Robert Cummings as Barry Kane in Saboteur (1942)

Vitals

Robert Cummings as Barry Kane, civilian aircraft mechanic

From Glendale, California, into the High Desert, Spring 1942

Film: Saboteur
Release Date: April 22, 1942
Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Background

Alfred Hitchcock’s wartime thriller Saboteur—not to be confused with his earlier movie Sabotage—was released 80 years ago this month. Though production began just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the idea had actually been months in the making after Hitch’s original pitch to David O. Selznick. “We were in 1941 and there were pro-German elements who called themselves America Firsters and who were, in fact, American Fascists. This was the group I had in mind while writing the scenario,” Hitchcock later explained to François Truffaut.

Despite his traditional elements of the wronged man, the beautiful blonde, and the “MacGuffin,” Hitch identified several disappointments with Saboteur, most notably in the casting of his two heroes and the villain. Of leading male star Robert Cummings, who portrayed the accused saboteur, Hitch commented to Truffaut that “he’s a competent performer, but he belongs to the light-comedy class of actors,” though this wouldn’t stop him from casting him a decade later in a strong supporting role in Dial M for Murder.

What’d He Wear?

Saboteur has to be one of the earliest examples of a mainstream cinematic hero dressed in a flight jacket, establishing a rakish precedent that would be followed to some extent by Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, Tom Cruise in Top Gun, and Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones.

First authorized for service in 1931, the A-2 would have still been the issued flight jackets for contemporary U.S. Army Air Forces pilots at the time Saboteur was made, though General “Hap” Arnold discontinued their official use by mid-1942 in favor of cloth-shell varieties like the B-10 and B-15, though the A-2 remained a favorite of wartime pilots and decades of adventurers to follow.

Barry Kane’s brown leather jacket differs slightly from a mil-spec A-2, though it shares many overall characteristics with the famed flight jacket such as the covered-fly zip-up front, a shirt-style collar with concealed snaps to keep it in place, the patch pockets over the hips that each close with a pointed flap with a covered snap, and the darker ribbed-knit cuffs and hem.

Though the mil-spec A-2 had shoulder straps (epaulettes) where officers could pin their rank insignia, these were stitched onto the body of the jacket, whereas Barry’s shoulder straps have buttons that fasten the end closer to the neck. Barry’s jacket also lacks the traditional throat latch at the neck, though the armholes offer him some ventilation with a pair of grommets added under each armpit.

If you’re interested in owning a new A-2 built to the original military specifications, two well-regarded (albeit pricy) options are the Buzz Rickson’s (via Clutch Cafe) and the Real McCoy’s (via Lost & Found). Otherwise, I recommend scanning vintage outfitters and secondhand shops.

Barry was dressed for work when he went on the lam upon learning he was suspected of sabotage, still wearing his medium-colored shirt—likely a blue chambray cotton, like the classic U.S. Navy work shirt—detailed with a point collar and front placket.

Despite the laborious nature of his work at the aircraft plant, he still dresses up with a tie, specifically one of medium-dark cotton with sets of darker gradient bar stripes in the “downhill” direction, each bordered on the top and bottom by a lighter, narrower stripe.

Note the unused snap under the right side of the jacket’s collar.

Barry’s lighter cotton trousers are likely khaki in color, adding an additional military-inspired element to his outfit as these were still primarily the domain of Army, Navy, and Marine Corps summer uniforms at the time. Khaki chino cloth had been used for warmer-weather American uniforms since the Spanish-American War before the turn of the 20th century, but it wasn’t until after World War II when they became a menswear staple.

As sartorial legend tells, returning servicemen continued to embrace the versatility and comfort of their issued tan chino-cloth trousers, inspiring generations to civilians to adopt the same as these trousers found a more accepted place among the relaxed formality and standards of dress through mid-century America, resulting in their current ubiquity as popularized by brands like Dockers, Gap, and J. Crew. (You can read more about the difference between casual “khakis” and more sophisticated khaki-colored trousers at Bond Suits.)

Barry wears flat-front khakis that rise to his natural waist, where he holds them up with a tan leather belt that closes through a shining metal single-prong buckle. The trousers also have side pockets, jetted back pockets (with a button through the left pocket), and the bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

About a decade before his fellow civilians would embrace khakis, Barry shows he’s already considerably familiar with these trousers, likely due to the military-adjacent nature of his work at the aircraft factory.

The lighter leather of Barry’s semi-brogue oxford hsoes suggests brown-hued uppers, more appropriate than black for the outfit’s casual nature as well as better coordinated to his brown leather jacket and belt. Characteristic of semi-brogues, the straight toe caps are decorated with “punched” perforations. The oxford-style closed-lace systems have six sets of eyelets for the shoes’ round laces. A glimpse between the trouser cuffs and openings of his shoes reveal that Barry wears dark argyle socks.

Barry may not have sabotaged the American military plans, but he does sabotage Patricia’s driving when he learns she plans on turning him into the authorities.

“You’ll need some clothes,” the Soda City spies tell Barry when he claims to be one of their number. “Size 42,” Barry responds, and he’s eventually outfitted in a double-breasted suit tailored to the era’s wide-shouldered fashions before he goes to New York City.

Barry arrives in New York, dressed more like the traditional cinematic spy in his fashionably tailored suit and tie.

How to Get the Look

Robert Cummings as Barry Kane in Saboteur (1942)

Although he’s a civilian, Barry Kane draws from hard-wearing American military fashions—specifically an Army Air Forces flight jacket and khakis with a naval-inspired work shirt—to look the part of a blue-collar hero in Hitchcock’s wartime thriller, establishing Saboteur as likely one of the earliest mainstream movies in a long tradition of dressing action heroes in a leather flight jacket.

• Seal-brown leather A-2-style flight jacket with snap-fastened shirt-style collar, shoulder straps/epaulettes, covered-fly zip-up front, patch hip pockets with snap-down flaps, and darker ribbed-knit cuffs and hem
• Blue chambray cotton long-sleeve work shirt with point collar and front placket
• Dark cotton tie with bordered gradient “downhill” stripes
• Khaki cotton flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Tan leather belt with metal single-prong buckle
• Brown leather 6-eyelet semi-brogue oxford shoes
• Dark argyle cotton lisle socks

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

That just goes to show you what a little blonde can do to hold up national defense.

The post Saboteur: Bob Cummings’ Heroic Leather Flight Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jack Nicholson as Randle P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Vitals

Jack Nicholson as Randle P. McMurphy, cheeky petty criminal undergoing psychiatric evaluation

Oregon State Hospital, Fall 1963

Film: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Release Date: November 19, 1975
Director: Miloš Forman
Costume Designer: Aggie Guerard Rodgers

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today is Jack Nicholson’s 85th birthday, a worthy occasion for recalling one of his most iconic roles: the irreverent and incorrigible Randle P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Consistent with the increasingly cynical and gritty cinema of the 1970s, “Mac” more closely resembles the archetypal anti-hero than the traditional sympathetic protagonist. He is, after all, a self-admitted criminal with a history of belligerence and a recent charge of statutory rape, which landed him in his current situation. “As near as I can figure out, it’s because I fight and fuck too much,” McMurphy offers as the rationale for his being sent for a psychiatric evaluation.

Adapted from Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel of the same name, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest retains its setting in the early ’60s, beginning in October 1963 just before the JFK assassination often cited as a defining moment in modern America’s proverbial loss of innocence, followed by a dozen difficult years of political assassinations and civil injustice, massive deaths during the Vietnam war, and the disillusionment of the Watergate scandal. As David Shuck wrote for Heddels, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest bookends the American countercultural revolution.”

Production ended in April 1975—the same month that Nicholson turned 38, matching McMurphy’s stated age—just as the government was pulling the final U.S. troops out of Vietnam and just months away the Helsinki Accords that marked a shift toward détente as a prevailing Cold War philosophy. In this age where Americans were growing increasingly disillusioned and distrustful of its government, who better to emerge as a cinematic hero than a rebellious maverick like R.P. McMurphy?

Indeed, Mac urges his fellow inmates to “be good Americans” by defying authority—not even to commit a criminal act—just to watch the World Series. But even the fabled “great American pastime” is arbitrarily ruled against by the establishment, as embodied by the despotic head nurse, Mildred Ratched (Louise Fletcher, who also received a deserved Academy Award for her performance.) It was this dynamic that had most appealed to director Miloš Forman, who envisioned the story as an allegory for the oppressive rule that the Czechoslovakian-born director endured under rule of the Nazis and the Soviets until he left the country following the violent 1968 invasion.

“I bet in one week, I can put a bug so far up her ass, she won’t know whether to shit or wind her wristwatch,” McMurphy challenges himself of Ratched, though he’s incredulous upon learning that most of his fellow patients are voluntary rather than actually committed to the facility: “Geez, I mean you guys do nothing but complain about how you can’t stand it in this place here, and then you haven’t got the guts to walk out?”

Apropos the classic maxim, McMurphy literally teaches each man to fish as he works to encourage them to assert their sense of independence—drawing upon his own everyman interests of sports, fishing, and beer—all the while increasingly drawing the ire of Nurse Ratched and the hospital leadership who resent and grow fearful of his “dangerous” influence on their patients.

What’d He Wear?

Randle P. McMurphy spends his two months in the Oregon State Hospital dressed in variations of his streetwear, which he’d worn upon his arrival. The outfit establishes our baseball-loving protagonist as the quintessential American blue-collar everyman, clad in a hardy kit that pulls from military heritage pieces and classic workwear.

In his source novel, Ken Kesey described a similar outfit of a leather jacket worn with “work-farm pants and shirt, sunned out till they’re the color of watered milk” but differing slightly with a black brimmed motorcycle cap, heavy gray iron-heeled boots, and—less celebrated on screen—a pair of coal black satin undershorts “covered with big white whales with red eyes” that he obtained “from a co-ed at Oregon State… a Literary major.”

The Knit Cap

Breaking down Jack Nicholson’s screen-worn outfit from head to toe, McMurphy tops his dome with a dark navy blue ribbed knit cap, a cuffed style alternately known as a “beanie” or “watch cap”, the latter a more martial designation referencing its use among soldiers and sailors standing watch in colder environments. Shorter versions that more closely fit the wearer’s head shape—as sported by McMurphy—are also known as “skull caps”, for anatomically obvious reasons.

Mac’s navy ribbed beanie has become associated with Nicholson’s performance due to extensive prominence on the movie’s promotional posters and artwork.

The Leather Jacket

Since their increased popularity at the beginning of the 20th century, leather jackets had long been associated with toughness and rebellion, whether sported by the maverick aviators who dared to test gravity in their barnstormer planes or military bombers or by gangs of motorcyclists represented by Marlon Brando in The Wild One.

McMurphy’s leather jacket gets little extra by way of description in the book, but the screen-worn garment appears to be a civilian variation of the classic A-2 flight jacket authorized for the U.S. Army Air Forces through the 1930s into World War II. (The literary McMurphy is said to be a Korean War veteran, though I don’t believe this is explicitly mentioned in the movie adaptation.)

Made of a well-worn brown leather, the jacket has a large shirt-style collar that hangs free, lacking the hidden snaps of the A-2, as well as narrow shoulders bereft of the looped shoulder straps (epaulettes) on the military version, though McMurphy’s jacket does have leather strips sewn down to reinforce each shoulder. The rest follows much of the A-2 pattern, with a short extended fly running the length of the front zip from hem to neck, where there’s an additional snap to close the top. The low-slung patch pockets are mitred on the bottom corners and covered with single-snap flaps. The waist hem and cuffs are finished in a dark brown narrowly ribbed knit wool that shows much fraying, no doubt the result of considerable wear and hungry moths.

Flanked by white-clad orderlies, the leather-jacketed McMurphy is led into the hospital and introduced to his new acquaintances.

The “action back” gives McMurphy a greater range of arm motion, whether he’s playing basketball or scaling fences on the basketball court. This “bi-swing” system consists of long pleats behind each arm, running down from the shoulder seams to the half-belt that extends across the entire back waist. A departure from traditional A-2 styling, this pleated, half-belted back is more consistent with the back of the fur-collared M-422A and AN-J-3 flight jackets authorized for Army and Navy pilots during World War II.

McMurphy enlists some help from Chief (Will Sampson), who supplements his own hospital garb with a distressed khaki M1941 field jacket.

The Chambray Work Shirt

Dating back to plain-woven “cambric” linen developed in 16th century France, the dense yet light-wearing chambray cloth has earned its centuries-long reputation as a durable and comfortable fabric for workwear as immortalized by the shirts authorized as part of a U.S. Navy working uniform in the early 20th century that established blue warp and white weft as the quintessential chambray shirt look.

McMurphy regularly wears a chambray shirt constructed with a vivid warp that presents an overall sky-blue finish. The layout echoes the classic naval work shirt pattern, with a point collar invariably worn open at the neck, a narrow placket, two button-through chest pockets, and long sleeves that fasten through a single button on each cuff. In both its military and civilian configurations, blue chambray shirts are typically detailed either with blue or white buttons; McMurphy’s shirt has been detailed with the latter, echoing the white contrast threading on the seams, edges, and buttonholes.

McMurphy’s charms are lost on the nursing staff, particularly when he refuses to take the medication they’re issuing him.

The Olive T-Shirt

McMurphy’s base layer is a simple olive-colored cotton crew-neck short-sleeved T-shirt. Like much of the rest of his wardrobe, the shirt may not have any specific military heritage but its earthy color suggests the Army’s standardized shades of olive green.

McMurphy compensates for the T-shirt’s lack of a pocket by rolling his Marlboros into his right sleeve.

The Jeans

Blue jeans transformed from the domain of cowboys and laborers into a symbol of sartorial defiance around the time James Dean first hung his thumb into the pockets of Lee Riders on the set of Rebel Without a Cause.

McMurphy struts the grounds of the Oregon State Hospital in his Levi’s 501 Original Fit button-fly jeans, constructed from a medium-dark indigo stonewash denim. 501s had followed a long journey to catch up with Mac by the early ’60s, having evolved from the cinch-backed “riveted waist overalls” of the turn-of-the-century to their modernized postwar configuration of belt loops and five pockets that set the standard countless denim manufacturers have followed since. Little by little, Levi’s 501s took their current form with the gradual replacement of the rear cinch and suspender buttons with belt loops, the addition of a second back pocket, and the signature red tab sewn along the edge of the right-back pocket beginning in 1936.

(BFI had identified McMurphy’s specific 501s as the boxier, loose-fitting 1955 cut, but I suspect these may just be the darker indigo-dyed pair worn here by Nicholson’s stuntman—Alan Gibbs, perhaps?—as he leaps the barbed-wire fence to bus his fellow patients to a fishing expedition.)

Chief gives Mac a lift over the fence, flashing the signature Levi’s leather back patch, branded red tab, and arcuate back-pocket stitching on Mac’s 501 jeans.

Boots and Socks

Given the mental health aspects of his evaluation, it makes sense that Mac wouldn’t be wearing a belt—though that may have also been a personal style choice—though his boot laces might have created a problem.

McMurphy wears Red Wing work boots, crafted on the company’s No. 23 last with full-grain leather uppers tanned to a shade of cognac-brown that Red Wing now calls “oro-legacy”. “The commanding style was originally built as a hunting boot when it debuted in 1952, and its comfort and toughness quickly made it a favorite at job sites,” the company explains of the style still produced at their Red Wing, Minnesota plant 70 years after it was introduced as the Irish Setter model, inspired by the russet-leathered uppers that resemble the trusty gundogs of the same name. In the decades since, Red Wing has reintroduced this much-imitated style as the model 877.

The uppers are constructed with a moc-toe box—so named for its resemblance to moccasins—with ten sets of eyelets, derby-laced with tan-and-gold woven Taslan laces up the 8″ shaft that extends to mid-calf, with a pull tab looped on the back that further differentiates these taller boots from the shorter Red Wing 875 molded on the same last. These boots are constructed on the trusted Goodyear welt process, with Red Wing’s signature zig-zagged “Traction Trad” off-white rubber outsoles.

“A template for work boots, this 1930s style also built on a kind of Americana – a blue-collar chic, arguably originating with Levi’s 501 jeans, that appreciated the authenticity and hard-wearing qualities of products build for a purpose: for mining, chopping wood, stoking a steam engine, driving big trucks,” wrote Josh Sims of Red Wing work boots in Icons of Men’s Style, suggesting their appeal to a guy like Randle P. McMurphy.

Mac’s Red Wing boots would be a more protective footwear than Taber’s ragged slippers when faced with such calamities as a lit cigarette smoldering from one’s trouser cuff.

The high shafts of his boots that rise under the bottoms of his jeans and scrubs tend to cover McMurphy’s socks, though his hosiery get some screen-time during the unfortunate context of Mac’s first electroshock therapy treatment as the orderlies pull off his Red Wings to reveal gray ribbed woolen boot socks with a pair of scarlet red banded stripes around the top, differing from the plain white crew socks that nurse Pilbow (Mimi Sarkisian) had inventoried among Mac’s belongings during his intake.

“There, uh, might be a little fluid in them boots, you know what I mean, boys?”

Everything Else

Though Mac refuses to conform, he does occasionally dress in the simple off-white cotton scrubs he’s been issued by the hospital, but always layered over one or both of his personal shirts.

Named for their medical associations of doctors and nurses “scrubbing in” before an operation, scrubs were popularized around the 1940s and were initially a sterilized white in color. Inexpensive to produce and simple to wear, these shapeless garments would have also been ideal for the Oregon State Hospital to issue to their roster of psychiatric patients, especially as some may have struggled with more complex clothing.

The two-piece sets have a pullover V-neck short-sleeved top with a left breast pocket stenciled “Markness Community Hospital & Medical Center” in black; an outline over the right-breast suggests another pocket on the inside that would present similarly, should the top be worn reversed. The simple flat front pants have an elastic waistband that appears to be fastened with a white drawstring, with a left-side pocket and the bottoms self-cuffed.

Even McMurphy looks bored as Charlie Cheswick (Sydney Lassick) kicks off The Great Cigarette Rebellion of 1963.

A brief scene on the basketball court offers the closest thing to the whale-illustrated black satin shorts Chief described in the novel. Mac dresses for the game by pulling over his jeans a pair of elastic-waisted olive-green satin polyester shorts, illustrated on the seat with two black animals—perhaps meant to be whales, as suggested by the sea-foam waves—evidently kissing, their lips locking directly over Mac’s fourth point of contact, cascading a series of pink hearts following a northern trail up his gluteal cleft. The sides are striped in white, with our hero’s initials “RPM” arranged diagonally over the left thigh.

An athletic respite.

A production still suggests that scenes may have been filed featuring McMurphy wearing these shorts as underwear, with only his woolen beanie and leather jacket, though this hadn’t made it to the production.

Other style highlights among McMurphy’s fellow patients include Chief’s distressed khaki M1941 field jacket and Converse sneakers, Harding’s plaid loafer jacket, Taber’s olive Army mechanic’s sweater, and Frederickson’s Levi’s Type I trucker jacket.

All prices and availability mentioned above are current as of April 22, 2022.

What to Imbibe

Randle P. McMurphy commemorates what he hopes would be his final night at the hospital with a pre-Christmas party full of holiday spirit—er, spirits—smuggled in by his girlfriend Candy (Marya Small) and her floozy friend Rose (Louisa Moritz), who manage to bring in Jim Beam bourbon, J&B blended Scotch whisky, Smirnoff vodka, Bacardi rum, and Olympia beer, adding up to an ultimately tastier variety than the novel’s described combination of vodka, port wine, and cough syrup, which Chief likens to “a taste like a kid’s drink but a punch like the cactus apple wine we used to get in The Dalles, cold and soothing on the throat and hot and furious once it got down.”

The gregarious night guard Turkle (Scatman Crothers) dooms himself by allowing his neglect to be purchased by a few drinks and minutes with Rose, though it would hardly be Scatman’s most disastrous interaction with Jack.

Of this variety, Mac seems to partake the most from pulling shots of the golden Bacardi straight from the bottle, though this indulgence—combined with the fateful decision to provide the shy Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif) an uninterrupted tryst with Candy—proves to be his undoing.

How to Get the Look

Jack Nicholson as Randle P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Randle P. McMurphy visually establishes himself as a scrappy, hardy everyman in his durable blend of military heritage pieces and classic workwear, built on the sturdy foundation of a chambray work shirt, olive T-shirt, jeans, and Red Wing boots and further anchored by a broken-in leather flight jacket and woolen watch cap.

• Brown leather zip-up flight jacket with shirt-style collar, patch pockets (with snap-down flaps), ribbed-knit cuffs and hem, and half-belted “action back” with side pleats
• Sky-blue chambray cotton long-sleeve work shirt with point collar, narrow placket, two button-through chest pockets, and button cuffs
• Olive-green cotton crew-neck short-sleeve T-shirt
• Medium-dark indigo blue stonewash denim Levi’s 501 Original Fit button-fly jeans
• Cognac-brown oiled leather Red Wing 877 moc-toe derby-laced 8″ work boots with off-white rubber outsoles
• Gray ribbed wool boot socks with scarlet-red banded stripes
• Navy ribbed wool cuffed “beanie” watch cap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and Ken Kesey’s source novel.

The Quote

But I tried, didn’t I? Goddamnit, at least I did that.

The post Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jon Hamm and January Jones on Mad Men (Episode 2.07: “The Gold Violin”)

Vitals

Jon Hamm as Don Draper, affluent ad man and Korean War veteran

Ossining, New York, Summer 1962

Series: Mad Men
Episode: “The Gold Violin” (Episode 2.07)
Air Date: September 7, 2008
Director: Andrew Bernstein
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Following yesterday’s observance of National Picnic Day, I wanted to focus on one of my favorite on-screen picnics. Midway through the second season of Mad Men, the Draper family spends part of a sunny Sunday afternoon bringing a Norman Rockwell painting to life.

By mid-century standards, advertising executive Don Draper (Jon Hamm) appears to illustrate the American dream, providing for his beautiful wife Betty (January Jones) and their two children and having just acquired a sleek new Cadillac that—as was pitched to him—indicates that he’s “already arrived.” Life looks easy for the family, reclining with nary a care in the world as The Pentagons serenade them from the Coupe de Ville’s radio with their dulcet 1962 B-side “I’m in Love”.

Betty: We should do this more often.
Don: We should only do this.

There’s no denying the privileged life that Don and Betty have built for their family, and they exercise this privilege without abandon, from Don instructing his young son to answer the call of nature by, well, pissing in nature to the family’s far less forgivable actions of shaking their litter off their blanket onto the grass before they depart, showing little appreciation for all that Mother Nature had given them during this all-too-carefree afternoon.

Clocking in at just under three minutes, the Draper family picnic may seem like an ultimately superfluous scene—giving viewers a “how things have changed!” moment to laugh in disgust at their disregard for the environment—but it also serves to present how, even after an afternoon of idyllic bliss, Don can’t help but to be casually destructive.

“The Gold Violin” feels like a turning point in Mad Men‘s narrative, marking Don’s self-destructive decisions coming back to haunt him, both in the “present day” of 1962 and a decade prior, via the flashback that introduces us to Anna Draper—the widow of the lieutenant whose identity Dick Whitman stole to transport himself out of the Korean War and into a safe new life as ambitious ad man Don Draper.

What’d He Wear?

As Mad Men centers most around the Madison Avenue offices that lent the series its name, Don Draper’s most prominent costumes consist of his handsome gray business suits, crisp white shirts, and straight ties, but glimpses of his home life show a colorful side of his closet full of the attractive sports shirts that emerged via mid-century America’s increasingly relaxed sartorial standards outside the office.

The Draper family picnic in “The Gold Violin” features the sole appearance of this particular short-sleeved shirt, made from a sage-green multi-striped fabric with a silky mottled finish. The triple set of balanced vertical bar stripes on each side are periwinkle, black, and red, intersected by much wider gray horizontal stripes spaced farther apart that intensify this trio of colors as it passes through them. The left set of stripes are interrupted by a narrow-welted pocket set-in over the left breast, where Don keeps his sunglasses.

The shirt has a trim fit, meant to be worn untucked with a straight hem that doesn’t extend much beyond his waistline and fastened up a plain, placket-less front with five buttons covered in the same sage-colored cloth as the shirt. He wears the highest button undone, though the flat camp collar already provides an open-neck effect that shows the crew-neck top of one of his usual white cotton short-sleeve undershirts.

Don and Betty must seem especially relaxed with the contentment that they can just leave when they’re ready without taking the time to properly discard their trash.

Don’s go-to weekend trousers from the start of the series are broken-in khakis, a style he came by honestly—well, at least as honestly as his Army past can be considered—as these light tan casual slacks had been popularized through mid-century by servicemen returning from World War II or the Korean War, where Don would have likely encountered them as part of his service and working uniforms.

A decade removed from his time in the Army, Don would have been more likely to have filled his closet with civilian khakis, though similarly styled. His beige cotton flat front trousers in “The Gold Violin” have a zip fly (which likely aided his own beer-fueled calls of nature), plain-hemmed bottoms, on-seam side pockets, and button-through jetted back pockets.

Don holds up his trousers with a black leather belt that closes through a gold-toned single-prong buckle, the belt leather coordinating to his black leather moc-toe slip-on shoes, so named for the substantially stitched U-shaped seam around the front edge of each shoe that resembles traditional Native American moccasin construction. Straps sewn over the vamp suggest that these are likely penny loafers, the style pioneered by G.H. Bass in the 1930s that became a campus favorite when collegians supposedly began placing pennies in the slots cut into the straps of their Bass “Weejuns”.

Don would frequently return to the versatile comfort of penny loafers when dressing down, as significantly seen as his chosen footwear for his road trip wardrobe in the penultimate episode. Don also wears black cotton lisle socks, possibly the yellow-tipped “Gold Toe” style he had frequently worn.

Bobby reports back to his family, pleased of his adventures in feral micturition.

Don’s Cadillac parked on the hill above them is far from the only luxury enjoyed by the Drapers, as we also see the elegant gold Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Classique dress watch flashing from the brown leather strap around his left wrist. The new wristwatch had been introduced at the start of Mad Men‘s second season, prominently incorporated into the narrative as Betty had taken Don’s watch to have a sentimental engraving placed on the reverse side of the square case, a feature originally designed so that polo players could protect their watch faces during play by merely flipping the case around so the dial faced inward.

Betty shares the frame with Don’s dress watch that she had engraved with a sentiment she would doubtlessly no longer be feeling within just a few days of this scene.

What to Imbibe

As the family wraps up its picnic, Don allows himself “one for the road” by downing the rest of his Miller High Life before spiraling the can into the woods, hearkening to his supposed days playing high school football as he describes to his new acquaintances three episodes later in “The Jet Set”.

Miller introduced High Life as its flagship brew on New Year’s Eve 1903, earning its reputation as “the Champagne of Bottled Beer” within three years of its launch… though the “Bottled” part of its official moniker wouldn’t be dropped until 1969. Indeed, High Life had already long been available in cans by then, as seen by the era-correct flat-top can that Don quickly finishes during the closing seconds of the Draper family picnic.

How to Get the Look

Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 2.07: “The Gold Violin”)

Don Draper dresses casually but tastefully for this intimate family picnic, setting an infallible example that could still be followed 60 years later: an eye-catching (but not garish) short-sleeved sport shirt, trusty khakis, and penny loafers, illustrating how a gent can still be comfortable when dressing up beyond T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers.

• Mottled sage-green multicolor-striped short-sleeved shirt with one-piece sport collar, covered-button plain front, and narrow-welted set-in breast pocket
• Beige cotton flat front trousers with belt loops, straight.on-seam side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather belt with gold-toned single-prong buckle
• Black leather moc-toe penny loafers
• Black cotton lisle socks
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Classique wristwatch with a gold case, square white dial, and brown alligator leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the whole series. And don’t litter!

The Quote

So, I don’t understand… you’d rather play checkers than my “look at the clouds” game?

The post Mad Men: Don Draper’s Casual Picnic Clothes appeared first on BAMF Style.

Harry Dean Stanton as Brett in Alien (1979)

Vitals

Harry Dean Stanton as Brett, wry engineering technician

Aboard the USCSS Nostromo, June 2122

Film: Alien
Release Date: May 25, 1979
Director: Ridley Scott
Costume Designer: John Mollo

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Alien Day was first celebrated several years ago on April 26, chosen in honor of the moon LV-426 where the crew of USCSS Nostromo first encountered the dangerous xenomorph that proceeded to terrorize and slaughter them as depicted in Ridley Scott’s suspenseful classic Alien.

A masterful blend of sci-fi and horror, Alien boasts an ensemble cast led by Sigourney Weaver as the resourceful warrant officer Ellen Ripley, in addition to Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, Veronica Cartwright, and the great Harry Dean Stanton as the junior engineering technician known only as “Brett” (but whose full name was said to be Samuel Elias Brett.)

The idiosyncratic Harry Dean had been reluctant to even approach the role, having shared with Scott during audition that he didn’t like sci-fi or monster movies, until Scott reassured him that he envisioned more of a thriller like Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None. Indeed, Brett proves to be the first victim of the eponymous alien, who ultimately moves on to the rest of the crew, leaving only Ripley—and the ship’s cat, Jonesy—as the lone survivor of the alien’s slaughter and the ship’s subsequent destruction.

While I’m not nearly as immersed in the Alien-verse as many super-fans, I’ve dipped a toe in some of the thoughtful online research that seem to determine the setting of early June 2122, just over exactly one hundred years from today. Some say it could be a few decades sooner, but what I’m most interested in is the evident late ’70s aesthetic still present, particularly as Harry Dean looks like he could have strolled out of a Tulsa dive bar and onto a spaceship while on a hell of a bender.

What’d He Wear?

Costume designer John Mollo had already established his sci-fi credentials designing a relatively accessible wardrobe for his outer space heroes in Star Wars: A New Hope, so he was a natural fit when it came to dressing the limited crew of the USCSS Nostromo.

Rather than just outfitting the crew in identical uniforms, Mollo thoughtfully approached how each crew member’s duties and personality would inform their approach to their regular attire, particularly in the midst of a long-haul journey through space. “People always wore uniforms on spaceships … that’s how it worked from Star Trek on,” explained James Cameron, who would direct the 1986 sequel Aliens, “Alien broke that mold and it just seemed so right to people. They recognized the archetype immediately, ‘Oh, these guys are truck drivers.'” (Source: Strange Shapes)

Among the Nostromo crew, Brett may most sartorially embody this “truck driver” comparison made by Cameron, dressed for the adventure in a baseball cap, bomber jacket, Hawaiian shirt, cargo pants, and sneakers, while no doubt reeking of tobacco… exactly the sort of sci-fi hero—or anti-hero—we would expect Harry Dean Stanton to portray.

Production photo of Harry Dean Stanton as Brett.

Brett wears a navy blue baseball cap referencing his service, similar to those often worn by military veterans. The front of the cap’s crown is emblazoned with the colorful “rainbow” patch evidently authorized for those aboard the cruiser, with blue, purple, scarlet, and orange embroidered arcs across the top above a yellow-bordered semi-circle with “USCSS NOSTROMO” embroidered in yellow against a periwinkle upper arc with “180286” across the bottom, flanking a yellow-bordered illustration of two green planets in the foreground of a single five-point yellow star against a light blue sky.

Detailed with ventilation eyelets around the crown, the cap has an adjustable plastic closure that snaps through any of six pegs and corresponding holes. The cap’s brim is decorated with gold wire bullion leaves, familiar to military personnel as the “scrambled eggs” traditional reserved for higher-ranking officers of O-4 and O-5 and up… suggesting there may be more to Brett than meets the eye.

Brett’s uniform also includes a hip-length jacket made from a tightly woven olive-green fabric shell, detailed with quilted brown nylon around the edges and down the sleeves and with two patches sewn high over the left breast. The uppermost patch is shaped like a triangle with swirling red and white stripes encircling a blue star in the center, said to be commemorating America’s tricentennial which would have been in 2076. Directly below this, a patch of gold wings against a black ground is accented with a hexagonal pin with a black six-pointed star that Mollo had designed as an engineering badge.

The jacket features two narrow open-top patch pockets abreast on the left side, and there is a large top-entry patch pocket on each side. Curiously, it lacks any obvious way to fasten the front, seemingly meant to be worn open at all times.

The jacket’s brown nylon quilting includes a strip that follows around the collar and down each side of the front, curving around the bottom but stopping after a few inches. The sleeves have much wider brown quilted pieces extend from the neck down each arm to the cuffs, with black laced gussets following nearly the same distance but stopping a few inches shy of the cuffs, where Brett wears the two laces hanging down from each side.

A seam splits the back down the center, and the hem is widely elasticized in a brown nylon similar to the quilted strips around the front and down the sleeves. The back of the jacket is stenciled “NOSTROMO” in a thick, futuristic sans serif typeface.

Venerated costume house Bermans & Nathans made the jackets used in the production, with one of Harry Dean Stanton’s screen-worn jackets sold for $22,500 at a 2016 auction, per iCollector, which also features photos of the jacket (as does this YourProps listing.) Replicas of this unique jacket are also available from Geek Life and Magnoli Clothiers.

Brett steps up to a fateful encounter, his jacket emblazoned across the back with the name of the ship where he meets his end.

One of the most distinctive parts of Brett’s costume is his tropical-printed shirt which, with his more unkempt appearance and cavalier attitude, suggests more of an intergalactic Hawkeye Pierce. My instinct was to describe this as a Hawaiian shirt or aloha shirt, but a user named “Joberg” on the Blade Runner-centered PropSummit.com forum suggests that it’s actually a shorter-length Jamaican shirt, likely an early 1960s product of the National brand made by Manhattan.

Whatever its provenance, the rayon shirt is covered in a tropical “island” print of palm trees, beaches, and boats against a viridian seascape in shades of mint and sea-foam green. The cut and style are typical of aloha shirts, with a camp collar, breast pocket, and a plain front (no placket) that Brett wears only partially buttoned, typically with just one button done to show plenty of his white cotton long-sleeved henley-style undershirt with its long placket of horizontal buttonholes.

In space, no one can hear you say “Aloha”.

As Brett foregoes his uniform shirt in favor of his tropical-printed top, he lacks the effect of the matching shirt and cargo pants worn by his fellow crew members. He’s even further differentiated by wearing pale-blue cotton trousers rather than white ones like most of his colleagues, with only the treacherous android science officer Ash (Ian Holm) also wearing the blue trousers to match his shirt.

Color aside, these cargo pants otherwise echo the details seen across his colleagues’ issued trousers. His untucked shirt hem covers much of the long belt loops, which are closed with a brass-finished snap at the tops and sewn on at the bottoms. The straight fly closes with a hidden hook closure at the top, and the fit is full through the legs.

Cargo pants are characterized by their added pockets that elevate pocket contents to cargo. On the Nostromo uniform trousers, slanted welt-entry “full-top” front pockets are positioned at the top of each hip, with a large box-pleated bellows pocket (with a large trapezoidal velcro flap) over the left hip. Slightly lower on the right side, a narrower velcro-flapped pocket is set against a reinforced patch. Below the reinforced quilted oval knee pads, each shin has a large pouch pocket. The bottoms are finished with a narrow velcro strap that could adjust the tightness around the ankles as needed.

Stanton’s screen-worn pants, also made by Bermans & Nathans, were sold in March 2014 at The Prop Gallery, which eerily described some lingering studio blood stains.

Aside from the cowboy boot-wearing navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) and executive officer Kane (John Hurt), most of the Nostromo crew are uniquely outfitted with white hi-top sneakers that have been posited to be modified versions of the venerable PF Flyers, one of the earliest and most enduring sneaker brands.

B.F. Goodrich introduced PF Flyers in Akron, Ohio, in 1937, intended for court sports like badminton and basketball and built on the “Posture Foundation” arch support insole… hence the “P.F.” in the name. The popular “Center” line was introduced in the ’60s, with both hi- and lo-top variations available. Brett appears to be wearing the Center “Hi” model with white duck canvas uppers, white rubber “smile”-shaped toe-caps, white rubber outsoles with the signature vertical-ribbed “bumper” toe-guards, and the red piping that rings around the entire top of the midsole, with a darker blue piping below it that stops before each side of the toe-guard.

The RPF forum member “Mike J.” identified the significant differences between stock Flyers and the Nostromo sneakers, particularly that the recognizable ankle logos had either been removed or painted over, a third ventilation eyelet was added on the sides, and the lace eyelets were supplanted by eight sets of white-painted D-rings, presenting a more technical appearance.

Brett steps up to a fateful exoskeleton, flashing the signature ridged toe-guards and red and white midsole striping of the classic PF Flyers.

Brett doesn’t wear a watch, though Alien fans seeking a timepiece to go with their look could follow the examples set by Ripley and Dallas of wearing a dual rig of black Casio digital watches mounted on an orange base.

What to Imbibe

R&R among the Nostromo crew typically means swilling cans of Aspen, a fictional beer brewed by the in-universe conglomerate Weyland-Yutani Corporation. The name suggests Aspen is a product of Colorado, perhaps meant to be Alien‘s update of Coors as another “taste of the Rockies.”

How to Get the Look

Harry Dean Stanton as Brett in Alien (1979)

Brett’s space truckin’ ensemble would indeed make a great Halloween costume, but you could also pull together your scrappiest baseball cap, bomber jacket, aloha shirt, cargo pants, and sneakers and look just as at home at your neighborhood dive bar as Brett looked on the Nostromo… if not more-so.

• Olive-green cotton hip-length crew jacket with brown quilted nylon edges and sleeve facings (with black laced gussets), two narrow breast pockets, and large patch hip pockets
• Light-green tropical-printed Jamaican-made aloha shirt with camp collar, plain front, and breast pocket
• White cotton long-sleeve henley shirt with long placket (with horizontal buttonholes)
• Pale-blue cotton multi-pocket cargo pants with long snap-top belt loops, reinforced knees, and velcro-strap bottoms
• White canvas hi-top sneakers with 8 D-ring lace eyelets, white rubber toe-caps, and red-and-navy piped white rubber midsoles with vertical-ribbed “bumper” toe-guards
• Navy baseball cap with arced rainbow “USCSS Nostromo” service badge and gold-wire “scrambled eggs” brim detail

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. You can also read more about John Mollo’s costume design from Alien from these sources:

• The Art of Costume
• Hello, Tailor
• Strange Shapes

The Quote

Right.

The post Alien: Harry Dean Stanton’s Tropical Shirt as Brett appeared first on BAMF Style.

Tom Hardy as Ricki Tarr in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Vitals

Tom Hardy as Ricki Tarr, disillusioned British spy

Paris, Spring 1974

Film: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Release Date: September 16, 2011
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Costume Designer: Jacqueline Durran

Background

With increasingly warmer weather as spring continues through the Northern Hemisphere, I’m swapping out wool coats for windbreakers at the front of my closet. Of course, on some recent climatically chaotic days that start at temperatures around freezing and then rise to over 70°F by mid-afternoon with the occasional burst of rain, I often rely on smart layers to effectively dress for this unpredictable weather.

One of my favorite examples of smart casual layering that illustrates versatility for different weather and situations is the combination of a Harrington jacket over a light sweater and open-necked shirt. William Claxton had famously photographed his friend Steve McQueen dressed accordingly in 1964, and these headshots are still used to illustrate the enduring style of both the jacket and the King of Cool himself.

Steve McQueen, dressed in his stone-colored Baracuta G9, open-neck shirt, and V-neck sweater, as photographed by his friend William Claxton in 1964.

Decades after his death in 1980, McQueen remains a seminal style icon whose blend of practicality and toughness has influenced scores of men from stars to schlubs (like yours truly)… and a few movie spies, as well. McQueen’s legacy seemed particularly prevalent on silver screen espionage fashions beginning in the late 2000s as Daniel Craig’s James Bond fully embraced Harrington jackets, shawl-collar cardigans, and suede boots as particularly seen in Quantum of Solace, his 007’s action-packed sophomore adventure.

Three years later, costume designer Jacqueline Durran also saw McQueen as her muse when dressing a fellow British agent, the more grounded—and cynical—Ricki Tarr, as portrayed by Tom Hardy in Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of the John le Carré novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

“We very much looked to that kind of ’60s Steve McQueen look for all of them,” Durran explained to GQ of Ricki Tarr’s costumes, first dressing Tarr in a Belstaff shearling coat often associated with McQueen before pulling together the lighter layers as seen in McQueen’s MGM headshot shoot with Claxton as the film approached its conclusion with Tarr in Paris, working to flush out an MI6 mole.

What’d He Wear?

The starring piece of Ricki Tarr’s Paris kit is his beige windbreaker, a style pioneered by Mancunian brothers John and Isaac Miller when they introduced their Baracuta G9 blouson in 1937. “Like many of its imitators, it was an unfussy cotton jacket with a stand-up collar, knitted cuffs, raglan sleeves, and slanted flap pockets,” Josh Sims wrote in Icons of Men’s Style of the G9, which the Millers had developed as a golf jacket (hence the “G”) alongside the looser G4.

Just over 20 years after Baracuta’s golf jacket was introduced, Elvis brought the G9 off the green when he wore one in King Creole and launched a trend among smart-dressing stars that would include, over the following decade: Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen (of course), and Ryan O’Neal, whose association with the jacket on Peyton Place led to its enduring moniker as a “Harrington jacket” in tribute to his character, Rodney Harrington. Though more than a century has passed and Peyton Place remains all but forgotten, the “Harrington jacket” designation has been warmly adopted by the menswear-verse, to the extent that even Baracuta has included it among its marketing for the G9, which they now offer in a wide range of colors, fits, and even fabrics beyond the water-resistant cotton gabardine that had made the original jacket such a staple.

Despite these varieties, the signature styling of the G9 remain consistent: the front zips up to a standing two-button collar, the raglan sleeves have a full fit to allow a golfer’s greatest range of movement, with ribbed-knit cuffs echoing the waist hem, and the umbrella-inspired “wing back” yoke further serves to redirect rain. The two side pockets were designed to be large enough to hold golf balls, cut at a slant and covered with a flap that closes through a single button.

The distinctive plaid lining remains a clear differentiator between a genuine Baracuta and its scores of imitators, reflecting the green, blue, and white-on-red Fraser Tartan that the Millers had been granted the right to feature on their jackets by Brigadier Simon Christopher Joseph Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat and 25th Chief of the Clan Fraser.

Ricki Tarr wears his Harrington jacket unzipped to flash the Fraser Tartan lining indicative of a genuine Baracuta G9.

While a Harrington jacket alone—even a genuine Baracuta—isn’t necessarily a nod to McQueen, Ricki Tarr signs the King of Cool’s influence by sporting the same combination of a white oxford shirt and light-colored V-neck sweater as McQueen had worn for Claxton’s shoot. (The similarities aren’t exact, as McQueen had worn a beige sweater for Clax’s axe… though he did wear a powder-blue V-neck sweater three years earlier in The Honeymoon Machine.)

Tarr’s white cotton shirt has a button-down collar of an era-appropriate size, the degree of ’70s excess allowing for a particularly eye-catching roll. We see little else of the shirt other than the front placket, on which Tarr wears the top few buttons undone. The lightweight powder-blue sweater covers the rest, with a reinforced V-neck following his white shirt’s open neck line and raglan sleeves echoing those on the jacket worn over it.

Pushed up against the sweater’s ribbed left cuff, Tarr continues to wear his stainless steel Omega Speedmaster Professional, the triple-register chronograph which had launched to fame several years before the film’s setting as the “Moon watch” authorized by NASA for astronauts like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to wear during their July 1969 mission to the moon. Featuring the classic black dial, Tarr’s Speedy is strapped to his left wrist on a black leather band.

Tarr wears tan plaid flat-front trousers, detailed with the Western-style “frogmouth” full-top front pockets that were trendiest from the 1960s through the early ’70s, finished with plain-hemmed bottoms with a full break that slightly gathers atop his walnut-brown suede lace-up ankle boots.

These boots may be a final nod to McQueen, only seen from a distance but appearing to have the chunky charcoal crepe soles suggestive of playboy boots like the Hutton Originals that McQueen had worn throughout his career, beginning in the late ’50s.

The Gun

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is more of a “slow burn” espionage story, rooted in a generally realistic pursuit to uncover a mole within the British Secret Service—perhaps inspired by the real-life “Cambridge Five”—and thus lacking much of the gunplay of more action-packed spy movies like the James Bond or Jason Bourne franchises, aside from some thrilling moments at the beginning and end of the story.

That said, we do get a few flashes of a pistol drawn by Ricki Tarr while working in Paris. The weapon clearly resembles the 1911 style pioneered by John Browning in the early 20th century, on a descaled frame consistent with the Colt Commander series that had been introduced in 1950 in response to the U.S. military seeking a lighter 9mm alternative to the venerable .45-caliber M1911A1 service pistol that could be issued to officers.

Ricki Tarr’s pistol clearly follows the 1911 design, though its smaller size and the covert nature of his work suggests a downscaled version like the contemporary alloy-framed Colt Commander.

Following the government’s parameters, Colt put forth a somewhat smaller and lighter version of the 1911A1, which received the appropriately martial designation “Commander” its entering production for the civilian market. Chambered primarily for the universal 9x19mm Parabellum round, this pistol maintained the 1911’s single-action trigger system and short recoil operation, but in an alloy-framed package with a barrel shortened three quarters of an inch to 4.25″ long.

As Colt’s first 9mm-chambered pistol in mainstream production, the Commander became a quick hit and was soon also offered for the .45 ACP and .38 Super rounds, which had been more traditionally associated with the 1911 platform. In 1970, Colt introduced an all-steel variant known as the “Combat Commander” with the earlier alloy-framed pistol renamed the “Lightweight Commander” to differentiate between the two. Given the nature of Ricki Tarr’s espionage duties, it’s likely that he armed himself with a Lightweight Commander that would be more comfortably carried while undercover in Paris.

How to Get the Look

Tom Hardy as Ricki Tarr in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Following the example set by ’60s style icon Steve McQueen, Ricki Tarr smartly layers for his mission to Paris in the timeless combination of a Harrington jacket over an open-neck shirt, V-neck sweater, and slacks, completed with suede boots and a standout watch.

• Beige cotton gabardine Baracuta G9 “Harrington jacket” with 2-button standing collar, zip-up front, slanted side pockets (with button-down flaps), raglan sleeves, ribbed-knit cuffs and hem, umbrella-style back yoke, and Fraser Tartan plaid lining
• White oxford cotton long-sleeve shirt with button-down collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Powder-blue V-neck sweater with raglan sleeves
• Tan plaid flat front trousers with full-top “frogmouth” front pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Walnut-brown suede derby-laced “playboy boots” with charcoal crepe soles
• Omega Speedmaster Professional stainless steel chronograph watch with black triple-register dial on black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read John le Carré’s source novel.

The post Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Tom Hardy Echoes Steve McQueen’s Baracuta Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Roscoe Lee Browne as Philippe Dubois in Topaz (1969)

Vitals

Roscoe Lee Browne as Philippe Dubois, smooth-talking Martinican-American sleeper agent

New York City, Fall 1962

Film: Topaz
Release Date: December 19, 1969
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Costume Designer: Edith Head

Background

Following last month’s look at a “hero costume” from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1942 thriller Saboteur, I want to continue exploring style from the lesser-known entries in the Master of Suspense’s oeuvre. Loosely based on the “Martel affair” and events leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Topaz was Hitch’s final movie centered around espionage, though I consider it to lack much of the spark that fueled his earlier successes like North by Northwest.

The single exception in Topaz may be a brief scene made more memorable by the appearance of Martinican agent Philippe Dubois, portrayed by Roscoe Lee Browne, the multi-talented star of stage and screen born 100 years ago today on May 2, 1922.

Working deep cover as a New York City florist, Dubois receives a visit from French agent André Devereaux (Frederick Stafford), asking him to make contact with the purple-haired Cuban diplomat Luis Uribe (Donald Randolph) in the hopes of bribing him for information about Russian missile bases in Cuba. (This being the fall of 1962, it’s no wonder why…) His target holed up in Harlem’s Hotel Theresa, Dubois mulls over whether or not he should pose as a reporter from Ebony, Playboy, or the Jersey City Post-Ledger, the latter headquartered about 100 miles southeast of Browne’s actual birthplace of Woodbury, New Jersey.

Devereaux: Ebony.
Dubois: Oh, I think I identify better with Playboy.
Devereaux: Ebony.
Dubois: Oh man, are you square!

His plan determined, Dubois talks his way into a brief interview with the Castro-inspired revolutionary leader Rico Parra (John Vernon), trading on Parra’s vanity to use a balcony photo op as just enough time for Uribe to spirit away with an attaché case full of valuable intel.

After Dubois leaves, a suspicious Parra notices that his documents have gone missing and begins a search his armed Hernandez (Carlos Rivas), eventually finding Uribe overseeing Dubois photographing the documents. The wily Dubois jumps out the window, landing on an awning and making his escape as Parra takes potshots at him. With revolutionaries chasing him through the streets, Dubois hands his camera to Devereaux and retreats into the safety of the flower shop, concluding his role in Topaz, as well as its most entertaining chapter.

What’d He Wear?

Philippe Dubois differentiates himself from the assortment of spies we meet earlier in Topaz, not just with his race and charming irreverence but also his attire of a checked sports coat rather than a gray suit. The single-breasted wool jacket features a low-contrasting black shadow check and narrower blue graph-check against a charcoal-brown ground.

The jacket appropriately reflects narrower fashions of the early ’60s, with the slim lapels notched in the “half clover” style with the lower half of each notch more rounded than cornered, rolling over the top of three buttons to present a classic 3/2-roll, a buttoning style that transcended regional fashions as a favorite among Ivy Leaguers and tailors from Naples to Savile Row. The shoulders are straight and padded, and the sleeves are finished with two buttons spaced apart on each cuff. The jacket also has a single vent, straight flapped hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket that Dubois wears empty.

Dubois’ oxford cloth shirt continues the theme of his American informality in contrast to his continental colleagues. The blue and white end-on-end woven cotton presents a light blue finish. The shirt has a front placket, button cuffs, and an elegantly rolled button-down collar, the style pioneered by Brooks Brothers chief John E. Brooks at the dawn of the 20th century that had been inspired by English polo players and also became an American Ivy staple.

His brown silk tie is patterned in a tight field of darker brown dots and tied in a Windsor knot which, due to the fashionably slim width, doesn’t show the substantial heft associated with more modern Windsor-knotted ties.

Dubois wears dark gray wool flat front trousers held up by a black leather belt that contrasts with the shade of his brown leather cap-toe oxfords. The trousers also have straight side pockets and are finished with turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms, which have a short enough break to show his thin dark brown dress socks even when he’s not jumping out of windows.

Dubois’ shoes are best—if blurrily—seen as he makes his understandably hasty escape through a hotel window as Rico Parra and his armed henchman discover him actively spying.

After his nerve-wracking escape from Parra’s gunmen, Dubois retreats into his floral shop and affects the immediate disguise of pulling on the tweed trilby he keeps hung by the door. The short-brimmed hat is patterned in a black and indigo houndstooth check against the gray woolen ground, with a band made from matching fabric.

Dubois’ sole affectation is a gold ring that he wears on his left ring finger, the oval surface filled with a reddish setting with a raised relief.

Devereaux echoes Topaz‘s general espionage “uniform” of a tailored gray suit, white shirt, and tie, while Dubois presents a more unique contrast in his checked sport jacket, blue button-down shirt, and a ring flashing from his left hand. (Does anyone know why Devereaux has that tri-color thread on his left lapel?)

How to Get the Look

Roscoe Lee Browne as Philippe Dubois in Topaz (1969)

Roscoe Lee Browne made the most of his limited screen-time in Topaz as the well-dressed and witty agent Philippe Dubois, who may be dressed contemporarily for 1962 but looks just as stylish sixty years later in his dark checked sports coat, light blue OCBD, tonal tie, and brown oxfords.

• Charcoal-brown (with black check and narrow blue graph-check) wool single-breasted 3/2-roll sport jacket with narrow “half-clover” notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, spaced 2-button cuffs, and single vent
• Light-blue oxford cotton shirt with button-down collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Brown silk tie with small dark brown polka dots
• Dark gray wool flat front trousers with belt loops, straight side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black leather belt with silver-finished single-prong buckle
• Brown leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Dark brown dress socks
• Gold ring with raised brick-red relief-cut setting
• Gray (with black-and-blue houndstooth check) woolen tweed short-brimmed trilby with self-band

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Devereaux: Watch yourself, Philippe.
Dubois: It’s the best thing I do!

The post Roscoe Lee Browne in Topaz appeared first on BAMF Style.

James Dean and Julie Harris in East of Eden (1955)

Vitals

James Dean as Caleb “Cal” Trask, angsty and entrepreneurial farmer’s son

Salinas, California, Fall 1917

Film: East of Eden
Release Date: March 9, 1955
Director: Elia Kazan
Costume Designer: Anna Hill Johnstone

Background

James Dean’s first of only three major credited screen roles also resulted in his first of two posthumous Academy Award nominations, starring as the moody Cal Trask in Elia Kazan’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden, itself a loose retelling of the story of Cain and Abel set in California’s Salinas Valley around the time of America’s entry into World War I.

Cal and his brother Aron (Richard Davalos) vie for the affections of their father Adam (Raymond Massey), a prominent farmer and draft board chairman, whom Cal hopes to impress by growing beans to raise funds that would support the family and supplant some of Adam’s own financial losses. As Cal’s success in the bean-fields grows, his competition with his brother extends to Aron’s girlfriend Abra (Julie Harris), growing closer to her after they meet up at a county fair. (The music scoring the fair consists mostly of 1920s standards like “Ain’t She Sweet”, “Ain’t We Got Fun”, and “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles”, gently anachronistic for the scene’s setting in the fall of 1917.)

Cal and Abra share a dramatic moment on the Ferris wheel.

East of Eden was Dean’s only starring film to be released during his lifetime, premiering in New York City on March 9, 1955, and widely released a month and a day later. His subsequent film projects—Rebel Without a Cause and Giant—would both be released following his death at the age of 24 on September 30, 1955.

What’d He Wear?

Given the charismatic James Dean’s potential as a rising star, his clothes reflect World War I-era fashions but worn with a contemporary ’50s sensibility, perhaps most represented in this scene not just by the sporty shirt but also by Cal wearing it only buttoned to the mid-chest, showing off far more of himself than would have been permissible by the era’s decorum. It may not be fair to deem Cal’s wardrobe totally anachronistic, though it’s worth mentioning that—at the very least—he presents a very progressive approach to dressing.

Cal Trask dresses almost exclusively in shades of brown, from beige shirts, sweaters, and trousers to his brown three-piece suit and this bronzed sports coat while attending the fair. The heavy light brown wool has been woven in a tight herringbone weave of sharp chevrons. The single-breasted jacket has short notch lapels that roll to the top of the full three-button front. The jacket also has three non-functioning buttons on each cuff, straight flapped hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket.

The extra beaming at Dean over his left shoulder illustrates the impact of the actor’s magnetic charisma.

The ventless jacket has been tailored to emphasize an athletic hourglass silhouette with wide, heavily padded shoulders and a suppressed waist that’s enhanced by a half-belt sewn across the rear waist. This belted-back detail dates back to the emergence of sportswear like the famed Norfolk jacket in the late 19th century, allowing for a full-fitting jacket to be flatteringly pulled in at the waist while allowing the wearer a greater range of arm motion whether he’s leveling a rifle at wild game… or at milk bottles during a county fair.

Dean’s screen-worn jacket has been auctioned at least twice in the last two decades, sold through Heritage Auctions in October 2006 and again by Nate D. Sanders in September 2012, where the closing price neared $12,000. You can check out both listings for more information and photos of the actual jacket.

The sport jacket’s belted back may be the most period-specific detail of Cal Trask’s costume.

Cal maintains his usual chromatic scheme with a short-sleeved sport shirt made of a light ecru cotton. Aside from when we see him wearing a full suit and tie, all of Cal’s dressed-down shirts have short sleeves, a curious anachronism that certainly would have been contemporary to the 1950s production but was certainly not as widespread at the time of the film’s setting in 1917 when most men’s clothing—even for sports and labor—had full-length sleeves. The popularity of pre-made short sleeves wouldn’t emerge for at least two decades, following the relaxed sartorial standards influenced by interwar resort culture and the aloha shirts and tropical uniforms that servicemen had been exposed to during the second world war.

In addition to their short sleeves, several of Cal’s shirts are also characterized by their sporty one-piece collar, a style often marketed as a “Lido collar” for its associations with resort-wear. These flat collars resemble the familiar camp collar but tapered down the front of the shirt without a notch; similar to the Johnny collar, this graceful V-shaped neckline prevents the option of wearing a necktie which, especially in 1917, would have made this a particularly casual shirt.

The shirt has five buttons ton the wide placket, with the top button positioned just under the fold where the Lido collar overlaps, though Cal gradually devolves from wearing this top button undone at the fair to having the top three buttons unfastened when he’s confronted at home by his brother. A pocket over the left breast further dresses the shirt down. The screen-worn shirt, with a May 1954-dated mark for “Jim Dean”, was also auctioned by Nate D. Sanders in 2012.

The cooler fawn shade of Cal’s wool gabardine flat front trousers subtly contrasts from the heavier sport jacket to break up the undesired “mismatched suit” effect. Aside from his three-piece suit, all of Cal’s trousers have belts made from matching fabric, including the narrow fawn-colored belt that closes over these trousers’ extended waist tab through a brass single-prong buckle.

The trousers have jetted back pockets, on-seam side pockets, and a slit pocket just below the right side of the belt-line where Cal wears his watch. The bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs) with a high break.

Between the common choices of black and brown shoe leather, Cal wisely opts for the latter with this sandy-toned outfit, sporting a pair of cognac plain-toe oxfords worn with taupe socks.

While the rest of his screen wardrobe may have been rooted more in contemporary fashions of the ’50s, it was actually James Dean himself who insisted on incorporating the most period-correct part of his costume: a vintage gold pocket watch.

Dean was still just a struggling actor in the early 1950s when he purchased what he would call his “lucky watch”, a gold-filled pocket watch with a full-hunter cover, powered by a rhodium-plated Elgin movement and made by Standard Watch Co. in 1889. As described by Stephen Pulvirent for Hodinkee:

Dean’s solid gold pocket watch is signed “Standard USA” and was made circa 1889 in bassine et filets style with an engine-turned back. The front cover is engraved with the initials “JD” and the dial is simple white enamel, decorated with a sunken sub-seconds counter that lives below the blued steel hands. The coin-edged case contains an Elgin movement composed of a three quarter plate, five jewels, a straight line lever escapement, and a cut-bimetallic compensation balance.

Three years after he purchased it and was on the fast road to stardom, the actor insisted on wearing it during the filming of East of Eden, against director Elia Kazan’s protestations… though he did reportedly swap out the cover to hide his monogram.

Perhaps sensing that he had sourced all the good luck that the watch could give him, Dean gifted the watch to Warner Brothers hairdresser Tillie Starriet, whom he had befriended on set, and began wearing the LeCoultre PowerMatic Nautilus that was still on his wrist when he died in the infamous September 1955 car crash.

Nearly sixty years after it dangled from his waistband in East of Eden, Dean’s “lucky” pocket watch was auctioned by Antiquorum in 2013, fetching around $42,000. You can read more at Hodinkee and Watch Collecting Lifestyle.

How to Get the Look

James Dean as Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955)

While I don’t think James Dean’s look in East of Eden would win any awards for era-authentic costume design, Cal Trask presents a comfortable template for tastefully sporty dressing in his light brown belted-back jacket, matching-belted trousers, and Lido-collar shirt… with a vintage pocket adding character.

• Light brown herringbone wool single-breasted 3-button sport jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and half-belted back
• Ecru cotton short-sleeved sport shirt with Lido collar, wide front placket, and breast pocket
• Fawn wool gabardine flat-front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, front-right slit pocket, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Fawn wool belt with brass single-prong buckle
• Brown leather plain-toe oxford shoes
• Light taupe socks
• Gold full-hunter pocket watch with white enamel dial (with radial Roman numeral hour markers and 6:00 register) on a short chain with round fob

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read John Steinbeck’s novel.

The Quote

I never go home anymore.

The post East of Eden: James Dean’s 1917 Sport Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

On George Clooney’s 61st birthday, I’m pleased to present another guest post contributed by my friend Ken Stauffer, who had also covered the actor’s plaid suit in Out of Sight and Clooney’s fashionable co-star Brad Pitt from this same scene in Ocean’s Eleven. You can learn more from him about the style of the Ocean’s film series on his Instagram account, @oceansographer.

Danny goes to Hollywood: George Clooney as Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

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George Clooney as Danny Ocean, recently paroled con man and casino heister

Los Angeles, Spring 2001

Film: Ocean’s Eleven
Release Date: December 7, 2001
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Costume Designer: Jeffrey Kurland
Tailor: Dominic Gherardi

Background

Happy birthday to George Clooney, who turns 61 today! To celebrate, we’re looking back at one of his most striking tailored looks in Ocean’s Eleven, the movie which arguably made him a household name and cemented his image as a suave leading man.

The film opens with Clooney’s Danny Ocean being released from North Jersey State Prison on a frigid winter morning. After a shave and a wardrobe change, his first stop is Atlantic City’s Trump Plaza to find Frank Caton (Bernie Mac), a fellow career criminal currently eking out a living under an alias as a blackjack dealer. Within a handful of lines, we learn that Danny is on the hunt for Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt), whom he quickly learns is now “teaching movie stars how to play cards.” A day later, the parolee has flown across the country to rope in his felonious old friend at a Hollywood nightclub.

Drink in hand, Danny slips right past an unsuspecting Rusty, who’s momentarily entranced by the club’s dancers. Rusty is then taken aback to find his jailbird ex-partner lounging in his workplace—the club’s back room with a card table—and mingling with his high-net-worth clients: a pack of young TV stars paying him for poker lessons. While Rusty’s guileless students pepper Danny with questions about his checkered past, the pair of grifters quickly fall back into a comfortable rhythm, gently chiding each other like reunited brothers. They exchange knowing glances and wordlessly signal one another as they swindle the hapless actors with an old-fashioned stacked deck. Cash in hand, the two cheats take a short drive down Hollywood Blvd. to the iconic Musso & Frank’s Grill where, over coffee, Danny hints at the plan he’s been patiently perfecting for years in his prison cell, piquing Rusty’s curiosity.

Their next stop of the night is an architect’s office amongst the high rises of downtown L.A., specifically one that hosts the blueprints to the vault of the famous Bellagio casino in Las Vegas. Following a quick study, the gears are already turning in Rusty’s head as he contemplates who to recruit to execute the colossal caper. He just needs one more little nudge to coax him on board, and Danny’s all too eager to spring into a speech he’s been rehearsing for just this occasion.

What’d He Wear?

Having just regained his freedom, Danny Ocean is man on a mission and dressed for stealth on his first night back on the West Coast. While his dark outfit may at first glance appear all black, a closer look reveals the subtle and sophisticated choices made by the film’s costume designer, Jeffrey Kurland, and executed by tailor Dominic Gherardi.

Rusty returns to find that “the longest night of my life” has gotten even longer as his recently paroled best friend has seated himself among the “Teen Beat cover boys” like Topher Grace and Barry Watson.

The custom-made six-on-two double-breasted suit that the character wears here is a real standout from the film. The charcoal wool fabric is woven in a traditional herringbone, but with a thin copper windowpane pattern on top of it. It’s rare to see these two features combined in a single cloth, especially one this lightweight, but they work well together to create an intriguing fabric. The zig-zagging fibers of the herringbone give the cloth the illusion of depth, as well as a tone-on-tone vertical stripe effect from afar. Coupled with the windowpane, it visually adds height to the wearer, as windowpanes are always taller than they are wide.

This is actually one of three garments that Danny wears in a row incorporating a windowpane check, including his brown houndstooth sport coat with a red overcheck, and his sharkskin gray silk blend jacket.

Blinded by the light. This boost of illumination from an ultimately friendly security guard allows us a glimpse at Danny’s subtle windowpane check.

Jeffrey Kurland’s costume design for Danny Ocean was intentional from the outset, as seen in his concept sketches and notes featured in this Academy Originals featurette.

The jacket’s peak lapels are quite wide, around 4.5”, and set at a 4.5” gorge height, with a Milanese buttonhole on each side, i.e. the fancy kind that’s done by hand.

These lapels have very little belly, which is to say they’re cut in a straight line from their widest point on the chest down to the buttoning point at the waist, without curving. If one looks at most contemporary peak lapels, you’ll find that they’re more rounded, belling out and creating sort of a tulip shape on the wearer’s chest. The more angular cut that Danny wears is more in line with the style of the 1940s, giving it some appropriately classic charm.

The jacket has a traditional length, extending to just below the bottom of the thief’s thumbs and more than covering his seat. (Apologies to all those hoping to see more of Clooney’s butt in this article.)

The shoulders are straight and well-padded, with a small amount of roping. They extend past the actor’s own shoulders to give him a strong silhouette, as noted in Jeffrey Kurland’s initial sketch.

The jacket is unvented, with a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, and three working buttonholes at the end of each sleeve.

Many of these characteristics—including the lower gorge height—were common in both the “golden age” of men’s fashion as well as the late ’90s and early 2000s period when the film was made, but some have since fallen out of fashion in the last 20 years.

“I don’t know what four nines does, but the ace—I think—is pretty high.” I also just noted for the first time that only Danny and Rusty drink in the poker scene; all the teen heartthrobs just have bottles of Ramlösa mineral water.

Beneath the suit jacket, the dapper con man wears a simple navy turtleneck with ribbed cuffs and hem. It’s likely made from a blend of cashmere and silk, given its slight sheen. While Danny Ocean is usually costumed in an open-neck dress shirt, he actually does pair a sweater with a suit in each of the three films; he even wears a dark turtleneck in each sequel, though admittedly the final time is part of an ill-conceived disguise.

The turtleneck sweater, also called a polo neck, roll-neck, or skivvy depending on where you learned English, has been a menswear staple for centuries. While it lacks some of the formality of a shirt and tie, it’s been widely accepted as an appropriate alternative with tailored clothing for many decades. This trend emerged in the 1920s before becoming a popular mainstay roughly 40 years later.

The brighter lighting of this on-set interview brings out the turtleneck’s navy hue that appears darker in the finished film.

George Clooney and Brad Pitt flank Ocean’s Eleven producer Jerry Weintraub for the December 2001 cover of Palm Springs Life magazine, photographed by Bob Marshak. The full-length shot of the trio showcases Danny’s well-shined black shoes more significantly than we see them on screen.

Since Danny never removes this jacket on screen, we don’t see much of the suit’s matching trousers. We can make out that they have a flat front, straight legs from the thigh to ankle, and a large break at the plain hem. We can also safely assume that they have a medium-high rise, on-seam side pockets, and button-through back pockets on both sides, as do all his other trousers elsewhere in the film. While the bottom of his sweater covers the waistband of the pants, we don’t see a bulge that would be created by a belt buckle, so it is possibly made plain like on both pairs of his tuxedo pants.

On his feet are the black calfskin Dolce & Gabbana cap-toe derbies that he wears throughout the film, polished to such a high glossy shine that they resemble patent leather. These shoes have four eyelets and tan leather soles. His socks are presumably simple and dark to coordinate with his outfit, but the full break of his pants makes them impossible to see on screen.

The dress watch that Danny sports throughout the film is a contemporary Hamilton Linwood Viewmatic, styled like a vintage piece. It has a complex silver guilloché dial and silver dauphine hands behind a sapphire crystal. The heavily polished stainless steel 38mm case is mounted on a 19mm black alligator-grain leather strap finished with a polished, branded pin buckle. The watch is powered by the 25 jewel ETA 2824-2, a real workhouse of a movement found in many mid-tier automatic watches, visible through the mineral crystal exhibition caseback. This particular model retailed for only $375 in 2001 but hasn’t been produced for at least 15 years now.

Left: Danny’s handsome Hamilton and wedding ring flash from his left hand.
Right: The author’s own Hamilton Linwood Viewmatic.

Danny’s only other accessory is his platinum wedding band, which in retrospect should have elicited some questions from his best friend. Rusty must have just been too preoccupied thinking about his next meal to notice.

George Clooney as Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

How to Get the Look

When you’re going to meet up with your best friend to pitch an incredibly complex and risky heist, you really want to look your best.

Danny Ocean’s dark and classic outfit immediately establishes his quiet confidence amid the flashy backdrop of a trendy Hollywood club. His clothes are timeless, recalling the understated elegance of a bygone era, while not looking out of place in 2001.

• Charcoal herringbone wool suit with faint copper windowpane pattern:
  • Double-breasted 6-on-2-button jacket with wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Flat front medium-high rise pants with plain waistband, on-seam side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Navy cashmere/silk turtleneck sweater with ribbed cuffs and hems
• Black calf leather 4-eyelet cap-toe derby shoes
• Charcoal gray dress socks
• Hamilton Linwood Viewmatic wristwatch with a polished stainless steel 38mm case and silver guilloche dial on a 19mm black alligator-grain leather strap
• Polished platinum wedding band

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Treat yourself to a meal at Musso & Frank’s and check out the movie.

That’s a 3, Brad.

The Quote

Danny: What?
Rusty: I need a reason. Don’t say money. Why do this?
Danny: Why not do it? (Rusty shakes his head) Because yesterday I walked out of the joint, after losing four years of my life, and you’re cold-decking Teen Beat cover boys. Because the house always wins. You play long enough, you never change the stakes, the house takes you, unless, when that perfect hand comes along, you bet big, and then you take the house.
Rusty: (a beat) You’ve been practicing that speech, haven’t you?
Danny: A little bit. Did I rush it? It felt like I rushed it.
Rusty: No, it was good, I liked it. The Teen Beat thing was harsh.

The post George Clooney’s Double-Breasted Suit in Ocean’s Eleven appeared first on BAMF Style.

Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas (1990)

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Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito, volatile and violent Mafia associate

New York, Spring 1970

Film: Goodfellas
Release Date: September 19, 1990
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Richard Bruno

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy Mother’s Day! One of my favorite cinematic sequences depicting the relationship between a son and his mother comes by way of my favorite movie, in which master auteur Martin Scorsese cast his own mother Catherine as the charming Mrs. DeVito, mother to the psychotic gangster Tommy (Joe Pesci) who brings his cohorts Henry (Ray Liotta) and Jimmy (Robert De Niro) seeking a shovel in a covert night-time stop to fetch a shovel… only to be sweet-talked into an early breakfast.

Catherine Scorsese endearingly embodies the familiar archetype of the aging Italian-American matriarch with her plastic-covered furniture, the gift to effortlessly slip between American English and Italian dialects, and the fierce desire to feed her children and their friends… regardless of whether they’re hungry or not.

To those who only know it by reputation, Goodfellas may not immediately come to mind for many as essential Mother’s Day viewing, but therein lies much of its gift. As Lorraine Bracco’s Karen explains in her voiceover, these gangsters are “blue-collar guys”, they’re not all serious men born into a generational legacy of organized crime. Like The Sopranos a decade later, Goodfellas reflects how the “fuckin’ regularness of life” even impacts these street-level hoods, whose homes aren’t palatial Long Island estates but instead cramped Brooklyn apartments, shotgun houses in Queens, or residences shared with mothers or—as Henry Hill so dreads—mothers-in-law.

Could any movie feature a better tribute to motherhood than Scorsese featuring his own dear mother as she beautifully ad-libs her way through an entertaining scene opposite Goodfellas‘ three leads, dissecting deer anatomy, Sicilian parables, and amateur art. Of course, this delicious sequence that could be snipped from any Italian-American’s everyday life is sandwiched between two of the most arguably “gangster” moments in Goodfellas, chronicling the real-life murder of Gambino family soldier William “Billy Batts” Bentvana in June 1970.

“No more shines, Billy”

Behind the scenes of the pivotal Billy Batts beating, with Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci putting Frank Vincent’s stunt double through the rounds.

Scored by The Crystals celebrating their ode to the boy they love, Henry Hills is hosting a return party at his Queens nightclub The Suite for the recently paroled Billy Batts (Frank Vincent), a loudmouthed wiseguy whose ill-fitting clothes and pencil-thin mustache are as anachronistic as his sense of Tommy’s reputation. After Tommy swaggers into this joint with Lisa, an essentially anonymous goomar with whom he plans to settle down for the night, Batts loudly needles the young man he only remembered for his gift with a shoeshine box. Several drinks deep, Batts has no patience for Tommy’s prideful protests and, after an uneasy and only seconds-long peace, Batts assures his destruction by profanely demanding that Tommy “go home and get your fuckin’ shinebox!”

Tommy’s fury can barely be contained as Henry and Jimmy usher him from the bar, with Jimmy making an unacknowledged mental note of Tommy’s demand to “keep him here!”, all while Batts eggs on the “fuckin’ feelstrong” Tommy. Hours later (in real life, it was more like two weeks), Jimmy has indeed lulled Batts into a sense of security, as the puffy-coiffed mobster drunkenly pontificates about what he’s earned in his post-prison life, unaware of the fact that Tommy has returned, seething in the doorway. Henry sprints over to diffuse the situation, but this is Jimmy and Tommy’s game now and, as Donovan sings about joining his antediluvian baby in the submerged continent of Atlantis, the two hoods viciously beat Batts: Jimmy with an almost professional efficiency to his kicks, while Tommy approaches the task with the savage passion we’d expect of one exacting personal vengeance.

“I settle down almost every night but in the morning I’m free, I love you!”

With Henry now more exposed to the murderous side of the Mafia than he’d ever been, Jimmy and Tommy have Batts loaded into the trunk of Henry’s Grand Prix and begin searching for a place to deposit the wiseguy to avoid retribution from the Gambino crew, which would almost certainly result in the trio’s respective execution. Much as they did in real life, they make a late stop at Tommy’s mother’s home for a shovel, but this is where they are treated to more than they bargained for when Mrs. DeVito insists they join her for an early breakfast.

One of the most memorable scenes in a movie full of them, the subsequent meal was almost totally improvised, from Tommy’s seemingly innocuous request to borrow his mother’s butcher knife (“bring it back though, you know,” she responds) and their attempts to discern whether or not it’s this fictitious deer’s paw or—as Jimmy corrects—the hoof that needs to be extracted from the Grand Prix’s grille. David Chase has stated that this scene was a major influence on The Sopranos, balancing the brutality of the gangsters’ world with the dark hilarity derived from everyday life.

The brightly light DeVito dining room contrasts with the red-tinted lights of The Suite.

The only part of this scene that was scripted, according to a January 1989 shooting draft, was Tommy’s mother showing her painting to the group, though no mention is made beyond that. According to the blog mrgodfrey, the painting had actually been crafted by Goodfellas co-writer Nicholas Pileggi’s mother, a reinterpretation of Adam Woolfitt’s photo included in the November 1978 issue of National Geographic that features “one dog goes one way, and the other dog goes the other way… and this guy’s saying, ‘whaddya want from me?'” as Tommy so eloquently observes.

What’d He Wear?

“Watch the suit, watch the suit,” Tommy not-too-playfully chides Billy Batts, unknowingly striking the dangerous match that would result in both of their demises. Like many others in his crew, Tommy dresses to tell the world that he’s a gangster.

The suit that Tommy hopes to protect from Batts’ gregarious grasp appears to be one of his more conservative ones, made from a tasteful dark gray wool with a subtle sheen but nowhere near the silky finish of some of the eye-catching silks that resemble the “fuckin’ mirrors” of Spitshine Tommy’s previous work.

The suit was smartly tailored for Joe Pesci’s short and stocky 5’4″ frame, with a single-breasted jacket conventionally styled with notch lapels and a two-button front. Roped at the shoulders, the sleeves are finished with three “kissing” buttons at each cuff. The ventless jacket also has straight jetted hip pockets and a welted breast pocket, where Tommy wears a tonal gray silk pocket square.

While Tommy tries to express his boundaries (and honestly, good for him), his date Lisa (Lisa D’Apolito) looks away to avoid embarrassing him but Jimmy keeps a firm eye on Billy Batts… with Jimmy likely being the only one who can already tell exactly how the evening is going to end.

Both during the Batts murder and after seemingly changing at his mother’s house, Tommy wears a grayish light blue shirt with a sheen suggesting high-twist cotton, perhaps an end-on-end construction of slate and white thread. We know that killing Batts splashed blood on Tommy’s collar and cuffs, which appear clean during the breakfast… so did Mrs. DeVito wash her son’s bloody shirt and dry it in time for him to wear it for their meal together? Or did he just swap out his murder shirt for a nearly identical one at his mother’s house?

Either way, the shirt features the spearpoint collar that has become a staple of gangsters in the Scorsese-verse, supposedly recalled from the director’s memories of “neighborhood guys” during his formative years in Queens and Little Italy during the ’40s and ’50s. The collar may have been anachronistic by Goodfellas‘ setting through the ’60s and ’70s, but the style was already niche to begin with and it makes sense that the loud-dressing wiseguys would still have shirts made with these distinctive collars with their razor-sharp points that suggest an inherent danger… like that of an equally sharp butcher knife plunged into one’s gut.

Tommy’s shirt has a front placket, breast pocket, and double (French) cuffs that he fastens with a set of round silver links, each detailed with a small black enamel-filled circle that he positions at the top of each disc.

In a clean shirt with shining cuff links and pinky ring, Tommy listens as his mother regales his friends with a parable about an old-fashioned Sicilian who’s “content to be a jerk”.

Tommy’s brutality against Batts also ruins his tie, which had been a pale-yellow silk detailed with a Deco-inspired diamond print comprised of a small rust-colored square rotated 45° positioned over his upper chest, with its lowest point touching the top point of a slightly larger square comprised of much smaller black squares, which itself balances atop a much larger cream-colored square.

Tommy’s matching gray wool suit trousers have a medium-high rise to Pesci’s natural waist, positioned right at the jacket’s buttoning point. The single reverse-facing pleats would have been increasingly out of fashion by the following decade, though they would have given their stocky wearer some additional roominess through his thighs.

The trousers also have vertical side pockets and a relatively full fit through the legs down the slightly flared plain-hemmed bottoms. Tommy holds them up with a black leather belt that likely also serves as additional tension to keep that snub-nosed .38 revolver firmly in place against his waistband until he’s ready to draw it.

The belt leather coordinates with his favorite black leather cowboy boots, an idiosyncratic choice to wear with his suit but likely chosen as Tommy’s go-to footwear for the added height that would be an asset for a man whose occupation relies on his ability to intimidate… not to mention that these boots wouldn’t dent as easily as Jimmy’s lace-up shoes when they’re both kicking the life out of a hardy gangster.

Jimmy pulls Tommy off of the beaten Batts.

Tommy’s gold jewelry is limited to his left hand, including a diamond ring on his pinky and an elegantly simple gold wristwatch with a round, light-colored dial detailed with non-numeric hour markers and strapped around his left wrist on a gold bracelet.

The hell of it is that Tommy probably had to work hard to scrub Billy Batts’ blood out of every nook and cranny of his gold jewelry as well as his clothing.

The Gun

“I wanna shoot him in his big fuckin’ mouth… I wanna shoot him,” Tommy mutters, until a deflective swing from his pal Jimmy sends the snub-nosed .38 flying from his hand, bouncing across the floor of The Suite with such force that it seemingly breaks the gun apart, knocking the entire five-shot cylinder free from the rest of the gun.

Tommy’s .38 scatters across the floor of The Suite.

The firearm itself appears to be a Smith & Wesson Model 36, the small-framed “Chiefs Special” as it was named following a vote at the International Association of Chiefs of Police convention in 1950, when Smith & Wesson introduced it to the world. The short-barreled revolver was intended as an easily concealed “belly gun” for detectives and plainclothes policemen, downscaled for accessible carry with only five rounds in the cylinder, as opposed to six rounds of larger-sized “snubbies” like the Colt Detective Special. The Model 36 made up for its relatively low capacity by firing the venerated .38 Special cartridge, a round that Smith & Wesson had introduced a half-century earlier and had been time-tested as an American police standard by the time the Chiefs Special was introduced in the ’50s.

Despite their intended association with law enforcement, the Smith & Wesson Model 36 evidently found favor on both sides of the legal system, favored by cops and criminals alike as depicted in Goodfellas as a trusty piece wielded frequently by Tommy, Jimmy, and Henry.

How to Get the Look

Joe Pesci and Lisa D’Apolito in Goodfellas (1990)

“All dressed up! All grown up and doin’ the town,” Billy Batts observes of Tommy DeVito and—while the evening doesn’t exactly go in Batts’ favor—Tommy could have at least appreciated that he had the desired effect in his sharp duds, blending a tastefully traditional gray business suit with the signatures of gangster attire like his sharp spearpoint-collar shirt, the low-contrast silk tie, and a gilted diamond pinky ring that echoes his wristwatch.

• Gray wool tailored suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button suit jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, jetted hip pockets, 2-button “turnback” cuffs, and ventless back
  • Single reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, straight side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Light slate-blue dress shirt with long “spearpoint” collar, front placket, breast pocket, and double/French cuffs
  • Silver round cuff links with small black enamel-filled circle
• Pale-yellow silk tie with triple Deco-inspired diamond print
• Black leather belt
• Black leather cowboy boots
• Gold watch with round white dial (with non-numeric hour markers) on gold bracelet
• Gold diamond pinky ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I didn’t wanna get blood on your floor.

The post Goodfellas: Tommy’s Gray Suit for Mob Mayhem and Mom Visits appeared first on BAMF Style.

Susumu Terajima as Ken in Sonatine (1993)

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Susumu Terajima as Ken, laconic yakuza lieutenant

Ishigaki Island, Japan, Summer 1993

Film: Sonatine
(Japanese title: ソナチネ)
Release Date: September 10, 1993
Director: Takeshi Kitano
Costume Design: Junichi Goto & Alen Mikudo

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Takeshi Kitano wrote, directed, edited, and starred in Sonatine, an offbeat yakuza film that blends the genre’s usual violence with elements of black comedy and an almost surreal, dreamlike beauty. Kitano stars as Murakawa, a Tokyo crime boss who has grown increasingly numb as he advances into middle age.

Murakawa and his loyal right-hand man, Ken (Susumu Terajima), are sent to Okinawa with a gang ranging from veteran gangsters to young gunsels like the eager Ryōji (Masanobu Katsumura).

Before any progress can be made in their ostensible mission to mediate and intra-gang conflict, the body count rises after their headquarters are bombed and their number further diminished during a barroom ambush. Murakawa and his fellow survivors—including the increasingly convivial Ken and Ryōji—take refuge on the isolated beaches of Ishigaki Island, where their day-to-day life devolves into a surreally idyllic getaway full of games, gags, and gunplay.

What’d He Wear?

Ken’s boss Murakawa disdains loud fashions; accordant with his personality, Murakawa spends the movie dressed exclusively in white open-necked shirts with his businesslike slate double-breasted suit, even mocking the “lousy shirt” that one of their fellow tropically clad castaways wears during some beach games. However, Murakawa likely respects Ken too much to ridicule his sense of dress.

Even before the bar attack that led to the group lamming it, Ken was already dressed appropriately for an island getaway, having adopted a bright red floral-printed aloha shirt for his daily errands with Ryōji.

No need to look so envious, Ryōji… you’ll get your own snazzy floral shirt just like Ken’s sooner than you realize.

As suggested by their alternative “Hawaiian shirt” nomenclature, the modern aloha shirt had started appearing in Hawaii by the 1930s, perhaps originated by Honolulu-based shirtmaker Kōichirō Miyamoto, who had been making shirts with colorful Japanese prints, perhaps inspired by the open-necked palaka worn by Japanese migrant workers on Hawaiian plantations. Chinese merchant Ellery Chun had also started selling similarly patterned shirts from his Waikiki store during the same decade, and it was Chun who likely coined the term “aloha shirt”, as established by his 1937 trademark. Whether it was Miyamoto or Chun who was first, the aloha shirt as we know it can directly trace its origins to East Asia.

Ken’s short-sleeved aloha shirt echoes the styles of this early era, with a wide and sharp camp collar consistent with “golden era” sportswear of the ’30s well into the ’50s. Against its bright scarlet red ground, the all-over print consists of large-scaled lilac-colored flowers—perhaps orchids—and their green leafy stems. Five beige plastic buttons fasten through the white-threaded horizontal buttonholes up the plain, placket-less front, with likely a sixth button under the right collar leaf that would connect to the white woven loop extending from the left side of the neck. The shirt also has a small non-matching breast pocket with mitred corners and the same white contrast thread as visible along the underarm seams.

Justus D. Barnes, vacation-style.

Ken wears stone-colored cotton jeans, detailed with a bronze thread on the seams and pockets which—combined with the his sandy adventures—wear the jeans to present a warmer tan finish. He holds them up with a dark brown edge-stitched leather belt that closes through a dulled silver-toned single-prong buckle.

The jeans have curved front pockets and standard patch-style back pockets, with the signature arcuate stitch and red tab that both clearly indicate that these are Levi’s.

Far removed from his serious, suit-wearing life in Tokyo, Ken quickly embraces the sand-in-his-toes lifestyle, self-cuffing his jeans and often going barefoot on the beach. When he does wear shoes, he slides into the comfortable informality of simple loafers, the taupe canvas espadrille-style two-piece uppers attached onto black leather soles.

Murakawa, Ken, and Ryōji stride out onto the beach, now joined by Miyuki (Aya Kokumai), a rape victim that Murakawa had rescued on the dunes.

The passing of time negates the need for Ken to wear a watch, and it makes few appearances after his first few days on the island. The wristwatch he soon abandons has a plain gold case with a round gold dial, strapped to his left wrist on a dark brown leather bracelet.

This is why you don’t let depressed crime bosses decide what games you play on beach day.

Ken obtains a second aloha shirt as the gang diversifies its island wardrobe. This golden yellow shirt is similarly styled but even more busily patterned, with an all-over green palm print that grows increasingly floral and leafy toward the shirt’s hem.

Ken unpacks—and then models—his new palm-printed aloha shirt.

What to Imbibe

Ken and Ryōji make the most of the local beer Orion, both drinking it and also shooting its empty cans off of each other’s heads… but more about that later.

Sosei Gushiken founded the brewery in May 1957, during the American occupation of Okinawa, though the German-style beer he produced initially struggled to find an audience. Following a transition to an American-style beer and a well-publicized naming contest that led to its celestial-inspired appellation, Orion remains the fifth largest brewery in Japan and controls the majority of the beer market in the Okinawa prefecture.

The Gun

Ken’s firearm that he and Ryōji share when shooting at the Orion cans atop each other heads never appears to be clearly identified, though certain details indicate the likelihood of a Colt revolver with a matte blue steel frame and the curious mix of a King’s-style ramped target front sight on the fore-end of a shorter 3″ barrel. The unsupported ejector rod particularly suggests an earlier Colt model and, combined with the muzzle bore and frame size, I’m inclined to believe it may be a Colt Official Police—or a blank-firing replica—that Ken and Ryōji are passing between each other when Murakawa joins them and changes the game to rock, paper, scissors, and Russian roulette.

As its name implies, Colt marketed the Official Police as a law enforcement revolver upon its introduction in 1927, reworked from the early Colt Army Special. The standard cartridge was the venerated .38 Special that Smith & Wesson had developed around the turn of the 20th century, fired from a sturdy, larger-framed handgun than the slightly smaller Colt Police Positive.

Later, Murakawa also hands Ken his own M1911A1 pistol to use during some of the beach games. This classic .45-caliber service pistol was designed by John Browning in the early 20th century, when it was first produced by Colt; the original M1911 was “improved” as the gently modified M1911A1 during the 1920s, after which it would remain the American military’s designated sidearm for nearly sixty more years.

Murakawa carries a full-sized 1911-style pistol in the classic G.I. configuration of a blued steel frame with vertical slide serrations and checkered walnut grips. He had used it to defend himself ably—if emotionlessly—during the barroom gunfight, and he also uses it during Sonatine‘s famous final scene.

Ken reacts with consider excitement to Murakawa handing over his own 1911.

How to Get the Look

Susumu Terajima as Ken in Sonatine (1993)

If April showers bring May flowers, then May should also mean rotating those floral prints back to the front of your wardrobe, as worn simply yet stylishly by Susumu Terajima in his red retro-styled aloha shirt as the taciturn gangster who grows increasingly playful the longer he spends on this sunny Okinawan island with his toes in the sand.

• Bright red (with large-scaled lilac-and-green floral print) rayon short-sleeved aloha shirt with wide camp collar (with white-threaded loop), plain front, and breast pocket
• Stone-colored cotton Levi’s jeans with belt loops, curved front pockets with right-side coin pocket, and patch back pockets (with arcuate stitch)
• Dark brown leather edge-stitched belt with dulled silver-stoned single-prong buckle
• Taupe canvas slip-on loafers with black leather soles
• Gold round-cased wristwatch with round gold dial on dark brown leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie… just make sure that you’re finding a Blu-ray or DVD copy that will function in your region.

The post Sonatine: Ken’s Red Aloha Shirt appeared first on BAMF Style.

Marlon Brando as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls (1955)

Vitals

Marlon Brando as Sky Masterson, smooth gambler

Havana to New York, Spring 1955

Film: Guys and Dolls
Release Date: November 3, 1955
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Costume Designer: Irene Sharaff

Background

On the traditionally unlucky day of Friday the 13th, we could all use a dash of lady luck, the concept popularized in the standard “Luck Be a Lady” that Frank Loesser had composed for the musical Guys and Dolls. Five years after Robert Alda had originated the song on stage in 1950, Marlon Brando overcame his own insecurities about his singing voice resembling “the mating call of a yak” to perform the song in Mank’s cinematic adaptation… much to the likely chagrin of his co-star Frank Sinatra, who would record it twice for his own Reprise Records label in the ’60s.

But before Sky Masterson asked lady luck to show him just how nice a dame she can be, he sets his sights on another doll, specifically the prim and pretty Sergeant Sarah Brown (Jean Simmons) of the Save-a-Soul Mission, whose organizational goals could not be more antithetical to all Sky holds dear. To win a bet with fellow gambler Nathan Detroit (Sinatra), Sky invites her to dinner in Havana, where Sister Sarah’s uncharacteristic Thursday night results in plenty of Bacardi and barfighting.

What’d He Wear?

They may call it lady luck, but Sky Masterson’s easy sense of style shows more intention than chance. The gambler has crafted a sleek signature style for himself, more contemporary with the ’50s image of gangsterdom than the flashier stripes of his pal Nathan. Subverting the time-tested formula of darker ties with white or blue shirts, Sky routinely wears light ties against dark shirts, swapping out his suits based on time of day: gray by day and dark blue at night.

Navy suits have long been an essential in men’s wardrobes, with their appeal even extending to a snappier dresser like Sky Masterson. But, like Sky’s gray suit, not just any conventionally styled suit would do. The single-breasted jacket of this dark navy gabardine suit builds Sky’s sleek—if somewhat intimidating—silhouette with fashionably wide padded shoulders. The wide notch lapels roll to a single button positioned low, even a few inches below the trouser waistband. The suppressed waist, ventless back, and narrow fit of the full-skirted quarters further emphasize the tapered figure created by the wide shoulders.

The patch pockets on the hips are each covered with a flap, with an additional flapped ticket pocket on the right side. Sky dresses the jacket’s welted breast pocket with a white linen pocket square, a more conventional choice than the kerchiefs he wears with his gray suit that were designed to match his shirts. The sleeves are finished with four-button cuffs.

The cut and details of Sky’s suit would ultimately differentiate it from most off-the-rack suits today, but—especially with a more conventional white shirt and tie—it would not have differed much from business suits of its era. Where Sky truly differentiates his style is with his offbeat choice of shirt and tie. I doubt that he even has a white shirt in his wardrobe, always opting for dark and silky shirts in colors that echo his suit.

With this suit, Sky exclusively wears a dark indigo shirt that’s just a shade lighter than the suiting, with a subtly silky finish suggestive of a high-twist cotton, a silk blend, or a blend with an “artificial silk” like viscose or rayon. The shirt has a long point collar, a plain front (no placket), and double (French) cuffs fastened with a set of gold oval links with black enamel faces.

Sky’s pale yellow silk tie provides the outfit’s only contrast against the fields of dark blue. Knotted in a tight four-in-hand, the tie features a spaced pattern of dark suns and moons. The sun shapes resemble children’s drawings of them, with a small circle surrounded by rays shooting out of it, while the moons are always positioned on their own line and portray last-quarter and waning-crescent phases.

The suit’s matching trousers are pleated and cuffed, consistent with the era’s prevailing fashions, with double reverse-facing pleats on each side and turn-ups on the bottoms that break cleanly over the tops of Sky’s black calf leather cap-toe semi-brogue oxfords, which he wears with dark socks (likely black or dark blue).

The trousers rise to Brando’s natural waist, where he holds them up with a set of plain gray fabric suspenders (braces) that have double sets of tonal leather “ears” hooking onto buttons along the inside of the trouser waistband and silver-toned adjuster hardware. Though Sky doesn’t wear a belt, he does make use of the trouser belt loops by looping the ring-end of his gold keychain to the forward-most belt loop on the right side and storing his keys in the trousers’ right-side pocket.

Sky typically likes to match his fedoras to his suits, though we see a brief exception as he holds his pearl-gray felt Royal Stetson fedora while dressed in his dark navy suit in Havana. Upon returning to New York, he swaps this out for a more tonally coordinated wide-brimmed fedora made from a dark navy felt with a matching grosgrain band.

A man of many hats: Sky the romantic and Sky the gambler.

Like many men of the era, Sky wears a pinky ring, in this case a substantial gold ring with a large smooth oval sapphire blue stone shining from the face.

Sky also dresses his left wrist with a gold watch, a subtle but unique timepiece with a recessed black round dial against the squared 14-karat gold case, secured on a black leather strap. I know that cosmetically similar watches were made during the era by Wittnauer, a New York-based watch company that had been purchased by Swiss brand Longines in 1950. Longines held onto the Wittnauer brand for nearly half a century before it was sold to Swatch in the 1990s and then again to Bulova, who continues producing Wittnauer brand watches to this day.

You can still find classic Wittnauer Geneve watches with these round dials inset against square gold cases on sites like eBay, as Longines seemingly produced this style from the 1950s through well into the ’80s.

In November 2020, Live Auctioneers auctioned a navy suit that had evidently been made for Marlon Brando to wear in Guys and Dolls, with a screenshot connecting it to this scene, though even a cursory comparison illustrates that the auctioned suit is much different. Instead of this suit’s notch lapels and patch pockets, the auctioned suit has peak lapels and jetted pockets, like a dark blue copy of the gray suit rather than the one featured in this sequence. It may indeed have been made for Brando to wear as Sky Masterson as the bias label suggests, but it did not appear in the finished film.

What to Imbibe

Though one could certainly call the nature of Sky’s bet with Nathan into question, Sky certainly begins navigating into morally questionable waters when he misleads the teetotaling Sister Sarah into enjoying a few too many boozy “milkshakes” while in Havana. She had insisted on only ordering milk, so Sky requests that the waiter bring “dulce de leche… dos.”

Sarah: What did you order?
Sky: Uh, dulce de leche… dulce is the Spanish word for “sweet”, de means “of”, and leche means “milk”.
Sarah: “Sweet of milk.” Don’t they serve it plain?
Sky: Well, uh, only in the morning, it has to do with the heat. At night, they put a kind of preservative in it.
Sarah: That’s interesting! What do they use?
Sky: Bacardi.
Sarah: Bacardi? Doesn’t that have alcohol in it?
Sky: Well, just enough to keep the milk from turning sour.

The waiter brings out two loaded coconuts with straws, prompting the unsuspecting Sarah to proclaim “this is a tasty milkshake! You mind if I have another?”

She’s got a lovely bunch of coconuts…

Outside of Guys and Dolls, I believe that enjoying too much dulce de leche would result more in a stomachache than drunkenness, as it typically refers to a type of caramelized milk with a jam-like consistency, used to top sweet desserts and fruits. In the context of Sky and Sarah’s drunken adventures, I picture the concoction as a tropical approach to the Brandy Alexander, consisting of Bacardi rum, coconut milk, and crème de cacao.

Doing some investigating, I found that Colleen Graham at The Spruce Eats had discovered a recipe that Bacardi endorsed in 2009 around the revival of Guys and Dolls on Broadway that doesn’t stray too far from what I had imagined. The recommended ingredients would be:

• 1 ounce of light rum, preferably Bacardi
• 1/2 ounce of chocolate liqueur, like Godiva
• 1/2 ounce of sweetened condensed milk (or regular milk, cream, or half and half, for a less rich drink)
• Ground cinnamon and shaved chocolate, for garnish

Shake the rum, chocolate liqueur, and milk in an ice-filled mixer, strain into a chilled cocktail glass—or coconut—and garnish with the ground cinnamon and chocolate shavings on top. Simple to make, and even simpler to enjoy.

How to Get the Look

Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, photographed by Richard Avedon during production of Guys and Dolls (1955). Though the co-stars appear to share a convivial relationship here, the two were anything but friendly off-screen.

It may take some help from lady luck to pull off Brando’s bold gambler style from Guys and Dolls, but just follow the Night Sky sartorial philosophy of a midnight-hued suit and shirt illuminated by the pale moonbeam of a celestially patterned yellow tie splitting the center.

• Dark navy gabardine suit:
  • Single-breasted, single-button jacket with wide notch lapels, welted breast pocket, flapped patch hip pockets with flapped ticket pocket, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Indigo-blue silky shirt with point collar, plain front, and double/French cuffs
  • Gold oval cuff links with black enamel-filled faces
• Pale-yellow sun/moon-patterned silk tie
• Gray fabric suspenders/braces with silver adjusters
• Black leather cap-toe semi-brogue oxford shoes
• Black socks
• Dark navy felt wide-brimmed fedora with dark navy grosgrain band
• Gold pinky ring with blue oval stone
• Gold square-cased wristwatch with round black recessed dial and black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post Brando’s “Night Sky” Navy Suit in Guys and Dolls appeared first on BAMF Style.

James Mason as Maxwell Fleury in Island in the Sun (1957)

Vitals

James Mason as Maxwell Fleury, short-tempered plantation owner

On the fictional Caribbean island of Santa Marta, Spring 1955

Film: Island in the Sun
Release Date: June 12, 1957
Director: Robert Rossen
Costume Design: Phyllis Dalton & David Ffolkes

Background

Today’s post celebrates the great James Mason, who was born 113 years ago today on May 15, 1909. Whether playing a hero or villain or navigating a moral gray area in between, the velvet-voiced Mason brought a dignified presence to his performances.

Opposing the shining talents of Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge, Mason stars in this vividly photographed but dark-hearted drama as Maxwell Fleury, a privileged aristocrat dwelling on one of his family’s estates on the eponymous island.

Upon returning home in his sleek new Jaguar roadster one afternoon, he finds Egyptian cigarettes in his ashtray that fuel his baseless paranoia regarding his wife’s marital fidelity, a suspicion that dangerously spirals as the summery Santa Marta heat intensifies.

What’d He Wear?

Though he often dresses in handsomely tailored suits and sport jackets, Maxwell’s usual casual attire on Santa Marta consists of a simple white short-sleeved shirt and trousers.

Maxwell’s white camp shirt resembles typical sportswear of the era, with a full cut that would allow for a breezier, cooler-wearing airflow through the light fabric. This fabric may be a cotton voile, as suggested by the subtle sheen and the sheer sections that show the skin of Mason’s torso and arms where he isn’t covered by what appears to be a white short-sleeved undershirt with a plunging V-neck. (You can read more about cotton voile shirting at Bond Suits.)

The shirt has a wide camp collar in a style also known as a loop collar, referring to the short loop extending from the right side of the neck that would presumably attach to a button under the right collar leaf should Maxwell choose to close the shirt over his chest. As it is, he rakishly wears the top few buttons undone over the plain front (no placket), which fastens with clear plastic buttons through horizontal buttonholes. The voile is double-layered on each side of the front buttons, adding another layer of fabric that also reduces the sheerness on that portion of the shirt.

A horizontal yoke traverses the back of the shirt, and the front is additionally detailed with two patch-style chest pockets.

Maxwell stokes his unfounded suspicions of his wife Sylvia (Patricia Owens).

Maxwell wears the shirt tucked into a pair of off-white trousers, made from a cream-colored linen just a shade warmer than his shirt to present an attractive—if subtle—contrast. The division between shirt and trousers is emphasized by Maxwell’s dark brown leather belt, which is indeed the only dark part of his costume. The narrow belt closes through a polished gilt single-prong squared buckle that he occasionally pulls to the left of the fly.

The trousers rise to Mason’s natural waist, as they were appropriately worn at mid-century, with then-fashionable double-facing reverse pleats that give the trousers additional roominess for comfortable airflow under the warm Caribbean sun.

Both Maxwell and his sister Jocelyn (Joan Collins) embrace the cool-wearing comfort of all-white clothing in their Caribbean home.

The trousers have straight pockets cut vertically along each side seam, a set-in coin pocket under the right belt-line covered with a triangular button-down flap, and two jetted back pockets. The bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

Maxwell wears white leather bicycle-toe loafers with white elastic side gussets that allow the wearer to easily slip into them despite the high vamps. The shoes have hard brown leather soles, and Maxwell wears them with pale-yellow cotton lisle socks.

Even though their all-white uppers look pristine, Maxwell still should have thought to kick those Paulie Walnuts-approved shoes off of his feet before clambering onto the Fleury marital bed.

Maxwell cycles between a pair of steel watches on dark leather bracelets. The first, seen in the opening scene at home with his wife and sister, has a round stainless case with a light-colored dial and is worn on a dark brown leather strap. This appears to be the wristwatch that James Mason wears for most of Island in the Sun.

Much later, we follow Maxwell to a seaside fish market where he converses with Colonel Whittingham (John Williams), who likens his current murder investigation to Crime and Punishment to slyly suggest his suspicions of Maxwell. Maxwell now wears a rectangular-cased tank watch with a squared black dial on a black leather strap that I believe makes its sole appearance in this scene.

The round steel-cased watch at left is Maxwell’s primary timepiece through Island in the Sun, though he does briefly wear this rectangular tank-style dress watch, which may have been Mason’s own personal wristwatch.

Having left his house, Maxwell strolls through the marina in a bleached straw hat known alternatively a a “gambler’s hat” or—perhaps more apropos Maxwell’s profession—a “plantation hat”, distinguished by its round telescopic crown and a wide brim that curls up around the edges. The hat has a narrow taupe-brown band around the base of the crown.

Maxwell’s wide-brimmed straw hat serves double duty of shading him from the sun while also allowing cool air to pass through the open-woven straw.

How to Get the Look

James Mason as Maxwell Fleury in Island in the Sun (1957)

Even if you don’t have the sartorial boldness to stride around in all-white, James Mason’s colonial casual attire in Island in the Sun consists of summer-friendly style staples that can be effectively worn together (as he does) or orphaned with other pieces.

• White cotton voile short-sleeved camp shirt with wide loop collar, double-layer plain front, and two chest pockets
• Cream linen double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, straight side pockets, button-flapped right-side coin pocket, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Dark brown leather narrow belt with polished gold-toned squared single-prong buckle
• White leather bicycle-toe loafers with white elastic side gussets and hard brown leather soles
• Pale-yellow cotton lisle socks
• Bleached straw plantation-style hat with round telescopic crown, narrow taupe-brown band, and wide up-curled brim
• Stainless steel round-cased watch with round white dial and dark brown leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post James Mason’s White Colonial Casual-wear in Island in the Sun appeared first on BAMF Style.

Dennis Hopper as Billy in Easy Rider (1969)

Vitals

Dennis Hopper as Billy, cowboy-styled biker and cocaine smuggler

Across the southern United States from Los Angeles through Louisiana, February 1968

Film: Easy Rider
Release Date: July 14, 1969
Director: Dennis Hopper

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

The late Dennis Hopper was born 86 years ago today on May 17, 1936. The iconoclastic filmmaker had been acting on screen since the ’50s before he made his directorial debut with the groundbreaking Easy Rider.

Filmed early in 1968 but not released until the tumultuous summer of ’69, Easy Rider had been conceptualized by Hopper with screenwriter Terry Southern and fellow actor Peter Fonda, who would join Hopper on screen as the pair of freedom-loving bikers we follow across the country following a lucrative cocaine sale. There’s plenty more drug use along the way, from a few LSD tabs scored from a fellow traveler to introducing the wild-eyed lawyer George Hanson (Jack Nicholson) to marijuana, but the substances are secondary as Easy Rider allegorizes the death—or, perhaps, the contemporary redefinition—of the American dream.

Their illicit trade notwithstanding, our two protagonists are established as outlaws from the outset, their names borrowed from seminal “wild west” figures like Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid, charging through the countryside not on horses but on Harleys. The music scoring their journey also had some influence on their appearance, with Wyatt—or “Captain America”, if you will—reportedly modeled after Roger McGuinn while Hopper’s mustachioed Billy bears an undeniable resemblance to David Crosby, a founding member of The Byrds.

Indeed, The Byrds and McGuinn, as well as the likes of The Band, Jimi Hendrix, and Steppenwolf, provided the movie’s now-iconic soundtrack that serves as a celebratory dirge to freedom as our riders’ journey takes them from the vast, accepting lands of the southwest and into the dangerously reactionary deep South.

What’d He Wear?

Wyatt and Billy represent two interpretations of American representation in their dress, with Wyatt sporting patriotic red, white, and blue iconography among his more contemporary black leather while Billy’s buckskins suggest a Native American provenance, his earthy tones ranging from sand to umber to present a more “heritage hippie” image.

A 2016 blog entry at The Dedicated Follower of Fashion thoughtfully posits that “Billy’s Southwestern influenced outfit could have been dug up at a flea market, emphasizing the rejection of mass market clothing and embracing individuality.”

Two kinds of American heritage style: one patriotic and one rooted in the functional fashions of the frontier.

Our heroes wear sunglasses to protect their eyes from the sun while also communicating their counterculture sense of cool. As opposed to Wyatt’s sleeker gold-framed AO Eyewear shades, Billy wears a pair of chunkier black rectangular-framed sunglasses with darker lenses.

I believe the original manufacturer of Billy’s shades has been lost to time, though Hollywood-based designer Jacques Marie Mage has paid tribute to the style and Hopper’s legacy with their squared “Taos” frame, available from Seen and MR PORTER.

Around these parts, they don’t take too kindly to gents wearing their sunglasses inside.

Billy and Wyatt insist that George strap on a helmet before agreeing to take him, but Billy himself foregoes any headgear more protective than his signature slouch hat. Also known as an “Australian bush hat”, “digger hat”, “Kossuth hat”, or “Outback hat”, this style was reportedly pioneered during the 1640s King Charles I’s royalist Cavaliers during the English Civil War. Though it has been used widely by military forces and guerrillas around the world in the centuries since, the hat has maintained a particularly strong as an Australian national symbol, emerging after these khaki hats were authorized for Australian military uniforms during the Victorian era.

Though the moniker may sound like it denigrates its wearers’ work ethics, the term “slouch hat” actually refers to the common practice of fastening one side of brim against the crown—allowing the other side to “slouch” down—so that its martial wearer could more efficiently shoulder a rifle. This side was often fastened with clips or pins, though it was modernized during the 20th century with snaps.

He’s no slouch! Billy wears the bush hat to its full intended glory, with the chinstrap deployed and the brim pinned up to one side.

In Easy Rider, Billy wears a slouch hat constructed from a stiff but malleable khaki cotton canvas. The wide brim has a silver-finished snap on each side, which Billy often does wear accordingly with the left side upturned and snapped to the crown. These snap studs are positioned on the center of the right and left sides of the crown, flanked on each side by one of two silver-finished grommets that allow air to pass through and ventilate the wearer’s head. When riding, he makes use of a brown rawhide chinstrap that keeps the hat positioned on his head.

Billy dresses his slouch hat’s soft crown with a pair of bands: a two-toned animal pelt around the base with a multi-color woven band above it that he occasionally slips off the hat and wears as a headband. The brown leather sweatband and ivory satin-finished lining reveal that the hat has traveled far with Billy, and those more experienced in mid-century milliners may be able to identify the specific hatmaker based on the green-printed logo flashed toward the camera while settling in with a highball at a Big Easy bordello.

Interesting that Billy actually looks much more like a slouch after he takes off his slouch hat.

Billy wears a shirt and jacket made from matching buckskin, the durable deerhide leather that’s been tanned and smoked to a napped, honey-tinted tan finish. After frontiersmen observed the deerskin clothing worn by Native Americans, buckskin became a frontier favorite among all from mountain men to military leaders. A century later, perhaps due to its prominent appearance in Easy Rider, buckskin again trended during the Western wear fads of the ’70s, though modern outfitters occasionally create inauthentic buckskin-like fabric by tanning and dying non-deer hides.

Billy’s hip-length jacket appears to be genuine buckskin, detailed with a widely notched ulster-style collar and three gunmetal snaps positioned from the waist up to mid-chest. Two pouch pockets are positioned at the waist, with gaping open tops and long fringe detailing hanging below each pocket’s yoke. The sleeves are left plain with no vents, snaps, or other form of closure.

Billy’s jacket is trimmed with plenty of long fringe, which originally served the dual function of dispersing rain while also breaking up the wearer’s appearance to serve as a rudimentary camouflage when hunting. The set-in shoulders are fringed continuously down to the front armpit, where the fringe continues along the chest yokes. A separate line of fringe extends across the back yoke—which slightly dips in the center, where a vertical seam extends down to the bottom of the jacket—and then continues along the back of each sleeve, ending a few inches short of each cuff. The waist hem is also entirely fringed.

Fringe for function and fashion.

Dennis Hopper on the set of Easy Rider, as photographed by Susan Wood. Note that, in addition to his full trio of necklaces, he also wears his pale-blue Wrangler snap shirt under the buckskin popover shirt, though I don’t believe this layered look ever appears in the final film.

Billy’s buckskin shirt matches the jacket but lacks any fringe trim. The style echoes a more modern polo or popover shirt with its collared V-neck detailed with four sets of silver-trimmed eyelets, presumably to take laces should Billy choose to close the shirt over his chest.

Despite this centuries-old system, the long-sleeved shirt shows signs of modern manufacture such as the twin gunmetal snaps on each squared barrel cuff. A horizontal yoke traverses the chest, aligning with the bottom of the four-eyelet “placket” and the tops of the twin flaps that cover the two set-in chest pockets. The pocket flaps have extended, rounded tabs to host the large gunmetal cap that closes each pocket.

Billy wears a trio of necklaces under his shirt collar, similar to the way a necktie is worn. The most prominent of the three is the chain of irregularly shaped, bone-colored shells, which Karen (Karen Black) grabs, asking “What are these things?” Under that, he wears a slim cord entirely decorated with small multi-colored beads in shades of blue, pink, purple, and green. Finally, he wears a light brown rawhide cord with a small brass bell suspended from it.

Production photo of Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, and Peter Fonda settling into their unwelcome seats at a Louisiana diner. Note the patch of fabric behind the V-neck of Billy’s shirt here, suggesting either a gusset that was removed or a T-shirt.

As Wyatt wears black leather gloves that match the rest of his riding gear, Wyatt sports wheat-colored work gloves made from a nubuck leather that echoes the napped finish of his buckskins.

Mittens would be far less practical for riding, but they would’ve saved Billy some dangerous trouble…

Billy wears rich copper brown trousers from a soft sueded fabric that resembles his buckskin top half. These unique flat front pants have large patch pockets over the hips with curved top openings, similar to those on jeans, and flared bottoms. These trousers also have wide belt loops, through which Billy wears a wide black leather belt that closes through a dulled silver squared single-prong buckle and has a black leather snap-top sheath holstered on the right side, possibly for a folding knife.

Billy’s well-worn russet leather cowboy boots fit his Western-driven image while also offering practical protection while riding and spending most nights camped out. He keeps the shafts covered by the trousers’ flared legs.

*extremely J. Walter Weatherman voice* … and that’s why you don’t flip off truckers in the South.

Both of our heroes are dressed slightly differently when we meet them at the outset of Easy Rider, with Billy clad in the same boots, trousers, and hat, but with a sheepskin coat and pale-blue snap-up shirt. These pieces are a more conventional presentation of the same rugged Western tradition that drives his style choices.

The hip-length sheepskin coat has been tanned to a deep copper, almost the same shade as his trousers. The lighter beige piled fleece side shows on the wide flat collar, the jacket’s lining, and from the inside of the slanted, scalloped-entry side pockets. Like his buckskin jacket, this coat has three snaps to close over his torso—the top snap aligned with the coat’s Western-pointed chest yokes—but there’s also a socket on the left side of the neck that could snap onto one of two studs on the right, should Billy choose to close the coat over his chest.

Billy’s light-blue cotton long-sleeved shirt resembles a pale-washed denim, with the “W” stitched on each chest pocket informing us that it was made by Wrangler. The shirt has a narrow point collar and white-finished snaps that fasten up the front placket, close the pointed flaps over the two chest pockets, and fasten the barrel cuffs.

Billy models a classic rugged Western look: wide-brimmed hat, sheepskin coat, and snap-front shirt.

The Bike

Wyatt and Billy make their famous ride across the country in Harley-Davidson Hydra-Glide motorcycles, customized to fit each rider’s respective image. As Harley-Davidson opted not to provide bikes for Easy Rider given that “the protagonists were outlaws” according to a June 2005 issue of History Channel Magazine, the four 1200cc bikes used during the production were ironically purchased from the Los Angeles Police Department, auctioned for $500.

Each rider had one primary bike and one backup, designed and built by Cliff Vaughs and Ben Hardy, whom Fonda had worked with after Hardy built his screen-ridden bike for The Wild Angels (1966). While Wyatt’s elongated 1952 Harley had been customized by Dan Haggery with a “Captain America” stars-and-stripes fuel tank, Billy’s Harley was painted with yellow flames against a red background.

Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider.

Sources:

• Cord and Kruse: 1952 Harley-Davidson Captain America Crash Bike Motorcycle
• IMDB: Easy Rider (1969) – Trivia
• Wikipedia: Easy Rider

What to Imbibe

Among the notable drug use in Easy Rider, Billy also drinks plenty of whiskey along the way. He isn’t shy in taking pulls from George Hanson’s pint bottle of Jim Beam Bourbon, and he settles into comfort at the New Orleans brothel with a highball that—if the nearby bottles are to be believed—consists of Johnnie Walker Red Label blended Scotch whisky, soda water, and ice.

Billy fuels for his journey with some of George Hanson’s Jim Beam.

How to Get the Look

Dennis Hopper as Billy in Easy Rider (1969)

Dennis Hopper’s Billy makes his not-so-easy ride across the country dressed in the spirit of the American frontier, clad in buckskins, boots, and bush hat with only his distinctive square-framed shades—and his Harley, rather than a horse—betraying his journey’s setting to the late 1960s and not the 1860s.

• Light brown buckskin fringed jacket with widely notched collar, triple-snap front, pouch hip pockets, and plain cuffs
• Light brown buckskin popover shirt with wide collar, four-eyelet V-neck top, two set-in chest pockets (with shaped snap-down flaps), and double-snap cuffs
• Copper brown sueded flat front trousers with wide belt loops, slanted-entry front patch pockets, and flared bottoms
• Black leather belt with large squared silver single-prong buckle
• Russet-brown leather cowboy boots
• Khaki cotton canvas slouch hat with animal pelt band, multicolor expanding band, rawhide chin-cord, and snap-up brim
• Yellow nubuck work gloves
• Shell necklace
• Multicolor-beaded necklace
• Rawhide necklace with brass bell pendant

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and the classic rock soundtrack.

The Quote

All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut.

The post Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider appeared first on BAMF Style.

Adam Sandler as Barry Egan in Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

Vitals

Adam Sandler as Barry Egan, anxious novelty swag entrepreneur

San Fernando Valley (and Hawaii), Spring 2002

Film: Punch-Drunk Love
Release Date: October 11, 2002
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Costume Designer: Mark Bridges

Background

Though it would be widely released in theaters five months later, today marks the 20th anniversary of when Paul Thomas Anderson’s offbeat romantic comedy Punch-Drunk Love premiered at Cannes in May 19, 2002.

A fan of his work in lower-brow ’90s comedies like Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and The Waterboy, Anderson had been interested in collaborating with Adam Sandler, sensing the greater dramatic potential under his distinctive comedic signature. The unconventional casting choice baffled entertainment journalists and even Sandler himself, though he delivered a career-high performance as Punch-Drunk Love‘s central character, Barry Egan.

His depressive condition seemingly worsened by his seven overbearing sisters, the awkward bachelor Barry ekes out a lonely living selling novelty toilet plungers and hoping to monopolize on a marketing promotion trading frequent flyer miles for Healthy Choice pudding cups, his anxiety inflamed by the increasingly dangerous consequences of his unhealthy choice to call a shady phone sex line. The abrupt delivery of a mysterious piano harmonium in the movie’s opening minutes marks a sea-change in Barry’s nervous existence, resulting in a glimpse of hope for a fairy-tale future with the charming—and patient—Lena Leonard (Emily Watson).

I didn’t ask for a shrink, that must’ve been somebody else. Also, that pudding isn’t mine. Also, I’m wearing this suit today because I had a very important meeting this morning, and I don’t have a crying problem.

What’d He Wear?

Punch-Drunk Love reunited Paul Thomas Anderson with Mark Bridges who, as of 2022, has designed the costumes for all nine of Anderson’s credited feature films. With its limited cast and contemporary setting, Punch-Drunk Love may be the least sophisticated costume design of their collaborations, though the costumes are still quite significant despite this simplicity.

When we meet Barry, he’s dressed in a bright, well, berry blue serge suit that he will continue to wear exclusively through the entirety of the movie in one form or another, save for a brief moment when he’s changed into a plush hotel bathrobe. We know this suit is atypical for Barry, as he seems to mystify several by wearing it—from his colleague Lance (Luis Guzman) to his more hypercritical sisters, particularly Elizabeth (Mary Lynn Rajskub)—though we don’t get much indication of what comprises Barry’s usual attire.

Lance: Why are you wearing a suit?
Barry: I bought one, I thought it would be nice to get dressed for work, and I’m not exactly sure why.

In what Barry might consider a sartorial win, he does seem to inspire Lance to wear his own suit the following day, though it’s perhaps a not so surprising choice as Luis Guzman had offered the supportively non-judgmental advice “where what you dig” as Maurice Rodriguez in PTA’s earlier Boogie Nights.

The jarring impact that the suit has on Barry’s network of acquaintances signals that we must be meeting him during an important transitory phase of his life, while the color could be argued to represent his loneliness… wallowing in “the blues”, if you will. The bright shade also feels significant, as Barry doesn’t wear the more conventional and conservative navy-blue but instead a more flamboyant jewel tone that could have been chosen to project the “smiling on the outside” demeanor that our lonely protagonist tries to project. (For more about the meaningful use of color in Punch-Drunk Love, check out this dazzlingly insightful blog post at Girls Do Film.)

The ample fit of Barry’s suit suggests on a literal level that he likely lacks either the knowledge or means to have it flatteringly tailored, but it also can be argued to symbolize how Barry is overwhelmed by the blues though, just as he chose to purchase and wear the suit, some degree of this sadness may be within his own control. (Granted, some of the full fit could also be chalked up to contemporary tailoring trends in the early 2000s.)

Getting a suit you like is the first step, Barry. But getting it tailored should be a quick second step!

The dialogue suggests that Barry isn’t an experienced suit-wearer, so he likely not only purchased this bright blue serge suit off-the-rack without any tailoring or alterations but may not have even known what size to purchase.

The jacket visually communicates the symptoms of the suit’s problematic fit, from the wide padded shoulders that extend beyond Adam Sandler’s frame (and diminish his head’s appearance) to the full skirt that, amplified by the jacket’s longer length, presents an unfortunate bell shape, despite the best efforts of the front darts to add some shape. The back is split with long side vents.

Beyond that, the jacket is styled like the standard American business suit, with notch lapels that roll to a two-button front; the buttoning point may well be correctly positioned around Sandler’s natural waistline, but the jacket’s excessive length makes that difficult to discern. The sleeves, also cut too long as evident by their frequently hiding the shirt cuffs, are finished with three non-functioning buttons at each cuff that resemble smaller versions of the two dark blue plastic buttons on the front. The jacket also has straight flapped hip pockets and a welted breast pocket that Barry refrains from dressing with a pocket square or kerchief.

Barry demonstrates the questionable durability of his products.

The matching blue flat-front trousers are also conventionally styled for an off-the-peg American suit in the early oughts, with belt loops, side pockets (and likely jetted back pockets), and plain-hemmed bottoms, though naturally with a full break that would be consistent with the trousers from an oversized suit. Barry holds these trousers up with a plain black leather belt that closes through a silver-toned squared single-prong buckle.

While Barry Egan likely would have purchased shirts in bulk from a department store, Adam Sandler is a customer of storied shirtmaker Anto Beverly Hills, having worn their custom-made shirts in movies like Click, Spanglish, and Punch-Drunk Love. As of May 2022, one of Sandler’s screen-worn shirts from Punch-Drunk Love is for sale on eBay, as identified by the “A.S.” and “Sept. 2000” embroidered labels.

Sandler’s white cotton shirts as Barry Egan are detailed with point collars, breast pockets, and rounded barrel cuffs that fasten with a button. The shirts button up a plain front (no placket) and are constructed in a micro-grid weave from a light enough cotton that the outline of Barry’s white short-sleeved undershirts can be seen through them when he removes his suit jacket.

Anhedonia.

All of Barry’s silk ties are primary colors detailed with small repeating prints, with the standout color perhaps selected to match the intensity of his romantic hopes. He ties them all in a four-in-hand, the most traditional and least flashy knot, as well as a complimentary choice for his point-collared shirts.

Barry’s first tie is blue like his suit, patterned with a tightly positioned field of light-blue arrow-like shapes that leave only space for the royal-blue chevrons to separate them. Following my theory that Barry’s ties mimic his mood, it would make sense that he’s chosen neckwear in—to borrow a title from Miles Davis—all blues.

Barry fields one of many calls from one of his many sisters.

The next day, Barry wears a mustard-yellow tie with yet another organized pattern, this time of small diamonds that alternate between a deep burgundy and dark slate-blue, still sticking to shades of the three classic primary colors.

When he had dressed for work, Barry had temporarily relieved his loneliness with an ill-advised call to the phone sex hotline, perhaps with the lovely Lena he had met the previous morning also on the periphery of his mind… though he doesn’t yet know that the day will end with her returning to his office to request a date. As one does at a yellow light, our golden-tied Barry is proceeding with caution but ready to hit the proverbial brakes at any moment.

Barry suffers one of many humiliating moments where he must bite his lip to keep his mouth shut while talking to one of his overbearing sisters, exacerbated by Lena’s presence… and the stress of an onslaught of threatening calls from Georgia the phone sex operator.

Now that Lena has made her romantic intentions clear even despite Barry’s myriad—if mostly innocuous—eccentricities, Barry begins exclusively wearing red ties that echo his awakened romantic passion. On the evening of his dinner date with Lena and the resulting bathroom destruction and Mormon foot chase, he wears a burgundy tie with a muted indigo floral print.

Out to dinner with Lena.

The next day, and through the end of Punch-Drunk Love with his respective sojourns to Hawaii and Utah, Barry wears a dark red tie with a tight, repeating pattern in a lighter tonal shade, echoing the style of his first blue tie and perhaps suggesting that his journey has come full-circle.

Likely a continuity error, there is a brief—and by brief I mean one single shot—disruption of my theory of Barry’s blue-to-yellow-to-red ties representing his emotional journey. Perhaps a continuity error or an intentional costuming decision (only Mark Bridges knows!), a shot of Barry on the plane to Hawaii shows him wearing a pale yellow tie, patterned with a densely spaced field of “squares” that are actually just sets of two taupe parallel bars arranged in alternating directions across the tie.

If I wanted to shoehorn my theory in here, I could say that Barry has returned to his “yellow light” emotional status, apprehensive about the threats from the Mattress Man, what will happen when he impulsively follows Lena to Hawaii, and the circumstances of his first-ever flight.

Barry has seemingly swapped out his tie just for his first-ever plane ride.

Barry wears a black leather cap-toe derby shoes, an infallibly tasteful if somewhat pedestrian choice. His socks are also black, rather than trying to match his hosiery to the shade of his suit.

Adam Sandler and Emily Watson behind the scenes with Paul Thomas Anderson during production of Punch-Drunk Love.

Barry wears a stainless steel wristwatch with a round black or dark blue dial, simply detailed with silver non-numeric hour markers and a wide white date window at the 3:00 position, and fastened on a unique bracelet of narrow five-piece Rouleaux-style links.

Barry impulsively carries the found harmonium into his office.

What to Imbibe

It’s never stated what tropical cocktails we see Barry and Lena enjoying on the Hawaiian beach, but—given their appearance, the setting, and the Royal Hawaiian poster boasting “entertainment at the home of Hawaii’s famous Mai Tai”, we can assume they’re each drinking a Mai Tai.

For what it’s worth, Anderson’s screenplay also references Barry and Lena drinking at “the Mai Tai bar” during the magic hour.

“Within the pantheon of exotic cocktails, one stands above the rest as the most iconic of the era,” Martin Cate and Rebecca Cate state to introduce the Mai Tai in their volume Smuggler’s Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki. “An elegant and simple concoction, really just a nutty rum margarita, it eschews the conventional structure established by [Donn Beach] in favor of a more nuanced approach.”

As with most great cocktails, debate remains regarding exactly where the Mai Tai originated, with the most likely theory that Victor J. Bergeron developed it at his seminal Tiki bar, Trader Vic’s, around 1944, though Donn Beach—of Don the Beachcomber fame—claimed it was merely an evolution of his more complex Q.B. Cooler, developed a decade earlier. Either way, the Mai Tai has remained one of the best-known exotic cocktails nearly a century later, instantly evoking travel by its resemblance to “a little tropical island with a palm tree on it,” as stipulated by Bergeron.

Many recipes exist, including one adapted by the Cates for Smuggler’s Cove (and I’d recommend you purchase the book to check it out!), though I think the simplest place to begin is with the recipe specified by the IBA:

• 30 mL amber Jamaican rum
• 30 mL Martinique molasses rum
• 15 mL orange curaçao
• 15 mL orgeat syrup
• 30 mL fresh lime juice
• 7.5 mL simple syrup

Once all the ingredients are gathered, preparation is easy enough: add all to an ice-filled shaker, shake, and pour into a tall glass filled with shaved ice. To create Vic’s desired “tropical island” effect, garnish with a pineapple spear, a lime peel, a mint spear, and—if you’re so inclined—a little paper umbrella… or a 151-proof Demerara rum float. Or both.

Not a drinker? Then I recommend stocking up on Healthy Choice pudding packs.

How to Get the Look

Adam Sandler as Barry Egan in Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

With a little tailoring, Barry’s signature blue suit throughout Punch-Drunk Love could be an eye-catching head-turner, spinning the tried-and-true formula of a dark blue suit, white shirt, and subtly patterned, primary-colored tie by brightening the shade of the suit into a brighter jewel tone while leaving the remaining elements traditional.

• Sapphire-blue serge suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and long double vents
  • Flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton shirt with point collar, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Red, yellow, or blue silk tie with small repeating print
• Black leather belt with silver-toned squared single-prong buckle
• Black leather cap-toe derby shoes
• Black socks
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• Stainless steel watch with dark blue dial (with silver non-numeric hour markers and white 3:00 date window) on steel Rouleaux bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

And if you’re interested in following Barry’s examples of taking advantage of the promotional relationships between airlines and processed food companies, just know it’s been done already by David Phillips, the civil engineer who partially inspired the character of Barry Egan.

The Quote

I have a love in my life. It makes me stronger than anything you can imagine.

The post Punch-Drunk Love: Barry’s Blue Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

John Garfield as Nick Robey in He Ran All the Way (1951)

Vitals

John Garfield as Nick Robey, desperate small-time thief

Los Angeles, Summer 1951

Film: He Ran All the Way
Release Date: June 19, 1951
Director: John Berry
Wardrobe Credit: Joe King

Background

John Garfield, one of the most talented and naturalistic actors of Hollywood’s “golden age”, died 70 years ago today on May 21, 1952. Garfield had long been troubled with heart health issues, but it’s been argued that the resulting stress brought on by harassment from the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee contributed to his early death at the age of 39, nearly a year after the release of his final film, He Ran All the Way (1951).

The New York-born actor made the most of his relatively short career, including an Academy Award-nominated screen debut in Four Daughters (1938). By the late ’40s, he had become a reliable star in the darkly lit dramas that would later be immortalized as film noir, including The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and the boxing-centered Body and Soul (1947), which yielded his second and final Oscar nomination.

Like so many of his silver screen contemporaries, Garfield was eventually targeted by HUAC during the post-World War II “Red Scare” witch hunt, despite increasingly sparse evidence that Garfield had ever been associated with the Communist Party. Hoping to “expose” a major star to validate its fear-mongering, the government even twisted Garfield’s USO work during World War II as potentially cover for treasonous activities. His intense defiance of the congressional bullies resulted in Hollywood all but abandoning one of its most popular stars, resulting in Garfield’s first heart attack during production of Under My Skin (1950), his penultimate acting gig for a major studio. However, as a freelance actor not connected to a major studio like his fellow HUAC targets Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, and Danny Kaye, Garfield lacked the backing of studio lawyers to fund the fight for his freedom.

“Determined to continue working, he put his energies into a project for his own production company, He Ran All the Way,” writes Carla Valderrama in her excellent volume This Was Hollywood: Forgotten Stars and Stories. “His character, a stick-up artist on the lam, spends the film desperately searching for a way out as the world closes in around him. It was a feeling [Garfield] was becoming far too familiar with himself.”

Garfield channeled all the rage and fear of his situation into his staggering portrayal of Nick Robey, a petty thief who escapes a botched payroll robbery by flirting his way into the home of bakery worker Peg Dobbs (Shelley Winters), where he holds her and her family hostage as he attempts to organize his escape.

Directed by John Berry from a script by Dalton Trumbo and Hugo Butler—all of whom were also blacklisted at the time—the fatalistic He Ran All the Way would prove to be Garfield’s last movie and perhaps also his best, a fitting swan song for an under-appreciated screen legend whose gift for blending desperation, toughness, and vulnerability remains impressive 70 years after his death.

What’d He Wear?

Film noir often conjures images of gat-packing gumshoes wearing trench coats in fedoras, but movies like He Ran All the Way illustrate how timeless and accessible many of the era’s contemporary fashions remain even generations later. Aside from a quick dip into a public swimming pool, Nick Robey dresses exclusively in a plain dark polo shirt and slacks with a light-colored sports coat pulled on once he’s recruited into the fateful robbery that necessitates a few extra pockets to store his piece.

Made from a light-colored and lighter-weight woolen twill, the single-breasted jacket follows the typical fashions of the late ’40s and early ’50s, when tailors made use of the ample materials available after the end of wartime rationing to present a strong silhouette that also presented the bold American confidence of the era… even if Nick doesn’t share his nation’s sense of self-confidence.

The wide notch lapels echo the straight, padded shoulders, which set the stage for the rest of the ventless jacket to hang down with a full—but never baggy—fit that flatters Garfield’s pugnacious physique. The sleeves are finished with four-button cuffs that are positioned closer than usual to the ends of each sleeve.

As tailoring standards have slackened in the generations since this “golden age” of both Hollywood and menswear, prevailing advice has typically reserved three-button jackets only for taller men, so the fact that the 5’7″ Garfield looks so good in his three-button sports coat speaks to the quality of its tailor as well as the overall style from the era. The jacket visually communicates its more casual nature with sporty patch pockets not just on the hips but also the left breast, rather than the dressier welted pocket found on most conventional business suit jackets.

Contemporary promotional artwork colored Nick’s sport jacket to a tan or light gray, though I imagine the true color would be lost to Hollywood history at this point. Promotional artists also seemed to consistently depict Nick’s shirt as a scarlet red, suggesting that this may indeed have been informed by the shirt’s actual color.

Contemporary promotional art from black-and-white movies of the era often colorized scenes from the movie, though there may be no real-life correlation between the colors chosen for these lobby cards and what the actors actually wore.

Though the collared pullover shirt with its short placket resembles what we commonly call “polo shirts” today, Nick’s shirt predates that sartorial shorthand and would have likely just been marketed in the early ’50s as a type of “sport shirt”. (Depending on which side of the Atlantic one was at the time, a “polo shirt” in the U.S. would have described a Brooks Brothers button-down while a UK shopper may have been directed to a “polo-neck” or turtleneck.)

Rather than the piqué-woven cotton of the tennis shirts popularized by Rene Lacoste decades earlier, Nick’s dark shirt is made from a plain-stitched jersey-knit combed cotton that offers the same stretchy and soft-wearing properties as it does on modern T-shirts, though the thickness and soft pilling of Nick’s shirt suggest a double-knit rather than the common single-knit.

The shirt’s set-in short sleeves end about two inches above Garfield’s elbows. The long-pointed spread collar has welted edges and a subtly shaped roll. The placket extends to mid-chest with only a single recessed 4-hole button positioned in the center; when Nick chooses to button his shirt to the neck, he fastens a short loop on the top-left to a smaller 2-hole button positioned under the right collar leaf, similar to the loop collars found on some casual camp shirts. Both buttons are dark plastic.

Nick wears dark wool gabardine pleated trousers with an appropriate long rise to Garfield’s natural waistline. The double sets of reverse-facing pleats add roominess through the legs, which are full from the hips down to the cuffed bottoms. The side pockets have a gently slanted entry, and the jetted back pockets each close through a single button. Nick holds up his trousers with a dark leather belt that has a shining metal single-prong buckle.

Nick’s shoes are primarily dark leather cap-toe oxfords, though there’s a brief shot during the robbery sequence where we clearly see him wearing apron-toe penny loafers. Although this is a continuity error, these slip-on loafers—which Bass had introduced as the iconic “Weejuns” during the 1930s—are contextually appropriate footwear with this dressed-down outfit.

Garfield typically wore the dressier oxfords (left) in the movie, though we briefly see the more casual penny loafers as he makes his escape from the chaotic payroll robbery (right).

The literal and figurative heat on Nick Robey find him often stripping down to just his undershirt, a white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt of the style that had been pioneered by Jockey during the 1930s as the “A-shirt” (for “athletic shirt”) but would be disparagingly immortalized as a “wife-beater” the following decade after the much-publicized mugshot of a Detroit man who had been arrested for domestic abuse.

Nick’s white A-shirt resembles the style often found on G.I.-issue undershirts during World War II with the wide armhole bands overlapping with the neckline band over the narrow shoulder straps. As seen while he’s getting dressed at the start of He Ran All the Way, Nick’s boxer briefs are also plain white cotton.

The condemned man allows himself a cigarette during what may be the last night of his life.

During the brief sequence where Nick hides among the swimmers at the public Long Beach Plunge pool, he changes out of his sport jacket, polo, and slacks into a pair of dark polyester swim trunks with a short inseam, elastic waistband, zip-fly, single pleats, and a scalloped flap pocket that closes through a button over the right hip.

He swam all the way.

It’s here that he meets Peg, who explains to him that “I don’t feel like relaxing when there’s nothing but water under me.” Given that she’s played by Shelley Winters—who wouldn’t fare so well at sea in A Place in the Sun, The Night of the Hunter, and The Poseidon Adventure, to name a few—she may have a point, but at least Nick isn’t suggesting a canoe trip or telling her children the little story of right-hand, left-hand.

The Gun

Nick Robey packs the favorite firearm of film noir figures, the snub-nosed revolver. Though this type of weapon found some functional ancestry in smaller revolvers like the British Bulldog, the .38 “snub” emerged as a 20th century phenomenon, the result of ongoing competition between American firearms giants Colt and Smith & Wesson and the increasing needs to arm law enforcement.

Both Colt and Smith & Wesson had developed 2″-barreled variants of their standard service revolvers through the first few decades of the century until Colt changed the “belly gun” game with the 1927 introduction of the Colt Detective Special, a powerful yet compact revolver specifically designed for concealment among plainclothes policemen, as its name implies. Though more anemic calibers were available, the Detective Special was primarily chambered for the impressive .38 Special round, which had been introduced by Smith & Wesson around the turn of the century and had risen to become a police standard by the roaring ’20s. The frame was slightly reduced in size from the Colt Official Police, though its swing-out cylinder could still carry a full six rounds of ammunition.

Despite the constabulary implications of its name, the Colt Detective Special quickly found favor on both sides of the law as illustrated by Garfield wielding one during the heist sequence and the finale of He Ran All the Way.

Note the free-hanging ejector rod, indicating that Garfield here carries the Colt rather than the Smith & Wesson, as the latter always locked these ejector rods into a lug under the barrel.

A firearms-related continuity error in He Ran All the Way replaces Nick’s Colt with a Smith & Wesson in some instances, most visibly while holding the Dobbs family hostage. The key visual differences are:

• the ejector rod (S&W locks the rod into a lug under the barrel, while the Colt’s rod hangs free)
• the cylinder release (S&W’s flat release pushes toward the cylinder, while the Colt’s larger and rounder release pulls away from it), and
• the grips (the screen-used S&W has diamond grips, while the screen-used Colt has the checkered post-1927 grips with the branded emblems)

Otherwise, both weapons are relatively cosmetically similar with their blued finish, brown wooden grips, and half-moon front sights. Both are also rigged with six-round cylinders too, which rules out that Garfield might be carrying an early version of the Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special (later designated “Model 36”), a five-round .38 snub that had just been introduced the previous year.

A tale of two snubs: the Colt Detective Special scatters to the ground in the finale (left), and Nick Robey holds his snub-nosed Smith & Wesson on the Dobbs family (right).

Nick’s S&W snub is likely a shortened version of the Smith & Wesson Military & Police revolver, which was more traditionally encountered with its longer service length barrel and was a prevailing police sidearm for much of the 20th century, following its introduction alongside the .38 Special round in 1899.

Likely in response to the popularity of the Detective Special, Smith & Wesson introduced shorter snub-nose barrels available for its Military & Police revolver in the 1930s, including the two-inch variant that Garfield appears to carry in He Ran All the Way.

Nick keeps his snub-nose revolver, now the more frequently seen Smith & Wesson .38, drawn while threatening the Dobbs family.

Smith & Wesson would re-designate the Military & Police as the “Model 10” when it changed to a primarily numerical naming system later in the ’50s.

How to Get the Look

John Garfield as Nick Robey in He Ran All the Way (1951)

With only minimal adjustments (if any), John Garfield’s dressed-down twill sports coat over a dark polo shirt and slacks from his cinematic swan song He Ran All the Way would make a comfortable and attractive “smart casual” outfit for any gent more than 70 years later.

• Light woolen twill single-breasted 3-button sport jacket with wide notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Dark jersey-knit combed cotton short-sleeved polo shirt with wide spread collar, loop-button neck closure, and single-button placket
• Dark wool gabardine double reverse-pleated high-rise trousers with belt loops, gently slanted side pockets, button-through jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black leather apron-toe penny loafers
• Black socks
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
• White cotton boxer shorts

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Nobody loves anyone.

Gallery

James Wong Howe’s characteristically excellent cinematography serves John Garfield well, and I wanted to include a selection of some of my favorite shots that also highlight Garfield’s costume and remain a high point of film noir.

The post John Garfield in He Ran All the Way appeared first on BAMF Style.

Scatman Crothers as Dick Hallorann in The Shining (1980)

Vitals

Scatman Crothers as Dick Hallorann, intuitive hotel head chef

Silver Creek, Colorado, Fall 1979

Film: The Shining
Release Date: May 23, 1980
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Costume Designer: Milena Canonero

Background

To honor the late Scatman Crothers, who was born 112 years ago today on May 23, 1910, today’s post explores his memorable role as Dick Hallorann, the head chef at the mysterious Overlook Hotel in The Shining. (Coincidentally, The Shining was released 42 years ago today on Crothers’ 70th birthday!)

On the last day of the Overlook’s season, Dick presents himself to the newcomer Torrance family and is assigned by hotel manager Stuart Ullman (Barry Nelson) to provide a tour of the hotel’s vast kitchen. Dick shows an interest in nicknames, first establishing with Mrs. Torrance (Shelley Duvall) that she’s neither a Winnie nor a Freddie but a Wendy (“the prettiest,” he adds), while intuiting via his shine that the young Danny (Danny Lloyd) has been nicknamed “Doc” by his parents.

When Ullman comes to collect Wendy for the rest of a tour with her husband Jack (Jack Nicholson), Dick sits Danny down for a bowl of ice cream… and a discussion of their shared telepathic abilities.

What’d He Wear?

Stephen King described Dick Hallorann wearing a blue serge suit, but costume designer Milena Canonero expressed a little more fun with Dick’s wardrobe that aligned with Scatman Crothers’ colorful characterization. On paper, Dick’s cinematic costume of a navy blazer, gray trousers, and sport shirt may not sound like a radical departure from the conservative suit mentioned in the text, but the fashion-minded on-screen execution illustrates how a blue blazer and slacks can look anything but conventional.

Dick’s outfit is anchored by a fashionable dark navy blazer that appears to be made of doeskin, a cloth described by Matt Spaiser of Bond Suits as “a densely napped woolen flannel with a sheen (not the skin from a female deer),” which would make the blazer appropriately suitable for the cooler climate of late October in Colorado. Consistent with 1970s trends, the blazer has a long single vent and fashionably wide lapels that are finished with swelled edges echoing the blazer’s sporting origins.

Blazers are often characterized by their metal buttons, and Dick’s two-button blazer is no exception, though it differs from the traditional crested shank buttons with its flat matte brass buttons detailed with a small center hole similar to “donut”-style rivet buttons often used on denim clothing. Each sleeve is finished with two smaller versions of these buttons at the cuff. Dick dresses his welted breast pocket with a printed light blue pocket square, and this pocket as well as the flaps covering the patch pockets over the hips are detailed with swelled edges.

Note the similarity in Dick’s buttons and Wendy’s buttons, both gold-tinted with a single small center hole and worn with only the top of both buttons done. Perhaps a coincidence, but—given Kubrick’s perfectionism and the symmetry of The Shining‘s visual style—there may be more to it…

By the late 1970s, navy blazers and slacks would have been acceptable business dress in certain American industries, but Dick makes certain to signal that he’s dressing for the end of his work season—and the start of a months-long vacation—by pairing these pieces with a printed open-neck sports shirt.

Dick’s sky-blue polyester shirt is printed all over with an irregular series of white, black, blue, and red lines in varying lengths and thickness, often arranged in gradient stacks. The shirt’s informality is communicated by its sporty “Lido” collar, a standard of 20th century leisurewear describing a one-piece collar that seamlessly tapers down to the front of this shirt, most often a plain front with no placket. Dick’s long-sleeved shirt buttons up the front with blue plastic buttons that match those which fasten the rounded barrel cuffs.

Navy blazers are frequently paired with khaki or gray trousers, so Dick hedges his bets by wearing a pair of flat front slacks in a pale yet warm shade of stone-gray. Dick keeps his blazer buttoned and his hands out of his pockets, so we can see little of the trousers aside from the fact that he doesn’t wear a belt to hold them up and that the plain-hemmed bottoms are flared, in keeping with the fashions of the “disco decade”.

The trousers’ flared bottoms break over Dick’s smooth tan leather shoes, which are given a little boost off the ground by the thick light brown rubber soles that are thankfully just a few centimeters shy to qualify as platform shoes, which were in the midst of their most prominent popularity and would have found a place in the closet of a hip guy like Dick Hallorann. The derby-laced shoes have squared moc-toes.

Late ’70s casual-wear on parade in the Overlook’s Gold Ballroom as Stuart hands Wendy and Danny off for a kitchen tour with Dick.

Though no mention is made of Dick’s wife, he does appear to wear a gold wedding ring on his left hand.

Dick Hallorann in Doctor Sleep

In Mike Flanagan’s 2019 film Doctor Sleep, adapted from Stephen King’s continuation novel of the same name, returns to the character of Dick Hallorann, now portrayed by Carl Lumbly. Part of the adaptation focuses on Dick meeting the young Danny (Roger Dale Floyd) and introducing the concept of capturing the Overlook’s ghosts in lockboxes.

Costume designer Terry Anderson effectively paid tribute to the attire worn by Scatman Crother in The Shining, dressing Lumbly in a wide-lapeled navy blazer, light-colored khakis, and even the chunky tan moc-toe casual shoes. The pièce de résistance is arguably recreating Dick’s shirt which—while not exactly identical to what we saw in The Shining—retains the spirit of the original with its unique lined print against the sky-blue ground.

In Doctor Sleep, Carl Lumbly portrays Dick Hallorann, whose ghost guides the adult Danny.

How to Get the Look

Scatman Crothers as Dick Hallorann in The Shining (1980)

Some ’70s fads are best left in the back of our dads’ closets, but the inimitable Scatman Crothers brings together the then-trending fashions of wide blazer lapels, boldly printed polyester shirts, flared trousers, and quasi-platform shoes with a tasteful panache befitting the affable Dick Hallorann’s personality.

• Navy doeskin flannel single-breasted blazer with swelled-edge notch lapels, two brass buttons, welted breast pocket, flapped patch hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and long single vent
• Sky-blue gradient line-patterned polyester long-sleeve sport shirt with flat Lido collar, plain front, and rounded barrel cuffs
• Pale stone-gray flat front trousers with flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Tan smooth leather derby-laced casual shoes with moc-toes and thick rubber soles
• Gold wedding ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read Stephen King’s novel.

The Quote

Well, you know, Doc, when something happens, it can leave a trace of itself behind. Say like, if someone burns toast. Well, maybe things that happen leave other kind of traces behind. Not things that anyone can notice, but things that people who shine can see. Just like they can see things that haven’t happened yet. Well, sometimes they can see things that happened a long time ago. I think a lot of things happened right here in this particular hotel over the years… and not all of ’em was good.

The post The Shining — Scatman Crothers’ Navy Blazer as Dick Hallorann appeared first on BAMF Style.

Joe Keery as Steve Harrington on Stranger Things (Episode 2.05: “Dig Dug”)

Vitals

Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, popular high school senior

Indiana, Fall 1984

Series: Stranger Things
Episodes:
– “Chapter Five: Dig Dug” (Episode 2.05, dir. Andrew Stanton)
– “Chapter Six: The Spy” (Episode 2.06, dir. Andrew Stanton)
– “Chapter Eight: The Mind Flayer” (Episode 2.08, dir. The Duffer Brothers)
– “Chapter Nine: The Gate” (Episode 2.09, dir. The Duffer Brothers)
Streaming Date: October 27, 2017
Creator: The Duffer Brothers
Costume Designer: Kim Wilcox

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

This Friday, Netflix welcomes viewers back to Stranger Things with the fourth and penultimate season of the streaming phenomenon that blends elements of horror and sci-fi through a nostalgic 1980s lens.

One of my favorite character arcs on Stranger Things has followed Steve Harrington from the prototypical bullying jock he was at the start of the series into an affable ally who eagerly jumps in to assist and protect our young heroes against the series’ otherworldly antagonists.

What’d He Wear?

Usually the word “Harrington” on this blog appears in conjunction with the Baracuta-style windbreaker nicknamed after Ryan O’Neal’s character on the 1960s drama Peyton Place. While Steve Harrington does indeed wear a navy Harrington jacket throughout the first season of Stranger Things, he—like the quintessential high school hero—kept his wardrobe updated to reflect the fads of each season and dressed for action the following year in an ’80s fashion staple: the Members Only jacket.

Like many fashion fads, the Members Only jacket devolved rapidly from must-have to widely mocked… until it was reintroduced into the fashion cycle first as ironic garmenture and, again, mainstream acceptance. The Members Only story begins in 1975, though it wasn’t until Herb Goldsmith discovered, rebadged, and introduced these jackets to the American market five years later that membership took off. “When you put it on, something happens,” the brand advertised… though in the case of famous wearers like “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, it may have been better if such things didn’t happen. You can read more of the history—and possible future—of Members Only in Jake Rossen’s comprehensive 2016 article for Mental Floss.

It was the narrow cut that initially appealed to Goldsmith, responding to the trends preferred by younger shoppers, who he knew would also resonate toward a variety of colors beyond the traditional khakis, grays, and blues. The name inspired by a sign at a Long Island country club, Members Only jackets were offered in a starting array of 40 of colors that included bright pastels alongside more conventional shades of gray, including the “light gray” polyester shell that our hero Steve wears in the second season of Stranger Things.

The Members Only jacket blends elements of racer jackets with the nylon MA-1 bomber blousons developed in mid-century for military flight crews. Goldsmith had liked the martial implications of the narrow shoulder straps (epaulettes), which belted through a loop at the shoulder seam and folded back to snap to itself midway between neck and shoulder, so he also added a narrow strap around the short standing collar that also ran through a series of loops with a double-snap closure in the front. The cuffs and hem are finished with ribbed knitting that match the jacket’s color, with the same knitting welted along the slanted hand pockets and set-in breast pocket. A small black rectangular patch with “MEMBERS ONLY” embroidered in white is sewn just below the breast pocket ribbing, indicating to the rest of the world that its wearer has indeed joined the special club of “members” who spent $55 on a polyester jacket.

With his trademark high-styled coiff, Ray-Bans, and Members Only jacket, it doesn’t get much more ’80s than Steve Harrington.

A more enduring piece of Steve’s costume that’s still equally iconic to the era are his black acetate-framed Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses, which our somewhat vain hero was likely inspired to wear after seeing Tom Cruise sporting them on screen in Risky Business. Having introduced the recognizable Wayfarer frame in the early 1950s, Ray-Ban had noticed them falling out of favor during the “disco decade” and invested in an ultimately profitable product placement deal to feature its eyewear on screen by some of the most stylish stars of the ’80s. (It’s likely that Steve would follow Cruise’s example and pick up a pair of aviators after seeing Top Gun… and then a pair of Clubmasters after Cruise wore them in Rain Man two years later.) When not wearing them, Steve tucks his Wayfarers into the breast pocket of his Members Only jacket.

As it’s the weekend, Steve has no need to dress up and layers his Members Only jacket over a plain navy blue cotton crew-neck pullover shirt, though he never removes his jacket to show if it’s short- or long-sleeved. Unlike most T-shirts and sweatshirts, the shirt has a horizontal chest yoke.

By the ’80s, Bruce Springsteen had popularized the concept of the all-American hero in blue jeans, as popularized on screen by characters like those played by Cruise and Tom Selleck in Magnum, P.I., all of whom often wore Levi’s jeans.

As distinguished by the characteristic red tab and arcuate stitch across the two patch-style back pockets, Steve wears Levi’s as well, with his light blue washed denim jeans likely being the classic 501 Original Fit with their straight-fit and button fly. Steve holds them up with a brown leather belt that closes through a gold-toned single-prong buckle.

Steve’s budding friendship with Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) became a fan-favorite aspect of the second season.

The red “swoosh” traversing the sides of Steve’s sneakers instantly identify them as Nikes, specifically the game-changing Nike Cortez model that was released during the peak of the 1972 Olympics. The concept for what would become Nike’s first track shoe dates to the previous Summer Olympics, when Nike intended to name Bill Bowerman’s newly designed sneakers the “Mexico” as a nod to the 1968 host country. Four more years of R&D resulted in the Cortez, now named for Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

The new sneakers quickly gained traction (so to speak), particularly after they were spotted on American athletes during the ’72 games, and Nike reported more than $800,000 in sales during the Cortez’s first year. Steve may have been again inspired by Tom Cruise’s preferred sneakers in Risky Business, but the Cortez received additional prominent exposure when Tom Hanks’ eponymous character unboxed a “new” pair in Forrest Gump (1994), arranged in the classic red, white, and blue colorway, a style that was re-released in September 2016 as part of Nike’s Athletics West Pack. You can read more about the Nike Cortez at GOAT and Sole Collector.

Given its athletic heritage, the Nike Cortez is appropriate footwear for Steve the quintessential jock, who wears them with white ribbed cotton crew socks. Steve’s sneakers have a white nylon base with off-white overlays for the seven-eyelet lace panels, toe, and heel, conspicuously branded with large red leather swooshes on the sides and Nike’s vintage pinwheel logo printed on the red leather heel tabs. The white rubber herringbone-treaded outsoles are detailed with a royal blue strip around the heel that tapers as they approach the center of each shoe.

Careful not to get any raw meat or gasoline on your Nike Cortez, Steve!

In the first two seasons of Stranger Things, Steve wears a plain steel watch with a round white dial that he secures to his left wrist on a tapered brown leather Bund strap, detailed with four ridges that flank each side of the timepiece where the strap overlaps the pad.

The Bund strap—in both its full cuff and tapered bracelet styles—was pioneered in Germany during the early days of military aviation to protect fliers’ wrists from their wristwatches’ metal casebacks reflecting the extreme temperatures encountered in flight. Several decades later later, the Bund strap re-emerged as a ’70s style staple that suggested adventure and ruggedness.

No longer a Hawkins High bully, Steve faces off against the town’s newly arrived antagonist, the considerably more aggressive Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery).

How to Get the Look

Joe Keery as Steve Harrington on Stranger Things (Episode 2.06: “The Spy”)

Even after crossing over onto the side of the protagonists, Steve Harrington remains as conscious of his image as so many high-schoolers do, conspicuously dressing for the mid-1980s in some of the era’s most popular brands, including Levi’s jeans, Nike sneakers, and—the pièce de résistance—his gray Members Only jacket.

Credit where it’s due, of course, as Steve generally avoids the extremes of ’80s fashion as he dresses for defending against demodogs in this practical and relatively [for the ’80s] timeless weekend fit.

• Gray polyester Members Only racer jacket with narrow double-snap collar strap, narrow shoulder straps (epaulettes), ribbed-welt set-in breast pocket, ribbed-welt hand pockets, ribbed cuffs, and ribbed hem
• Navy blue yoked crew-neck T-shirt
• Light blue denim Levi’s 501 Original Fit jeans
• Brown leather belt with gold-toned single-prong buckle
• White nylon Nike Cortez sneakers with off-white suede overlays, red “swoosh” sides, and blue-accented white rubber ridged outsoles
• White ribbed cotton crew socks
• Black acetate-frayed Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses
• Steel wristwatch with plain white round dial on brown leather ridged Bund strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

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

The Quote

It’s not about the hair, man.

The post Stranger Things: Steve Harrington’s Members Only Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Christopher Lee as Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Vitals

Christopher Lee as Francisco Scaramanga, sophisticated freelance assassin

Bangkok, Thailand, Spring 1974

Film: The Man with the Golden Gun
Release Date: December 20, 1974
Director: Guy Hamilton
Wardrobe Supervisor: Elsa Fennell

Background

Today would have been the 100th birthday of Sir Christopher Lee, the imposing yet debonair screen icon known to many for portraying Count Dracula a total of nine times while Bond fans may know him best as Francisco Scaramanga, the eponymous villain who faced off against Roger Moore’s James Bond in Moore’s sophomore 007 outing, The Man with the Golden Gun.

Loosely adapted from Ian Fleming’s unfinished final novel of the same name, The Man with the Golden Gun was arguably the first Bond movie to posit a “we’re not so different, you and I” antagonist that likens himself to a darker reflection of 007, a template that would later be followed by entries like GoldenEye and Spectre.

Scaramanga: At a million dollars a contract I can afford to, Mr Bond. You work for peanuts, a hearty well done from her Majesty the Queen and a pittance of a pension. Apart from that we are the same. To us, Mr. Bond, we are the best.
Bond: There’s a useful four letter word… and you’re full of it.

Despite playing foes, Moore and Lee were great friends in real life, and it’s fun to watch the two settle into an easy screen chemistry. In his memoir Bond on Bond, Moore recalls that “I used to tease Christopher mercilessly about his role as Dracula and, just before the director called ‘Action,’ I would lean over and say, ‘Go on, Chris, make your eyes go red!'”

In addition to being Moore’s “old pal”, Lee was also a distant cousin to Ian Fleming, who had originally invited Lee to portray the first Bond villain in Dr. No before learning that the producers had cast Joseph Wiseman in the role. Still, Lee was evidently fated for a role in the James Bond franchise and was finally cast as Scaramanga, of whom the actor described to Total Film: “In Fleming’s novel he’s just a West Indian thug, but in the film he’s charming, elegant, amusing, lethal… I played him like the dark side of Bond.”

What’d He Wear?

Scaramanga’s doomed mistress and courier Andrea Anders (Maud Adams) describes her boss as usually wearing “a white linen suit, black tie, and jewelry, all gold,” an outfit described in great detail by Matt Spaiser at Bond Suits, whose words and observations I cannot improve upon.

While Scaramanga may indeed have a penchant for wearing white linen suits, the actual off-white tailoring crafted by Bermans & Nathans for Christopher Lee’s screen-worn outfit consists of a cream-colored polyester jacket and non-matching trousers.

Actual white linen would have been an excellent choice for Thailand’s warm tropical climate, with cotton or even a lightweight wool also reasonable options, but Scaramanga instead stifles himself in the warm-wearing polyester. This inadvisable choice of wearing polyester is exacerbated by how much of Lee’s torso is covered by the jacket, with its close fit, high three-button stance that flatters Lee’s 6’3″ height, and squared full skirt. The back is split with a long single vent. Three mother-of-pearl buttons on each cuff match those on the front of the jacket, which is shaped with darts that extend straight down on each side from mid-chest to the crest of each slanted flapped hip pocket. Unlike conventional suit and sport jackets, Scaramanga’s jacket has no breast pocket.

Even in shades of white, all that polyester must have been quite uncomfortable for Christopher Lee in the tropical Thai climate. Scaramanga would have been better off wearing actual linen, as Andrea Anders had described.

Scaramanga’s jacket has a wide, flat collar that Matt likens to camp collars typically found on casual shirts and—contemporary to the ’70s—frequently on leisure suits, as illustrated when Scaramanga sits beside Moore’s Bond, whose green safari shirt-jacket features a similar collar.

Under his jacket, Scaramanga wears a cream-colored shirt that nearly matches his trousers, detailed with a semi-spread collar and double (French) cuffs fastened with gold links that also serve a tactical purpose for the assassin. Miss Anders appropriately described her boss’s “black tie”, though Matt’s blog post points out that Scaramanga’s choice of knitted silk neckwear nods to 007’s literary origins, as Ian Fleming had described Bond’s own preferred black silk knit tie in multiple novels.

Old pals Christopher Lee and Roger Moore reunited on screen—each wearing camp collars—in The Man with the Golden Gun.

I’ll admit that I always assumed that Scaramanga’s cream-colored trousers were part of a complete suit, informed not just by Andrea Anders’ description but also sartorial taste and tradition. However, Matt’s blog post calls out the difference in cloth and cites a 2009 Bonhams auction listing that described the narrow-leg trousers as “wool (with a waffle texture)”, adding the details of a darted front and belt loops.

Scaramanga’s practice of wearing all three buttons of his full-skirted jacket fully fastened keeps his waist-line covered during much of his screen-time, but Bond Lifestyle features information about Christopher Lee’s screen-worn belt that was auctioned by Christie’s in 2012, yielding £30,000. The narrow dark brown faux-crocodile leather belt has a wide gilt buckle with two parallel slots and—on each side—a tube presumably to store two of Scaramanga’s custom-made 4.2mm gold bullets.

Scaramanga’s narrow-leg trousers remain immune to the questionable flare that increasingly plagued trouser bottoms throughout the 1970s, with the plain-hemmed bottoms neatly breaking over the tops of his shoes. These white leather apron-toe loafers have a strap across the vamp detailed with a gold horsebit, a style pioneered in the early ’50s by Gucci, who had provided much of Roger Moore’s leather-wear in The Man with the Golden Gun before he converted to Ferragamo goods for his subsequent films. The hint of hosiery seen between his trouser bottoms and shoes suggest that Scaramanga wears ivory socks that maintain the leg-line of his trousers into his white shoes.

Promotional photos of Christopher Lee—including one armed with Bond’s Walther PPK and joined by his aide-de-camp Nick Nack (Hervé Villechaize)—show his trousers and loafers more clearly than they’re seen on screen. (Photos sourced from thunderballs.org archive.)

Among Scaramanga’s assortment of “gold jewelry” described by Miss Anders is a flat yellow gold wristwatch with a squared gold dial that’s flush with the rest of the nine-piece bracelet, a style that seemingly enjoyed its widest popularity during the 1970s. I’ve read Scaramanga’s watch identified as a Rolex Cellini King Midas (most convincingly here), but the screen-worn version lacks the Midas’ smaller inset dial and wider bracelet links and instead appears to be a Bueche Girod, not unlike the timepieces rotated through Robert De Niro’s wrist as the flamboyant disco-era gambler “Ace” Rothstein in Casino.

To my knowledge, Bueche Girod wristwatches are no longer produced, but plenty of vintage pieces can be found online, such as the 18-karat Bueche Girod ref. 750 (as found on eBay), which bears a close resemblance to Scaramanga’s watch. (In the novel, Fleming describes Scaramanga’s “thin gold watch on a two-colored gold bracelet.”)

Scaramanga lives a life of luxury with a flying car and plenty of gold jewelry to boot… plus a golden-haired MI6 agent in the boot.

Scaramanga also wears a pair of gold pinky rings, though—unlike the practical purpose served by his watch or the tactical purpose served by his cuff link—these seem to be purely ornamental. The ring on his right pinky has a raised square surface, detailed with four wavy lines in relief. The larger signet ring on his left pinky has a round surface with the complex relief of a knight on horseback.

SCARAMANGA

Scaramanga’s all-white attire was conceptualized for the movie, as Ian Fleming’s description of Scaramanga in the fifth chapter of his novel The Man with the Golden Gun suggests a kit more colorful… in every sense of the word:

He was wearing a well-cut, single-breasted tan suit and “co-respondent” shoes in brown and white. Instead of a tie, he wore a high stock in white silk secured by a gold pin the shape of a miniature pistol. There should have been something theatrical about the getup but, perhaps because of the man’s fine figure, there wasn’t.

For the denouement, Fleming notes that “Scaramanga had added a broad-brimmed white Stetson to his immaculate tropical attire,” that also consists of short Texan boots from which he pulls a stiletto knife while being hunted by Bond.

The Gun

Scaramanga: A duel between titans. My golden gun against your Walther PPK. Each of us with a 50-50 chance.
Bond: Six bullets to your one?
Scaramanga: I only need one.

In a world where the world’s greatest “secret” agent is known internationally by his equally “secret” code number, it serves to reason that the world’s greatest assassin would also be renowned for his choice of weapons… in this case, a signature Golden Gun made of seemingly non-lethal items that could be found in any gentleman’s pockets and armed with 23-karat gold bullets custom-made by a proud Portuguese gunsmith. Given this exclusivity and Scaramanga’s reputation for never missing his first shot, one can understand why he would charge his clients a million dollars per shot.

In his memoir Bond on Bond, Roger Moore marvels at how his friend Christopher Lee was armed with one of the most iconic gadgets of the series: “His legendary Golden Gun was assembled from a pen (the barrel) inserted into a cigarette case (the firing chamber), a cigarette lighter (the handle), and a cufflink (the trigger).” (With respect to the late Sir Roger, I believe the cigarette case is actually used as the pistol grip while the Waterman fountain pen is actually inserted into the lighter, which is a Colibri Model 88 gas lighter.)

The Golden Gun is said to fire single rounds of proprietary 4.2mm ammunition—”an unusual size”, as Moore accurately editorializes—which Scaramanga wears in his belt buckle until he needs to load his weapon. A 4.2-millimeter diameter would measure to be even smaller in diameter than the appropriately named 4.25mm Lilliput cartridge or the dimensionally equivalent .17 Hornet centerfire and .17 HMR rimfire rounds, though the bullets shown on screen are slightly larger. You can read more about the fabled Golden Gun at IMFDB and James Bond Lifestyle.

Scaramanga goes so far as to illustrate the effectiveness of his Golden Gun being comprised of such everyday items when he assembles it in front of his latest victim just before using it to kill him.

The Man with the Golden Gun‘s end credits acknowledges the “Golden Gun made by Colibri Lighters, London, U.K.,” though some debate continues as to who had designed the screen-used weapon itself. Moore’s memoir credits the concept to Pinewood Studios engineer Bert Luxford, while other sources credit the design to special effects expert John Stears or art director Peter Lamont. Most sources can agree that three Golden Guns were developed: “a solid piece, one that could be fired with a cap and one that could be assembled and disassembled, although Christopher Lee said that the process ‘was extremely difficult’,” as explained by James Bond Lifestyle.

The screen-used weapon was a stark contrast to Ian Fleming’s choice for the literary Scaramanga, whose dossier describes “a gold-plated, long-barreled, single-action Cotl .45. He uses special bullets with a heavy, soft (24 ct) gold core jacketed with silver and cross-cut at the tip, on the dum-dum principle, for maximum wounding effect.”

The movie seemingly pays tribute to Fleming’s original choice when Lee’s Scaramanga uses a gold-plated Colt Single Action Army revolver—presumably the same type of Peacemaker described in the novel—to shoot the cork off a bottle of Dom Pérignon when welcoming Bond onto his private island. He then places the “harmless toy” on Nick Nack’s champagne tray, and holds up his hands to tell Bond that “I am, as you can see now, completely unarmed…” despite holding his cigarette case that we know to be part of what he uses to build his famous Golden Gun.

How to Get the Look

Christopher Lee as Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

If you’re dressing for the tropics, you’d be best inclined to follow Miss Anders’ description of a “white linen suit” rather than the non-matching (and warm-wearing!) polyester jacket and wool trousers seen on screen, but Francisco Scaramanga’s wardrobe otherwise presents a template for tastefully sinister summer tailoring, only breaking up the all-white look with a dressed-down knitted tie and enough gold jewelry to get Tony Soprano’s attention… many of which are worn specifically to aid his nefarious occupation.

• Cream polyester single-breasted 3-button jacket with camp collar, slanted flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
• Cream shirt with semi-spread collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
  • Gold cuff links
• Black knitted silk tie
• Cream waffle-woven wool darted-front trousers with belt loops and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark brown scaled faux-crocodile leather belt with gold-toned two-slot buckle
• White leather apron-toe horsebit loafers
• Ivory socks
• Gold square-faced wavy-relief pinky ring
• Gold signet ring with horseback knight in relief
• Gold wristwatch with square gold dial against flush gold nine-piece link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

A mistress cannot serve two masters. She was a difficult shot, but most gratifying.

The post Christopher Lee in White as The Man with the Golden Gun appeared first on BAMF Style.

John F. Kennedy, 1962. Photo by Robert Knudsen.

Vitals

John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States and U.S. Navy veteran

Off the New England coast, August 1962

Photographs by Robert Knudsen

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

Background

On the anniversary of his May 29, 1917 birthday, I wanted to revisit the 35th President of the United States, who has often been credited as the man who brought a new sense of style to the White House during the brief Age of Camelot.

One of my most visited posts on this page was a comprehensive look at John F. Kennedy’s style, from suits and sport jackets to white tie and windbreakers, which I had published to commemorate his legacy on the 50th anniversary of his November 1963 assassination… and which I imagine is in dire need of revision after nearly a decade.

Kennedy once said: “Sailing has given me some of the most pleasant and exciting moments of my life. It also has taught me something of the courage, resourcefulness, and strength of men who sail the seas in ships.”

He would know plenty about this firsthand, as one of JFK’s earliest claims to fame had been when he was a young U.S. Navy lieutenant in command of PT-109 during World War II. In August 1943, the patrol boat was rammed by a Japanese destroyer, immediately killing mates Andrew Jackson Kirksey and Harold William Marney. Kennedy’s actions in leading the eleven survivors (including himself) to safety established him as a war hero but exacerbated his chronic lower back pain into severe issues that would plague him for the rest of his life.

Despite the experience and its aftermath, Kennedy never lost his love of the sea, having frequently sailed during his youth. Even after he took the oath of office in January 1961, Kennedy often relieved the stress of the executive branch by taking to the sea, most notably on the USCGC Manitou. This 62-foot racing yawl had been commissioned in the 1930s for race car driver James Lowe and eventually donated to the U.S. Coast Guard for use as a training vessel before it was requisitioned as JFK’s presidential yacht.

Occasionally joining for these excursions was Robert Knudsen, who had joined the White House photography staff in 1946 during the Truman administration and was himself a commander of the Washington area flotilla  of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, according to his New York Times obituary.

Knudsen’s camera captured many of the most enduring photographic chronicles of the vigor that the Kennedys introduced to the presidency, including a Sunday cruise in mid-August 1962 off the coast of Maine where Jack was joined by Rat Packer and brother-in-law Peter Lawford and—two weeks later—a sunnier weekend sailing past Newport, Rhode Island.

What’d He Wear?

As part of his his revolutionizing the image of Executive Branch leadership by dressing casually in public, JFK also popularized the now-enduring tradition of presidents donning leather flight jackets.

Elected at a time when military service was considered a strong asset for a commander-in-chief—especially on the heels of his predecessor, the high-ranked General Dwight D. Eisenhower—Kennedy visually communicated his veteran status to the American public by rotating through a collection of mil-spec flight jackets. His jacket of choice was the well-insulated G-1 that had long been issued to U.S. Naval Aviators. (Yep, the Top Gun jacket!)

This fur-collared leather bomber jacket can trace its origins to the late 1930s before the Navy standardized it as the M-422A in 1940. Like most military garb, it underwent a series of modifications and improvements until settling into its current form in the early 1950s, when the Navy began designating the garment “G-1”. These waist-length jackets are characterized by a durable dark brown goatskin leather shell and a mouton fur collar (modern versions are typically cowhide and synthetic fur, respectively.) Beyond the fur collar, the G-1 otherwise resembles the contemporary A-2 jacket associated with the Army Air Force with its zip-up front, patch hip pockets with button-down flaps, half-belted back, and ribbed-knit cuffs and hem.

One of Kennedy’s many G-1 jackets was auctioned in 2018, with the Nate D. Sanders listing explaining that the auctioned jacket was one of three purchased for the president by White House Supply and Logistics Officer Lt. Henry E. Hirschy in December 1962, which would have made it four months late to have appeared in the famous photos aboard the Manitou but was certainly worn aboard his other yacht, the Honey Fitz. The auctioned jacket label includes the description “Bureau of Aeronautics USN Flight Jacket, Intermediate, G-1,” produced by L.W. Sportswear Co., Inc. in a size 44. The additional designation “MIL-J-7823 (AER)” tells us that it was produced between 1951 and 1961—likely closer to the latter date, given when it was ordered and who for.

Kennedy adorned his G-1 jackets with only a single patch over the left breast, a blue circle with the Coat of Arms of the President of the United States (as found on the presidential seal) with the ring of 50 white stars encircling a paleways shield in red, white, and blue, and that familiar American eagle, gripping an olive branch in his right talon, a bundle of 13 arrows in his left, and a scroll unraveling from his peak inscribed “E pluribus unum”.

During both the August 12 Maine cruise and the August 26-27 Newport cruise, Kennedy wore a French blue jersey-knit cotton polo shirt, similar to what the sporty president may have favored while golfing. The top of the shirt has a two-button placket, and the short sleeves emphasize his athleticism while also showing off his elegant wristwatch.

The gold tank watch seen aboard Manitou appears to be the 18-karat Omega Ultra Thin ref. OT3980 that then-Senator Kennedy had been gifted by his friend Grant Stockdale during the lead-up to the November 1960 presidential election, as confirmed by Omega. Stockdale had the watch prophetically engraved “President of the United States John F. Kennedy from his friend Grant” on the back of the gold case.

Strapped to a black scaled leather bracelet, this slim watch features a minimal off-white square dial with only the Omega logo at center and 12 simple dark lines serving as hour markers. Well-documented to be a favorite watch of his—and much appreciated by his wife Jackie—Jack frequently wore the “Stockdale” watch during his presidency, including at his January 1961 inauguration. You can read more about it at Watches by SJX and Wrist Enthusiast.

Dressed down in his short-sleeved shirt and white slacks, Kennedy keeps a hand on the wheel while entertaining guests at sea off the Rhode Island coast in late August 1962.

A Navy man like Kennedy would have also been very comfortable with white trousers at sea, a tradition he maintained during the presidency with the cream-colored flat-front chinos he often wore for summer cruises aboard the Manitou. His untucked shirt hem doesn’t show much of the top of these trousers, but we can assume they have belt loops. They do have side pockets, back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

As an extra layer against the briny winds, Kennedy occasionally pulled on a weather-beaten sweater of gray Shetland wool, perhaps the most notable vestige of Ivy League style that the Harvard grad incorporated into his seagoing kit. (While Shetland wool is hard to beat when seeking knitwear that balances softness with strength, I don’t know that I’d gamble with wearing mine so close to the water!) Jack’s crew-neck Shetland sweater appears to have raglan sleeves, finished at the cuffs with long ribbing that echoes the waist hem.

Kennedy doubles down on his rakish maritime insouciance by leaving his polo shirt untucked, showing around the bottom of his sweater’s hem. While probably worn like this solely for comfort, the practice also divides the neutrality of his gray sweater and beige trousers while also coordinating his blue shirt with his socks.

Kennedy prepared for his aquatic adventures with a pair of all-white deck sneakers with canvas uppers and thick white rubber outsoles. The siped sole bottoms were pioneered by New England outdoorsman Paul Sperry in the 1930s, inspired by his dog’s paws when looking to engineer footwear that provided more traction when navigating wet decks at sea. This development led to the Sperry Top-Sider, the line of moc-toe boat shoes and deck sneakers specifically designed to be worn on a boat’s top side.

In the nearly three decades that had passed since Sperry’s development, the design was mimicked by fellow shoemakers like Converse, Keds, and Vans, so I can’t discern exactly what type of deck sneakers the president wears in these photos. JFK’s sneakers feature the closed-laced design through five sets of nickel eyelets that characterize the classic Sperry Cloud CVO deck sneaker, though the lack of a navy blue band around the top of each outsole suggests Converse.

Kennedy seems to favor blue socks at sea, whether a pair of pale-blue ribbed cotton socks banded in navy and white around the top (as seen in an above photo) or the royal-blue cable-knit socks that provide a bright contrast breaking up the leg-line between his similarly off-white slacks and sneakers.

The Rat Packer and the President. Peter Lawford’s marriage to Pat Kennedy made him an especially valuable pal for Frank Sinatra, though when Ol’ Blue Eyes couldn’t count on Lawford delivering presidential access when he wanted it, Frankie cut ties with both Lawford and JFK.

Kennedy’s iconic sunglasses have been understandably referred to as both Persols and Ray-Ban Wayfarers, though the most positive identification remains the American Optical “Saratoga” frame.

American Optical was founded in 1869 in the town of Southbridge, located on the southern border of Kennedy’s home state of Massachusetts. Apropos its patriotic name, American Optical quietly pioneered many enduring styles of military eyewear, from the first aviator-style frames in the 1930s to the updated semi-rectangular “Flight Goggle 58” two decades later. By the early 1960s, American Optical counted the youthful new president among their customers, as described on the AO Eyewear blog. The “Saratoga” brand name was yet to be established, but JFK’s “demi-amber” marbled tortoiseshell acrylic frames with their slim arms, silver diamond-shaped temple rivets, and polarized lenses are unmistakable.

You can read more about JFK and his AO Eyewear sunglasses in a pair of recommended posts by VintageCool Hunter (parts 1 and 2) as well as an unboxing and review by my friend Pete at From Tailors With Love.

How to Get the Look

Just as famous for his style 60 years later as he was when his family introduced their youthful vigor to the White House, JFK was equally stylish while at sea, blending elements informed by his military experience with an insouciant sportiness for an ultimately practical and comfortable kit comprised of a fur-collared flight jacket, layered lightweight knits, off-white chinos, deck sneakers, and the versatile and timeless accessories of his tortoiseshell sunglasses and gold tank watch that were just as appropriate with his suits as with his sailing garb.

• Dark brown leather G-1 naval flight jacket with mouton fur collar, zip-up front, patch pocket with button-down flaps, half-belted back, and ribbed-knit cuffs and hem
• French blue jersey-knit cotton short-sleeved polo shirt with 2-button placket
• Gray Shetland wool crew-neck sweater
• Off-white chino cotton flat front trousers with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White canvas deck sneakers with 5-eyelet lacing and white rubber outsoles
• Royal-blue cable-knit crew socks
• Gold tank watch with white square dial on black leather strap
• Brown tortoise-framed wayfarer-style sunglasses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

…ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

And check out Robert Dalek’s 2004 biography An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963.

The Quote

We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch, we are going back from whence we came.

The post JFK at Sea, 1962 appeared first on BAMF Style.

Less than three weeks away from Father’s Day, it’s never too soon to start thinking about the gifts for the dad in your life… or to give your family some hints if you’re a dad as well!

Taking inspiration from a few recent (and classic) BAMF Style favorite movies and TV shows, I brainstormed a few favorites that he—or you—will actually want for Father’s Day.

The author’s own Paradise Found “jungle bird” aloha shirt, Alpha Industries bomber jacket, Persol sunglasses (albeit not the PO714 model), and SIS Training Gear shirt with a pile of highly recommended books for fans of movies, style, and the convergence of the two.

CWU-45/P Jacket as seen in Top Gun: Maverick

For the dad who chases adventure

Despite decades of screen heroes popularizing military flight jackets, the sage-green Nomex flight jacket had gone relatively uncelebrated on screen until receiving its due in this year’s blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick. Tom Cruise’s G-1 jacket and its profusion of patches made a brief cameo at the start of the movie, but the CWU-45/P (“CWU” meaning Cold Weather Uniform) eventually took over as Maverick’s USN-issued update.

Also known as the “MA-2”, a marketing shorthand that emerged to reflect the jacket’s succession of the classic MA-1 bomber, the most frequently encountered versions of these jackets are the standard CWU-45 and the lighter-weight CWU-36, both made from Nomex, a flame-resistant nylon-like material pioneered in the 1960s. Many civilian offerings are standard nylon, but some genuine Nomex jackets can be found at a worthwhile premium.

Tom Cruise recently wore an “MA-2” bomber jacket, likely the CWU-45/P, in Top Gun: Maverick.
The Alpha Industries CWU-45/P is currently available via Amazon.

Where to get it:

• Alpha Industries CWU 45/P Bomber Jacket (Amazon, up to $190) (pictured)
• Cockpit USA Nomex CWU Modified 36P Lightweight Jacket Z26P005 (Cockpit USA, $630)
• Mil-Tec US CWU Flight Jacket Basic Olive (Amazon, $102.95)
• Rothco CWU-45P Flight Jacket (Amazon, $56.99)

Top Gun tie-in jackets:

• Alpha Industries Alpha x Top Gun CWU 45/P Bomber Jacket (Alpha Industries, $325)
• Cockpit USA “Movie Hero” CWU-36/P Flight Jacket Z24A103 (Cockpit USA, $460)

SIS Training Gear as seen in Skyfall

For the active dad

Among the Tom Ford suits and Sunspel shirts of Daniel Craig’s tenure as James Bond, SIS Training Gear emerged as a wallet-friendly way to incorporate cinema’s most famous super-spy into your wardrobe.

Whether it’s by grabbing the warmup suit and performance T-shirt that Craig’s 007 wore while retraining himself or dozens of other products ranging from mugs and artwork to men’s and women’s T-shirts that pay tribute to the entire Bond series, SIS Training Gear has plenty to offer Bond fans.

Click to visit SIS Training Gear and make sure to use the discount code “BAMF” to receive 10% off your order!

Skyfall depicted Daniel Craig’s James Bond getting back into shape in a performance T-shirt that inspired one of many offerings from the impressive SIS Training Gear lineup.

RGT Supply Jacket as seen in No Time to Die, The Adam Project, and other recent productions

For the stylish dad

L.A.-based company Rogue Territory began in 2008 as a custom denim workshop, soon transitioning to a ready-to-wear lineup that has since vastly expanded to a collection of trendy yet timeless workwear. Arguably the most visible piece from their collection is the Ridgeline Supply Jacket… and you know the one I mean.

As detailed by James Bond Lifestyle, this waxed cotton jacket had appeared in several movies and TV shows over a half decade before it was elevated to a must-have staple after a tan unlined Ridgeline was worn by Daniel Craig during a brief—and I mean brief—scene in his final James Bond movie, No Time to Die.

Cut like a trucker jacket, the four-pocket Ridgeline fastens with five nickel rivet buttons up the placket in addition to Rogue Territory’s signature extra contrast-stitched buttonhole—a throwback to the days when men wore pocket watches. The Ridgeline can be found unlined, as favored by 007, or with a blanketed flannel lining, as worn by Ryan Reynolds in this year’s Netflix release The Adam Project.

Though it only appeared briefly, the Rogue Territory supply jacket worn by Craig’s Bond in No Time to Die quickly emerged as a fan favorite for its timeless style and wearability. The unlined Rogue Territory Ridgeline Supply Jacket in Tax Waxed Cotton is currently available from STAG Provisions.

Where to get it:

• Rogue Territory Ridgeline Supply Jacket (Unlined) (STAG Provisions, $295) (pictured)
• Rogue Territory Ridgeline Supply Jacket (Lined) (STAG Provisions, $398)

Red Jungle Bird Shirt as seen in Magnum, P.I.

For the vacation-loving dad

One of the most recognizable aloha shirts in history, Thomas Magnum’s red “jungle bird” shirt carries the rare distinction of being one of the only—if not the only—one of his fabled Hawaiian shirts to have appeared in all eight seasons of Magnum, P.I. The bright red tropical-printed rayon shirt became so iconic that one of Tom Selleck’s screen-worn shirts was even donated to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 1988 after the show’s run.

True to the series’ sense of authenticity, the original shirt had been purchased locally, made by a Hawaiian shirtmaker appropriately named Paradise Found. More than 40 years after Selleck first leapt into that speedy red Ferrari, the “jungle bird” shirt can still be purchased from this original manufacturer, as well as a series of other prints and colorways featured on the series, offered via Hawaiian outfitter Aloha FunWear.

When picturing Tom Selleck in Magnum, P.I. one often pictures his Tigers cap, his mustache, and this bright red “jungle bird”-printed aloha shirt, originally made by Paradise Found and still offered by the company via Aloha FunWear.

Where to get it:

• Paradise Found Original Magnum PI Hawaiian Shirt (Aloha FunWear, $69) (pictured)
• Paradise Found Cotton Magnum PI Hawaiian Shirt (Aloha FunWear, $69)

Striped Knit Shirts as seen in Goodfellas

For the dad with his own Sunday gravy recipe

In addition to the silk suits, spearpoint collars, and gold pinky rings, Martin Scorsese’s mob epic Goodfellas popularized the image of mobsters dressing down in colorful and sleekly striped knitwear, sometimes buttoned up with a suit or left undone to show their undershirts and gold necklaces beneath them.

This year, Scott Fraser Collection released the two latest entries in their Icon Series: the Idlewild and Salerno knit shirts, painstakingly made from fine Italian merino wool to screen-match two beautiful shirts worn on-screen by the late Ray Liotta as the wiseguy-turned-witness informant Henry Hill.

Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, wearing open his blue striped knit short-sleeve shirt that Scott Fraser Collection recreated as the “Salerno Knit Shirt”.

Where to get them:

• Scott Fraser Collection Idlewild Knit Shirt (Scott Fraser Collection, £262.50)
• Scott Fraser Collection Salerno Knit Shirt (Scott Fraser Collection, £262.50) (pictured)

Read more about the shirts in my exclusive Q&A with Scott, and listen to the episode of From Tailors with Love where I joined Scott and host Pete Brooker to talk Goodfellas style and this new collection.

Steve McQueen’s Persol Sunglasses

For the dad you’d crown “King of Cool”

Whether your dad knows his way around a ’68 Mustang or at least carries himself with the confidence of a guy unafraid to take on a muscle car racing through the streets of San Francisco, these blue-tinted, tortoise-framed acetate specs with the signature Persol temple logos would instantly upgrade his eyewear on par with the star of The Great Escape and The Thomas Crown Affair. Especially if he’s still wearing those 20-year-old Oakleys you’ve been begging him to replace.

Steve McQueen favored these blue-tinted Persols both off and on screen, as seen here in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).
Persol recently reintroduced the frames, capitalizing on their connection to the King of Cool, and available from Amazon, Cettire, and Shop Premium Outlets.

Where to get the Persol PO 714:

• Amazon, $486
• Cettire, $286.88
• Shop Premium Outlets, $259.15

Carhartt Baseball Cap as seen in No Time to Die

For the non-fussy dresser

There are plenty of James Bond fans who don’t have any desire to wear the secret agent’s expensive dinner jackets or drink his shaken, not stirred martinis. For decades, 007’s on-screen style may have felt worlds apart from these viewers, and then No Time to Die‘s depiction of a retired Commander Bond dressed him in a Tommy Bahama shirt and Sperry boat shoes… just like many dads may have in their own closet.

For a brief sailing scene from Jamaica to Cuba in No Time to Die, Bond supplemented this outfit with a Barbour jacket and a plain navy cotton canvas Carhartt baseball cap. Costume designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb explained in an interview with The Bond Experience that the hat was chosen to reflect one of Steve McQueen’s casual outfits in The Thomas Crown Affair, with the Carhartt branding patch removed for production.

While Carhartt knit beanies have become the favorite headgear for Instagram influencers, it was quite a breakthrough to see even a cinematic style icon like 007 wearing gear from this classic American workwear brand.

Long removed from the trilbies that Sean Connery, George Lazenby, and Roger Moore flung onto Miss Moneypenny’s hat rack, Daniel Craig’s 21st century 007 embraced the practicality of a de-badged Carhartt baseball cap in his final Bond movie, No Time to Die. (Screenshot sourced from Bond Lifestyle.)

Where to get it:

• Carhartt Men’s Canvas Cap (Amazon, $19.99)
• Carhartt Men’s Visor (Amazon, $19.99)

Reading Material

From Tailors With Love: An Evolution of Menswear Through the Bond Films
by Pete Brooker and Matt Spaiser

Amazon, $24.49

Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather
by Mark Seal

Amazon, $21.49

A Man & his Car: Iconic Cars and Stories from the Men Who Love Them
by Matt Hranek

Amazon, $27.45

A Man & His Watch: Iconic Watches and Stories from the Men Who Wore Them
by Matt Hranek

Amazon, $28.99

The Man with the Golden Typewriter: Ian Fleming’s James Bond Letters
edited by Fergus Fleming

Amazon, $26.32

This Was Hollywood: Forgotten Stars and Stories
by Carla Valderrama

Amazon, $17.99

All prices and availability current as of May 30, 2022. As an Amazon Associate, Kutoku affiliate, and ShopStyle Collective affiliate, I may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made through links in these posts. That said, this is not a paid or compensated post, and I’ve chosen all of the above selections based on my opinions alone.

The post Father’s Day 2022 Gift Guide appeared first on BAMF Style.