, “French”-style placket. The short sleeves are set-in at the shoulders and banded at the bottoms, just above the elbows, echoed by the widely banded waist hem.

Dino’s dark charcoal double reverse-pleated trousers appear to be self-suspended with a set of side-tabs to adjust the fit around the waist. There are hand pockets, and the bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

Having changed out of his patent leather performance shoes, Dino now wears a pair of less formal single monk-strap shoes with dark leather uppers, likely black and worn with black socks to be consistent with the outfit’s overall color scheme.

Dino and Polly button back up after Orville interrupts their living room romp.

Despite the pinky rings, ID bracelets, and fancy watches associated with the Rat Pack, the only jewelry Dino wears is a thin gold necklace with a pendant that drops low onto his chest, likely the entertainer’s own St. Christopher medallion that he wore in real life.

Under it all, Dino wears a white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt and light-colored cotton boxer shorts.

The Tuxedo

The opening act featured Dean Martin’s actual Las Vegas performance, so he’s dressed in one of his famous dinner suits that bridges the sleek tuxedo he had worn in Ocean’s 11 as well as how he would appear weekly on his long-running variety show.

Constructed of slubby black silk, Dino’s tux consists of a single-breasted jacket with slim, satin-faced peak lapels that roll to a low-slung single button flatteringly positioned at the trouser waistline. While the sleeves are also finished with turnback cuffs, these are narrow silk strips around the end of each sleeve rather than the wide, intentionally misshapen gauntlets of his sport jacket. The three buttons on each cuff are also covered in black silk. In addition to the jetted hip pockets, the ventless dinner jacket has a welted breast pocket where Dino wears a colorful pocket square, likely red.

Dino’s Vegas act includes a bevy of showgirls that portend the famous “Golddiggers” that would join him on his weekly variety series.

An offbeat yet consistent and characteristic element of Dino’s oft-seen black tie appearances was his penchant for wearing shirts with button-down collars. This bypassing of traditional black tie expectations signaled that our easygoing entertainer wasn’t going to let a little thing like sartorial decorum get in the way of his taking it easy.

Despite their dressed-down button-down collars, Dino’s performance shirts were also rigged with fussier double (French) cuffs, a seemingly incongruous combination that was also worn—albeit less formally—by his friends Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant. Like his Rat Pack pals, Dino had his shirts made from Nat Wise, now Anto Beverly Hills, which continued to offer “the Dean Martin—cotton voile, button-down collar, ⅜-inch-pleated front, French cuffs,” according to Lisa Eisner’s Vanity Fair article published in 2008.

This white cotton shirt has a plain “French” placket and the double cuffs are fastened with flat mother-of-pearl links. He loosens his black silk “butterfly”-shaped bow tie as soon as he comes off stage, wearing it untied but secured by his button-down collar as he travels into Climax.

The service Dino encounters at the Climax Shell station leaves a little something to be desired.

Both on stage and on the road, Dino wears black patent leather cap-toe oxfords, rather than the Prince Albert slippers he would be seen wearing on The Dean Martin Show over the following decade… a wise choice, as desert dust would be a formidable enemy against black velvet.

For his drive through the desert, he also accessorizes with a pair of sleek black wraparound sunglasses with a straight-top frame.

His Dual-Ghia packed with essentials (i.e. golf clubs), Dino hopes his delay in the desert won’t be too much of an inconvenience.

What’d Ray Walston Wear?

“Let’s not monkey around with Beethoven, shall we?” insists finicky piano teacher Orville Spooner (Ray Walston), appropriately dressed for his passion in a crew-neck jumper emblazoned with the famous German composer’s likeness.

The Car

In addition to his own clothing and personality, Dino arrives in Climax at the wheel of his personal set of wheels, a sleek white 1957 Dual-Ghia convertible. This Italian-styled, American-powered car was perfect for Dean Martin, the son of Steubenville, Ohio who proudly represented his Italian heritage in his image and his music.

Likely the only Dual-Ghia that the small town of Climax, Nevada, would ever host.

Eugene Casaroll, owner of the Detroit-based Dual-Motors Corporation, developed the idea that would evolve into the Dual-Ghia after he was impressed by the Dodge Firearrow concept at the New York Auto Show. Designed by Virgil Exner and Luigi Segre and built by Turin coachbuilder Carrozzeria Ghia, the Firearrow was likely intended to be Chrysler’s response to the Italian-styled Chevrolet Corvette and Ford Thunderbird. While none of the Firearrow series ever hit the road, the concept was enough to inspire Casaroll to work with Chrysler to create a stylish automotive cassarole of his own.

Armed with the newly purchased rights to the Dodge Firearrow design, Casaroll tasked Ghia’s American rep Paul Farago to make the car a road-ready reality. The Firebomb prototype turned heads when introduced in the summer of ’55, but wise minds eventually vetoed such an explosive name for an experimental machine, which would be re-dubbed the Dual-Ghia by the time production began for the 1956 model year.

Kurt Ernst described the “world’s longest assembly line” process for Hemmings:

As with any low-volume automobile with an Italian coachbuilt body, no two Dual-Ghias were alike. Dodge frames were shipped from Detroit to Turin, where Ghia’s staff would shorten the length by seven inches before adding a hand-hammered, step-down body that was welded to the frame in a variety of locations. The interior was fitted, and then the rolling assembly was shipped back to Detroit for final assembly and installation of the Dodge V-8. Both Hemi- and polyspheric-head engines were used, depending upon availability and buyer’s preference, but the only transmission used in Dual-Ghia’s was Chrysler’s two-speed PowerFlite automatic.

While some of the ’57 models were indeed powered by Dodge D-500 361 cubic-inch dual-quad carburetors, most Dual-Ghias had the 315 cubic-inch hemispherical-head short-stroke V8 under the hood, delivering up to 260 horsepower that launched the car from 0-60 in less than nine seconds with a top end around 120 mph.

1957 Dual-Ghia

Body Style: 2-door convertible

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

Engine: 315 cid (5.2 L) Dodge “Red Ram” V8 with 4-barrel carburetor

Power: 260 hp (194 kW; 264 PS) @ 4800 rpm

Torque: 330 lb·ft (447 N·m) @ 3000 rpm

Transmission: 2-speed PowerFlite automatic

Wheelbase: 115 inches (2921 mm)

Length: 203.5 inches (5169 mm)

Width: 73.8 inches (1875 mm)

Height: 52.5 inches (1334 mm)

Only 117 Dual-Ghia automobiles were produced during the short production timeline from 1956 to 1958, with its rarity and then-substantial $7,500 cost limiting its owners to primarily celebrities like Rat Packers Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Peter Lawford, as well as Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Glenn Ford, Sterling Hayden, Ronald Reagan, Debbie Reynolds, and Rick Danko, founding member of The Band.

Sources:

• “Dual-Ghia” (Wikipedia, accessed 5/25/2021)
• “Dual Ghia” by Mal Pearson (The Makes That Didn’t Make It, accessed 5/25/2021)
• “Hemi power, Italian style – 1957 Dual-Ghia convertible to cross the block at Owls Head” by Kurt Ernst (Hemmings, accessed 5/25/2021)

What to Imbibe

Dino pours chianti into one of Polly’s shoes.

Decades after the Rat Pack’s heyday, it’s now well-known that Dean Martin’s drunken stage persona was just primarily a well-cultivated part of the image. Of course, Martin was not averse to tippling (Scotch being his favorite), but he was a relatively conservative drinker and certainly not as tempted by some of the more damaging narcotic vices as some of his contemporaries and Rat Pack pallies.

Given Dino’s image, Orville is floored when he turns down his offer for “Martini, Old Fashioned, vodka on the rocks?” until Dino clarifies that all he needs is “just a bowl of Bourbon and some crackers!”

Orville doesn’t have genuine Kentucky bourbon in stock, but he does have Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey—the known favorite of Dino’s pal Sinatra—and pours it into a tall glass with ice.

“Well, drink up and be somebody!” Dino toasts, an appropriate sentiment given Polly’s deception as Zelda. Despite some mixing (including sipping chianti out of one of Polly’s shoes), Dino primarily sticks to Jack as his elixir of choice for the evening. After Orville kicks him out of the house, Dino takes refuge at the notorious Belly Button bar where Polly works, now drinking his Jack Daniel’s neat as he registers the tragedy of his available options for, uh, relieving himself of his morning headaches.

With a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and two empty glasses, Dino’s ready to keep his evening going once he finds a big fan of his sleeping in Polly’s trailer.

What to Listen to

Why, Dino, of course!

Dean Martin’s 1962 Capitol album Italian Love Songs is prominently featured on screen. Recorded over three days in September 1961, the album boasts a dozen distinctly Italian tracks, notably the stirring renditions of “Arrivederci Roma”, “Non Dimenticar”, and “Return to Me”, as well as the jauntier “On an Evening in Roma.”

Although Martin had already moved to his buddy Sinatra’s Reprise label by the time Kiss Me, Stupid was produced, Italian Love Songs was likely chosen as it was the singer’s only album where he was credited only as “Dino” on the album cover, consistent with his on-screen characterization.

Zelda Spooner (Felicia Farr) pulls out the perfect soundtrack for an evening in Climax.

What’s your favorite Dean Martin album? Mine may be the 1960 release This Time I’m Swingin’! with tracks like “Just in Time”, “Mean to Me”, “Until the Real Thing Comes Along”, and “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You”.

How to Get the Look

Dean Martin with Kim Novak and Ray Walston in Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)

Playing himself, Dino’s screen wardrobe was almost certainly pulled from his own closet and the uniquely cuffed plaid sports coat, soft knitted shirt, monk shoes, and side-adjuster slacks perfectly work together to communicate Dean Martin’s image of a man who dresses comfortably but interestingly.

• Black-and-white glen plaid grid-overchecked wool single-button sport jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, two-button “bumped” gauntlet/turnback cuffs, and double vents
• Light gray knit short-sleeved two-button polo shirt
• Charcoal double reverse-pleated trousers with side-adjuster tabs, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black calf leather single-monk strap shoes
• Black socks
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt/A-shirt
• Light-colored cotton boxer shorts
• Thin gold necklace with St. Christopher medallion

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

There was the one about this doctor, you see? He was examining a girl’s knee and he says, “What’s a joint like this doing on a pretty girl like you?”

The post Dean Martin in Kiss Me, Stupid appeared first on BAMF Style.

Robert Culp as Bob Sanders in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)

Vitals

Robert Culp as Bob Sanders, swinging documentary filmmaker

Las Vegas, Summer 1969

Film: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
Release Date: September 17, 1969
Director: Paul Mazursky
Costume Designer: Moss Mabry

Background

“Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice!” is the subject of the titular toast Alice (Dyan Cannon) delivers in a shared suite at the Riviera in Las Vegas, where the foursome—so to speak—has gathered for a weekend of gambling and a Tony Bennett concert.

A discussion of “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” leads to a newly open-minded Alice questioning where Bob (Robert Culp) and Carol (Natalie Wood) have been leaving more than just their hearts. The swinging couple’s admissions lead to a peanut-munching Ted (Elliott Gould) confessing his own recent affair to Alice who, following her initial outrage, has the most unpredictable reaction of any of the spouses as she begins to undress and declares that the four need to have an orgy.

Although it was Bob’s breakthrough at Esalen that got the ball (or, uh, balls) rolling in exploring this degree of openness, it’s both men who require the most convincing, particularly Ted, who finally gives in after deciding: “We’ll have an orgy, and then we’ll go see Tony Bennett.”

What’d He Wear?

The men’s suits are consistent with what we’d expect of their respective values, the more conservative Ted in a tasteful navy three-piece suit while Bob the swinger dresses for the weekend in a fashion-forward suit, complete with frilly lace jabot, colliding necklaces, and buckle boots.

Bob’s outfit suggests the signature velvet suit that Mike Myers famously wore in all three Austin Powers movies, but costume designer Deena Appel told me during our chat for Pete Brooker’s From Tailors With Love podcast this spring that the movie wasn’t among her many influences for creating the look favored by the international man of mystery.

Take note: swingers love unorthodox blue suits and necklaces that get tangled up in their lace jabots.

Particularly after his Esalen breakthrough at the start of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Bob Sanders was hardly a conventional dresser, eschewing the well-tailored blazers and three-piece suits of his pal Ted in favor of offbeat leather, bold-waled corduroy, and Ulster-collared jackets, considerably more adjacent to the flourishing hippie fashions of the late ’60s.

For an evening in Las Vegas, Bob dresses in an unconventional dark navy suit anchored by a long frock coat, a dandified neo-Victorian style recalling the famous Regency rake Beau Brummell.

The frock coat’s long, full skirt may make it look like Bob has neglected to put his pants back on, but those fine legs we glimpse under his coat belong to Natalie Wood, not Robert Culp.

The long jacket extends through Bob’s thighs, gently suppressed at the waist and with a very long single vent that splits the back into tails. The double-breasted front is configured in two columns of five buttons each, rising up to the Ulster collar, though Bob leaves all unbuttoned. The sleeves are flared at each cuff, finished with a single button. Each hip pocket is covered with a large flap.

Bob’s suit has matching flat front trousers, held up by a wide navy belt that has a dull gold stripe around the center and closes through a large gold-finished single-prong buckle.

As the long frock coat would presumably cover much of the trousers when the suit is worn, there’s little need for pockets and the trousers appear to only have a single coin pocket on the right side of the waistband that closes with a button-down flap.

The manufacturer’s black label is stitched onto the inner right side of the jacket, against the burgundy lining, though other aspects of this scene may grab the viewer’s attention before a fleetingly seen label on the inside of Robert Culp’s frock coat.

The bottoms of Bob’s trousers are plain-hemmed with a gentle flare that allows room for the high shafts of his black leather boots. Decorated with a large studded buckle over the vamp, these boots have a zipper along the inside seam that close over his black calf-high socks.

Bob hikes up his trouser leg to get a glimpse of those natty boots, the gleaming buckles also catching Ted and Alice’s attention.

Throughout the movie, Bob rotates between a pair of Rolex GMT Masters that were likely Culp’s own watches as both would appear in many of his movie and TV appearances of the era. Rolex had collaborated with Pan Am in the early 1950s to launch the GMT Master, originally developed for pilots and navigators to use the rotating 24-hour bezel to tell time in another time zone in addition to GMT when on long-haul flights.

Culp’s 18-karat yellow gold GMT Master in this scene has a brown bezel and brown dial with a 3:00 date window. The semi-rounded three-piece link bracelet appears to be the “President” or “Presidential” bracelet that Rolex originally introduced for the Day-Date. (You can see a similarly arranged GMT Master, a ref. 1675 from 1972 also on a President bracelet, which sold at this Phillips auction.)

The chunky gold ring on Bob’s left pinky finger appears to be filigreed with an animal’s head, though I can’t discern much more detail than that.

All Bob wanted to do was see Tony Bennett perform, and now his best friend’s wife is standing in front of him in her underwear.

Bob wears as many as four necklaces outside his clothing throughout Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, a mixture of colorful beads and metal necklaces, though he seems to only have two for this scene: one consisting of round, light-colored beads, the other a thin gold chain-link necklace that sits a few inches higher on his chest.

Consistent with contemporary pop culture giants of the era from the Beatles to James Bond, Bob skirts a conventional collared shirt and tie by wearing a creamy white cotton lace-trimmed shirt with a jabot over the front bib. The jabot was another fixture from centuries past, pre-dating even the Regency and Victorian eras as it’s believed to have originated in 17th century France, named for the French term meaning “bird’s crop”.

Jabots can be both pre-attached or detachable, with Bob’s jabot integrated into the design of his shirt, cascading in five lacy layers over his chest from the neckband. The jabot bib, the placket-like strips under it, and the lace trim on the two-button cuffs all match, detailed with a series of five-point medallion-like perforations. The shirt has a button on the back of the neckband, then a full zipper that extends down to the bottom of the shirttail.

Needing to access the button and zipper on the back of Bob’s shirt makes it a particularly appropriate choice for situations like this, when you have at least three intimate friends who would be more than willing to help him when taking it off or putting it back on.

Bob and Ted both are revealed to wear white cotton briefs as their preferred underwear. Bob wears his whitey-tighties into the bedroom, eventually discarding them as he joins the other three in bed wearing only his dangling beaded necklaces.

What to Imbibe

The four share a well-stocked bar in their Riviera suite, where Bob drinks a Ballantine’s Finest blended Scotch on the rocks, mixing one up with soda for his wife Carol.

In addition to Ballantine’s Finest Scotch, the group’s in-room bar boasts Ballantine’s English Gin, Beefeater, and Tanqueray and Tribuno dry vermouth, catering to any martini drinkers who may book a stay.

Ballantine’s Scotch was first distilled in 1865 when Scottish grocer George Ballantine expanded his trade to Glasgow, where he began creating his own whisky blends. With demand growing, Ballantine brought his son George Jr. in to help handle the business… leaving his oldest son, Archibald, with the smaller grocery store that George Sr. had started in Edinburgh four decades earlier. (As Arrested Development teaches us, tycoons named George Sr. tend to overlook their responsible sons… not to compare George Ballantine Jr. to the sleazy GOB Bluth, of course.)

Following George Sr.’s retirement and death, business flourished under George Ballantine Jr.’s leadership (see?), and he eventually sold to Barclay and McKinlay in 1919. Ballantine’s survived the impact of Prohibition in the United States and continued to grow over the course of the 20th century, reportedly a favorite of John F. Kennedy and seen in movies like the Matt Helm series, The Sea Wolves, The Sting, and BUtterfield 8, where Elizabeth Taylor used it to make a batch of breakfast eggs.

In addition to its Finest and Limited blends, Ballantine’s also offers a line of aged blends from 12 up to 40 years, with the 12-year-old variety also featuring as one of Bob’s favorites earlier in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.

How to Get the Look

Robert Culp as Bob Sanders in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)

More than a half-century after Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, trying to wear Robert Culp’s frock suit and lace jabot would likely just have people thinking that you forgot the glasses for your Austin Powers costume, though this historically informed getup was a trendy look during the peak of the American sexual revolution in the late ’60s.

• Navy frock coat with double-breasted 10×5-button front, Ulster-style collar, wide-flapped hip pockets, flared 1-button cuffs, and long single vent
• Creamy white cotton neckband shirt with lace jabot front and lace-trimmed two-button cuffs
• Navy flat front trousers with belt loops, button-flap coin pocket, and slightly flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Navy-and-gold striped belt with large gold-finished single-prong buckle
• Black leather inside-zip boots with studded-buckle vamp decoration
• Black socks
• White cotton briefs
• Rolex GMT Master 18-karat yellow gold watch with 39mm case, brown rotating bezel, brown dial (with 3:00 date window), and gold “President”-style bracelet
• Chunky gold animal-filigreed pinky ring
• Colorful beaded necklace
• Thin gold chain-link necklace

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

You really go for the nitty gritty nowadays, don’t you, dear?

The post Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice: Robert Culp’s Swingin’ Navy Suit and Jabot appeared first on BAMF Style.

Bill Murray in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

Vitals

Bill Murray as Steve Zissou, vengeful oceanographer and documentarian

Mediterranean Sea, Fall 2003

Film: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Release Date: December 25, 2004
Director: Wes Anderson
Costume Designer: Milena Canonero

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Much as action movies through the ’90s were often pitched as “Die Hard on a…”, the plot for Wes Anderson’s cult classic The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou could be overly simplified as “what if Moby-Dick was about Jacques Cousteau?” though fans know there’s so much more to it than that!

With Bill Murray’s characterization weaving between homage and affectionate parody, Zissou was clearly Anderson’s ode to the iconic oceanographer and diving pioneer, right down to the red ribbed beanies worn by the crew of Zissou’s research ship Belafonte. (Even the vessel’s name—a tribute to calypso singer Harry Belafonte—is a nod to Cousteau’s ship, Calypso.)

Anderson makes no secret of Zissou’s connection to Cousteau—who was born 111 years ago on June 11, 1910—ending the film with a dedication in Cousteau’s memory.

Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach co-wrote the movie with Murray in mind, with Anderson later explaining that it “could have been no one else.” Indeed, Murray sunk himself into what would become one of the signature roles of his prolific career, eventually certified as a diver with more than forty hours logged. The experience made him considerably more credible as an accomplished (if eccentric) adventurer who would be just the man to hunt down the fabled (and fictitious) “jaguar shark” that killed his colleague.

Neither critics nor audiences embraced The Life Aquatic en masse upon its release, though the years to follow have been kinder in establishing this offbeat original as a modern cult favorite. Though it had always been on my cultural radar, I wasn’t yet enveloped into the mythos of Zissou until my first visit to my now-favorite neighborhood tiki bar—Hidden Harbor—which has an entire wall in the restroom painted with Zissou’s face and the quote that sums up his mission:

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go on an overnight drunk, and in ten days I’m going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910-1987), dressed for adventure in red woolen cap and blue chambray, 1970s.

What’d He Wear?

Milena Canonero deservedly received the Costume Designers Guild Award for Excellence in Costume Design for a Contemporary Film for her work on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, creating an instantly iconic look for “Team Zissou” that drew inspiration from the real Jacques Cousteau and his globally recognized getup of a blue work shirt and pants, topped off with a bright red knitted watch cap.

The red ribbed beanie was integrated as a crucial part of the Team Zissou image, despite the journalist Jane Winslett-Richardson (Cate Blanchett) writing that she finds them “contrived”. Contrived or not, beanies, toques, and watch caps (admittedly in more subdued colors) have been trusted headgear among salty dogs over centuries at sea.

Each member of the team wears caps in a slightly different style, with Steve—obviously the group’s leader—favoring a high-topped beanie with a narrow folded-over cuff, keeping a basket full of them in his quarters.

Red beanies knitted in everything from warm wool to cotton or cheaper acrylic are widely available across the web from retailers like Amazon, though LQD put effort into recreating the Zissou cap in the same shade of red, same ribbed texture, and same structure right down (or up) to the slightly extended top.

The red beanie is an essential part of the Zissou look.

When providing Jane with “stock dialogue” in response to her probing introductory interview questions, Zissou offers that his favorite color is blue, a not-surprising choice for a man who lives and works at sea. Day by day, Team Zissou is outfitted in light blue uniforms, which—like their caps—differ slightly in their details.

However, the standard Team Zissou shirt like the one Steve himself wears daily is made from a misty cyan-colored blend of polyester and spandex, likely crafted and chosen for its water-resilient properties. (The exact material is described as a “polyblend spandex” in this Prop Store listing for the uniform worn by Niels Koizumi’s stuntman.) The breast pockets are detailed with the Team Zissou insignia—er, I mean patch—consisting of the white-and-yellow embroidered “Z” logo above a white rectangle with “TEAM ZISSOU” embroidered in black.

These shirts feature contrasting cornflower-blue strips on the front placket and across the shoulders and down each short sleeve, cut off by the self-cuff around the bottom of each sleeve. These blue strips are accented by three parallel lines of light blue thread that echoes the body of the shirt.

The placket has seven mint-green four-hole sew-through buttons up the front to the point collar, and Zissou wears the top button open at the neck to reveal the crew-neck of his white cotton short-sleeved undershirt. Each of the shoulders has a pointed strap (epaulette) that’s secured at the set-in shoulder seam and fastens a few inches shy of the neck through another mint button.

Like so many classic seafarers, Zissou also has a favorite sweater to pull on for chilly nights on the water. As worn by Zissou and issued to the rest of the team, this rich navy blue knitteed sweater has a short ribbed shawl collar, set-in sleeves, and a white “Z” embroidered onto the upper right chest.

“Quiet out there tonight. Can you hear the jack-whales singing…?”
“Well, that was the sludge tanker over there, but-“

For rainier occasions, the team protects themselves with waterproof zip-up hooded windbreakers, made in the same light cyanic shade of blue as their uniforms and detailed with Team Zissou patches on the front. Zissou’s jacket, lined in white mesh, has narrow ventilated storm flaps on the chest, a vertical-zipped pocket lower on the right breast, and straight hand pockets. The hood closes with a sea-blue drawcord.

Zissou’s team has pale blue cotton-stretch trousers—or, in Klaus Daimler’s (Willem Dafoe) case, shorts—to match the uniform shirts, detailed with the same cornflower blue tape down over the side seam of each trouser leg. These flat front pants have a squared extended tab to close over the front of the waistband, plus slanted side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

The trousers have wide belt loops, with the blue side tape integrated over the belt loops on each side of the waistband. The cotton or nylon web belt is patterned in nine narrow stripes alternating between navy, sky-blue, and white, closing through a small silver-toned sliding buckle.

To carry their issued Glock pistols, Zissou and his team have black drop-leg holster rigs. The holster itself is made of Kydex with a snap-closed thumb break, secured in place by a velcro-fastened black nylon strap around his right thigh, with a supporting vertical black nylon strap that loops over his belt.

As Zissou’s team conducts their operations at sea with few around that wouldn’t be well-informed of the nature of their work—or who aren’t aggressive pirates—they have no need to try to conceal their weapons, favoring easy access over concealment.

Within the fictional Zissou-niverse depicted on screen, our hero had reached such a level of fame that Team Zissou was actually sponsored by Adidas, right down to the sneakers they customized for Team Zissou with the brand’s trademark three stripes shaded in blue to coordinate with the team uniforms.

“They made these for about three and a half years before they terminated my sponsorship,” Zissou explains to Jane, pulling a nearly pristine-looking pair from an unmistakably Adidas-branded blue shoebox. The shape of these low-profile sneakers with their suede T-toe and soft gum rubber wedged-bottom outsoles are clearly inspired by the Adidas Rom running shoe, which the German outfitter had originally developed in tandem with the 1960 Olympic summer games in Rome. (It may be just coincidence, but it seems fitting that Team Zissou would be wearing a shoe known as the “Rom runner”… which could sound an awful lot like “rumrunner” after too much Campari.)

Adidas evidently modified their Rom for Team Zissou, most obviously by the gold-printed “ZISSOU” replacing “ROM” on the sides just behind the three stripes, now running parallel in blue, sky-blue, and blue, with the heel tabs also blue to match the two outer stripes. The uppers are a white supple leather, and the suede T-toe made from a slightly warmer shade of beige. Bright yellow flat laces are pulled through the seven eyelets, adding the third primary color to complete Team Zissou’s red hats and blue uniforms. Steve tends to wear plain white cotton crew socks with his sneakers.

It took more than a dozen years before Adidas finally responded to waves of fan interest to release a limited run of Zissou-branded sneakers inspired by those seen on screen, as reported by Jake Woolf for GQ in 2017. The shoes sold out fast, but you can still find Adidas’ officially reissued Rom runners on Adidas or Amazon, among other retailers.

Multiple sources across the web (Product Placement Blog and Spotern, for two) have identified Zissou’s square-framed sunglasses as the iconic American Optical Original Pilot.

I find it interesting that, despite his more unorthodox sartorial tendencies, Zissou would favor such the eyewear associated with heroes of the American establishment from aviators to astronauts. Perhaps, for all his quirks, Zissou mistrusts anyone in offbeat eyewear… such as his nemesis, Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum), who peered back at him from the distinctive custom frames that were made in real life for Devo lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh, who also composed The Life Aquatic‘s score.

Zissou’s gold-framed aviators are the wider 55mm size, detailed with AO Eyewear’s signature “bayonet temples” that were designed to be easily worn with military pilots’ headgear when the glasses debuted in the late ’50s.

Team Zissou appropriately equips themselves with dive watches, chosen more for function than form given how frequently their professions find them submerged; the exception proves the rule as the latest member of the team, Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson), wears a Rolex GMT Master that would have served him well as a commercial pilot for Air Kentucky.

So what dive watch did our fearless leader choose? One of the prestigious Rolex, Omega, Blancpain, or Doxa models as favored by his real-life counterpart Jacques Cousteau? Not quite.

True to his idiosyncrasies, Zissou fittingly adorns his wrist with a Vostok Amphibia, a unique Russian-made diver that originated at the height of the Cold War as a surprisingly worthwhile alternative to the well-established—and famously accurate—Swiss brands. Felix Scholz described the Amphibia’s development for Hodinkee in 2012:

In 1967, Mikhail Novikov and Vera Belov, designers at the Chistopol watch factory, had a challenging task: to design and produce a new dive watch reliable to 200 meters and the associated changes of pressure and temperature.

The design team at Vostok decided on the name “Amphibia” as it evoked a watch equally at home underwater and on land. Coming up with the name was the easy part. Producing a watch capable of meeting the needs of the Soviet defense department was the real challenge.

Of course Switzerland was capable of producing watches with such specifications, but according to Novikov… “many [Swiss] designs we could not repeat, because our equipment can not provide the necessary accuracy.” If the quality of the machines available in Russia meant that copying the techniques of the Swiss were out of the question, then Novikov and Belov would have to approach the problem differently altogether.

In his entertaining review of a “Zissou” Vostok Amphibia, Jody of Just One More Watch marvels at the “quirky, fun, and value-packed” watch’s ability to actually grow more water resistant as its submerged in greater depths. In fact, more than 50 years after their introduction, the Vostok Amphibia has retained a strong but loyal following as an affordable, functional, and undeniably distinctive diver still widely available from online retailers like Amazon and eBay. (Before I was even aware of the Zissou connection, I had purchased a submarine-detailed Zostok that, aside from the seemingly flimsy bezel, lives up to the reputation!)

Zissou’s Vostok diver has been identified as a ref. 420526 Amphibia, powered by Vostok’s self-winding 2416 automatic movement and worn on a black ridged rubber strap. The 39mm stainless steel case has a substantial acrylic crystal over the black dial, which is distinctively detailed in Soviet-era nautical iconography from the spoked ship’s wheel at 12:00 to the anchor at 6:00 and the rope encircling it all on the edge of the dial. The 2, 4, 8, and 10 o’clock hour markers are printed in large white numerals, though an inner ring has a white luminous dot for each hour, and there’s a white date window at 3:00.

The bi-directional chrome bezel has non-numeric round markers at each hour position, connected by dashes like Morse code; five of these hour-marker dots from 8:00 to 12:00—and the dashes between them—are filled in red enamel, the rest in black.

“Supposedly, Cousteau and his cronies invented the idea of putting walkie-talkies into the helmet,” Zissou explains. “But we made ours with a special rabbit-ear on the top so we could pipe in some music.” In addition to the celebrated “rabbit ear” antenna that extends rearward from the top, Zissou’s hard plastic diving helmet is equipped with a forward-facing flashlight and his name (“STEVE”) in blue tape just to the left of the light.

The team also dresses in neoprene wetsuits, each somewhat different in color and with slight variations in style; for instance, the legs on Klaus Daimler’s shark gray wetsuit are cut off above his knees to mimic the shorts that are part of his daily uniform. Zissou wears a light seafoam teal wetsuit that has the same black tape over the seams and zipper for increased insulation. Apropos his leadership position, the words “MASTER FROGMAN” are embroidered along the bottom of the round blue Team Zissou patch affixed to the left breast.

The wetsuit covers his body from head to toe, though Zissou—evidently a brand loyalist—slips his wetsuit-covered feet into a pair of black-and-white Adidas slide sandals when he’s back aboard the Belafonte. His usual holster is supported by a yellow double-striped black web belt around his waist, where he also keeps the suit’s matching gloves before donning them when he dives with the rest of his team.

“I’m not even going to ask what you men are doing out here in your matching pajamas,” greets reporter Jane Winslett-Richardson (Cate Blanchett) when she encounters Team Zissou late at night on the beach at Pescepada Island. From where she’s standing, it makes sense that the team would look outfitted in matching sleepwear, though there is some variation in styling and stripes from set to set. Zissou’s own puckered cotton PJs are striped in pale yellow and blue, with a six-button long-sleeved top detailed with hip pockets and light blue embroidered “Z” logo over the left breast.

Team Zissou doesn’t just stop at wetsuits and pajamas, as Steve also wears a light seafoam terrycloth bathrobe with a sky blue reverse side also seen along the inside of the hood. In addition to the self-belt and hip pockets, the robe is naturally emblazoned with the Team Zissou patch.

Zissou wears his robe over his blu tri-toned swim trunks when his visit to the onboard sauna is interrupted by a gang of pirates. These spandex-and-polyester blend trunks have an elasticized, self-suspended waistband and a short inseam that doesn’t even extend an inch below the crotch, leaving very little of Bill Murray to the imagination.

The trunks were auctioned in 2019 with one of Zissou’s crew belt and holster rigs. The tag seen on the shorts suggests a manufacturer whose name begins “D’Inz…”, though I haven’t been able to figure out more.

Battered but not beaten after the pirate attack, Zissou re-dons his red cap to assure us that he’s resumed his position of dominance.

Of course, not all Team Zissou casual attire is so devoid of modesty. Steve also pulls on a pale blue cotton crew-neck T-shirt with a large black-stenciled “TEAM ZISSOU” logo covering the front.

The Gun

Don’t point that gun at him, he’s an unpaid intern.

The life aquatic features more gunplay than one might expect, so Team Zissou arms up with a tried-and-true Glock 17 strapped to each member’s thigh holster. “No exceptions, everyone gets one,” Zissou explains to a reluctant Ned as he issues a pistol to him.

In addition to their celebrated reliability, interchangeable parts, and ease of use, the Glock was a smart choice for our seagoing team as they also developed a reputation for resilience to water, particularly when compared to other semi-automatic pistols that don’t share the Glock’s internal firing mechanisms. For a team that works primarily on the water, this would be a considerable asset to make sure their potentially wet sidearms are functioning properly should they be overtaken by hijackers… or “pirates”, as we call them out here, Ned.

“Now tell me something, does this seem fake?”

Unfortunately, Steve leaves his piece in his cabin when taking in a steam during the pirate attack, but he summons the motivation to overpower one of the guards, steal his Beretta 92FS, and use it to take back control of the Belafonte until it runs out of ammunition and it tosses it into the water after the retreating pirates. (The scene of Murray battling pirates while his bathrobe flaps around him is made all the better as it’s scored by The Stooges’ “Search and Destroy”.)

The Team Zissou pistols also seem to alternate between Glocks and Berettas, more frequently using the latter when they need to be fired on screen, suggesting that the production was more easily able to acquire Italian-made Berettas that fired blanks given that most of the production was filmed in and around Italy.

What to Imbibe

“Hey, intern? Get me a Campari, will ya?” Zissou requests, confirming the intern’s follow-up question that he’d like it on the rocks by wordlessly firing a finger gun back at him. He seems to take the first glass of this bitter Italian apéritif while up in his balloon with Jane, who finishes the dregs when their discussion gets too personal. “You really think it’s cool to hit the sauce when you’ve got a bun in the oven?” asks Zissou.

Back down aboard the Belafonte, Zissou fills that same branded highball glass up to the brim with Campari… and perhaps an ice cube or two.

Invented in 1860 by Gaspare Campari, the liqueur remains mostly true to Campari’s original formula of more than 60 natural ingredients and is considered essential for cocktails like the Negroni and Americano.

Beyond Campari, Zissou also nostalgically waxes poetic about “the best Rum Cannonball I’d ever tasted” in the hands of a bartender named Kino once employed by the now-ruined Hotel Citroën in the Ping Islands, a location as fictional as the cocktail in question though several mixologists have taken a stab at developing the recipe for this Zissou-worthy concoction.

How to Get the Look

Bill Murray in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

Strictly translated, dressing like Steve Zissou would make for a great Halloween costume… but Chris Scott’s helpful guide at Primer illustrates how the Team Zissou seafaring uniform can be practically adapted into a functional everyday style.

• Light blue polyester-spandex short-sleeved shirt with point collar, shoulder straps (epaulettes), insignia-badged breast pocket, and blue-taped shoulders and 7-button front placket
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• Light blue cotton-blend flat front trousers with blue-taped side seams, wide belt loops, slanted side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Navy, blue, and white multi-striped web belt with small silver-toned sliding buckle
• White leather customized Adidas “Rom” gum-soled sneakers with beige suede T-toe, flat yellow laces, and two-tone blue triple stripes
• White crew socks
• Red ribbed knit cuffed “beanie” watch cap
• American Optical (AO Eyewear) Original Pilot gold square-framed aviator sunglasses
• Zostok Amphibia ref. 420526 self-winding stainless steel dive watch with black dial (with 3:00 date window and Soviet nautical imagery), red-and-black enamel-filled chrome bi-directional bezel, and black ridged rubber strap
• Black Kydex single-strap drop-leg right-thigh holster, for full-size Glock pistol

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Anyway, I’m sorry. I know I haven’t been at my best this past decade.

The post Steve Zissou appeared first on BAMF Style.

Burt Lancaster as Lou Pascal in Atlantic City (1980)

Vitals

Burt Lancaster as Lou Pascal, aging numbers runner

Atlantic City, Fall 1979

Film: Atlantic City
Release Date: September 3, 1980
Director: Louis Malle
Costume Designer: François Barbeau

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Burt Lancaster kicked off his final decade on the silver screen with Louis Malle’s well-received romantic crime drama, Atlantic City. In addition to securing Lancaster’s fourth and final Academy Award nomination, Atlantic City also earned nomination across all “Big Five” categories, though the film was shut out at the Oscars with Henry Fonda taking home the trophy for his performance in On Golden Pond.

Lancaster plays Lou Pascal, a long-in-the-tooth numbers runner who proudly walks the boardwalk of the titular town, waxing poetic to anyone who’ll listen about the golden age of gangsterdom in America’s Playground, when “it used to be beautiful, whatwith the rackets, whoring, guns.”

Atlantic City had floy floy coming out of its ears in those days. Now it’s all so goddamn legal. Howard Johnson running a casino. Tutti-frutti ice cream with craps don’t mix.

Lou’s comfort among criminality results in a botched cocaine deal that results in a dead dealer and plenty of blow left over for Lou to sell for his own profit as he endeavors to seduce the dealer’s estranged—and now widowed—wife, an attractive and ambitious casino waitress named Sally (Susan Sarandon).

What’d He Wear?

Flush in ill-gotten funds, Lou embraces the opportunity to dress like the roaring ’20s gangster he pretends to have been. He spies an off-white ’30s-styled sports coat beaming at him from the window of a secondhand store and, with a friend willing to take his old brown windowpane suit off his hands, Lou easily slips into the part of a glad-handing gangster who could have once been seen walking alongside Nucky Johnson as the real-life A.C. crime boss patrolled his boardwalk empire.

A successful day of impulsive window shopping for Lou.

The ivory herringbone “action back” sports coat is cut and detailed in the tradition of 1930s resort-wear, the sort of jacket that would have been favored by the visiting gangsters he admired in his youth.

Single-breasted jackets with peak lapels (as typically found on double-breasted jackets) have cycled in and out of fashion every four decades or so, beginning with the “floy floy” era the late ’20s through the ’30s, revived during the disco era just around the time Atlantic City was produced. Lou’s broad lapels would have been fashionable during either era, though the straight gorges suggest the earlier timeframe.

Though the jacket hanging in the store window appears to have a conventional single-button closure, several shots of Lou walking with the jacket closed reveal its unique “link-front” closure, comprised of two connected buttons that close through the buttonhole like a cufflink so that a button presents on each side.

Note the evidence of a link-button closure, as we seem to see a button on both sides of where Lou’s jacket closes at his waist.

The wide shoulders are padded—again, in the tradition of ’30s tailoring—to build up an even more imposing silhouette for the already athletic Burt Lancaster. Each sleeve is finished with three spaced-apart buttons at the cuff.

The jacket is dressed down to the level of resort wear by sporty details like the box-pleated pockets on the hips and over the left breast. The bi-swing “action back” is so named for the sets of double pleats behind each arm opening that give the wearer greater range of motion without adding too much bagginess that would detract from the jacket’s flattering silhouette. This silhouette is enhanced by the half-belted back, which pulls the waist in. A long single vent extends from the center of the self-belt down to the bottom hem.

Lou offloads his old brown windowpane suit onto his pal Buddy as he maintains his own fresh appearance in his newly purchased “action back” sport jacket.

Lou accessorizes his new duds in the manner of a well-to-do sportsman, tying a bronze paisley-printed silk day cravat around his neck, allowing the front to puff out through the open neck of his shirt.

Lou injects more flashy color into his ensemble with a fuchsia pink shirt with a sheen that suggests silk in the construction. The large point collar gently flares out at the ends, and he keeps the top—eventually top few—button of the front placket undone to show his neckerchief. The buttons are a smoke-gray flat four-hole plastic, including those that he keeps buttoned through the barrel cuffs on each wrist.

His gangster “costume” of hat, jacket, and cravat discarded, Lou is stripped back down to his true self for a quiet moment with Sally on the run in their hotel room.

Lou pairs his off-white herringbone jacket with ivory trousers to create the effect of a mismatched suit to the degree that, the first time I saw Atlantic City, I assumed this actually was a two-piece suit! Looking more closely, there’s a subtle contrast between the creamier jacket and the cooler-shaded slacks, which are also a tight gabardine weave as opposed to the herringbone jacket.

Despite the retro direction of his style, Lou’s double forward-pleated trousers have a lower rise more contemporary to the late ’70s, placing the waistband below the aging—but still athletic—actor’s growing midsection. The trousers have gently slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs), and they’re held up with a taupe braided woven belt that has tonal leather ends and a dulled single-prong buckle.

Apropos the nature of his outfit, Lou completes the look with flashy shoes, a pair of apron-toe tassel loafers with bright white leather uppers. His dark tan socks coordinate with the outfit without matching either the trousers or shoes.

The only element of his old clothing that Lou continues to wear is his khaki gabardine trench coat, a practical outer layer with enough “old school cool” connotations (think Bogie!) that he could effectively wear it with his new, all-white kit.

The knee-length coat has a broad ulster collar that can be buttoned to close over the chest, in addition to the six buttons arranged in a slightly tapered 6×3 double-breasted front and the full belt with a tall rectangular brass slide-through buckle. The coat also has fused shoulder straps (epaulettes), a straight-hemmed storm flap on the right side, a long single vent, and slanted pass-through hand pockets just below the belt with wide-welted openings. The set-in sleeves are finished with a short rectangular single-button semi-tab at each cuff.

True to his desired image as an early 20th century gangster, Lou crowns himself with a wide-brimmed fedora… though not just any fedora, as it’s constructed from an eye-catching creamy white felt to match his jacket, trousers, and shoes. The grosgrain silk band and edges are also off-white, the only contrasting color coming from the feather tucked into the left side of the band.

During the final scene, as Lou walks the boardwalk with Grace (Kate Reid), he’s still embracing his newfound image as a successful gangster in white hat, jacket, and shoes under his trench coat, but he’s swapped out the sporty cravat for a more conventional scarlet red tie.

Lou and Grace walk arm in arm, full of newfound mutual respect (but hopefully no floy floy!)

On the third finger of his right hand, Lou wears a chunky gold ring with a large green stone.

=

Lou’s gold tonneau watch is likely decades old as well, similar to men’s wristwatch styles that were popular during the ’40s and ’50s. The shape appears rectangular but with subtle convex curvature on the sides that suggests tonneau. The champagne gold dial has non-numeric hour markers, plus a sub-register at 6:00, and Lou wears the piece on a brown ridged leather strap.

Lou pops the cork on a bottle of Dom Pérignon champagne while hiding out with Sally in a hotel room outside the city.

What to Imbibe

Lou interrupts a poker game and pours himself a glass of Early Times, a budget-priced Kentucky whiskey with the sort of storied history and tough associations that would attract a nostalgic old wannabe gangster like Lou.

Early Times dates back to 1860 when it was first produced by Jim Beam’s uncle Jack in Kentucky. Ironically, it wasn’t until the onset of Prohibition in the United States that Early Times grew popular, as it was one of the few established distilleries with a license to legally continue production for, uh, “medicinal purposes”. Under the ownership of the Brown-Forman Company, Early Times prospered to become the best-selling whiskey in the United States by the early 1950s.

Its price point and taste established Easy Times in pop culture as a favorite of harder types, mentioned by name in Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail as well as other works of fiction from John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces and the occasional Elmore Leonard story to the raw 1970 crime thriller The Honeymoon Killers.

Unfortunately, a struggling industry meant some changes to the venerated Early Times formula. In 1983, three years after Atlantic City was released, Early Times shifted from straight bourbon to a blend of primarily bourbon and about one-fifth “light whiskey”, which was enough of a difference that the brand was no longer qualified to market its product as bourbon, thus requiring the label of “Kentucky whisky” for its signature product… until recently.

After nearly 35 years without a pure bourbon among its output, the recent bourbon boom revitalized demand to the point that Early Times was able to reintroduce its bottled-in-bond straight Kentucky bourbon to the market, making its welcome return in 2017.

Source: “How Early Times Traversed Bourbon’s Ups and Downs for 160 Years” by Caroline Paulus for The Bourbon Review

The Gun

After a confrontation with the gangsters who killed Sally’s husband, a despondent Lou returns to his apartment and digs a blued steel Smith & Wesson Model 36 from one of his old loafers.

This five-shot “snubnose” revolver was christened the “Chiefs Special” upon its introduction in 1950, before Smith & Wesson began numbering its models later in the decade. The reliable revolver was a favorite on both sides of the law for its mix of power and concealment, carrying five rounds of the standard police .38 Special cartridge in a 2″-barreled “belly gun” package.

The pass-through pockets of Lou’s trench coat allow him to smoothly handle his snub-nosed Smith & Wesson without drawing much attention. Note the five-round cylinder that helps identify his firearm as the classic Model 36, and also note the distinctive “two-sided” link-button front of Lou’s off-white sport jacket under his trench coat.

How to Get the Look

The old adage says to dress for the job you want and, after decades admiring the slick gangsters who frequented Atlantic City, Lou Pascal finally has the means to make this his reality as he pairs his new vintage-inspired ivory “action-back” sports coat with a colorful shirt, affected neckerchief, and a flashy white fedora and matching loafers for an ensemble guaranteed to turn heads as he strolls up the boardwalk packing a concealed gat.

Burt Lancaster as Lou Pascal in Atlantic City (1980)

• Ivory herringbone single-breasted sport jacket with wide straight-gorge peak lapels, single link-button closure, box-pleated breast pocket, box-pleated hip pockets, spaced 3-button cuffs, and bi-swing “action back” pleats with half-belted back and single vent
• Fuchsia pink silky shirt with point collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Bronze paisley silk day cravat
• Ivory gabardine double forward-pleated slacks with belt loops, gently slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Taupe braided woven belt with leather ends and single-prong buckle
• White leather apron-toe tassel loafers
• Tan socks
• Chunky gold filigreed ring with large green oval stone
• Vintage gold tonneau watch with champagne gold dial and brown ridged leather strap
• Ivory felt fedora with white grosgrain ribbon and edges
• Khaki gabardine double-breasted 6×3-button trench coat with fixed epaulettes, storm flap, ulster collar, belt, single vent, and set-in sleeves with single-button semi-tab cuffs

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. Criterion Channel subscribers can also catch it before it leaves at the end of June!

If you’re not already convinced, read Chris McKittrick’s fine review at MovieBuzzers.

The post Atlantic City: Burt Lancaster’s White Vintage Sport Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Waylon Jennings, flanked by series regulars Tom Wopat and John Schneider on The Dukes of Hazzard, Episode 7.02: “Welcome, Waylon Jennings”

Vitals

Waylon Jennings, outlaw country star

Hazzard County, Georgia, Fall 1984

Series: The Dukes of Hazzard
Episode: “Welcome, Waylon Jennings” (Episode 7.02)
Air Date: September 28, 1984
Director: Bob Sweeney
Creator: Gy Waldron
Costume Supervisor: Bob Christenson

Background

After six seasons as Hazzard County’s official off-screen “balladeer”, country legend Waylon Jennings finally showed more than just his hands on the long-running series about those two celebrated good ol’ boys.

Born 84 years ago today on June 15, 1937, in the small cotton town of Littlefield, Texas, Waylon Jennings began playing music after he left high school at the age of 16. While performing and DJing at local radio stations in Texas, his talent eventually gained the attention of his fellow Texan rocker Buddy Holly—already an established star—who hired Jennings as a bassist and also arranged his first recording session. In fact, Jennings had gotten so close to Holly that he was meant to join him and Ritchie Valens on their ill-fated flight that crashed in February 1959, “the day the music died”, but he gave us his seat for J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, who was fighting the flu.

“I hope your ol’ bus freezes up,” Holly quipped to Jennings before the flight, who responded with “Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes,” a joke that would haunt Waylon for the rest of his life.

Waylon honed his talent in Phoenix, between gigs at J.D.’s and his contract with Herb Alpert, before he was recruited to Nashville to record for RCA by the “Country Gentleman” himself, Chet Atkins. He cultivated his early career in late ’60s Nashville, developing friendships with peers like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson—the foursome that would eventually form the outlaw supergroup The Highwaymen—as well as starring in his first acting role with the budget drive-in flick Nashville Rebel, and marrying the love of his life, Phoenix-born singer-songwriter Jessi Colter.

To experience Waylon during the height of this early fame, check out this fun clip from his and Jessi’s appearance on The Johnny Cash Show in March 1970:

By 1972, Waylon’s resentment of the Nashville establishment boiled over just as he and his new manager Neil Reshen were renegotiating his deal with RCA. In his memoir, Waylon recounts the climactic meeting where both teams sat in silence until Jennings got up to use the restroom, returning to find that his bio break had been interpreted as a tactic and was praised by Reshen as a “$25,000 piss” that increased the singer’s earnings while also allowing him the creative control he desired in the studio.

Waylon’s new deal lit the spark for what would become known as the “outlaw country” movement, characterized by returning to country’s rawer roots in blues, honky tonk, and rockabilly while also providing artists with the opportunity to record with the talent of their choosing. As opposed to the “rhinestone suits and new shiny cars” of Nashville’s mainstream stars, Waylon’s tougher-living crew had long hair and beards and wore what they pleased (“here I am in my damn Levis and leather jacket, hair slicked back, all cigarettes and drugs,” he wrote in his autobiography), consistent with their celebration of individual freedom.

“To us, Outlaw meant standing up for your rights, your own way of doing things,” Waylon explained in his autobiography, explaining that the description better fit the influence of unapologetic musical forebears like Hank Williams rather than actual criminals. In early ’70s Nashville, it was outside the accepted musical law for an artist to record with their own band or record music by a three-fingered drifter no one had ever heard of. Waylon and guys like Willie Nelson and Tompall Glaser changed everything.

The spark Waylon had lit when negotiating his new contract exploded into a four-alarm fire with his 1973 album Honky Tonk Heroes, almost exclusively written by the then-unknown Billy Joe Shaver. Waylon had first heard Billy Joe singing “Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me” during Willie’s Fourth of July picnic in Dripping Springs the previous year, telling him he would be interested in more of his songs. Not one to ignore the opportunity, Billy Joe tracked Waylon down to Nashville—in the middle of a recording session with Atkins—and threatened to fight him if he wouldn’t listen to more of his songs. Given the ten-track masterpiece in July, kicked off my the rough-rocking leading title track (a particular favorite of mine), it’s safe to assume that Waylon and Billy Joe reached an understanding.

Despite Atkins’ obvious reluctance to putting out an album that contrasted so significantly from his cultivated and overly produced “Nashville Sound” meant to appeal to mainstream audiences, the rawness of Honky Tonk Heroes ironically impressed both pop and country audiences who appreciated what a reviewer for the Kansas City Star called “straight C&W minus the show biz pretension.”

The ’70s would be Waylon’s arguably most successful period, with eleven of his singles rising to the #1 spot on the Billboard U.S. country charts. By decade’s end, he began reaching even wider audiences as The Dukes of Hazzard‘s credited balladeer, providing folksy narration and a country soundtrack for the Duke boys’ hot-rodding adventures against the corrupt—and hopelessly incompetent—forces helming the fictional Hazzard County. His theme song, “Good Ol’ Boys”, easily glided to the top of the country charts and even marked Waylon’s career high on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #21.

The extended version of “Good Ol’ Boys” includes a verse of Waylon bemoaning that he only shows his hands and not his face on TV, referencing the shot of him strumming his Fender that opened the credits for every episode from the start of the series. Viewers may not have realized that, behind the scenes of the show, their beloved balladeer was fighting an addiction to cocaine and pills that was quickly draining his finances and health. Waylon resolved to give up drugs in the spring of 1984 and, by the time he finally appeared on screen when “Welcome, Waylon Jennings,” aired in late September, the singer was nearly six months clean.

If weakly plotted (not that The Dukes of Hazzard was ever Hitchcock), the episode provided more than just the usual excuse to ogle Catherine Bach in her Daisy Dukes or see how high Paul Baxley’s team could jump that ’69 Dodge Charger this week, as it concludes with Watasha serenading the Boar’s Nest audience with “Never Could Toe the Mark”, a single from his latest album of the same name. (Though we can’t be sure where that full band sound comes from since we only see Waylon and his guitar—and mandolin!—on stage.)

There’s some substantial retconning here, as now the Duke family evidently goes way back with Waylon to his early days as a singer to the degree that he evidently owes the success of his career to Uncle Jesse’s kindness. Luckily, that’s enough built-up goodwill that Waylon is willing to give the Dukes the benefit of the doubt when they’re framed as prime suspects in the theft of Waylon’s mobile museum full of country and western music memorabilia from Buddy Holly’s motorcycle to Willie Nelson’s ponytail.

What’d He Wear?

Like his pal and fellow Highwayman Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings frequently dressed in black as part of his on- and off-stage look, though he was more prone to incorporating color than the famous “Man in Black”.

“We were so much alike in many ways, it was scary,” Waylon wrote in his autobiography of his friendship with Cash. “We both dressed in black, like Lash LaRue. Later, when we met Lash on the set of the Stagecoach movie, we were worried he was going to bust us for taking his style.” (Coincidentally, Jennings and LaRue shared their June 15 birthday, though LaRue was born two decades earlier.)

“If we took on the guise of cowboys, it was because we couldn’t escape the pioneer spirit, the restlessness that forces you to keep pushing at the horizon, seeing what’s over the next ridge,” Waylon wrote. “When I put the black hat on and walked to the stage, carrying my Telecaster, I was staking my own piece of land where the buffalo roam. Don’t fuck with me, was what we were saying.”

His cowboy image firmly established, Waylon also describes an instance of wearing “my regulation black hat and vest and boots,” often contrasting his outlaw garb with the rhinestone-clad stars of Nashville establishment, a dichotomy masterfully explored in his 1975 hit single “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?”

Aside from Nashville Rebel, produced during his “clean-cut” RCA era in the ’60s, Hoss never saw much prominent time on screen in scripted movies or TV. Naturally, it was The Dukes of Hazzard that allowed Waylon to showcase his personality and appearance as he cameoed as himself across an entire episode dedicated to his guest-starring role. For six seasons leading up to the episode, viewers who didn’t know better only saw his mid-section as he strummed his Fender, seeing only the rolled-up sleeves of his burgundy shirt, a black leather vest, and blue jeans.

For six seasons, this was as much of Waylon Jennings as ever appeared on screen during The Dukes of Hazzard.

When Waylon Jennings was finally welcomed to Hazzard County behind the wheel of his mobile museum, he was intentionally dressed more to match his black-on-black image (coincidentally, he also cut an album titled Black on Black in 1982) as seen on the cover of albums like Are You Ready for the Country? and Waylon and Company.

Tom Wopat laughs between takes with Waylon Jennings during Hoss’ guest appearance on The Dukes of Hazzard, 1984.

The black long-sleeved shirt is the same snap-button style that’s been long associated with cowboys since the snap-closure was developed by Rockmount Ranchwear founder Jack Weil in the early 20th century to allow riders’ shirts to easily break away rather than tearing or snagging should their wearer get caught on a fence or other obstacle (per Blue Owl). Waylon recounts in his memoir how he had already started replacing drugs with food as his overindulgence of choice, so the already tight-fitting shirt seems to be pulled a little tighter against the 47-year-old star’s midsection.

Consistent with the classic snap-front “cowboy shirt”, Waylon’s black shirt has the reinforced shoulder yokes with Western-style points. He keeps the top three black-finished snaps undone on the front placket, and the triple-snap cuffs are also undone and rolled up his sleeves. There are presumably two chest pockets that each close with a snap-down flap, though they’d be positioned to remain covered by Waymore’s vest.

Waylon’s black leather vest was established as an essential element of his outlaw image a decade earlier during the Honky Tonk Heroes days, echoing the fashions of motorcycle gangs like the Hell’s Angels members who provided security during his concerts. The five-button vest he wears to Hazzard County is detailed with rust-colored tooling and has two welted pockets.

“Now I’m over 30, still wearin’ jeans,” Waylon sang on “Amanda”, the final track of his 1974 album Ramblin’ Man. A decade later and nearly 50, Hoss was still clad in denim, driving into Hazzard County with a pair of dark indigo blue jeans. Based on how frequently he mentions the brand name as part of his image in his autobiography, we can safely assume Waylon’s wearing a pair of Levi’s, even if the angles on screen never clearly indicate the signature details of the San Francisco-based outfitter such as the arcuate stitch across the back pockets or the red tag sewn against the inner seam of the back right pocket.

Waylon holds up his jeans with a black edge-stitched leather belt connected at the front through a large gold oval buckle embossed with the relief of an eagle in flight.

Waylon, flanked by series regulars Tom Wopat and John Schneider on his right and Denver Pyle and Catherine Bach on his left.

Waylon’s penchant for cowboy boots may have stood out anywhere else, but they’re not an unusual sight in Hazzard County, where the Duke boys mastered climbing in through the windows of their ’69 Charger with cowboy boots on. Waylon wears a pair of plain black leather cowboy boots with pointed toes and raised heels.

“Every time I look out on my driveway and see General Lee, the orange Dodge Charger they gave me with the rebel stars and bars painted on its roof and a big 01 bull’s-eyeing the door, it makes me laugh,” Waylon wrote in his autobiography. “Great car for eluding a sheriff.”

“A hat isn’t just something you wear on your head. It’s your halo,” Waylon wrote in one of the concluding paragraphs of his autobiography. He describes it further—”Black, creased Texas-style, with a silver belt around the crown”—though, aside from its color, the wide-brimmed cowboy hat he wears on The Dukes of Hazzard doesn’t quite fit this description.

Waylon’s Hazzard hat has a rounded telescope crown, which reportedly originated among cowboys working in the arid southwestern heat but would also be associated with the era’s infamous gamblers. The band is black braided leather, with a flat silver buckle on the left side and a pair of gilt crossed revolvers on the front communicating his outlaw image.

Strung around his neck, Waylon wears a pair of thin gold necklaces, one with a flat pendant and the other rigged a little higher with a filigreed cowboy boot.

With crossed revolvers pinned to his hat band and a cowboy boot slung from his neck, everything about Waylon’s image screams “outlaw”.

Waylon wears a gold ring on each hand, a band on his right pinky and a larger diamond ring on the ring finger of his left hand. Neither appears to be the ring that Waylon recalled blues legend Jimmy Reed admiring at a party, which had been “a horseshoe ring on my finger that George Jones had given me, with a big diamond in the middle.”

On his left wrist, Waylon wears a flashy watch that appears to be the same 14-karat yellow gold Baume & Mercier quartz timepiece that he received as a gift from a friend and wore regularly until Jessi gifted him a stainless Rolex Submariner. This Baume & Mercier watch, with its gold square dial and tapered, uniquely textured link bracelet, was sold in October 2014 as part of Guernsey’s “Remembering Waylon” auction, per Invaluable and SavingCountryMusic.com.

Waylon breaks out the mandolin for a solo during “Never Could Toe the Mark”.

For the “Never Could Toe the Mark” performance that closes out the episode, Waylon swaps out his black tooled leather vest for a lighter slate-blue vest made from a soft sueded leather and also detailed with some Western-motif etchwork.

Though he never wears it, Waylon gives the Duke boys a mesh-backed black trucker cap, which Boss Hogg then steals to try to frame them (as he always does.) “I only gave ’em one hat, that gave ’em somethin’ to fight over,” Waylon recalls in his narration of the black cap emblazoned with his name and the famous “Flying W” logo on the front.

You can still get similar hats from the official Waylon Jennings shop as well as unofficial—and budget-friendly—alternatives from Amazon.

Waylon introduces Chekhov’s trucker hat into the plot.

Since the beginning of his outlaw period in the early ’70s, Waylon had branded himself with this “Flying W”, obviously representing his famous first name but also signifying the outlaw movement that allowed he and his colleagues to fly free.

How to Get the Look

Waylon Jennings performing in Nashville, May 1984, dressed almost identically as he would be for his appearance on The Dukes of Hazzard later that year.

“Though he wore a black hat, he was truly one of music’s good guys,” described Rolling Stone of Waylon Jennings, the hard-living maverick who took inspiration from his friend Johnny Cash—and western star Lash LaRue—by dressing in black, appointing his look with eagle imagery and cowboy garb that established his image as the ultimate country outlaw.

• Black Western-style snap shirt with pointed yokes, front placket, two snap-down flapped chest pockets, and triple-snap cuffs
• Black rust-tooled leather 5-button vest with two welted pockets
• Dark indigo selvedge denim jeans
• Black edge-stitched leather belt with gold oval eagle-embossed buckle
• Black leather cowboy boots
• Black felt telescope-crown cowboy hat with black braided leather band (with gilt crossed revolvers and silver side buckle)
• Thin gold necklace with cowboy boot pendant
• Thin gold necklace with round flat pendant
• Gold band pinky ring
• Gold ring with diamond setting
• Baume & Mercier 14-karat gold quartz watch with square gold dial on cut-textured link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Definitely check out Waylon’s discography. As I mentioned, Honky Tonk Heroes is great—probably one of my favorite albums of all time—but, for beginners, there’s nothing wrong with starting with Waylon’s Greatest Hits, an LP in frequent rotation on my and my fiancee’s turntable.

You can also work through what a Rolling Stone readers’ poll deemed the 10 best Waylon Jennings songs… though I think the list gives “Good Ol; Boys” a little too much credit when I would’ve liked to have seen Ray Pennington’s “I’m a Ramblin’ Man” or the Jimmie Rodgers-inspired “Waymore’s Blues” ranked.

Check out Waylon slowing down the latter as he sings—and attempts to explain—it to Jessi!

If you’re in the mood, you can also check out the series. If you’re curious about The Dukes of Hazzard‘s origins, you should also try to track down Moonrunners, the low-budget 1975 B-movie starring Kiel Martin and James Mitchum as two hot-rodding cousins in the deep South running moonshine for their uncle Jesse while ducking the law in the form of Sheriff Rosco Coltrane and a portly politician… if that doesn’t already sound familiar enough, it’s also narrated and primarily scored by Waylon Jennings.

I also highly recommend Jennings’ candid 1996 autobiography, Waylon: An Autobiography, which I recently reread and served as a great resource while penning this tribute to one of my favorite artists.

The Quote

Well, doesn’t that just blow your hat in the creek?

The post Waylon Jennings on The Dukes of Hazzard appeared first on BAMF Style.

Paul Newman, photographed by Mark Kauffman, 1967.

Vitals

Paul Newman, acclaimed actor, activist, and Navy veteran

Florida Keys, Summer 1967

Photographs by Mark Kaufmann

Part of BAMF Style’s Iconic Photo Series, focusing on style featured in famous photography of classic stars rather than from specific productions.

Background

June 18 is annually celebrated as “National Go Fishing Day”, an observance encouraging Americans to take some time to take a break and cast a line.

Following his acclaimed performance in Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman turned to the comfort of rod and reel on a friend’s fishing boat off the Florida Keys. The actor was in the midst of his directorial debut—directing his wife Joanne Woodward in Rachel, Rachel—but looks as stress-free as it gets as he stands top side with a beer in one hand and rod in the other.

Along for the ride was Mark Kauffman, the long-time Life photographer whose career began when he was 16 years old when his photo of Eleanor Roosevelt was chosen for a 1939 cover. He quickly worked his way from serving as a photo lab technician to capturing combat overseas as a Marine before he signed on as a Life staffer. A recipient of the White House News Photographers’ Grand Award, Kauffman also served as Playboy‘s director of photography and was instrumental in the launch of Sports Illustrated with one of his photos used for the cover of the first issue.

What’d He Wear?

Fishing is not traditionally the most stylish activity, as most anglers dress for function over form in water-resistant shirts and utility vests, all layered with plenty of pockets, straps, and loops that serve its wearer well… but, paired with the quintessential lure-laden fishing hat, these clothes are far more effective for catching fish than catching eyes.

On the other hand, Paul Newman approaches his day on the water as though he was dressing for a casual summer day. His fully unbuttoned shirt is the Ivy classic button-down, pioneered by Brooks Brothers at the dawn of the 20th century after John E. Brooks observed how English polo players secured their shirt collars in play.

The versatile light blue button-down shirt may be the most traditional color—second only to pure white—consisting of a pinpoint oxford cloth basket woven in blue and white cotton for an overall light blue finish.

Newman “un-wears” the shirt as much as it can be; in addition to the completely unbuttoned front placket, the cuffs are unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled up, and the collar points unbuttoned with the collar itself rakishly turned up against his neck. The shirt also has a breast pocket.

The three holes on his mother-of-pearl buttons—as opposed to the more traditional four or two—are reportedly a signature of the Waterville, Maine-based shirtmaker C.F. Hathaway, but I can’t tell if the exposed label on Newman’s left front tail helps identify them as the brand. (Interestingly, Newman and Woodward spent several months in Waterville during production of the miniseries Empire Falls in 2003, the year after Hathaway ended operations.)

Newman had yet to start wearing the pre-Daytona Rolex chronograph he would make famous, but the actor was already familiar with cool timepieces. Strapped to his left wrist, Newman wore a steel Bulova Accutron Spaceview watch, easily recognized by the exposed tuning fork movement under the crystal that was minimally marked to serve as the dial, and worn on a five-piece link bracelet. Newman also wears a plain silver ring on the third finger of his right hand.

Paul shifts from active angler to at-ease observer.

Newman’s wears off-white cotton jeans, styled just like their traditional blue denim brethren with belt loops, slanted front pockets with coin pocket and rivet-reinforced corners, and patch-style back pockets. The unbuttoned shirt shows off the belt, which would normally be hidden by the long, untucked hem.

The body of the belt is a braided woven material, likely khaki or tan in color, with dark brown leather ends and a large gunmetal-toned single-prong buckle. Braided belts are often designed to close anywhere on the open weave of the belt itself (like these examples from Fairwin and The Tie Bar), but—like a surcingle belt—Newman’s belt buckles through the dark brown leather front piece. (Like this braided stretch cord belt from Orvis.)

Newman’s broken-in boat shoes are styled with the traditional moc-toe and side lacing, though the vamps are detailed with a single-laced tassel rather than the two-eyelet derby lacing of the quintessential Sperry Top-Sider boat shoe. His white crew socks are widely ribbed around the tops.

Newman and friends.

Another day, another beer. Kauffman captured Newman at the prow, sweatshirt blowing in the wind as he sits unruffled with beer and sunglasses in hand.

Additional photos from this summer of ’67 fishing trip show Newman dressed down even more while at sea, swapping out the open OCBD for a heathered gray cotton Danbury High School crew-neck sweatshirt, holding wraparound shades and another Heineken. A graduate of Shaker Heights High School, the sweatshirt likely refers to an institution in Danbury, Connecticut, the very berg where he’d been filming Rachel, Rachel that summer.

To match the informality of the baggy sweatshirt, Newman has also slipped into a pair of weathered white sneakers which appear to be the simple Sperry CVO model, developed by Paul Sperry in 1935, the same year he would launch the famous Top-Sider boat shoes.

What to Imbibe

Paul Newman was often associated with drinking beer, with some of the most enduring (and Instagram-friendly) images of the actor depicting him with a beer or two—or four—in hand.

This 1967 expedition was no exception, and Heineken couldn’t have asked for better brand ambassadorship than to have one of the top actors of the era so prominently flashing the Dutch brewer’s recognizably labeled green bottle as he enjoys an easy day on the water.

The idea of Newman cracking a beer is consistent with his no-fuss image, but the actor was forced to take a stand against over-indulging in his name when he learned that “Paul Newman Day” had become an annual tradition at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where a student had begun circulating the apocryphal quote attributed to Newman: “24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not.”

Bates began a tradition that spread to Princeton as well as Kenyon, the actor’s alma mater, where students would spend April 24th attempting to follow the terms suggested by the statement, consuming two dozen beers between midnight and 11:59 p.m.

In 1987, Newman shared his disapproval in a letter to the president of Bates College, proposing instead that the observance be reinstated as “a day in pursuit of athletic excellence with paid attendance,” with the proceeds going back to the community.

How to Get the Look

Paul Newman, photographed by Mark Kauffman, 1967.

Paul Newman’s insouciantly deconstructed Ivy style at sea transcends the cooler-than-ice period in the late ’60s when Mark Kauffman snapped these iconic photos, as a light blue button-down shirt, off-white jeans, boat shoes, and an interesting watch would be a fine combination for a gent in any decade.

• Light blue oxford-cloth cotton shirt with button-down collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Cream canvas flat front jeans with belt loops, slanted front pockets with coin pocket, patch pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Tan woven surcingle belt with dark brown leather front strap and large gunmetal single-prong buckle
• Dark leather moc-toe side-laced loafers
• White crew socks
• Bulova Accutron Spaceview steel watch with black dial on steel five-piece bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Watch Paul Newman’s movies… though he himself would direct you away from The Silver Chalice.

The Quote

If you don’t have enemies, you don’t have character.

The post Paul Newman’s 1967 Fishing Trip appeared first on BAMF Style.

Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby (1974)

Vitals

Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway, impressionable bachelor and bond salesman

Long Island, New York, Summer 1925

Film: The Great Gatsby
Release Date: March 29, 1974
Director: Jack Clayton
Costume Designer: Theoni V. Aldredge
Clothes by: Ralph Lauren

Background

Summer officially started yesterday up here in the Northern Hemisphere, signifying a seasonal return to festive outdoor gatherings. Over the last year, I’d read a number of takes from people who were drawing parallels between our current era and the raucous reputation of the roaring ’20s, noting that the decade worth of parties to follow may have been inspired by the scores of Americans eager to socialize again after months in quarantine during the Spanish flu, Prohibition be damned. With vaccination rates continuing to climb and daily COVID diagnoses declining, we may indeed be on the precipice of a roaring 2020s.

Today, thinking of the ’20s often conjures scenes straight out of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel of romance, wealth, and tragedy against the backdrop of the Jazz Age… a term Fitz had reportedly coined himself for the title of a 1922 short story collection.

Gatsby had always been one of my favorite novels, from the time I discovered it during a beach vacation the summer before I entered 7th grade. The novel has taken on new meaning with each annual read, whether as part of high school curriculum or just to escape from the adult world into the still-universal drama of a bygone era, but this had been a fortuitous time for my introduction as I had also just watched The Sting for the first time and thus had already begun cultivating an appreciation for interwar style (and Robert Redford movies!) As soon as my family returned home from the beach, I found a VHS tape of what was then the most prominent cinematic adaptation of my new favorite book, wearing it thin as I repeatedly took in Theoni V. Aldredge’s costume design and Nelson Riddle’s pitch-perfect period soundtrack.

Regarding the latter, I took the liberty of extracting some tracks from my LP of Nelson Riddle’s soundtrack album that feature during this first roaring party sequence:

What’d He Wear?

From the page to the screen, Jay Gatsby must be one of the most iconically dressed men in fiction with his eye-catching suits in summery shades of pink and white and that closet full of luxurious shirts that brings Daisy Buchanan to literal tears. Of course, Gatsby is presented as an almost larger-than-life romantic ideal, as seen through the eyes of our far more practical narrator Nick Carraway.

Representing the relative everyman, Nick illustrates a sartorial balance, fashionable enough to fit into Gatsby’s crowd but accessible enough that we can easily see ourselves in his shoes. When the modest-living Nick is invited to his first of his enigmatic neighbor’s lavish garden parties, he arrives neatly dressed in navy blazer, striped tie, and white trousers, the sort of ensemble he likely wore to Ivy League festivities during his Yale days.

Unfortunately for Nick, West Egg ain’t New Haven, and he soon discovers he’s considerably underdressed when compared to the gents dancing around him in tuxedoes and even formal white tie and tails.

Fitzgerald describes Nick’s entry to the party, comforted by the familiar face of Jordan Baker and two women in yellow—a significant color in The Great Gatsby—who turn out to be a pair of “stage twins”:
“‘I thought you might be here,’ she responded absently as I came up. ‘I remembered you lived next door to—’ She held my hand impersonally, as a promise that she’d take care of me in a minute, and gave ear to two girls in twin yellow dresses, who stopped at the foot of the steps.”

While Aldredge’s costuming decision likely rooted from the book (Fitzgerald described Nick’s “white flannels” for this party), it also exemplifies the contemporary ’20s-meets-today approach that helped the style of both Jack Clayton’s 1974 adaptation and Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 adaptation resonate with audiences. A few stylistic anachronisms here and there are a small price to pay when contemporary-minded costuming can transcend The Great Gatsby from a potentially inaccessible period drama to a more universal story.

Nick’s decision to wear this shirt with a blazer and straight tie reinforces that he accepted Gatsby’s delivered invitation to what was admittedly described as “a little party” with a more collegiate attitude, as even tuxedoes were still considered part of a more semi-formal dress code at this point in the early ’20s. It also more easily transfers the viewer into Nick’s point of view, as the average audience member in 1974 would have been considerably more likely to attend a party in a blazer and tie than a tuxedo.

A tale of dress codes: the enigmatic millionaire in his three-piece dinner suit, and the nervous guest in his navy blazer, tie, and white trousers. However, spy the photo displayed behind Gatsby that shows the host back in his college days, indeed dressed like Nick in his own Ivy “uniform” of navy blazer, tie, and duck trousers.

Nick’s navy wool single-breasted blazer has broad notch lapels with sporty edge swelling, rolling to the two gilt buttons positioned at his waistline. The width of the lapels and the long double vents are more contemporary concessions to ’70s fashions, though hardly egregious ones. The soft shoulders are consistent with traditional American tailoring, and each sleeve is finished with three gold buttons at the cuff. The sporty patch pockets on the left breast and hips dress down the blazer.

Nick’s white cotton shirt has a substantial collar with an elegant roll that curls back against the body of the shirt at the end of each leaf, resembling the effect of a button-down collar though close-ups of the shirt indicate that there are no buttons. (Though a button-down collar would have been consistent with the outfit’s Ivy attitude; the “polo shirt” with its button-down collar was a then-recent innovation by Brooks Brothers in the early years of the 20th century, and Brooks Brothers’ Ivy associations were illustrated by Princeton alum Fitzgerald in his debut novel, This Side of Paradise, in which Brooks is twice mentioned for its well-regarded wares.)

The silk twill repp tie is “downhill”-striped in the traditionally American direction (as opposed to the “uphill” British club stripes), consisting of navy and white bar stripes with the slightly wider white stripes each bisected by a thin yellow stripe, shadowed on top and bottom by a slimmer navy stripe.

Note the ends of Nick’s shirt collar, almost fused to the body of his shirt in the manner of a button-down collar.

The “white flannels” described by Fitzgerald are represented on screen by Nick’s cream-colored trousers which, when paired with the navy blazer, forms a picture-perfect example of how a well-to-do Jazz Age gent would have dressed for a stylish summer evening.

“With blue and white as the imperatives of nautical dress, navy blazers and white trousers made a dashing sports outfit for the wealthy American man of the 1920s,” writes Alan Flusser in Dressing the Man. “Being class-conscious, he adopted it as another means of distinguishing himself from the masses.”

Addressing Flusser’s latter point, Nick Carraway is decidedly not as snobbish as his East Egg cousins, and his appointment of this celebrated combination may have represented his aspirational ideas about how he could fit in among the set that would attend one of his wealthy neighbor’s opulent parties. Luckily for our struggling bondsman, none of his tuxedoed or tailcoat-ed fellow guests seem to mind the disparity in dress codes.

Nick’s white leather oxfords have hard dark brown leather soles—not quite the red brick rubber outsoles of quintessential bucks—and are appropriately worn with off-white socks that harmonize with his white trousers and shoes, though the break of the cuffed bottoms of his trousers tend to cover his hosiery even amid all the Charleston-dancing revelry.

Jordan teaches Nick that it takes two to tango.

Nick adopted the same sartorial approach for more subdued afternoon event earlier in the summer as he and Daisy discuss his romantic prospects with Jordan Baker (Lois Chiles). He has a white-piped navy rowing blazer slung under his arm and over the bench.

Assuming that Nick wears the same trousers in both scenes, we see here that they have short forward-facing pleats and belt loops, through which he wears a creamy white leather belt with a gold-finished square single-prong buckle. The side pockets are placed along the seams, and there are two back pockets—a simple jetted besom pocket on the right, while a scalloped single-button flap covers the left pocket.

Daisy (Mia Farrow) eagerly plots the next move in Nick’s unsophisticated love life. Note the white-piped rowing blazer he has slung over the side of the bench, foregoing the extra layer in the afternoon heat.

What to Imbibe

Nick fails to attain the level of drunkenness from his afternoon in the city with Tom and Myrtle, but it’s not for lack of trying with all that Piper-Heidsieck champagne flowing!

Nick grabs a pair of coupes for himself and Jordan.

The champagne house dates back to the summer of 1785, when it was founded in Reims by Florens-Louis Heidsieck. A decade after Heidsieck’s death, the Piper-Heidsieck partnership was formed that took the house into the future.

Piper-Heidsieck currently celebrates its Jazz Age associations with a limited “Prohibition Edition” bottling, first sold in 2020 to commemorate a century since the enactment of the Volstead Act… which kept the Piper-Heidsieck flowing at soirees like those that would have been hosted by the fictional Gatsby.

GATSBY

How to Get the Look

Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby (1974)

The Great Gatsby made the fashions of the ’20s contemporary to the ’70s, establishing a timeless code that would translate yet another half-century later with outfits like Nick Carraway’s simple but stylish navy blazer, striped tie, and white trousers and shoes that could be effectively pressed into practice for the roaring 2020s partygoer dressing to impress.

• Navy wool single-breasted blazer with notch lapels, two gilt shank buttons, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3 gilt-button cuffs, and long double vents
• White oxford cotton shirt with shapely button-down collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Navy and white “downhill” bar-striped repp tie with thin navy/yellow/navy stripe sets
• Cream-colored forward-pleated trousers with belt loops, on-seam side pockets, jetted back-right pocket, scallop-flapped back-left pocket, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White leather belt with gold-finished square single-prong buckle
• White leather oxford shoes with dark brown leather soles
• Cream cotton lisle socks

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read the book.

The post The Great Gatsby: Sam Waterston’s Navy Garden Party Blazer appeared first on BAMF Style.

Carole Bouquet and Jack Hedley, as Melina Havelock and Sir Timothy Havelock, in For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Vitals

Jack Hedley as Sir Timothy Havelock, marine archaeologist contracted by the British Secret Service

Ionian Sea off the Albanian coast, Spring 1981

Film: For Your Eyes Only
Release Date: June 24, 1981
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller
Wardrobe Master: Tiny Nicholls

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

For Your Eyes Only, my favorite James Bond movie of the Roger Moore era, was released 40 years ago today! To celebrate, I wanted to shift focus from 007 to the stylish and significant—but only briefly seen—character of Sir Timothy Havelock.

As with Steve Zissou, Sir Timothy was reportedly based to some degree on iconic French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau (who died 24 years ago tomorrow), though the connection is even more personal as Cousteau was reportedly a real-life pal of Bond author Ian Fleming.

Sir Timothy never actually interacts with our hero, though it’s his death that propels the plot once Moore’s 007 crosses bows—er, paths—with the Havelocks’ now-orphaned daughter, Melina (Carole Bouquet), hell-bent on taking revenge for the murder of her parents.

What’d He Wear?

Sir Timothy spends a quiet morning aboard ship with his wife Iona (Toby Robins) and their parrot Max, all eagerly awaiting Melina’s arrival (or, in Max’s case, a kiss.) Timothy’s light-colored, lightweight clothes are consistent with his breezily affable attitude as well as his profession; few who don’t work on research vessels in the Mediterranean can expect to spend their days barefoot in half-buttoned shirts.

Melina’s parrot Max joins Sir Timothy as he attempts to track down the ATAC, the MacGuffin driving the plot of For Your Eyes Only.

This light woven cotton shirt is patterned with blue and white hairline-width stripes so fine that the shirt looks pale blue when not seen in close-up. The shirt has a point collar, breast pocket with horizontal yoke and mitred corners, and a plain “French placket” worn with the top three buttons rakishly—but not unflatteringly—undone. In the same spirit, Timothy also keeps his cuffs unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled halfway up each forearm.

Timothy’s flat front trousers are a pale blue cotton that presents to nearly match the shirt, though the semi-solid trouser cloth differs from the striped shirting. Indeed, Havelock’s real-life inspiration Cousteau was frequently photographed in blue shirts and trousers as well, albeit a more hard-wearing chambray work shirt with darker trousers.

The trousers have slanted side pockets and a back right pocket that closes through a single button. The bottoms appear to be finished with turn-ups (cuffs), with an appropriately high enough break that Timothy doesn’t trip over them as he walks the decks of his boat barefoot.

Timothy holds his trousers up with a tan leather belt imprinted with an interlocking meander or “Greek key” design, a significant motif given his wife’s heritage that Melina cites as contributing the passion behind her eventual drive for revenge.

Over the corpses of her parents (spoiler alert? I guess?), Melina swears revenge. Note the textured tooling of Sir Timothy’s belt, shining in the sunlight behind her.

Admittedly, Sir Timothy’s wardrobe may have escaped my attention if not for his watch. By this point in the series, SEIKO had been firmly established as the official watch of the James Bond franchise with Sir Roger sporting a variety digital, analog, and hybrid timepieces in five of his seven movies as 007, including two in For Your Eyes Only.

Bond may have felt a horological kinship with the departed Sir Timothy, who dressed his wrist with a stainless steel SEIKO 7546-6040 “Sports 100” quartz diver—appropriately enough, given his aquatic profession—with the familiar red and blue “Pepsi” bezel. On the dark blue dial, the hours are marked with non-numeric luminous shapes, oblong at 6 and 9 o’clock, triangular at 12 o’clock, and absent at 3 o’clock in favor of a white day/date window. The stainless steel 39mm case is secured to a steel three-piece link bracelet, similar to the Oyster-style bands branded by Rolex.

Our first look of Sir Timothy features his SEIKO sports dive watch prominently in frame, instantly communicating that he’s just the sort of expertly equipped professional should any diving be required to recover the ATAC.

These classic SEIKO sports divers occasionally show up for sale on sites like eBay and Mornington Watches. Alternatively, you could pick up a new SEIKO diver like the automatic SKX009K2 as owned by yours truly. (See my SEIKO here!)

Jack Hedley and Toby Robins as the affable but ill-fated Havelocks in For Your Eyes Only (1981)

How to Get the Look

Sir Timothy Havelock dresses simply but stylishly for a day of working on the water, illustrating that there can be a happy medium between form and function as demonstrated by the handsome and hardworking “Pepsi”-bezel SEIKO dive watch that accompanies his sea-shaded shirt and slacks.

• Blue-and-white hairline-striped light cotton shirt with point collar, plain front, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Pale blue semi-solid cotton flat front trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, button-through back-right pocket, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Tan “Greek key”-printed leather belt with silver-toned square single-prong buckle
• SEIKO 7546-6040 “Sports 100” quartz dive watch with stainless steel case, rotating red-and-blue “Pepsi” bezel, black dial (with 3:00 day/date window), and steel three-piece link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I’ll give you a nut.

The post Sir Timothy Havelock in For Your Eyes Only appeared first on BAMF Style.

To kick off this year’s summer #CarWeek series (and on #SinatraSaturday, no less), today’s post explores the Chairman and his car as he joins a star-studded cast for a cross-country race in one of the most famous “car movie” series this side of Fast and the Furious.

Frank Sinatra, joined by Burt Reynolds, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Shirley MacLaine on the set of Cannonball Run II (1984)

Vitals

Frank Sinatra as himself, entertainment legend

Las Vegas, Summer 1983

Film: Cannonball Run II
Release Date: June 29, 1984
Director: Hal Needham
Costume Design: Kathy O’Rear, Norman Salling, and Don Vargas

Background

Look, we’re all aware that Cannonball Run II isn’t Frank Sinatra’s best movie. (And, let’s face it, even if it was his only movie, it still wouldn’t be his best!) But, after observing the fun that his Rat Pack pallies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., had in the first installment, FS arranged for a short cameo that would yield him second billing in the cast and a $30,000 payday, which he donated to charity.

According to Hal Needham, three versions of the script were written to accommodate the Chairman of the Board: one that would require one week of work, a second that would require two days, and a third version where Frank would only be needed on the set for one day. Perhaps aware that this wasn’t exactly The Manchurian Candidate, Frank wisely chose the latter option, showing up for his day on screen behind the wheel of his own red Dodge Daytona Turbo Z.

In addition to being the last on-screen reunion of the core Rat Packers—Frank, Dean, and Sammy, as well as Shirley MacLaine—Cannonball Run II also marked the final feature film appearance for Sinatra when it was released 37 years ago this week. The singer’s swan song takes up less than three minutes of screen-time, saving a little more of Frank’s cinematic dignity than Dino and Sammy by the end.

“He’s not the only king… we’ve got royalty in this country too!” Dino’s character exclaims, before we cut to a shot of real-life Sinatra confidante and restauranteur Jilly Rizzo opening a set of double doors to the tune of “Hail to the Chief”, escorting to the cast to greet Sinatra, seated behind an executive desk in a gray suit and tie. Unlike his friends, who continue their characters from the first Cannonball Run, Frank plays himself, riffing on his image as a man whose power has transcended the entertainment industry as he lampoons his revered reputation in conversation with racer J.J. McClure (Burt Reynolds).

J.J.: Mr. Sinatra?
Frank: You may call me Frank.
J.J.: (to the others) I can call him Frank.
Frank: Not yet. I’ll let you know when you can. Not exactly now, but I’ll let you know.
J.J.: What can I call you?
Frank: Call me Sir.

What’d He Wear?

Once Frank joins the rest of the cast in the cross-country race, he’s abandoned his suit and dressed for the road in a lilac Members Only jacket and “scrambled eggs”-embroidered baseball cap.

Constructed of a polyester shell, the traditional Members Only zip-up jacket blends elements of racer jackets with the nylon MA-1 bomber blousons developed in mid-century for military flight crews. The ribbed-knit cuffs and hem in particular evoke the latter.

The short standing collar has a narrow strap “belted” around the neck through a series of loops with a snap closure in the front, should the wearer want to cover his throat. The shoulders are detailed with similar epaulette-style straps, equally narrow and belted through a loop at the shoulder seam, through which the strap folds back and snaps to itself midway between neck and shoulder. The slanted hand pockets and set-in breast pocket have narrowly ribbed-knit welting to match the jacket’s color. A small black rectangular patch with “MEMBERS ONLY” embroidered in white is sewn just below the breast pocket ribbing, indicating to the rest of the world that its wearer has indeed joined the special club of “members” who spent $55 on a polyester jacket.

From the cockpit of his Dodge, a Members Only-clad Frank Sinatra consults with the King of the Road… before hitting the road himself.

Indeed, Members Only was one of the reigning clothing brands of the ’80s, having originated in 1975 before it was introduced to the United States five years later by Craft Imports. “When you put it on, something happens,” the brand advertised… though in the case of famous wearers like “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, it may have been better if such things didn’t happen. Available in a range of colors, Members Only jackets dominated the ’80s… and then became almost immediately passé once the decade ended. Once in demand, the Members Only jacket soon became a mocking shorthand in pop culture to establish a character so tacky or out of touch—think Jason Alexander in Shallow Hal or Richie Aprile on The Sopranos—that they’re still clinging to the adventurous promise of a Members Only jacket.

Of course, for better or worse, fashion is cyclical. The enduring ’80s nostalgia craze—fueled in part by Netflix’s Stranger Things, in which Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) wore a gray Members Only jacket—revived the Members Only in public consciousness, perhaps first as “ironic” fashion before going mainstream among the wares of retailers like Urban Outfitters. The Members Only brand was licensed in 2016 and, five years later, continues to expand. You can read more of the history—and possible future—of Members Only in Jake Rossen’s comprehensive 2016 article for Mental Floss.

Frank zips his Members Only racer partially over his lavender button-up shirt, tonally similar to the jacket with the only visible detail being the point collar that he wears open at the neck. His dark navy flat front trousers have side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms, worn with black leather plain-toe ankle boots.

Burt, Dean, Shirley, Sammy, and Frank dress the hood of the Chairman’s Dodge for his single day on the set of Cannonball Run II.

Rather than one of his signature Cavanagh fedoras or trilbies—tilted at just the right angle—Sinatra wears a black baseball cap, personalized with a field of five gold stars arced above a gold “FAS” monogram. The brim is detailed with two gold-embroidered oak leaf sprigs in the tradition of “scrambled eggs” military headgear.

Sinatra wears a pair of rings, a gold wedding band on his left hand and a gold signet ring on his right pinky. His wristwatch appears to be a gold tank watch on a black leather strap, perhaps one of the Cartier timepieces often associated with the singer.

As mentioned, Frank’s dressed more professionally when he’s introduced in his Las Vegas office, holding court in a dark gray wool suit. The single-breasted, two-button jacket has notch lapels, four-button cuffs, and a welted breast pocket where he wears a rakishly puffed red printed silk pocket square. His plain white cotton shirt has double (French) cuffs, secured with a set of flat mother-of-pearl links, and a spread collar with plenty of tie space to accommodate the Windsor knot of his navy tie, which is detailed with thin pale-gray “uphill” stripes that are widely spaced apart to make room for a series of gray crown-like shapes.

Frank commands respect not just through his tailored suit… but by also actually asking his office guests to call him “sir”.

Who else wore Members Only?

Though the distinctive black branded tag appears to have been removed, Burt Reynolds’ light pink polyester jacket is detailed consistently with the classic Members Only racer, right down to the narrow double-snap throat latch and equally narrow shoulder straps.

Did the Chairman’s contract stipulate that only he could be a member?

For the race itself, Burt would discard the Members Only-style jacket in favor of a, um… Army general’s uniform and white cravat.

What to Imbibe

Though Frank’s actual screen time would hardly be enough to even pour one of his signature glasses of Jack Daniel’s, several other cast members partake in this venerated Tennessee whiskey. We first see Richard Kiel ordering a “black Jack and water” for his teammate, played by Jackie Chan. The order is not dissimilar to the Chairman’s preferred preparation, which was “always three or four ice cubes, two fingers of Jack Daniel’s, the rest water, in a traditional rocks glass,” according to Bill Zehme in the well-researched volume The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin’.

Considerably later, his pal Dino dips into the Jack as well, bracing himself with a series of shots straight from the bottle to handle the horror of Dom DeLuise, Burt Reynolds, and Sammy Davis Jr. dressed as harem and dancing provocatively to the Supremes’ “Stop! In the Name of Love”.

Drink as much as you want, Dino, but there’s not enough booze in the world to unsee the sight you’re trying to forget.

The Car

Frank shows up for the race not in a sleek Italian sports car, but instead a red 1984 Dodge Daytona Turbo Z. I’ve read conflicting information about whether or not this Dodge belonged to Sinatra himself, though I wouldn’t be surprised as the Chairman was confirmed to have another car from the Chrysler K platform: a wood-sided Town & Country station wagon powered by the same 2.2-liter inline-4 engine as the Dodge Daytona series.

The race is on!

1984 was the first year that Dodge produced this Daytona model, borrowing a name that had previously been used to differentiate a limited series of performance-oriented B-body Chargers famous for their elongated nose cones and tall rear stabilizer wings and named to indicate its dominance in the famous Daytona 500. The 2.2-liter inline-4 that produced just over 140 horsepower was a far cry from these Hemi-powered beasts of the ’69 and ’70 Daytona, but such was the nature of Detroit nearly a generation out from the height of the muscle car era.

A continuity error debuts Frank’s Daytona long before he appears on screen, swapped in for the red Corvette that Dean and Sammy drive for the race.

1984 Dodge Daytona Turbo Z

Body Style: 2-door hatchback

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

Engine: 135 cu. in. (2.2 L) Chrysler “Turbo I” inline-4 with Garrett T03 turbocharger

Power: 142 hp (106 kW; 144 PS) @ 5600 RPM

Torque: 160 lb·ft (217 N·m) @ 3600 RPM

Transmission: 5-speed manual

Wheelbase: 97 inches (2464 mm)

Length: 175 inches (4445 mm)

Width: 69.3 inches (1760 mm)

Height: 50.3 inches (1278 mm)

The Daytona series would be redesigned twice over the rest of its production timeline, once in 1987 and again in 1992 before the model was discontinued after 1993, replaced by the Dodge Avenger.

Though inline-four engines were always available on the Daytona, these latter models could also be had with a 3.0-liter Mitsubishi V6… the very same 141-horsepower engine that powered my first car, a red 1992 Plymouth Acclaim.

How to Get the Look

Frank Sinatra reunites with frequent co-stars Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Shirley MacLaine on the set of Cannonball Run II (1984)

Behind the wheel of a clunky Detroit-made sports car, clad in a Members Only jacket and personalized trucker cap, this is as ’80s as Frank Sinatra could ever get.

• Lilac polyester Members Only racer jacket with narrow double-snap collar strap, narrow shoulder straps (epaulettes), ribbed-welt set-in breast pocket, ribbed-welt hand pockets, ribbed cuffs, and ribbed hem
• Lavender button-up shirt with point collar
• Dark navy flat front trousers with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather plain-toe ankle boots
• Black baseball cap with gold-embroidered five star design, “FAS” monogram, and “scrambled eggs” leaf motif on the brim
• Gold signet pinky ring, right hand
• Gold wedding band, left hand
• Gold tank watch on black leather strap

Thanks to the revived appeal of ’80s fashions, the Members Only brand has been resuscitated and you too can nab a new light pink Members Only racer like Frank wore from Amazon or straight from Members Only, among other places.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie… or maybe don’t. You may find a little more value in reading this recap of the Chairman’s cameo for the blog Exquisitely Bored in Nacogdoches.

The Quote

You may call me “Frank”… not yet, I’ll let you know when you can.

The post Sinatra’s Cannonball Run II Cameo appeared first on BAMF Style.

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

Vitals

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

Los Angeles, August 1977

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

Background

As #CarWeek continues, let’s check out the pair of Ford convertibles that a safari-clad Colonel Robert Neville commandeers as one of the last men in the world at the heart of The Omega Man, released 50 years ago in the summer of 1971.

“Nothing to live for but his memories,” describes Jonathan Matthias (Anthony Zerbe), the leader of The Family, a luddite cult of nocturnal mutants that attack Neville on a nightly basis.

More than two years after Neville administered an experimental vaccine to immunize himself against a deadly virus overtaking the Earth, Neville has expanded beyond memories to find some relative pleasure in cars, guns, music, and movies, driving around an abandoned City of Angels in open-top Fords that allow him to quickly perch and take aim at members of The Family, entertained by an instrumental of “A Summer Place” (rather than the Sinatra 8-track we see him pop in) or catching reruns of a Woodstock documentary at the local cineplex.

That’s all by day, of course. By night, Neville returns in his latest ride to his fortified apartment—well-stocked in supplies, artillery, and booze—to defend himself against the perils one might expect of a solitary life in a city seemingly inhabited only by angry cultists.

What’d He Wear?

What would you wear if you were one of the last people in the world?

As Bond Suits comprehensively detailed in a recent article, safari clothing—even when far from the jungle—was at its most fashionable for men during this period, from the late 1960s through the early ’80s. Had the world still been inhabited in the 1977 of The Omega Man, Colonel Neville would have hardly been out of place in his safari-inspired kit, even amidst the freeways and skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles.

Form fortunately intersected with function in this instance, as our urban adventurer benefits from the utilitarian aspects of his safari jacket, from the quartet of bellows pockets to the easy movement allowed from the inverted box-pleat on the back.

Made from a lightweight khaki gabardine, the four-button safari jacket is detailed in a military tradition that would have been familiar to Colonel Neville, including the buttoned-down shoulder straps (epaulettes) that add some structure to the shoulders and the four neatly arranged pockets, all with inverted box pleats and rectangular flaps that close through a single button. The jacket also has a revere collar and horizontal yoke across the chest that align with the top of each upper pocket flap and are positioned just above the top button. The set-in sleeves are finished with two-button cuffs, similar to a shirt, and the back is split with a single vent.

Robert Neville, dressed for an urban safari.

Neville loads up a russet brown leather utility belt, worn over the outside of his safari jacket for quick access when in danger and buckled through a squared gold-finished single-prong buckle. On the right side of the belt, Neville carries his M1911A1 service pistol in a flapped holster with a scabbard for his combat knife just behind it. On the left side, he holsters one of the long magazines for his Smith & Wesson M76 submachine gun with his silver flashlight rigged in a long loop just behind it.

Supplies in hand, Neville treks in search of a replacement Ford.

Neville layers the safari jacket over a casual shirt with the sporty curved “Cooper collar”, so named for its early 20th century associations with Gary Cooper but alternately known as the “Hollywood collar” as some of Coop’s cinematic colleagues also worked to popularize the look. Made from a red and white woven cloth that finishes with a rosy pink semi-solid appearance, the shirt buttons up a plain “French placket” front that—due to the nature of the Cooper collar—stops short a few inches below the neck. When he removes the safari jacket at home, we also see the shirt’s low-slung breast pocket and that he has the long sleeves rolled up over his elbows.

Neville also channels his military experience into his eyewear, peering from behind the windshield in a pair of timeless gold-framed aviator sunglasses with dark lenses. These appear to be the same shades Neville wore with his Army uniform in flashbacks to two years prior, which would make sense given that Bausch & Lomb had originally developed their now-iconic Ray-Ban Aviator frames in the 1930s for U.S. Army Air Corps pilots.

Neville’s full-fitting flat front trousers are a shade of tan twill that coordinates with while contrasting against the lighter safari jacket. Like other pieces of his wardrobe, they’re aligned with prevailing fashions of the ’70s with Western-inspired details like the pointed ranch-style belt loops and slanted “frogmouth” front pockets with a short slit where it meets the side. There are two patch pockets on the back, and the bottoms are plain-hemmed.

Did Heston have a no-shirt clause in his contract?

Through those fancy belt loops, Neville wears a brown coated leather belt with a large, rounded gold-finished single-prong buckle. The belt leather coordinates with his shoes, which appear to be a pair of brown leather cap-toe derbies, though much of them are covered by the full break of his trouser bottoms.

Robert Neville may be “the Omega man”, but that appellation applies only to his survivorship and not necessarily the brand of his all-gold watch. That said, Neville’s likely military-informed practice of wearing the dial on the inside of his wrist makes it harder to identify the exact brand, though we do catch some glances as he works the lock of his fortified apartment after returning home from a full day of battling The Family.

The Guns

As he’s played by Charlton Heston, there’s little surprise in seeing Robert Neville armed to the proverbial teeth whether at home or in his car. (Of course, the former Army colonel would also have some reasonable experience with and access to a variety of firearms.)

In addition to the likely Army-issued M1911A1 pistol he carries on the right side of his belt, Neville’s choice for urban warfare against The Family is the fast-firing Smith & Wesson M76 submachine gun, often wielded from his perch atop the driver’s seat of his convertibles.

One suspects the Family would have to pry Neville’s Smith & Wesson M76 from his cold, dead hands.

According to IMFDB, The Omega Man marked the Smith & Wesson M76’s premiere appearance in a major production. The weapon had only been developed four years prior in response to the Swedish arms embargo that prevented importation of the Carl Gustaf m/45, which had found favor among Navy SEALs for its ability to be effectively fired shortly after emerging from water. (Neville may have appreciated this aspect during the final gunfight… if only he hadn’t been armed with an MP40 instead!)

Once this Swedish “K-rifle” was no longer an option, the U.S. Navy tapped Smith & Wesson in the spring of 1966 to produce a copy that could be used by the SEALs in Vietnam. Based on the stated importance of the weapon, Smith & Wesson fast-tracked production and had a battle-ready in just nine months… but Navy interest had all but evaporated, resulting in only limited combat use before production ended in 1974.

Like its reliable Swedish predecessor, the blowback-operated M76 fired 9x19mm Parabellum ammunition, fed from a 36-round box magazine and fired at a rate of over 600 rounds per minute when in fully automatic mode.

The Cars

We meet Robert Neville behind the wheel of a bright red 1970 Ford XL convertible, a trim option for the Ford Galaxie identifiable by the chrome “XL” at the center point of the hood.

That’s one way of taking out the trash.

In 1959, Ford introduced the Galaxie, so named to cash in on the growing excitement around the Space Race. The sporty “XL” trim was introduced for 1962, reportedly standing in for “Xtra Lively” as the Galaxie was already part of Ford’s full-size lineup.

A decade after the Galaxie was introduced, the world was changing now that Americans had landed on the moon—almost immediately extinguishing Space Race interest—and the automotive muscle era was reaching its height with the last stand of the great muscle cars. 1970 would be the final year for the Ford XL, which had already dropped the “Galaxie” prefix for three years. (The Galaxie itself wouldn’t last much longer, with Ford retiring the marque after the 1974 model year.)

The ’70 XL could be powered by three different V8 engine sizes—351, 390, or 429 cubic inches—all mated to Ford’s three-speed Cruise-O-Matic automatic transmission, while a three-speed manual was also an option for only the 351 or 390. (According to Automobile Catalog, one of my favorite resources.) We see that Neville’s XL has a column-mounted shifter, suggesting an automatic transmission, which wouldn’t narrow down the options. Neville’s XL is also devoid of any indicative badging that could help us narrow it down, but I’m incline to believe we see Heston behind the wheel of a 351 cubic-inch V8, still a plenty powerful mill from this apex of the automotive muscle era.

1970 Ford XL Convertible

Body Style: 2-door convertible

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

Engine: 351 ci (5.8 L) Ford Windsor V8 with Motorcraft 2-barrel carburetor

Power: 250 hp (186.5 kW; 254 PS) @ 4600 RPM (SAE)

Torque: 355 lb·ft (482 N·m) @ 2600 RPM

Transmission: 3-speed Crusie-O-Matic automatic

Wheelbase: 121 inches (3073 mm)

Length: 216 inches (5486 mm)

Width: 79.7 inches (2024 mm)

Height: 53.8 inches (1367 mm)

After Neville crashes the XL, he treks to a dealership—abandoned, of course—and helps himself to a baby blue 1970 Ford Mustang… another convertible, of course. (Based on Ford’s color codes for 1970, this may be the shade known as “Dresden blue”.)

Who says it’s hard to find good parking in L.A.?

One of the most famous and recognizable cars int he world, Ford’s venerable Mustang needs little introduction. After that iconic first pony car rolled off the production line in April 1964, the first-generation Mustang had evolved through a series of redesigns before emerging for 1969 as a beefed-up competitor against its fellow straight-outta-Detroit muscle.

Two single-barrel carburetor straight-six engine options were still available for the 1970 model year, but the focus was on V8 performance from the two-barrel 302 and 351 cubic-inch engines to the four-barrel 302 Boss and 351 Cleveland up to the beastly 428 Cobra Jet or 429 Boss, depending on how much horsepower the driver could handle.

We can likely rule out some of the higher performance options, and an IMCDB user suggested that “if this had a 351, it would have a badge on each fender,” only noting the Sport Wheel Covers from the Mach 1 as any indicator. Again, given what we know, I propose that Neville’s Mustang is a base model V8, powered by a small-block 302 and mated to the same Cruise-O-Matic transmission.

1970 Ford Mustang

Body Style: 2-door convertible

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

Engine: 302 ci (4.9 L) Ford Windsor V8 with Motorcraft 2-barrel carburetor

Power: 220 hp (164 kW; 223 PS) @ 4600 RPM (SAE)

Torque: 300 lb·ft (407 N·m) @ 2600 RPM

Transmission: 3-speed Crusie-O-Matic automatic

Wheelbase: 108 inches (2743 mm)

Length: 187.4 inches (4760 mm)

Width: 71.3 inches (1811 mm)

Height: 51.3 inches (1303 mm)

What to Imbibe

Robert Neville keeps a fully stocked bar at home, likely liberated from two years’ worth of abandoned liquor stores. Despite the collection, he gravitates almost exclusively to his bottles of blended Scotch, such as the Cutty Sark he swigs straight from the bottle upon returning home before pouring himself a dram over ice.

Named for the Scottish clipper ship that adorns the recognizable yellow label, Cutty Sark is a relatively new brand against the prolific heritage of many Scotch whiskies. The brand was introduced in 1923, not even a half-century old by the time Neville drowned his lonely sorrows in it during The Omega Man.

How to Get the Look

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

Once a respected U.S. Army scientist, Colonel Robert Neville incorporates his military past into his survivalist attire as he’s initially presented in The Omega Man, the khaki safari jacket, loaded gun belt, and aviators creating a martial appearance with the pink open-neck shirt delivering a reminder that we’re seeing a civilian on his own mission.

• Khaki gabardine four-button safari jacket with revere collar, shoulder straps/epaulettes, four inverted box-pleat bellows pockets (with rectangular single-button flaps), 2-button cuffs, and inverted box-pleat back with single vent
• Pink semi-solid long-sleeved sport shirt with curved “Cooper” collar, plain/French front, and breast pocket
• Tan twill flat front trousers with pointed ranch-style belt loops, slanted frogmouth front pockets, patch back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Brown leather belt with curved gold single-prong buckle
• Brown leather cap-toe derby shoes
• Russet brown leather utility belt with tapered strap through a squared gold single-prong buckle
• Gold-framed aviator sunglasses
• Gold wristwatch with gold dial on gold bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

While looking for information about Neville’s safari jacket, I came across a marvelous review at the blog Alex on Film, which doles out some deserved criticism toward The Omega Man while also highlighting an aspect that caught my attention as well:

As so often in cases of the apocalypse, one envies the survivors, at least a bit. Humanity has had a good cull, leaving Neville tearing about L.A. in his choice of sports cars, cracking wise to himself, and hiding out at night in a mansion powered by an electric generator. Not perhaps the most obvious (or safest) place to hole up in the event of a zombie apocalypse, but it’s stylish in an early ’70s Playboy-pad kind of way. With Lisa by his side, I can imagine Neville comfortably spending the rest of his days lounging about in a monogrammed housecoat, smoking a pipe and reading military histories in between domestic chores.

The Quote

There’s never a cop around when you need one.

The post The Omega Man: Charlton Heston’s Safari Jacket and Ford Convertibles appeared first on BAMF Style.

Paul Newman in Hud (1963)

Vitals

Paul Newman as Hud Bannon, arrogant rancher’s son

Texas Panhandle, Summer 1962

Film: Hud
Release Date: May 29, 1963
Director: Martin Ritt
Costume Designer: Edith Head

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Let’s complete this #CarWeek installment by looking at the third of the “Big Three” Detroit automakers: General Motors, specifically its high-end Cadillac division that has offered luxurious American autos for nearly 120 years.

A few years before Paul Newman caught the racing bug while training for Winning at the end of the decade, the car most associated with his screen image was arguably the pink Cadillac convertible he drove as the eponymous cowboy in Hud.

Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. adapted their script from Larry McMurtry’s 1961 novel Horseman, Pass By, expanding the minor character of Hud Bannon into a swaggering anti-hero who comes into conflict with his more principled father Homer (Melvyn Douglas), particularly when they learn their family cattle may be infected with foot-and-mouth disease. Hud’s shown to have an enterprising—if larcenous—mind by suggesting that they secretly sell the whole lot to ranches around the nation, rather than shooting the potentially infected animals.

Homer: Would that be your way for getting out of a tight… and take a chance on startin’ an epidemic in the entire country?
Hud: This country is run on epidemics, where you been? Epidemic’s a big business: price fixin’, crooked TV shows, income tax finaglin’, souped-up expense accounts. How many honest men you know? You take the saints away from the sinners, you’re lucky to wind up with Abraham Lincoln. Now let’s us put our bread in some of that gravy while it is still hot.
Homer: You’re an unprincipled man, Hud.
Hud: Don’t let that bush ya, I mean, you got enough for both of us.

A pink Cadillac convertible may not be the wheels you’d expect for a cowboy, until you realize Hud Bannon does more bed-hopping than fence-hopping. In particular, it’s the Bannon family housekeeper Alma (Patricia Neal) who commands the screen with her sexually charged byplay with the confident and crude cowboy, whether they’re discussing eggs for breakfast or her ex-husband.

Hud: Man like that sounds no better than a heel.
Alma: Aren’t you all?
Hud: Honey, don’t go shootin’ all the dogs ’cause one of ’em’s got fleas.
Alma: I was married to Ed for six years. Only thing he was ever good for was to scratch my back where I couldn’t reach it.
Hud: You still got that itch…?
Alma: Off and on.
Hud: Well… lemme know when it gets to botherin’ ya.

“I’ve done my time with one cold-blooded bastard, I’m not lookin’ for another,” Alma warns Hud when he begins taking his passes too far. “It’s too late, honey, you already found him,” he responds.

Both Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal won Academy Awards for their performances; Neal setting the record with her 22-minute screen time being both the shortest to win a Best Actress Oscar and also the shortest to win in a leading category.

The third win of the film’s seven nominations deservedly went to cinematographer James Wong Howe, who considered Hud to be his finest work. You can see what Howe means through his stunning black-and-white photography of the vast Texas Panhandle landscape and how he captures the members of the Bannon household over the course of that long, hot summer, culminating in Newman enveloped in shadows as he physically attacks the two characters who have shown Hud the most affection, a dark center in a fully lit room.

What’d He Wear?

Hud’s Shirts

Appropriate for his profession and lifestyle, Hud exclusively wears snap-front shirts, a Western-associated style reportedly pioneered by Rockmount Ranch Wear founder Jack A. Weil in the early 1900s as the snap closure on the cuffs and placket allowed cowboys’ shirts to break away easily should they get snagged in fencing or the like. (You can find one of Edith Head’s concept sketches for Hud’s costume here.)

In fact, Hud is just snapping up the first of these shirts when he first swaggers on screen, giving the audience a face to match that handsome Cadillac convertible parked outside. The details are typical of Western-style shirts, such as the single-pointed yokes extending over the shoulders onto the chest, echoed by the dramatically pointed flaps that close over the two chest pockets with a mother-of-pearl snap matching those down the front placket and the three on each cuff. The plaid shirting consists of at least three different color shades, grounded in a light color with a balanced but busy multi-plaid in white and a darker color.

Hud greets the audience—and his nephew—while snapping his shirt after one of many assignations.

“Please, get up offa your lazy butt and get me a clean white shirt… thank you!” Hud demands of Alma while “prettying himself up” for a night out. Returning with an all-white shirt in Hud’s preferred snap-front style, Alma jokes “had a little trouble getting the lipstick out of this one,” before assuring him that “tabs are in the collar.”

Hud doesn’t talk much about his clothing, but he does seem to take certain pride in how he dresses for the occasions that call for “a clean white shirt,” as he later wears this when prepping for the rodeo:

I put on a clean white shirt this morning and I saw me a lawyer.

While most men may consider their ideal “clean white shirt” to be dressier, our Texan cowboy anti-hero stays true to his image by merely pulling on an all-white cotton snap-up shirt with the usual double chest pockets and pointed yokes.

Hud finishes dinner, careful not to mar his clean white shirt before going out.

A rare color photo from the set of Hud confirms that Newman’s work shirt and jeans were the classic blue expected of chambray and denim.

We get a better sense of why Hud takes such pride in his clean white shirts once we see him and the Bannon family hard at the work on the ranch. Though he may not fit his family’s ideal image of the hardworking rancher, Hud still dresses appropriately for the role in jeans and yet another snap-front shirt, this one constructed in a durable blue chambray cotton.

A subtle “W” stitched against the two breast pockets informs us that this shirt was made by Wrangler, the North Carolina brand that was re-christened in the 1940s after its first four decades as the “Blue Bell Overall Company” and quickly proved to be a worthy challenger to Levi’s and Lee for American denim supremacy.

Nearly a half-century after Newman wore his on screen, the Cowboy Cut® chambray shirt remains a mainstay of the Wrangler lineup, available via Amazon and Wrangler.com.

Though worn for more rugged work, the shirt shares many characteristics of Hud’s “going-out” shirts, such as the narrow point collar, the snap-front placket, Western-pointed front and back yokes, and triple-snap cuffs. Only the shape of the pocket flaps differ slightly, with less dramatically points described by Wrangler as intentionally shaped like spades.

This production photo of Newman filming Hud best shows the “W” stitched onto the pockets that has been a Wrangler trademark for decades.

Hud pulls on another white snap-front shirt for another night out, this time with the “not-too-natural blonde” Mrs. Peters (former POTM Yvette Vickers). The tapered yokes with fancy embroidery suggest that this isn’t the same shirt he had worn earlier, despite the two pointed-flap pockets and triple-snap cuffs being the same.

Hud and Lon flank the sleeping Homer.

For the night of the “pig scramble”, Hud wears a dark cotton sateen snap-front shirt that differs from the others with their diamond-shaped pearl snaps, as opposed to the round snaps of his previously seen shirts. This shirt also has pointed yokes and triple-snap cuffs, though the single-snap flaps on his pockets are less dramatically pointed than the other shirts. If some of the film’s promotional material and poster art are to be believed, the shirting is a solid dark red color.

Though he’s back in his jeans and sleeveless undershirt for the actual scramble, Hud tucks this shirt into his dark “ranch pants”, a pair of flat-front trousers with pointed belt loops, slanted “frogmouth” front pockets, and two back pockets with scalloped single-button flaps. These plain-hemmed bottoms may be part of the two-piece ranch suit he wears during the finale.

Hud gives his nephew a lesson in how to drink irresponsibly.

A Pair of Lee Jackets

On the Monday morning that the Bannons learn they need to exterminate their cattle, Hud dresses in a dark Lee Storm Rider jacket, initially over a plain white cotton crew-neck short-sleeve T-shirt, though he puts on his chambray work shirt by the time the group arms to kill the cows.

Denim jackets had been a mainstay of hard-living westerners since the turn-of-the-century, a tradition solidified when Levi Strauss & Co. introduced the first iteration of its now-famous trucker jackets in 1905. The Kansas-based H.D. Lee Corporation developed its own version and, by mid-century, Wrangler would enter the race to form the “big three” competitors to beat in the world of American denim. Though Levi’s may have had a head start,  Lee had pioneered cowboy jackets lined with thick saddle blanket-style wool when the 101LJ was developed in the 1940s, updating the coat when the officially christened Lee 101 Storm Rider was first marketed in the fall of 1953. (As of June 2021, the Storm Rider is still sold.)

After Homer dies, his good-natured grandson Lonnie (Brandon deWilde) tells Hud that he wanted to buy the old man “a brand new blanket-lined jacket”, indicating how valued these venerable jackets were among the ranch set.

In addition to this celebrated lining, the Lee Storm Rider included a tan corduroy collar that added an insulating heft for cowboys hoping to keep warm against storms. Aside from the corduroy collar and blanket lining, the Storm Rider shares the details of the basic Lee Rider, including two flapped pockets aligned just below a horizontal chest yoke and zig-zag stitching around the six rivet buttons up the front.

A tale of two denim jackets: Lon wears an early Levi’s “Type I” with its low-slung chest pocket while Hud sports a Lee Storm Rider.

That night, Hud signifies his dedication to the Kansas denim brand when he pulls on a Lee Westerner cowboy jacket in beige cotton twill, part of the “Lee-Sures” set of matching jacket and jeans that was first marketed at the end of the ’50s and foresaw the rise of the leisure suit two decades later. (Interestingly, the full Lee Westerner jacket and jeans would be worn by Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field… the performance that beat Newman for the Academy Award for Best Actor that same year!)

Only the lighter-colored fabric differentiates the beige Westerner jacket from the standard Lee Rider, as it shares the same “cowboy jacket” cut with two flapped pockets, six rivet buttons with zig-zag stitching, button-tab adjusters on the waist hem, and that telltale black tag with “Lee” embroidered in yellow sewn along the bottom seam of the left pocket flap.

Hud is far from a “white knight”, but he dresses the part when apologizing to Alma for his assault on her.

Below the Belt

Not only does he wear their jackets, but Hud’s seemingly favorite pants are also made by Lee, as evident by that small black branded tag and “lazy S” stitching across the back pockets. The most frequently worn of his three pairs of pants, these flat front jeans-style pants are made from a medium-colored twill, likely light brown.

Note the branded patch and “lazy S” on the back pockets that identify Hud’s trousers as Lee.

Hud holds up his beloved Lee trousers with a brown tooled leather belt that closes through a large ornate belt buckle that likely draws many a ladies’ eye exactly to the region that Hud wants them to notice first.

When in town or at leisure, Hud wears a pair of dark brown leather cowboy boots. In addition to the traditional “bug and wrinkle” medallion stitching over the vamps, we see the decorative stitching along the shafts when he’s pulling his boots back on over his white tube socks.

Handmade by M.L. Leddy’s of San Angelo, Texas, these calf-high cowboy boots with raised heels and over-the-top pull tabs were auctioned in March 2008 by Guernsey’s New York, who described them as a size 11 in the same auction listing that identified them as made by Leddy.

Hud puts on his hat and boots after Lon tracks him down in an early scene.

At work, Hud foregoes his Lee loyalty in favor of dark blue denim Levi’s 501 button-fly jeans, worn with fringed buckskin chaps that buckle at the back of his waistband. He also wears cowboy boots for this type of work, though the uppers are made from a plain tan napped leather.

Dressed for hard work on the ranch in blue chambray Wrangler snap shirt, Levi’s 501 jeans, straw hat, and buckskin chaps.

Everything Else

At work and at play, Hud wears a natural straw cowboy hat in the cutter style. Though the crown isn’t as high as the classic cattleman’s hat, it’s still creased on the top and sides and perforated for plenty of ventilation. A light grosgrain ribbon wraps around the base, encircled by a dark braided leather band.

Lon clearly looks up to his wayward uncle, even adopting a similarly styled straw hat with a perforated crown.

Hud’s preferred undershirt is the classic white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt. Known as the “A-shirt” (for “athletic shirt”) when it was pioneered in the 1930s, this style of tank top soon gained the pejorative “wife-beater” moniker after a Detroit man wore one for his 1947 mugshot after he, indeed, beat his wife to death. (Source: Dictionary.com)

Hud strips down to his undershirt and jeans for the pig scramble. Note that he also wears the plainer belt that typically accompanies his jeans, rather than the flashier tooled belt and ornate buckle.

Before Paul Newman would make watches like the Rolex Daytona famous, he still flashes an attractive timepiece on screen. The round-cased watch has a light-colored dial with non-numeric markers at each hour, strapped to a dark brown leather strap.

The watch was almost certainly Newman’s own (not to be confused with Newman’s Own) as he was photographed wearing one just like it throughout the late ’50s and early ’60s, as seen in several photos posted by my good friend who scribes The Teeritz Agenda.

“The only question I ever ask any woman is ‘what time is your husband coming up?'” Hud coincidentally asks as we get the best view of his watch.

For the funeral that closes out Hud, our eponymous anti-hero dresses up for the occasion with a suit and tie, though the dark suit remains consistent to his style with its ranch-like detailing. The single-breasted, three-button jacket has two besom pockets rigged high on the chest, both slanting toward the center and positioned above the pointed Western-style yokes. The two hip pockets have pointed flaps that each close with a single button. The notch lapels are finished with sporty swelled edges, and the back echoes the detailing on the front with its single pointed yoke and “action back” shoulder pleats. The sleeves are finished with two vestigial shank buttons that match the three on the front.

Hud wears a skinny dark tie, knotted with a Windsor knot and patterned only with a subtle series of three star-like shapes in the center, similar to the Space Race imagery that adorned everything from cars to clothes in the early ’60s. He holds the tie in place with a plain metal horizontal bar.

Lon may have lost respect for his uncle, but he can’t help but to keep dressing likely his erstwhile idol, even when the time comes to spruce up for a funeral.

What to Imbibe

“You pick up my beer?” Hud asks Alma, who responds: “Two six-packs, that oughta see you ’til tomorrow.”

Indeed, booze is one of Hud’s few passions and many vices, with Coors Banquet beer being one of his favorites, as he downs cans of the famous Colorado brew while preparing for the pig scramble. At the time, Coors was sold exclusively in the west, creating a mythos that would be celebrated by Burt Reynolds’ high-speed bet in Smokey and the Bandit (1977), and it wouldn’t be until the 1980s that Coors products—including the yellow-bellied “original” Coors Banquet and the new “silver bullet” Coors Light—were marketed across the rest of the United States.

The lonely Hud cracks a Coors.

After Hud wins the pig scramble, he treats his 17-year-old nephew Lon to cans of Pearl beer, like the pair of true Texans that they are. The Pearl story dates back to the founding of the San Antonio Brewing Company in 1883, exactly ten years after Adolph Coors first brewed his famous pilsner in Golden, Colorado. Pearl didn’t have Coors’ initial success in weathering the effects of Prohibition, but the impressive management of chief executive Emma Koehler led Pearl through the Depression as it became well-established as the largest brewer in Texas.

“You wanna put a little kick in that?” Hud asks Lon, pouring from a high-proof paper bag to fortify them against the almost-inevitable barroom brawls to follow.

A round of Pearls, in happier times. Note that Hud is smoking Salems, though he was seen with a deck of Marlboros earlier.

The contents of the paper bag go unseen, but it’s almost certain that Hud was treating his nephew to an extra nip of Jack Daniel’s, the Tennessee whiskey that’s well-established as our protagonist’s liquor of choice and instantly recognizable for the black “old-time Old No. 7 brand” labels affixed to its signature square bottles.

After Alma turns down his offer to “blow some foam offa some beer”, Hud presses Lon into service as his designated driver… which allows him to reach under the dash of his Cadillac for a pint of Jack.

The Car

If I find a pink Cadillac, he’ll be around somewhere.

Hud is known around the sleepy town of Claude, Texas, for his flamboyant set of wheels, a 1958 Cadillac Series 62 convertible that we know from Lon’s dialogue is pink. Hud may have found inspiration in the colorful choice of wheels for Elvis Presley, his fellow swaggering Southerner, who had famously owned a series of pink Fleetwoods starting with the years of his initial fame in the mid-’50s.

As Bryan Appleyard wrote for The Spectator:

“Out there in the ranchlands of the Texas Panhandle Newman looks just fine—big hat, jeans, cowboy shirt, and boots—but the car looks all wrong. It is long, low, and wide with an absurd pair of tailfins. Moreover it is pink. Though the film is in black and white, the Caddy’s pinkness is mentioned twice in the dialogue. It should be like everybody else’s vehicle in those parts—a Dodge truck, bouncing over the ruts in the dusty roads. The Caddy doesn’t bounce, it wallows and slithers round corners. It is a terrible car and it is no surprise that, in one of the final scenes, it fails to start. But it’s a seducer’s car and Newman’s character Hud is, above all, a seducer.”

HUD

Few cars can evoke romance, elegance, and adventure as instantly as the iconic Cadillac models of the late 1950s, when the opulent details stemming from the imagination of GM chief designer Harley J. Earl had reached their zenith. Cadillac led the way for what would become the automotive signatures of the fabulous fifties, such as coruscating chrome, wraparound windshields, and those trademark tail-fins that were first added in 1948 and grew in size until reaching their razor-sharp extreme when the ’59 Eldorado boasted fins that stood a staggering three and a half feet over the stern.

Though Hud Bannon’s 1958 Series 62 doesn’t quite reach the celebrated heights of the following year’s fin stature, he still picked an eye-catching car that would turn heads for more than just its color. “It has to be said that this model year has some of the biggest and most noticeable such features ever put on a Cadillac,” Andrei Nedelea wrote for Auto Evolution of the 1958 Series 62.

Even though the Series 62 had been developed as an entry-model car, Cadillac’s elegant excesses through the ’50s ensured that it would outdo any other marque’s flagship in terms of lavish luxury. The ’58 model had been redesigned from the previous year, now boasting a wider grille and a quartet of chrome wind splits ahead of each wheel. It also marked the final year for the Eldorado and De Ville trim lines, as these would be spun off into their own models for the following year.

All 1958 Cadillacs were powered by the standard Cadillac OHV V8, mated to GM’s four-speed Hydra-Matic transmission with controlled coupling. Body styles for the Series 62 included two- and four-door hardtops and a two-door convertible which weighed in with a whopping curb weight of 5,030 pounds.

1958 Cadillac Series 62

Body Style: 2-door convertible

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

Engine: 365 cubic inch (6.0 L) Cadillac OHV V8 with Carter 4-barrel carburetor

Power: 310 hp (241 kW; 314 PS) @ 4800 rpm

Torque: 405 lb·ft (549 N·m) @ 3100 rpm

Transmission: 4-speed GM Hydra-Matic automatic

Wheelbase: 129.5 inches (3289 mm)

Length: 221.8 inches (5634 mm)

Width: 80 inches (2032 mm)

Height: 59.1 inches (1509 mm)

To read more about the dimensions or performance of the 1958 Cadillac Series 62 convertible, visit Automobile Catalog, which I used to source the above.

Alma: How come you’re always runnin’ your car over my zinnias? I been tryin’ to get those things to come up for two weeks.
Hud: Then don’t plant ’em where I park.

Hud’s reckless pranks would result in the Caddy’s unwanted facelift by the film’s end… still running but unable to hide its obvious cosmetic damage.

HUD

The Gun

“Pretty hard to keep them birds away… had to use the flashlight most of the night,” the Bannons are informed by their field-hands, but the impulsive Hud doesn’t wait and reaches into their Dodge pickup truck for a Winchester rifle. Like he would as Butch Cassidy less than a decade later, Newman rapidly fires each round from the weapon, evidently holding down the trigger as he works the lever similar to how Butch would “fan the hammer” of his single-action revolver.

“Ah, look at them buzzards,” Hud grunts as the birds scatter under the pressure of his rapid fire. “They’ll be back, you couldn’t scare ’em off with artillery!”

“I wish you wouldn’t do that, Hud… they keep the country clean,” his father responds. “Besides, there’s a law against killin’ buzzards.”

While many of the Bannon ranch workers arm themselves with Winchester Model 1892 rifles, Hud and Lon both use the later model Winchester Model 1894.

Hud pulls his Winchester Model 1894 after being informed of the buzzards terrorizing his family cattle.

Designed by John Browning, the Winchester ’94 was the first of this venerable rifle series to chamber a smokeless powder round when the .30-30 centerfire round was developed the following year, though more than a dozen cartridges would ultimately be available, including handgun rounds like .357 Magnum and .45 Colt. Winchester produced more than 7,500,000 of these rifles over more than a century, making it one of the most popular sporting rifles of all time.

How to Get the Look

Paul Newman in Hud (1963)

Though Hud cycles between variations of his long-sleeved snap shirts and jeans, his base outfit when dressing to impress in his small Texas town is a “clean white shirt” with his cowboy-informed kit of a perforated straw hat, tall boots, and a flashy belt buckle.

• White cotton Western-style shirt with pointed yokes, snap-front placket, two chest pockets with pointed single-snap flaps, and triple-snap cuffs
• Light brown twill flat front Lee jeans-style pants with belt loops, curved front pockets, and patch back pockets
• Brown tooled leather belt with large ornate belt buckle
• Dark brown leather cowboy boots with tall stitched shafts, pull tabs, and raised heels
• White tube socks
• Natural straw hat with perforated cutter-style crown and thin braided dark leather band
• Round-cased wristwatch with light-colored dial on dark brown leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. You can also read the 1961 source novel Horseman, Pass By, written by late Larry McMurtry.

For fans of Paul Newman, pink Cadillacs, Hud, or all three, I also recommend checking out Thomas Pollart’s excellent mixed media that features an insouciant Newman in costume as Hud—wearing his straw hat, Wrangler shirt, and Levi’s—still in black-and-white but leaning against the tail of his Cadillac, which has been colorized to the brilliant pink that must have shocked his fellow citizens. Pollart’s art can be found in a variety of purchasable formats at Fine Art America.

The Quote

You don’t look out for yourself, and the only helping hand you’ll ever get is when they lower the box.

The post Hud: Paul Newman as a Cadillac-Driving Cowboy appeared first on BAMF Style.

Tom Cruise as Brian Flanagan in Cocktail (1988)

Vitals

Tom Cruise as Brian Flanagan, ambitious tropical bartender

Ocho RIos, Jamaica, Spring 1988

Film: Cocktail
Release Date: July 29, 1988
Director: Roger Donaldson
Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick

Background

I will admit that I’m not the biggest fan of Cocktail, but I’ve been in a tropical mood lately so this colorful, super-’80s yarn of bartending and bonking felt like a perfect summertime post in advance of Tom Cruise’s birthday tomorrow.

By all accounts, this winner of two Razzies should have been better, and author Heywood Gould has voiced considerable disappointment that his more serious source novel underwent such commercialization that the end product was primarily a vapid celebration of Tom Cruise using the daiquiri recipe he learned at TGI Friday’s to try to get laid as much as he could.

And yet, Cocktail has remained a part of pop culture more than 30 years after its ignominious release, whether you consider all the times you’ve heard the Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” or if you’ve patronized bars like Coughlin’s Law, a local Pittsburgh tavern that clearly took inspiration from the philosophy espoused by Bryan Brown’s character.

Cruise stars as Brian Flanagan, a swaggering Army veteran with dreams of becoming a millionaire despite little to get him there aside from some business classes and an overwhelmingly toothy grin. He supports himself by slinging cocktails a TGI Friday’s under the tutelage of Doug Coughlin (Brown), a hubristic cocksman from Down Under. After the incorrigible Coughlin proves a little too reckless with his swizzle stick, Brian abandons his mentor and flees to the warm comfort behind a beachside bar in Jamaica.

More than a year later, Coughlin stumbles into Dragon Beach with his new beautiful bride in tow, convincing Brian that any future girlfriends of his would be safe from his former mentor’s muddler… just in time for him to meet Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue), a charming tourist who doesn’t rely on her family’s money to fuel her own artistic ambitions. After she writes off their first encounter as a one night stand, he continues the relationship over a series of dates that range from sketching each other in the sand to pondering the genius who cornered “the flugelbinder market.”

What’d He Wear?

Cocktail features the costume design of Ellen Mirojnick, a prolific designer who dressed some of the most iconic characters of the ’80s—e.g. Michael Douglas as the slick-haired and slick-suited Gordon Gekko in Wall Street—and Cocktail proved that Mirjonick could design just as effectively for the beach as for the board room.

Brian’s Jamaican wardrobe consists almost exclusively of bright, colorful printed shirts that undoubtedly contributed to the atmosphere of levity that his beachside patrons are looking for behind their parade of piña coladas. When Brian steps out from behind the bar for fun in the sun with Jordan, he wears a chaotically patterned camp shirt, designed in an abstract all-over print of pink, yellow, and lilac streaks, all overlaid by the occasional black spatter. Brian buttons most of the mother-of-pearl buttons up the plain “French placket” front, leaving a few open at the top that work with the fashionably oversized fit to create a roomy appearance as illustrated by the elbow-length sleeves enveloping his arms.

The shirt’s long, untucked hem and the fact that Brian remains seated covers the top of his white cotton trousers, but we can assume they’re identical to the white flat front pants we see elsewhere, which have a self-suspended waistband with wide belt loops that go unused, slanted side pockets, and button-through back pockets. Brian rolls up the plain-hemmed bottoms to create a louche self-cuffed effect.

Talking about the makers of ashtrays and cocktail umbrellas prompts Brian to wonder who makes the plastic ends of his shoelaces, which Jordan offers may be called “flugelbinders”. He kicks up his left foot to allow himself a visual aid, examining his deck sneaker with its white canvas uppers and the white laces fed through four oxford-style lace eyelets. Apropos the tropical climate and casual context, Brian foregoes socks (or wears very low “no-show” hosiery.)

At first, I had thought Cruise was wearing the famous Sperry CVO model that had included wearers ranging from Paul Newman to Mr. Rogers since its development as the first nonslip deck shoe in 1935, but the addition of an apron-toe seam and the flat, non-siped sole suggests that even an ’80s materialist like Brian isn’t sporting the wares of a brand that had been so prominently touted in Lisa Birnbach’s The Official Preppy Handbook published at the start of the decade.

Jordan hides her disappointment that Brian’s deck sneakers don’t have Sperry’s signature siped soles.

In the nearly two years since he left New York, Brian must be doing well enough for himself tending bar at this tropical paradise that he was able to update his watch to a Rolex Air-King. Introduced in 1958 to honor the RAF pilots who flew during the Battle of Britain, the Air-King was Rolex’s entry Oyster Perpetual for decades, a downsized alternative to the Explorer model that had been introduced five years earlier. Brian’s stainless steel Air-King boasts a silver dial and is worn on a steel “Oyster”-style three-piece link bracelet.

Cruise may have flown to fame peering through Ray-Bans in Risky Business and Top Gun, but he switches eyewear loyalties in Cocktail as he takes in the sights of Jamaica through a pair of tortoise Persol  PO3225S sunglasses. With a straight top bar, these Persols echo the Ray-Ban Wayfarers from Top Gun but with the addition of Persol’s brand signatures from the silver sword-shaped arrows over the temples to the keyhole-cut bridge. As of June 2021, Persol has rereleased the PO3225SS model, available via Amazon and Persol.com.

A brief vignette of Brian and Jordan walking through Ocho Rios indicates that the duo have swimming on the agenda, as Brian has swapped out his trousers for a pair of black polyester Speedo swimming trunks… though neither of their swimwear lasts long during the pair’s famous romp in Dunn’s River Falls.

While the Speedo name may bring to mind briefs with inseams shorter than some men may be comfortable with, the English brand continues offering swim trunks of a more conventional length as worn by Cruise in Cocktail, such as the black polyester Speedo Redondo still available from Amazon as of June 2021.

How to Get the Look

Elisabeth Shue and Tom Cruise in Cocktail (1988)

As tropical-printed camp shirts continue their revival this summer, Tom Cruise’s swaggering bartender in Cocktail provides a straightforward template for how to dress (but not how to behave!) for a summer fling in the sun, accessorizing his spattered shirt, white trousers, and deck shoes with Persol shades and a Rolex.

• Pink, yellow, and lilac-streak (and black-spatter) printed short-sleeve camp shirt
• White cotton flat front trousers with self-suspended waistband, slanted side pockets, button-through back pockets, and self-cuffed plain-hem bottoms
• White canvas four-eyelet deck sneakers with white outsoles
• Persol PO3225S “Havana” tortoise rectangular-framed sunglasses with green lenses
• Rolex Air-King stainless steel watch with silver dial and steel Oyster-style link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and try to track down Heywood Gould’s source novel.

The Quote

Before you know it, your life is just one long night with a few comatose daylight hours.

The post Cocktail: Tom Cruise’s Spattered Pink Tropical Shirt appeared first on BAMF Style.

Murray Hamilton as Mayor Larry Vaughn in Jaws (1975)

Vitals

Murray Hamilton as Larry Vaughn, ineffective mayor of Amity Island

Amity Island, July 1974

Film: Jaws
Release Date: June 20, 1975
Director: Steven Spielberg
Costume Design: Louise Clark, Robert Ellsworth, and Irwin Rose

Background

“You open the beaches on the fourth of July, it’s like ringing the dinner bell, for chrissakes!” implores police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) to the mayor of Amity Island in the wake of the deadly threat of Bruce the Shark lurking offshore.

Unfortunately for the residents of Amity—which, as you know, means friendship—our charming mayor is the kind of odious self-promoter who thinks idealists like Hooper only share his self-absorbed goal of fame and glory, or a “you’d love to make it into the National Geographic!” moment, unable to comprehend that some people do their jobs or take public office for the sake of serving the public and not for good PR or cutthroat ambition.

A thirty-year screen veteran by the time he slipped into Mayor Vaughn’s anchor-detailed jacket, Murray Hamilton was one of the best character actors of the era with a particular talent for making smaller roles memorable, as seen in movies like Anatomy of a Murder (1959), The Hustler (1961), Seconds (1966), The Way We Were (1973), and perhaps most visibly as the famously cuckolded Mr. Robinson in The Graduate (1967).

In Jaws, Hamilton delivers just enough glad-handing, baby-kissing charisma that you can almost understand why the citizens of Amity Island likely just shrugged and voted the stubborn publicity hound back into office as “the devil they knew”… just in time for the events of Jaws 2 (1978).

What’d He Wear?

Many men wear blazers that nod to their nautical heritage with anchors embossed on the buttons… but that’s far too subtle for Mayor Larry Vaughn, who demands that his anchors be seen by all! Reportedly picked up for the production in a secondhand store on Martha’s Vineyard (source), the mayor’s jacket has greatly transcended his inglorious term of office to become one of the most beloved movie costume pieces.

While he cycles between this, a colorful pastel multi-striped jacket, and a relatively somber camel blazer, it’s understandably this anchor-detailed jacket that commands most sartorial attention, with many an online tribute from this Movies Unlimited writeup to its own Facebook page where, as of June 2021, more than 5,000 “fans”—including yours truly—are irregularly updated with random quotes from Mayor Vaughn.

The jacket is certainly appropriate for the leader of a coastal town but also neatly communicates Mayor Vaughn’s “all flash, no substance” style of leadership, a man so stubbornly rooted—anchored, if you will—to his own ideas.

Mayor Vaughn’s jacket is suited in a navy and white twill, likely polyester based on prevailing trends of the mid-’70s as well as the evidence provided from a member of The RPF who located an identical jacket—actually as part of a suit—in red and white polyester twill. The overlaying anchors are embroidered in white with a navy border. The single-breasted jacket has fashionably broad notch lapels, detailed with appropriately sporty “swelled edges”, that roll to two flat mother-of-pearl 4-hole sew-through buttons which match the three buttons on the cuff of each sleeve. The long single vent also follows the fashions of the ’70s, and the welted breast pocket and hip pocket’s wide flaps reflect the same welted edge as seen on the lapels.

The mayor always pairs his anchor jacket over a light blue poplin shirt with a large spread collar, front placket, and button cuffs. Appropriately enough, he’s clad in a patriotic red, white, blue repp striped tie when he first see him obsessing over whether the beaches will be open for the fourth of July.

This tie is comprised of balanced navy and crimson bar stripes in the traditionally American “downhill” direction, accented with double sets of thin white stripes along the border of each stripe. His ties are consistently wider than average, harmonizing with the wider shirt collar and jacket lapels and consistent with ’70s neckwear trends.

America’s Mayor makes the case for not raising any public alarm about the deadly shark attacks.

Days later, Mayor Vaughn provides a reluctant audience to Hooper and Brody, clad in the same anchor-motif jacket and blue shirt but with a different striped tie. Grounded in navy polyester, the tie is patterned in double sets of mustard gold embroidered “downhill” stripes, each set separating a slightly wider satin-finished navy stripe through the center.

Another day, another striped tie, another cigarette… another hubristic dismissal of valid, scientifically informed concerns that could save lives.

The mayor’s navy flat front trousers are fully cut through the legs to the somewhat flared plain-hem bottoms that break high enough to show his slate-shaded blue socks and his well-worn brown leather loafers, which have long apron-toe seams and a vestigial strap across each vamp. The shoes coordinate with the dark brown leather of his little-seen belt, which closes through a silver-toned single-prong buckle.

Some production stills depict the mayor wearing a beige gabardine coat draped around his shoulders as Brody and Hooper make their final case for closing the beaches, though this single-breasted coat with its wide Ulster collar and flapped hip pockets never actually appears on screen.

Barely glimpsed on the mayor’s left wrist is a plain steel wristwatch on a black leather strap. The round white dial has little adornment aside from the simple silver non-numeric markers at each hour position.

If I were recreating the mayor’s kit, I might take this opportunity to wear my Spiro Agnew watch, a novelty piece from the early ’70s that celebrates one of American history’s most famously crooked politicians, worn on an appropriately patriotic red, white, and blue NATO strap.

How to Get the Look

Murray Hamilton as Mayor Larry Vaughn in Jaws (1975)

You’ve got to hand it to Mayor Vaughn for at least attempting a coastal variation on the tired politician’s “uniform” of a conservative navy or gray suit, instead showing the citizens of Amity Island that he truly cares by ignoring threats to their safety and wellbeing dressing in a jaunty jacket that reflects their seaside locale.

• White anchor-embroidered blue-and-navy polyester twill single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with wide notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and long single vent
• Light blue poplin shirt with spread collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Navy and crimson “downhill”-striped repp tie with thin white accent stripes
• Navy flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark brown leather belt with silver-toned single-prong buckle
• Brown leather apron-toe strap loafers
• Blue cotton lisle socks
• Steel watch with a round white dial on black leather strap

While it differs in the execution, Castaway Clothing took direction from the mayor’s wardrobe to develop the sky-blue “Spinnaker Blazer” with white embroidered anchors, unashamedly inspired by Mayor Vaughn but updated for modern vacationers with an unstructured cotton shell.

I haven’t been able to find the exact stripe configuration of the mayor’s red, white, and blue tie, though the patriotic Vaughn would almost certainly wear either of these with pride from Brooks Brothers, Club Room, and Manoble.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read Peter Benchley’s source novel.

The Quote

I don’t think you appreciate the gut reaction people have to these things.

The post Jaws: Mayor Vaughn’s Anchor-Detailed Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Roger Moore as James Bond, flanked by Lizzie Warville, Alison Worth, Viva, Vanya, Kim Mills, and Laila Dean, in For Your Eyes Only (1981).
Photo sourced from Thunderballs.org.

Vitals

Roger Moore as James Bond, British government agent

Spain, Spring 1981

Film: For Your Eyes Only
Release Date: June 24, 1981
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller

Background

During the 40th anniversary year of For Your Eyes Only, the 00-7th of July feels like the appropriate time to examine the clothes and cars of Mr. Bond himself, after previously exploring the fits of one of his allies and one of his enemies. (This may be a little late for #CarWeek, but isn’t it always a good day for a drive in the country?)

Expanded from several Ian Fleming short stories, this grounded espionage tale may be my favorite of Sir Roger Moore’s celebrated twelve-year tenure as the sophisticated secret agent, bringing James Bond back to Earth after his star-hopping adventure in Moonraker.

In fact, the premise of For Your Eyes Only nearly matches up exactly with the narrative of Fleming’s story of the same name: Bond is tasked with following a lead on a Cuban hitman named Gonzales who engineered the murder of the Havelocks, whose vivacious daughter also sets out for revenge with her bow and arrow. The daughter’s arrow finds her target just as he’s taking a dive, and she escapes with Bond following a gunfight… but not without escaping his advice repeating the Chinese adage that “before you set out on revenge, dig two graves.”

Just as in Ian Fleming’s short story, Bond nearly meets his own demise at the business end of Miss Havelock’s crossbow.

The details vary between the story and the film, which adds layers of complexity and also ties the killing into the smuggling plot of a different story titled “Risico”, but it’s a welcome return to Fleming’s source material. The story’s setting of Vermont is shifted to a rural region of Spain, reportedly near Madrid but filmed at the Villa Sylva in Corfu, and the Havelocks’ vengeful daughter Judy is renamed Melina (Carole Bouquet) in accordance with her newly assigned half-Greek lineage.

What’d He Wear?

Ian Fleming frequently added extensive detail to his novels and stories so that readers could picture the clothes worn by James Bond as well as his friends and foe. In the story “For Your Eyes Only”, 007’s Canadian contact Colonel Johns suggests that Bond dress for his mission in “nothing fancy, nothing conspicuous—khaki shirt, dark brown jeans, good climbing boots or shoes,” that could be purchased from a secondhand clothing store in Ottawa; Bond indeed takes Johns’ advice, even picking up a pair of “soft ripple rubber climbing boots… [with] spring, cushioned soles,” which he opines should be used in military boots.

Whether by coincidence or design, Roger Moore’s costume for the cinematic representation of this adventure indeed reflects the tones, if not the exact spirit, of Colonel Johns’ dictated clothing suggestions, dressing in an ecru open-neck shirt and trousers in a darker shade of brown. While Colonel Johns’ suggestion was more tactical, the cinematic Bond opts for a more fashionable—but still casual—ensemble that wouldn’t mark him too immediately as a man on a mission should he get captured… which he does. As with all of Bond’s screen-worn clothing, this outfit has been extensively written about in fine detail by Matt Spaiser for Bond Suits.

“There’s always something formal about the point of a pistol,” George Lazenby’s Bond had quipped in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. If that’s the case, Bond’s practically in white tie and tails here.

Bond adds the layer of a zip-up blouson jacket made from a lightweight sage-green suede, an earthy shade that serves as a restrained quasi-camouflage, similar to the olive-drab fatigues then in use by many armed forces around the world. Rather than a traditional collar, the jacket just has a reinforced band around the round neckline which easily slips under the collar points of Bond’s shirt; 007 would again wear a collarless jacket like this when Daniel Craig slipped into that midnight blue goat suede John Varvatos “racer jacket” for the action-packed climax in Spectre (2015).

The zipper is a low-contrasting olive-colored plastic, running straight up the front from the bottom of the elasticized waist hem. There is a hand-level pocket with a straight vertical opening on each side of the jacket. The jacket has a straight horizontal yoke across the chest and back, echoed by seams that extend over the shoulders from the neck to the top of each set-in sleeve. Each sleeve closes at the cuff through a single olive two-hole plastic button.

The baggier fit and the top of each set-in sleeve falling a few inches off the shoulder suggest that the jacket may be a size larger than Moore would normally wear. While this could be in accordance with the oversized fashions of the ’80s, this may have also been a tactical choice to add roominess for Bond to more effectively hide his Walther PPK, which he keeps holstered in a tan leather shoulder rig under his left armpit.

Too bad Q didn’t think to equip 007 with that nifty finger-trap holster that Sean Connery had carried a decade earlier in Diamonds Are Forever!

Bond wears an ecru short-sleeved shirt by Frank Foster, the legendary London shirtmaker who made shirts for Roger Moore to wear on- and off-screen as well as for the two previous Bond actors and many other luminaries. In his Bond Suits post, Matt Spaiser identifies the shirting as jersey, a stretchy single- or double-knit cotton fabric that had been increasingly popular for sports clothes throughout the ’70s and ’80s.

The shirt has a fashionably broad spread collar, front placket, and a breast pocket, the latter a relative anomaly on all but the most casual of Bond’s shirts. The cuffed short sleeves recall the short-sleeved shirts that the literary Bond often wore with suits and ties, though the casual context of this scene makes Moore’s short-sleeved shirt considerably more appropriate here.

Bond tucks the shirt into a pair of tan flat front trousers which rise to Moore’s natural waist, where they’re held up by a brown leather belt with a thick polished gold square single-prong buckle. Bond Suits explains that the trousers are a heavy linen and, despite my first thought that they had no pockets, indeed have coin pockets slit just below the waistband on each side of the front in addition to a back-right pocket. The trousers are cut straight through the legs and plain-hemmed at the bottoms.

Who needs a Walther PPK (or a “convenient pocket”) when you’ve got an umbrella?
Photo sourced from Thunderballs.org.

Roger Moore frequently wore slip-on shoes as James Bond, occasionally even with his evening black tie, so it’s no surprise to see he’s wearing loafers with this casual outfit. The uppers are dark brown leather to  tonally coordinate with the earthy tones of his outfit, and detailed with apron-toe seams, gold bit detailing, and raised heels. He wears them with tan ribbed socks that effectively continue the leg line from his trousers.

The shoes—and belt, for that matter—are likely Salvatore Ferragamo, as Roger Moore relayed how he brought the Italian designer’s wares to the world of Bond in his 2012 book Bond on Bond: Reflections on 50 Years of James Bond Movies:

I introduced Ferragamo to the Bond films. A neighbor of mine in Italy was married to Salvatore Ferragamo’s eldest son, and I took her to a premiere of Live and Let Die, where she was horrified to see I was wearing Gucci shoes and belt. From then on Ferragamo supplied shoes, belts, and luggage for the films.

Not that I’m too eager to “correct” Mr. Bond himself, but Moore continued prominently wearing Gucci in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) and again in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), so it likely wasn’t until the premiere of one of these latter films—which would also align with when he moved to Italy under tax exile—that he was so influentially admonished by Signora Ferragamo. Either way, Ferragamo was decidedly the leatherware provider of choice for 007 by the early ’80s when he was working the pedals of Melina Havelock’s dilapidated Citroën.

Under the terms of the franchise’s ongoing product placement deal with SEIKO, Bond strapped on a stainless steel SEIKO H357-5040 Duo Display quartz-powered alarm chronograph throughout For Your Eyes Only. Strapped to a tapered steel bracelet, the unique four-pinned square face consists primarily of a black rectangular analog dial, partitioned at the top for a single-row digital LED display intended to function alternately as a calendar, digital clock, alarm, and stopwatch… though Q evidently tinkered with the watch for it to receive messages in red from Bond’s superiors.

For Your Eyes Only may not have many gadgets aside from that practical SEIKO, but at least Roger Moore still uses that magic eyebrow muscle.

You can read more about Bond’s SEIKO H357-5040 at James Bond Lifestyle, which identified the exact screen-used model as #WHV005.

The Cars

I love a drive in the country, don’t you?

After the Lotus Esprit in The Spy Who Loved Me rivaled Sean Connery’s Aston Martin DB5 for the position of most memorable Bond car, EON Productions—er, Q Branch—again equipped 007 with a sporty ride from the Norfolk-based manufacturer.

Bond speeds toward his mission in a “Monaco white” 1980 Lotus Esprit Turbo, branded with red accents that indicate a turbocharged dry sump Lotus Type 910 four-cylinder engine, offering a power output of 210 horsepower and top speed of 150 mph. This Lotus may be just as gadget-laden as the submersible Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me, but the only “optional extra” we see at work is the enthusiastic anti-burglary system… which results in a pyrrhic victory for Bond who witnesses both the destruction of the intended invaders as well as the Lotus itself.

Never fear, 007, the MI6 budget surely allows for another Lotus in your immediate future. In the meantime…

Don’t get too attached to this one…

I’m afraid we’re being out-horsepowered.

Much to the agent’s chagrin, Bond is forced to make his getaway in Melina Havelock’s bright yellow 1980 Citroën 2CV 6 Club, the “2CV” literally translated to suggest that the car runs on the power of “two steam horses”.  In the spirit of For Your Eyes Only‘s generally grounded creative approach, Bond is forced to make due with only his wits, intuition, and skills, with no Q-issued gadgets to help him as he makes his getaway from Gonzales’ henchmen.

Forget ejector seats or machine guns, these Citroëns aren’t even meant to outrun a tortoise.

Though Sir Roger’s judgmental eyebrow renders it the subject of some unspoken mockery in For Your Eyes Only, the Citroën 2CV was never intended to be a performance car. Citroën Vice President Pierre Boulanger conceptualized the “Deux Chevaux” prior to World War II, following the example of the Ford Model T and Volkswagen Beetle as a mass-produced economy car that could provide an affordable means for transportation to the general public, expected to perform reliably and be maintained simply and inexpensively without providing additional stress for those who would need them the most.

Production was delayed by the German invasion of France during World War II, during which Boulanger was labeled an enemy of the Reich for his refusal to collaborate with the Nazis… perhaps with a touch of irony, as it was under the Reich that the Volkswagen Type 1 had first been developed. After the war, Boulanger’s team dusted off the plans for its simple “people’s car” and the 2CV debuted at the Paris Salon in October 1948.

Originally powered by an air-cooled 375 cc flat-twin engine that delivered a whopping nine horsepower, the 2CV drivetrain was improved over the years to the extent that this power was nearly tripled by 1979 when the engine displacement was increased to 602 cc for what would be the final decade of the car’s production. Even with this increased engine, the top speed was still just over 70 mph, and that’s after the more than 30 seconds it would take to accelerate from 0 to 60.

The “6 Club” was one of four available trim options for the 1980 2CV, offering only a slight performance advantage over the base model. To ensure the performance that would allow the car to effectively “compete” on screen against the gangsters in their pursuing Peugeots, the four screen-used 2CV sedans were fitted with four-cylinder engines from the Citroën GS that nearly doubled the power up to 55 horsepower, but, for all intents and purposes, we’ll treat Melina’s as a stock 2CV 6 Club with its stock two-cylinder engine.

1980 Citroën 2CV 6 Club

Body Style: 4-door fastback sedan

Layout: front-engine, front-wheel-drive (FWD)

Engine: 602 cc (0.6 L) Citroën flat-twin (H2) air-cooled engine

Power: 29 hp (21.5 kW; 29 PS) @ 5750 RPM

Torque: 29 lb·ft (39 N·m) @ 3500 RPM

Transmission: 4-speed manual

Wheelbase: 94.5 inches (2400 mm)

Length: 150.8 inches (3830 mm)

Width: 58.3 inches (1480 mm)

Height: 63 inches (1600 mm)

1980 was the lowest sales year in a decade for the Citroën 2CV and, despite the popularity and exposure from For Your Eyes Only, sales continued to decline until production ended in 1990. Though demand was all but extinguished by a consumer base that had come to expect increased speed and safety, the Citroën 2CV remains well-regarded despite (or, in some cases, due to) its offbeat and antiquated appearance that concealed its advanced mechanics and reliability.

With more than five million produced and sold over its 42-year timeline, the 2CV remains a success story celebrated by L.J.K. Setright in Drive On!: A Social History of the Motor Car as “the most intelligent application of minimalism ever to succeed as a car.”

Bond’s high-flying Citroën… sans slide whistle, as the franchise evidently learned its lesson after The Man with the Golden Gun.
Photo sourced from Thunderballs.org.

The Gun

“Walther PPK… standard issue, British Secret Service,” describes the Cuban killer Hector Gonzales (Stefan Kalipha) as he inspects his prisoner’s weapon. “License to kill… or be killed.”

Following the advice of literary fan and firearms expert Geoffrey Boothroyd, Ian Fleming elected to arm his fictional secret agent with a Walther PPK beginning with the novel Doctor No, which features an extended scene of 007 trading in his underpowered .25-caliber Beretta in exchange for a newly issued Walther, which fires the 7.65mm (.32 ACP) cartridge that’s perhaps generously described as a “delivery like a brick through a plate glass window.”

Hyperboles aside, the Walther PPK was indeed a fine choice for a mid-century man of mystery, combining concealment, firepower, and a sleek profile that served both form and function. Firearms technology has come a long way in the decades since Fleming sat at his golden typewriter, but the PPK’s connection to one of the most iconic characters fo the silver screen will ensure its lasting recognition.

Gonzales unloads Bond’s Walther PPK.

Bond is assigned with merely capturing Gonzales in For Your Eyes Only, but Fleming’s short story had actually tasked 007 with assassinating the killer, a job that calls for a heavier-duty weapon than his sidearm.

“One of the new Savage 99Fs, Weatherby 6 x 62 ‘scope, five-shot repeater with twenty rounds of high-velocity .250-3.000. Lightest big game lever action on the market. Only six and a half pounds,” Colonel Johns briefs Bond on the rifle that he had already placed in the trunk of Bond’s rented Plymouth, adding a gentle request that the rifle be returned as it was borrowed from a friend.

Johns then asks about Bond’s personal gun, which 007 describes as a “Walther PPK in a Burns[sic] Martin holster.” Fleming’s use of the Berns-Martin Triple Draw holster had resulted from a misunderstanding during his initial correspondence with Boothroyd. Boothroyd’s first recommendation to replace Bond’s anemic Beretta was a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson, carried in a Berns-Martin on the belt or under the armpit. Fleming was reluctant to diverge from arming his hero with a semi-automatic pistol, leading to Boothroyd’s suggestion of the PPK.

Unfortunately, Fleming failed to realize that the Berns-Martin holster could only be equipped with a revolver, but the incongruity made it to print in Doctor No and—despite Boothroyd’s clarifications—Fleming would keep the literary Bond’s PPK holstered in a black saddle-stitched Berns-Martin rig throughout the next several written adventures.

You can read more about the Fleming/Boothroyd Berns-Martin mixup and see photos of an example holster at Fleming’s Bond. If you’re interested in learning more about the incorporation of firearms into Bond lifestyle, check out the blog Commando Bond, written by my friend Caleb who also runs the Instagram account @CommandoBond.

How to Get the Look

Roger Moore as James Bond in For Your Eyes Only (1981).
Photo sourced from Thunderballs.org.

James Bond dresses casually yet tactically for his warm-weather mission—and subsequent “drive in the country”—in For Your Eyes Only, blending Roger Moore’s penchant for suede blousons and horsebit loafers with Ian Fleming’s earth-toned literary direction… as well as the franchise’s ongoing product placement deal with SEIKO.

• Sage-green suede zip-up blouson jacket with round collarless neckline, side pockets, and set-in sleeves with single-button cuffs
• Ecru cotton jersey short-sleeve shirt with spread collar, front placket, breast pocket, and cuffed sleeves
• Tan linen flat front trousers with belt loops, front coin pockets, back-right pocket, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Brown leather belt with squared gold single-prong buckle
• Brown leather apron-toe gold-bit loafers
• Tan ribbed socks
• Tan leather shoulder holster (for Walther PPK)
• SEIKO H357-5040/WHV-005 duo-display alarm chronograph with black square face and stainless bracelet

As of June 2021, New York-based fashion house Theory offers the curiously named “Moore Suede Jacket” in dark fennel napped leather (Saks Fifth Avenue, $597) that may the closest approximation I’ve seen to Sir Roger’s For Your Eyes Only blouson.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read Ian Fleming’s first short story collection, also titled For Your Eyes Only, published in 1960.

The Quote

The Chinese have a saying: before setting out on revenge, you first dig two graves.

The post For Your Eyes Only: Bond’s Green Jacket and Melina’s Citroën appeared first on BAMF Style.

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

Vitals

Robert Redford as Hubbell Gardiner, Hollywood screenwriter

Los Angeles, September 1947

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

Background

Tomorrow will be the final day of the 2021 Wimbledon tennis championships, which—due to COVID-19—were canceled last year for the first time since World War II. In the spirit of the oldest tennis tournament in the world, I wanted to highlight the classic tennis garb worn by Robert Redford for a brief scene in The Way We Were.

More than a decade after the popular athlete Hubbell Gardiner and passionate activist Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand) kindled their mutual attraction in college, the two have reunited and have moved out to southern California, where the carefree Hubbell is all too comfortable turning his successful novel into a much tamer screenplay, aimed for mainstream audiences.

Helming the adaptation Hubbell’s novel is flamboyant director George Bissinger (Patrick O’Neal), whose coterie of radical friends reawaken Katie’s political proclivities that eventually threaten Hubbell’s Hollywood ambitions.

What’d He Wear?

Before the activism, arrests, and affairs that threaten Hubbell and Katie’s idyllic life in Hollywood, the two are invited to an afternoon of tennis at Bissinger’s estate, for which the couple dresses in the sporty knitwear traditionally associated with der weiße sport.

It always bothered me to some degree that seemingly no effort was made to date Bissinger’s appearance to the ’40s, as his excessive hair length and safari-inspired leisure suit both suggest the early ’70s production timeframe.

Hubbell layers his tennis sweater over a white cotton polo shirt, likely short-sleeved per tradition and also to avoid an extra layer of fabric under the sleeves of his sweater; after all, even the decorously dignified Sir Hardy Amies allows that “the player’s comfort and personal wishes must come first” when outlining appropriate tennis attire in his 1964 volume ABCs of Men’s Fashion.

Depending on which side of the Atlantic you reside, you may recognize Hubbell’s outer layer as either a cricket jumper or a tennis sweater. Given that our protagonist is swinging his racket stateside, we can safely proceed with the latter nomenclature.

Hubbell’s sweater neatly follows the definition presented by Gentleman’s Gazette as “a white, ivory, cream or off-white cable-stitch knit pullover with a v-neck that is made of heavy cotton or wool. It features one or more colored bands along the v-neckline and optionally bands on the sleeves as well as the lower waist.” Following their emergence in the early 20th century, tennis sweaters enjoyed their greatest prominence through the 1930s and ’40s, the very timeframe depicted in The Way We Were.

Hubbell’s lambswool sweater has a cream cable-knit body with raglan sleeves and the requisite V-neck, accented by an even wider “V” of seven navy, red, and white balanced stripes that separates the body of the sweater from the ribbed neckline. The set-in sleeves are finished with ribbed cuffs that match the rest of the sweater, though the long-ribbed waist hem is also set apart by the same band of seven patriotic-colored stripes.

The sweater’s warmer cream-colored body harmoniously contrasts against the stark white of his collared shirt underneath it.

Sir Hardy’s reflections on tennis attire in 1964 conceded that “shorts are now of course worn universally,” though he still makes the case for long trousers in the case of older men and young men with “unsightly legs”. As the thirtysomething Hubbell Gardiner and a man who was hardly considered unsightly in any way throughout the 1970s, Redford wears a pair of off-white cotton flat front shorts with on-seam side pockets.

The hem of his sweater covers the waistband, which may be self-suspended like the shorts that a shirtless Redford was photographed wearing for an off-screen tennis match around the same time.

Ever the carefree type, Hubbell mindlessly tosses and catches his tennis racket as he takes his place on the court.

Hubbell strolls out onto the court wearing all-white tennis shoes with white athletic tube socks. Tennis had driven much of the development of modern sneakers or athletic shoes, originally designed for vacationers in the late 19th century to have greater comfort and easier movement at play.

The increasing popularity of running, basketball, and the Olympics over the start of the early 20th century saw the introduction of now-iconic athletic shoes like the Converse Chuck Taylor and Jack Purcell models to the degree that, by these immediate postwar years, Hubbell’s rubber-soled tennis shoes would have been the expected footwear for the day.

Hubbell wears his usual complement of accessories, protecting his eyes from the late-summer sun with his favorite silver-framed aviator sunglasses. American Optical and Bausch & Lomb (as Ray-Ban) had been producing these distinctive frames for U.S. military pilots for a decade by the time World War II ended, so it’s likely that Hubbell had been introduced to this style during his Navy service.

The sterling silver curb-chain ID bracelet Hubbell wears on his left wrist was likely another remnant of his war service, which he continues wearing as a civilian. On his right wrist, Hubbell wears a gold watch with a gold dial on a gold bracelet. The wristwatch may have been a prop or one of Redford’s own, but we know that the ring on his third finger belonged to Redford himself, as he would later tell The Hollywood Reporter that he had received it as a gift from a Hopi tribe in 1966 and wore in almost all of his subsequent movies through the present day.

Hubbell and Katie didn’t get the memo about matching visors.

By the 1970s, tennis sweaters had generally been phased out in favor of dressing lighter to be more comfortable when exerting. A more commonly seen outer layer was now a white polyester jacket with a zip-up front that could be more swiftly put on, taken off, or worn open.

The year before he co-starred as George Bissinger in The Way We Were, Patrick O’Neal played a murderous architect on Columbo whose tennis game is interrupted by the inquisitive eponymous detective. In this first-season episode, “Blueprint for Murder”, O’Neal models an example of fashionable tennis attire at the time, consisting of his white Lacoste polo tucked into white trousers with a belt and layered under a white warmup jacket.

Patrick O’Neal exemplifies how tennis attire had evolved by the early 1970s in the Columbo episode “Blueprint for Murder”.

The Car

Hubbell and Katie drive to Bissinger’s home in his new ride, a racing green 1947 MG TC roadster that retains the original right-hand drive of its British heritage, as did all TCs exported to the United States.

With Katie by his side, Hubbell’s newfound success lands him in the cockpit of a brand-new 1947 MG roadster.

MG launched the T-Type roadster in 1936 as a slightly larger evolution of the earlier P-Type, though its 94-inch wheelbase was still relatively shorter than many of its contemporaries. Two iterations of the T-Type—to be designated the TA and the TB—were produced prior to World War II, when production ceased.

MG’s first postwar model was the TC, credited with popularizing sports cars in the United States among well-to-do drivers like Hubbell. Just over 10,000 TCs were produced between 1945 and 1949, all open two-seat roadsters that retained the prewar TB’s 1250cc inline-four engine, albeit with a higher compression ratio that produced an additional half-unit of horsepower for a total of 54.5 bhp.

Hubbell and Katie may have needed a little more storage than the MG TC could provide if they had been invited to a round of golf rather than tennis.

Two more T-Type models would be produced before 1955, when MG revamped its flagship car’s popular but aging design to fit the aerodynamic aesthetics of the fabulous fifties.

How to Get the Look

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

Tennis may be known as “the white sport” for its colorless clothing, but tennis sweaters like the one Robert Redford wears in The Way We Were illustrate how color can be incorporated by the red, white, and blue accents against the otherwise creamy cable-knit body. Redford layers the sweater with his all-white short-sleeved pullover shirt, shorts, and shoes that remain part of the usual tennis kit today.

• White cotton short-sleeved tennis shirt with 2-button placket
• Cream cable-knit lambswool tennis sweater with navy, crimson, and white-trimmed V-neck and ribbed waist hem
• White cotton flat front shorts with self-suspended waistband and on-seam side pockets
• White tennis shoes
• White athletic tube socks
• Silver-framed aviator sunglasses
• Silver tribal ring
• Gold watch with round case, gold dial, and gold bracelet
• Sterling silver curb-chain ID bracelet
• Gold necklace

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post Robert Redford Dressed for Tennis in The Way We Were appeared first on BAMF Style.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jim Belushi in Red Heat (1988)

Vitals

Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ivan Danko, disciplined Moscow police captain

Chicago, Summer 1987

Film: Red Heat
Release Date: June 17, 1988
Director: Walter Hill
Costume Designer: Dan Moore
Tailor: Tommy Velasco

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Thanks to a recommendation from Pete Brooker of the excellent From Tailors with Love podcast, I beat the summer heat by revisiting Red Heat, the buddy cop actioner that paired Arnold Schwarzenegger as a tough Russian police captain with Jim Belushi as the stereotypical cigarettes-and-coffee American detective, working together to capture the dangerous Georgian gangster Viktor “Rosta” Rostavili (Ed O’Ross).

The end of the Cold War clearly in sight with the release of Red Heat, which was the first U.S. production permitted to film in Moscow’s famous Red Square but—perhaps more important—dared American audiences to accept a Soviet hero who neither defected nor showed any indication of questioning his homeland by the movie’s end. When Belushi’s supervisor, played by Peter Boyle, asks that his secretary “be respectful to our guest,” it could be interpreted as asking the audience to be open-minded toward a Russian protagonist… of course, that wasn’t asking as much with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role as his earlier starring roles in movies like The Terminator, Commando, and Predator had already established Arnie as the ’80s action hero that America never had any qualms cheering on.

There was never any question that Schwarzenegger would play Ivan Danko, the tough and taciturn captain in the Moscow Municipal Militsiya, as Walter Hill had developed the story so that he could collaborate with the Austrian-born superstar. Though the Danko role allowed Schwarzenegger play against type to an extent, cutting down on the larger-than-life action and wisecracks, the unstoppable determination that typified so many of his characters is evident from the beginning from Danko’s naked brawl in the Siberian snow to the game of chicken played with coach buses on the back streets of the Windy City. (Okay, so maybe some of the larger-than-life action is still present.)

When Danko follows the escaped Rosta to Chicago, he’s paired with Chicago PD sergeant Art Ridzik (Belushi), described by his own supervisor as “a good cop… and a total expert at fucking up.” Given Ridzik’s reputation and his preference for “funbag patrol” duties, Danko initially resents the partnership that illustrates what his superior had described as “the poison of the west,” but the two men forge a bond that culminates in the exchange of timepieces.

What’d He Wear?

Pete Brooker graciously shared his notes with me from his interview with costume designer Dan Moore, which posted on From Tailors with Love just in time to celebrate our patriotic holiday on Sunday, July 4. I highly recommend listening to this episode, featuring insights not just from Red Heat but also from across Moore’s prolific career working on everything from Walter Hill westerns like The Long Riders, Geronimo, and Wild Bill to comedies from 48 Hrs. to Brewster’s Millions, graciously recognizing the costume crews and tailors with whom he had collaborated.

“If there’s a continuum between fashion and story, I’m on the story side of all this,” Dan explained to Pete regarding his approach to costume design. “All my decisions were made by what’s best for the story.” This approach jibes with how he explains Schwarzenegger was always interested and open to learning about the reasoning behind his costumes.

Following the bathhouse-set opening scene, Captain Danko spends the first act dressed in his immaculate Moscow Militia uniform, which Donnelley’s secretary Audrey mocks as resembling “a glorified postman… or something out of World War II.”

Not the first thing you expect to see in a Chicago police station.

As he releases himself from the hospital, Danko pulls on a teal suit, white shirt, and tie with the same meticulous detail with which he proudly wore his uniform.

Ridzik: What, did you retire your uniform?
Danko: I now work undercover.
Ridzik: Undercover? You look like Gumby.

Ridzik’s reference may be lost on some decades later, but Gumby was a green-colored claymation character that was a mainstay of children’s television in the ’60s, revived during the ’80s when Eddie Murphy parodied him as a foul-mouthed diva on Saturday Night Live.

Costume designer Dan Moore sourced the lightweight wool gabardine twill suiting from B. Black and Sons, one of Los Angeles’ oldest and most respected fabric stores, choosing the unique teal-green fabric as part of his greater effort to “make things feel a little bit off-track to make him be Russian.”

Danko’s uniquely colored suit shines under the precinct’s florescent lights.

Moore explained to Pete for From Tailors with Love that the script called initially for “an ill-fitting suit, but we managed to make it a pretty well-fitting suit,” thanks to master tailor Tommy Velasco, who ran the Universal Studios tailor shop with his two brothers and was up to the task of tailoring Schwarzenegger’s uniquely muscular physique of massive chest and shoulders that taper down to his relatively smaller waist.

The fit also recalls the martial look of his police uniform, in which the disciplined Danko would have been most comfortable, with the shoulders sloped to fit Arnie’s frame. He fastens all three black sew-through buttons of his full-fitting single-breasted jacket, which has unique “cran Necker” or “Parisian” lapels, a cross between notch and peak lapels. The jacket has a single vent in the back, and the breast pockets and hip pockets are all sportier patch pockets.

Production photo of Jim Belushi and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Worn with a plain gray tie, Danko’s white dress shirts were actually repurposed J.C. Penney work-shirts made from 100% cotton twill, purchased in the largest size available with the sleeves recut to fit Schwarzenegger’s famously long arms. “It wasn’t anything special, but they made it special,” Moore recalled. The final products featured a narrow point collar, breast pocket, and a plain “French placket” front and rounded cuffs that closed with white plastic four-hole buttons.

In one of the few moments where the tight-lipped Danko actually opens up to Ridzik, he has taken off his jacket—one layer of metaphorical “armor”—that visually indicates his openness to some emotional exposure to his new de facto partner.

To arm himself for “undercover” work, Danko dons a shoulder rig consisting of a dark brown leather holster under his left armpit, hooked by a simple cognac-brown napped leather strap that loops around his right shoulder to hold the whole rig in place.

Continuing the offbeat look of Danko’s dress, he wears a unique variation of the traditional white undershirt. The weave of the ivory-tinted shirt creates a unique texture of mini-ribbed stripes, with a solid crew-neck and very short “muscle” sleeves with ribbed bands.

Danko keeps all three buttons of his jacket fastened when he’s wearing it, so we only see the details of the trousers when he’s semi-dressed during the cheap hotel gunfight. The matching teal gabardine trousers have double reverse pleats, consistent with the prevailing trends of the ’80s. He holds them up with a wide black edge-stitche leather belt that closes through a silver-toned single-prong buckle.

The trousers have side pockets, besom back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms with a full break that often bunch over his shoes.

Captain Danko and a gun-toting prostitute (Gretchen Palmer) take refuge in a hallway during his hotel gunfight with Rosta.

Danko’s black leather oxfords are actually Red Wing work shoes. Founded in 1905 in Red Wing, Minnesota, Red Wing has established a reliable reputation as a purveyor of durable work boots made from all-American sources (sorry, Captain Danko!) In addition to its celebrated rugged footwear, Red Wing does offer a limited selection of dress shoes like the Postman Oxford, developed to blend an air of formality with the brand’s trademark construction that has made this derby shoe (not an oxford, in fact) a “a favorite of mail carriers for decades” since its initial government authorization in the ’50s.

According to Pete’s notes, the Red Wings were wisely chosen as Danko’s footwear to provide “a subliminal clunky Soviet feel.”

“It is custom in Soviet Union to exchange article as souvenir of friendship,” Danko explains to Ridzik as he unstraps his watch in the finale. “I decide to give you this.”

“That’s really nice! Here, I want you to have my watch,” Ridzik responds as he unhooks his own Rolex Day-Date, explaining it as a “thousand-dollar marvel of Western technology.” Given the value discrepancy, he’s dismayed to be receiving in return “… a twenty-dollar East German watch.”

The From Tailors with Love show notes from last month explore this tradition, validated as truth by David Henderson-Stewart, managing director of the Petrodvorets Watch Factory in St. Petersburg, which has produced Raketa watches since 1961. Moore checked with Red Heat property master Rick Young, who confirmed that Schwarzenegger wore his own watch in the movie… considerably more expensive than the cheap Soviet timepiece that Ridzik dismisses.

With a closeup like this, surely someone can identify Arnie’s Swiss (not East German!) watch…

Indeed, one of the many close-ups of Danko’s watch reveals the words “SWISS MADE” flanking the 6:00 hour marker on the bottom of the dial. The watch itself is a stainless steel-cased chronograph with two pushers to control the sub-registers at the 3 and 9 o’clock positions, strapped to a textured black leather strap that closes with a silver single-prong buckle. The busy salmon-pink dial has prominently numeric-labeled hour markers with two additional numbered rings around it. Presumably, the watch also has an alarm that’s set exclusively to remind Danko when it’s time to feed his parakeet.

The Guns

“Soviet Podbyrin, 9.2 millimeter, is world’s most powerful handgun,” Danko proudly claims of his service sidearm, a unique semi-automatic pistol that was created specifically for Red Heat by armorer Tim LaFrance.

According to IMFDB, LaFrance followed Walter Hill’s direction for a “P38 but bigger and meaner… a P38 on steroids,” and created three screen-ready examples of what has been known as the Hollywood Eagle by modifying the frame of a massive Desert Eagle Mk I with an elongated barrel and the grips of a Walther P38.

The tools of Ivan Danko’s trade: the 9.2-millimeter “Podbyrin” pistol and his “East German”-made watch with an alarm to remind him when it’s time to feed the parakeet.

Of the two weapons used to form the basis of the Hollywood Eagle, the Walther P38 was considerably older, developed in Germany during the years leading up to World War II as a replacement for the recognizable and reliable—but aging—Luger pistol, chambered in 9x19mm Parabellum.

The Desert Eagle had been produced by Israel Military Industries since its introduction in the early 1980s and quickly became an action movie favorite for its unique and intimidating appearance that made it a natural fit for guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger; indeed, Arnie was one of the first to carry a Desert Eagle on screen as part of John Matrix’s arsenal in Commando. Before even heftier calibers were added to the lineup, the Desert Eagle was originally chambered only in .357 Magnum, previously only a revolver cartridge.

To prep the Hollywood Eagle for on-screen combat, LaFrance modified the gas porting that would allow it to cycle and fire the .357 Magnum blanks. (While there is no mass-produced “9.2 millimeter” caliber, the .357 Magnum would be similar with its 9.07-millimeter diameter, though the actual Soviet 9×18 mm Makarov cartridge may come nearest with its diameter of 9.25 millimeters.)

Only Arnold Schwarzenegger would require the famously massive Desert Eagle to be increased in size to fit his screen presence, as part of the modifications to create the “Hollywood Eagle” included an extended barrel.

Danko had his Moscow Militia-issued pistol imported into the U.S. via his diplomatic pouch, though his use of it during the hospital fracas resulted in Commander Donnelly needing to impound it. In turn, the captain requests that Ridzik provide him with another pistol so—with some reluctance—Ridzik opens his glove compartment to reveal a Smith & Wesson Model 29.

“Here, Captain Danko… you are now owner of the most powerful handgun in the world,” Ridzik explains to introduce him to his new armament, though Danko stands firm in his belief of the impounded Podbyrin’s supremacy. Ridzik isn’t too keen on yielding, responding with:

Come on, everyone knows the .44 Magnum is the big boy on the block. Why do you think Dirty Harry uses it?

“Who is Dirty Harry?”

Production photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger wearing Danko’s undershirt and armed with Ridzik’s Smith & Wesson Model 29.

Though its might had been eclipsed even by the time Clint Eastwood immortalized it on screen as “the most powerful handgun in the world,” Smith & Wesson’s Model 29 with its proprietary .44 Magnum cartridge was indeed unparalleled at the time it was introduced in the mid-1950s.

It fits Ridzik’s character that he would keep one of these large revolvers as his personal backup weapon, as he has already shown his familiarity with the cartridge as his duty weapon appears to be a shorter-barreled Smith & Wesson Model 629, also chambered in .44 Magnum but with a stainless steel frame.

(Of course, what Dirty Harry, Red Heat, and many other movies don’t take into account is that it would be almost unthinkable for a major-city police department to issue sidearms chambered for such massive—and expensive—manstopper ammunition.)

Danko uses the Model 29 to considerable effect during the subsequent hotel gunfight and the finale set on the train tracks.

What to Imbibe

Donnelly: Look, just out of curiosity and, since I figure cops are cops the world over… how do you Soviets deal with all the tension and stress?
Danko: Vodka.

How to Get the Look

Arnold Schwarzenegger as Captain Ivan Danko in Red Heat (1988)

If anyone calls you Gumby, at least take comfort in the fact that you found a fellow fan of ’80s action flicks!

• Teal lightweight gabardine wool twill suit:
  • Single-breasted 3-button jacket with cran Necker lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, besom back pockets, and full-break plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton twill shirt with point collar, plain front, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Gray tie
• Black edge-stitched leather belt with silver-toned single-prong buckle
• Black leather work oxford shoes
• White textured crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• Steel Swiss watch with pink dial (with two sub-registers at 3 and 9 o’clock) on black perforated leather strap

The screen-worn suit can be seen and read about in further detail in the Heritage Auctions listing.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I do not want to touch his ass. I want to make him talk!

The post Red Heat: Arnie’s Teal “Gumby” Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

Harry Dean Stanton in Lucky (2017)

Vitals

Harry Dean Stanton as “Lucky”, grizzled desert-dwelling nonagenarian

Piru, California, Summer 2016

Film: Lucky
Release Date: March 11, 2017
Director: John Carroll Lynch
Costume Designer: Lisa Norcia

Background

Today’s post celebrates the great Harry Dean Stanton, the craggy and unapologetically authentic character actor born 95 years ago on July 14, 1926. Stanton’s prolific filmography included few leading roles, aside from a memorable turn in Wim Wenders’ 1984 masterpiece Paris, Texas, and his final movie, Lucky.

Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja collaborated on the screenplay that would result in a cinematic love letter to Harry Dean Stanton, for whom Sparks had served as personal assistant for more than 16 years. Described by Movie Talk as “a poignant meditation on mortality”, Lucky provides a fitting swan song for the actor’s career, incorporating biographical details like Stanton’s Kentucky birthplace and service in the U.S. Navy, reuniting him with previous collaborators like David Lynch and Tom Skeritt, and even scored by harmonica riffs on “Red River Valley”, a song associated with his roles in Dillinger (1973) and Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), not to exclude the overall motif of roaming the southwestern desert that echoes his starring role in Paris, Texas.

The man at the heart of it all is “Lucky”, a cantankerous but not unkind 90-year-old who loves cigarettes, crossword puzzles, and coffee with plenty of cream and sugar. A man of routine, Lucky begins each day with a Natural American Spirit cigarette, his calisthenics (“five yoga exercises every day, 21 repetitions each”), and a glass of cold milk, before he slips into one of his identical shirts, jackets, and jeans to greet another day in the small desert town of Piru, California.

Piru may not be home to many residents, but almost all are friends of Lucky, looking out for the aging veteran despite his insistence that he’s lived life on his own terms for long enough that he doesn’t need any help now. “Those things are gonna kill you!” warns Joe (Barry Shabaka Henley) as he watches Lucky lighting up another of his Natural American Spirits. “If they could’ve, they would’ve,” Lucky coughs in response, and even his doctor (Ed Begley, Jr.) iss battled by what must be “some sort of scientific anomaly… a combination of genetic good luck and you’re one tough son-of-a-bitch.”

After ninety years, Lucky thinks he’s seen it all, but the focus of his life realigns as he comes to terms with the concept of “realism”, which he encounters while trying to solve a seven-letter clue in the day’s crossword puzzle:

Is realism a thing?

What’d He Wear?

Let’s build Lucky’s look in the order that we see him getting dressed.

Our hero begins each day with the Five Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation, clad only in his underwear. Invariably, Lucky wears a white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt, the type branded as an “A-shirt” (athletic shirt) when introduced by Jockey in the mid-1930s before it was colloquially christened with its more unfortunate moniker a decade later. His boxer briefs are also white, constructed from a comfortable cotton jersey fabric.

At this point in his life, Lucky needs little more than his cigarettes, crossword, and coffee.

Following his yoga and first cup of coffee, Lucky turns to his closet, which consists exclusively of identical shirts and jeans that he cycles through during the week. The Western-style snap shirts are all pink, burgundy, and black shadow plaid cotton, with burgundy edge-stitching throughout.

The shirt’s shoulder yokes taper toward the center, rather than symmetrical pointed yokes on some Western shirts. These are echoed by the slanted pockets, which have asymmetrical single-snap flaps that sharply slant toward the center of the shirt. The front placket has mixed tan pearl-effect snaps, similar to those that close the pockets and the three to fasten each barrel cuff.

Lucky tucks his shirts into jeans, cycling through identical pairs of blue denim straight-cut jeans that can be identified as Wrangler by the little tell-tale red tag sewn along the seam above the back-right pocket as well as the “W”-shaped stitch on both back pockets.

Based on the straight fit and the low curvature of the front pockets, they appear to be the venerable Wrangler 13MWZ Cowboy Cut® jeans that the North Carolina-based outfitter has been steadily producing since 1947, when they were designed by “Rodeo Ben” Lichenstein. Given this heritage, it’s likely that Lucky has been wearing them since he was a young man in his early 20s.

Apropos the movie’s themes, the wash appears to be a medium shade of blue that Wrangler currently markets as “antique blue”, available from Amazon and Wrangler.com, among other retailers. Lucky holds his jeans up with a wide dark brown leather belt that has a curved copper single-prong buckle as well as two smaller pieces of copper trim flanking the leather keeper-loop.

Needless to say, Lucky does not pay much heed to the sign behind him.

Lucky sits on the edge of his bed to slip into a pair of black leather cowboy boots, decoratively stitched up the shafts and detailed with the classic “bug and wrinkle” medallion over the vamps.

Lucky wears the shafts of his boots inside the legs of his jeans, but—when he steps outside in his underwear and boots—we see the over-the-top pull tabs on each side of each shaft, as well as the black tube socks that extend just above his boots, a few inches below each knee.

Lucky almost always layers on an olive waxed cotton barn coat, known alternately as a chore coat, field coat, or trapper jacket. Lucky’s four-button coat has a brown corduroy collar and rounded reinforced semi-yokes over the shoulders and extending down from the collar in the back. The set-in sleeves have cuffs that close through one of two buttons to adjust the fit over each wrist.

Bibi (Bertila Damas) welcomes Lucky to her son’s birthday party.

The flapped patch pocket over the left chest also has a smaller inset pocket, and there are two large flapped pockets over the hips. A large game pocket extends across the lower back, with a straight vertical entry on each side.

Before heading out for the day, Lucky always completes his look by donning his well-worn straw cowboy hat, detailed with a single-braided brown leather band at the base of the crown. Like its wearer, the hat shows its age with the fraying around the edges, from the top of the pinched brown to around the curled brim.

For daily activities like his crossword puzzles or his nightly shows, Lucky keeps a pair of black rectangular-framed Ray-Ban reading glasses handy.

Even in his sleep, Lucky wears on his left wrist a silver open bangle bracelet with a single gold or brass bead at each end. Once his day begins, he slips on a plain steel watch with an expanding band onto the same wrist, with the round white dial facing the inside.

Lucky dresses his left wrist with his watch in addition to the bangle that he never seems to take off.

What to Imbibe

Lucky remains a nightly regular at his favorite local watering hole, Elaine’s (run by Beth Grant’s character of the same name), where the bartender Vincent knows to serve him a Bloody Maria, a tequila-based alternative to the traditional Bloody Mary.

“He also wanted to have real alcohol in his drinks, so we managed that,” director John Carroll Lynch explained to WTOP. “Although there was tequila in his drinks, it wasn’t nearly as much as he thought. But when you have someone who insists on that level of truth, it brings everyone else into that same realm.”

Like so many popular cocktails, the confirmed origins of the Bloody Mary are lost to history thanks to the conflicting accounts of its claimed creators, whether that’s French bartender Ferdinand Petiot or American comedian George Jessel. We do know that the drink likely emerged during the interwar era, as Lucius Beebe had referred to it by name for his column “This New York” in 1939, attributing the “Bloody Mary: half tomato juice, half vodka” to Jessel.

In the decades since its origins, the Bloody Mary has become one of the best-known mixed drinks in American culture, often a brunch favorite for its rumored “hair of the dog” properties. The official recipe evolved to double the amount of tomato juice to vodka, with Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, salt, pepper, celery, and citrus adding flavor, though some unique variations boast entire meals as garnishment, with everything from hamburger sliders to shrimp decorating some prized “Bloodies”.

Aside from the endless variations of garnishment, swapping out the base spirit also offers imbibers a refreshed experience. Gin, whiskey, and even absinthe are occasionally pressed into service, but one of the most popular—and rewarding—variations is the “Bloody Maria”, which merely uses tequila instead of vodka. Various recipes abound (look no further than Liquor.com and Men’s Journal for a few favorites I’ve tried), but Lucky’s nightly Bloody Maria appears to be a simply made concoction of blanco or plata tequila, tomato juice, hot sauce, and a celery stalk and lime wedge to garnish.

How to Get the Look

Harry Dean Stanton on the set of Lucky (2017), from a photo by Stefania Rosini (Source: BFI)

Lucky’s closet—and, indeed, the entire way he lives his life—suggests a man of routine who knows exactly what he likes and sticks to it, filling his wardrobe with identical snap-front shirts and Wrangler jeans that he wears on a daily basis, anchored by his well-traveled straw hat, cowboy boots, and a corded-collar chore jacket that may seem too warm for summer in the California desert, though the insulation may be comfortable for a lean nonagenarian like Lucky.

• Olive waxed cotton barn coat with brown corduroy collar, flapped chest pocket (with inset pocket), flapped hip pockets, button cuffs, and side-entry rear game pocket
• Pink, burgundy, and black shadow plaid snap-front Western shirt with tapered chest yoke, slanted chest pockets (with asymmetrical single-snap flaps), and triple-snap cuffs
• Blue denim Wrangler 13MWZ “Cowboy Cut” jeans
• Dark brown leather belt with curved copper-toned single-prong buckle
• Black leather cowboy boots with decorative shaft stitching and “bug and wrinkle” medallion vamps
• Black tube socks
• Natural straw fraying cowboy hat with tan braided leather band
• Black rectangular-framed plastic Ray-Ban reading glasses
• Silver open bangle bracelet
• Steel wristwatch with round white dial on steel expanding band

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

R.I.P. Harry Dean Stanton.

The Quote

I always thought that what we all agreed on is what we were looking at, but that’s bullshit because what I see is not necessarily what you see… that’s it, that’s some heavy shit.

The post Harry Dean Stanton in Lucky appeared first on BAMF Style.

Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr in X-Men: First Class (2011)

Vitals

Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr, relentless mutant Nazi hunter to be christened Magneto

Villa Gesell, Argentina, Fall 1962

Film: X-Men: First Class
Release Date: June 1, 2011
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Costume Designer: Sammy Sheldon

Background

While I’m not traditionally a fan of superhero movies (at least as not as big a fan as some people!), I’ve appreciated how the recent stretch of Marvel movies have stretched across genres in its multi-billion-dollar appeal to varying audiences. For me, it’s been the entries rooted in history—like the MCU’s Captain America: The First Avenger and Fox’s X-Men: First Class, both released in 2011—that have had the most appeal of those I’ve seen. The latter, released ten years ago this summer, had been a subject of multiple requests since BAMF Style’s early years, so I hope I’m not too late in finally paying tribute to a briefly seen but timelessly stylish outfit from this Cold War-set adventure.

Yet to be officially dubbed “Magneto”, Erik Lehnsherr begins the events of X-Men: First Class as a teenage prisoner at Auschwitz, where the sinister Nazi scientist Klaus Schmidt (Kevin Bacon!) manipulates the young Erik into testing his mutant powers. It isn’t until Schmidt, who is actually a mutant supremacist named Sebastian Shaw, murders Erik’s mother that Erik’s magnetic power comes to fruition emerges from his grief and fury.

Eighteen years later, a matured and well-tailored Erik aims to avenge his mother’s death. A tip takes him to Argentina, where—true to history, under the auspices of Juan Perón’s administration—hundreds of former SS officers had escaped following World War II. At a remote tavern in the coastal resort town of Villa Gesell, Erik encounters, baits, and attacks two ex-Nazis:

Let’s just say I’m Frankenstein’s monster… and I’m looking for my creator.

What’d He Wear?

Set in 1962, the James Bond influence permeates through X-Men: First Class, particularly via the sophisticated style of Erik Lehnsherr, whom we meet clad in a shark gray three-piece suit, crisp white shirt, and dark knitted tie that may bring to mind Sean Connery’s characterization of the dapper 007.

Following his lead to northern Argentina, Erik dresses down for the subtropical climate in a neat white knitted short-sleeved polo and trousers, accessorizing with a classic white Panama hat and the same browline-framed sunglasses that he wears throughout the rest of his adventures, comprised of black square frames with gold rims under the dark lenses.

Still wearing his hat and sunglasses, Erik sizes up the VIlla Gensell bar in this production photo; the shot used in the actual movie is from even farther away.

Erik has what appears to be a beige linen tailored jacket slung over his shoulder, which he hangs up with his hat before he strides to the bar. The room is empty, save for the bartender and two imbibing oafs whose advanced years and fondness for Bitburger have molded them into marked contrasts against Erik, whose fitness is made all the more apparent in the fitted white knit polo shirt he wears tucked into his trousers. The shirt’s banded short sleeves further flatter his athletic physique.

The shirt’s collar is a sporty open V-neck occasionally referred to as a “Johnny collar”. Typical of the world of menswear marketing, the “Johnny collar” appellation has been used to describe a variety of styles, always an open V-neck but ranging from shirts lacking plackets to more traditional polos with button-up plackets that cutaway toward the neck. Erik’s shirt has a short, open placket with a V-shaped neckline that overlaps at the bottom.

Erik downs some Bitburger with his new companions… and soon-to-be combatants.

Erik tucks the shirt into a pair of light cream-colored trousers that offer just enough of a harmonious contrast, likely made from chino cloth, a summer-weight cotton twill that gained popularity during the late 19th century for uniforms of British, French, and American troops serving in warm locales. These slacks have on-seam side pockets, a button-through pocket on the back right, and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms. He holds them up with a brown leather belt which coordinates with his dark brown suede derby shoes.

As he brings the Luger to his hand, Erik catches sight of Sebastian Shaw, aka Klaus Schmidt, photographed on a yacht named Caspartina registered to Miami… now his next port of call.

The Gun

Sensing trouble among the confident newcomer and his loyal patrons, the bartender (Carlos Peres) draws his Luger P08. Developed at the start of the 20th century, the Luger grew to become one of the most recognizable pistols of all time, familiar by name even to many with little to no knowledge of firearms.

The fact that the bartender carries a sidearm so intrinsically associated with the German military across both world wars strengthens the suggestion that his connection to the two ex-Nazis in his bar may be deeper than just the standard barkeep/patron relationship… not that it matters once Erik deploys his powers to get the bartender to shoot one of the two men before taking the Luger for himself as he continues his mission of revenge.

Erik aims the bartender’s Luger.

Designed by Georg Luger in 1898, the Pistole Parabellum was first produced by the Imperial German weapons manufacturer Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM) alongside the new 7.65x21mm Parabellum (.30 Luger) cartridge, developed in collaboration between Luger and Hugo Borchardt. The .30 Luger remained in Swiss service for much of the first half of the 20th century, but the Germans wanted a little more power, resulting in the development of the now universal 9x19mm Parabellum that has made the 7.65mm all but obsolete.

Though the Luger pistol remains iconic more than a century after its introduction and heyday, original production ceased during World War II when it was generally replaced in service by the Walther P38.

What to Imbibe

Following his request for a beer, Erik is served a tall pilsner glass of Bitburger. “German beer,” Erik comments.

“Yes, it’s Bitburger. You like it?” calls one of the former SS officers seated behind him. “The best,” Erik laconically responds before moving over to their table to bait—and ultimately attack—the two men.

Pilsner glasses of Bitburger remain only half-enjoyed as Erik draws blood—but perhaps not honor—from an ex-SS farmer (Ludger Pistor).

Given how not-so-subtly the brand is featured, I assume there must have been some sort of product placement agreement for Bitburger’s “cameo” in X-Men: First Class, not that the brewery needed much help. The brewery was founded two centuries ago in 1817 in the west German city of Bitburg (get it?) and was nearly destroyed during World War II, but it was rebuilt immediately following the war and swiftly recovered, using its new signature slogan “Bitte ein Bit.” The flagship 4.8% ABV pilsner has long been Germany’s best-selling draft beer.

How to Get the Look

Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr in X-Men: First Class (2011)

Erik Lehnsherr may know he’s dressing for action, but his combination of a white Johnny-collar polo shirt with light slacks and brown belt and shoes provides a smart and sophisticated yet simple template for timeless summer weekend style.

• White knit short-sleeved “Johnny collar” polo shirt
• Cream cotton flat front trousers with belt loops, on-seam side pockets, button-through back-right pocket, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Dark brown leather belt with silver single-prong buckle
• Dark brown suede derby shoes
• Beige socks
• White Panama hat with pinched crown and black band
• Black-framed/gold-rimmed browline-style sunglasses

Johnny-collar polo shirts have undergone a recent renaissance thanks to the navy V-neck polo worn by Daniel Craig’s James Bond in Spectre (2015), and many can still be found from a range of retailers as of July 2021:

• Boutique Jacques, stretch pima cotton blend (Boutique Jacques, $62)
• Club Monaco, stretch cotton pique blend (Club Monaco, $79.50)
• Cubavera “Signature Polo”, cotton/linen blend (Amazon and Cubavera, $24.99)
• DKNY Jeans, 100% cotton (Amazon, starting at $16.20)
• Le 31 “Innovation Polo”, cotton blend (Simons, $29.95)
• Nordstrom “Johnny Collar Linen Polo”, 100% linen (Nordstrom, $69.50)
• Nordstrom “Paul 3463 Piqué”, cotton/modal blend (Nordstrom, $90)

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

“Blood and honor”… which would you care to shed first?

The post Michael Fassbender’s White Polo in X-Men: First Class appeared first on BAMF Style.

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

Sixty-six years ago today, Walt Disney introduced the world to “the happiest place on Earth” during a televised press event on July 17, 1955. Disneyland Park opened just one year and a day after construction began in Anaheim, California, and the sprawling theme park remains the only one completed under Disney’s direct supervision.

“Tomorrow can be a wonderful age,” Disney began when unveiling Tomorrowland, one of the nine themed “lands” that Disneyland is comprised of. “The Tomorrowland attractions have been designed to give you an opportunity to participate in adventures that are a living blueprint of our future.”

While we never actually get to see the Draper family visiting the park during their vacation in Mad Men‘s fourth-season finale, the episode’s title that we’re seeing Don forming the living blueprint for his own future, most significantly by rejecting the smart and nurturing Dr. Faye Miller (Cara Buono) to propose marriage to his bright-eyed young secretary Megan (Jessica Paré). After all, this is the man who prides himself on the fact that his life only moves in one direction: forward.

Despite this ethos, the episode presents many opportunities for Don to revisit his past. As Matt Zoller Seitz wrote for his expert entry included in the definitive volume Mad Men Carousel:

Between Don’s return to the Los Angeles bungalow of Anna Draper—the show’s most idealized recurring character—his vacation with his kids, and his starry-eyed but relentless pursuit of Megan, “Tomorrowland” sometimes feels like an hour-long psychodrama based on Don’s pitch for the Carousel in “The Wheel” (S1E13). He’s responding to nostalgia, the pain from an old wound—and trying to make the pain stop. But he can’t take Faye’s advice and do that by facing up to his past; he’s too averse to that kind of confrontation. Instead, Don tells his kids that Dick is “my nickname sometimes.” He starts to tell Megan that her engagement ring has been “in my family,” then back-pedals and describes the ring as belonging to “someone very important to me,” meaning Anna—pitiful half-truths that, coming from Don, seem like great strides toward righteousness.

Luckily for Don, who was rightly if stingingly chastised by Faye for “only [liking] the beginnings of things”, there is always California to welcome the start of his next first act. Sunny California offers as opposite a setting as possible from the dusty, dirt-poor Depression-era rural Pennsylvania where Dick Whitman got his start, so any refresh in the land of milk and honey can only set the erstwhile Dick on a happier path during his relentless drive forward.

What’d He Wear?

Far from the Manhattan office that requires Don Draper to wear the sleek gray suits that costume designer Janie Bryant designed as his “armor”, California provides Don—or Dick—with a sartorial playground that allows him to play more freely with patterns, colors, and more casual pieces befitting the warmer climate and laidback culture of the Golden State’s southern coast.

The first see of the Drapers in southern California during “Tomorrowland”, Don still looks neat in his jacket and tie, though it’s nothing like the suits we’ve seen him wear in the conference rooms at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Instead, his top layer is a single-breasted sports coat made from a gray-on-stone gingham check cotton.

Gingham cotton has been a popular summer cloth for centuries, characteristic for its balanced pattern of small even checks that lack the signature twill of shepherd’s check. Due to its summery associations, gingham can often be seen in lighter colors like blue and pink—exemplified by the sporty camp shirts Sean Connery’s James Bond wears in the Bahamas during the events of Thunderball—but our “man in the gray flannel suit” stays true to his guard, dressing monochromatically in shades of gray enlivened only by the jaunty gingham.

In his gingham sports coat, trilby, and tie, Don may be dressed comfortably for California… but not exactly for a day by the pool.

The cut of Don’s single-breasted sport jacket reflects the trend toward shorter-length jackets as the 1960s progressed, more dramatically cut away at the bottom than the full-skirted fashions of ’50s menswear. The narrow notch lapels roll to three mother-of-pearl sew-through buttons, the three-button configuration well-balanced on Jon Hamm’s athletic 6’1″ frame. Not as shapeless as some traditional American sports coats, Don’s jacket has been tailored with wider, gently padded shoulders and a touch of waist suppression that flatters his physique.

The jacket has flapped hip pockets that are positioned with a slight backward slant, and Don frequently stashes his sunglasses in the welted breast pocket, which he wears sans the white pocket square that was another mainstay of his tailored office attire. Double vents align with the bottom of the seams running down from the back of each armpit, and each sleeve is finished with a single button at the cuff.

Hat in hand, Don shares a final moment inside Anna’s bungalow with her niece Stephanie (Caity Lotz).

Don’s shirt provides more subtle sartorial evidence of his loosening up for the West Coast. While his clean white shirt and straight striped tie may suggest his office wardrobe, a closer look shows that this particular shirt is rigged with simple barrel cuffs that each close with a button, a less fussy alternative to the French-cuffed shirts that he wears exclusively to the office. Constructed of white cotton poplin, the shirt otherwise resembles many of his business shirts with its point collar, front placket, and the breast pocket for his famous Lucky Strike cigarettes.

The skinny tie reflects the monochromatism of Don’s jacket, divided into extra-wide “downhill”-direction stripes—each several inches wide—alternating in color between gray and charcoal.

Don pockets Anna’s ring, gifted to him by Stephanie in Anna’s living room.

Don wears dark brown trousers that harmonize with the warm stone-shaded ground of his jacket, adding a grounded but not flamboyant touch of color to his otherwise monochromatic grayscale outfit. These flat front trousers have straight on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottom, and they’re almost certainly held up with one of Don’s usual dark leather belts with the enclosed silver-toned buckle.

By mid-century, Americans had been particularly quick to embrace more casual slip-on shoes as appropriate footwear with suits and sport jackets. Though Don still prefers his lace-ups at the office, his stylishly dressed-down approach to dressing for California means he wears a pair of burgundy leather apron-toe tassel loafers, also worn with brown socks.

Don remains overdressed for aquatic recreation while his children hastily undress to join his bikini-clad secretary in the hotel pool. It’s just enticement enough for Don to consider changing into his own cannonball-ready trunks.

The California sun calls for both Don’s straw hat and sunglasses, the latter being his favorite American Optical FG-58 model with the squared gold frames and straight “bayonet” temples designed to flex around the head while wearing a flight helmet.

Although it’s technically fall, Don also brings his favorite summer hat, a gray-slate short-brimmed trilby made from Milanese Pinzano straw. The hat’s black band is encircled by thin mauve and gray stripes.

With the duties of his business trip behind him several days later, he wears the jacket considerably more casually over an untucked polo shirt and lighter trousers as he joins Megan and the kids for breakfast. It’s this moment where observing her kindness and patience toward them—as well as the fact that he can yield parental duties to with her—convinces him that their hotel tryst was more than just sex as his brain begins plotting just what to do with Anna Draper’s engagement ring burning a hole in his pocket.

Don wears a dark navy knitted three-button polo shirt, likely short-sleeved as we don’t see long sleeves under the cuffs of his jacket. The untucked shirt hem covers the waistband of his taupe flat front trousers, which are almost certainly held up with a belt as well and are otherwise detailed with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms.

A suspicious Don studies the effects of positive reinforcement rather than negative punishment.

“Tomorrowland” was the final episode to feature Don Draper’s Rolex Explorer I, the timepiece he had been wearing since the start of the fourth season after understandably abandoning the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso that his ex-wife Betty had lovingly engraved for him during their marriage. Don’s Explorer has a 36mm stainless case with a round black dial, worn on a steel Oyster-style link bracelet.

Introduced for Sir Edmund Hillary’s Mount Everest expedition in 1953, the ruggedly built Rolex Explorer was considered a “tool watch” rather than the luxurious JLC watches he had cycled through during the first few seasons and the Omega DeVille he would wear from the fifth season through the end of the series.

How to Get the Look

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

Don Draper’s worlds collide when he brings his children on a business trip to the land of sunny new beginnings in southern California, blending his personal and professional lives as well as his past and his future. He loosens his office-wear armor as he strides through “Tomorrowland” in a cool-wearing gingham check cotton sports coat, worn casually with a navy knit polo and more dressed up with a white shirt, skinny tie, and sun-shielding straw trilby.

• Gray-on-stone gingham check cotton single-breasted 3-button sport jacket with narrow notch lapels, welted breast pocket, slightly slanted flapped hip pockets, 1-button cuffs, and double vents
• White cotton shirt with point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Gray-and-charcoal extra-wide “downhill”-striped skinny tie
• Dark brown flat front trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Burgundy leather apron-toe tassel loafers
• Dark brown socks
• Gray-slate Pinzano straw short-brimmed trilby with a colorful-striped black band
• American Optical Flight Goggle 58 (FG-58) square-framed aviator sunglasses in yellow gold with brown lenses and “bayonet” temples
• Rolex Explorer I with a stainless 36mm case, black dial, and stainless Oyster-styler link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the fourth season.

The post Don Draper’s Gingham Sports Coat in “Tomorrowland” appeared first on BAMF Style.

Alexander Skarsgård as Gadi Becker in The Little Drummer Girl (2018).
Photo by Jonathan Olley.

Vitals

Alexander Skarsgård as Gadi Becker, aka “Peter”, mysterious Mossad agent

Naxos, Greece, Spring 1979

Series: The Little Drummer Girl (Episode 1)
Air Date: October 28, 2018
Director: Park Chan-wook
Costume Design: Sheena Napier & Steven Noble

Background

Today marks the start of my beach vacation, an annual getaway that finds me clad almost exclusively in tropical-printed or terry cloth shirts as I laze about in the sun and sand with tequila in hand, trying not to think about the hundreds of emails amassing to greet me when I open my inbox exactly one week from now.

And then there are those lucky enough who actually get to do this for a living, particularly the globe-trotting super-spies penned by the likes of Ian Fleming and John le Carré, whose 1983 novel The Little Drummer Girl was recently re-adapted for the screen via a stylish six-part miniseries starring Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgård.

The eponymous “drummer girl” is twentysomething radical Charmian “Charlie” Ross (Pugh), a struggling London actress who we follow as she joins her friends and fellow thespians for a spring holiday in the Greek islands.

“He’s back… Action Man!” Charlie’s friend Sophie (Bethany Muir) teases—not without some admiration—of the mysteriously scarred man who seems to go everywhere their coterie goes without ever acknowledging or even looking at them. Sophie attempts to engage him in conversation, while Charlie’s obnoxious boyfriend Al (Max Irons) suggests they invite the stranger for a drink. Only Charlie remains unimpressed: “Can you not see his schtick? International man of mystery?”

The man indeed seems to quietly revel in the rumors that have circulated around him, sitting quietly as the actors attempt to guess his vocation, anything from fireman and actor to, well, spy. “He’s Joseph… can’t you see? With his coat of many colors,” concludes Charlie, pinpointing the chameleon-like charisma of the Israeli intelligence officer sitting before them. He corrects his name as Peter, then responds to her own suspicious—but arguably intrigued—aggression by quipping “So you’re Charlie? I thought that was a boy’s name.” Growing impatient with the swaggering stranger, Charlie abandons the conversation and warns her friends: “Don’t come crying to me when he cleans out your traveler’s cheques.”

Of course, it’s Charlie and not her friends that Gadi Becker has his eye on, having been tasked by his superiors to seduce and ultimately recruit the impressionable young idealist into their service.

What’d They Wear?

John le Carré describes the mysterious Gadi’s entry onto the Mykonos beach as observed by Charlie in the third chapter of his 1983 novel:

Wearing a pair of prim monk’s bathing trunks, black, and carrying a tin water-bottle from which he occasionally took frugal sips, as if the next oasis were a day’s march off. Never watching, never paying the slightest heed, reading his Debray from under the shade of his baggy white golf hat. Yet following every move she made—she knew it, if only by the pitch and stillness of his handsome head.

For the 2018 adaptation, the production team—perhaps thankfully—did away with the oft-referenced golf hat while keeping the Debray paperback as Gadi’s selected beach read. The black bathing trunks were lightened to a brighter shade of royal blue, likely a blend of nylon and spandex. The tight shorts have almost no inseam, fitted around the waist and detailed with white contrast stitching around each thigh hem and along the non-functional fly. The front pockets are piped in white along the slanted tops.

Gadi strips down to his swim trunks for another day in the sun with Debray.

Gadi wears browline-style sunglasses with dark tortoise frames and gold rims along the bottoms of the brown lenses.

The browline frame was launched by Shuron Ltd. in 1947, defining a look for the ’50s through ’60s as popularized by the likes of Lyndon B. Johnson, Vince Lombardi, and Malcolm X. The look had generally fallen from vogue by the time The Little Drummer Girl was set in the late 1970s, but browlines would be revived as hot eyewear for the ’80s, thanks to their appearance in movies like Rain Man, Reservoir Dogs, and Top Gun as well as the introduction of Ray-Ban Clubmaster sunglasses.

Through the darkened lenses of his browline sunglasses, Gadi settles in for some, uh, “light” beach reading in the form of Conversations with Allende, Régis Debray’s account of his discussions with the then-newly elected Chilean president regarding his history and goals for cementing socialism in Chile.

Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgård, promoting The Little Drummer Girl during the Summer TCAs. Photo by Robby Klein.

After accepting the invitation to join Charlie’s friends, Gadi buttons up the goldenrod camp shirt that he had initially been wearing as a beach cover-up, illustrating the wisdom of choosing a versatile wardrobe that can transfer effectively from beach towel to bar stool.

Skarsgård may have kept the shirt following the production (as Bustle‘s Megan C. Hills suspects he did with the green suede jacket) as he wore it for the press event and photo call introducing the series during the TCA summer press tour in Beverly Hills in July 2018, months after filming wrapped.

Although the series was set in 1979, Gadi eschews fashion trends like excessively wide collars, as seen with this shirt’s more moderate camp collar (also known as a “revere collar”, among other names.) The short-sleeved shirt has five flat bronze-colored plastic two-hole sew-through buttons, buttoning up the plain “French placket” front to the chest and falling short of the neck, meant to be worn open.

The shirt has a uniquely crimped texture, the result of the lightweight cotton woven into a series of neat rows of mini-triangles. A patch pocket is positioned against each hip, just above the seam that runs along the straight bottom hem that has a short vent on each side.

Charlie’s friends seem more offended by her criticisms of Gadi than he is.

Once the “family” (as le Carré calls them) welcomes “Joseph” to their table at a beachside taverna, Gadi changes out of his swim trunks and into a pair of light beige cotton flat front chino trousers. The bottoms are cuffed, though we don’t see them closely enough to tell if they have permanent turn-ups or if Gadi cuffed the bottoms himself to keep them out of the sand.

As with the rest of his wardrobe, Gadi wisely wears a pair of shoes appropriate for each situation he finds himself in. These tan leather slip-on shoes have open-woven uppers, similar to the traditional huarache but structured like a penny loafer for extra support, detailed with a braided strap across the vamp. The quarters and side panels are smooth leather, though the sides are perforated with open-weave braiding that extends back from the toes up to the solid heel quarter pieces. (To see the shoes in more detail, zoom in on the photo used at the bottom of this post.)

Gadi swaps out his trunks for trousers to make his beach look appropriate for an intimate evening of revelry.

It was Gadi’s gold watch that we saw first catching Charlie’s attention at the beachside taverna a few days earlier, a distinctive Omega that we the audience would have recognized as the same model worn by the Palestinian bomber Salim Al-Khadar, aka “Michel” (Amir Khoury), during the opening scenes.

Though he hasn’t yet started wearing Michel’s other affectations like necklace and ring, Gadi indeed wears the same 18-karat yellow gold Omega Constellation ref. BA 368.0847 watch, which Omega had introduced in 1969 as the latest addition to the Constellation line. Powered by a 20-jewel automatic movement, this wristwatch has a light gold squared dial with rounded edges, gold non-numeric hour markers, and a 3:00 date window.

Gadi flashes Michel’s Omega Constellation as Charlie serenades him with a song specifically written for her performance of Saint Joan… a proprietary song that she suspiciously recognized him humming earlier in their trip.

What to Imbibe

In her attempt to make Gadi’s acquaintance, Sophia approaches him with a bottle of white wine labeled “Peteina Retsina”, from which he cautiously accepts a cup. (He later shares that his preference is for Boutari, which Terlato Wines currently touts as the world’s best-selling Greek wine.)

Lazing under the sun with a bottle of retsina, Sophie and Charlie consider the laconic stranger who spends his days reclining on the cliffs above them. Photo by Jonathan Olley.

While I couldn’t find any parallels to real-life brands—indeed, all the liquor labels in The Little Drummer Girl seem to be fictional—my brief research did shine a light on what exactly retsina is. Mark Squires penned a brief article for Wine Journal, “Retsina: Can We Never Mention It Again?”, criticizing the process entirely and suggesting that the word “retsina” not even be used in the same sentence as “wine” (sorry, Mark!) given the damage it has already done to the reputation of the Greek wine industry. Squires informs that retsina refers more to the process than the libation itself, a white wine with pine resin added to mimic ancient Greek wine tradition.

Given its disregard from an expert like Squires and the reluctance with which the well-traveled Gadi accepts his cup, the inclusion of retsina seems fitting for a group of penniless thespians looking to stretch their bucks while experiencing local “flavor”.

Sophie gets close enough to Gadi to present him with a glass of retsina… and to observe his mysterious scars.

How to Get the Look

Alexander Skarsgård as Gadi Becker in The Little Drummer Girl (2018).
Photo by Jonathan Olley.

Gadi Becker’s head-turning beach garb blends comfort and classically inspired aesthetics for a versatile cabana-to-cafe ensemble that avoids the excesses of the era’s fashions. His short blue trunks provide eye-catching contrast on the beach, easily transferred into a more understated boardwalk-ready look by buttoning back on his textured camp shirt and pulling on khaki chinos (possibly over the tight trunks!)

• Goldenrod textured cotton short-sleeved 5-button camp shirt with hip pockets
• Beige cotton chino flat front trousers with side pockets and turn-ups/cuffs
• Royal blue nylon/spandex short-inseam swim trunks with white-piped front pockets
• Tan open-woven leather loafers
• Tortoise-framed browline sunglasses with gold-rimmed brown lenses
• Omega Constellation BA 368.0847 yellow gold square-cased automatic watch with squared gold dial (with non-numeric hour markers and 3:00 date window) on integrated five-piece link bracelet

Even before I had watched The Little Drummer Girl for the first time, I already had many similar pieces from Gadi’s beach-going wardrobe, thanks in part to my regard for the leisure-inspired offerings of the California-based outfitter Dandy Del Mar, from which you can build almost all of Gadi’s outfit yourself:

• Tropez Terry Cloth Shirt in Burnt Sienna
• Brisa Linen Pant in Vintage Ivory
• Riviera Trunks in Seagrass
• Huaraches in Natural Leather

For le Carré purists, Dandy Del Mar even offers a white terry bucket hat, perhaps similar to the white golf hat that the author suggests as Gadi’s go-to headgear.

If you’re looking for a more conventional take on the camp shirt, check out these selections from Abercrombie & Fitch and Brooklyn Tailors, available as of July 2021.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, described by Troy Patterson for The New Yorker as “a chic, surreal adaptation… that approaches spy craft as a form of experimental art”, and read John le Carré’s 1983 novel.

The post The Little Drummer Girl: Gadi’s Gold Beach Shirt appeared first on BAMF Style.