John Saxon as Lt. Don Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

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John Saxon as Donald Thompson, police lieutenant

Suburban Ohio, Spring 1981

Film: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Release Date: November 9, 1984
Director: Wes Craven
Costume Designer: Dana Lyman

Background

A decade after he investigated a series of grisly sorority murders at Christmastime, John Saxon again portrayed a police lieutenant chasing down a serial killer in Wes Craven’s horror classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street.

We meet Lieutenant Thompson when he’s called to the station late at night in response to the murder of his daughter’s friend Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss). Thompson’s police colleagues initially suspect Tina’s meathead boyfriend, the “lunatic delinquent” Rod Lane (Nick Corri). Rod doesn’t help his case by fleeing the scene, but a tearful Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) explains to her father that it couldn’t have been Rod.

Thompson has little reason to believe his daughter’s protestations, but we the audience know that Tina’s brutal slashing was the work of the disfigured spirit of the long-dead child murderer Freddy Kreuger.

What’d He Wear?

Thompson’s first appearance begins with his arrival at the police station, his light stone-colored cotton sport jacket illuminating him against the darkness of the night. We don’t know where Thompson was before this, as he could have been out for a night on the town in bustling Springwood or roused from sleep and grabbing the first items he found in his closet. His energy suggests the former, as does his wardrobe for the rest of the movie where he tends to rely on a baggy windbreaker.

This single-breasted jacket has a 3/2-roll, meaning that the lapels of his jacket roll over the top button to show only the center and bottom buttons. This configuration can trace its origins to tailoring on both sides of the Atlantic, though Thompson’s undarted sports coat with its single vent shares considerably more DNA with American Ivy style traditions than British or Italian tailoring. The jacket has two spaced-apart buttons on each sleeve cuff, a welted breast pocket, and patch-style hip pockets with flaps with sporty “edge-swelling” echoing the notch lapels.

Thompson’s cotton sport shirt is checked in a yellow double-lined tartan plaid and thin white overcheck against a dark royal blue ground. Worn open at the neck, the shirt has a point collar, front placket, and button cuffs.

Anyone who has spent years immersed in #menswear forums and comment sections would be certainly familiar with the modern iGent’s repulsion at wearing light jackets with dark trousers. While this guidance may have some well-intended basis in taste-informed tradition, it—like so many “rules” of its ilk—would be more productively addressed on a subjective, rather than objective, basis.

What is an iGent? The generic term could refer to anyone who writes about men’s style online—including yours truly—though the more pejorative connotation suggests those who are more judgmental in their preference for sartorial conventions. While there’s certainly a place for this mindset, I feel it goes too far when appreciation for tradition extends into excessive judgment or snobbery. For a great exploration of the relationship between James Bond’s clothes and “iGent culture”, I recommend a great two-part article by Matt Spaier for Bond Suits.

The day-and-night contrast of Don Thompson’s almost-white jacket and dark charcoal flat front trousers does wade into tricky sartorial area. For instance, wearing the same jacket and trousers with a white shirt and tie could look like a slapdash attempt at summer formalwear that lands its wearer looking more like a waiter. Thompson wisely harmonizes what could be challenging outfit by wearing a darker, patterned shirt that dresses it down and eases the stark contrast between these two pieces.

The more judgmental iGent’s heart rate may just be settling back into a reasonable zone until he spies Thompson’s black belt… and brown shoes!

One of the more frequently cited “rules” of menswear dictates that a gent should try to coordinate the leather of his belt and shoes, though Thompson may be able to make a practical case for his mismatch. The black leather belt with its dulled gold-toned buckle blends better against the almost-black trousers. Black oxfords or derbies may have dressed the outfit up too much for his liking, so he instead wears a pair of scruffy brown leather shoes with heavy tan laces and outsoles, which may in fact be ankle boots.

Evidently, the Springwood police just rounded up James Dean’s character from Rebel Without a Cause.

This brief scene at the station would be Saxon’s most fashionable moment in A Nightmare on Elm Street, as he spends the rest of the film clad in either his police uniform or the aforementioned beige windbreaker. Strapped to his left wrist, Thompson wears a stainless steel watch with a round silver dial on a steel link bracelet.

The Gun

Lieutenant Thompson doesn’t appear to be carrying his service revolver when he arrives at the station, but for his next appearance—having followed Nancy’s tracks directly to Rod—he’s in uniform with his Colt Python drawn.

“Just move away from her, son… real easy, like your ass depended on it.”

Colt introduced their top-of-the-line Python in 1955, built on the large I-frame and chambered for the .357 Magnum cartridge, a powerful alternative to the then-universal .38 Special round used in most American police revolvers. As intended, law enforcement agencies across the nation quickly embraced the smooth and precise Python, with many adopting it for decades until the general switch to semi-automatic pistols through the ’90s.

Visually distinguished by the vented upper rib along the top of the barrel, the Python was available in royal blue and stainless steel finishes, the latter a replacement for the original bright nickel option. Barrel lengths ranged from the shorter 2.5″ and 3″ through standard service lengths of 4″ and 6″ up to an unwieldy 8″, which could increase the total mass to a whopping three pounds. Colt discontinued the Python in 2005 after fifty years, though production was revived in January 2020. Though options are limited to 4.25″ and 6″ barrels, the new generation of Pythons—offered for $1,499—are modernized improvements of an already great revolver.

How to Get the Look

John Saxon as Lt. Don Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Even if you’re not interested in directly copying Don Thompson’s late-night look, you can at least find inspiration in the no-nonsense detective’s disregard for some of the more arbitrary “rules” of menswear, pulling on a light sport jacket with dark trousers and mismatching his belt and shoe leather, allowing an instinctive sense of self-expression and taste to take precedence over tired maxims.

• Light stone cotton single-breasted 3/2-roll sport jacket with “swelled-edge” notch lapels, welted breast pocket, flapped patch hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and single vent
• Dark royal blue yellow-and-white checked cotton long-sleeve sport shirt with point collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Dark charcoal flat front trousers with belt loops
• Black leather belt with gold-finished square single-prong belt buckle
• Brown ankle boots with tan laces and outsoles
• Stainless steel wristwatch with round silver dial on steel link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie… or all seven movies in the official canon!

The Quote

Look, I don’t want to get into this now—God knows you need time—but I sure would like to know what the hell you were doing shacking up with three other kids in the middle of the night!

The post A Nightmare on Elm Street: John Saxon’s Off-Duty Sports Coat appeared first on BAMF Style.

Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice (1988)

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Michael Keaton as Betelgeuse, boorish “bio-exorcist”

Connecticut, Summer 1987

Film: Beetlejuice
Release Date: March 30, 1988
Director: Tim Burton
Costume Designer: Aggie Guerard Rodgers

Background

Happy Halloween!

As delightfully and unapologetically weird as its director, Beetlejuice was Tim Burton’s follow-up to his directorial debut, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. The darkly comic story about a recently deceased couple summoning an unprincipled poltergeist was developed by Michael McDowell, Warren Skaaren, and Larry Wilson, with Burton channeling the cheap B-movies of decades past in his interpretation that balanced humor and horror.

In less than a decade of screen roles, Michael Keaton had already established a range of versatility between zany comedy (Night Shift) and thoughtful drama (Clean and Sober) before he took on the outlandish quasi-title role as the uh, well, Julliard-trained Betelgeuse.

What’d He Wear?

Betelgeuse goes through several costume changes—sometimes in the blink of an eye—though he may be most associated with the ratty duo-toned striped suit for his grand appearance during the film’s climax, following his being hesitantly summoned by Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder).

Perched on Adam Maitland’s gravestone, Betelgeuse waits for Lydia to say his name three times.

Thanks to the bold black-and-white awning stripes, there’s little mistaking Betelgeuse’s suit for anything that would be worn by a gent of good—or even questionable—taste, but it has become one of the most popular Halloween costumes in the decades since Beetlejuice was released… and also popularized as a meme thanks to the ripoff “Juice Demon” costume.

Betelgeuse may have lived through the Black Death “and had a pretty good time during that,” but his fashion sense is surprisingly en vogue with some ’80s-specific trends present like the dropped gorges on his boxy jacket’s notch lapels. The ventless, single-button jacket has no breast pockets, and the set-in hip pockets alternate between Betelgeuse wearing them with the flaps tucked in or out. The sleeves are bumped at the shoulders, and the cuffs left plain with no vents or buttons… all the better for unfurling them when he makes his carnivalistic entrance in the Deetz family foyer.

Does your tailor provide extendable sleeves and a matching big-top hat?

With such garish suiting, wearers would have presumably little concern for clashing but Betelgeuse sticks to the black-and-white color palette with a plain—albeit stained—white cotton shirt and a black tie with a strip of lights down the center that brighten when he presents himself to the Deetzs.

The shirt has a front placket and narrow point collar worn unbuttoned at the neck. As we see when Betelgeuse pulls his mangled comb from the shirt’s breast pocket, the shirt appears to be sleeveless, though perhaps worn over a short-sleeved T-shirt.

Betelgeuse’s self-suspended flat front trousers match his suit, with plain-hemmed bottoms that he tucks into the tops of his boots. Apropos his aggressive nature and lack of regard for sartorial decorum, he wears black leather lace-up combat boots with a cap-toe box and black laces up the shaft. As seen in some set photography where the trouser bottoms are pulling outside the boot tops, he appears to be wearing white crew socks.

Betelgeuse wears a chaotic trio of rusty watches on his left wrist, each in varying styles, sizes, and states of disrepair, as well as a turquoise-filled silver bangle-type bracelet.

He also wears a large gold ring on his left index finger, similar to a class ring with a large ovular blood-red stone.

Betelgeuse is about to give Otho (Glenn Shadix) the scare of a lifetime by dressing him in a powder-blue leisure suit.

How to Get the Look

Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice. Photo by Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock.

If you’re looking to avoid costumes of the “Juice Demon” variety, the Rubie’s Beetlejuice Deluxe looks like your best bet. Just don’t wear it for a job interview… your 167th viewing of The Exorcist, however? More acceptable.

• Black-and-white awning-striped suit
  • Single-button jacket with low-gorge notch lapels, straight set-in hip pockets, plain cuffs, and ventless back
  • Flat front trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton sleeveless shirt with point collar, front placket, and breast pocket
• Black tie with lighted dots down the center
• Black leather 7-eyelet cap-toe combat boots
• White crew socks
• Gold class-style ring with red oval stone
• Rusted retro wristwatches

If you think there’s a place for bold black-and-white striped tailoring in the real world, just remember that Robin Thicke thought the same thing before the 2013 VMAs… though it was hardly the only inadvisable decision made that night.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Go ahead, make my millennium.

The post The Beetlejuice Striped Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

Burt Lancaster as Ole “Swede” Anderson in The Killers (1946)

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Burt Lancaster as Ole “Swede” Anderson, ex-boxer

Philadelphia, Spring 1938

Film: The Killers
Release Date: August 30, 1946
Director: Robert Siodmak

Background

Let’s kick off #NoirVember with a memorable scene featuring birthday boy Burt Lancaster. Born November 2, 1913 in Manhattan, Lancaster remains an icon of American film noir, having made his debut in The Killers, which also marked most of the screen-going world’s introduction to the alluring Ava Gardner.

The Killers‘ straight-outta-Hemingway opening introduces us in finem res to Lancaster as “The Swede”, an ex-boxer with a sketchy past who has been tracked down by the two eponymous killers to a small town in New Jersey. Despite having spent the last six years in hiding, the Swede makes no attempt to flee his assassins, who efficiently complete their gruesome task and leave insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmond O’Brien) to reconstruct the decade of mistakes that led from Anderson’s career as a boxer to that of a marked man by the mob.

As with all great film noir, the Swede’s undoing begins with a dame… and not the sweet Lilly (Virginia Christine) that accompanies him to that fateful Philadelphia party in March 1938.

It’s easy to understand the Swede’s immediate limerence with the seductive Kitty Collins, who captivates him from her seat at the piano as soon as he and Lilly enter the party. From that point forward, the entranced Swede is oblivious to all, from poor Lilly to the fact that Kitty harbors an obvious distaste for his occupation:

I hate brutality, Mr. Anderson. The idea of two men beating each other to a pulp makes me ill.

And yet, the Swede seems drawn to Kitty by a magnetic force, only acknowledging his date long enough to describe Kitty’s beauty to her before following Kitty around with the complete lack of subtlety one would expect of an ex-boxer who’s probably absorbed one too many blows to the head.

What’d He Wear?

The Swede arrives at the party in a flannel suit, tailored with the bolder profile and details more consistent with the mid-’40s production period than the late ’30s setting. The suiting is a light shade of flannel, colorized in contemporary lobby art to a taupe brown.

Colorized lobby art designed to promote The Killers (1946). Source: MovieStillsDB.com.

The double-breasted suit jacket has four buttons arranged in a “keystone”-style tapered configuration, with only a single button on the bottom row fastening. As explained by Bond Suits, this 4×1-button “Kent” style had been popularized in the early 1930s by Prince George, the Duke of Kent, who would only fasten the bottom row of his 4×2-button jackets; eventually, George and his older brother, the Duke of Windsor, had jackets specifically made to accommodate this preference by refitting the top row as solely vestigial.

The layout of the Swede’s four buttons, positioned around the waist line with the bottom row spaced apart, still offers a wide wrap. Per prevailing trends of the era, the pick-stitched peak lapels are broad and sharply pointed, each detailed with a buttonhole. The wide, padded shoulders echo the dramatic width of the lapels. The ventless jacket has four-button cuffs, straight jetted hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket with the hint of a white kerchief poking from the top.

The Swede’s light-colored shirt is likely white, detailed with a collar with a spread so wide that I considered that it might be a sports shirt with the loop collar fastened at the top. However, while later scenes depict the Swede occasionally wearing sport shirts under his suits, this shirt with its more structured collar and placket was likely meant to be worn with a suit and tie, and is probably the same one rigged with a breast pocket that we see with his dark single-breasted suit after a rough fight.

Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster during production of The Killers, the noir classic that launched both to stardom.

Colorized to a complimentary shade of crimson in the lobby art featured above, the Swede’s dark tie boasts a light-shaded sunburst all-over pattern consistent with the “Bold Look” ties of the ’40s, characterized by bright colors, loud patterns, wide blades, and short lengths. He ties it in a Windsor knot that more voluminously fills the tie space allowed by the shirt’s widely spread collar.

The buttoned jacket keeps his waistband covered on screen, but behind-the-scenes photography shows Lancaster’s tie falling to just about an inch above the high-rise waistband of his suit’s trousers.

The fashionably full fit is emphasized by double reverse pleats that add roominess through the trousers’ long rise over the hips, and the Swede holds up the trousers with a very slim dark leather belt that closes through a small buckle, mitred on the two outward-facing corners. The trouser bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs), which break over the tops of his dark calf leather cap-toe oxford shoes.

Consistent with early 20th century decorum, the Swede tends to wear a hat outside, in this case a medium-toned felt fedora with a tonally coordinated grosgrain band.

We can assume the Swede wears one of the same type of white sleeveless undershirts we see when he’s introduced just before his murder in the opening sequence. Jockey had developed the “A-shirt” (for “athletic shirt”) tank top during the mid-1930s, though it would be a decade before it would be bestowed the unfortunate nickname of “wife beater” following the 1947 mugshot of an undershirt-clad man who had been arrested for doing just that.

Similar to those often issued to GIs during World War II, the Swede’s sleeveless undershirts have an irregular ribbing pattern throughout the body of the shirt with the armhole bands and neckhole band meeting to form fused-looking shoulder straps.

A flash of metal from the Swede’s left wrist suggests that he’s also wearing his usual wristwatch, which we see elsewhere fastened to a dark leather strap but never prominently featured enough to determine its make.

What to Imbibe

The Swede orders a “rye and water” highball at Jake’s party, though he’s never able to drink in much more than Ava Gardner’s sublime beauty.

How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Kitty?

Occasionally used to refer to American and Canadian varieties of whiskey, “rye” typically means a specific American whiskey that the law stipulates must be distilled from a mash of at least 51% rye grain, while Canadian whisky has no legal requirements to include rye grain.

For centuries, rye had been a prevailing spirit in American culture, from the colonial era through Prohibition. Indeed, it was my home region of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and the greater Pittsburgh area that led most of the nation’s rye production well into the 1800s, even after we famously rebelled against the unpopular “whiskey tax” during the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.

The Volstead Act curtailed most legal production of alcohol in the United States, dealing a significant blow to the rye industry as bootleggers began importing spirits to meet the needs of a thirsty American public, who developed a taste for Canadian whisky and Scotch during this period. American whiskey production began its post-Prohibition recovery in the 1930s, with just a few surviving rye distilleries like Old Overholt fueling drinkers like the fictional Nick and Nora Charles in 1934’s The Thin Man:

Nora: Is that my drink over there?
Nick: What are you drinking?
Nora: Rye.
Nick: (finishes her drink) Yes, that’s yours.

However, the continued popularity of imported whiskies eclipsed the once dominant foothold that American spirits held on the market. Bourbon remained popular, but rye quietly faded into the domain of old-timers and hard-livers with hard livers.

Luckily for today’s drinkers, the 21st century has seen a rye-naissance as many American bourbon distilleries like Bulleit, Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, and Woodford Reserve have introduced their own rye varieties in addition to the venerated Old Overholt continuing production and a new breed of distillers like Pittsburgh’s own innovative craft distillery Wigle, named for a central figure during the Whiskey Rebellion.

How to Get the Look

Burt Lancaster as Ole “Swede” Anderson in The Killers (1946)

Burt Lancaster was appropriately dressed for his burst to stardom in The Killers, striding into an elegant party clad in fashions portending what Esquire would deem the “Bold Look” later in the decade: a double-breasted suit jacket with double-wide shoulders and lapels and a super-spread shirt collar with plenty of space to be filled by his fat and frivolous tie.

• Light taupe flannel suit:
  • Double-breasted 4×1-button jacket with wide, sharp pick-stitched peak lapels (with buttonholes), welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with widely spread collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Crimson “sunburst”-patterned tie
• Dark calf leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt/A-shirt
• Medium felt fedora with grosgrain band
• Wristwatch on dark leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, which Criterion Collection released in a two-pack with the 1964 remake also titled The Killers (as well as the little-seen short adapted in Russia during the 1950s.)

The Astro Zone

Burt Lancaster’s November 2nd birthday may make him a Scorpio—the same as his Scorpio co-star Alain Delon—but the Swede’s birthday of June 24, 1908 establishes him as born under the star sign of Cancer… the same as yours truly.

Cancers have a reputation for moodiness and romantic vulnerability, both ideal for the makings of a doomed noir protagonist who wouldn’t be able or willing to unravel themselves from a toxic relationship with a femme fatale until it’s much too late. At their least evolved, the Cancerian protective instinct can manifest as possessiveness, occasionally to a destructive degree (as perhaps most famously exemplified by the Swede’s fellow Cancer, O.J. Simpson, born July 9, 1947.)

The post The Killers: Burt Lancaster’s Light Flannel Double-Breasted Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey in Death Wish (1974)

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Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, vigilante family man

New York City, Winter 1974

Film: Death Wish
Release Date: July 24, 1974
Director: Michael Winner
Costume Designer: Joseph G. Aulisi

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today would have been the 100th birthday of Charles Bronson, one of the most legendary cinematic ass-kickers perhaps best known for his starring role as family man-turned-street vigilante Paul Kersey in the 1974 revenge thriller Death Wish.

Bronson was born Charles Buchinsky into a Lithuanian-American family on November 3, 1921 in western Pennsylvania coal country, where he worked in the mines until enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. During his service, Buchinsky flew 25 missions in the Pacific theater and earned a Purple Heart for wounds sustained. Buchinsky’s history working in coal mines and serving in the war made him a bona fide tough guy when he arrived in Hollywood, and thus the newly rechristened Charles Bronson became a familiar face in westerns (The Magnificent Seven and Once Upon a Time in the West) and war movies (Never So Few, The Great Escape, and The Dirty Dozen).

By the early ’70s, Bronson had emerged as a popular leading man in action thrillers when his frequent collaborator, director Michael Winner, approached him with a script about a man who kills muggers following a brutal attack on his wife and daughter. “I’d like to do that,” Bronson replied to Winner. “The film?” “No… shoot muggers.”

What’d He Wear?

Until it’s ruined when he’s stabbed by one of his potential targets, Paul regularly wears a knee-length herringbone coat for stalking the streets and subways of the Big Apple as he baits the city’s various lowlifes into attacking him and finding a fatal surprise.

If I wanted to over-analyze it, I could say Paul Kersey’s reversible coat is symbolic of how the seemingly unassuming architect can rapidly turn the tables on the predators that become his prey… but it’s more likely that the costume designer chose Paul’s coat for its everyday practicality.

Paul always wears the coat with the beige-and-brown herringbone woolen side out, though it is actually a reversible coat with the alternating side faced in a light khaki gabardine that could be pressed into service as a raincoat. These double-duty coats were common through the mid-20th century, particularly in urban areas like New York City where many denizens had limited storage areas in their apartments for multiple coats (though the affluent Paul, with his spacious apartment, doesn’t seem to have that issue.)

Raglan sleeves allow the coat to more comfortably fit over a tailored jacket like the tweed that Paul regularly wears under it, as well as offering a greater range of movement to draw his .32 when facing a team of muggers. The sleeves end with plain cuffs, which prevents any straps or tabs from snagging when worn inside-out.

Paul’s coat has a long single vent, side pockets with slanted welt entries, and a three-button covered fly front. A closer look at the large dark brown buttons shows a buttonhole behind them, indicative of a reversible coat as these buttonholes would accommodate the three buttons on the other side when the coat is worn inside-out.

The collar on the broad, pointed ulster-style lapels matches the herringbone shell, while the rest of the lapels show the solid-shaded gabardine reverse side. Each lapel has a buttonhole, with the left buttonhole fastened with a smaller button that would presumably close the top of the coat when worn reversed.

Upon returning from Tucson to find that his sharpshooting pal Ames has gifted him a nickel-plated Colt revolver, Paul hits the streets in what may be a mugger-baiting walk or just an evening stroll celebrating his new sense of pistol-packing freedom, but Paul’s lone perambulations capture the attention of a violent young man with a gun of his own, who soon ends up dead after messing with the wrong New Yorker. The act itself repels Paul, who collapses to the floor and vomits immediately upon his return home.

It’s not long before Paul comes to terms with—and, in fact, embraces—his new vigilante vocation, adopting what becomes his de facto mugger-killin’ uniform of his reversible herringbone coat layered over a tweed sport jacket, brown trousers, brown shoes, and a dark brown woolen scarf with fringed ends.

Paul reels after his first kill.

The only time Paul wears the coat without murder on his mind is during a daytime trip to the sanitarium with his son-in-law Jack (Steven Keats), visiting his daughter Carol (Kathleen Tolan) after she survived the traumatizing attack that killed her mother and inspired Paul’s rampage.

Paul foregoes the scarf this time, wearing a jaunty violet shirt and a tonally coordinated periwinkle-and-purple diamond-woven silk tie. His russet-brown trousers and leather cap-toe derbies are variations of the darker trousers and shoes he wears during his evening kills, and he layers the coat over the same light taupe tweed sport jacket.

Paul and his son-in-law Jack during a sorrowful visit to his daughter.

This sports coat is always the same tweed jacket, woven in a small-scaled herringbone that presents as a light taupe-brown. We rarely see the jacket worn on its own, as it’s not the same gray tweed sports coat he had worn in Arizona, but we can discern that it has notch lapels, patch pockets, and three front buttons.

For the notable subway scene that would eerily foreshadow the infamous Bernie Goetz incident a decade later, Paul dresses up his usual look with a dark brown polyester tie detailed with white polka dots arranged in double “downhill”-directional sets, perhaps resembling an airport runway at night or—more on brand with Death Wish‘s themes—neatly arranged rows of bullet holes.

The double-killing of the two subway muggers—including one that I would have sworn was Frank Zappa—escalates Paul’s vigilantism to international news, also escalating his ambition as he attracts three muggers at once in an isolated subway platform. It turns out to be one too many, and Paul gets wounded in the attack that leaves his vigilante “uniform” torn and bloodied.

When her returns home to peel off the bloody layers, we see more of the tan poplin shirt he’d worn for most of these sequences, detailed with a then-fashionable long point collar, front placket, button cuffs, and a breast pocket covered with a pointed button-through flap.

When Paul wears this coat, he always wears trousers and shoes in shades of brown. The flat front trousers, with self-suspended waistbands and plain-hemmed bottoms, range between a russet shade during the day and a darker chocolate tone by night.

His derby shoes also range from the lighter English tan leather uppers he wore during the daytime sanitarium visit to a darker burgundy-adjacent brown at night.

Predating the era when action heroes’ wristwatches are almost a supporting star, Paul Kersey’s wristwatch falls under the radar—or his shirt cuffs—as much as his own reserved attire.  (That said, Bronson and director Michael Winner’s previous collaboration, The Mechanic, does give us a nice close-up of the non-date Rolex Submariner worn by Bronson’s character.)

Paul wears a plain stainless steel watch with a round silver dial, secured around his left wrist on a flat steel rice-grain bracelet with a single-prong buckle.

Paul keeps a watchful eye on the subway muggers.

The Gun

Paul returns to New York to find his “going-away present” from Ames, a nickel-plated Colt Police Positive revolver with pearl grips. Despite its four-inch barrel consistent with most police service revolvers, the smaller-framed .32-caliber double-action revolver looks surprisingly undersized in Charles Bronson’s hand, given that the Death Wish series would later find him wielding larger weapons ranging from the massive .475 Wildey Magnum to the rocket launcher that would both appear in Death Wish III.

Viewers may have expected a larger weapon like Dirty Harry’s famous .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver in a movie so centered around vigilante justice, but Paul Kersey has neither Harry Callahan’s badge nor professional experience, so it’s likely more realistic that his sidearm would be the lighter-caliber and more easily concealed Police Positive.

Paul pulls his Colt Police Positive.

Colt introduced the Police Positive in 1907, its name reflective of the “positive lock” internal hammer block safety that remained consistent with the manufacturer’s continued innovations as double-action revolvers with swing-out cylinders continued to supersede the more old-fashioned revolvers. The first run of Police Positives were chambered for smaller calibers like .32 Long Colt, followed by the Police Positive Special variant in 1908 with a stronger frame that could handle more powerful loads like the .38 Special.

How to Get the Look

Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey in Death Wish (1974)

Brown clothing was popular in every era, though it’s commonly associated with ’70s clothing and design. Paul Kersey incorporates varying shades into his winter-appropriate layers that give him the quintessential “gray man” advantage as muggers may take the unassuming businessman as an easy mark… and not their worst nightmare.

• Beige-and-brown herringbone woolen tweed reversible raglan coat with ulster-style collar, three-button single-breasted front, slanted hand pockets, and khaki gabardine reversible side
• Light taupe-brown herringbone woolen tweed single-breasted 3-button sport jacket with notch lapels and patch pockets
• Tan poplin shirt with long point collar, front placket, flapped breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Brown woven polyester tie with diagonal double rows of white polka-dots
• Dark brown flat front self-suspended trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark brown leather derby shoes
• Dark brown woolen scarf with fringed ends
• Stainless steel wristwatch with round silver dial on steel “rice grain” bracelet

Well-made reversible coats are still offered by high-end outfitters today, including:

• Brooks Brothers Reversible Gabardine-Herringbone Twill Trench Coat (Brooks Brothers, $499)
• Chrysalis Runcorn Reversible Raincoat – Tan/Gold Herringbone with Window (O’Connell’s, $1,295)
• J. Press Tan Grey Herringbone Reversible Coat (J. Press, $1,495)
• Maison Margiela Reversible Herringbone Wool Rain Jacket (Grailed, $1,400)

All prices and availability updated as of October 29, 2021.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post Death Wish: Charles Bronson’s Reversible Herringbone Coat appeared first on BAMF Style.

John Cassavetes and Angie Dickinson in The Killers (1964)

Vitals

John Cassavetes as Johnny North, race car driver-turned-robber

Southern California, Spring 1960

Film: The Killers
Release Date: July 7, 1964
Director: Don Siegel
Costume Designer: Helen Colvig

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Earlier this week, I kicked off #Noirvember with a look at Burt Lancaster as the hapless and doomed “Swede” Anderson, whose murder at the start of Robert Siodmak’s seminal noir The Killers kicks off the series of flashbacks investigating what led to his decision to give in to the two armed killers.

Two decades later, the material was revisited by director Don Siegel and screenwriter Gene L. Coon, who drifted even further from Ernest Hemingway’s source material to focus on the two slick hitmen who set about learning more about the man they had been hired to kill, now reimagined as a race car driver named Johnny North.

After a crash that left him taking work as a mechanic, Johnny was recruited to be the getaway driver in a dangerous armored car robbery engineered by urbane gangster Jack Browning (Ronald Reagan). At the urging of Browning’s one-time moll, Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson), Johnny double-crosses the mob and escapes with Sheila and more than a million dollars in ill-gotten loot to the secluded Piney-Woods Motel… where an armed—and injured-armed—Browning is waiting to triple-cross him!

What’d He Wear?

The cinematography of Don Siegel’s 1964 update of The Killers may distance it from its pulpy predecessor, but the Cassavetes segment may reach its noirish heights as Johnny and Sheila drive up to the remote, neon-lit motel… unaware that the Gipper awaits inside with a silenced gat.

Johnny is uncharacteristically dressed up for the getaway, dressed in a tan thin-waled—or “needlecord”—corduroy single-breasted sport jacket with a 3/2-roll front, meaning the slim notch lapels roll over the top button and its corresponding buttonhole, presenting only the lower duo of buttons like a traditional two-button jacket. The two closely spaced dark brown woven leather buttons on each cuff are essentially smaller versions of those on the front, rigged relatively high on each sleeve.

Finished with an “old gold”-shaded satin-finished lining, the sports coat has short double side vents and flapped hip pockets on a gentle backward slant but no breast pocket.

Throughout The Killers, Johnny North only wears one tie, a narrow strip of black cotton here haphazardly knotted in a four-in-hand and previously worn for dates with Sheila that found him wearing a brown birdseye tweed jacket and a dark navy suit.

He wears a pale ecru cotton shirt with a spread collar, front placket, button cuffs, and breast pocket.

Left for dead.

Johnny wears dark olive brown trousers, of which we see little aside from the side pockets and jetted back pockets. His dark brown leather shoes have V-front derby lacing, suggesting the same footwear he’d worn with the aforementioned tweed jacket and appropriately worn here with dark socks.

The jacket had made a fleeting appearance earlier on the eve of the robbery, when Johnny grabs it after Sheila convinces him to double-cross his boss after learning that Browning’s crew was planning to keep his cut from the heist.

Johnny wears a short-sleeved shirt vertically bar-striped in light and dark shades of blue, with the occasional purple stripe overlaying a darker blue, as well as sets of six narrower navy stripes in replace of the wider bar stripes at times. The shirt has a button-down collar, front placket, and breast pocket, and he wears it tucked into a pair of dirty cream-colored cotton jeans, sans belt.

Before the fateful race that ended his legitimate career, Sheila had gifted Johnny a silver chain-link bracelet with “Johnny the winner” engraved on the ID panel, which he continues to wear even after the crash that followed.

How to Get the Look

John Cassavetes and Angie Dickinson in The Killers (1964)

Corduroy is one of my favorite fall fabrics, and John Cassavetes wore it simply but effectively in the form of a well-cut sports coat that added visual interest to an otherwise commonplace kit of an off-white shirt, dark skinny tie, and tonally coordinated trousers and shoes.

• Tan pinwale corduroy cotton single-breasted 3/2-roll sport jacket with notch lapels, slanted flapped hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and short side vents
• Pale ecru cotton shirt with spread collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Black cotton tie
• Dark olive brown trousers with side pockets and jetted hip pockets
• Dark brown leather derby shoes
• Dark socks
• Engraved silver chain-link ID bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, released in a Criterion Collection dual-pack with the 1946 original.

The Quote

Living is dangerous.

The post The Killers (1964): John Cassavetes On the Run in Corduroy appeared first on BAMF Style.

Roger Moore as James Bond in A View to a Kill (1985)

Vitals

Roger Moore as James Bond, British government agent

Château de Chantilly, France, Spring 1985

Film: A View to a Kill
Release Date: May 22, 1985
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Emma Porteous

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Well, now I’ve really gone and done it. After writing about the goombahs’ tracksuits in Goodfellas and The Sopranos over the last few years, I finally decided that this 00-7th of the month called for me to scribe my ode to Old Man 007 dressing himself in Paulie Walnuts’ finest in my least favorite James Bond movie, A View to a Kill.

I don’t believe I’m alone in my dislike for Sir Roger’s swan song as 007, though I do respect its illustrious champions like Robbie Sims, who runs the delightfully entertaining Twitter @TheTchaikovsky and whose book, Quantum of Silliness, is a must-have for the bookshelf of any serious Bond fan with a sense of humor.

Of course, A View to a Kill shares that particular Bond movie quality where even my least favorite is still highly watchable. Even though I derided Moore’s tracksuit as “cringe-worthy” in a Primer article last month, it only felt right that my inaugural post about my 25th favorite official Bond movie focus on what I felt to be one of the agent’s more ridiculous—if also most comfortable—outfits… particularly as this post comes just one day after National Tracksuit Day, a “holiday” instituted by Adidas to be observed annually on November 6 to celebrate the athletic garb they pioneered.

What’d He Wear?

James Bond’s casual attire was rarely as friendly to Sir Roger as his elegantly tailored and fashionably appointed suits, though the fault also rests with the general trends of men’s casual-wear during the era in which Moore played 007. Given that, Moore and his costume teams always made the most with what they had to work from.

Bond has gone undercover as the sophisticated—if somewhat smug—socialite “James St. John Smythe” at the stables owned by the bleach-haired industrialist Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) in northern France. Contrasting from the stylish tweed jackets he wears by day, Bond sneaks into Zorin’s laboratory that evening with his friend and ally, Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee), wearing a dark velour tracksuit that’s unlike anything we’d previously seen from Bond’s wardrobe.

True, he’s dressed in the Bond tradition of sporting all black for sneaking around at night, which dates back to Sean Connery’s black polos and trousers in Goldfinger and Thunderball, though he’s updated his fits to follow mid-1980s fashions. In his defense, the tracksuit could help Bond—or, uh, St. John Smythe—make the case that, should he be caught, he was merely out for a late night jog rather than collecting intel for his MI6 mission. In his excellent Bond Suits post analyzing the clothing of Bond’s St. John Smythe persona, Matt Spaiser additionally contextualizes that “the Fila tracksuit works for St. John Smythe, who wears it for its high-fashion status as well as for comfort… it also shows that St. John Smythe is a playboy who fancies looking young by showing off his hip fashion sense.” (Read more about the tracksuit in context from Bond Suits here.)

Zorin can’t blame James St. John Smythe for taking a light evening jog in his tracksuit… though when he starts stapling his employees into shipping crates, Zorin has a little more reason to be suspicious.

The midnight blue velour tracksuit was made by Fila, an Italian sportswear label founded in 1911. With its history producing what may now be known as activewear or “athleisure” apparel, Fila was well-positioned to capitalize on the increasing demand for tracksuits at the height of their fashionability from the 1970s into the ’80s. Fila tracksuits would also be featured by the gangsters on The Sopranos, and the brand continues offering an array of sweatsuits and tracksuits today.

Moore’s screen-worn Fila tracksuit was auctioned by Christie’s in December 2001, described in the listing as:

A two-piece tracksuit of midnight blue velour, the top with slit pockets and zip fastening trimmed with white piping, labelled inside FILA, the corresponding jogging pants with elasticated waist and white tie fastening, similarly labelled.

The waist-length track jacket has a short, standing collar that tapers toward the front like the knit collar of a classic bomber jacket. White piping trims the collar, the shoulder seams around and through the center of each raglan sleeve, and along the top of the slanted hand pockets. The jacket has a black-finished zipper up the front, the dark silver-finished zip has a dangling square black zip pull that may be imprinted with the Fila logo.

Bond wears the jacket zipped up over a dark blue cotton crew-neck T-shirt, likely short-sleeved.

The matching track pants are also midnight-blue velour, though there’s no visible white piping or detail aside from the “white tie fastening” informed by the Christie’s auction listing but not significantly seen on screen. There are slanted pockets on each side, and the bottoms are left plain unlike the elasticized “jogger”-style hems that prevent the trouser bottoms from getting in the way of a runner’s feet.

Bond’s all-black sneakers are consistent with the tracksuit’s athletic-oriented origins and purpose, reinforcing his potentially needing to explain to Zorin’s guards that he was just out for some evening exercise. The black leather uppers have six eyelet sets for the flat black laces, and the heels appear to be a more softly napped leather, like suede. The flat rubber outsoles are also black, and Bond wears black ribbed socks.

Beginning with The Spy Who Loved Me, Roger Moore’s Bond exclusively wore SEIKO watches, increasing his collection up to the three timepieces that he wears on screen in A View to a Kill. The black dive watch and steel quartz sports watch are reserved for Bond’s regular life, but he even adopts a SEIKO while undercover as St. John Smythe.

The “St. John Smythe” watch is a stainless steel SEIKO 6923-8080 Quartz SPD094 with a gold dial and worn on a two-toned bracelet, a three-piece link band similar to the famous Rolex “Presidential”. SEIKO had tipped off the quartz revolution with the development of the innovative Astron at the end of 1969 and the introduction of quartz chronographs over the following decade. You can read more about this particular watch at James Bond Lifestyle, which also explains that some of the St. John Smythe scenes may feature Roger Moore’s own personal Rolex Datejust in a similar metal configuration.

Luckily, St. John Smythe’s SEIKO survives the brawl.

The next day, Zorin uses a camera concealed in his mirror to scan Bond’s face, reporting back a real-time identification that the blazer-clad man before him is not the refined horse buyer James St. John Smythe but, instead, James Bond, a British agent with a license to kill. He’s presented with a pixilated image of Bond that, despite its poor resolution, appears to show him wearing this outfit when the MI6 file photo had been taken.

SUBJECT IS………. JAMES BOND

Moore evidently appreciated the comfort of Fila’s sportswear, as a behind-the-scenes photo from an earlier scene of Bond and Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) depicts his white dinner jacket swapped out for a more conspicuously branded Fila track jacket. Also made from a dark velour, this jacket has a lighter-colored collar, cuffs, and hem, with zippers down each shoulder seam and a white zipper up the front. The red, white, and blue embroidered “F” over the left breast represents the Fila logo.

This idea may be a few days late for this year’s revelers, but Leisure Bond could make for a comfortably classy Halloween costume!

How to Get the Look

Roger Moore as James Bond in A View to a Kill (1985). Photo sourced from thunderballs.org.

Trendy casual-wear tends to grow quickly dated, though the cyclical attention paid to tracksuits thanks to shows like The Sopranos and Squid Game suggest that there will always be an enduring—if somewhat surprising—cultural relevance to Sir Roger Moore slipping into a comfortable midnight-hued velour Fila tracksuit and black sneakers for a late-night investigation in his final 007 movie, A View to a Kill.

• Midnight-blue velour zip-up track jacket with white-piped short collar, raglan sleeves, and slanted hand pockets
• Midnight-blue velour elastic-waisted track pants with slanted pockets and plain-finished bottoms
• Dark-blue cotton crew-neck short-sleeve T-shirt
• Black leather-upper 6-eyelet sneakers with black rubber soles
• SEIKO 6923-8080 Quartz SPD094 stainless steel watch with round gold dial on two-tone link bracelet

Orlebar Brown paid homage to the track jacket for the first release of its 007 Heritage Collection, marketing the “A View to a Kill Jacket” but updating the fabric to a navy terry toweling cotton more consistent with the brand’s specialty.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie… perhaps following Matt Singer’s positive reassessment, published in 2012 for Indiewire.

The Quote

Quite a letdown.

The post Roger Moore’s Tracksuit in A View to a Kill appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jack Nicholson as Frank Chambers in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

Vitals

Jack Nicholson as Frank Chambers, dangerous drifter

Southern California, Spring 1934

Film: The Postman Always Rings Twice
Release Date: March 20, 1981
Director: Bob Rafelson
Costume Designer: Dorothy Jeakins

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

After posting about John Cassavetes in the 1964 remake of The Killers last week, I wanted to focus on another color remake of classic film noir: the 1981 adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice starring Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange, reuniting Nicholson with director Bob Rafelson following their earlier collaborations in Head (1968), Five Easy Pieces (1970), and The King of Marvin Gardens (1972).

The most prominent adaptation of James M. Cain’s novel had been released in 1946 starring John Garfield and Lana Turner and remains a quintessential noir for its shadowy black-and-white cinematography, innuendo-laced dialogue, and stock characters like the cynical anti-hero and femme fatale. Rafelson’s remake was produced considerably after the restrictive Production Code, allowing more blatantly savage and sensuous depictions of what could have only been hinted at decades earlier. (Lana Turner reportedly refused to see the remake that she deemed “pornographic trash.”)

I may be among the minority who actually prefers watching this adaptation to the famous 1946 production—which isn’t necessarily to say it’s better, but I do appreciate the more literal presentations of the stark, sweaty duplicity present in Cain’s novel, an exploration in human weakness, presented here in full color and with an intense verisimilitude from the set decoration to the animalistic passion between Nicholson and Lange… as well as Nicholson and his then-girlfriend Anjelica Huston, who appears in a small but welcome part as a seductive lion tamer.

“The movie is a triumph of atmosphere,” commented Roger Ebert in his contemporary review, which was otherwise less than complimentary. “Every last weathered Coke sign, every old auto and old overcoat and old cliché have been put in with loving care.”

Set in 1934, the same year Cain’s novel was published, conniving drifter Frank Chambers (Nicholson) has rooked his way into a job as a mechanic at a rural roadside diner/gas station owned by the proudly Greek and gregarious Nick Papadakis (John Colicos) and his gorgeous but bored wife, Cora (Lange). Another strength of this adaptation is a clearer understanding of why the toxic Frank and Cora are drawn to each other—and away from decency—at every opportunity, physically unable to keep their hands (and then some) off of each other.

POSTMAN

This being a James M. Cain story, it isn’t long before the romance evolves into a murderous partnership with Frank and Cora plotting Nick’s demise. The two amateurs fail at their first attempt, landing Nick in the hospital and the two lovers scratching their heads. At a party celebrating Nick’s release from the hospital, he ironically thanks Frank for saving his life, resulting in a round of applause from Nick’s extended family for his attempted killer! The conflicted Cora attempts to call off her affair with Frank during the party, only to later tearfully refuse to let him go, and the two resume their lethal scheming to kill Nick… this time in a staged car accident.

What’d He Wear?

Frank spends the first act cycling through dirty clothes apropos his vagabond days of drifting that led to his taking his job at the Twin Oaks Tavern. Befitting the depths of his criminal plotting with Cora, Frank begins dressing more like a gangster than a mechanic in his striped suit and silky blood-red shirt.

Frank’s suit is a rich navy-blue flannel with stripes alternating in a gray chalk-stripe and muted sets of three narrow burgundy stripes. Styled consistently with the double-breasted tailoring fashionable through the 1930s, the jacket has broad peak lapels that point sharply at each wide, padded shoulder, wrapping across the torso in the traditional 6×2-button configuration, though Frank rarely wears it buttoned. The ventless jacket has three-button cuffs, straight jetted hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket.

Frank’s jacket took some damage in the car accident that resulted in Nick’s death, splitting down the center back seam and over the right shoulder.

The double reverse-pleated trousers appear to be worn a little lower than was conventional through the ’30s, perhaps reflective of how a laidback drifter like Frank Chambers would dress while also making Nicholson’s character a little more contemporary to early ’80s audiences. (Let’s hope the height of his trouser waistband was all that most men in the audience could relate to!)

The trousers have side pockets, jetted back pockets, and era-informed turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms. Belt loops were increasingly common on men’s suit trousers by this time, and Frank holds his up with a well-worn brown leather belt with a squared silver-toned enclosed buckle, though the belt is so long that he has to wrap the tail around itself to the left of the buckle.

One gets the impression Frank isn’t used to dressing well, reinforced by his ignoring the wisdom to avoid redundant “belt and braces” as he also holds up his trousers with a set of white suspenders with white leather double-ears, connected to buttons along the inside of the trouser waistband.

Given what most of the other women in the area look like, it’s no willing Frank is willing to lay it all on the line for Cora.

Frank debuts his suit at the Papadakis family celebration to welcome Nick home from the hospital, worn with a red silk sport shirt we’re also seeing for the first time. While the Papadakis family revelers may interpret the shirt as festive, the blood-red cloth suggests that Frank even more dedicated to killing the garrulous man standing in the way of a lifetime with Cora.

The long-sleeved shirt has gold-threaded stitching contrasting along all edges, including the camp collar, cuffs, and the flaps covering the top of both chest pockets. The shirt has a plain (French) front, sans placket, with flat red sew-through buttons in addition to a mixed brown four-hole button under the right collar leaf that fastens through a loop on the left side when Frank buttons to the neck in order to wear his solid dark navy tie.

The two lovers, now upgraded to co-murderers.

For the evening car trip, Frank dons his usual shabby brown felt fedora, a lower-crowned style with a pinched front, self-edged brim, and a dirty brown grosgrain silk band.

Despite the rest of his new wardrobe, Frank appears to still be wearing his usual worn-in dark brown leather wingtip shoes with their broguing detail and five-eyelet derby-style lacing. His pale gray socks provide a sharp—and unsightly—contrast against the trouser bottoms and shoes.

With those socks, Frank may have to worry about the fashion police not following too far behind the real police.

How to Get the Look

Jack Nicholson as Frank Chambers in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

The famous idiom says to dress for the job you want, so Frank sartorially shifts from mechanic to murderer in his silky blood-red camp shirt, worn with a dark striped double-breasted suit and—for the climactic murder—a dark tie and broad-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes.

• Navy alternating-stripe flannel double-breasted suit:
  • Double-breasted 6×2-button jacket with wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Red silk long-sleeved sport shirt with camp collar (with loop), plain front, two flapped chest pockets, button cuffs, and contrasting gold-thread edge stitching
• Dark navy tie
• White suspenders with white leather double-ears
• Brown leather belt with rectangular steel enclosed buckle
• Dark brown leather 5-eyelet wingtip derby brogues
• Pale-gray socks
• Brown felt fedora with brown grosgrain band

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

<QUOTE>

The post The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981): Nicholson’s Navy Striped Murder Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins in Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

Vitals

Denzel Washington as Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, laid-off aircraft mechanic and World War II veteran

Los Angeles, Summer 1948

Film: Devil in a Blue Dress
Release Date: September 29, 1995
Director: Carl Franklin
Costume Designer: Sharen Davis

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Like a man told me once: you step out of your door in the morning, and you are already in trouble. The only question is are you on top of that trouble or not?

With its dark themes and moral questions, film noir emerged as a cinematic sanctum for depicting the struggles of returning World War II veterans. Movies like Crossfire (1947), Act of Violence (1948), and Thieves’ Highway (1949) showcased the psyche of servicemen who had been to hell and back, depicting them not solely as one-dimensional heroes but as three-dimensional humans whose postwar life requires them to come to terms not just with the trauma encountered overseas but also the impact of returning to a changed home. (I recommend reading more about the connection between veterans and noir in James Barber’s recent article “How the Struggles of WWII Veterans Came to Life in Film Noir” for Military.com.)

Protagonists made cynical by their experiences continued as a theme through the development of neo-noir, whether that’s J.J. Gittes trying to put Chinatown out of his mind or Easy Rawlins, whose lifetime has seen his mother’s early death, his father forced to leave, racial inequities, the scars of wartime service, and—where we find him at the start of Devil in a Blue Dress—just having lost his job at the Champion Aircraft assembly plant.

Walter Mosley had already written four novels centered around Rawlins before the first, Devil in a Blue Dress, was adapted into a movie starring Denzel Washington. We meet Easy in the long, hot summer of 1948, three years after he’s returned from the war but still looking for work. Though cut from the same literary mold as Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, and Lew Archer, Easy has no serious experience as “a private dick” at the time of his introduction, when he’s enlisted by the shady racketeer DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore) to find a missing woman named Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals), who—as you guessed—is eventually revealed as the eponymous devil in a blue dress.

The only vibrant color of Easy’s daily garb is the blue patch from his previous employer, worn over his heart… and coordinating here to the titular blue dress worn by the mysterious Daphne Monet.

What’d He Wear?

Though the majority of Devil in a Blue Dress takes place after he’s lost his job at Champion Aircraft, Easy continues wearing the badged waist-length jacket that had evidently been part of his work uniform, perhaps still finding comfort in uniform-like garb just a few years removed from his Army service.

Easy zips his jacket up to the neck for an evening meeting at the pier.

Easy alternates between this stone-colored cotton work jacket and a darker taupe “civilian” windbreaker, both gabardine but the work jacket is most significantly differentiated by the blue, oval-shaped “Champion Aircraft” embroidered patch rigged high on the left breast. Both jackets could be classified as windbreakers, particularly as they were known in the 1940s when the term was trademarked by John Rissman & Son in Chicago to describe its then-revolutionary line of casual gabardine zip-up jackets.

Easy’s Champion Aircraft jacket has a brass zipper that runs up from the waist hem to the neck, where it closes at the shirt-style collar. The two chest pockets are covered with scalloped button-down flaps, with the company badge stitched in place above the left pocket, as described. Does the positioning of the triumphantly named company placed over Easy’s heart subliminally remind us that he has the heart of a Champion?

Few occupations encourage on-the-job drinking as much as a film noir private eye.

The set-in sleeves are reinforced around the back of each forearm from the elbow to the cuff, where the sleeves fasten over each wrist with a single button on a pointed semi-tab. Two adjuster tabs are positioned toward the back on each side of the waist hem, fastening through one of two buttons to tighten the fit as needed.

We get a sense of how the jacket would have been worn during a typical day at Champion Aircraft during the flashback to Easy’s dismissal, when he wears it with a khaki cotton shirt—likely long-sleeved and detailed with a front placket—that he tucks into his khaki trousers.

As with the other windbreaker, Easy often wears his Champion Aircraft jacket as an over-shirt, the only layer over his undershirts. For chillier evenings, Easy adds the intermediate layer of another shirt, such as the light-blue denim-like cotton shirt that he wears when he meets with DeWitt Albright to discuss tracking down Daphne Monet.

Though not a mil-spec garment, Easy’s shirt evokes the blue chambray work shirts that had been part of the U.S. Navy work uniform since the early 20th century, growing increasingly visible and popular in the years following World War II. The shirt has front placket with smoke-gray sew-through buttons that Easy buttons up to the neck at the point collar. The long-sleeved shirt also has button cuffs and two chest pockets.

Another night, DeWitt calls Easy to request a meeting at the Fisherman’s Pier in Malibu. Upon returning home, Easy is promptly arrested and learns that his friend Coretta (Lisa Nicole Carson), and the source of his intel about Daphne, has just been killed. After his release from custody, and meeting mayoral candidate Matthew Terrell (Maury Chaykin), Easy gets back home… only to be lured back out of bed by a call from the mysterious Daphne.

Through all this, Easy wears a long-sleeved sports shirt consistent with the casual-wear that was growing increasingly popular in the years following World War II. Patterned with a large-scaled beige graph check against a tan ground, the shirt has a loop collar which Easy buttons to the top, thus concealing the fastened neck button under the right collar leaf. The rest of the shirt has mixed tan four-hole sew-through buttons through horizontal buttonholes up the plain (French) front, sans placket, and the sleeves fasten over the wrist with single-button barrel cuffs. The two open chest pockets are non-matching, positioned so that the angle of the check pattern contrasts against the body of the shirt.

Easy’s trousers look like the service khakis he would have gotten used to wearing during his wartime service. Made from a khaki cotton twill, these heavy-weight trousers have belt loops, side pockets, and jetted back pockets with a button through the back-left pocket. The stitching is exposed along the seams and around the plain-hemmed bottoms, characteristic of hard-wearing work trousers. He holds them up with a well-worn dark brown leather belt that closes through a gold-finished rectangular single-prong buckle.

Easy’s burnished dark brown leather ankle boots incorporate the plain toes and derby lacing that resemble the russet service shoes he would have been issued in the Army, worn in civilian life with white socks.

Easy often dresses to beat the heat by stripping off his outer layers and sitting on his porch or the back room of his favorite bar in his white sleeveless undershirts, detailed with banded neckholes and armholes with wide-ribbed bodies aside from the narrowly ribbed sections extending down from each shoulder strap.

Known as the “athletic shirt” or “A-shirt”, these sleeveless undershirts were introduced by Jockey in the mid-1930s and had thus been produced for more than a decade. (The A-shirt had obtained its unfortunate “wife-beater” nickname in 1947, the year before Devil in a Blue Dress was set.)

At the beginning of the story, Easy appears to still be wearing his mil-spec A-11 field watch, characterized by a busy black round dial against a steel case. Easy wears his on a worn brown leather strap that has silver-toned metal grommets matching the single-prong buckle that fastens through them.

As Devil in a Blue Dress continues, Easy transitions to a gold tank-style watch, more likely his “civilian watch”, with its tan rectangular dial and dark brown leather strap.

What to Imbibe

Like the archetypal heroes of classic film noir, Easy fuels his “case” with plenty of whiskey… in this case, bourbon. He’s imbibing from the start of the story, when Joppy the bartender (Mel Winkler) pours out shots of Old Fitzgerald for Easy and DeWitt, though Easy just dips his fingertip in and licks it. That night, DeWitt pours another glass of Old Fitz each of them to drink neat, though I believe this had been Wild Turkey in Mosley’s book.

Old Fitzgerald certainly earns the first word of its appellation, having originated around 1870 when John E. Fitzgerald distilled it specifically for rail and steamship barons tippling at southern-based private clubs. By the start of the 20th century, Old Fitzgerald’s market had expanded to the rest of the United States as well as exportation to Europe. The brand produced, uh, “medicinal” whiskey to survive Prohibition, during which time it was sold to Pappy Van Winkle, who developed what has become Old Fitz’s signature flavor profile by swapping out some rye for more wheat in the grain recipe, ultimately creating a soft and smooth taste and finish.

While not as popular as it had once been, Old Fitzgerald lives on as a legacy brand produced by Heaven Hill, who purchased the brand in 1999 and continues to produce it at the Bernheim Distillery in Louisville.

When Daphne leads Easy to her room in the Ambassador Hotel, she offers him more bourbon, to which he responds: “Please! Straight up.”

What to Listen to

In addition to Elmer Bernstein’s evocative score, Devil in a Blue Dress‘s excellent soundtrack incorporates plenty of jazz, blues, and R&B contemporary to the late 1940s setting, the characteristic swinging sounds in these scenes broken up only by “Parlez-moi d’amour”, the French torch song made famous by Lucienne Boyer’s 1930 recording, heard when Easy is riding in Matthew Terrill’s car.

How to Get the Look

Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins in Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

Even after his discharge from the Army—and his dismissal from the aircraft assembly plant where he found postwar work—Easy finds comfort in wearing clothes with hard-wearing military sensibilities, such as his work-issued windbreaker, khaki trousers, service boots, and field watch.

• Stone-colored cotton gabardine waist-length work jacket with brass zip-up front, shirt-style collar, two chest pockets (with scalloped button-down flaps), set-in sleeves (with reinforced forearms and button-fastened pointed semi-tab cuffs), and button-tab waist adjusters
• Tan checked long-sleeve sport shirt with loop collar, plain front, two chest pockets, and button cuffs
• Khaki cotton flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark brown leather belt with gold-finished rectangular single-prong buckle
• Dark brown leather plain-toe derby-laced ankle boots
• White socks
• Steel military-style field watch with round black dial on brown leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read Walter Mosley’s novel.

The Quote

Now, when somebody tells me “ain’t nothin’ to worry about,” I usually look down to see if my fly is open.

The post Devil in a Blue Dress: Easy’s Champion Aircraft Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Vitals

Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, smooth private detective and “a chap worth knowing”

San Francisco, Spring 1941

Film: The Maltese Falcon
Release Date: October 3, 1941
Director: John Huston
Costume Designer: Orry-Kelly (credited for gowns)

Background

Now considered a seminal film noir, The Maltese Falcon celebrated its 80th anniversary last month. Dashiell Hammett’s excellent 1930 detective novel had already been adapted twice for the screen—once as a “lewd” pre-Code thriller and recycled as a zanier mid-’30s vehicle for Bette Davis—before Warner Bros. finally got it right.

The Maltese Falcon was the directorial debut for John Huston, who had faithfully adapted Hammett’s source material for his sharp script and demonstrated his sense of methodical efficiency, resulting in a masterpiece that benefited from the formula of director of photography Arthur Edelson’s low-key cinematography and a perfect cast led by Humphrey Bogart as the wisecracking gumshoe who “don’t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.”

…and trouble indeed finds Sam Spade in the form of Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a.k.a. Ruth Wonderly (Mary Astor), followed by curious cohorts like the corpulent and corrupt Kaspar Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet), the effeminate Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), and the weaselly gunsel Elmer Cook (Elisha Cook Jr.), all newly arrived in the City by the Bay in search of “uh, the stuff that dreams are made of.”

Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready, don’t you?
Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?

The Maltese Falcon was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, in addition to nominations for Huston’s screenplay and supporting actor Greenstreet, who was 61 when he made his screen debut as Kaspar Gutman. In addition to launching the careers of nearly all involved, The Maltese Falcon also established many film noir archetypes, such as shadowy cinematography, snappy and innuendo-laden dialogue, and characters like the alluring femme fatale and the cynical private eye.

What’d He Wear?

In Bogart, their definitive biography of the actor, A.M. Sperber and Eric Lax address his wardrobe in The Maltese Falcon:

Bogart’s wardrobe—provided, unlike Astor’s and Greenstreet’s, by the actor himself—did not vary all that much from his earlier films. Nostalgic recollection to the contrary, Bogart’s detective did not wear a trench coat wrapped about him like a latter-day crusader’s cape; that came a year later, in Casablanca. Instead, he wore the double-breasted pinstripe suit—wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped—that was his virtual trademark and, for a change of pace, a gray single-breasted number. For the economy-minded actor, it meant a bit more mileage from his working wardrobe. Visually, this echo from past films connected Sam Spade to the long line of Bogart killers and added to his aura of moral ambiguity.

The Chalkstripe Double-Breasted Suit

“Prior to World War II, single- and double-breasted suits sold in almost equal numbers,” wrote Alan Flusser in Dressing the Man, adding that the double-breasted suit was “the driving force behind tailored menswear in the twenties and thirties.” Indeed, the interwar era has been oft described as the “golden age” of menswear, a period of such sartorial sophistication that every other suit one encountered could theoretically be an elegantly tailored double-breasted piece.

Adapted from the world of Dashiell Hammett and his irregularly shaped characters like the massive Kaspar Guttman (Sydney Greenstreet) or the diminutive Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), The Maltese Falcon may not be the most refined cinematic example from this era, but Humphrey Bogart’s suit from Sam Spade’s first scene remains what I consider to be an exemplar of double-breasted tailoring.

The Maltese Falcon begins as a suspicious and stylishly suited Sam Spade meets the dramatic femme fatale in his office, establishing the foundation for many hardboiled detective films to follow.

When we meet Spade, he’s dressed in a dark chalkstripe flannel double-breasted suit that resembles Bogart’s wardrobe in many of his prominent movies across the decade, like The Roaring Twenties (1939), Across the Pacific (1942), Conflict (1945), and The Big Sleep (1946), to name a few. Given that this was an era where actors—particularly bigger stars—often wore their own clothing on screen, it’s safe to say that this style was clearly a Bogie favorite, which makes it all the more fitting that this was his attire for the introduction of what would be a star-making role.

The true color of Sam’s first suit is lost to history, though it’s likely a blue, charcoal-gray, or earthy olive or brown in keeping with American business dress conventions of the era. The suit is made from a woolen flannel, which—combined with the full wrap of the double-breasted jacket—would make the two-piece suit effectively warm for a San Francisco spring day.

The double-breasted jacket has sharp peak lapels that direct the eye to the padded shoulders and roped sleeveheads, all wide enough to build up Bogart’s lean frame without entering the exaggerated breadth of the “Bold Look” that would emerge later in the decade after World War II.

Spade’s double-breasted suit jacket follows the classic 6×2-button configuration, with a vestigial top row of two widely spaced buttons above two parallel rows of two buttons each, both functional and both typically worn fastened. The welted breast pocket gently slants down toward the center without following the dramatic angle of the lapel, and the two jetted hip pockets are positioned straight along the waist line, about an inch from the lowest row of buttons. Each sleeve is finished with four buttons at the cuff, and the back is ventless.

A study in double-breasted tailoring, specifically on slender-framed actors like Humphrey Bogart and Elisha Cook Jr.

The suit’s matching trousers rise to Bogart’s natural waist, where he holds them up with a slim dark leather belt that closes through a curved single-prong buckle. Modern conventions recommend pleats for either the retro-minded or larger-framed gents who benefit from extra fabric guiding trousers over their hips, though pleats were more universal during this period oft-celebrated as the “golden age”, flattering wearers’ legs with an elegant drape extending down from the high-rigged waistline.

Spade’s double forward-pleated trousers have side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottom. Consistent with common practices of the era, he wears a key-chain hooked around the belt loop positioned just starboard of the button-up fly, with the connected keys—presumably for his apartment and his office—carried in his right-side pocket.

Spade’s loyal assistant Effie Perrine (Lee Patrick) helps him into his suit coat, his key-chain shining from his trousers as he slides into the sleeves.

Spade wears a light-colored cotton shirt in a non-white shade suggested by its contrast against his white pillows when detectives Dundy (Barton MacLaine) and Polhaus (Ward Bond) corner him in his bedroom. The shirt has a spread collar, front placket, and double (French) cuffs fastened by a set of metal links that are detailed with four-square faces.

Spade at home.

Spade first wears a dark solid-colored tie that gently swells as it approaches the blade that falls about an inch short of Bogart’s trouser waistband. This tie length may be considered short by modern standards but is proportional to this era of higher-waisted trousers and the general practice of keeping one’s tie blade covered either by a closed jacket or waistcoat.

Spade later swaps out for a lighter, patterned tie, though the foulard he selects is still relatively subdued, arranged in a neat all-over geometric print.

Another day, another tie.

The Dark Three-Piece Suit

The second suit that Spade wears on screen hearkens to the styles of the era when Hammett’s novel had been written, serialized, and published from the late 1920s through the early ’30s, also recalling Ricardo Cortez’s wardrobe from his more dashing portrayal of the detective in the 1931 adaptation.

Sperber and Lax report the suit was “a gray single-breasted number”; if this description was informed by historical record, I’d propose the suit is likely a charcoal-gray worsted wool.

Spade returns to his office, dressed in a contemporary style that would have been just as fashionable a decade earlier when Hammett’s original novel had been published.

The suit’s single-breasted jacket has been rigged with wide peak lapels, as commonly found on double-breasted tailoring. This configuration of double-breasted revers on a single-breasted jacket grew visibly popular during the interwar era and has cycled through in fashionability every forty years or so, beginning with the re-emergence of peak lapels on single-breasted jackets during the slim-featured tailoring of the early ’60s before the following decade saw a boom in wide-winged peaked lapels flaring from single-breasted jackets on the disco floor. The style went relatively silent again until the early 2010s as more designers, perhaps led by Tom Ford and his “Windsor” model prominently worn by Daniel Craig’s James Bond, returned single-breasted jackets with peak lapels to sartorial prominence.

Spade’s wide peak lapels have slanted gorges, cleanly rolling to just above the jacket’s two button front. The direction of his lapels and the suppressed waist work to build up Bogie’s shoulders, presenting the lean actor with a more athletic silhouette that supports his natural confidence while laughing off the gun-toting Joel Cairo. The ventless jacket has four-button cuffs, a welted breast pocket, and jetted hip pockets.

Bogart wears the suit’s matching single-breasted waistcoat (vest) with all six buttons fully fastened, including the lowest button above the notched bottom. There are four welted pockets, the lower-right pocket giving Spade a smooth draw for his oft-used tobacco pouch; the novel mentioned Bull Durham, but the only identifiable brand on screen is his La Croix Fils Wheat Straw rolling papers.

Spade looks out over the City of Fog, slipping his hand in his back trouser pocket to flash the waistcoat pocket with his tobacco pouch and the contrast of his light-colored leather belt.

Spade hooks his key chain around the same belt loop on his trousers, though the glimpses we get of his belt reveal a very light-colored leather, likely a shade of tan.

These suit trousers are similarly styled and cut like the chalkstripe suit, with a long rise, double forward pleats, side pockets, and cuffed bottoms.

Spade works his hardest to force some honesty out of Ruth—er, Brigid.

Again, Spade wears a light-colored cotton shirt that looks a shade away from white, detailed with a spread collar and French cuffs, though the plain front lacks a traditional placket. His tie appears to be a medium-colored cotton, knotted in a four-in-hand sans dimple.

TFW you can’t go a single day without being lied to, poisoned, or held at gunpoint.

Everything Else

Spade’s fedora is made from a darker shade of felt, with a dark grosgrain band and a self-edged brim.

The late-night noir hero, illuminated only by a desktop lamp and neon outside as he rolls another cigarette at the office… still wearing his fedora, of course.

Spade wears a heavy herringbone tweed overcoat, split with a long single vent extending up the center back to his waist. The knee-length coat has a 6×2-button double-breasted configuration, with each descending row of buttons tapering closer together. The coat has three-button cuffs, welted breast pocket, and straight flapped hip pockets.

Bogie spirits out of his office with the stuff dreams are made of.

Spade’s shoes are black leather cap-toe oxfords, arguably the most versatile men’s dress shoe at the time of production as it could be effectively worn with business suits and evening-wear. (A briefly glimpsed silhouette of Spade’s footwear as he strides through the hotel lobby suggests that Bogart may have been wearing ankle boots in some scenes, perhaps to give the 5’8″ actor some additional “leading man” lift.)

Both wearing black leather lace-ups, Spade and the ill-fated Captain Jacobi (Walter Huston) provide a visual lesson in the difference between derbies and oxfords. On the left, Jacobi’s derby shoes are open-laced while Spade’s oxford shoes on the right are closed-laced; e.g., the eyelet tabs are sewn under the vamps on Spade’s oxfords while their sewn onto the vamps on Jacobi’s derbies.

On his left wrist, Spade wears a square-cased wristwatch with a plain, light-colored square dial on a dark leather strap.

The Maltese Falcon was arguably the movie that propelled Bogart to stardom, though he evidently didn’t yet have the pull that permitted him to wear his personal jewelry on screen as would be seen in most of his films from Casablanca onward. We get a brief slip-up as Spade asks Effie to host Brigid in her home, where we see Bogie wearing not only the gold three-stone ring he received from his father but also his wedding band on his left hand.

Sam talks a beleaguered Effie into hosting the diabolically dishonest Brigid O’Shaughnessy at her home.

The Literary Sam Spade

The second chapter of The Maltese Falcon depicts Sam Spade being roused from sleep with the news of the murder of his partner, Miles Archer:

He put on a thin white union-suit, grey socks, black garters, and dark brown shoes… he put on a green-striped white shirt, a soft white collar, a green necktie, the grey suit he had worn that day, a loose tweed overcoat, and a dark grey hat. The street-door-bell rang as he stuffed tobacco, keys, and money into his pockets.

The next few chapters aren’t as comprehensively descriptive, but they build the image of Spade wearing a blue three-piece suit, another detachable shirt collar and tie, and his regular complements of hat, coat, and wristwatch.

Go Big or Go Home

Your humble author visiting John’s Grill on Ellis Street, San Francisco, August 2010.

Though not depicted in the movie The Maltese Falcon, Hammett’s novel includes a brief vignette where Spade stops for a quick dinner at John’s Grill, where he “asked the waiter to hurry his dinner of chops, baked potato, and sliced tomatoes.”

During my visit to San Francisco in the summer of 2010, I made sure to visit the actual John’s Grill, an elegantly old-fashioned eatery at 63 Ellis Street with tributes to the The Maltese Falcon throughout, including the third-floor Hammett’s Den and the second-floor Maltese Falcon Room, which includes a statue of the eponymous black bird that drove the plot.

One of my favorite paranoid security tips comes from The Maltese Falcon not by way of Sam Spade, but instead via the mysterious Floyd Thursby. As Brigid O’Shaughnessy relates:

I do know he always went heavily armed and that he never went to sleep without covering the floor around his bed with crumpled newspapers so that nobody could come silently into his room.

“You picked a nice sort of a playmate,” coos an amused Spade. “Only that sort could’ve helped me,” Brigid responds.

The Guns

Lt. Dundy: What kind of gun do you carry?
Sam Spade: None, I don’t like ’em… ‘course, there are some at the office.

We never see any of these guns, but Spade first arms himself with a Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket he easily takes from Joel Cairo. In the novel, Cairo’s pistol is described in the novel as “a short compact flat black pistol,” though Spade later dismisses it as “only a thirty-two,” so Hammett likely intended it to be the slightly larger—and more powerful—Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless model instead of the diminutive .25-caliber Model 1908 featured on screen.

The subcompact, striker-fired Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket was appropriately named for its ability to be smoothly slipped inside a waistcoat pocket, though such easy concealment came at the cost of power, as the weapon took six-round magazines of the relatively anemic .25 ACP ammunition.

After Lieutenant Dundy and Sergeant Tom Polhaus break up a late night session with Brigid and Joel, Spade asks the coppers to leave Joel’s .25 behind, and the miniature Colt again falls into Spade’s possession.

Sure, it would suck to get shot with any bullet at all, but you can understand why Spade can’t help but to laugh—through a cigarette clenched in his teeth, of course—when Cairo twice draws it on him before searching his office.

A few scenes later, Spade demonstrates an oft-touted way of disabling an opponent by drawing his coat down over the back of his shoulders so it functions like a straitjacket, disabling Wilmer Cook (Elisha Cook Jr.) just long enough for Spade to disarm him of his two .45s. As Hammett wrote, “in each of Spade’s hands, when they came out of the boy’s overcoat pockets, there was a heavy automatic pistol.”

Unlike his fellow gunsel Cairo, Wilmer packs considerably stronger firepower in the form of two full-sized M1911A1 service pistols, chambered to fire the powerful .45 ACP cartridge most frequently associated with the weapon. John Browning had developed the M1911 after several rounds of prototypes, in time for the U.S. military to authorize it in time for World War I. The design was revisited during the 1920s, leading to the development of the M1911A1 variant with modifications like an arched mainspring housing, shortened hammer spur and longer grip safety spur, among other changes.

“The boy Wilmer came out of the kitchen behind them,” Hammett wrote in a later scene. “Black pistols were gigantic in his small hands.” Interestingly, this observation afforded to the dual-wielding Wilmer corresponds with a Bogie screen insecurity, as the slight-framed actor didn’t want to be dwarfed by full-size pistols like the .45-caliber 1911. Even though he was frequently depicted carrying 1911s in posters and promotional artwork, Bogart’s characters were increasingly armed with smaller on-screen armament, like .38-caliber revolvers or .32-caliber Colt semi-automatics, unless he was portraying a military character who would have reason to carry the designated service pistol of the era.

Wilmer reels from Spade swiftly—and embarrassingly—disarming him of his two 1911A1 pistols.

Less used by Spade but still significant to the events of The Maltese Falcon, we get a glimpse of the relatively rare Webley-Fosbery used in Miles Archer’s murder. This distinctive revolver is both cosmetically and operationally unique, from its zigzag-grooved cylinder to the recoil-operated action.

Using a modified Colt Single Action Army, Colonel George V. Fosbery had devised his prototype of an “automatic revolver” that followed the operational philosophy of the then-burgeoning semi-automatic pistol by devising a function that would slide the entire upper assembly against the frame with each shot, simultaneously turning the cylinder and cocking the hammer fro the follow-up shot. He spent the latter half of the 1890s improving his design before taking it to Webley & Scott, who began production of the revolver in 1901, first for the .455 Webley service cartridge and then in the now-defunct .38 ACP civilian round, in various barrel length configurations ranging from four to seven inches. .455 versions carried six rounds in the cylinder while the smaller .38 ACP round meant eight shots could fit in those models.

The book identifies the specific weapon as the latter as Spade identifies it as a “Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver… thirty-eight, eight-shot. They don’t make them any more.” (The movie inexplicably changes the line to “a Webley-Forsby[sic], .45 automatic, eight-shot,” which doesn’t exist as the .455-caliber models could only carry six rounds.)

While revolutionary, the Webley-Fosbery was unwieldly and ultimately unreliable, particularly when fielded in wartime use, which limited its manufacture to less than 5,000 by the time production ended by 1924. (You can read more about the Webley-Fosbery and its use in The Maltese Falcon in Jason Schubert’s 2019 article for The Claremore Daily Progress.)

“It’s a Webley… English, ain’t it?”

What to Imbibe

I distrust a man who says “when”. If he’s got to be careful not to drink too much, it’s because he’s not to be trusted when he does.

— Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet)

Now we’re getting into some subject matter that Sam Spade does like. The Hays Office was enforcing the infamous Production Code that inspired many filmmakers, particularly those helming now-classic noir, to get creative in how they presented the various vices that characterized their pulp sources. In addition to neutralizing the homoerotic undertones of Wilmer Cook and Joel Cairo’s relationship, The Maltese Falcon was also under fire as John Huston was warned not to show excessive drinking, a point that John Huston had argued would “seriously falsify” his depiction of the character, according to Michael Mills for Palace Classic Films.

Spade has just poured himself a glass of Bacardi Superior Oro when the fuzz roll in, a direct carryover from the novel where Hammett described:

He dropped his hat and overcoat on the bed and went into his kitchen, returning to the bedroom with a wine-glass and a tall bottle of Bacardi. He put bottle and glass on the table, sat on the side of the bed facing them, and rolled a cigarette. He had drunk his third glass of Bacardi and was lighting his fifth cigarette when the street-door-bell rang.

Spade’s two unexpected guests don’t look too grateful for his offered Bacardi.

Bacardi had been a familiar spirit in the United States since the Spanish-American War drifted cocktails like the Daiquiri and the Cuba Libre statewide, where the latter would be simplified into the two-ingredient “rum and Coke”. The growing international demand led to Bacardi’s expansion from Cuba into Spain and the United States, where it would be bottled for nearly a decade until the New York City facility was shut down in response to Prohibition.

The company took the Volstead Act as an opportunity to encourage tourism to Cuba, where Americans could freely and openly enjoy Bacardi, providing the company with enough business to finance the fashionable Edificio Bacardí skyscraper in Havana as well as distilleries in Mexico and Puerto Rico. The latter gave Bacardi a particularly strong foothold in the United States after Prohibition ended.

How to Get the Look

As Sperber and Lax deconstructed, The Maltese Falcon doesn’t present Humphrey Bogart in the classic “private eye” trench coat, instead layering a heavy tweed topcoat over his fashionably tailored suits.

Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941), most likely wearing his dark chalkstripe double-breasted suit under the heavy coat.

Suit #1

• Dark chalkstripe flannel suit:
  • Double-breasted 6×2-button jacket with wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Double forward-pleated trousers with belt loops, slightly slanted side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Off-white cotton shirt with semi-spread collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
• Dark tie

Suit #2

• Charcoal-gray wool suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Single-breasted 6-button waistcoat with four welted pockets and notched bottom
  • Double forward-pleated trousers with belt loops, slightly slanted side pockets, back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Off-white cotton shirt with semi-spread collar, plain front, and double/French cuffs
• Medium-colored cotton tie

Worn with…

• Black leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Dark socks
• Dark herringbone tweed 6×2-button knee-length overcoat with wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and long single vent
• Medium felt fedora with dark grosgrain band, pinched crown, and self-edged brim
• Key-chain attached to trouser belt loop

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Maltese Falcon has a special significance for me as the first movie I ever saw in theaters with my now-fiancée… and no, I’m not pushing 100; she and I enjoyed a showing at Pittsburgh’s excellent Row House Theater in the spring of 2016.

The Quote

The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.

The post Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon 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

To celebrate Sam Waterston’s 81st birthday today, I wanted to return to the actor’s breakthrough performance as Nick Carraway, the central character in Jack Clayton’s stylish The Great Gatsby, adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel of the same name.

Much to the delight of high schoolers looking for shortcuts on their book reports, Gatsby has been more than a half-dozen times on screen (though that lost 1926 silent film isn’t going to help too many kids.) The most recent major production was Baz Luhrmann’s lavish 2013 adaptation, though I consider the 1974 version to remain the definitive telling of the story… as well as the most fashionable, thanks to Theoni V. Aldredge’s Academy Award-winning costume design.

As in Fitzgerald’s novel, the events of this tumultuous summer in Jazz Age-era Long Island are presented through the relatively impartial Nick Carraway, a humble outsider to the lifestyles of the rich and famous as exemplified by his flapper cousin Daisy Buchanan (Mia Farrow), her hulking husband Tom (Bruce Dern), the unapologetically irresponsible golfer Jordan Baker (Lois Chiles), and Nick’s mysterious nouveau riche neighbor, Jay Gatsby (Robert Redford).

What’d He Wear?

Nick dresses in plenty of tan and beige tones, reflecting both his “western” groundedness as well as his neutral personality. As our impressionable conduit into Gatsby’s world, Nick enters as an empty palette, ready to be dazzled by the pink suits, yellow cars, blue lawns, and green lights of the fictional Eggs until tragic turns of events find him “brooding on the old unknown world,” as Fitzgerald wrote.

All of Nick’s screen-worn knitwear are various light shades of brown, beginning with a rich ochre sweater vest while watching Gatsby’s first party from afar, then a tan shawl-collar cardigan after Gatsby has closed his estate for the summer, and finally this lighter tan pullover crew-neck sweater after spending his fateful 30th birthday in the city with Gatsby, Jordan, Tom, and Daisy.

The next morning, Nick couldn’t be further from his earlier admiration of his enigmatic neighbor, whose early visit illustrates the deep contrast between Gatsby’s bright and fussy pink three-piece suit—which looks even more haphazard when worn deconstructed—and Nick’s plain, neutral tones.

The events of the previous evening thrust Nick back into the position of being cautiously judgmental while a desperate Gatsby, who hasn’t changed from the previous evening, makes his case over half a cigarette.

As they’re essentially back at “square one” regarding Nick’s opinion of him, it may be significant that Nick is dressed the same way as he was when his story with Gatsby began. He was only a few yards away, tending to his bird-feeder, when one of Gatsby’s many shadowy employees approached him with that portentous invitation to his “little party” that evening.

It makes sense that Nick would be dressed down for these quiet days alone at home, though it’s perhaps unfortunate for Mr. Carraway that decorum of the era dictates that he still be dressed in a long-sleeved sweater and trousers for the “broiling” temperatures of late summer. Still, eschewing the three-piece suits, fussy collars, and decorative ties of the Jazz Age transform Nick into a man essentially “out of time”, aligned with the viewer in 1974—or 2021—who may never wear a pink linen three-piece suit in his life but almost certainly has a broken-in sweater and khakis in his closet.

Nick’s tan sweater is made from a soft wool that suggests cashmere, a curiously warm-wearing choice for such a hot day though the proximity to the “great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound” may have cooled the air to allow for Mr. Carraway to comfortably don cashmere. The sweater’s narrow crew neck is ribbed, echoing the cuffs at the end of each set-in sleeve as well as the untucked waist hem.

Perhaps it’s the comfort of cashmere, but Nick allows himself enough of an open mind to allow his neighbor a shot at redemption.

Apropos the heat in these waning days of summer, Nick wears a pair of beige gabardine flat front trousers with a full fit through the legs down to the bottoms finished with turn-ups (cuffs). Belt loops were just finding a more permanent place on men’s trousers, and Nick holds his up with a slim dark brown leather belt. The trousers have side pockets and jetted back pockets, the left covered by a pointed button-through flap.

Nick diverges from his outfit’s relative timelessness at the ankle, as he adds some jaunty attitude with his favorite spectator shoes. These rakish two-toned leather oxfords have russet-brown wingtips, five-eyelet lace panels, and heel caps while the brogued quarters and vamps are plain white. He had also worn these shoes the previous day with his ivory linen three-piece suit, and he may be wearing the same black socks.

With such a light outfit—and, specifically, such light trousers—I would have advised Nick to don more tonally appropriate hosiery, perhaps in a matching shade of beige or even a brown if he was insistent on wearing dark socks.

A DiCaprio Connection?

In Baz Luhrmann’s aforementioned 2013 adaptation of The Great Gatsby starring Leonardo DiCaprio, costume designer Catherine Martin chose a very similar outfit for DiCaprio’s Gatsby to change into while taking Daisy (Carey Mulligan) and Nick (Tobey Maguire) on a tour of his expansive mansion. He had started the day in the oft-described white suit, silver shirt, and gold tie, transitioning into this more casual and comfortable ensemble once the cocktails and shirts start flying.

Dressed down in tan sweater and linen slacks, Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) throws his expensive shirts around his bedroom in Baz Lurhmann’s 2013 adaptation.

I haven’t read if DiCaprio’s tan sweater and off-white trousers were a nod to Waterston’s costume in the ’74 version or merely a coincidence, though the appearance of such a similar outfit in both suggests that you needn’t swath yourself in pink if you feel like bringing a touch of Gatsby style to your weekend casual garb.

What to Imbibe

Nick drowns his disillusionment in long pulls from a tall glass of Teacher’s Highland Cream, a blended Scotch whisky. More than 30 single malt whiskies are blended to create Teacher’s, though its signature smoky “fingerprint” profile from the peaty whisky produced by the Ardmore distillery in Aberdeenshire in the Scottish Highlands.

Nick greets the harsh early morning with a cashmere sweater, a bottle of Scotch, and a face full of sadness.

The late William Teacher had began distilling whisky more than a half-century before his sons registered the brand in 1884. It would be nearly another fifty years before the brand was legally exported to the United States, first arriving on the American market just after the end of Prohibition in 1933. Given that Gatsby made his millions as a bootlegger, it’s possible that he provided Nick with his “illegal” bottle of Teacher’s.

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

How to Get the Look

Unlike Gatsby’s romantic dreams, great fashion actually can repeat the past without looking dated. Nick Carraway’s simple tan cashmere sweater and off-white slacks are just as stylish as they would have been in the nearly 50 years since Sam Waterston wore them in The Great Gatsby, and even moreso than when the story was set a century ago during the height of the roaring ’20s.

• Tan cashmere crew-neck long-sleeved sweater
• Beige gabardine flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back-right pocket, flapped back-left pocket, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Dark brown slim leather belt
• Russet-and-white leather five-eyelet wingtip spectator oxford brogues
• Black socks

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read the book.

The Quote

They’re a rotten crowd! You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.

The post The Great Gatsby: Sam Waterston’s Tan Cashmere Sweater appeared first on BAMF Style.

Timothy Olyphant as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens on Justified (Episode 6.11: “Fugitive Number One”). Photo by Prashant Gupta/FX.

Vitals

Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens, old-fashioned Deputy U.S. Marshal

Harlan County, Kentucky, Spring 2010 to Fall 2014

Series: Justified
Creator: Graham Yost
Costume Designers: Ane Crabtree (Season 1) & Patia Prouty (Seasons 2-6)

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Justified is one of my favorite fall shows (despite the fact that each season originally aired in the spring), and I always like to revisit the tangled, moonshine-soaked underworld of Harlan County every autumn.

The first episode established the series-long conflict between Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) and Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), who dug coal together in the mines of eastern Kentucky before their diverging career paths as Raylan rose through the ranks of the U.S. Marshals Service tracking down criminals like Boyd, who started the series as the explosives-loving leader of a gang of bank-robbing white supremacists.

Both Raylan and Boyd have frequently been the subjects of requests from fans of the series as the series costume designers neatly established each man’s signature style: Boyd, somewhat fussy for a country criminal, with his layered sport jackets, waistcoats with dangling pocket watch chains, and shirts buttoned to the neck; and Raylan, who blends old-fashioned cowboy aesthetics into his modern business apparel.

What’d He Wear?

Raylan typically alternated between his office uniform of a sports coat and tie or his off-duty outfits of trucker jackets, henleys, and flannel shirts, almost always worn with his go-to Levi’s jeans. As colder weather entered the hills around Harlan County, Raylan regularly layered his latter look by pulling on a dark wool coat over the double denim, beginning with the first-season episode “The Hammer” (Episode 1.10) and seen in nearly every season—except the fourth—through the climactic scene in the series finale, “The Promise” (Episode 6.13).

Raylan the gunfighter pulls his coat back for smoother access to his holstered Glock during a final confrontation in “The Promise” (Episode 6.13).

A modern take on the gunfighter’s archetypal duster—or the “badass longcoat” as defined by TV Tropes—Raylan’s coat was so frequently worn that at least three different coats were featured on the show, as explained by Justified expert Rick, who runs the excellent Facebook fan page It was Justified. The outfit was established during Ane Crabtree’s tenure as costume designer through the first season, remaining a favorite for the character after Patia Prouty took over from the second season onward.

Made from a charcoal herringbone wool, the 3/4-length coat extends to just above Timothy Olyphant’s knees, a flattering look for the lean, 6’0″-tall actor.

Raylan pulls his Glock on Cope (Tom Proctor) as he takes to the eastern Kentucky hills in search of Boyd, Ava, and the missing $10 million in “Collateral” (Episode 6.12).

At least one of Raylan’s coats came from Hugo Boss, as detailed in Rick’s linked post and a 2012 post on AskAndyAboutClothes forum, with a quote from Prouty explaining that it’s “an old (six years) Hugo Boss overcoat from a rental house that we sorta/kinda never returned. I’ve been forever trying to replace it because we always need extras, but I can’t find any more. I even went so far as to look for fabric like it to re-create it.” Prouty’s costume design team must have had success, as a 2018 auction of series props and costumes—three years after the finale aired—included Raylan’s clothing from the final three episodes that described the coat as DKNY.

Though the series’ costume team evidently cycled through several coats over the course of the series, all were similarly styled and detailed with the prominent edge-stitched collar and large-scaled herringbone weave as seen here under the sun in “Collateral” (Episode 6.12).

Four black plastic sew-through buttons fasten up to the neck, though Raylan always wears his coat fully open to allow unfettered access to his belt-holstered Glock. The edge-stitched Prussian collar adds a commanding quality to the otherwise minimally appointed coat, which has vertical-entry welt pockets on each side and a long single vent in the back. The sleeves are set-in at the shoulders and plain at the cuffs, devoid of any buttons, tabs, or other ornamentation or fixtures that could snag as the lawman moves to quickly draw his sidearm.

Hands in his pockets while awaiting the helicopter that will aid his search in “Fugitive Number One” (Episode 6.11), the scattered snow in the hills around him add context to Raylan’s smart layers.

Raylan regularly layered the coat over his favorite casual jacket, a medium blue wash denim Levi’s trucker jacket in the “Type III” pattern that the storied outfitter had been manufacturing since the 1960s. Rick’s It was Justified Facebook page explains that, to spare Timothy Olyphant from overheating and/or to aid his mobility in action sequences, a sleeveless Levi’s jean jacket was modified to be worn in scenes that called for it to be layered under the wool coat.

Raylan joins his father Arlo (Raymond J. Barry) for a shot of bourbon at the local VFW after Arlo talks down a suicidal veteran in “Fathers and Sons” (Episode 1.12). Raylan peels off his coat to show his full-sleeved Levi’s trucker jacket, though subsequent seasons would outfit Olyphant in a modified sleeveless Levi’s jacket when he needed to wear it under his herringbone coat.

Aligned with a horizontal yoke, the pair of pointed chest pockets are the same as introduced on the Levi’s 557XX jacket in the early ’60s, fastened on Raylan’s jacket through silver-toned “donut”-style rivet buttons matching the six on the front of the jacket and the set closing each cuff. The brand’s signature slanted seams taper down in a narrow “V” shape from under each chest-pocket flap to the waistband, which is additionally rigged with a button-tab adjuster toward the back of each side. Levi’s added hand pockets to their famous trucker jackets in the ’80s, positioned with a vertical entry just behind each set of tapered front seams.

Mina and Teena were already unhappy with “Officer Buzzkill” for ruining their pool day, and their frustration with Raylan only grows in “Weight” (Episode 5.10) when Raylan tricks Mina into handing over her phone so he can call Dewey Crowe.

Raylan debuted the wool coat over his double denim in “The Hammer” (Episode 1.10), worn over a navy blue cotton long-sleeved henley shirt that’s seen again with this outfit in “Fathers and Sons” (Episode 1.12). This particular henley has a narrow placket with four “donut”-style metal buttons that fasten right up to the top of the shirt’s crew-neck.

Boyd describes Raylan as “the agent of my salvation”, though he may be regretting his geniality as Raylan takes the opportunity to speak to his “congregation” as a chance to offer them a $50,000 reward for any information leading to Boyd’s capture in “The Hammer” (Episode 1.10). This marks the first appearance of Raylan layering his charcoal herringbone coat over the denim jacket and jeans, as well as the first of several dark henleys.

“When the Guns Come Out” (Episode 3.06) again finds Raylan wearing these layers over a henley, though it’s now a pitch black cotton long-sleeved shirt that has a slightly raised neckline that tapers down to the three-button placket. (I suspect it’s the same shirt that he wore under a black checked shirt three episodes earlier in “Harlan Roulette”.)

Raylan gradually adds layers to his black henley and jeans over the course of “When the Guns Come Out” (Episode 3.06).

Raylan skips this favorite look of his for most of the fourth season, bringing it back at the end of the fifth season in the episodes “Weight” (Episode 5.10) and “Restitution” (Episode 5.13). He wears another black cotton long-sleeved henley, this one with a narrow taped placket with four black recessed plastic 4-hole buttons.

Another day, another dark henley, this time seen under his denim jacket while trading barbs with Mina in “Weight” (Episode 5.10).

Raylan diverged from his usual henleys for a visit to the Bennett homestead in “For Blood or Money” (Episode 2.04), wearing the coat and denim with a checked cotton flannel long-sleeve shirt. Tucked into his jeans, the shirt is patterned in a small-scaled burgundy-and-gray tartan plaid, each color separated by a black graph-check. The shirt fastens up the front placket with black plastic 2-hole buttons.

“Uninvited don’t mean unwelcome,” assures Mags (Margo Martindale), the Bennett family matriarch, to a decidedly unwelcome Raylan in “For Blood or Money” (Episode 2.04).

The final trio of episodes—”Fugitive Number One” (Episode 6.11), “Collateral” (Episode 6.12), and “The Promise” (Episode 6.13)—results in an old west-style showdown, and the fact that Raylan was dressed through this narrative in the long coat layered over his denim reinforces my hypothesis that the look was meant to suggest a connection to occupational ancestors like the Earps.

Under his jackets, Raylan wears a navy-and-black micro-checked cotton flannel long-sleeved shirt from Rag & Bone, layered over a dark gray washed cotton crew-neck short-sleeved J. Crew pocket T-shirt.

Raylan visits a hospitalized Boyd in “Fugitive Number One” (Episode 6.11), wearing the mini-checked Rag & Bone shirt and dark gray J. Crew pocket T that he would wear under his denim jacket and charcoal herringbone coat through the following two episodes until the quickdraw shootout that would lead to the end of his career in eastern Kentucky.

Though Rag & Bone has discontinued this particular shirt, J. Crew continues to offer a “broken-in” pocket T in a shade of dyed cotton marketed as “Bedford coal”… which seems appropriate, given Raylan and Boyd’s shared history.

Interestingly, the reverse side of his Rag & Bone shirt shows a larger-scaled tartan plaid in the same colorway. The shirt has a narrow point collar, a front placket that Raylan wears open, and a breast pocket echoing the T-shirt underneath it.

Note the larger-scaled tartan check on the reverse side of the shirt, seen most prominently on Raylan’s rolled-up cuffs.

If Raylan even wears jeans with his sport jackets and ties at the office, you can be sure he’s going to be wearing them with this off-duty look. Although the wash varies between a medium blue to a darker indigo, he exclusively wears Levi’s 501 Original Fit jeans with the button-up fly, rivet-cornered five-pocket layout, and Levi’s signature arcuate stitching across the back pockets, flagged with the small red tab sewn against the back right pocket.

After being shot in the head—more accurately, his hat—in “The Promise” (Episode 6.13), a sprawled Raylan brings his head up as Loretta McCready (Kaitlin Dever) approaches him.

Raylan wears a dark brown tooled leather belt, edge-stitched in a contrasting white thread and increasingly worn at the edges to show the lighter brown natural leather. The belt closes through a polished silver-toned single-prong buckle.

Raylan wears his U.S. Marshals-issued badge and gun on the right side of his belt, the Glock holstered in a tan full-grain leather holster with a snap-closed top strap. In the first season, he had worn a Bianchi Model 59 Special Agent® holster, but then switched to a cosmetically similar holster custom-made by Alfonso Gun Leather of Hollywood for the second season onward.

Raylan keeps his gun hand ready during a final confrontation with Boyd Crowder in “The Promise” (Episode 6.13).

Raylan’s cowboy boots are an essential part of his image as an old-fashioned country lawman. For the first two seasons, Raylan had worn brown anteater boots by Justin Boots, a equestrian footwear company founded by H.J. Justin in Gainesville, Texas, in 1879.

Still wearing his Justin anteater boots in “Reckoning” (Episode 2.12), Raylan sidesteps the blood spilled during the gunfight that killed his aunt Helen.

Beginning with the third season, costume designer Patia Prouty had switched Raylan’s footwear to a pair of cigar-colored brown ostrich leg boots made by Lucchese, another Texan boot company that had been founded by Sicilian immigrant Salvatore “Sam” Lucchese in San Angelo in 1883, only four years after Justin. The tag from his costume for the final three episodes informs us that Raylan wore gray socks under his boots.

According to WesternOutlets.com, “ostrich skin is by far the best choice in the exotic leather category. It is one of the softest, yet most comfortable and durable, of all the exotic leathers. Ostrich has soft, medium-sheen finish and is easily maintained.” Ostrich leg is specifically characterized by “a distinguished wide scale pattern similar to chicken leg but with the durability and feel of lizard.”

Unless you’re an expert in exotic leather hides, the most significant visual difference between the screen-worn Justin anteater boots and the Lucchese L1380 ostrich leg boots appears to be that the latter are appointed with a set of seams running parallel over each instep similar to “bicycle-toe” vamps.

We linger a moment on Raylan’s Lucchese ostrich leg boots as he approaches one last old west-style showdown in “The Promise” (Episode 6.13).

Though a few shots in the pilot episode show him wearing a Rolex Submariner dive watch, the series initially established Raylan’s favorite wristwatch as one that has been identified by several as a TAG Heuer Series 6000 Chronometer sports watch with a brushed steel case, round white dial, and leather bands alternating between brown and black leather.

While does appear to wear the Series 6000 through much of the series, close-ups of his wrist in the final seasons reveal a non-TAG Heuer timepiece. This wristwatch is cosmetically similar, with a polished steel case rigged on a black leather strap. Likely activated by the extra pusher at 2 o’clock, the luminous light-colored round dial is printed bold black Arabic number hour markers, each with the coordinating 24-hour marker printed smaller in red.

To me, the watch resembled a Hamilton but a BAMF Style commenter and an eagle-eyed expert at the WatchUSeek forums identified Raylan’s last watch as a Versales, a budget-oriented Japanese quartz watch. (You can occasionally find Raylan-style Versales watches on Amazon.)

Fielding the suspicions of his boss via BlackBerry (remember those?), “Fugitive Number One” (Episode 6.11) provides a good glimpse at the wristwatch Raylan wears for the series’ final episodes.

Raylan maintains his consistent cowboy image with a sterling silver horseshoe ring, worn on his right ring finger and detailed with braided sides that taper toward the back of the band.

Elmore Leonard would only give permission for Justified to proceed if the show’s creators could confirm that Raylan Givens would be outfitted in what the author deemed to be a proper hat in the spirit of the Stetson “Open Road” described in Leonard’s stories. To guarantee perfection, Timothy Olyphant returned to Baron Hats, the Hollywood hatmaker he’d worked with on HBO’s proto-Western series Deadwood.

Baron Hats developed Raylan’s signature cowboy hat in a sahara tan 200XXX beaver felt, detailed with a 4.25″ cattleman’s-style crown, 3.25″-wide brim, and a slim brown tooled leather band with a steel ranger-style buckle.

Raylan’s horseshoe ring flashes as he dons his cowboy hat in “The Hammer” (Episode 1.10), having removed it to, uh, pray with Boyd Crowder’s “congregation”.

Integral to his image as an old-fashioned marshal, Raylan’s hat symbolically “retires” when it takes a bullet that’s nearly fatal for Raylan himself in the finale episode. For this scene, Raylan’s hat appears to have been swapped out for a genuine Stetson “Marshall” as “XXX San Angelo Collection” can be seen on the brown leather hatband, referring to a specific line created by the venerable Texan-based John B. Stetson Company.

While it’s well-documented that Raylan’s hat was custom-made for the production by Baron Hats, the silverbelly hat that took a bullet through the cattleman’s-style crown in the final episode appears to be a Stetson, based on the gilt “XXX San Angelo Collection” insignia against the brown leather sweatband.

Signifying the end of his career in the hills of eastern Kentucky, Raylan then abandons his bullet-damaged hat in favor of the custom-made fedora left behind by the now-deceased gunman who had just tried to kill him.

The Gun

The series dialogue occasionally suggests that Raylan Givens carries a .45-caliber Glock, though close-ups of the screen-used weapons determines that he and his fellow Deputy Marshals are actually armed with the Glock 17 service pistol, the standard full-sized Glock chambered in 9x19mm Parabellum.

As one would expect of an old-fashioned lawman, Raylan shows considerable proficiency with his sidearm throughout the series, explaining in “Weight” (Episode 5.10) that “me, I’m good to 50, 75 yards,” a bit beyond Glock 17’s effective range of 55 yards, though he may be relying on his stated confidence to intimidate the knife-wielding Danny Crowe (A.J. Buckley).

Raylan’s Glock comes out on the driver of a mobile OxyContin clinic in “When the Guns Come Out” (Episode 3.06)

Austrian engineer Gaston Glock brought his experience working with synthetic polymers to the development of the semi-automatic pistols that would bear his name. Although it’s been stated that the first model was named the Glock 17 in reference to the number of criteria required by the Austrian military for its new service pistol, this is a false etymology rooted in coincidence; Glock had named his pistol in tribute to it being his company’s 17th patent.

As the recoil-operated Glock 17 entered production and quickly shook up the global firearms market through the early 1980s, the company continued developing variants in different sizes and calibers, beginning with the introduction of the Glock 19 in 1988, a downscaled version of the 9mm Glock 17 that set the standard for interchangeability between most Glock pistols of the same caliber, regardless of size. As of 2021, more than three dozen variations of Glock pistols have been produced in calibers ranging from .22 LR and .380 ACP up to the powerful .45 ACP and proprietary .45 GAP rounds.

Given the cosmetic similarities between the 9mm, .40, and .45-caliber models, there would have little reason for the production to actually arm Olyphant with a Glock 21, especially given .45-caliber ammunition’s less reliable reputation for cycling blanks than the more universal 9x19mm cartridge. Although the .40-caliber Glock 22 would have been the more accurate reflection of what U.S. Marshals are issued in real life, stating that Raylan carries a .45-caliber sidearm likens him more to the legendary lawmen of the old west with their single-action Colt .45s.

One final showdown on Justified, this time between the Glock-wielding Raylan and his gunslinger-styled nemesis Boon (Jonathan Tucker), who’s armed with a single-action revolver, in the series finale, “The Promise” (Episode 6.13).

The Car

Throughout all six seasons of Justified, Raylan Givens drives a black 2003 Lincoln Town Car sedan, the executive cousin of the Ford Crown Victoria that had been an American law enforcement favorite for decades, though the Town Car was more frequently in use by fleet and limousine services.

The Town Car and Crown Vic were both built on the full-size Ford Panther rear-wheel-drive (RWD) platform that had been established in 1979, though the “Town Car” etymology dates back to a limited series of upmarket Continental sedans in the late 1950s, reused for another Lincoln trim option through the ’70s before it became a separate model in its own right.

According to IMCDB, Raylan’s Town Car was almost always a 2003 model, though he had also driven a 1998 Signature Series Town Car through the first season. As denoted by the silver lettering behind the rear doors, Raylan’s Town Car was an “Executive Series”, the entry-level trim.

Raylan with his black Lincoln Town Car in “Fugitive Number One” (Episode 6.11).

Beginning in 2003, all Town Cars were powered by a 4.6-liter Ford Modular SOHC V8 engine that generated 239 horsepower, mated to a four-speed automatic transmission. Once the flagship sedan of the Ford Motor Company, Lincoln ceased production of the Town Car after the 2011 model year, focusing on the Lincoln MKS full-size sedan that was more aligned with the company’s new direction.

How to Get the Look

Timothy Olyphant as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens on Justified (Episode 6.12: “Collateral”). Photo by Prashant Gupta/FX.

Raylan Givens finds a cool and comfortable way to layer his off-duty looks in a manner consistent with his “business cowboy” persona, his double denim anchored by a well-traveled coat that serves as his gunslinger-style duster as he approaches his final shootout of the series.

• Dark long-sleeved henley or short-sleeved T-shirt
• Charcoal herringbone wool 3/4-length topcoat with edge-stitched Prussian collar, four-button front, welted vertical-entry side pockets, set-in sleeves with plain cuffs, and long single vent
• Blue denim Levi’s 557XX “Type III” trucker jacket with six “donut”-style rivet buttons, pointed chest pocket flaps, hand pockets, button-tab waist adjusters, and button cuffs
• Blue denim Levi’s 501 Original Fit button-fly jeans
• Dark brown tooled leather belt with a dulled steel single-prong buckle
• Tan full grain leather thumb-break belt holster, for full-size Glock pistol
• Brown exotic leather Western-style boots
• Baron Hats “The RG” sahara tan 200XXX beaver felt cattleman’s hat with a thin tooled leather band
• Stainless steel quartz wristwatch with round white luminous dial and black leather strap
• Sterling silver horseshoe ring with braided side detail
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series. I always recommend that fans of the show who are on Facebook follow super-fan Rick’s great page @EverythingJustified which features many great photos, videos, and moments from the series as well as shots of screen-worn gear.

If you want to see this outfit in action, you can primarily see these pieces worn together in the below ten episodes, which are some of the best of the series:

• “The Hammer” (Episode 1.10), directed by John Dahl, aired May 18, 2010
• “Fathers and Sons” (Episode 1.12), directed by Michael Katleman, aired June 1, 2010
• “For Blood or Money” (Episode 2.04), directed by John Dahl, aired March 2, 2011
• “Reckoning” (Episode 2.12), directed by Adam Arkin, aired April 27, 2011
• “When the Guns Come Out” (Episode 3.06), directed by Don Kurt, aired February 21, 2012
• “Weight” (Episode 5.10), directed by John Dahl, aired March 18, 2014
• “Restitution” (Episode 5.13), directed by Adam Arkin, aired April 8, 2014
• “Fugitive Number One” (Episode 6.11), directed by Jon Avnet, aired March 31, 2015
• “Collateral” (Episode 6.12), directed by Michael Pressman, aired April 7, 2015
• “The Promise” (Episode 6.13), directed by Adam Arkin, aired April 14, 2015

The Quote

I don’t care how it gets done… as long as it gets done.

The post Justified: Raylan’s Wool Coat and Double Denim appeared first on BAMF Style.

Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison in JFK (1991)

Vitals

Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison, District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, and World War II veteran

New Orleans, Fall 1963 through Spring 1969

Film: JFK
Release Date: December 20, 1991
Director: Oliver Stone
Costume Designer: Marlene Stewart

Background

Today would have been the 100th birthday of Jim Garrison, the Louisiana district attorney whose prosecution of New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw remains the only trial to be brought for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who was murdered in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Born November 20, 1921, Earling Carothers “Jim” Garrison had just celebrated his 42nd birthday and was nearly halfway through his first of three four-year terms as Orleans Parish District Attorney when Kennedy was killed.

Oliver Stone’s 1991 epic JFK centers around Garrison’s years-long investigation, advancing a controversial conspiracy theory that linked Shaw with the CIA as the primary forces behind Kennedy’s death, beginning primarily with a tip that a pilot named David Ferrie may have been involved with the assassination.

The real Jim Garrison made a brief cameo appearance in JFK as Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who led the controversial commission that concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating the president.

Though its interpretation of facts has been criticized, JFK became a cultural phenomenon, resulting in the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. A Seinfeld episode satirizing Garrison’s courtroom breakdown of the famous Zapruder tape featured Wayne Knight, best known for his Seinfeld role but also featured in JFK as Numa Bertel, a member of Garrison’s investigative team that also includes Lou Ivon (Jay O. Sanders) and Susie Cox (Laurie Metcalf).

What’d He Wear?

Kevin Costner’s tailored style as Garrison has been the subject of frequent requests, including from BAMF Style readers William and Ryan. While I’d like to look at some of his suits more closely down the road, I felt an appropriate place to start would be to highlight what stands out to be me as one of the most significant aspects of Garrison’s wardrobe: his variety of shirt collars.

The real Jim Garrison, pictured during the 1960s with a pinned collar.

Underlining the face and serving as a focal intersection point of the jacket and tie, the shirt collar’s importance should never be overlooked. There are general practices gents should consider when finding their go-to collar—point collars to balance wider faces, spread collars to balance narrower faces, and semi-spread to flatter all—while more confident wearers can advance to “expert mode” with the fussier ornamental collars in the club, pin, and tab variety.

As the film spans six years across the 1960s—beginning with Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963, through the end of Clay Shaw’s trial in March 1969—we see Garrison cycling through nearly every significant type of shirt collar that was fashionable through the period.

In addition to the traditional point and spread collars, we see Garrison wearing fussier styles noted for systems to keep his narrow tie knots in place, such as pinned collars, tab collars, and a period-unique rounded button-down collar. The collars also alternate between matching the same fabric as the rest of the shirt and the occasional contrasting white collar… not to mention the shirts themselves alternating between long- and short-sleeved shirts. The latter are inadvisable with suits and ties for reasons of both form and fashion, though the New Orleans heat that famously gave rise to the seersucker suit also encourages gents to take a few sartorial shortcuts in the name of their own comfort.

Costume designer Marlene Stewart’s extensive work dressing Costner as Garrison seems to reflect how the real-life prosecutor dressed, as even a quick search across Garrison’s photos from the ’60s reflects a similar range.

In order of appearance:

Rounded Button-Down Collar

The classic button-down collar was standardized by Brooks Brothers at the start of the 20th century when John E. Brooks, inspired by English polo players, introduced a shirt with the collar points fastened to the body of the shirt via a small button. Though always regarded as a more casual style, the button-down collar made inroads via its growing popularity in the Ivy community and—by mid-century—it was increasingly embraced by American office-goers with their suits or sport jackets and ties.

Garrison establishes a button-down collar as his go-to style across the first act of JFK, though it’s not the classic Ivy-style collar with an elegant roll, instead incorporating the slim profiles of the early ’60s with old-fashioned rounded corners like the traditional club collar. The fastening buttons are placed farther away from each rounded edge, showcasing each button more distinctively than their positioning on classic button-down collars.

Clad in an ivory gabardine three-piece suit and unique button-down club collar, Garrison rubs his temples as he processes the news of the president’s death in a crowded New Orleans bar on November 22, 1963.

We see Garrison wear this collar with at least five different outfits:

• The ivory gabardine three-piece suit when learning of JFK’s assassination on November 22, 1963
• His deconstructed navy three-piece suit when conferring with his team in the assassination’s aftermath
• The seersucker waistcoat he wears at home with dove-gray suit trousers
• The pale blue-gray striped three-piece suit when he’s called away from his family to meet with Clay Shaw on Easter 1967
• The taupe flecked striped sports coat he wears for an impromptu interview with David Ferrie in Miami

Pinned Collar

“At one point during the 1930s, nearly half of all American men reportedly wore their dress shirt collars pinned,” as Alan Flusser introduced this style in Dressing the Man, continuing to note the relative dearth by the time the volume was published seventy years later.

The one-time popularity of collar pins meant a variety of styles: shirts specially made with eyelets to be rigged with barbell-style pins which screwed off at the ends to fit into place, safety-style pins that connected the collar points either through pre-existing eyelets or piercing holes to keep them in place, or bars that clip to each side of the collar. Regardless of which type of pin the wearer selects, this style is characterized by how neatly in keeps a shirt collar in place, and is thus only able to be executed with a perfectly knotted tie.

Evidently a favorite style of the real-life Garrison, we only see Costner’s character wearing this collar type with a taupe gabardine three-piece suit during his initial meeting with David Ferrie on November 25, 1963. In this case, the collar appears to be a narrow point collar—rather than a rounded club collar—held in place with a barbell-style pin that appears to also have a safety-style pin device behind the bar that crosses entirely in front of the collar but behind his tie.

Three days after Kennedy’s death, Garrison first meets with David Ferrie, wearing one of the pinned collars that the real Garrison was known to favor in real life.

Soft Point Collar

Three years after the assassination, Garrison takes assistant DAs Bill Broussard and Lou Ivon on a Sunday morning “walking tour” of New Orleans hot spots where Oswald contacts were known to work:

We are standing in the heart of the United States government’s intelligence community in New Orleans. That’s the FBI there, that’s the CIA, that’s the Secret Service, that’s the ONI… now doesn’t this seem to you a rather strange place for a Communist to spend his spare time?

It’s the fall of 1966, but still warm enough in the Big Easy that Garrison opts for summery styles like the seersucker jacket over an off-white waistcoat and trousers. His pale creamy shirt is styled with the least fussy collar we’ve seen yet, a narrow point collar made softer by a lack of interfacing that threatens to expose the band of the tie around his neck against the winds that tousle his hair. However, it is a Sunday morning, and Garrison is more formally dressed than his colleagues—Broussard in a camp shirt under his raincoat, Ivon with a knit polo buttoned to the throat under his sports coat—so it’s telling to see that this collar is how he “dresses down” a tie.

Of the three types of dressing down for a Sunday morning, Garrison retains the most formality with his necktie and matching waistcoat and tie, “dressing down” in a less structured shirt collar and sporty seersucker.

Loop Collar

Garrison’s sportiest collar is the one he appropriately wears without a tie. He and Broussard drop in on investigator Jack Martin (Jack Lemmon), who draws a firmer connection between the potential conspiracy involving his former boss Guy Banister (Ed Asner), David Ferrie (Joe Pesci), and Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman).

The two prosecutors meet Martin at a race track, and Garrison appropriately dresses to meet the informality of the setting in a straw trilby, beige mini-checked sports coat, and a cream-colored silk long-sleeved sport shirt with a covered-fly front buttoned up to the neck. If Garrison were to unbutton that top button positioned under the right collar leaf, the collar would lay flat like a camp collar (also known as a “revere collar” or “resort collar”) with a small loop extending from the left side where it fastens to that top button.

An uncharacteristically casual look from Garrison, meeting Jack Martin at the track in a camp collar with the loop buttoned at the neck. Even Ivon, out of shot here, wears a tie!

Traditional Point Collar

As JFK marches through the ’60s, the decade saw a shift in menswear from the earlier years of decade when ’50s-informed conformity dictated that sartorial self-expression would follow avenues like interesting collars. Nearly the less formal years of the ’70s, gents began leaving their collar pins and other accessories in the drawer as even wearing neckties to work became less of a universal expectation.

Garrison shows a willingness to adapt, dressing for a three-martini lunch with the flamboyant Dean Andrews Jr. (John Candy) in a beige linen two-piece suit—one of his few without a waistcoat!—and a low-contrast striped shirt rigged with a long point collar. Recalling the dramatic “spearpoint” collars of the ’30s and ’40s, such a style would have been out of fashion even three years earlier, but Garrison’s look would have been increasingly en vogue as the once-narrow lapels, collars, and ties of the early ’60s expanded in anticipation of the disco era to follow.

Martini in hand and flashing his class ring, Garrison instigates the flashy Dean Andrews sitting across from him.

Tab Collar

By the late ’60s, Garrison had shifted to only one significant type of “fussy” collar: the tab collar. Distinguished by a short tab that buttons behind the tie knot, the tab collar ostensibly serves the same purpose as the point collar—and looks just as incomplete when worn with a loosened tie (or no tie at all)—but without the added hardware.

The normally buttoned-up Garrison is already showing signs of sartorial distress by how frequently we see his tab collar disengaged, unbuttoned with his tie loosened and the top button of his shirt undone. It was a thoughtful transition for him to try to recapture the neatness of pinned collars with a less busy alternative, but a little button is no match for the extreme stress of investigating the public assassination of an American president.

When worn correctly in place, the tab collar can be a neat alternative to a collar pin. When dismantled, as seen on Garrison’s many stressful nights with his team, the unbuttoned tab collar can look sloppy and incomplete.
A tip for tab collar wearers: only proceed if you don’t plan on loosening your tie around others!

We see Garrison wear this collar—in varying degrees of fastening—with at least four different suits:

• A black two-piece suit when talking to witnesses in late 1966 about what they saw in and around the Texas Book Depository three years earlier
• Deconstructed with his taupe gabardine three-piece suit when hosting his team over Christmas 1966
• A stone two-piece suit he wears when learning that the stakes have raised with the double-whammy knowledge that his home is bugged and that David Ferrie is dead
• A gray worsted three-piece suit, raincoat, and trilby for meeting the mysterious “Mr. X” (Donald Sutherland) in Washington around February 1967

Spread Collar

As the investigation wraps up and the end of the ’60s approaches, Garrison almost totally abandons his interesting collars in favor of simple spread and semi-spread collars. The former, defined by its more significant space between collar points, appears only more sporadically, once briefly on a white shirt he wears with his black suit in late 1966.

It’s interesting that the collar is seen so sparingly as Costner’s narrow, angular face is more harmoniously balanced by the spread collar than the more frequently seen point and semi-spread alternatives. (Of course, a benefit of looking like Kevin Costner is that few shirt collars would not flatter.)

Garrison breaks for dinner amid his growing investigation, dressed in a simple but stylish classic spread collar.

Semi-Spread Collar

Defined by Matt Spaiser for Bond Suits as “the collar that almost any man can look good,” there are several likely reasons why we see Garrison wearing this almost exclusively by the time he’s presenting at the Clay Shaw trial in the early months of 1969:

• This conventional style wouldn’t make him look out of touch to members of the jury
• As the pressure of an argumentative trial day drags on, unbuttoning the top of his shirt or loosening his tie wouldn’t threaten the integrity of his look as much as a fussier collar
• Prevailing fashions of the era skewed more toward semi-spread collars than his previously seen tabs or pins

Garrison wears conservatively colored shirts with semi-spread collars with all of his trial suits, which are also conservative shades of navy, gray, and taupe.

Garrison wisely dresses in smart, traditional colors and styles when presenting the ridiculousness of the Warren Commission’s “magic bullet” theory in court.

The Glasses

While on the topic of framing faces, any discussion of Costner’s style in JFK would be incomplete without considering the browline-framed glasses that Garrison wears throughout the movie. This iconic style had been pioneered in 1947 by Jack Rohrbach, vice president of eyewear company Shuron Ltd., and grew in popularity over the ’50s and ’60s thanks to famous wearers like Lyndon Johnson, Vince Lombardi, and Malcolm X.

The specific model worn by Costner in JFK is the Art-Craft Clubman, manufactured by Art-Craft Optical of Rochester, New York. As described in the Heritage Auctions listing for Costner’s screen-worn specs, these have black plastic frames that measure 145mm across the temples, with silver wire around each of the clear lenses. As of November 2021, Art-Craft still manufactures the Clubman as part of its “Legendary Looks” series.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, and let me know in the comments if there are any suits you’d like to see a closer look at in any future posts about Costner’s style as Jim Garrison!

The Quote

Back… and to the left.

The post JFK: Kevin Costner’s Shirt Collars as Jim Garrison appeared first on BAMF Style.

Brad Pitt as Will Colbert on Friends (Episode 8.09: “The One with the Rumor”)

Vitals

Brad Pitt as Will Colbert, commodities broker

New York City, Thanksgiving 2001

Series: Friends
Episode: “The One with the Rumor” (Episode 8.09)
Air Date: November 22, 2001
Director: Gary Halvorson
Creator: David Crane & Marta Kauffman
Costume Designer: Debra McGuire

Background

Whether it’s Ross fighting his way out of a pair of shrinking leather pants or Joey layered like a snowman in his roommate Chandler’s clothing, Friends isn’t exactly the first series that comes to mind when thinking of stylish menswear. On the other hand, the show’s female cast—particularly Jennifer Aniston as the boutique-obsessed Rachel—was a major influence on fashion of the ’90s, whether that meant an enviable wardrobe or an iconic, era-defining haircut.

From the beginning, Friends was meant to depict that period in people’s lives where we build our own “family” of chosen friends, particularly when living away from home. The first season’s Thanksgiving episode found the six leads enjoying Turkey Day together, the first time for many without their family, echoing the “Friendsgiving” traditions that would emerge among real-life groups of friends shortly after the series ended.

Thanksgiving episodes became a tradition on Friends as well, with memorable moments like the impromptu men vs. women football match in the park, Chandler telling Monica he loved her… while she was dancing with a raw turkey on her head, and Rachel’s revolting trifle that also included the ingredients for shepherd’s pie thanks to a sticky cookbook.

And then there was The One with Brad Pitt. Airing 20 years ago tonight on Thanksgiving 2001, Pitt’s guest appearance garnered plenty of excitement—and eventually an Emmy nomination—given his and Jennifer Aniston’s then-status as a celebrity power couple. I remember what a big deal it was, as my tryptophanned family gathered in my Grandma’s kitchen to watch the episode. (NBC’s Thursday night lineup had long been tied to my family’s celebrations, as I also recall speeding to a Philadelphia hotel room on the weekend of my cousin’s graduation so that we could watch the infamous Seinfeld finale.)

Pitt arrived at Monica’s doorstep as Will Colbert, one of her and Ross’ high school friends who had been bullied to the point of developing an eating disorder by Rachel. Having shed 150 pounds from his days as an overweight marching band musician, Will brings a pie that’s “no fat, no sugar, no dairy… it’s no good.”

Other than his unpopular desserts, Will shakes up the close-knit world of the six friends, putting Phoebe in heat, knocking Chandler’s already fragile ego down a few more notches, and pitting Ross against Rachel—who’s now carrying his baby—as he reveals their two-person membership in the I Hate Rachel Green Club they’d secretly formed in high school… and had used to start a wide-spreading rumor about her reproductive anatomy.

What’d He Wear?

Will arrives at Monica’s Thanksgiving dinner wearing a layered outfit that reminds me of the voguish styles of the early-oughts, from his tousled and highlighted hair to the irregularly striped shirt with its long collar draped over the neck of his sweater. (In fact, was it this very look that subconsciously influenced my own Express-meets-Banana Republic outfit for Thanksgiving 2005?)

His dark olive brown lightweight leather hip-length jacket features military-influenced styling points like the shoulder straps (epaulettes) and two patch pockets over the chest with pointed button-down flaps. The ventless jacket has set-in sleeves finished with a single button to close each squared cuff. Five dark brown recessed sew-through buttons close up the front, though the jacket gently tapers from the chest to the flat shirt-style collar, making the top a permanent open V-neck should Will wear the jacket closed (which he doesn’t.)

Monica introduces the group to Will, whose reception from Phoebe is decidedly warmer than Chandler offers.

Will’s layered shirt and sweater recalls prevailing trends of that era, with the substantial point collar worn open and completely exposed over the shallow V-neck of his navy-blue merino wool sweater. The long-sleeved cotton shirt is striped in an unbalanced array of gray, white, shades of blue, and pale yellow.

Unlike Joey, who thought mid-meal to swap out his restrictive jeans for stretchy maternity pants, Will wears more traditional dark gray flat front trousers. Finished with plain-hemmed bottoms, these trousers have side pockets and back pockets that each have a loop to button closed. The medium rise of the trousers keeps the waistline generally covered under his sweater’s hem, though we do see his dark burgundy leather belt and its polished silver single-prong buckle in more, uh, enthusiastic moments.

Rachel watches in horror as Will and Ross reinstate the I Hate Rachel Green Club.

Will wears square-toed Chelsea boots with uppers in a dark brown leather adjacent to burgundy, similar to his belt, with coordinated elastic side gussets.

He keeps his visible accessories minimal, aside from a bracelet with two light brown wooden beads occasionally glimpsed dangling from his left wrist, likely Pitt’s own affectation as the actor has frequently dressed his wrists on- and off-screen with everything from beach-ready bracelets to stylish Rolexes.

Will’s boots seem to catch Ross’ eye as Rachel reads an insulting tribute from her high school yearbook that had been an indirect result of the I Hate Rachel Green Club’s campaigning.

Anything Else of Note?

The end of the previous season had introduced the first of the Nat Nast “Rockabilly”-style color-blocked silk shirts that would be regularly worn by Chandler (Matthew Perry), a style also featured across two HBO flagship shows from being a staple of Tony Soprano’s wardrobe to the coveted “Chet’s Shirt” worn by Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

When we first see Chandler in this episode, he’s “just pretending to watch the game so I don’t have to help out with stuff” while wearing a generously sized Nat Nast long-sleeved shirt, primarily black with indigo chest panels.

Chandler is stunned by Phoebe’s dedication to fake-football watching. His oversized Nat Nast shirt over a black T-shirt with low-contrast trousers more suggests the way Larry David wore “Chet’s Shirt” than a Tony Soprano-approved style.

Having challenged Monica to prepare a turkey exclusively for him—as few of the other friends would enjoy it—Joey takes advantage of the maternity pants that Phoebe had gifted Rachel at the start of the episode.

Joey had shown up for Thanksgiving dinner in a basic gray long-sleeved T-shirt with contrasting seams and jeans, though the challenge has him realizing that “I just gotta change my pants… what was I thinking? jeans have no give!” He reappears in the garishly patterned maternity pants, patterned in red, green, and white, with a stretchy black belly that Phoebe offered was also “great for shoplifting melons”.

Phoebe: Joey, those are my maternity pants!
Joey: No, no, these are my Thanksgiving pants!

Phoebe’s maternity pants give Joey the sartorial edge he needed to take on his culinary Everest.

How to Get the Look

Brad Pitt as Will Colbert on Friends (Episode 8.09: “The One with the Rumor”)

The men of Friends aren’t particularly notable dressers (with some occasional exceptions), so their Thanksgiving menswear of oversized button-ups and maternity pants is shaken up by Will’s simple but stylish layering of seasonally appropriate clothing that offers a flattering fit.

Whether you’re dressing for Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving, these simple layers make it easy to impress… plus wearing button-ups under sweaters offer the opportunity to covertly unbutton over your belly in the event of overindulgence!

• Blue, white, gray, and pale-yellow multi-striped cotton long-sleeved shirt with point collar
• Navy-blue merino wool V-neck sweater
• Dark olive lightweight leather hip-length jacket with flat collar, five buttons, shoulder straps (epaulettes), two chest pockets (with pointed button-down flaps), and 1-button squared cuffs
• Dark gray flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, button-loop back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark burgundy leather belt with silver single-prong buckle
• Dark burgundy square-toe Chelsea boots

While most of Will’s reactions are the result of him Looking Like Brad Pitt, making the effort to dress well is a great step in getting a Chandler-type to greet you with “I’d shake your hand, but I’m really into the game… plus I think it’d be better for my ego if we didn’t stand right next to each other.”

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, also currently streaming on HBO Max.

The Quote

Look at her standing there with those yams. My two greatest enemies, Ross: Rachel Green and complex carbohydrates.

The post Brad Pitt’s Thanksgiving Style on Friends appeared first on BAMF Style.

Ted Danson as Sam Malone on Cheers (Episode 5.09: “Thanksgiving Orphans”)

Vitals

Ted Danson as Sam Malone, bartender and former baseball star

Boston, Thanksgiving 1986

Series: Cheers
Episode: “Thanksgiving Orphans” (Episode 5.09)
Air Date: November 27, 1986
Director: James Burrows
Created by: Glen Charles, Les Charles, and James Burrows
Costume Designer: Robert L. Tanella

WARNING! Spoilers ahead! 

Background

Happy Thanksgiving! This iconic episode from Cheers‘ fifth season aired 35 years ago this week on Thanksgiving 1986 and has often been included on lists ranking the greatest TV episodes of all time.

Decades before your friends started hosting Friendsgiving celebrations, Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) hosted the Cheers crew at her home, filling the void left by her many children, most of whom are spending the holiday with their dad, Nick; indeed, the fact that we don’t get any Turkey Day time with Dan Hedaya’s character may be the one downside to this marvelous episode.

Of course, the rest of the gang is all here: barkeep Sam Malone (Ted Danson), his famously on-again/off-again paramour Diane Chambers (Shelley Long), her lonely ex Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer), honorary barstools Norm (George Wendt) and Cliff (John Ratzenberger), and novice bartender Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), who frequently urges “this is gonna be the best Thanksgiving ever!”

As the gang of Cheers regulars and staff realize they’re all facing spending Thanksgiving alone, it’s Diane that suggests gathering at Carla’s new house to celebrate the holiday together, laying the foundation for the original Friendsgiving.

Diane: Oh come on, what could be more enjoyable than opening your heart with holiday cheer?
Carla: Opening yours with a can opener?

Eventually, Carla acquiesces, agreeing to a pot-luck with Sam, Norm, Woody, and Frasier also in attendance, with even the unpopular Cliff squeezing an invite out of her, prizing the opportunity to enjoy beer, turkey, and football with his friends as “much better than hangin’ around with a bunch of dingbat cousins all day.”

Carla may not have been too pleased to welcome Cliff, but she’s downright furious when Diane unexpectedly shows up, still dressed in her authentic pilgrim garb… because of course she is. “Maybe she’ll choke on a drumstick,” Carla assures herself before allowing Diane to join the rest of the holiday hooligans, and her dreams come closer to reality when the events of the day culminate in an uproarious food-fight by episode’s end.

A lesser show may have ended there, but Cheers tacks on a subtle tribute in memory of the departed Coach (Nicholas Colasanto) and a rewarding final kicker as Norm’s long-suffering, long-unseen Vera finally makes an appearance—played by George Wendt’s real-life wife, Bernadette Birkett—fated to remain forever unseen after she takes Diane’s misplaced pie in the face.

What’d He Wear?

In the spirit of today’s holiday, I must thank my pal Ryan—who many of you know from his @iconicfilmstyle account on Instagram—for suggesting this to me last year as the subject of a Thanksgiving post. I love it as a unique time capsule of a specific sartorial moment in the decade, intersecting Sam’s popular preppy style with the boxy trends of the 1980s… Miami Vice meets Boston working class.

Arguably the most dated part of Sam’s wardrobe would be his colorful plaid cotton sports coat, oversized in accordance the decade’s fashion extremes. The chaotic check pattern looks like a variation on tartan plaid, with magenta, yellow, white, and black lines of varying widths criss-crossing against an indigo ground.

From the obnoxiously colorful plaid to the low-rigged notch lapels against a single-rowed, double-breasted front, Sam’s oversized jacket is hideous and I just love it.

In addition to the pattern, little of the jacket follows classic tailoring conventions. The low-gorge notch lapels fall to a single row of two buttons positioned below the waist; combination of traditionally single-breasted notch lapels with a double-breasted front is already offbeat, let alone the unorthodox 2×1-button configuration.

The wide padding in the shoulders provide the only real structure in the otherwise loose jacket, which is short enough to just barely cover Danson’s hips. The ends of each sleeve are plain-finished with no buttons or vents, all the easier for Sam to push them up to his elbows, again following typical trends of the ’80s. Though functionally ventless, there are two short breaks in the fabric on each side where the back piece is sewn over the side pieces.

Sam brings the outfit back down to Earth a bit once he removes the jacket, revealing more of his thankfully subtle—but still fashionably full-fitting—long-sleeved shirt made of an icy pale-blue cotton. In keeping with the whole outfit’s fashion-forward nature, the small black-on-white label stitched over the yoke on the left pocket identifies the shirt as Guess, an L.A.-based label founded in 1981 perhaps best known for pioneering “pre-washed” denim as well as its supermodel-studded ads, the latter likely giving the brand considerable appeal for a skirt-chaser like Sam.

The shirt has a semi-spread collar that’s gently rounded at the edges, a plain (French) front with no placket, and button cuffs. Two large patch pockets are positioned over the chest—one on each side—with a single-button closure through the narrow horizontal yoke across the top of each pocket.

Removing his loud plaid jacket reveals a considerably more subdued Thanksgiving look in his light-colored shirt and tie.

Perhaps intended to coordinate with one of the colors in his plaid jacket, Sam wears a yellow knitted silk tie with a flat bottom.

Sam’s khaki cotton slacks are rigged with double reverse pleats, which Alan Flusser described for Dressing the Man in 2002 as “the most fortuitous development in recent trouser fashion… returning dress trousers to the flattering sanctuary of the man’s natural waist.” There’s little else of Sam’s wardrobe that begs flattering comparison to the golden age of menswear, so pleated trousers will have to do! The trousers have slanted side pockets, two back pockets with a flap covering the back-right pocket, and plain-hemmed bottoms. Sam holds them up with a brown leather belt that closes through a polished gold-toned single-prong buckle.

Not only were pleated trousers fashionable at this point in the ’80s, they also gave a gent extra space should he choose to over-indulge at Thanksgiving.

Sam wears russet brown leather apron-toe penny loafers with black socks. His choice of hosiery is disappointingly uninteresting, given the rest of his colorful wardrobe and his penchant for argyle socks in more dressed-down scenarios (as seen here and here.)

Would you rather look too 1980s like Sam… or too 1680s like Diane?

At the start of the series’ third season, Sam had started wearing a gold watch with a minimalist round case, round white dial, and tan leather strap.

Now that the food has been served (in a way), Sam offers a Thanksgiving toast to Coach.

Temperatures didn’t rise above 50°F in Beantown on Thanksgiving 1986, so Sam wears a black single-breasted raincoat as he arrives on Carla’s doorstep. We see little of the coat, other than the ulster-style collar and the fact that the shoulders are wide enough to comfortably accommodate the sports coat layered under it.

Sam’s somber raincoat belies the loud jacket beneath it.

What to Imbibe

A recovering alcoholic, Sam abstains from boozing, but the rest of his pals imbibe with cans of Heineken beer and Kingsbury non-alcoholic malt beverage. I suspect the non-alcoholic Kingsbury was chosen to look like beer when characters had to open and drink cans on camera, while open cans of Carling Black Label, Heineken, Löwenbräu, Meister Brau, and Wiedemann’s could litter the shot without actually getting the actors drunk while filming in front of a live studio audience.

Putting aside the fact that two of the series’ more dimwitted characters are dressed more tastefully than Sam, spot the Heineken, Wiedemann’s, and Kingsbury cans in front of Cliffy alone.

How to Get the Look

Ted Danson as Sam Malone on Cheers (Episode 5.09: “Thanksgiving Orphans”)

Whether you’re gathering for Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving, you’ll always strive to find that sartorial balance between fashion and function, though you could argue Sam Malone takes the former direction a little too seriously as his outfit would be very out of place anywhere outside of the mid-1980s. Perhaps if there’s anything to be thankful for this year, it’s the fact that his outfit would ultimately be ruined by mashed potatoes, gravy, and Jell-O.

• Indigo, magenta, and yellow plaid cotton hip-length sports coat with padded shoulders, low-gorge notch lapels, low 2×1-button double-breasted front, rolled-up plain cuffs, and ventless back
• Pale-blue cotton long-sleeved shirt with semi-spread collar, plain front, two button-through patch chest pockets, and button cuffs
• Yellow knitted silk square-ended tie
• Khaki cotton double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, flapped back-right pocket, jetted back-left pocket, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Brown leather belt with gold single-prong buckle
• Russet-brown leather apron-toe penny loafers
• Black socks
• Gold round-cased watch with round white dial on tan leather strap
• Black raincoat

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series.

The Quote

I’m thankful that I have a super car and a cool stereo and that I’m not dressed in a pilgrim’s outfit!

The post Cheers: Sam Malone’s Thanksgiving Plaid Jacket and Knitted Tie appeared first on BAMF Style.

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

Vitals

Dennis Haysbert as Raymond Deagan, affable gardener and widowed father

Suburban Connecticut, Fall 1957 into Winter 1958

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

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Todd Haynes’ 1950s-set Far From Heaven paid homage to Douglas Sirk’s visually stunning mid-century melodramas like All That Heaven Allows, Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession, and Written on the Wind, addressing themes of love, class, and race, often against stunningly idyllic autumnal backdrops that belie the intense personal dramas beyond those white picket fences and manicured lawns.

After years of semi-satisfied suburban life, well-to-do housewife Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) finds herself in a maelstrom of conflict after discovering her husband’s homosexuality as well as her own feelings for Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert), the son of her family’s late gardener whose race has her “friends” and neighbors clutching their proverbial pearls in reaction to the developing relationship between the two.

What’d He Wear?

The 1950s saw an increase in men dressed “down” in sportswear and workwear, even when not actively engaged in either. As a gardener, Raymond has reason to be frequently clad in his rugged work clothes, though his plaid zip-up jacket, flannel shirt, and coordinated trousers would be a relatively dressy casual outfit for many today.

Cathy’s friends’ whisperings have led to her insisting that they end their association despite the fact that he’s “been so very kind” to her; they may be passing under a marquee for the World War II drama The Bold and the Brave playing at the local theater, but she doesn’t have the fortitude to be either bold or brave against the town’s bigoted reaction. Earlier in the fall, Raymond had dressed in colorful primary colors that echoed the bright leaves around them but now—with their attempted relationship falling apart and the leaves having fallen from the trees—much of the color has been sapped from his clothing as he pulls together an outfit consisting mostly of earthy shades from olive to ochre.

Though not as vivid as his earlier outerwear like that mustard plaid coat, Raymond’s hunting jacket through these scenes is still an attractive example of where form effectively met function in mid-century workwear, driven by the quality garments produced by outdoor outfitters companies like Pendleton Woolen Mills, Hall American, Woolrich, and even Abercrombie & Fitch.

Raymond’s woolen twill work coat is patterned in a large-scaled bronze and olive plaid, detailed with tonally coordinated double-overchecks in olive and triple-overchecks in brown and black. The brass zipper begins a few inches above the hem, creating a squared skirt that allows greater range of movement when Raymond has the coat zipped. The zipper extends up to the shirt-style collar.

The ventless jacket has set-in pockets over the hips, each covered with a flap. The set-in sleeves are finished with a pointed semi-tab over the cuff that fastens through a single brown plastic two-hole sew-through button.

Note the well-made woolen twill constructing the shell of Raymond’s jacket as he grasps Cathy’s piled coat.

Raymond wears an olive-green woolen flannel long-sleeved shirt that coordinates with the rest of the outfit. (He had worn a similarly colored work shirt with the aforementioned mustard plaid coat, though that shirt was flecked and differently styled with a roomier fit and open chest pockets.)

This shirt’s point collar echoes the convertible collars of the U.S. Army’s woolen service shirts from this era, which could be effectively worn open-neck or buttoned up to fit a necktie, as it isn’t a flat camp collar like some of Raymond’s other work shirts. He wears the top button undone, showing the crew-neck of the light heathered gray cotton T-shirt he wears as an undershirt.

The structure of the shirt also suggests a service shirt, as do the two patch pockets over the chest with mitred-corner flaps that fasten through a single button. The shirt has button cuffs and a front placket.

A few weeks into the new year, Cathy comes to visit Raymond after she learns that his daughter Sarah (Jordan Puryear) had a rock thrown at her head by son’s friends. He pulls on this coat to go talk with her outside, wearing a pair of brown wool flat front trousers that better contrast with his shirt than the olive trousers he had worn for the outfit’s first appearance in the fall of 1957.

These trousers have slanted side pockets and belt loops, where he wears a wide dark brown leather belt that closes through a dulled brass square single-prong buckle.

Seen sparingly in the earlier sequence, Raymond had worn a pair of dark olive trousers that, while a shade darker than his shirt, still seem like they would have created too much of a “uniform” effect if worn without the jacket. His footwear appear to be his usual sturdy brown leather moc-toe derby-laced work boots.

Though not seen under the full sleeves of his jacket or buttoned shirt cuffs, Raymond likely wears his usual gold-cased wristwatch with its round white dial on a tan leather strap.

How to Get the Look

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

Reflecting the increasing popularity of outdoor-oriented clothing in non-work settings, Raymond Deagan dresses for these chilly interactions in layered flannel that would be a stylish casual look even more than 60 years after Far From Heaven is set.

• Bronze-and-olive plaid (with tonally coordinated double- and triple-overcheck) woolen twill hunting jacket with shirt-style collar, brass zip-up front, flapped hip pockets, and pointed semi-tab cuffs
• Olive-green woolen flannel work shirt with point collar, front placket, two chest pockets (with mitred button-down flaps), and button cuffs
• Light heathered gray cotton crew-neck short-sleeve T-shirt/undershirt
• Brown wool flat front trousers with belt loops and side pockets
• Thick brown leather belt with squared brass single-prong buckle
• Tan leather moc-toe derby-laced work boots
• Gold wristwatch with round white dial on tan leather strap (with gold single-prong buckle)

Some modern retailers and retro-minded brands cycle through coats like this in their lineups, but I think the best examples could be found by searching for ’50s-era wool hunting jackets from genuine vintage sellers or even eBay.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Have a proud life. Have a splendid life. Will you do that?

The post Dennis Haysbert’s Brown Plaid Jacket in Far From Heaven appeared first on BAMF Style.

Cary Grant as Victor, Earl of Rhyall, in The Grass is Greener (1960)

Vitals

Cary Grant as Victor, Earl of Rhyall, deadpan but debonair nobleman

Rural England, Spring 1960

Film: The Grass is Greener
Release Date: December 23, 1960
Director: Stanley Donen
Wardrobe Supervisor: John Wilson-Apperson

Background

Today marks the 35th anniversary since the death of screen legend and style icon Cary Grant. To commemorate the actor’s prolific career, I wanted to highlight his characteristically stylish clothing from one of his lesser-discussed works, the Stanley Donen-directed romantic comedy The Grass is Greener.

While The Grass is Greener isn’t among my favorite of Grant’s filmography, I can certainly appreciate its cast and style! The execution feels a little too stagey for my liking, which makes sense as it was adapted by Hugh Williams and Margaret Vyner from their own hit play, deriving its title from the centuries-old idiom that is paraphrased by Grant’s character when he admits that “indeed, the grass is always greener on the other side of the hedge.”

Grant plays Victor, the Earl of Rhyall, who opens the stately country manor he shares with Countess Hilary (Deborah Kerr) to guided tours in order to boost their falling fortune. The wealthy American oilman Charles Delacro (Robert Mitchum) visits the house during one of the tours, leading to an affair beginning with the romantic-minded countess. The mannered Earl opts not to react jealously to his wife’s infidelity with Charles, instead entertaining visits from their socialite friend Hattie (Jean Simmons) as mounting tensions in the love quadrangle boil into an old-fashioned duel between Victor and Charles.

What’d He Wear?

“As one ascends the social ladder, with its increasing demands for dress up, the odd or separate dinner jacket surfaces,” wrote Alan Flusser in Dressing the Man. “Paired with the conventional formal trouser, this nonmatching jacket surrogate is often a variation on the velvet-smoking-jacket theme and traditionally reserved for less grand affairs.”

Particularly in one of “the stately homes of England”, the dress code for an intimate dinner would permit the Earl to take a relaxed approach to black tie, especially considering that he likely defines entertaining the man who’s been having a dalliance with his wife as a “less grand affair”.

Victor dresses for dinner in a double-breasted dinner jacket made from a lush green velvet, perhaps reflecting the eponymous maxim or expressing the emotion that he’s “green with envy” on his literal sleeve. Of course, there’s also an argument to be made that green is simply the Earl’s go-to color, seen across the rest of his wardrobe including his cardigans and silk dressing gown. It’s also referenced when Charles spots Victor’s great-great-grandfather in a photo and observes, “say, he’s got a green coat on just like yours!” For a man who rigidly honors decorum, Victor would certainly delight in following the fashions of his forebears.

Victor’s perfectly tailored velvet jacket has been rigged accordingly for its role as a dinner coat, the trim shawl collar faced in black grosgrain silk, matching the coverings on the buttons. The double-breasted front is arranged in the 4×1-button “Kent”-style, with two rows of two buttons, though only the closer-positioned bottom row has a fastening button. The ventless jacket has gently padded shoulders, front darts to flattering sculpt the cut, and straight hip pockets but no breast pocket. Each sleeve is finished with two closely spaced buttons.

Victor (Cary Grant) and Hilary (Deborah Kerr) entertain their potential paramours Charles (Robert Mitchum) and Hattie (Jean Simmons).

Victor and Charles both wear evening shirts in white voile, a high-twist plain-weave cotton that results in a fine, lighter-wearing fabric, which would be particularly comfortable under the heavy velvet of Victor’s dinner jacket. Given that voile is a nearly sheer fabric, it’s typically reserved for the bodies and sleeves of men’s dinner shirts, with reinforced bibs that offer both modesty and a crisper white presentation in the part of the shirt that shows under a jacket. (You can read more about voile shirting at Bond Suits.)

On Victor’s shirt, made by Frank Foster, the pleated bib has two round diamond studs up the front, echoing the larger cuff links that fasten his squared single cuffs. The shirt also has a traditional long-pointed spread collar, double-layered like the cuffs. Victor wears a midnight blue silk bow tie in the traditional butterfly, or “thistle”, shape.

Charles and Victor strip down to their dinner shirts to allow more mobility when firing in their duel, overseen by Sellers.

Victor wears dark midnight blue reverse-pleated formal trousers with an appropriately long rise to Grant’s natural waist. Consistent with his more dressed-down kit and the fact that his double-breasted jacket offers ample coverage, he foregoes a waist covering unlike Charles, who wears a cummerbund with his dinner suit. The trousers have side-adjusters on each side of the waistband, adjusted by sliding a tab through the silver buckle. Vertical-entry pockets positioned along the seams just behind the standard silk side stripe, and the back-right pocket closes through a single button.

The trousers have an ample fit through the legs, finished with plain-hemmed bottoms that break over his black patent leather opera pumps. Also known as “court shoes”, these slip-on shoes with their grosgrain silk bows were once the most formal footwear options for both black and white tie dress codes. Men’s dress pumps generally fell out of fashion over the course of the 20th century in favor of oxfords, though they still had their place in the stately homes of England and Sir Hardy Amies was still celebrating them in his 1964 volume ABCs of Men’s Fashion as “correct wear with evening dress, especially if you are dancing.”

Victor’s pumps have midnight grosgrain bows that match the silk across the rest of his outfit, and even his thin dress socks may be made from a midnight blue silk, if not black.

Victor and Charles each don a pair of glasses for the duel, allowing for more accurate vision and eye protection for somewhat more responsible shooting… in an ultimately irresponsible situation. Victor likely wears Cary Grant’s own personal glasses, as the actor had started wearing these thick black-framed specs around this time and would continue sporting glasses like this through the rest of his life.

Victor’s glasses allow him to take a more careful aim during his duel with Charles.

After taking a bullet to his left arm during the duel, Victor recuperates by changing out of his velvet dinner jacket into his favorite dressing gown, a knee-length robe in olive green silk, patterned all over with scattered scarlet dots. The lightweight dressing gown has a shawl collar, breast pocket, hip pockets, and a sash-style belt, all made from the same silk as the rest of the robe.

Victor and Hilary craft a makeshift sling out of a navy silk scarf, patterned in a burgundy and bronze paisley print, which they loop over his neck and tie under his left arm to support his wounded wing.

Hilary tends to her wounded husband by helping him dress for comfort in his silk dressing gown with a silk makeshift sling.

The Gun

The dinner party evolves into a duel, suggested by Victor in accordance with his old-fashioned compulsion to defend his wife’s honor. “Swords or pistols?” asks Charles, to which Victor responds “I think pistols would be less tiring.”

The family butler, Sellers (Moray Watson), produces two handguns. Following a coin toss, Charles takes the Luger pistol, while Victor picks up a Webley .38 Mk IV “Duty Model” revolver, apropos his English heritage… though neither man realizes that Sellers loaded both weapons with blank ammunition.

“Since the government insists that nuclear weapons are a deterrent against war, surely they’d accept dueling as a deterrent against divorce.”

Webley & Scott had been producing top-break service revolvers since the 1880s, chambered for the massive .455 Webley cartridge. Following World War I, the British government sought smaller-bore alternatives to the .455 and, following extensive tests, concluded that the ideal round to balance power and portability would be a 200-grain .38-caliber cartridge. Webley thus scaled down the frame of the .455 Webley Mk IV revolver currently in service to develop the Webley .38 Mk IV, a cosmetically similar but smaller and lighter revolver that retained the self-extracting top-break mechanism of the classic Webleys but fired the new .38/200 cartridge, also known as the .38 S&W.

Much to Webley & Scott’s dismay, the British government took the design to the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield (RSAF Enfield), who mimicked it to produce the service revolver that would be designated “No. 2 Mk I” upon its introduction in 1932. Webley & Scott responded to the slight by suing the government, and the storied firm would have the last laugh when RSAF Enfield was unable to match the needed demand to arm British troops with the No. 2 revolver during World War II… resulting in the Webley .38 Mk IV being ultimately authorized alongside it for British Army service. Enfield would produce approximately 270,000 No. 2 revolvers over 25 years or production, with Webley & Scott producing nearly twice as many .38 Mk IV revolvers, ending production in 1978.

The Webley .38 Mk IV was produced in multiple barrel lengths, including the full 4.9″-barreled version, a 4″-barreled “Duty” model, and the compact 3″-barreled “Pocket” model. Victor appears to have the “Duty” model with a four-inch barrel.

What to Imbibe

“As a matter of fact, I’ve a very good brandy, but I’m saving that for Charles and myself,” Victor declares to the group, and he appears to have poured out snifters for Charles and himself following their billiards match. The “Co-” visible at the beginning of the label suggested Courvoisier, but the label doesn’t appear to be recognizable as Courvoisier beyond that, and it may just be a stock “Cognac” prop label.

Regardless of the producer, brandy continues to be the Earl’s drink of choice even after the duel, when Charles exclaims “You can’t just sit around with a bullet hole in you, drinkin’ brandy!”

After Charles and Hattie leave to fetch the doctor that will treat the Earl’s wounded arm, Victor and Hilary rekindle their romance over glasses of champagne that he had ordered earlier in the day. The distinctive dark green bottles with their gold-wrapped necks and yellow labels suggests Veuve Clicquot, the refined French champagne dating back to the 1770s. Following Madame Clicquot’s innovations like introducing vintages and blended rosé, the brand introduced its now-signature yellow label in the late 19th century.

Victor raises a glass to reconciliation while enjoying a quiet moment with Hilary following their chaotic evening with Charles and Hattie.

Throughout the evening, the foursome take advantage of the well-stocked bar cart that had been wheeled into the drawing room. Most drink brandy at one point in the evening, with the exception of Hattie, who diverges from her usual concoction of Pink Gin with “burned” bitters to drink Wolfschmidt Kümmel.

A colorless liqueur flavored by caraway seed, kümmel originated in the Netherlands during the late 16th century, eventually drifting east to Russia and Germany, specifically the latter which remains its most prominent country of production today. Kümmel experience has been compared to gin, albeit with a more calming effect that has popularized it as a post-prandial digestif as well as a favorite “putting mixture” among Scottish golfers.

Hattie pours herself a small wine glass of kümmel produced by Wolfschmidt, once a modest purveyor of clear spirits like gin and vodka that has spent the last several decades descending the shelves at your local liquor store to the point that now can one purchase a plastic handle of Wolfschmidt vodka for around $15.

Given her elevated emotional state, one could understand why Hattie turns to drinking kümmel while dining with Victor and Hilary.

How to Get the Look

Cary Grant as Victor, Earl of Rhyall, in The Grass is Greener (1960)

The dignified and debonair Earl dresses appropriately for a small dinner party at his stately home, accommodating the setting-influenced black tie dress code but swapping out the traditional dinner jacket for a still-elegant double-breasted jacket in dark green velvet. His pump shoes, while once the most formal evening footwear, also suggest a slipper-like intimacy appropriate for the soirée of four.

• Dark green velvet double-breasted dinner jacket with grosgrain-faced shawl collar, grosgrain-covered 4×1-button front, straight hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and ventless back
• White cotton voile evening shirt with spread collar, pleated bib (with diamond studs) and single cuffs (with diamond links)
• Midnight-blue silk butterfly/thistle-shaped bow tie
• Midnight-blue single reverse-pleated formal trousers with silk side stripe, silver-buckle side adjusters, on-seam side pockets, button-through back-right pocket, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black patent leather dress pump shoes with grosgrain bows
• Midnight-blue silk dress socks
• Black-framed glasses

Have you considered a green velvet jacket for any upcoming holiday soirees? While I like the smoking jacket-adjacent aesthetic of Cary Grant’s screen-worn shawl-collar double-breasted, there are plenty of affordable varieties you could explore to experiment with elegance:

• Alfani single-breasted notch-lapel jacket in green velvet (Macy’s, $118)
• Dobell shawl-collar single-button dinner jacket in dark green velvet (Dobell, $199.95)
• Gianni Feraud double-breasted jacket in green velvet (ASOS, $51.50)
• Zara single-breasted peak-lapel dinner jacket in dark green velvet (Zara, $149)

All prices and availability updated as of Nov. 22, 2021.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Marriage isn’t like a tray of hors d’oeuvres, you can’t just pick what you fancy, you’ve got to take the lot or nothing.

The post The Grass is Greener: Cary Grant’s Velvet Dinner Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Tom Neal behind the wheel of a ’41 Lincoln as Al Roberts in Detour (1945)

Vitals

Tom Neal as Al Roberts, hitchhiking nightclub pianist

Across the United States, especially Arizona to California, Spring 1945

Film: Detour
Release Date: November 30, 1945
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Wardrobe Designer: Mona Barry

Background

On the last day of #Noirvember, let’s also kick off #CarWeek with a look at one of the best examples of “road noir” with Detour, the enduring B-movie that saw a limited release 76 years ago today on November 30, 1945, just over two weeks after its initial premiere in Boston.

Martin M. Goldsmith worked with an uncredited Martin Mooney to adapt his own 1939 novel of the same name into a screenplay. Known as “the King of PRC” for his reputation as an efficient director working for the Poverty Row studio Producers Releasing Corporation, the Austrian-born Edgar G. Ulmer filmed Detour in less than a month in the summer of 1945, with a shoestring budget of less than $100,000; for comparison, this was less than 10% of the final budget for that year’s winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, The Lost Weekend. (Perhaps overstating his efficiency, Ulmer would later cite that he made the movie in six days for $20,000.)

Detour was my gateway to film noir, thanks to a multi-pack DVD that I was gifted in high school that included many pulp classics like D.O.A., The Hitchhiker, Quicksand, and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, many of which—like Detour—were regularly available in budget-friendly home video releases as they had fallen into the public domain. Clocking in at just over an hour, the story may be simple, but it contains all the characteristic noir themes and stock characters, including the femme fatale (and how!) and the wrongly accused man whose questionable ethics and unfortunate circumstances launch him headway into increasingly dangerous circumstances.

Al Roberts (Tom Neal) is a down-on-his-luck pianist who decides to leave New York City to join his singer girlfriend Sue (Claudia Drake) in Hollywood. Hitchhiking across the country, Al thumbs a ride in Arizona from prosperous bookie Charles Haskell Jr. (Edmund MacDonald), who agrees to take him the rest of the way until a roadside accident results in Haskell cracking his skull. Assuming he would be blamed for the man’s murder, Al makes the fateful decision to steal Haskell’s identity—and his Lincoln, which was Ulmer’s personal car that he leant to the production—until he could at least make it to Los Angles and “be swallowed up” by the southern California megapolis.

Cruising through the desert en route L.A. and Sue, Al makes yet another fateful decision as he picks up a fellow hitchhiker, a young hellcat named Vera (Ann Savage) who “looked as if she’d just been thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world.” Vera appears to have settled in for a quiet nap during the ride until she barks:

Where did you leave his body? Where did you leave the owner of this car?!

And just like that, everything gets a little more interesting… and, for Al Roberts, more dangerous.

What’d He Wear?

The Tuxedo

Al begins the story as a pianist for Sue’s backing band at the Break O’Dawn Club in New York City. The story establishes that Al doesn’t have much money, so it’s a telling sartorial detail for the era that a guy who barely had two pennies to rub together could still look so polished in his fashionable dinner suits, even if it’s one the club provided for him.

Likely made from a black or midnight blue wool, Al’s tuxedo consists of a double-breasted dinner jacket with grosgrain silk-faced peak lapels, with a close wrap fastened by a single row of buttons on the 4×1-button front. The wide-shouldered jacket has four-button cuffs, jetted hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket where he wears a white linen kerchief. His white shirt is self-striped with a raised pincord detailing, styled with a long point collar and double (French) cuffs. He also wears a black grosgrain silk bow tie in a narrow butterfly (or thistle) shape and black leather cap-toe oxfords.

Al, dressed in his musician’s monkey suit.

Al doesn’t wear a trench coat like the archetypal noir protagonist, instead layering against Gotham’s evening chill in a herringbone wool fly-front coat with edge-stitched notch lapels and a napped felt fedora with a low, non-pinched crown.

Despite the fog, this was as good as it got for Al and Sue.

The Hitchhiking Suit

Al leaves the Big Apple behind and takes to the road in a mid-colored flannel twill suit. The tailoring is consistent with the early-to-mid 1940s, like the single-breasted jacket rigged with wide, padded shoulders. The three-button jacket has wide-notched lapels, a welted breast pocket, jetted hip pockets, and four-button cuffs. The matching trousers have a flat front and belt loops, where Al wears a likely brown leather belt closed through a single-prong buckle.

The rigors of the road take their toll on what may have once been a nice suit, particularly expressed by the way Al wears it with his white shirt wide open at the neck with the loosened tie hanging low. The white cotton shirt has a long point collar, button cuffs, and two button-through chest pockets. The tie is styled in an all-over pattern of diamonds against a dark ground.

Wearing a suit to hitchhike may be laughable today (as well as the very idea of hitchhiking… thanks to movies like this), but the standards of men’s style in the mid-’40s meant anything wearing anything less than a suit could have marked Al as a vagrant or other non-desirable passenger. Still, he panics after Haskell’s death about “my clothes! The owner of such an expensive car would never be wearing ’em. Some cop might pull me in on suspicion.”

Al’s twill suiting can be seen in greater detail in this promotional portrait of Ann Savage and Tom Neal for Detour.

In Martin M. Goldsmith’s source novel, the protagonist—named Alexander Roth—is frequently described wearing much more casual clothing on the road, specifically a maroon polo shirt and ragged blue trousers, determining that “wearing the clothes I had on would not look kosher for the owner of such an expensive car” after Haskell’s death.

Roth’s narration also references “two suits and working tux” that he hocked in order to finance his cross-country wanderings. When the narration switches to Sue, she’s more deriding of his suits, dismissing them as “his customary $19.95 specials.”

Haskell’s Suits

Al swaps out his raggedy duds for Haskell’s clothing, first choosing the sporty light-colored herringbone suit, white shirt, and dark knitted tie that the sharp Haskell had been wearing at the time of his death.

Haskell, wearing his light herringbone sport suit behind the wheel of his Lincoln… before Al Roberts would assume his identity, wheels, and wardrobe the following day.

After stopping at a motel, Al changes into a plaid suit that he would wear through the end of the movie. The suiting is a small-scaled variation of the houndstooth check known as “puppy-tooth”, with a lighter-colored triple-stripe over-check.

Having shaved and freshened up in Haskell’s clothes, Al tries to lose himself in the City of Angels… his plans unraveled after meeting the vivacious Vera.

As expected for the flashy and fashionable Haskell, this suit echoes the preeminent styles of the mid-1940s, particularly before the prosperity of the post-World War II years brought the double-breasted suit fully back en vogue.

Haskell’s single-breasted suit jacket again has wide, padded shoulders, with broad notch lapels rolling to a two-button front positioned over his natural waist to harmonize with the fashionably long rise of his trousers. As with the herringbone suit, this jacket is ventless. The jetted hip pockets appear to lack flaps, and he wears another white linen display kerchief in the breast pocket. Each sleeve is finished with four buttons on the cuff.

Al and Vera move into their new L.A. digs.

The double reverse-pleated suit trousers fit Al Roberts well, rising to his natural waist, where he holds them up with a dark leather belt despite the presence of sets of two buttons on each side of the front and the center of the back, presumably to fit suspenders (braces).

The trousers have straight pockets positioned vertically along each side seam, jetted back pockets with a button to close the left one, and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottom. A keychain attached to the belt loop immediately to the right of the trouser fly—and aligned with the first pleat—has a long chain that presumably connects to a set of keys that Al keeps in his right side pocket.

Long, hot, whiskey-soaked nights with Al and Vera.

Haskell’s white shirt has a considerably baggier fit on Al Roberts, though it’s possible that this was more representative of the roomier fits of the ’40s than a suggestion that Haskell was burlier than Roberts. The shirt has a substantial spread collar, though more restrained than the collar points on Al’s own shirt, and a single breast pocket that distinguishes it as dressier than the two-pocket shirt Al had worn for his journey to this point.

Al chooses a subdued dark poplin tie from Haskell’s wardrobe, noded into a bulky Windsor knot that fills the space between collar points. Like much neckwear of the era, the tie is relatively short so that the tip of the blade meets the higher rise of his trousers.

Al prepares his refreshed appearance after taking on the identity of the wealthier Charles Haskell Jr.

Al presumably swaps out his own shoes for Haskell’s, which appear to be a pair of cap-toe oxfords in a dark leather that was likely a dark shade of brown rather than black. He also wears dark socks.

How would this plot twist be addressed in a modern remake, set in the world of wireless phones?

Al seems to keep wearing his own hat, a medium-shaded felt fedora with a black grosgrain band and self-edged brim. The crown is pinched in the front, though it also appears somewhat misshapen around the back.

A grumpy Al considers his fate in a Reno diner, with little time to entertain the gregarious truck driver (Pat Gleason).

Once again returning to the descriptions in Martin M. Goldsmith’s source novel, we learn that Haskell was dressed at the time of his death in expensive gray tweeds, described as a three-piece suit. Following Roth’s night in the state-line motel, he changes into “a single-breasted blue herringbone tweed, a honey of a tailoring job with patch pockets in the coat and high-waisted trousers. The stuff I had on the day before was still in good shape, of course, but well… you know how you feel about wearing things a man’s been dead in.”

In addition to the suit, Roth describes pulling on “a pair of his silk shorts, a clean pair of socks, one of his shirts with the initials ‘C.J.H.’ embroidered on the pocket, the least annoying of his ties…” Roth also attempts to learn what he can about his new identity by rifling Haskell’s clothing:

Whatever had a label in it had a New York label. His shirts and shorts were Lord and Taylor, his ties and pajamas Finchley or Sulka, and the shoes he had packed were Florsheim. The bathrobe, a big woolly thing, had a J. Abercrombie label.

The Car

“You’re not foolin’ anyone, this buggy belongs to a guy named Haskell… that’s not you, mister!” our fiery femme fatale Vera rightly accuses Al Roberts after she spends a few minutes curled up in the cockpit of that 1941 Lincoln Continental convertible. As stated, the Lincoln had belonged to director Edgar G. Ulmer, who chose to lend his personal car to the production to save budget.

Indeed, such a sleek ride with its customized parts reinforces the class difference between the wealthy Charles Haskell Jr. and the road-weary Al Roberts. American automobile production had been mostly discontinued during World War II to redirect efforts and parts toward war materiel, so Haskell’s 1941 Lincoln with its 1942 components would have been the nearest equivalent to a new car to be seen cruising the United States during the summer of 1945.

Al approaches the California border in Haskell’s 1941 Lincoln Continental.

The Continental originated after Edsel Ford returned from a 1938 trip to Europe. Inspired by the sleek designs of European automobiles, Ford consulted with Lincoln’s design team to develop a sophisticated luxury car that, apropos its eventual nomenclature, would have a more continental bearing than most American cars.

Following a prototype built from a streamlined Lincoln-Zepyhr convertible in 1939 that became Edsel Ford’s personal car, the Continental formally debuted for the 1940 model year, boasting European-influenced styling like rear-mounted spare tires. All Continentals were powered by the Lincoln-Zephyr V12 engine, its displacement having been increased to 292 cubic inches for 1940.

For the final model year of “prewar” production in 1942, all Lincolns were redesigned with squared fenders and updated grilles. Ulmer’s ’41 Continental Model 65 leant to the Detour production was customized with these squared rear fenders from a 1942 model, as well as other modifications like a unique front bumper and small parking lights atop the front fenders.

Al drives Haskell’s 1941 Lincoln Continental through the California state line. Note the rear-mounted spare tire, a Continental signature that was influenced by Edsel Ford’s European vacation in the late ’30s.

1941 Lincoln Continental Model 65

Body Style: 2-door convertible cabriolet

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

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

Power: 120 hp (89 kW; 122 PS) @ 3500 RPM

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

Transmission: 3-speed manual

Wheelbase: 125 inches (3175 mm)

Length: 209.8 inches (5329 mm)

Width: 75 inches (1905 mm)

Height: 62 inches (1575 mm)

Production was halted partway through the 1942 model year, not to be resumed until after the war when the 1946 Continental was reintroduced with the same V12 engine but with a facelift by noted industrial designer Raymond Loewy.

This first generation of Continentals would only be produced through 1948, the last mass-produced American car to be powered by a V12 engine. The Continental nameplate would return in 1956, once again Ford Motor Company’s flagship through the end of the 20th century.

Al and Vera take the customized Continental to a used auto lot in the hopes of ridding themselves of such a conspicuous car as well as boosting Vera’s savings. She takes offense to the salesman’s offers of $1,600, raised to $1,850 even though “this motor has seen a lot of driving.” Even Al admits that “the car doesn’t book for as much as I thought,” especially considering that its cost when new would have been about a thousand dollars more. (According to the Henry Ford Museum‘s records of a similarly customized 1941 Continental valued at $2,778, nearly double the average annual wages brought in by a 1941 worker.)

Riding with the top down, Haskell offers a fateful ride to the down-and-out Al Roberts.

Martin M. Goldsmith described Haskell’s “buggy” in his 1939 source novel as a large gray Buick roadster, only about a year old, with a rumble seat, running boards, leather upholstery, and a manual transmission.

What to Imbibe

Vera: We’re outta liquor, Roberts… too bad. I felt like gettin’ tight tonight.
Al: Well, I think you succeeded.
Vera: Am I tight?
Al: As a prima donna’s corset.

Holed up in their Hollywood apartment, Al and Vera take pulls from a pint of Schenley, an 86-proof blended whiskey. Schenley was a product of Schenley Distillers Company, a liquor company organized during the roaring ’20s by entrepreneur Lewis Rosenstiel.

The Volstead Act was still in effect, but Rosenstiel had acquired government licenses to produce whiskey for “medicinal purposes” and was well positioned for success when Prohibition ended in December 1933. Indeed, from 1934 through 1937, Schenley was the largest liquor company in the United States, with a range of whiskey offerings like Golden Wedding rye, I.W. Harper bourbon, James E. Pepper bourbon, Old Quaker, and the eponymous Schenley varieties of American rye and Canadian whisky.

Before and after: Vera drains the Schenley pretty fast.

Martin M. Goldsmith’s source novel specifically calls out that Vera purchased two pints of Ten High for the duo to work through in their rented rooms. This Illinois-distilled whiskey had been introduced shortly after the repeal of Prohibition in the mid-1930s. When production moved to Kentucky a half-century later, Ten High was reclassified as a bourbon.

How to Get the Look

Tom Neal, looking every bit the pulp noir protagonist as Al Roberts in Detour (1945)

Whether you want to look respectable for a day at the office or thumbing rides to California, just make sure you obtain your kit through more legitimate means than undressing it from an acquaintance who just split his head on a roadside rock.

• Puppytooth check wool suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with wide notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Double forward-pleated long-rise trousers with belt loops, suspender buttons, on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets (with back-left button), and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with spread collar, plain front, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Dark poplin Windsor-knotted tie
• Dark brown leather belt with squared single-prong buckle
• Dark brown leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Black socks
• Medium felt fedora with dark grosgrain band and self-edged brim

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. Due to Detour falling into the public domain, there’s an abundance of cheap copies both on home video and streaming, but the painstakingly restored Criterion Collection release is the best. (For fans of the film, I also recommend Robert Polito’s 2019 extensively researched essay for Criterion, “Some Detours to Detour“.)

Bona fide badass Ann Savage lives up to her surname as Vera, the femme fatale that seals Al Roberts’ fate the moment she steps into his commandeered Lincoln. Only 24 when the movie was made, Savage delivers a cynical, worldly performance that elevates Detour above most Poverty Row output. She essentially left Hollywood behind by the mid-1950s, maintaining a colorful life and receiving her pilot’s license in 1979 at the age of 58. Both Ulmer and Neal had died by the time Detour became the subject of a positive reappraisal later in the 20th century, renewing interest in Savage’s career that led to rounds of public appearances before her 2008 death and a posthumous biography, Savage Detours: The Life and Work of Ann Savage.

Neal, a former boxer, stifles his real-life aggression for his role in Detour but would go on to infamy after an abusive affair with Barbara Peyton that led to a much-publicized brawl with Franchot Tone and ultimately a conviction for manslaughter after he shot his third wife, Gale Bennett, in 1965. Seven years later, Neal died of heart failure, and his corpse was discovered by his son, Tom Neal Jr., who later reprised his father’s famous role in a largely unnecessary Detour remake released in 1992.

The Quote

That’s life… whichever way you turn, fate sticks out a foot to trip you.

The post Detour: Tom Neal’s Borrowed Clothes and Borrowed Lincoln appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jason Statham as the Ford Torino-driving Nick Wild in Wild Card (2015)

Vitals

Jason Statham as Nick Wild, tough security consultant and bodyguard-for-hire

Las Vegas, Christmas 2013

Film: Wild Card
Release Date: January 14, 2015
Director: Simon West
Costume Designer: Lizz Wolf

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Car Week continues into December with a little-discussed action movie that—like The Bourne Identity and Three Days of the Condor—is set during against a Christmas backdrop complete with carols on the soundtrack, though the holiday timing has little impact on the plot. (I don’t include Die Hard in this category because, as many have argued, Christmas is the reason for the whole plot!)

Reviving a role originated by Burt Reynolds in William Goldman’s 1986 movie Heat, Jason Statham plays Nick Wild, a “security consultant” for Las Vegas lawyer Pinchus “Pinky” Zion (Jason Alexander), who makes his daily commute from a seedy motel in a snazzy ’69 Ford Torino.

Arriving at work one December morning, Nick meets his latest prospective client, the boastful 23-year-old Cyrus Kinnick (Michael Angarano), who posits himself as a master gambler and wants to retain Nick’s bodyguard services. The rest of the morning introduces the regulars in Nick’s life, from the greasy-spoon waitress Roxy (Anne Heche) to his friend Holly (Dominik García-Lorido), who reports that she’s been beaten and raped by a gang led by gangster Danny DeMarco (Milo Ventimiglia).

After all the grappling and gambling you’d expect of a Jason Statham movie set in Las Vegas, we catch up again with Nick at the Silver Spoon diner several days later, where Cyrus pays him for his life lessons with a plane ticket to Corsica and a $500,000 check… if only they were enough to spirit Nick away from the diner where he’s been cornered by DeMarco and his thugs with murder on their mind. Will a butter knife and a spoon be enough for Nick to fight his way out one last time?

What’d He Wear?

When “on duty” as a bodyguard, Nick dresses the part of a badass bruiser in a black leather sport jacket, but his off-duty daily attire is anchored by softer brown casual jackets, first a tobacco-hued suede bomber for the opening vignette (though he’s still technically on the job) and then a darker brown corduroy car coat that seems to be his personal go-to for his mornings of banter, breakfast, and beat-downs.

Clad in his brown corduroy car coat, Nick Wild ends his dispute with Danny DeMarco once and for all.

The hip-length coat is constructed from a brown standard-wale corduroy, a comfortably rugged cloth that fits Nick Wild’s demeanor: soft and sympathetic to his friends but as tough and resilient as it gets.

Nick’s jacket has an ulster-style collar, the bottom folded over like a lapel that rolls to three large buttons of dark brown woven leather, widely spaced down the front. The jacket also has flapped side pockets, double vents, and set-in sleeves that are finished with dark brown leather trim around the edges of each cuff.

At the Silver Spoon diner, Nick wakes himself up by squeezing a grapefruit into a glass to make his own juice.

The first time we see Nick Wild wearing this corduroy jacket, he wears it over two comfortably layered shirts. The outer shirt is a gray waffle-knit long-sleeved henley with set-in sleeves and fastened with a four-button placket. Known alternatively as “honeycomb” or “thermal”, the uniquely textured waffle fabric is known for its absorbent and insulating qualities.

Assuming that Nick’s crew-neck undershirt is the same white cotton short-sleeved T-shirt we had seen him wearing when he woke up in his motel, the back is printed with a dark blue graphic illustrated with two pinup-style women over the left shoulder blade and some Fraktur lettering across the top that may indicate the brand.

When Nick rolls over onto his back, we see that the front is unadorned, making it more effective as an undershirt than other graphic tees.

The design of Nick’s T-shirt reminded me of the Affliction and Ed Hardy craze from years earlier.

For the final act, during which he takes on DeMarco’s henchmen in the alley behind the Silver Spoon (with little more than a spoon himself!), Nick wears a burgundy corduroy button-up shirt.

Though this long-sleeved shirt is corded like his jacket, the wale width is much slimmer, with more cords per inch consistent with the style known alternatively as “needlecord” or “pinwale” in reference to the narrow ridges in the cotton cloth, more compatible for shirting than the wider-waled jacket. The front placket, barrel cuffs, and two flapped chest pockets are fastened with black recessed plastic sew-through buttons, with two buttons on each squared pocket flap to close each corner.

Nick finds alternative uses for diner cutlery during a back-alley scuffle.

Nick wears dark blue denim jeans, slim through the legs and styled in the traditional five-pocket layout. Through the jeans’ belt loops, he wears a very dark brown leather belt that closes through a large silver-toned single-prong buckle.

Rather than the distinctive alligator-skin engineer boots that he wears while working as a bodyguard, Nick’s everyday boots are a more subdued pair with burnished mahogany uppers and black leather soles. These plain-toe boots appear to have zippers along the inside to fasten them, though much of the boots are covered by the hems of his jeans.

Nick’s sunglasses are the classic square-framed aviators that American Optical had developed in the late 1950s to meet the U.S. Air Force Type HGU-4/P standard for flight goggles. Appropriately designated the Flight Goggle 58 (you can guess why), these lightweight sunglasses are characterized by their semi-rectangular frames and straight “bayonet”-style temples designed to smoothly slip behind a flight helmet and oxygen mask.

The gold-finished sunglasses worn in Wild Card may be the classic AO Eyewear “Original Pilot” FG-58, or they may be a set produced by Randolph Engineering, who was contracted by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1982 to produce the HGU-4/P for the military. Both the AO Eyewear and Randolph USA aviators are still available for purchase today, more than a half-century after the design was introduced.

Whether you’re piloting a fighter jet or muscle car, you can’t go wrong from behind a pair of HGU-4/P aviators.

Under his shirts, Nick wears a thin silver necklace with a large silver pendant of a cross overlaying an upward-facing arrow, flanked on each side by an angel’s wing.

The Car

Nick Wild drives a champagne gold 1969 Ford Torino GT SportsRoof fastback, one of the less celebrated muscle cars in a year crowded with challengers* like the Chevy Camaro, Dodge Charger, Pontiac GTO, and Ford’s own Mustang, to name just a few.

Nick steps out to his ’69 Ford Torino GT, the champagne gold paint shining from the motel parking lot.

While retooling its flagship Fairlaine for the 1968 model year, Ford introduced the upscale Torino sub-model. Inspired by Turin—”the Italian Detroit”—Ford had initially considered Torino as the name for the Mustang.

Given the standard six-cylinder engine and body styles ranging from hardtops to station wagons, not all Torinos were necessarily performance-oriented, but the “Torino GT” nameplate offered sportier two-door body styles like a convertible and the new “SportsRoof” hardtop, all powered solely by V8 engines.

The standard Torino GT engine was Ford’s small-block 302 cubic-inch Windsor V8, with options that increased in size up to the 428 cubic-inch 4V Cobra Jet V8, rated at 335 horsepower. For 1969, the 428 Cobra Jet remained but was superseded in power by the drag-inspired 428 Super Cobra Jet. Three-speed manual transmissions were standard on all Torino GTs, with the “Cruise-O-Matic” automatic transmission optional across all engines and the four-speed manual available as an option for once engines reached 351 cubic inches or larger. The Torino GT was 1969’s most popular variant, accounting for more than 60% of all Torinos produced that year.

Nick Wild’s Torino GT has a nameplate on the scoop, indicating an engine size of at least 351 cubic inches or larger, and we see it’s mated to a manual transmission, likely the standard three-speed Borg Warner.

1969 Ford Torino GT SportsRoof

Body Style: 2-door fastback

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

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

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

Torque: 355 lb·ft (481 N·m) @ 2600 RPM

Transmission: 3-speed manual

Wheelbase: 116 inches (2946 mm)

Length: 201 inches (5105 mm)

Width: 74.6 inches (1895 mm)

Height: 53.6 inches (1361 mm)

The Torino’s popularity influenced Ford’s decision to a make a moniker switch for 1970, as the Fairlaine was now a subseries of the Torino model. Taking its cues from competition like the Corvette and Charger, the Torino was redesigned by Bill Shenk to follow the “coke bottle styling” of the era.

After yet another design evolution in 1972, a late-model red Ford Gran Torino with a large white vector stripe was chosen as the eponymous leads’ iconic car in the ’70s detective series Starsky & Hutch, but even television fame wasn’t enough to save the Torino from extinction as 1976 marked the last model year.

How to Get the Look

Jason Statham as Nick Wild in Wild Card (2015)

When not dressing to reinforce his role as a mob-connected tough guy, Nick chooses rugged, comfortable casual staples, layering for soft warmth that still presents enough of an edge for a guy you’d expect to be cruising Sin City in a classic muscle car.

• Brown standard-wale corduroy car coat with ulster-style lapels, three dark brown woven leather buttons, flapped hip pockets, double vents, and set-in sleeves with leather-trimmed cuffs
• Gray waffle-knit thermal long-sleeve 4-button henley
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve T-shirt (with dark blue graphic across back)
• Dark blue denim slim-leg jeans
• Dark brown wide leather belt with large silver-toned single-prong buckle
• Burnished mahogany zip-side plain-toe ankle boots
• Gray cotton boxer briefs
• Gold-finished HGU-4/P semi-rectangular aviator sunglasses with straight “bayonet” temples
• Silver-toned “angel wings” pendant on thin silver necklace

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Well, I been knocked down, blown up, lied to, shit on, and shut out… so nothin’ surprises me much anymore, except the things that people do to each other.

The post Wild Card: Jason Statham’s Corduroy Car Coat and Ford Torino appeared first on BAMF Style.

Robert Redford as Martin Bishop, seated in his Karmann Ghia in Sneakers (1992)

Vitals

Robert Redford as Martin Bishop (formerly Martin Brice), digital security consultant and fugitive hacker

San Francisco, Fall 1991

Film: Sneakers
Release Date: September 11, 1992
Director: Phil Alden Robinson
Costume Designer: Bernie Pollack

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Robert Redford looks like he’s having a great time in Sneakers, Phil Alden Robinson’s 1992 crime comedy about a gang of professional computer hackers. Redford stars as Martin Brice, a digital “sneaker” who has spent more than 20 years on the lam legitimizing his talent to become a security consultant, re-christened Martin Bishop. His background leads to recruitment by two men claiming to work for the NSA, forcing Martin and his team to take on a dubiously legitimate job.

Despite its subject matter, Sneakers never feels excessively dated as it focuses less on the technical aspects of digital hacking and more on the camaraderie among Redford’s motley band, consisting of Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, David Strathairn, River Phoenix, and Mary McDonnell. Redford’s character zips through the City by the Bay in a classic Karmann Ghia convertible, weathered but reliable like the then-56-year-old actor himself.

The movie had long been on my radar, thanks to my long-time Redford fandom and requests by BAMF Style readers like Luca and Ryan. I’d even picked up a bargain-bin DVD, but I hesitated to hit the play button; as much as I like Redford, I’d been less than impressed by his ’90s-era movies like Havana, a stylish but swollen Casablanca wannabe, and Indecent Proposal, which was less indecent than it was unentertaining. (These are just my opinions, of course!)

Despite its production smack dab between these two, Sneakers impressed me as a fun way to spend two hours. My first thought was that Sneakers was essentially the Steely Dan of movies: despite being technically proficient and packed with talent, it may not always come to the top of mind as a favorite movie… but your dad probably likes it.

What’d He Wear?

One of the most frequently seen pieces from Redford’s utilitarian screen wardrobe in Sneakers is a varsity jacket, appropriately introduced when we meet the young Martin Brice (Gary Hershberger) in December 1969 as a young “sneaker” at Union College, coincidentally the same institution used in The Way We Were to again portray a younger Redford receiving his higher education.

Varsity jackets are alternately known as “letter jackets”, as illustrated by when we first see Martin’s jacket, emblazoned with an embroidered “U” over the left breast and a “74” over the right forearm, the former indicating the name of the college and the latter likely suggesting his intended year of graduation. These jackets had been pioneered at Harvard after the Civil War, developed to reward skilled baseball players before they became widely adopted across many universities and athletic programs.

The college-aged Martin youthfully appoints his jacket by layering it over a gray hoodie and a gray horizontally block-striped polo shirt. (Though cosmetically similar to the jacket he would later wear, there are subtle differences like the tan leather welts over the slanted pocket openings and the beige striping on the waist hem.)

The collegiate Martin (Gary Hershberger) wears a varsity jacket emblazoned with his alma mater and prospective graduation date, though the latter is no longer an option after the police nearly bust him during an evening “sneak” with Cosmo (Jo Marr).

More than 20 years later, the varsity jacket is still Martin Brice’s go-to outerwear, though he’s understandably abandoned the Union College jacket which could potentially belie his true identity.

The latter-seen jacket follows traditional varsity jacket styling, with its two-color/two-material construction of a dark navy blue boiled wool body and light brown leather sleeves, echoing the colorway of the button-up baseball jacket Redford had worn nearly a decade earlier as Roy Hobbs, a 1930s power hitter for the fictional New York Knights in The Natural. (An IMDB trivia entry states that Redford wears the same jacket in Sneakers, though the many style differences between the two clarify that this is not true.)

The jacket has seven nickel snaps up the front, with the surfaces finished in a dark blue to match the boiled wool body, and the bottom two snaps closely spaced on the waistband while the remaining five are equally spaced up to the neck. Many varsity jackets, including the one Martin wears in 1969, have leather-detailed hand pockets, though the pockets on Martin’s “present day” jacket are welted with the same boiled wool as the jacket body.

Martin doesn’t seem too impressed with the NSA after he’s introduced to Dick Gordon (Timothy Busfield).

While some sartorial terms are illogical shorthand, the “boiled wool” used to create the navy blue jacket body is exactly that; the wool is agitated in hot water, cleansing and shrinking it to a dense and durable felt in a millennia-old process known as “fulling”. The jacket is often lined in a quilted satin through the body and sleeves.

The light brown leather sleeves are set-in at the shoulders, finished at the cuff with elasticized knitting banded in navy and brown, echoing the waist hem and collar.

Martin typically wears his varsity jacket with light blue denim Levi’s jeans, likely the classic 501® Original Fit with a button fly, straight leg, and five-pocket layout with the brand’s signature copper rivets and arcuate back-pocket stitch.

Martin steps out in his varying washes of light blue Levi’s.

Consistent with the jacket’s casual nature, Martin almost always wears it dressed down with comfortable cotton crew-neck T-shirts and sweatshirts. The first is a dark navy blue sweatshirt we see as Martin’s out on a “bank job” with his team, the first we see of him in the present day.

We see another crew-neck sweatshirt several scenes later, this time in a lighter teal-green cotton. Somewhat oversized with the set-in sleeves falling off Martin’s shoulders, he wears it tucked in and with the sleeves pushed up his forearms.

Martin and his partner Donald Crease (Poitier) drive to meet their contacts and turn over the “black box” recovered from Dr. Janek (Donal Logue). Under the varsity jacket he wears to the meeting, Martin wears a baggy heather gray cotton crew-neck shirt, though the lighter weight suggests a long-sleeved T-shirt rather than a sweatshirt like his others.

Once Martin and his team realize that their client wasn’t actually the NSA, he dresses for his rainy night on the lam by pulling on a trench coat rather than his characteristic varsity jacket.

The knee-length’s coat shell is the classic water-treated cotton gabardine in a light taupe, detailed with a gun flap over the right shoulder and a storm flap across the back as well as shoulder straps (epaulettes) fastened over the crest of each raglan sleeve. The coat’s double-breasted configuration consists of five rows of two buttons each (10×5), with a full belt around the waist that Martin wears undone throughout the sequence. The sleeves are tightened around each cuff with a belt that fastens through a leather-covered single-prong buckle. The coat also has slanted-entry side pockets, deep enough for Martin to store his .38 in the tradition of the traditional trench-wearing noir hero.

Martin’s baseball jacket would have been the more appropriate outerwear to keep wearing with such casual attire underneath, but the rumpled trench coat provides a desperate man-on-the-run aesthetic consistent with his behavior and justified paranoia in this sequence.

The movie’s title be damned, Martin’s go-to kicks aren’t sneakers but instead a pair of brown suede penny loafers, which he wears almost exclusively throughout Sneakers. (The significant exception would be the climactic sequence, when he wears lace-up brogues with his tweed sports coat, chambray work shirt, and pleated khakis… but we’ll look at that jacket another time!)

Worn with off-white socks, Martin’s slip-on loafers incorporate the styling points that have characterized them since G.H. Bass first introduced the “Weejun” in the 1930s, from the moc-toe stitching to the flat strap across the saddle with the “penny” slot.

As Cosmo (Ben Kingsley) and Martin have taken their respective lives in different directions, Martin’s regular fondness for casual attire—like jeans and penny loafers—communicate that he’s remained closer to the person he was in college. (This theory would be even more visually supported if Martin was wearing his varsity jacket instead of the trench coat…)

When Martin returns from being briefly kidnapped, his team helps him to retrace his steps to find Cosmo after an attempt to deal with the real NSA proves… unlikely. He changes into an olive green cotton long-sleeved shirt that, with its seven white buttons up the front placket, is the dressiest shirt he wears with the varsity jacket. The shirt has a breast pocket as well as barrel cuffs and gauntlets that each close through a button.

Redford had been wearing dive watches on screen since the early ’70s, when a Rolex Submariner could be spotted on his wrist in The Candidate, All the President’s Men, and The Electric Horseman, all bookending his Doxa in Three Days of the Condor. Following a break for period flicks and movies that called for different timepieces, Redford strapped on another diver for Sneakers.

Martin wears a stainless steel SEIKO 7A28-7049, a quartz chronograph introduced by SEIKO for their “Sports 100” line in 1983. Powered by a 15-jewel movement, this attractive watch has a black rotating bezel that flanks the matte black dial that boasts an outer tachymeter and three sub-registers at the 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions. The 38.5mm-diameter case is fastened to a tapered bar link bracelet.

As in his previous movie, Havana, Sneakers would be one of the few movies of Redford’s post-1966 filmography where he doesn’t wear the etched silver ring he received as a gift from a Hopi group. (The ring would be back on his right hand in time for Indecent Proposal the following year.)

The Gun

After learning that his team has likely been compromised, Martin arms himself with a Smith & Wesson Model 60 revolver with black Pachmayr grips, likely the same that his ex-CIA team member Donald Crease (Sidney Poitier) carries in a shoulder holster.

Martin checks the load in Donald’s Smith & Wesson Model 60 before packing it in the pocket of his trench coat.

When Smith & Wesson introduced the Model 60 in 1965, it was the first mass-produced revolver to be made of stainless steel. The five-shot Model 60 evolved as a variant of the Model 36 “Chiefs Special”, also built on Smith & Wesson’s compact J-frame, and was available only in .38 Special and with a “snub-nose” barrel of just under two inches.

After its first thirty years in production, the Model 60 was retooled in 1996 on the strengthened J-Magnum frame with a lengthened cylinder that could support .357 Magnum ammunition. Now available in both .357 Magnum and .38 Special, the reconfigured Model 60 models also included a 3″-barreled version in addition to the standard 2″ barrel, though the latter now technically measured just over two inches. Yet another barrel length would be made available when the 5″-barreled Model 60 was introduced in 2005.

The Car

Martin Bishop drives an orange 1967 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia convertible, its production dating back to his pre-fugitive days. While it’s never explicitly stated, it’s possible that the idealistic Martin had dreamed of owning one during his early days as a “sneaker” and finally obtained one after channeling his abilities to find success as a legitimate consultant.

Though it’s not a particularly powerful car, Martin’s nimble Karmann Ghia offers him the appropriate speed and handling to spirit away from his murderous faux-NSA pursuers.

A Karmann Ghia had previously been the subject of a BAMF Style Car Week blog post, specifically looking at the blue convertible driven by a denim-clad Brad Pitt in an early scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. As I explored in that post, the Karmann Ghia story began in the early 1950s as Volkswagen sought a sleek and stylish halo model to capitalize on the growing success of their rear-engine Type 1, or “Beetle”.

The eventual result, revealed to the world in 1955 at the Paris and Frankfurt auto shows, was an international conglomeration of German engineering and Italian design with a dash of American sensibility via elements from Virgil Exner’s Chrysler d’Elegance “dream car” concept. Named the Karmann Ghia for the joint efforts of German coachbuilder Karmann and Italian automaker Carrozzeria Ghia, the Volkswagen Type 14 exceeded expectations as sales and popularity remained steady across nearly twenty years of production, resulting in the introduction of a convertible for the 1957 model year.

Through its timeline, the Type 14 remained essentially unchanged, aside from a few cosmetic changes and the growing power and displacement of the engine it shared with VW’s iconic Beetle. Given that the factory four-cylinder engine kept horsepower to the double digits, Volkswagen wisely chose to market the Karmann Ghia not as a performance-oriented sports car but rather a stylish tourer.

For 1967, engine displacement increased to 1493 cubic centimeters, offering 53 horsepower and a potential top speed around 80 mph.

Donald and Martin arrive at a potential double-cross in Martin’s ’67 Karmann Ghia.

1967 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia (Type 14)

Body Style: 2+2 convertible

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

Engine: 1493 cc (1.5 L) Volkswagen OHV flat-4 with Solex 1-barrel carburetor

Power: 53 hp (39 kW; 53 PS) @ 4200 RPM

Torque: 78 lb·ft (105.8 N·m) @ 2000 RPM

Transmission: 4-speed manual

Wheelbase: 94.5 inches (2400 mm)

Length: 163 inches (4140 mm)

Width: 64.4 inches (1636 mm)

Height: 52.4 inches (1331 mm)

The “1500” engine would be offered from 1967 through 1969, after which Volkswagen again increased its flat-four size to the “1600”, which could launch the Karmann Ghia nearly to 100 mph.

Production ended in summer 1974 to allow for manufacturing Volkswagen’s new Sirocco, but the Karmann Ghia remained a favorite. As recalled by Andrew Roberts for The Independent, “Karmann workers decorated the last example with a sign that read: ‘Du liefst so gut, Du warst so schö*, Doch leider musst du von uns gehn.’ (You ran so well, you were so beautiful, but alas, you must leave us now.)”

Martin works the gearbox of his trusty Karmann Ghia as he spirits Donald and himself out of danger.

How to Get the Look

Robert Redford in Sneakers (1992)

Whether you call it a baseball jacket, letter jacket, or varsity jacket, you don’t need to be a college athlete to wear this classic boiled wool-and-leather blouson, which can offer a youthful yet sophisticated outer layer to any casual look.

• Navy boiled wool varsity-style baseball jacket with light brown leather set-in sleeves, seven-snap front, slanted welt hand pockets, navy-and-brown banded knit collar, cuffs, and hem
• Solid cotton crew-neck long-sleeve sweatshirt
• Light blue denim Levi’s 501® Original Fit button-fly jeans
• Brown suede moc-toe penny loafers
• Off-white socks
• SEIKO 7A28-7049 “Sports 100” quartz chronograph watch with stainless steel 38.5mm case, black rotating bezel, round black dial with three black sub-registers, and steel bar link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

We all have our little secrets, don’t we?

The post Sneakers: Redford’s Varsity Jacket and Karmann Ghia appeared first on BAMF Style.

Roger Moore as a Lotus-driving James Bond in For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Vitals

Roger Moore as James Bond, British government agent

Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Spring 1981

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

Background

Today’s post extends #CarWeek to close out this year’s 40th anniversary celebration of my favorite of Roger Moore’s Bond movies, For Your Eyes Only, with a wintry look apropos the 00-7th of December as Mr. Bond drives into the ski resort town of Cortina d’Ampezzo behind the wheel of his latest Q-issued Lotus, dressed for warmth in shearling and cashmere.

Following a tip from the Italian secret service, Bond has arrived to interface with MI6’s “man in northern Italy”—Luigi Ferrara (John Moreno)—as he surveils Locque, the mysterious man he had observed paying off Hector Gonzales.

What’d He Wear?

Though we technically see him avant any skiing, James Bond’s wardrobe for his arrival in Cortina d’Ampezzo is an ideal après-ski look, incorporating classy yet casual sensibilities.

Bond’s outer layer is a waist-length blouson jacket in shearling sheepskin, a venerable fabric that has been renowned for millennia for its insulating warmth. As described simply by sartorial expert Sir Hardy Amies in his 1964 volume ABCs of Men’s Fashion, “sheepskin is the skin of the sheep with the wool left on, and dressed as a whole for garment making. A sheepskin coat, therefore, will present a suede outside and an attached wool lining inside.” You can read more about sheepskin outerwear—and find film-inspired examples for any budget—in a recent post from my friend at Iconic Alternatives.

Esquire‘s The Handbook of Style theorizes that “shearling predates fashion,” with its use as clothing reportedly innovated by Neanderthals… which would date it to more than 40,000 years ago. More recently, sheepskin found a renewed usage among high-flying pilots in the early days of aviation after the advent of the sheepskin Irvin flying jacket for the RAF in the 1920s, followed by the B-3 bomber jacket for U.S. aviators. Closer to the ground, sheepskin has been long established as a snowy season favorite as it stays warm when wet yet dries quickly, and—a particular asset for skiers and sportsmen—resists picking up body odors.

Bond doesn’t realize that’s Ferrara slipping past him as he enters his hotel.

Bond’s sheepskin jacket presents a light brown suede-like outer shell, with the inside lined in a darker brown softly piled lambswool fur. The gilt-finished zipper would presumably zip up to close over the throat in a funnel-neck fashion, though Moore wears the top of the jacket unzipped to the chest, which presents the top of the fur lining resting flat over his shoulders like a broad collar. The sleeves are set-in and finished at the cuff with brown ribbed knitting, echoed by the ribbed-knit hem. There are also hand pockets on each side with a vertical welted opening.

A unique distinguishing characteristic of Moore’s screen-worn jacket is a sewn-on piece that extends over the shoulders to mid-chest and mid-back, where a seam extends down vertically the back to the hem. It’s possible that the jacket may not be fully fur-lined like a classic sheepskin coat, and that this sewn-in piece indicates the extent of the jacket’s fur lining. This would also explain why the cuffs and hem are knitted rather than showing pile as seen on traditional sheepskin coats.

Bond inspects his hotel room as well as the gift basket that was awaiting him.

Whether the jacket belonged to Roger Moore before the production or became a favorite after it was provided by costume designer Elizabeth Waller, the actor kept it in his rotation and was photographed wearing it during the re-opening of Pinewood Studios, four years later during the production of his final Bond adventure, A View to a Kill.

Dressed in the sheepskin blouson from For Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore joins his A View to a Kill co-stars Fiona Fullerton and Christopher Walken to celebrate the reopening of Pinewood Studios. (Photo source: BBC)

Under his jacket, 007 wears a turtleneck sweater likely made from soft cashmere, detailed with a ribbed roll-neck, cuffs, and hem. The sweater’s bronze color may be the only piece of this outfit where I’d have recommended a different direction for Mr. Bond—not because I find it dated, though some might—but rather to break up the monochromatism with his light brown jacket and trousers, perhaps by opting for a burgundy, navy, or forest-green jumper instead.

Always ready for action, Bond wears his Walther PPK semi-automatic pistol in its usual light brown leather shoulder holster, secured in place by a cream-colored nylon strap extending across his back and around his right shoulder. While shoulder holsters may not be practical for many who aren’t secret agents, the bulk of Bond’s sheepskin jacket would permit him to effectively wear one without “printing” (i.e., showing the outline of his concealed weapon through his clothing.)

Keeping the colors of his clothing consistent, Bond wears woolen twill trousers in a light, drab shade of brown similar to fallow. In his exploration of the outfit for Bond Suits, Matt Spaiser suggests that the trousers were likely made by Douglas Hayward, Moore’s usual tailor beginning at this time in the early 1980s. The hem of his untucked turtleneck covers the waistband even when he no longer wears his jacket, but these flat front trousers may be held up with a belt like the rest of his Hayward-tailored trousers in For Your Eyes Only.

The plain-hemmed trouser bottoms cover the tops of his dark brown leather cap-toe boots, which rise over his ankles and appear to be secured in place with an inside zipper. Likely made by Salvatore Ferragamo, given Moore’s personal devotion to wearing the brand on screen by the early ’80s, these boots are only fleetingly seen on screen but more prominently in a series of promotional photos featuring Moore with his new copper Lotus, having swapped out the sheepskin jacket for a far more conspicuous white nylon blouson jacket with the “007” logo printed in black over the right breast, matching the black collar, cuffs, waist hem, zipper, pocket zips, and sleeve striping. The name “Roger Moore” is printed above the logo, with “Q Labs” outlined in black on the opposing side of the jacket.

Every secret agent needs a jacket with their secret assigned number emblazoned on it!

When he slips off his chestnut brown leather three-point gloves, Bond’s stainless steel SEIKO H357-5040 Duo Display can be spied shining from his left wrist. This quartz-powered alarm chronograph is configured with a four-pinned square face consisting 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… as well as a messaging device, thanks to Q’s engineering. You can read more about Bond’s SEIKO H357-5040 at James Bond Lifestyle, which identified the exact screen-used model as #WHV005.

The Car

By The Spy Who Loved Me, Roger Moore had firmly established his own characterization of 007, and with this character evolution came new brand partnerships. Just as the Rolexes favored by Sean Connery and George Lazenby would eventually be replaced by SEIKOs, the sleek Aston-Martins carried over from Ian Fleming’s source novels were swapped out for sporty Lotus coupes even more gadget-laden than Sir Sean’s DB5.

For Your Eyes Only boasts two different Lotuses. The first, a white Esprit Turbo echoing the submersible “Wet Nellie” from The Spy Who Loved Me, was destroyed when Gonzales’ henchmen activated Bond’s explosive “anti-theft device”. Though this goes beyond the normal “wear and tear” expected in the field, Q then outfitted Bond with a replacement Lotus, a reddish bronze 1981 Lotus Esprit Turbo.

According to Bond lore, both of the For Your Eyes Only Esprits were originally white, but the production team noticed that the lack of contrast between the Cortina Lotus and its snowy surroundings, so this car—registered OPW 678W—was resprayed with “Copper Fire Metallic” paint.

“I see you managed to get the Lotus back together again,” Bond quips to an unamused Q (Desmond Llewelyn).

Following its debut at the previous year’s Paris Motor Show, production of the Lotus Esprit began in the summer of 1976. The sporty mid-engined supercar had resulted from the collective work of Lotus Cars founder Colin Chapman, motorsport engineer Tony Rudd, and designer Giorgetto Giugiaro, who conceptualized the wedge-shaped “folded paper” appearance.

“The story goes that Donovan McLauchlan, public relations manager at Lotus, had been tipped off that [The Spy Who Loved Me] was gearing up for pre-production at Pinewood,” Roger Moore recalls of the Esprit’s entry into the world of Bond in his memoir, Bond on Bond. “It was early 1976, and he drove an Esprit to the studios and parked it right in the path of anyone trying to get in or out of the main admin building entrance. It wasn’t long before Cubby [Broccoli] saw the car and made a phone call—not to get it towed, but to ask all about it. Their gamble paid off.”

After two years in production, the Esprit was falling short on Lotus’ “performance through light weight” philosophy, despite a dramatic increase in sales due to its association with 007. A redesigned and slightly elongated “Series 2” was introduced for the 1978 model year, increasing the curb weight just over a hundred kilograms to weigh in over 1,000 kilograms for the first time. For 1980, Lotus officially addressed the performance issue with its first factory turbocharged Esprit, powered by a dry sump 2.2-liter engine offering 210 horsepower, launching the car from 0-60 mph in 6.1 seconds.

The Turbo Esprit offered with the Series 3 upgrade in mid-1981 was powered by a wet sump engine with the same displacement and power but increased performance, tightening the 0-60 to under six seconds and pushing the top speed well over 150 mph.

Bond’s new Lotus gets only a few seconds of action as he arrives in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

1981 Lotus Essex Turbo Esprit (Series 3)

Body Style: 2-door sports coupe

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

Engine: 2.2 L (2174 cc) Lotus Type 910 turbocharged I4 with dual side-draft Dell’Orto carburetors

Power: 210 hp (157 kW; 213 PS) @ 6250 rpm

Torque: 200 lb·ft (271 N·m) @ 4500 rpm

Transmission: 5-speed manual

Wheelbase: 96 inches (2438 mm)

Length: 168.5 inches (4280 mm)

Width: 73.3 inches (1861 mm)

Height: 43.7 inches (1111 mm)

According to Joe Breeze for Classic Driver magazine, “it was apparently quite popular with Roger Moore off camera; he merrily shuttled it around the resort between takes.”

In Bond on Bond, Moore himself recalls that one of his favorite scenes featuring the car—and his co-star John Moreno tampering with its gadgets—was “unfortunately cut due to time constraints.” His recollections of driving Esprits were otherwise less than pleasant, recalling that “their engines overheated and batteries ran down quickly,” not to forget that “their low driving position made elegant exits from the car an issue.”

You can read more about the various Lotus Esprits in the Bond franchise at James Bond Lifestyle.

How to Get the Look

Roger Moore as James Bond in For Your Eyes Only (1981)

James Bond’s clothing is arguably better suited to the snowy environs of Cortina d’Ampezzo than his sports car, as he arrives perfectly dressed for the après-ski scene in his waist-length sheepskin jacket, warmly fur-lined and layered with elegant simplicity over his tonally coordinated cashmere turtleneck and trousers.

• Light brown shearling sheepskin zip-up funnel-neck blouson jacket with brown piled fur lining, vertical welted hand pockets, brown ribbed-knit cuffs, and brown ribbed-knit waist hem
• Bronze cashmere turtleneck sweater
• Fallow-brown woolen twill flat front trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark brown leather side-zip cap-toe boots
• Brown leather 3-point gloves
• Light brown leather shoulder holster with cream strap, for Walther PPK
• SEIKO H357-5040/WHV-005 duo-display alarm chronograph with black square face and stainless bracelet

Classic sheepskin can be very expensive—though often worth the investment—and it’s difficult to find varieties that resemble Moore’s jacket with its darker fur inside and the ribbed-knit cuffs and hem. A comfortable and affordable modern substitute could be this faux-suede GUESS bomber jacket (available via Amazon) as well as the recent finds from Iconic Alternatives.

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 post For Your Eyes Only: Bond’s Sheepskin Jacket and New Lotus appeared first on BAMF Style.