Timothy Dalton as James Bond in Licence to Kill (1989). Photo sourced from thunderballs007.org archive.

Vitals

Timothy Dalton as James Bond, rogue British government agent

From Key West, Florida to Bimini, Bahamas, Summer 1989

Film: Licence to Kill
Release Date: July 14, 1989
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Jodie Lynn Tillen

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Timothy Dalton’s second James Bond movie, Licence to Kill, was released today in 1989, exactly a week before I was born. Dalton was still comfortably settling into the role, establishing a more serious characterization that echoed Ian Fleming’s literary creation more than Roger Moore’s witty romantic, but a series of legal disputes and cultural shifts resulted in Licence to Kill unexpectedly becoming Dalton’s swan song as 007.

Less than six months after Licence to Kill, the Berlin Wall fell, with the Cold War that provided the backdrop of Bond’s espionage adventures all but over within two years after.

As exemplified by the blaxploitation-inspired Live and Let Die and the sci-fi Moonraker, Bond films had long been influenced by contemporary entertainment trends. With détente signaling the coming end of the Cold War, the EON team retooled a few unused plot points and characters from Fleming’s novel Live and Let Die into an amalgamation of the dark drug-themed stories in productions like Scarface and Miami Vice. Moore himself said that “for me, it became far too dark in style and content,” and audiences generally agreed, as Licence to Kill remains the least financially successful Bond movie in the U.S., faltering among a summer of major franchise blockbuster releases including Batman, Ghostbusters II, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Lethal Weapon 2.

Licence to Kill didn’t only borrow the drug themes and setting from Miami Vice, but also signed on the series costume designer, Jodie Lynn Tillen. Tillen made a valiant effort to keep Bond’s wardrobe contemporary, but her achievement was a pyrrhic victory as the late ’80s was a particularly baggy era for men’s clothing… though it could have been worse, as Dalton apparently resisted Tillen’s desire to outfit 007 in pastels to mimic her success with detectives Crockett and Tubbs.

That said, I do want to share my appreciation for the fact that—perhaps more than any other movie in the series—Bond realistically reuses much of his clothing, as so many of us do on vacation! While I recognize the need to assure audiences that 007 is always the best-dressed man in the room, it always struck me as ridiculous to picture Sean Connery’s Bond planning his packing list in From Russia With Love: “Okay, let’s see… five gray-toned suits, let’s make sure of those are glen plaid, and… one tie, that ought to do it!”

Enter Timothy Dalton’s Bond, whom the actor had intended to reflect Fleming’s literary character as a serious civil servant who balances a practical-minded budget with his own refined tastes. Particularly once Bond bids “a farewell to arms” to MI6, he’s relatively on his own and without the secret service available to bankroll his suits (or the excess fabric required to make them so fashionably baggy), resulting in his realistically cycling, rewearing, and mixing-and-matching his casual pieces as he begins his solo mission of revenge against ruthless drug kingpin Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi).

Bond’s rage toward Sanchez originated after the kingpin took revenge on Bond’s pal, CIA agent Felix Leiter (David Hedison), by murdering Felix’s newlywed wife Della (Priscilla Barnes) and maiming Felix himself by feeding his leg to a shark. Originally titled Licence Revoked before market testing made it clear that many Americans were unaware of what “revoked” meant, Licence to Kill effectively introduced the now-tired “Bond goes rogue” trope as 007 refuses MI6’s orders that reassign him to a new mission in Turkey, pairing up with Leiter’s one-time informant, a lovely CIA pilot named Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell), as they take on Sanchez’s vicious drug empire.

What’d He Wear?

Costume designer Jodie Tillen, who came fresh from the TV series Miami Vice, suggested a few ideas, much to the chagrin of the new 007. “She wanted to put me in pastels,” said Dalton in an interview with Garth Pearce. “Can you imagine? I thought, ‘No we can’t have that.’ The clothes say so much about Bond. He’s got a naval background, so he needs a strong, simple color like dark blue.”

— Roger Moore, Bond on Bond

One of the staples of Bond’s Licence to Kill wardrobe is an unstructured navy-blue lightweight twill jacket that Matt Spaiser described for Bond Suits as “a Teba-style shirt-jacket,” referring to the soft Spanish shooting jackets originally tailored in the mid-20th century by María Sorreluz Múgica for Carlos Alfonso de Mitjans, 21st Count of Teba.

As illustrated by Bond’s dark blue garment, Teba jackets are characterized by shirt-like shoulder yokes and sleeves, non-notched lapels, and four-button fronts with the top button positioned farther apart from the others, closer to the neckl should a Teba wearer choose to button his jacket to the neck, the effect would resemble a cross between a low-slung Nehru jacket and the collarless Cardin jackets favored by the Beatles during their early years, though the most typical wear to wear a Teba jacket follows Bond’s example with the collar folded down like a traditional jacket lapel.

Bond’s ventless Teba jacket has four patch pockets on the front, with the two chest pockets closed through a single dark blue button that matches those on the front as well as the single-button barrel cuffs.

Bond presents a significant contrast against his fellow MI6 agents by remarkably being the only one not wearing a suit.

The concept driving Bond’s clothing makes sense, but it unfortunately falls victim to the excessively baggy fits that were characteristic of the late ’80s. The Teba jacket is no exception, nor are the shirts and trousers that he wears with it.

Bond introduces the Teba jacket while he and his gregarious ally Sharkey (Frank McRae) are investigating the Wavekrest Marine Research headquarters on Key West after hours. In the Bond tradition dating back to Sean Connery’s all-black Goldfinger knitwear and trousers, Bond wears all dark clothing including what appears to be a black long-sleeved button-up shirt with two chest pockets. His triple reverse-pleated trousers are navy blue, providing a uniform-like effect with the navy Teba jacket that coordinates with Dalton’s desire to reflect Commander Bond’s naval background, if a bit too matchy to be stylish outside this tactical scenario.

One thing that impressed me most about Bond and Sharkey’s confrontation with Killifer was that Bond could instantly remember the name of a guy he had met—and didn’t even like!—for only a passing minute the previous day.

The trousers are held up with a black leather belt that closes through a gilt-toned single-prong buckle, and they’re styled with side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms. He wears black leather moc-toe penny loafers with a low vamp, the same style—and possibly same shoes—that he would also later wear with his suits upon arrival in Isthmus City. The low vamp shows plenty of the black socks that he wears with them.

The next day, Bond dresses to fit in among the Key West tourists and fishermen, sporting a lighter shirt and trousers under the Teba jacket that still serves to conceal his shoulder-holstered Walther PPK.

Bond’s roomy white linen shirt buttons up the plain (French) front, and Dalton continues his cool-wearing practice of keeping the top two buttons undone. The long-sleeved shirt also has a point collar and a large patch pocket on each side of the chest, each covered with a non-buttoning flap.

Bond confers with Sharkey in Key West.

Bond tucks the shirt into beige cotton reverse-pleated trousers, which have an extended front waist tab, side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms. He holds them up with a mid-brown leather belt that closes through a curved brass-finished single-prong buckle.

DEA Agent Hawkins (Grand L. Bush) catches up with Bond in Key West: “Look, you’re in over your head. This is where it ends, Commander.”

Bond’s slip-on shoes have dark gray canvas uppers echoing the classic espadrille style, though the outsoles are white rubber than the classic jute rope. A dark gray rubber stripe along the top of the outsole borders the upper with a branded heel “bumper” that may help more knowledgable footwear experts identify the actual maker. He wears thin beige socks that continue the leg line from his trousers.

With one swift kick, Bond makes it clear to MI6 that only he determines “where it ends.”

Following the misadventure at the Hemingway House, Bond continues wearing the same shirt but changes back into his dark blue pleated trousers when sneaking into Felix’s home office in search of a lead. He slips the hidden disc from the late Della’s portrait, learning about Felix’s planned upcoming meeting with Pam Bouvier in the Bahamas.

Much like Sterling Archer’s famed tactile-neck, Bond seemingly needs to change back into his navy pleated trousers when investigating.

The following evening, Bond dresses in all blue as he arrives by boat to the seaside Barrelhead Bar in Bimini. This outfit also received a detailed analysis at Bond Suits, where Matt mentions that the triple blue tones would address Dalton’s hope for Commander Bond to sport maritime tones, though “someone with a naval background would likely prefer trimmer-fitting clothes and not full fits of late 1980s fashion.”

Under the Teba jacket, Bond wears a French blue shirt with a washed cotton finish, styled with a soft and narrow spread collar, two button-through patch pockets on the chest, and seven buttons up a placket that’s folded along the shirt’s inside, reinforced with a blue-stitched column for a more symmetrical presentation.

Bond leaves the Barrelhead Bar a little worse for wear.

Bond wears the same navy pleated trousers and black moc-toe penny loafers as he had worn when investigating the WaveKrest warehouse and Felix’s home office.

After Dalton wore a blackened TAG Heuer in The Living Daylights, Bond returned to the Rolex Submariner dive watch—albeit for the last time—in Licence to Kill. Bond’s final Rolex appears to be a ref. 16610 Submariner, an update of the earlier ref. 1680 Submariner that introduced a date window. The stainless steel Submariner has the standard black-finished rotating bezel and a glossier black dial than its predecessors, with the same luminous hour markers and a white date window at the 3:00 position. He wears it strapped to his left wrist on a steel three-piece “Oyster”-style link bracelet with deployable clasp.

Bond rolls up his jacket sleeves—leaving his poor Rolex unprotected—when he plunges his hands into a drawer full of maggots to discover Sanchez’s drugs. Not quite the sort of diving that Rolex had in mind when they introduced the Submariner.

Bond carries his PPK in a black leather shoulder holster, consisting of a wide black leather patch that extends around his back, tapering down to a strap on the left side that connects to the holster itself, where the PPK is suspended with the barrel facing upward like Frank Bullitt‘s “quickdraw” holster borrowed from real-life Inspector Dave Toschi. A wide black leather retaining snap covers the PPK’s barrel and trigger guard like a wallet, held in place with a single snap in the upper corner. A narrower strap down the right side of his torso anchors the harness to his belt.

Advanced by the pros populating the AJB007 forums, internet consensus seems to have determined that Bond wears a Galco Falcon shoulder holster, copied from the style originally crafted by Ken Null for K.L. Null Holsters Ltd. Though no longer made by Galco—perhaps for legal reasons—Null continues to market this holster system as the Model SMZ, explaining that it was “designed initially for the CIA and other covert government agencies,” which lends some legitimacy to Bond wearing the rig.

Bond flashes his shoulder-holstered Walther PPK to illustrate for Pam that he’s ready for action… though perhaps not quite as ready as she is!

The Gun

M: Effective immediately. Your license to kill is revoked, and I require you to hand over your weapon… now. I need hardly remind you that you’re still bound by the Official Secrets Act.
Bond: (apropos the Hemingway House setting) I guess it’s a… farewell to arms.

Drawing his Walther PPK from his holster, Bond swiftly disables the two officers escorting M (Robert Brown) and leaps a rail to avoid the rifle fire of an MI6 sniper as he escapes through the brush. One of the agents recover his own revolver and aims to shoot, but M restrains him: “No… too many people!”

Dalton joins George Lazenby as the only James Bond actors to date whose primary on-screen sidearm had been the iconic PPK, the compact semi-automatic pistol introduced by German firearms manufacturer Walther in 1931 as a more compact alternative to the PP pistol, intended for the Kriminalamt police agency… hence PPK: Polizeipistole Kriminal. The PPK received early infamy as a sidearm carried by the Nazis, even used by Adolf Hitler to commit suicide in 1945, but it gained a new life and reputation when Ian Fleming selected it to replace James Bond’s .25-caliber Beretta on the advice of firearms expert Geoffrey Boothroyd.

The Walther PPK has been traditionally chambered in .32 ACP and .380 ACP, with some variants in .22 LR and even .25 ACP, though it was the .32-caliber variant that Fleming stipulated for Bond when he wrote of the “7.65 millimeter, with a delivery like a brick through a plate-glass window.” While that may exaggerate the stopping power of the .32 ACP cartridge—also marketed as 7.65×17mm SR Browning—it would have made an effective mid-century carry piece for a “licensed troubleshooter” like Bond.

Bond’s Walther PPK for Licence to Kill was sourced from Stembridge Gun Rentals, with its shallow lanyard ring and downscaled rear sight among the features that identify the PPK as a Waffenamt variant produced by Nazi Germany during World War II, with more detail available at IMFDB. The screen-used PPK (serial #348075K) was auctioned in August 2004 for $6,900 and, while the barrel was internally adapted to fire blanks, the pistol can still be re-adapted for live fire. You can read more about the Licence to Kill PPK at Original Prop Blog and Your Props.

On the veranda of the Hemingway House in Key West, Bond quips that handing over his Walther PPK would be “a farewell to arms”, though the fabled bell nearly tolls for him when an MI6 sniper nearly takes him out during his subsequent escape.

Bond wisely brings his Walther PPK to meet Pam Bouvier at the Barrelhead Bar, hoping to impress her by showing off his shoulder holster when she asks: “you carrying?” Unfortunately for 007, his armament is literally tsk-tsked as Pam slyly reveals her own armament: a sawed-off Mossberg 500 Cruiser pump-action shotgun. (Okay, but try getting up to go to the bathroom, Pam!)

O.F. Mossberg & Sons introduced their M500 shotgun in 1961, originally intended for hunters before its reliable yet affordable package caught the attention of law enforcement and military. Sixty years after its introduction, Mossberg surpassed its Remington and Winchester competition as the M500 stands as the most-produced shotgun of all time with more than 11 million sold.

The Cruiser variant was built with a factory pistol grip and, depending on the magazine tube capacity, either an 18.5″ or 20″ barrel length. Pam Bouvier’s 12-gauge Mossberg 500 Cruiser appears to be configured with the more compact 18.5″ barrel and a heat shield, as well as the now-standard anodized alloy receiver.

Though the standard 12-gauge shotgun fires buckshot that scatters in a funnel-like formation, Pam’s Mossberg has the magic ability to blast a human-sized hole through an exterior wall.

What to Imbibe

After enjoying some champagne at Felix and Della’s wedding, Bond doesn’t have anything to drink until he meets Pam Bouvier at the Barrelhead Bar in Bimini. For those who want to incorporate James Bond into your style without copying his looks, one of my favorite offerings from SIS Training Gear is the Barrelhead Bar & Grill T-shirt included among the “Spy Collection”, designed by Marty from thunderballs.org. (Use discount code “BAMF” at checkout to receive 10% off your order!)

Bond pulls up to the Barrelhead Bar, the Bimini bar depicted on a line of great T-shirts available exclusively from SIS Training Gear.

“Bud with a lime,” Pam orders, and Bond reminds us that this ain’t your usual 007 adventure as he concurs, “yeah, same.” The flirty waitress (Edna Bolkan) responds “sure thing, hon,” which—combined with her black hot pants—elicits an eye-roll from Pam… though we can only imagine how far back her eyes would have rolled if Bond had stuck to his usual “vodka martini, shaken not stirred” in a place like the rough-and-tumble Barrelhead.

Despite what the uproar around Heineken’s placement in Skyfall may have suggested, James Bond is no stranger to beer, with Ian Fleming including multiple mentions of Löwenbräu, Miller High Life, and Red Stripe among Bond’s literary adventures, typically favoring beers domestic to whatever country he’s in at the time. It took a little more time to serve Bond a beer on screen, for which Licence to Kill broke the mold when he joined Pam for a Budweiser.

The waitress brings over two bottles, capped with the requested lime wedges, for a grand total of $3.50, but Bond and Bouvier never get a chance to enjoy their brews as they end up tussling with Sanchez’s henchmen, devolving the proceedings into a bar-fight that inexplicably attracts every patron, server, and performer in the joint.

Today, the concept of serving limes with a beer is more associated with Mexican beers like Corona, rather than the St. Louis-brewed “King of Beers” (not to mention Bud Light Lime, of course.) I’ve read several theories for how limes originated as a favorite accompaniment of beers, including the potential for keeping out bugs, removing rust marks from caps, and acting as an anti-bacterial agent in the same manner that made them famous for supposedly warding off scurvy.

How to Get the Look

Timothy Dalton’s clothing in Licence to Kill fell victim to the baggy standards of late ’80s menswear, though the looser fits may have been a cool-wearing asset as his 007 cycled his shirts and trousers under a comfortable navy twill Teba jacket that concealed his signature Walther PPK while the rogue agent sought revenge in the tropical West Indies heat.

Timothy Dalton as James Bond in Licence to Kill (1989). Photo sourced from thunderballs007.org archive.

For a Licence to Kill-style capsule wardrobe to pack for your warm vacation this summer, start with these unchanging staples:

• Navy twill unstructured Teba jacket with non-notched collar, four-button front, button-through patch-style chest pockets, patch-style hip pockets, single-button barrel cuffs, and ventless back
• Rolex Submariner Date ref. 16610 stainless steel dive watch with black-finished rotating bezel, glossy black round dial with 3:00 date window, and steel “Oyster”-style three-piece link bracelet

Shirts:

• White linen long-sleeved shirt with narrow point collar, plain front, and two flapped patch-style chest pockets
• French blue long-sleeved shirt with spread collar, stitched quasi-placket, and two button-through chest pockets
• Black long-sleeved shirt with point collar, plain front, and two patch-style chest pockets

Trousers:

• Beige cotton double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Navy triple reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms

Belts:

• Brown leather belt with curved brass single-prong buckle
• Black leather belt with gilt-finished single-prong buckle

Shoes:

• Dark gray canvas slip-on shoes with white rubber outsoles
• Black leather moc-toe penny loafers

Socks:

• Beige cotton lisle socks
• Black cotton lisle socks

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Why don’t you wait until you’re asked?

The post Licence to Kill: Bond’s Tropical Navy Casual Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Murray Bartlett as Armond on The White Lotus (Episode 1.01: “Arrivals”)

Vitals

Murray Bartlett as Armond, frantic resort hotel manager and recovering addict

Maui, Hawaii, Summer 2020

Series: The White Lotus
Episode: “Arrivals” (Episode 1.01)
Air Date: July 11, 2021
Director: Mike White
Creator: Mike White
Costume Designer: Alex Bovaird

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

This week, the Primetime Emmy Award nominations were announced, with HBO’s limited series The White Lotus tied with Ted Lasso for the second-most nominations (20), behind only Succession‘s staggering 25 nominations. Most of The White Lotus‘ cast was nominated in the acting categories, with Murray Bartlett emerging as a favorite for his performance as Armond, the obsequious and increasingly distressed manager of the eponymous Hawaiian resort.

Though Bartlett has been acting for more than three decades, The White Lotus provided a long-overdue breakthrough role for the Australian-born actor, whose performance has already been recognized with well-deserved AACTA and Critics’ Choice awards.

“We wanted that character to be larger than life, but we didn’t ever want it to feel untethered from reality,” Bartlett explained to InStyle about Armond, joining much of the cast in adding praise for creator Mike White, who rose to the challenge of crafting a series with a limited cast in a single location to be produced within the initial height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The White Lotus premiered one year ago this week, beginning with a mysterious crate labeled “HUMAN REMAINS” being loaded onto an airplane under the brooding watchful eye of Shane Patton, one of the resort’s most spoiled guests, played to perfection by the also-nominated Jake Lacy. We then flashback to a week earlier as Shane, his newlywed wife Rachel (Alexandra Daddario), and fellow guests arrive to a reception led by Armond, resentfully grinning and waving alongside his staff.

“You have to treat these people like sensitive children,” Armond informs the trainee Lani (Jolene Purdy), and there’s no reason why he should yet suspect that this hospitality season will be any more tortuous than the usual. Indeed, the five-years-sober Armond has never met a guest whose caprices he couldn’t accommodate… until Shane, whose entitled frustrations with a booking error ignites a flame of pettiness that escalates into an all-out war fought with passive-aggressive phone calls, pineapple-carving knives, and ketamine-fueled excrement.

What’d He Wear?

Alex Bovaird, Brian Sprouse, and Eileen Stroup have also been nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Contemporary Costumes for their work in The White Lotus‘ first episode, “Arrivals”, in which their thoughtful costume design instantly inform the viewers of who we’ll be meeting, from Shane’s frat-tastic Polo-branded polos and Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) in her dramatic monkey-print caftan to the wannabe-thrifted looks sported by the haughty teens Olivia (Sydney Sweeney) and Paula (Brittany O’Grady).

“It’s beachy casual,” Armond instructs Lani of the White Lotus staff dress code and standards. “Always presentable, with a clean look.” For Armond, this means a de facto uniform of floral-printed open-neck shirts worn with colorful linen suits, always with a lapel pin depicting—what else?—a white lotus.

According to Matthew Jacobs’ Vanity Fair interview with her, Bovaird was inspired by Elvis Presley’s style in Blue Hawaii to seek tropical-printed shirts for Armond. To Tanya Mehta of Grazia, Bovaird elaborated that, “[Armond’s] shirts resemble the ‘Aloha’ variety indigenous to Hawaiian culture, we updated them to exude a Paul Smith-ie vibe via the floral prints.” The hotelier’s quartet of shirts were sourced from Bar III, Paul Smith, Ted Baker, and Tommy Bahama, with the only true Hawaiian-made shirt—a colorful printed Reyn Spooner shirt—worn in the final episode and meeting a fate that may well fit into the series’ overall statement on the impact of colonialism.

Worn with his pink linen suit, Armond’s first shirt is patterned in an all-over light blue floral print against a white ground. The design more closely resembles a dress shirt rather than the loose and casual aloha shirt, structured with a spread collar, plain button-up front, and long sleeves finished with button-fastened barrel cuffs.

“I picked linen for a couple of reasons,” Bovaird explained to Grazia. “We wanted him to wear a suit so that he constantly feels stifled and suffocated by what he’s doing, the jacket also lends itself to the formality of his role. By its nature, linen crumples quickly so when he starts to unravel, we liked the idea of him looking drenched and wrinkly in his clothing.” Of course, the light-wearing linen would also provide the benefit of keeping Armond cool while hustling through a tropical resort.

At the outset, Armond looks as bright and cheery as the image he hopes to present to guests in his rose pink linen suit. Shaped with front darts, the single-breasted jacket has notch lapels of moderate width, a welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, and a single vent. The two buttons on the front and the four-button cuffs are made from an off-white pearl-effect plastic that provides a dressed-down contrast consistent with Armond’s “beachy casual” philosophy. Ever the dutiful majordomo, Armond always wears his nameplate pinned to his left breast, in this case positioned over the welt of his breast pocket.

Lani and Armond wear almost-matching shades of pink as they greet the latest sensitive children—er, guests—arriving for their stay at The White Lotus.

The matching flat front trousers have a medium-to-low rise, with straight pockets positioned along the side seams and almost certainly two back pockets as seen on Armond’s other suit trousers. He holds them up with a plain brown leather belt that closes through a silver-toned single-prong buckle.

Armond wears cognac-brown leather semi-brogue oxford shoes, detailed with a perforated medallion cap-toe, round dark brown laces, and hefty sneaker-style cream-colored rubber outsoles that blend presentability and comfort for a man who spends most of his day on his feet… and moving quickly.

The traction provided by Armond’s oxfords keep him upright after he discovers that Lani’s water broke… or at least discovers the water without yet realizing its source.

Armond dresses his left wrist with an 18-karat yellow gold Cartier Tank Française, a prestigious watch that evokes the brand of luxury he hopes to provide for guests of the White Lotus while also undeniably reliable enough to keep him on track for his time-sensitive duties.

Though its appearance has become synonymous with elegance, the Cartier Tank was originally designed to resemble the cockpit and treads of an armored vehicle, hence its “Tank” nomenclature. The Cartier Tank went into production in 1919, with several variants introduced over the following decades, including the sportier quartz Tank Française that appeared in the mid-1990s, with a wide-linked bracelet designed to resemble tanks’ caterpillar tracks. Cartier Tank watches are characterized by their square dials with Roman numeral hour markers, chemin de fer chapter ring, blued steel sword-shaped hands, and sapphire crown.

Armond and bellboy Dillon (Lukas Gage) are shocked to find the former’s office transformed into a makeshift maternity ward.

While avoiding spoilers as much as I can, I appreciate the parallels of a final shot from the closing episode, “Departures” (Episode 1.06), featuring Armond’s replacement similarly dressed as he stands aside the staff to welcome the next bunch of guests.

Pineapple Suites are expensive but life is cheap at the White Lotus, as even the colorful Armond can be swiftly replaced by a new manager with an identical suit and smile.

How to Get the Look

Murray Bartlett as Armond on The White Lotus (Episode 1.01: “Arrivals”)

“Beachy casual” drives Armond’s philosophy for serving the privileged guests of The White Lotus, consistently dressed in colorful linen suits with floral-printed shirts echoing the aloha shirt of their Hawaiian setting.

• Rose pink linen suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Flat front trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White (with light blue floral all-over print) long-sleeved shirt with spread collar, plain front, and button cuffs
• Brown leather belt with silver-toned single-prong buckle
• Cognac-brown leather semi-brogue cap-toe oxford shoes with cream-colored rubber outsoles
• Cartier Tank Française yellow gold watch with white square dial (with Roman numeral hour markers and blued steel hands) on gold three-piece link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, streaming on HBO Max.

You can also read more about The White Lotus‘ costume design from these source articles:

• Grazia: “Paradise Lost: The Vision Behind The Costumes On The White Lotus“ by Tanya Mehta
• Vanity Fair: “Caftans, Goyard, and Elvis: Inside The White Lotus’s Costumes” by Matthew Jacobs
• W: “On The White Lotus, Resort Attire Weaves Its Own Tawdry Tale” by Gabe Bergado

The post The White Lotus: Armond’s Pink Linen Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jake Lacy as Shane Patton on The White Lotus (Episode 1.05: “The Lotus-Eaters”)

Vitals

Jake Lacy as Shane Patton, smug and spoiled newlywed

Maui, Hawaii, Summer 2020

Series: The White Lotus
Episode: “The Lotus-Eaters” (Episode 1.05)
Air Date: July 11, 2021
Director: Mike White
Creator: Mike White
Costume Designer: Alex Bovaird

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

While I’m on vacation this week, it feels appropriate to continue covering the Emmy-nominated resort style of The White Lotus, this time turning a sartorial eye onto the hotel’s arguably most troublesome guest: the frat-tastic newlywed Shane Patton.

Jake Lacy had mastered “nice guy” roles from being Jenny Slate’s love interest in Gillian Robespierre’s excellent Obvious Child to portraying Plop New Jim Pete in the final season of The Office, to the degree that Vulture had even ranked them by niceness. For his Emmy-nominated performance as the insufferable super-bro Shane, Lacy plunged a knife into the torso of his old screen persona.

As reinforced by his interview with The AV Club, it’s comforting to know that Jake Lacy sides with audiences as well as Shane’s own increasingly horrified new wife Rachel (Alexandra Daddario) regarding the despicable depths he’ll follow to “win”. Shane’s petty conflict with hotel manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) began with a booking error that placed the honeymooners in the ocean-view Palm Suite and not the more expensive Pineapple Suite, which sacrifices its view for a plunge pool of questionable size.

“He’s the most entitled victim possible,” Lacy describes Shane in a Vulture profile, written by Jackson McHenry who had also scribed the aforementioned list. “He’s technically correct. He did not get what he paid for. But also, dude, let it go!”

Shane seems to be losing his war with Armond until late one evening when he storms into the office… only to find Armond buried face-first in the derriere of bellboy Dillon (Lukas Gage). Over breakfast with the emotionally neglected Rachel and Shane’s newly arrived mother (Molly Shannon) the next morning, smug Shane can’t remove his shit-eating grin after catching Armond—well, eating shit—the previous night. It’s just the leverage that Shane needed for Armond to finally cave and move the newlywed Pattons into Shane’s prized Pineapple Suite, though no upgrade is enough at this point to sell Rachel on the concept of marriage to a privileged mama’s boy whose idea of emotional depth is to cheerfully proclaim that he’s “actually emo!”

Lacy, Daddario, and Bartlett are among the many members of The White Lotus‘ cast to be nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to the series itself being nominated for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series among its 20 nods.

What’d He Wear?

For at least three years, I’ve been singing the praises of terry cloth loungewear for all who would listen, lounging poolside or on the beach in my toweling shirts from Busbee McQuade, Dandy Del Mar, and OAS while waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. Finally, it feels like terry cloth has been widely embraced by menswear retailers, to the degree that I was even greeted with the sight of of men’s toweling shirts in several colors when I popped into my local Target last week for some pre-trip provisions.

To the credit of the series’ deservedly Emmy-nominated costume designer Alex Bovaird, Shane Patton’s wardrobe consists of the many Polo-branded polos, OCBDs, salmon chino shorts, and seafood belts you’d expect of a classic douche-bro. While I have nothing against the clothes themselves—though I understand why Armond chose that specific sweater for his fecal memento—I was most pleasantly surprised when Shane dressed for breakfast in a toweling shirt that I instantly recognized as the “Cuba Terry Shirt” from the Swedish brand OAS, one of the O.G. brands leading the terry cloth renaissance.

Woven into a looped fabric that can absorb water, terry cloth had long been used for towels and bathrobes before a few enterprising outfitters configured it into men’s leisure tops by the mid-20th century, as worn by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Alain Delon in Plein soleil, Elliott Gould in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, and Sean Connery’s James Bond in both Goldfinger and Diamonds are Forever.

The OAS Cuba Terry Shirt is made from 100% cotton toweling, knitted into a French terry that’s been optimized for clothing with one side smoother than the other to be worn against the skin. The large-scale, all-over “banana leaf” print covers the shirt in a duo-tone light green leafy pattern. The shirt has a flat camp collar with a deep neckline down to mid-chest, where the first of three pearl-effect two-hole buttons are fastened.

The honeymooning Pattons, with Rachel understandingly looking like a deer in the headlights given that her new husband won’t stop obsessing about getting a better room while ignoring her very real concerns about her life and career… oh, and her mother-in-law unexpectedly crashed their honeymoon. The fact that Shane is still smiling so blissfully tells you all you need to know about him!

Shop the shirt:

The OAS "Banana Leaf" Cuba Terry Shirt can be purchased from:

• Lord & Taylor ($96)
• Manready Mercantile ($120)
• OAS ($120)

The recent revival of terry cloth shirting also means there are plenty of different green toweling shirts that could fit your specific style or budget:

• Abercrombie & Fitch Towel Terry Button-Through Polo in "olive" (A&F, $50)
• Dandy Del Mar Gaucho Terry Shirt in "emerald" (Dandy Del Mar, $109)
• Goodfellow & Co. Men's Terry Short-Sleeve Camp Button-Down Shirt in "green" (Target, $22)
• H&M Regular Fit Terry Polo Shirt in "pistachio green" (H&M, $17.99)
• Lucky Brand Towel Terry Short Sleeve Polo in "laurel wreath" (Lucky Brand, $34.75)
• MR. P. Organic Cotton-Terry Polo Shirt in "green" (MR PORTER, $125)
• Todd Snyder Terry Button-Down Polo in "vintage lime" (Todd Snyder, $158)

Prices and availability current as of July 15, 2022.

The fourth and fifth episodes feature Shane going to breakfast wearing a baseball cap representing his alma mater, another character-perfect detail suggesting that he couldn’t even be bothered to take the few extra seconds to style his hair before joining his fellow guests for breakfast in the dining room.

According to McHenry’s Vulture profile, “when Lacy asked if Shane could wear an Ivy League baseball cap, [series creator Mike] White suggested the infamously douchey Cornell.” The university was likely just recovering from years of being associated with Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) on The Office, which also starred Jake Lacy, when The White Lotus presented it as Shane’s school. As reported by Annie Goldsmith for Town & Country, Cornell president Martha Pollack was amused by the inclusion: “Let me just say that that is not the product placement that I would’ve paid for with that character, but it’s just fiction and we’re just kind of laughing it off.”

Cornell’s school colors are the maroon-like Carnelian (Cornell red) and white, as represented on Shane’s Carnelian cotton twill cap with “CORNELL” boldly arched in white raised embroidery across the front, bordered in black that’s echoed by the smaller print “UNIVERSITY” just beneath it. On the left side is a white-embroidered letter “C”, also with a black-embroidered border. As of July 2022, the youth version of this cap is still available from The Cornell Store.

Cornell… ever heard of it?

Shane’s tonneau-shaped wristwatch has been identified as a Franck Muller Conquistador, an appropriately named model given the series’ overall themes of colonialism while also echoing Shane’s own desire for conquest, whether it be of a beautiful trophy wife or the upper hand in a battle of wits (and shits) against a hospitality manager.

Like a few other Franck Muller timepieces, the Conquistador’s dial is detailed with baroque numeric hour markers, adapted in varying sizes to fit around a ringed center within the swelled tonneau-shaped parameters. Shane’s stainless Conquistador has a white dial, worn on a russet-brown crocodile-scaled leather strap. He also wears his gold wedding ring on his left hand.

“Jake Lacy was really into clothes and all about the tiny details,” costume designer Alex Bovaird recalled in conversation with Grazia. “In his fitting, we talked about how we could make his character a bit more boyish. We shortened every pair of shorts to just the right length where you know he is conscious of his body and we tailored all the shirts to make them just a little snug.”

This morning, Shane sits down to breakfast in pale-blue chino cotton flat front shorts with side pockets and an inseam that indeed ends several inches above each knee.

Shane wears his blue and red rubber Havaianas flip flops, crafted with navy footbeds against red soles with red thongs that are detailed with “Havaianas” in white lettering. For dressier occasions like dinner, Shane swaps out these poolside sandals for his brown leather Gucci loafers.

How to Get the Look

Jake Lacy as Shane Patton on The White Lotus (Episode 1.05: “The Lotus-Eaters”)

I was glad to see one of OAS’s distinctively patterned terry cloth shirts on screen, which Shane incorporates into his bro-infused resort wardrobe with his Ivy alma mater cap, expensive watch, and pool-ready flip flops.

• Light green “banana leaf” OAS Cuba Terry toweling cotton shirt with notched camp collar and three-button front
• Pale-blue chino cotton flat front shorts with side pockets
• Navy-and-red rubber Havaianas flip flops
• Cornell University baseball cap in Carnelian (Cornell red) cotton twill with white-embroidered letters
• Franck Muller Conquistador stainless tonneau-shaped wristwatch with white dial and russet-brown croc leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, streaming on HBO Max.

You can also read more about The White Lotus‘ costume design from these source articles:

• Grazia: “Paradise Lost: The Vision Behind The Costumes On The White Lotus“ by Tanya Mehta
• Vanity Fair: “Caftans, Goyard, and Elvis: Inside The White Lotus’s Costumes” by Matthew Jacobs
• W: “On The White Lotus, Resort Attire Weaves Its Own Tawdry Tale” by Gabe Bergado

The post The White Lotus: Shane’s Leafy Toweling Shirt appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

Vitals

Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf, narcissistic profligate playboy

Italy, Summer 1958

Film: The Talented Mr. Ripley
Release Date: December 25, 1999
Director: Anthony Minghella
Costume Design: Ann Roth & Gary Jones

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Last year around this time, I finally read Patricia Highsmith’s thriller novel The Talented Mr. Ripley that provided the source material for two stylish adaptations: the lush French production Purple Noon (Plein soleil) released in 1960 and Anthony Minghella’s more faithful The Talented Mr. Ripley released on Christmas 1999.

The central drama follows a trio of American jet-setters cavorting on Italy’s scenic Amalfi Coast: spendthrift playboy Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), his charming on-and-off girlfriend Marge Sherwood (Gwyneth Paltrow), and their mysterious companion Tom Ripley (Matt Damon), who seems to have taken an obsessive interest in Dickie.

At first, Dickie seems no more than mildly annoyed by the newcomer, loosened somewhat when he and Marge are entertained by Tom’s “uncanny” ability to impersonate and mimic his own father.

Marge: [Tom] made me laugh so hard I almost got a nose bleed!
Dickie: Is that good?
Marge: Shut up.

Weeks of constant companionship, homoerotic baths, and awkward fashion swaps deteriorate relations among the trio, which come to a head as Dickie rents a boat with Tom and sails it off the Sanremo coast, where he intends to move both to ditch Tom, whom Dickie declares can be “a leech” and—even worse—”quite boring.” As Dickie states:

I really, really do not want to be on this boat with you.

Fed up, Tom takes the opportunity to throw it all back in Dickie’s face… literally. With an oar.

What’d He Wear?

After their first official meeting on the beach (filmed at Bagno Antonio in Ischia), Dickie again encounters Tom lunching with Marge in his absence. Dickie wears a laidback but eye-catching wardrobe of black shirt and white trousers, communicating his simpler approach to life than the more complex Tom.

For this lunch as well as their last day together on that fateful boat trip, Dickie sports the same unique black short-sleeved shirt, worn only partially buttoned and untucked with a pair of off-white trousers on both occasions. This initial appearance clearly illustrates the contrast between the easygoing Dickie and the buttoned-up Tom in his Ivy garb, while comparing their outfits on the boat shows just how extensively Tom has been influenced by Dickie, right down to his new clothing.

Dickie’s black sport shirt is softly constructed from a narrowly ribbed cloth, so lightweight that it appears almost sheer under the Mediterranean sun. The shirt has at least six black sew-through buttons up the front, ostensibly to be fastened up to the neck, and a patch pocket over the left breast.

Dickie Greenleaf eyes the newcomer with some suspicion.

Although costume designers Ann Roth and Gary Jones worked with John Tudor in New York to make Dickie’s clothing, shirts like this are unlike almost anything produced by American manufacturers of the era and accurately reflect what someone like Dickie would have worn to comfortably show off while living la dolce vita in the more fashion-forward Europe.

Dickie offsets the darkness of the shirt by rotating it against his favorite white trousers, held up by a black leather Gucci belt identified by its telltale silver “G”-logo buckle. These provide an appropriately maritime cast to his style at sea, as he kicks back in a pair of white cotton double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, back pockets, and turn-ups that he insouciantly self-cuffs even higher on each leg.

Tom has clearly been influenced by Dickie’s sense of style, now wearing silky sport shirts rather than the Ivy-style OCBDs from his arrival.

Having worn white leather moc-toe loafers in the city, the seagoing Dickie pulls on his more casual sneakers with white canvas uppers, flat white woven laces, and wide white rubber soles. Right down to the navy rubber stripe banded around the top of the outsole, these oxford-laced sneakers resemble the classic Sperry Cloud CVO Deck Sneakers.

When we pan over the blood-stained shoes that he kicked off during the murder, we can spy dark blue insoles with double sets of white stripes on each side flanking the letter “E”—presumably the last letter of the manufacturer’s name—as well as the flattened heels that allow Dickie to wear them like slip-on clogs.

I’ve seen Sperry line some of their sneakers with striped insoles, though I don’t recognize this particular stripe arrangement. (And it’s possible that the errant “E” follows an “SP” and preceded an “RRY” that was removed by the costume team.)

Dickie often takes to the water in a unique deck jacket made of white duck, with an irregular stepped closure consisting of a series of six oversized grommets and hooks. This closure system may have been inspired by the U.S. Navy implementing “hook” deck jackets in 1943 to replace the earlier models with zippers that were often rendered inoperable by freezing rain or corrosive salt water.

The front of Dickie’s hip-length jacket is split into a straight, funnel-like top portion that can fold down like a traditional collar and a more dramatic asymmetrical flap that tapers from a sharp corner on the right side of the chest down to the hem. Both these top and lower portions are each rigged with three nickel-finished grommets that coordinate to matching hooks on the right side of the jacket. The jacket also has a horizontal-zip set-in pocket over the left breast and set-in sleeves that are finished with short vents at each cuff.

Once the duo get acclimated in the boat, Dickie takes off his jacket, thus leaving it clean enough for Tom to pull on upon reaching dry land immediately after the murder… signaling that his programmatic takeover of Dickie’s identity has already begun.

Dickie sports a gold ring on each hand, with a double-ridged band on the middle finger of his right hand and a flashier ring with a green stone gleaming from his left pinky. Dickie describes the latter as a gift from Marge that he “had to promise—capital P—never to take it off.”

Dickie wears his stainless steel watch that follows a retro design suggesting Bulova, Hamilton, Longines, or Wittenauer, though BAMF Style reader Scott has shared a Spotern link concluding that Dickie likely wears an inexpensive Japanese-made Swanson wristwatch. The vintage-inspired timepiece has a round silver dial detailed with a diamond at the 12 o’clock position and Arabic numerals marking the 3, 6, and 9 o’clock hours. Dickie wears it on a mesh-like “Milanese” bracelet that closes with a single-prong buckle over his left wrist.

“My job was to show this very well-off boy, Dickie, in Europe, on a very strict allowance, but with a sensational lifestyle,” costume designer Ann Roth explained to The Rake. “I had him in a jacket and some shorts, or a jacket and some linen trousers, and that jacket had to reflect a very rich background. And if he had one or two made in Rome, it had to look that way.”

When taking Tom into town after lunch, Dickie debuts the dark navy dupioni silk blazer that he would later wear with a pork-pie hat, two-toned shoes, and striped tie during their trip to Rome. The single-breasted jacket has straight peak lapels, three silver-finished shank buttons, a welted breast pocket, patch hip pockets, double vents, and three cuff buttons.

Dickie shows Tom around Mongibello.

What to Imbibe

When Tom meets the couple, he shares a concern that he’s intruding until Dickie abruptly asks: “Can you mix a martini?” “Sure,” Tom replies, but Marge breathes a sigh and states, “I mix a fabulous martini,” leaving the two “classmates” to catch up. “Everybody should have one talent,” Dickie jokes about Marge’s mixological abilities.

Weeks later, we finally see Dickie drinking one of Marge’s martinis, garnished with a single olive, as he and Freddie Miles (Philip Seymour Hoffman) otherwise ignore both Marge and an increasingly bitter Tom on a sailing trip off Mongibello.

In happier times—for Dickie, rather than Tom—Dickie enjoys a Marge-made martini with his fellow jazz hound Freddie Miles.

Patricia Highsmith, the author of The Talented Mr. Ripley, chronicled frequently enjoying martinis herself, with at least two mentions in her diaries of drinking seven martinis in one sitting. “I wonder if any moment surpasses that of the second martini at lunch, when the waiters are attentive, when all life, the future, the world seems good and gilded (it matters not at all whom one is with, male or female, yes or no),” she wrote.

How to Get the Look

Jude Law and Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

Dickie Greenleaf’s wardrobe has come to exemplify resort fashion, blending the elegance of a bygone era with an insouciant nonchalance illustrated by the way he wears his clothing, only partially buttoning up his untucked black ribbed sport shirt, self-cuffing the bottoms of his already-cuffed white linen slacks, and stepping down the heels of his worn-in white sneakers to transform them into slip-ons.

• Black narrowly ribbed short-sleeve button-up sport shirt with patch-style breast pocket
• White linen double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black leather Gucci belt with silver-toned “G”-logo buckle
• White canvas oxford-laced deck sneakers with navy-banded white rubber outsoles
• Steel wristwatch with silver dial on silver Milanese mesh bracelet
• Gold double-ridged ring
• Gold signet pinky ring with green stone

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read Patricia Highsmith’s novel.

Quote

I know, I’m late. I’m a swine.

The post The Talented Mr. Ripley: Dickie’s Black and White at Sea appeared first on BAMF Style.

Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum on Magnum, P.I.

Vitals

Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, private investigator and former Navy SEAL

Hawaii, Summer 1981

Series: Magnum, P.I.
Episodes:
– “Skin Deep” (Episode 1.06, dir. Lawrence Doheny, aired 1/15/1981)
– “The Curse of the King Kamehameha Club” (Episode 1.11, dir. Winrich Kolbe, aired 2/19/1981)
Creator: Donald P. Bellisario & Glen Larson
Costume Designer: Charles Waldo (credited with first season only)
Costume Supervisor: James Gilmore

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy Aloha Friday!

Even those who have never seen Magnum, P.I. are familiar with its title character’s image: the cherry-red Ferrari, a mustache to rival Burt Reynolds, and—very frequently—the Hawaiian shirts, contextually appropriate given the series’ Hawaiian setting. In fact, Tom Selleck’s characterization of the Oahu-based private investigator arguably established Thomas Magnum as the most iconic Hawaiian shirt-wearer of all time.

Exploring paradise in an open Ferrari, Magnum illustrates in “The Curse of the King Kamehameha Club” (Episode 1.11) what makes his profession considerably more exciting than the typical 9-to-5 desk job.

What’d He Wear?

The aloha shirt most frequently associated with Magnum featured a red “jungle bird” tropical print, one of several screen-worn shirts made by the appropriately named Hawaiian brand Paradise Found, a label of the Pacific Clothing Company where Selleck reportedly purchased shirts himself prior to the first season.

The red jungle bird shirt has become unofficially known as the quintessential Magnum shirt, due to its frequency on promotional photos as well as it being his most-worn Hawaiian shirt on screen, the only one to appear across all seven seasons. However, in addition to the vibrant red colorway, Magnum also twice wore a shirt in an identical print but a more “tropical electric” colorway in black and purple.

The two Paradise Found “jungle bird” shirts: the lesser-seen black and purple version spied here in “The Curse of the King Kamehameha Club” (Episode 1.11) and the familiar red version making its second appearance in the early Christmas episode “Thank Heaven for Little Girls and Big Ones Too” (Episode 1.04)

Likely made from 100% rayon with real wooden two-hole buttons, the shirt’s all-over pattern consists of red parrots (with gold beaks and feathers) perched on purple and green tropical leaves against a black ground, maintaining the same color palette as the red jungle bird shirt but in a dramatically different configuration. The shirt follows the traditional aloha shirt design with a relaxed fit, notched camp collar, and plain (French) front. The shirt also features a non-matching pocket over the left breast.

Following the renewed popularity of the original Magnum, P.I. and the CBS reboot series starring Jay Hernandez (who shares the ’80s Magnum’s fashion sense), Paradise Found remade many of its original designs as worn by Selleck, including both the red and black jungle bird prints… both of which have been purchased by yours truly.

Shop the shirt:

Paradise Found, who made Selleck's screen-made shirts, has reissued the original black-and-purple "jungle bird" print from the '80s, as available from the below retailers:

• Aloha Funwear ($69)
• Amazon ($69)

Price and availability current as of July 2022.

Magnum typically cycled between blue Levi’s jeans and four-pocket dungarees throughout the series duration, though he only wears the former during this shirt’s duo of appearances. Unlike the dungarees, all of Magnum’s Levi’s jeans are designed in the classic five-pocket formation with two front pockets, a right-side coin pocket, and patch-style back pockets. Rather than the brand’s familiar red tab, the back-right pocket features a unique orange tab, which Levi’s had used to denote non-basic items like bellbottoms and boot-cuts from the 1960s through the ’90s.

Magnum almost exclusively wears a khaki cotton web belt, similar to what he would have worn with his khaki service uniforms in the Navy. From the second season onward, the box-frame buckle would be detailed with the Navy’s Surface Warfare insignia above his name “MAGNUM”, but the buckle was a plain gold-finished brass throughout the first season. These lightweight yet trusty belts are still made by contractors like Rothco.

Note the orange Levi’s tab on Magnum’s back-right pocket as he tends to his pal T.C. (Roger E. Mosley)—and ignores reporter Christine Richards (Gretchen Corbett) in “The Curse of the King Kamehameha Club” (Episode 1.11).

Magnum’s footwear rotated between boat shoes and sneakers, both appropriately casual given the informality of his aloha style. Boat shoes were developed in the 1930s by outdoorsman Paul A. Sperry, whose dogs’ paws inspired the now-signature siped soles that give his signature Sperry Top-Siders better traction on slippery decks. The shoes are characterized by moc-toe uppers with two- or three-eyelet derby-style lacing integrated into the 360-degree lacing system. Lisa Birnbach’s tongue-in-cheek volume The Official Preppy Handbook had identified them as a “crucial element” of prep style in 1980, the same year that Magnum, P.I. debuted on CBS.

In “Skin Deep”, Magnum wore brown boat shoes with tan rawhide laces and taupe rubber outsoles with lugs, a more rugged alternative to the classic Top-Sider siped sole. When the same shirt reappears five episodes later, he now wears boat shoes with off-white canvas uppers, white laces, and white rubber outsoles.

Brown boat shoes in “Skin Deep”, followed by off-white boat shoes in “The Curse of the King Kamehameha Club”.

Through the first three seasons of Magnum, P.I., Thomas Magnum wore a stainless steel Chronosport Sea Quartz 30 dive watch on a black tropic rubber strap. The watch has a slim black tick-marked rotating bezel, a black dial with luminous markers and numerals for 12, 6, and 9 o’clock with a black day-date window at the 3:00 position. The dial is simply marked “Quartz”, as the full “Sea Quartz 30” designation wasn’t added until after 1982. Flashbacks reveal that this was also on Magnum’s wrist during his service in Vietnam, which reportedly has some historical provenance as some Navy SEALs teams evidently did wear Chronosport watches during early ’70s service. (Beginning in the fourth season, Magnum would begin wearing his aviator father’s prized Rolex GMT Master, and the Chronosport would never be seen again.)

Magnum and his war buddies T.C. and Rick (Larry Manetti) each wear matching gold signet rings with the French Croix de Lorraine (“Cross of Lorraine”) in relief against a black enamel-filled oval face. After the first episode, Magnum would wear the ring on his left hand throughout the first season before reverting it back to his right hand for all episodes to follow.

Rather than his iconic Detroit Tigers baseball cap or any other headgear, Magnum chooses only to protect his eyes with a pair of gold-framed aviator sunglasses styled with a reinforced brow bar and center-positioned vanity “bullet hole”, a detail that originated on the Ray-Ban Shooter for wearers to place their cigarette in order to free their hands for shooting. These sunglasses only made sporadic appearances on Magnum, P.I. before Selleck transitioned to wearing his sportier tortoise-framed Vuarnets.

Magnum wears his aviator-style sunglasses during an interview with agent J.J. Stein (Ron Masak), who describes of a TV writer: “I told that lousy writer that scene was sick!” In a fun in-joke, the prop script lists said writer as Donald P. Bellisario… the Magnum, P.I. showrunner and writer of this particular episode.

Who Else Wore It?

The ’80s ubiquity of Paradise Found shirts hardly limited their distinctive patterns to the Magnum, P.I. universe; for instance, Magnum’s black “Star Orchid” shirt was also worn by Gary Busey in Silver Bullet (1985) and by Tim Robbins in Bull Durham (1988).

In Robert Towne’s excellent 1982 sports drama Personal Best, Scott Glenn wears what is unmistakably the same black-and-purple “jungle bird” shirt with a pair of denim cutoffs as the hard-driving track coach Terry Tingloff.

The Thomas Magnum x Tobias Fünke crossover fit you never knew you needed.

Your humble author even found a Paradise Found aloha shirt in the same Magnum-approved black-and-purple “jungle bird” colorway, which my fiancee was gracious enough to welcome during a portion of our engagement photo shoot taken at the tiki-themed Hidden Harbor, one of our favorite bars here in Pittsburgh.

A visit to the neighborhood tiki bar called for one of my favorite Hawaiian shirts, even in the midst of a wedding engagement photo shoot. (Photo by Whitling Photography)

What to Imbibe

And speaking of watering holes… Magnum, P.I. made a habit of rarely featuring any real-life beer labels, even when our hero chose to imbibe. In “Skin Deep”, he drinks from a bottle labeled “Flagler Beer”, with the familiar gold-labeled “Coops” appearing five episodes later in “The Curse of the King Kamehameha Club”.

How to Get the Look

Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum on Magnum, P.I., Episode 1.06: “Skin Deep”

Thomas Magnum’s wardrobe rotated through a variety of casual ’80s fashion staples, including rugby shirts, work shirts, and polos, though aloha shirts like this distinctive “jungle bird”-printed shirt remain an enduring—and influential—aspect of his image.

• Black-and-purple “jungle bird” tropical-patterned rayon aloha shirt by Paradise Found with camp collar, plain front (with 6 wood buttons), breast pocket, and short sleeves
  • Available via AlohaFunwear and Amazon
• Blue denim Levi’s “orange tab” five-pocket jeans
  • Available via Secondhand Levi’s
• Khaki cotton web belt with gold-finished box-frame buckle
  • Available via Amazon
• Brown leather two-eyelet moc-toe boat shoes
• Chronosport Sea Quartz 30 stainless steel dive watch with narrow black-finished rotating bezel, black dial with luminous markers and 3:00 day-date window, and black tropic rubber strap
• Gold team ring with black enamel-filled Croix de Lorraine
  • Replicas available via Amazon
• Ray-Ban RB3138 Shooter gold-framed aviator-style sunglasses with reinforced brow bar and “bullet hole” center
  • Available via Amazon and Ray-Ban

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series, and peruse the extensively researched fan site Magnum Mania!

The Quote

I did what every private investigator manual tells you on page one… investigate the scene of the crime.

The post Magnum, P.I.: The Black Jungle Bird Aloha Shirt appeared first on BAMF Style.

Tony Bickley as Donald Westerhazy in The Swimmer (1968)

Vitals

Tony Bickley as Donald Westerhazy, affable and affluent advertising executive

Suburban Connecticut, Summer 1966

Film: The Swimmer
Release Date: May 15, 1968
Director: Frank Perry
Wardrobe Designer: Anna Hill Johnstone

Background

It was one of those midsummer Sundays when everyone sits around saying, “I drank too much last night.”

… begins John Cheever’s 1964 short story “The Swimmer”, which was adapted by the husband-and-wife team of director Frank Perry and screenwriter Eleanor Perry into a hallucinatory drama starring Burt Lancaster as the eponymous Ned Merrill, a well-tanned embodiment of the failed American dream.

The focus of today’s post is a little more esoteric than usual, not necessarily because of the movie—which is relatively well-known, if offbeat—but more the relatively minor character and his little-known portrayer, Tony Bickley. The Swimmer was Bickley’s fifth and final screen credit and his only significant movie role, more than a decade after his four sporadic appearances in TV anthologies during the early 1950s.

Bickley co-starred in The Swimmer as Donald Westerhazy, a gregarious suburbanite whose palatial home is Ned’s first stop on what becomes his route to “swim home” through the backyard pools of his neighbors. Donald and his wife Helen (Diana Van der Vlis) are nursing hangovers from the previous evening’s party… with the help of martinis, of course.

As more neighbors trickle into the Westerhazy yard, Donald and his friends share their mutual concerns about Ned, who appears cheerful and vigorous at first, but whose more tragic life becomes clearer as he continues his surreal journey home.

What’d He Wear?

The Swimmer was costume designer Anna Hill Johnstone’s fourth collaboration with director Frank Perry, though most of the costuming efforts would have been reserved for its cast of supporting characters as the lead character’s sole vestment is his pair of short dark blue nylon swimming trunks (and sometimes not even those!)

The first other person we meet is Ned’s neighbor Donald Westerhazy, whose laidback leisurewear consists of a striped shirt, linen shorts, and espadrilles, all neatly coordinated on a pleasant white, red, and pink spectrum that flatters the well-tanned Tony Bickley.

Ned begins his existential journey at the Westerhazy home.

Donald’s trim sports shirt has the classic “Lido collar” that emerged during the rise of resort-wear during the interwar era. Also known as a “Cooper collar” or “Hollywood collar” in tribute to its star power as modeled by the likes of Gary Cooper, the one-piece collar arcs across each front leaf before tapering down the shirt-front. Six translucent white plastic shank buttons fasten up the plain (French) front, including two narrowly spaced at the waistband, though Donald only wears these bottom four buttons done for a more relaxed look that also allows him to work on developing his poolside tan. The straight waist hem reinforces the shirt’s casual nature. Donald’s shirt also has a matching patch pocket over the left breast and short sleeves that are split with short vents.

The white shirt is patterned with a well-spaced sets of red candy stripes that alternate between sets of two and sets of seven. The slubbing on the shirt suggests linen, which would be comfortable for relaxing on a lazy summer Sunday, though the soft material looks too opaque and without linen’s distinctive wrinkle, leading me to suspect it may be an equally comfortable—if somewhat less breathable—jersey-knit cotton that’s prone to pilling.

Donald’s shorts appear to be a red-and-white end-on-end linen, which present as a mottled rosy pink. He folds over the end of each leg to make the already short inseam even shorter, showing some of the white lining. As seen in contemporary movies like Thunderball, knitted swimming trunks were still commonly worn by men in the ’60s, before the mainstream popularity of quick-drying polyester and nylon trunks like the navy briefs that Lancaster wears for his arguably more vigorous day in the water. (The movie’s swimwear is credited to Elizabeth Stewart, though I’m not sure if that extends to cast members like Lancaster and Bickley as I can find little documentation that Elizabeth Stewart made men’s swimming attire.)

Donald’s summer slip-on shoes are espadrille-style sandals with red canvas uppers cut away at the front to ventilate the toes, with modernized off-white rubber outsoles in lieu of the espadrilles’ traditional jute rope soles.

Donald’s gold-plated wristwatch has a round case and off-white dial, worn on a gold expanding bracelet.

What to Imbibe

Donald offers his wet guest the remnants of a “diluted martini,” served on the rocks in a rocks glass with a lemon peel and presumably mixed with the Beefeater gin and Noilly Prat dry vermouth that he and Helen store on their poolside bar cart.

Ned receives his welcoming martini on the rocks from Donald.

Seeing a martini served in such a manner is certainly at odds with the traditional image of the concoction served straight up in an elegantly stemmed cocktail glass, but the seemingly incongruous Martini on the rocks did enjoy a heyday through the 1950s into the ’60s, as reported by Robert Simonson for Punch:

The Martini on the rocks began to nudge itself onto bar menus in the early 1950s. “Most popular cocktail seems to be a Martini-on-the-rocks,” wrote Bert Bacharach in “Stag Lines,” a syndicated column aimed at male readers, in March 1953.

The elite on both coasts were lapping up the new style. The Detroit Free Press, writing about a new type of bar stool in 1952, talked of a time in the near future “When California sips its Martini on the rocks…” on the new chairs. Meanwhile, sportswriter Red Smith, in 1956, ticked off all the earmarks of modern Gotham life, stating, “This is the New York of air-conditioned skyscrapers and television towers, of shrimp cocktails and Martini-on-the-rocks and filter cigarets [sic], the New York of Grace Kelly and Orson Welles.”

By 1961, the New York Times observed, “As for Martinis, the two most significant recent developments are the trends to the vodka Martini and to the Martini on the rocks.”

In context, Donald’s martini served on the rocks makes plenty of sense, as it would be easier to prepare for a day prioritizing leisure over labor, with the added ice keeping the drink cooler in the sun. Simonson noted that Seagram’s capitalized on this in a 1960 ad, asking consumers “Who said the Martini isn’t a summer drink? Our good host above makes a martini-on-the-rocks that tastes fresh and frosty when it’s 90 degrees in the shade!” Additionally, the rocks glass would be a more easily gripped vessel when handing the drink down to Ned as he reaches up from the chlorinated waves.

How to Get the Look

Tony Bickley as Donald Westerhazy in The Swimmer (1968)

Donald Westerhazy’s poolside style is the type of coordinated summer fit I strive for, with his trim Lido-collar shirt, pink shorts, and espadrilles providing the envied balance of warm-weather clothing that’s flattering yet comfortable.

• White red-striped jersey-knit cotton short-sleeved sport shirt with arced “Lido” collar, plain 6-button front, breast pocket, and straight hem
• Red-and-white end-on-end linen short-inseam shorts
• Espadrille-style sandals with red canvas uppers and off-white rubber outsoles
• Gold-plated wristwatch with round off-white dial on gold expanding bracelet

If you’d rather strive for the look of Burt Lancaster’s eponymous swimmer, all you need to do is find a pair (or 17, according to production lore) of plain dark blue nylon short-inseam swim trunks… and nothing else.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post The Swimmer: Donald’s Suburban Poolside Style appeared first on BAMF Style.

Dan Seymour as Angel Garcia in Key Largo (1948)

Vitals

Dan Seymour as Angel Garcia, gangland gofer

Key Largo, Florida, Summer 1948

Film: Key Largo
Release Date: July 16, 1948
Director: John Huston
Wardrobe Credit: Leah Rhodes

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

One of the most familiar—if under-credited—faces of the 1940s, the distinctive-looking character actor Dan Seymour was often cast as a sinister local in an “exotic” setting. Seymour’s most prominent movies starred his friend Humphrey Bogart, including his performance as Moroccan doorman Abdul in Casablanca, a corrupt Martinican official in To Have and Have Not, and mob lackey Angel Garcia in Key Largo, John Huston’s moody noir set in a storm-isolated tropical hotel.

Despite his name, Garcia is no angel, though—in contrast to his intimidating appearance—he’s arguably the least dangerous of Johnny Rocco’s gang of killers that take over the Hotel Largo in the Florida Keys. While he packs a piece, he’s hardly as trigger-happy as Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) himself, instead relegated primarily to more mundane tasks like serving drinks and shaving the boss. Perhaps as a result, Garcia proves to be the hardiest of Rocco’s lackeys, surviving all but his boss… only to be felled by one of Rocco’s own bullets when he refuses to stand as cannon fodder against the vengeful Frank McCloud (Bogart).

What’d He Wear?

Among Rocco’s criminal cohorts that include “Toots” Bass (Harry Lewis), “Curly” Hoff (Thomas Gomez), and “Ziggy” (Marc Lawrence), only Angel Garcia is coded to be Latino. Though his nationality is never stated on screen, Garcia’s heritage is reinforced by his costume as he spends the movie wearing an unbuttoned guayabera, the classic Caribbean summer shirt primarily characterized by the alforzas (pleated strips) running vertical over its front and back.

The guayabera almost certainly originated within Latin America, separately attributed to Cuba and Mexico, though some sources cite its development from the Filipino barong. Conventional guayabera design consists of the aforementioned alforzas, in addition to either two or four pockets with aligned pleats and decorative buttons. Considered warm-weather dress shirts that could even be worn in lieu of suits, guayaberas are typically made of cool-wearing fabrics like linen, cotton, and lightweight silk and almost always produced in solid colors like the customary white as well as black and the occasional pastel tone.

Garcia’s white cotton guayabera follows most of the traditional design, with the multi-pleated alforzas replaced by a wide box pleat that extends down each side of the front and back, intercepted at the top by a button-detailed pointed shoulder yoke and at the bottom by a button-detailed pointed waist hem yoke. The shirt has four patch-style pockets, each detailed with a center box pleat that neatly aligns with the alforza-style pleat down each side. A pointed yoke detailed with three vertically aligned buttons envelops each pocket pleat.

Garcia wears guayabera’s seven-button front placket totally unbuttoned to reveal his white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt. Jockey had introduced these as A-shirts (for “athletic” shirts) a decade earlier, though they would be forever disparaged as “wife-beaters” following the well-publicized 1947 mugshot of a Detroit uxoricidal killer who was wearing one of these undershirts.

As guayaberas can be either short- or long-sleeved, Garcia wears a long-sleeved version that closes with two-button barrel cuffs. Traditional guayaberas have long been designed to be worn untucked, often indicated by the presence of buttoned vents along the sides of the straight hem; Garcia’s shirt is thus detailed by a slit on each side that’s fastened by a triple-buttoned tab.

Note the back pleats and side button-up vents on Garcia’s guayabera.

The color of Garcia’s medium-toned gabardine trousers is lost to history, but we can discern that they have a high rise to Dan Seymour’s natural waist line, where he holds them up with a dark leather belt that closes through a shining metal single-prong buckle. The pleated trousers also have side pockets and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms.

Garcia’s light lace-up derby shoes complement the summery outfit, likely constructed with the creamy nubuck uppers characteristic of classic “white bucks”.

While it’s famously unlucky to place your hat on a bed, Angel Garcia may not be doing his gang any favors by wearing white bucks in his bunk either.

The Gun

Unlike the more trigger-happy Johnny Rocco, Garcia keeps his rod tucked away until things get truly desperate for the henchman. Even then, he seems more prepared for defense than offense by the time he’s drawing his Colt Official Police… a revolver whose ubiquity in the hands of so many screen criminals (and real criminals!) proves that its nomenclature was ultimately meaningless.

Garcia’s Official Police can be identified as such by the Colt signatures (non-shrouded ejector rod, rounded cylinder release, checkered walnut grips with gold Colt medallion) and the medium-sized frame, which looks admittedly small when carried by Dan Seymour. Note that Rocco is armed with fellow henchman Curly’s snub-nosed Colt Detective Special, another successful model introduced in 1927 alongside the Official Police.

As gangland violence erupted through the roaring ’20s, Colt and Smith & Wesson vied for dominance in arming the American law enforcement agencies tasked with fighting crime. Smith & Wesson had changed the game with the introduction of the .38 Special round alongside the Military & Police revolver (later renamed the Model 10) around the turn of the 20th century.

In 1927, as revolvers were being phased out of military service, Colt retooled its medium-framed Army Special revolver and reintroduced it as the improved Colt Official Police, which would swiftly become one of the most popularly adopted service revolvers by police agencies and even some military units when it was issued to Allied military intelligence, police, and commando units during World War II.

Despite its designation, the Colt Official Police and its snub-nosed cousin (the Colt Detective Special) also quickly found favor with gangsters, who appreciated the reliability and—in the case of the Detective Special—easy concealment.

Dan Seymour as Angel Garcia in Key Largo (1948)

How to Get the Look

While there have been more elegant executions of guayaberas on screen, the white open long-sleeved shirt sported by Dan Seymour as a henchman in Key Largo marks a prominent early cinematic appearance for this classic Caribbean summer shirt, particularly significant as it may have been chosen to reinforce his character’s heritage.

• White cotton long-sleeved guayabera with wide point collar, four box-pleated pockets, and two-button barrel cuffs
• Medium-colored gabardine pleated trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Off-white nubuck leather derby shoes
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless A-shirt/undershirt

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post Key Largo: Dan Seymour’s Guayabera appeared first on BAMF Style.

Paul Newman as Michael Gallagher in Absence of Malice (1981)

Vitals

Paul Newman as Michael Gallagher, wholesale liquor distributor

Miami, Fall 1980

Film: Absence of Malice
Release Date: December 18, 1981
Director: Sydney Pollack
Costume Designer: Bernie Pollack

Background

Ethan Hawke’s recently released HBO Max docuseries The Last Movie Stars chronicling Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s iconic marriage inspired me to respond to a few earlier requests analyzing the blue-eyed actor’s warm-weather everyman style in Absence of Malice, Sydney Pollack’s 1981 exploration of journalistic integrity.

Newman stars as Michael Gallagher, a Miami liquor wholesaler surprised to find himself the subject of a front-page Miami Standard newspaper story written by reporter Megan Carter (Sally Field), suggesting his potential involvement in the presumed murder of a local union official. He directly confronts Megan and her bosses to understand the basis for their claims, beginning a relationship with the reporter that ranges from contentious to flirtatious. Finally, Michael takes Megan up on her offer to listen to his side of the story, thus ostensibly ensuring that her reporting is as accurate and comprehensive a possible.

Michael: How long you got for lunch?
Megan: Long as I want!
Michael: Good job…

Megan slyly invites a photographer—the “weird” and conspicuous Walker (William Kerwin)—to follow them, but this part of the plan is foiled when Michael surprises her by inviting her to lunch on his yacht, the 1934-built “Rum Runner” so named in tribute to his bootlegger father.

What’d He Wear?

Michael Gallagher cycles through an everyman’s wardrobe of sport shirts, knitwear, the occasional suit, and then-fashionable outerwear like his khaki Derby jacket and safari jacket. The movie is set in the weeks leading up to Christmas, but December in Miami can feel like summer anywhere else, so Michael often wears no more than a shirt and trousers to keep cool while either laboring in his warehouse or at sea.

For his seagoing picnic with Megan, Michael wears a pale-yellow shirt made from a soft mid-weight jersey-knit cotton or cotton/synthetic blend. Styled like a traditional polo shirt, Michael’s short-sleeved shirt has a structured point collar and a three-button placket that he wears totally open down to mid-chest. The patch pocket over the left breast has a pointed flap that closes through a single mixed brown plastic button that matches the three on the placket. Michael’s shirt is additionally detailed with a straight shoulder yoke.

Michael’s blue denim bootcut jeans appear to be his usual Levi’s, with an orange tab—rather than the familiar red tab—that the brand used to denote non-basic cuts like bellbottoms and bootcuts from the 1960s through the ’90s. Levi’s currently offers the zip-fly 517 Bootcut variety in a medium stonewash that would be an effectively modern update of Newman’s screen-worn denim.

Michael’s untucked shirt hem covers his waistband, but we can assume he holds his jeans up with one of his brown leather belts that close through brass-finished single-prong buckles of varying sizes.

When lunching alone outside the warehouse, Michael had been dressed for work in his everyday cowboy boots, constructed with tan napped leather uppers worn to a dusty patina. After his plans change to include taking Megan out on his boat, Michael wisely swaps out his boots for a pair of off-white canvas sneakers, presumably with the non-slip siped soles that Paul A. Sperry developed in the 1930s for the Top-Siders intended to be worn on wet decks.

A change of plans calls for a change of shoes.

Evident by the record-breaking amount his Rolex Daytona yielded at auction, Paul Newman is one of the most prolific “watch guys” in Hollywood history, with his collection of interesting wristwatches well-chronicled both on- and off-screen.

Newman’s stainless steel watch in Absence of Malice boasts the signature octagonal bezel with lugs at each corner that characterized the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak from the time of its introduction in 1972… though, while indeed a Royal Oak, it’s not an Audemars Piguet. What?

Later in the ’70s, Bulova paid tribute to AP’s design by developing its own Royal Oak-style watch. The Bulova ref. 4420101 maintained Swiss designer Gérald Genta’s recognizable “diving helmet”-inspired 35mm case design, with both automatic and quartz movements available. You can read the history of the AP Royal Oak at Wrist Advisor and the Bulova homage at Analog:Shift.

Newman’s screen-worn watch appears to be the Bulova home that would fit the affluent Michael Gallagher’s practical sensibilities. His all-stainless watch has a dark blue waffle-textured dial with silver non-numeric hour markers and a darkened date window at the 3:00 position. Though most Royal Oak watches have a crown at the 3:00 position, Gallagher’s watch appears to have it at 4:00 as well as a five-piece link bracelet that differs from the standard Bulova integrated bracelet.

What to Imbibe

Michael serves Megan a can of his preferred Budweiser beer before lunch, though he pairs the meal with a chilled Barton & Guestier Pontet-Latour white Bordeaux.

The Barton & Guestier (B&G) wine house was founded in 1725 when Irish merchant Thomas Barton arrived in Bordeaux. His grandson Hugh partnered with French trader Daniel Guestier in 1802 to officially form B&G, whose wines were growing an impressive international audience with orders from no less than then-President Thomas Jefferson.

Nearly two centuries later, B&G received even more executive branch attention when former President Richard Nixon visited its Château Magnol vineyard in 1981… the same year that Paul Newman and Sally Field split a bottle in Absence of Malice.

How to Get the Look

Paul Newman as Michael Gallagher in Absence of Malice (1981)

Michael Gallagher tends to dress for casual comfort during Miami’s warm winters, keeping it simple for a nautical lunchtime date—is it a date?—in a plain yellow polo and jeans that flatters Paul Newman’s athletic physique, with the smartly contextual swap of his cowboy boots for seagoing sneakers.

• Light-yellow jersey-knit polo shirt with three-button placket and flapped breast pocket
• Blue denim Levi’s bootcut jeans
• Off-white canvas deck sneakers
• Bulova “Royal Oak” ref. 4420101 stainless steel watch with 35mm case, octagonal bezel, round dark blue textured dial (with non-numeric hour markers and 3:00 date window), and steel five-piece link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

One of those up-front ladies, huh?

The post Absence of Malice: Paul Newman’s Yellow Pocket Polo for a Picnic at Sea appeared first on BAMF Style.

William Daniels as Austin Tucker in The Parallax View (1974)

Vitals

William Daniels as Austin Tucker, paranoid ex-political aide

Marina Del Rey, California, Spring 1974

Film: The Parallax View
Release Date: June 14, 1974
Director: Alan J. Pakula
Costume Designer: Frank L. Thompson

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Based on Loren Singer’s novel of the same name, The Parallax View became the second installment of director Alan J. Pakula’s political paranoia “trilogy” across the 1970s, reflecting the uncertainty and cynicism of an era increasingly marred by assassination, war, and government scandal.

The cast included William Daniels, one of the steadiest character actors of the era with credits like Two for the Road, The Graduate, and 1776 in his filmography before his memorable appearance in The Parallax View as Austin Tucker, the one-time aide to a presidential contender who had been assassinated three years earlier. (The now 95-year-old Daniels would later gain lasting recognition among more modern audiences as the principled principal Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World.) Now, Tucker remains the only remaining witness to the crime… and is justifiably paranoid regarding his prospects as he agrees to meet the crusading reporter Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) on his boat.

Today, I’ll be joining friends for less lethal nautical adventures—specifically, sipping tequila on a pontoon boat up the Allegheny River—but it felt like the right opportunity to see how the once buttoned-up Tucker now embraces a more casual sense of dress while dodging the dangerous clutches of the shadowy Parallax Corporation.

What’d He Wear?

Unrestrained from the suits, ties, and shaving rituals that defined his life as a political aide, Austin Tucker would appear to be living his best life as a happy-go-lucky sailor… if not for the unhappy reality that he actually fears for his life instead.

Tucker leans into his new transient life at sea in classic maritime staples like a striped T-shirt and white trousers, though any similarities between his shirt and the classic French Navy white-and-blue “Breton stripe” marinière ends at the fact that Tucker’s stripes are also horizontal. Aside from the solid purple “ringer” around the crew-neck opening, the entirety of Tucker’s T-shirt is printed in the eye-catching arrangement of narrow magenta stripes against a rich purple ground. The shirt also has raglan sleeves and a breast pocket.

Tucker shares a look with his aide.

White clothing has long enjoyed maritime associations, for both its cool-wearing properties (as white reflects sunlight better than darker colors) and its improved visibility should a sailor fall overboard (though it wouldn’t lend a wearer much help if his craft was blown apart at sea…)

Tucker’s loose-fitting white trousers are made from a lightweight linen or cotton, just sheer enough that the side-pocket outlines are visible through the material. In addition to these side pockets with their on-seam entry, the trousers also have jetted back pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms. Tucker’s tan napped leather oxford-laced casual shoes may be ankle boots, similar to these Oficine Creative boots.

Tucker sizes up the man who’s been asking questions about him, drawing him to travel 1,300 miles out of hiding.

Sunglasses make sense for protecting a wearer’s eyes on a sunny day, but Tucker likely also appreciates the touch of Roger O. Thornhill-style anonymity afforded him by the green-tinted lenses of his glossy black plastic shades, which have a Vuarnet-style silhouette.

Tucker’s watch may be the only remaining piece of his wardrobe from his past life in politics, a subdued piece with a round brass-finished case, plain white dial, and smooth dark brown leather edge-stitched bracelet.

Tucker tosses back some brandy before deciding it’s time to present Joe Frady with his knowledge behind a high-profile assassination three years earlier.

How to Get the Look

William Daniels as Austin Tucker in The Parallax View (1974)

Despite The Parallax View being made during the age of hip-hugging polyester, leisure suits, and disco shirts, William Daniels’ seagoing casual style as the rightly paranoid Austin Tucker has transcended its era with a timeless simplicity that could be worn just as effectively a half-century later without changing a thing, from his mulberry striped T-shirt and white pants to his timeless shades.

• Purple magenta horizontal-striped cotton crew-neck “ringer” T-shirt with short raglan sleeves and breast pocket
• White lightweight cotton flat front trousers with on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Tan napped leather oxford-laced ankle boots
• Black plastic-framed sunglasses
• Brass-finished wristwatch with round white dial on dark brown smooth leather bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. If you’re a Criterion Channel subscriber, today’s the last day to watch The Parallax View before it leaves the service!

The Quote

Fella, you don’t know what this story means.

The post The Parallax View: William Daniels’ Seagoing Striped T-Shirt appeared first on BAMF Style.

Peter O’Toole as Alan Swann in My Favorite Year (1982)

Vitals

Peter O’Toole as Alan Swann, self-destructive screen swashbuckler

New York City, Fall 1954

Film: My Favorite Year
Release Date: October 8, 1982
Director: Richard Benjamin
Costume Designer: May Routh

Background

Today would have been the 90th birthday of Peter O’Toole, legend of stage and screen. Though he was ultimately presented with an Academy Honorary Award, O’Toole holds the dubious distinction of having received the most Academy Award nominations without a win. One of his eight nominations was for the 1982 comedy My Favorite Year, Richard Benjamin’s directorial debut written by Norman Steinberg and Dennis Palumbo, set behind the scenes at NBC’s famous studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza during the Golden Age of live television.

“1954. You don’t get years like that anymore… it was my favorite year,” begins the narration by Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker), a junior comedy writer reportedly based on Mel Brooks and Woody Allen, who had both written for  Your Show of Shows in the early ’50s. The story was inspired by Errol Flynn’s real-life guest appearance on Your Show of Shows, with Flynn reimagined as the erratic Alan Swann. Benjy describes Swann as the greatest screen idol of all time, despite his boss dismissing Swann’s performances as no more than “kissing and jumping and drinking and humping.”

Richard Benjamin explained in an interview with Donald Leibenson that “in the original script, there’s a scene which I shot that would have played after what’s in the movie. It took place in a Hollywood cemetery, and Benjy is walking past the gravestones. He says in voiceover that Alan Swann made him promise he would do something on his birthday every year. Alan has passed away, and Benjy comes to his grave, kneels down and pours a bottle of Courvoisier over the tombstone. That’s what’s on the last page. Peter asked me to read the date that was on the tombstone. It was Aug. 2. He said, ‘Aug. 2 is my birthday; did you know that?’ I asked Norman if he knew that, and Norman said no, he had made it up. And Peter says, ‘Therefore, I must do the film.'”

What’d He Wear?

“This is the way people dressed in 1954. Smooth, huh?” Benjy’s narration refers to a small squad of leather-clad bikers, but it could just as easily refer to Alan Swann, who makes his grand entrance into the Comedy Cavalcade writers’ room in a cream double-breasted suit. Appropriate for a flamboyant performer of Swann’s success, the suit was made of raw silk, as confirmed by its Heritage Auctions listing.

Swann’s loyal chauffeur Alfie (Tony DiBenedetto) confides in Benjy that “I had this made special for when he travels… called it his ‘drunk suit,'” as it’s been rigged with secret side snaps built into the jacket and trousers to easily extract the inebriated actor from his clothing.

Alfie has developed an innovative system to help his oft-inebriated employer out of his tailored “travel suit” that would be otherwise complicated to remove.

The double-breasted jacket has wide peak lapels and a square 4×2-button configuration that lacks the upper pair of vestigial buttons. Swann’s jacket has padded shoulders, double vents, three-button cuffs, straight flapped hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket that he dresses with a scarlet silk kerchief. He completes the rakish look by affixing a white boutonnière to his left lapel.

Promotional photo of Peter O’Toole as Alan Swann.

Swann’s matching trousers have two sets of reverse-facing pleats, slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms. Through the belt loops, he wears a cream-colored belt that matches the suit and fastens through what appears to be a brown leather-covered single-prong buckle.

The Comedy Cavalcade writers’ room isn’t quite sure what to make of a guest star like Alan Swann.

“I have to remind him to work on some tearaway shoes,” Alfie adds as he pulls off Swann’s brown suede cap-toe oxfords, which he wears with dark green semi-ribbed socks that Benjy deadpans “must be his drinking socks” after finding more pairs packed among three bottles of Scotch.

Ever the swashbuckler, Swann swiftly rolls himself back onto his suede-covered feet.

Swann wears a cornflower blue cotton shirt with a white banker stripe. Detailed with a spread collar, single-button squared barrel cuffs, and six white buttons up the plain (French) front, the shirt appears to be the only part of Swann’s traveling suit not built with Alfie’s tearaway snaps as he still wears it buttoned to the neck when he’s submerged in his bath.

Swann counters the effort to sober him up in the bath by discovering his backup supply of Scotch.

Even Swann’s tie appears to be built for swift removal, much like children (or inexperienced tie wearers) often wear pre-tied clip-on ties. The tie pulls together the colors of his outfit in a patriotic-hued strip of silk, with wide burgundy and navy “downhill”-directional block stripes, embellished with a fancy tonal self-paisley design within the stripe and bisected by narrow burgundy-bordered white stripes.

Flanked by his trusted chauffeur Alfie and his show handler Benjy, Alan Swann sizes up his temporary new digs.

Throughout My Favorite Year, Swann also wears a beige felt fedora with a black grosgrain band. In fact, he continues wearing the hat even after Alfie has removed his suit, stripping him down to his shirt, shoes, and skivvies, the latter being a pair of “whitey-tighty” white cotton briefs.

Peter O’Toole or Plenty O’Toole?

“I’m not allowed to wear a watch,” Swann tells a nubile bedmate, adding “I don’t trust them… one hand is shorter than the other.” Swann’s sole piece of jewelry is a gold ring that he wears on the middle finger of his right hand.

What to Imbibe

“He’s plastered!” exclaims Sy Benson (Bill Macy) upon Alan Swann’s flamboyant entrance to the writers’ room. “If I were truly plastered, could I do this?” Swann challenges in response before rolling backward onto their table. “Well, we know he can do that,” deadpans the show’s star, Stan “King” Kaiser.

Swann surrounds himself with easy access to spirits, particularly his preferred Haig & Haig Dimple Pinch, recognizable for its distinctive three-sided bottle. Haig whisky had been distilled for nearly two centuries by the time the “dimpled” bottle was introduced in the 1890s, and it has since appeared as a favorite of fictional characters ranging from the literary James Bond to meth manufacturer Walter White (Bryan Cranston) on Breaking Bad. Fans of The Godfather may also recognize Haig Dimple as the whisky shared by Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) when the consigliere needs to brace himself with a drink before breaking the bad news of Sonny’s death to the Don.

“He always has one secret bottle hidden away for emergencies,” Alfie notes of Swann as he finds some Haig tucked away in Swann’s camel coat, after Benjy marvels at the stash of bottles swathed among his “drinking socks”.

Alan Swann doesn’t exactly travel light.

Swann’s hard-drinking habits may have been inspired by Errol Flynn, though the famous hell-raiser O’Toole had his own troubled history with alcoholism. After health issues, countless hangovers, and embarrassments, O’Toole had resolved to slow down his boozing by the early 1980s, just in time to parody the antics of an aging alcoholic actor in My Favorite Year.

How to Get the Look

Peter O’Toole and Mark Linn-Baker in My Favorite Year (1982)

Alan Swann appears dressed to impress when he bounces through the Comedy Cavalcade writers’ room in his cream-colored silk suit, colorfully appointed with blue striped shirt, scarlet display kerchief, and a striped tie that pulls the colors together… before his trusted chauffeur pulls all the clothing apart via a system of concealed snaps before submerging Swann into a bath intended to sober him up.

• Cream raw silk suit:
  • Double-breasted jacket with peak lapels, 4×2-button front, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and double vents
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Cornflower blue (with white banker stripe) cotton shirt with spread collar, plain front, and 1-button squared barrel cuffs
• Burgundy and navy “downhill” block-striped tie with bisecting narrow white stripes and tonal self-paisley design
• Cream-colored belt with brown leather-covered single-prong buckle
• Brown suede cap-toe oxford shoes
• Dark green semi-ribbed socks
• White cotton briefs
• Beige felt fedora with black grosgrain band
• Gold ring
• Scarlet silk pocket square

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post My Favorite Year: Peter O’Toole’s Cream Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

Marilyn Monroe as Roslyn Tabor in The Misfits (1961). Photo by Eve Arnold.

Vitals

Marilyn Monroe as Roslyn Tabor, recent divorcée

Nevada desert, Summer 1960

Film: The Misfits
Release Date: February 1, 1961
Director: John Huston

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Sixty years after her fatal overdose on August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe remains a major figure in pop culture, the subject of countless books, art, music, and movies, including Blonde, scheduled to release next month starring Ana de Armas as the actress. Monroe’s final completed film was John Huston’s The Misfits, an elegiac contemporary Western written by her then-husband Arthur Miller that afforded the actress with the opportunity to provide her arguably best performance, which earned her the 1961 Golden Globe Award for “World Film Favorite” despite her own reported contempt for her performance.

As she was only 34 years old when The Misfits was released, few could have imagined that it would be Monroe’s cinematic swan song, though Huston later mentioned that—given her penchant for finding comfort in substances while her marriage to Miller crumbled—he felt “absolutely certain that she was doomed.”

Monroe would only work on one more movie, George Cukor’s Something’s Got to Give, but she was fired and died before the film could be finished, resulting in The Misfits being her last complete movie as it also was for her co-star and childhood screen idol Clark Gable, who died less than two weeks after filming was completed in November 1960. Indeed, few of The Misfits‘ principal cast would survive the decade, with Gable and Monroe followed in death by Montgomery Clift in 1966 and Thelma Ritter in 1969.

The Misfits begins with Roslyn Tabor (Monroe) seeking to obtain a quickie divorce in Reno, where she meets the grizzled cowboy Gay Langland (Gable), who later introduces her to his rodeo-riding pal Perce Howland (Clift). Roslyn’s romance with Gay seems curious, particularly given her resentment for the animals she considers to be mistreated in his orbit, be they the pesty rabbits he wants to shoot in his garden, the rodeo horses spurred by bucking straps, or the mustangs they round up for ostensible slaughter.

A pensive moment for Monroe on set, captured by photographer Eve Arnold.

Photographer Eve Arnold was present during much of The Misfits‘ production, including the latter sequence filmed on a dry lake bed in northwest Nevada, where she captured many enduring candid images of Monroe in her double-denim costume that Roslyn appropriately wears while accompanying her cowboy companions to chase those wild mustangs.

What’d She Wear?

After spending the first acts of The Misfits in alluring dresses that emphasize Monroe’s famously voluptuous figure, Roslyn takes a step toward shedding her sartorial femininity by dressing in traditionally male clothing for the traditionally male activity of cowboying. (True, only Roslyn’s jacket is actually menswear, but with looser cuts and reversed buttons, her shirt and jeans wouldn’t be out of place in a man’s wardrobe.)

Eve Arnold’s color photography on location during The Misfits production reveals that Roslyn’s costume looks as expected, with the jacket and jeans made from a dark blue denim, a plain white shirt, and the typical tan corduroy Lee Storm Rider collar.

It’s not just a sartorial transformation for Roslyn Tabor but also for Monroe herself, introducing a now-iconic costume removed from the feminine elegance of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven-Year Itch, and Some Like It Hot, desexualizing her (by 1950s standards) with a more tomboyish look that defied expectations of audiences used to seeing her in curve-gripping satin, wind-blown skirts, and beach-ready bathing suits. The costume feels significant, as if these last moments of Monroe’s released filmography ask us to finally see her as a person rather than a sex symbol.

Roslyn dresses for the job at hand by pulling on a dark indigo denim Lee Storm Rider, the woolly blanket-lined variation of its original 101J “Cowboy Jacket”. In addition to the insular lining, the Storm Rider can be visually differentiated by its tan corduroy-faced collar to prevent the wearer’s neck from chafing.

In 1949, Lee had introduced the 101LJ jacket, which is now considered a precursor to the Storm Rider with its corduroy collar and saddle blanket lining. Four years later, the jacket was rechristened with the evocative “Storm Rider” moniker… though Monroe proves that the jacket could be just as effective when chasing mustangs as storms. (Check out Albert Muzquiz’s Heddels article to learn more about Lee denim jacket history.)

Roslyn’s jacket illustrates all the hallmarks of a classic Storm Rider, including the tan corduroy collar, the gray striped wool lining, the zig-zag stitching around buttonhole for the six corresponding branded rivet buttons, and button-tab adjusters on each side of the waistband. The straight chest yoke slants slightly down toward the center on each side, with a box pleat extending down each side from the yoke to the waist, overlapping the two patch-style breast pockets that each close with a single-button flap.

Roslyn pulls her Lee Storm Rider over her chest as she and Perce watch Guido (Eli Wallach) prepare to take flight in the desert.

Roslyn wears a white cotton voile shirt, more traditional than the snap-front Western shirts worn by her male cohorts. While the soft, sheer fabric may be one of the costume’s few concessions to sexualization, voile would also serve a practical purpose of wearing light and cool in the often 100-degree heat of the Nevada desert.

The front placket’s right-over-left buttoning system informs that this is a woman’s shirt (rather than a man’s shirt), with front darts positioned beneath Monroe’s chest for less fullness around the waist, flattering her hourglass figure. The long-sleeved shirt has button-fastened barrel cuffs and a point collar, though Roslyn always wears the top few buttons undone.

An intimate moment between Roslyn and Gay in the desert. Note how clearly the front darts—a more common aspect of women’s shirts than men’s shirts—can be seen through the sheer white voile fabric.

Roslyn had already started wearing blue jeans as part of her life with Gay, though—unlike her denim jacket—these particular jeans were originally intended for women as evident by the cut and how closely they follow her form.

Marilyn Monroe ebulliently models her form-fitting Lady Levi’s on the set of The Misfits. Photo by Eve Arnold.

On their own blog, Levi Strauss & Co. describes how their risk would “forever [alter] the course of women’s fashion” in fall 1934 when they introduced Lady Levi’s, “the world’s first jeans made exclusively for women.” At the time, the world was still getting used to the idea of women wearing long pants, thanks to trailblazers like Marlene Dietrich, Katharine Hepburn, and even Eleanor Roosevelt, who became the first First Lady to be photographed wearing trousers when she appeared in riding pants during the 1933 Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn.

Lady Levi’s had originally been intended for western women to wear on farms and ranches, though an appearance in Vogue the year after their introduction widened their audience. After World War II and the volume of women who had dressed practically for their newfound work in industrial sectors, sales of women’s trousers skyrocketed. Thanks to the decreasing formality during the postwar boom, this also included jeans to the degree that Penn State University felt the need to officially ban female students from wearing jeans until 1954.

By this time in the mid-1950s, Lady Levi’s were already being sold across the United States, featuring the modified fit designed to better flatter women’s curves as well as the replacement of the classic Levi’s button-fly with a zip-fly. 1954 was also the year that Marilyn Monroe had first appeared in jeans, wearing a pair of dark and skintight J.C. Penney “Foremost” jeans—albeit quite anachronistically—in Otto Preminger’s 1870s-set Western drama River of No Return.

Monroe again pulled on jeans in The Misfits, though the signature arcuate stitch across the pointed back pockets suggests a pair of indigo denim Lady Levi’s, styled with the usual long rise up to Monroe’s natural waist line and a slim cut through the legs down to the bottoms, which she wears self-cuffed. In addition to the belt loops, the design otherwise resembles the stalwart Levi’s 501 variety marketed to men with two curved rivet-reinforced front pockets, a watch pocket (now often called a coin pocket) inset on the right side, and two patch-style back pockets.

Still wearing Roslyn’s shirt and jeans—but no boots—Marilyn rests on the desert set of The Misfits. Photo by Eve Arnold.

Roslyn holds up her jeans with a narrow tan tooled leather belt that tapers toward the front, where it closes through an embossed gold-finished Western-style curved single-prong belt buckle and a matching gold-toned metal keeper.

Roslyn completes her authentic Western appearance with a pair of tan leather cowboy boots, which Monroe evidently kept after the production and were auctioned in October 1999 by Christie’s among other pieces of her personal property. Made by storied Kansas bootmaker Hyer, Monroe’s screen-worn boots have relatively short shafts decoratively stitched in olive and tan, with curved tops, over-the-top ear pulls, and the traditional “bug and wrinkle” medallion stitch over the pointed toes.

When joining Gay and Perce for the mustang roundup, Roslyn dons her issued cowboy hat, made from a light beige felt though with a round, telescopic crown that differs from the pinched cattleman-style crowns of her compatriots’ hats. Roslyn’s hat also has a curved brim and a light-colored band.

The trio sport cowboy hats when engaging in some true cowboy work.

How to Get the Look

Marilyn Monroe as Roslyn Tabor in The Misfits (1961)

In her final scenes of a finished movie, Marilyn Monroe dressed authentically for the West in a light-wearing white voile shirt, Lady Levi’s jeans, cowboy boots, and a man’s blanket-lined Lee Storm Rider denim jacket.

• Dark indigo denim Lee Storm Rider blanket-lined “cowboy jacket” with tan corduroy collar, six copper rivet buttons, two chest pockets (with button-down flaps), single-button cuffs, and button-tab waist adjusters
• White cotton voile long-sleeved shirt with point collar, front placket, front and back darts, and button cuffs
• Dark indigo denim Lady Levi’s high-rise jeans with belt loops, five-pocket layout, and self-cuffed bottoms
• Tan tooled leather narrow belt with embossed gold curved single-prong buckle and matching keeper
• Tan leather cowboy boots with decoratively stitched shafts, side pulls, and “bug and wrinkle” medallion-stitched pointed toes

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. I also highly recommend reading @MadZack’s Letterboxd review of what he aptly describes as “a film about three beautiful losers.”

The Quote

How do you find your way back in the dark?

“Just head for that big star straight on. The highway’s under it… it’ll take us right home.”

The post The Misfits: Marilyn Monroe’s Denim Western Wear appeared first on BAMF Style.

Johnny Depp as George Jung in Blow (2001)

Vitals

Johnny Depp as George Jung, successful cocaine smuggler

Massachusetts, Fall 1979

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

Background

One of the more formative movies in developing my appreciation for more outlandish period style is Blow, Ted Demme’s Scorsese-inspired chronicle of the rise and fall of real-life drug smuggler George Jung, who was born 80 years ago today in Weymouth, Massachusetts. The DVD (does anyone remember its white case?) was in almost constant rotation when friends would come over in high school, and Mark Bridges’ costume design resonated to such a degree that, thanks to eBay, I may have been one of the few high-schoolers in the early 2000s to own a vintage polyester leisure suit.

Bruce Porter’s source book makes more mention of the real George Jung wearing blazers and sport jackets, but this quintessential men’s style of the ’70s gets plenty of time to shine on screen, perhaps most notably as a triumphant Johnny Depp struts into the Miami airport to the tune of Ram Jam’s “Black Betty”, clad in a creamy white leisure suit with a white turtleneck and Elvis-style TCB shades.

Several years later by the film’s timeline, George’s smuggling success for the dangerous Medellín Cartel has elevated him to the top of the American drug pyramid. Having newly purchased a mansion in his home state of Massachusetts where he lives with his extravagant wife Mirtha (Penelope Cruz) and a fleet of sports cars, George welcomes his parents, Fred (Ray Liotta) and Ermine (Rachel Griffiths). With his parents in town and Mirtha now pregnant with their daughter, George doesn’t appreciate Mirtha’s prolonged cocaine intake, but she merely derides him for being a “hy-po-creet” and takes another snort.

Blow presents George as long struggling to get along with his mother, who had turned him in to the police several years earlier but now seems dazzled by the fruits of what she once reputiated as “drug money”. Fred, with whom George is shown to have enjoyed a much more authentic relationship, doesn’t buy any of George’s crap about “this little import-export thing goin’ down in Miami,” instead just assuring his son that “it’s good if it makes you happy.”

What’d He Wear?

While many would argue that leisure suits rarely—if ever—exited the realm of tackiness, their brief flash of popularity during the disco decade included a range of styles, from those more adjacent with conventional business suits to trendier styles influenced by trending western and safari fashions.

Likely made from polyester or a similarly on-trend synthetic fabric, George’s bright red leisure suit takes its cues from the latter, with the top half styled more like a shirt-jacket with its snap-front placket and shirt-style collar. The jacket features a contrasting white-threaded edge stitch that alternates between single, double, and triple stitching, present on the placket, pockets, pocket flaps, and yokes. A double-stitched horizontal yoke extends across the chest with a triple-stitched horizontal yoke across the back.

Five white enamel-filled snaps can fasten up the narrow front placket, beginning at the waist and extending up to the neck, another detail that presents more like a shirt than a jacket. Consistent with the safari and martial-inspired trends that dominated the ’70s, the jacket has shoulder straps (epaulettes), also appointed with snaps that fasten the inside edge of each strap to the body of the jacket. The sleeves are also finished with snaps, which George wears undone and folded back under the ends of his similarly self-cuffed shirt sleeves.

The jacket has four outer patch pockets, each outlined with a triple contrast-stitched border. The two chest pockets are covered by a wide flap integrated against the jacket body, extending from placket to armpit, while the hip pockets have more conventionally free-hanging flaps only sewn to the jacket across the top. All four “flaps” have a trapezoidal extension over the center.

Compared his father’s more timeless sport jacket, polo, and slacks, George’s wardrobe signals that the nature of his success—much like the popularity of leisure suits—would be fleeting, barely able to last the decade.

George’s matching red polyester trousers have a flat front and are worn sans belt, though we never see them without the jacket to discern whether or not they have a fitted waistband (most likely) or a system of side-adjusters to keep them up. The plain-hemmed bottoms have a then-fashionable flare that avoids bell-bottom excess. He also wears plain black leather square-toed pull-on ankle boots with slightly raised heels.

George has an eye for color coordination, pairing his bright red leisure suit with a shirt printed in a large-scaled red-and-white houndstooth check. George integrates the shirt with the jacket, wearing the shirt’s long point collar atop the equally large jacket collar and rolling back the unbuttoned shirt cuffs over the undone jacket sleeves.

George signals his success with a variety of visible gold jewelry, including a thin gold bracelet on his right wrist and a gold diamond-studded horseshoe-shaped ring that he wears on the third finger of his left hand, like a wedding ring.

George’s gold dive watch has a black-finished bezel and a round black dial with a date window at 3:00, worn on a gold three-piece “Presidential”-style link bracelet. It may be a Rolex Submariner ref. 1680, which was the first Submariner to include a date function upon its introduction in 1966, in addition to also being the first Submariner model (ref. 1680/8) available in yellow gold.

George adjusts his cuffs, both for ostensible comfort as well as to better show the gold Rolex(?) indicating his success to his parents.

How to Get the Look

Johnny Depp as George Jung in Blow (2001)

Unless you’re truly a fan (or super-confident with an unapologetic Leo energy to match George Jung himself), ’70s-style leisure suits belong primarily in the realm of costume.

• Red polyester leisure suit:
  • Shirt-jacket with large point collar, 5-snap front placket, epaulettes/shoulder straps, four trapezoidal-flapped pockets, and snap cuffs
  • Flat front trousers with beltless waistband and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Red-and-white large-scaled houndstooth long-sleeved shirt with large point collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Black leather slip-on ankle boots
• Thin gold bracelet
• Gold dive watch with black-filled bezel and round black dial (with 3:00 date window) on gold “Presidential”-style three-piece link bracelet
• Gold diamond-studded horseshoe ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read the book too!

The post Johnny Depp’s Red Leisure Suit in Blow appeared first on BAMF Style.

Promotional poster for No Time to Die (2021) featuring Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter

Vitals

Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter, cynical CIA agent

Jamaica, Spring 2020

Film: No Time to Die
Release Date: September 30, 2021
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Costume Designer: Suttirat Anne Larlarb

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

On the 00-7th of August, let’s celebrate the return of Jeffrey Wright’s Felix Leiter to the 007 franchise in No Time to Die. Years after the events of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, Felix and his politically appointed State Department crony Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen) track down the now-retired James Bond (Daniel Craig) to his secluded life in Jamaica, hoping to recruit him into assisting them in locating a missing MI6 scientist.

“It’ll be like old times,” Leiter pitches to Bond over beers, adding that “I wanna get back to my family, tell ’em I saved the world again!”

What’d He Wear?

When the first production photos from No Time to Die leaked, they not only informed fans of Bond’s newfound preference for Tommy Bahama and Sperry but also of his “brother from Langley” Felix Leiter’s long-awaited return to the series, comfortably clad for the warm Jamaican climate in his unbuttoned mint-green shirt, drawstring-waisted trousers, and suede lace-ups.

The Craig-era iteration of the Bond/Leiter dynamic had always presented the latter as a more practical—if schlubbier—sartorial alternative to Bond’s typically more sophisticated sense of style. There are never tailored polos or Tom Ford for Leiter, who opts for partially buttoned sport shirts and lightweight trousers, all prone to considerable wrinkling that doesn’t seem to concern the cynical, cigar-chomping agent one bit.

When Bond and Leiter reconnect in Jamaica, Leiter wears a mint-green short-sleeved shirt that James Bond Lifestyle identified as a Beams Plus Colours Slub Yarn Vacation Shirt, made from a slubby blend of 91% rayon and 9% flax, a natural plant fiber often used to make linen. Made by the heritage-inspired Japanese company Beams, the shirt is patterned with a balanced pattern of sombré stripes that appropriately gradate between red, white, and blue.

Note the subtle sombré (as in ombré, but changing colors rather than shades) striping of Leiter’s shirt.

The two sagging patch-style chest pockets suggest a shirt that has been worn and washed often without much attention given to its treatment. The shirt has a camp collar with a loop on the left for the top button and five horizontal buttonholes down the plain (French) front that all correspond to white plastic buttons on the opposing side, though Leiter wears the shirt completely open.

Leiter self-cuffs the ends of the short sleeves which, combined with the fully unbuttoned front, creates more of a roughneck appearance to contrast Bond’s usual refinement. The open shirt shows Felix’s undershirt, which appears to be a white cotton tank top with a wide, ringer-reinforced neck-line.

The three agents’ shirts visually communicate their respective personalities: Leiter, cynical but no-nonsense in a summer shirt worn open over his undershirt; Bond, more sophisticated if less practical in black silk; and Ash, too buttoned-up in his white OCBD to even bother striving for the two more experienced agents’ more contextually appropriate wardrobes.

Leiter wears ivory linen casual trousers, fastened with a white drawstring through the waistband. The pinched fabric on each side of the front suggests pleats, which would create a more generous fit that would allow cool air to pass through, likely wearing more comfortably in the warm climate than Bond’s jeans. Despite some looseness through the thighs, these casual trousers are tapered through the legs with plain-hemmed bottoms that Leiter wears self-cuffed to break high above his shoes, which he wears either sockless or with low, “no-show” socks.

James Bond Lifestyle has also identified Leiter’s shoes as the Clarks Original Desert London model with “pine green” suede uppers and off-white crepe soles, though the latter appear to have been distressed or aged to present darker on screen. Part of the 2018 Desert London collection, these plain-toe derby shoes appear to be a low-shoe variation of the classic crepe-soled desert boot, which Clarks had pioneered after World War II.

Jeffrey Wright and Daniel Craig in costume during one of the first behind-the-scenes shots seen from the production, April 2019.

Unlike the European-made Persols and Vuarnets preferred by Mr. Bond, American agent Leiter prefers classic American sunglasses, specifically the iconic Ray-Ban RB2140 Wayfarer model with its signature black acetate trapezoidal frame. (Granted, Ray-Ban has been owned by the Italian eyewear conglomerate Luxottica since 1999, but the heritage is American!)

Ray-Ban introduced the Wayfarer model in 1956, the same year that Ian Fleming roped Leiter into Bond’s latest mission in the novel Diamonds are Forever and twenty years after Bausch & Lomb established the brand as a military eyewear contractor.

Read more about the history of Ray-Ban Wayfarers in the Bond series at James Bond Lifestyle. One of the most enduring sunglass frames in history, the Wayfarer’s current RB2140 iteration can be purchased via Amazon or Ray-Ban.

Felix Leiter is all smiles as he and Bond reunite in Port Antonio, glancing at his erstwhile co-agent from behind the polarized lenses of his classic Ray-Ban Wayfarers.

Leiter and Bond may prefer different brands of sunglasses, but both are confirmed Omega men by the time they re-team in No Time to Die. Leiter specifically wears an Omega Speedmaster Racing Co-Axial Master Chronometer, which James Bond Lifestyle confirmed as ref. 329.32.44.51.01.001. This self-winding watch has a 44.25mm stainless steel case with a fixed black ceramic bezel ring detailed with the Liquidmetal-numbered tachymeter scale and the word “TACHYMÈTRE” filled in orange lettering that echoes some of the dial detailing as well as the orange rubber interior visible through the intentional micro-perforations around the edge-stitched black leather strap.

Anti-reflective and scratch-resistant domed sapphire crystal protects the matte black dial, with its non-numeric hour markers comprised of luminous 18-karat white gold arrowhead indexes, a racing-style minute-track that gives the watch its name, and a blackened date window at 6 o’clock. The primary hour and minute hands are orange with a white-filled bar, while the narrower second hand is an orange-tipped white arrow. The two blackened sub-dials consist of a white-handed 12-hour recorder at the 3 o’clock position and a 60-minute recorder at 9 o’clock with a single orange hand. Though not intended for diving like many of Commander Bond’s watches, the Speedmaster Racing Co-Axial is still water-resistant to 50 meters (or 167 feet), a feature which Leiter unwillingly and tragically tests upon Bond’s return from Cuba.

You can read more about the watch from Omega, who—as of August 2022—continues to retail the watch for $8,450.

Production photo of Daniel Craig and Jeffrey Wright discussing the possibility of Bond returning to service over Scotch—and away from the cloying Logan Ash.

Felix Leiter dresses in a similar fashion for Wright’s final scene in the series when he and Logan Ash connect with Bond after the latter returns from Cuba. Leiter has swapped out his green shirt for an ivory self-striped two-pocket camp shirt, which primarily differs from the previous shirt by a flatter notched collar that lacks a top loop. The plain front has vertical buttonholes and the chest pockets are reinforced with horizontal top yokes. Leiter again self-cuffs the ends of the shirt’s short sleeves, which are shirred at the set-in shoulders.

Leiter now wears stone-colored trousers that present more of a contrast against his white shirt than the lighter linen trousers he had previously been wearing would have done. He also wears these trouser bottoms self-cuffed and continues to wear his forest-green suede Clarks crepe-soled derbies.

At least Felix’s green shirt was spared such misfortune.

What to Imbibe

As in Quantum of Solace, Felix Leiter and James Bond rekindle their professional partnership over long-necked beers. This particular reunion doesn’t end with Bond escaping by the skin of his teeth, but his disdain for their new drinking buddy Logan Ash might have sent him running from the bar even faster than CIA gunmen firing at him with MP5s.

Unlike Quantum of Solace, which featured generic and ultimately fictional “Cervecita” beers, the gods of product placement revived 007’s preference from Skyfall by serving the trio of agents a round of Heineken, the distinctively bottled Dutch pale lager.

You can read more about Heineken’s 25-years-and-counting with the Bond franchise at James Bond Lifestyle.

How to Get the Look

Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter on location during production of No Time to Die (2021)

Felix Leiter’s gruff, no-nonsense exterior extends beyond his personality to his appearance, dressing practically for No Time to Die‘s Caribbean setting in lightweight summer-friendly fabrics like flax and linen, insouciantly wearing his camp shirt open to show his undershirt and the knotted drawstring holding up his white linen pants, completing the look with a set of iconic and timeless accessories like his Ray-Ban Wayfarers and Omega Speedmaster.

• Mint-green sombré-striped rayon/flax short-sleeved camp shirt with loop collar, plain front, and two chest pockets
  • Beams Plus Colours Slub Yarn Vacation Shirt
• White cotton tank top undershirt
• Ivory linen single-pleated casual trousers with drawstring waist, slanted side pockets, and self-cuffed plain-hemmed bottoms
• Forest-green suede 4-eyelet plain-toe derby shoes with off-white crepe soles
  • Clarks Original Desert London
•  Black acetate wayfarer-style sunglasses with green polarized lenses
  • Ray-Ban RB2140 Wayfarer
• Stainless steel racing chronograph watch with black ceramic tachymeter bezel, matte black dial with 2 sub-dials and 6:00 date window, and black micro-perforated leather band
  • Omega Speedmaster Racing Co-Axial Master Chronometer 329.32.44.51.01.001

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Hard to tell the good from bad, villains from heroes, these days.

The post Felix Leiter in No Time to Die appeared first on BAMF Style.

Robert Shaw as Romer Treece in The Deep (1977)

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Robert Shaw as Romer Treece, adventurous treasure hunter and lighthouse-keeper

Off the Bermuda coast, Summer 1976

Film: The Deep
Release Date: June 17, 1977
Director: Peter Yates
Costume Designer: Ron Talsky

Background

Following the record-setting blockbuster success of Jaws, adapted from Peter Benchley’s debut novel of the same name, Columbia Pictures quickly purchased the rights to Benchley’s next novel before it was even published. The Deep proved to be another box-office hit, if not as critically acclaimed as its predecessor, with much of its success attributed to an effective marketing campaign centered around Jacqueline Bisset’s white T-shirt.

Another casting decision that worked in The Deep‘s favor was Robert Shaw, born 95 years ago today on August 9, 1927. After portraying the grizzled shark-hunter Quint to perfection in Jaws, Shaw had been again cast as a salty seafarer, if more affable and better-fated as the hardy deep-sea adventurer Romer Treece.

The Deep would be one of Robert Shaw’s final roles after a prolific career not only as a stage and screen actor but also a writer who penned novels, plays, and screenplays. Shaw died of a heart attack while driving to his County Mayo home on August 28, 1978, less than three weeks after his 51st birthday.

What’d He Wear?

I know little about diving, but I was surprised when I first watched The Deep and noticed that Romer Treece never changed out of his everyday clothes when diving, merely adding a mask and oxygen tank over his cotton button-up shirts and khakis.

When David Sanders (Nick Nolte) and Gail Berke (Jacqueline Bisset) meet Romer, he’s posted up in his lighthouse dressed comfortably casual in a striped shirt with a straight hem and side vents that allow it to be effectively untucked.

Romer’s cotton shirt is patterned in alternating sets of narrow pink and slate-gray stripes against a white ground. The shirt has a point collar, six-button plain (French) front, two chest pockets, and button-fastened cuffs that Romer wears undone and rolled up his forearms.

Romer’s khaki chino cotton trousers have an additional flapped utility pocket over the left thigh, qualifying them as cargo pants. This style had originated for British military battle dress and American paratrooper fatigues during World War II, with the civilian evolution emerging by the late 1970s when they were marketed toward sportsmen, outdoorsmen, and workers who would benefit from extra pockets to carry tools and equipment.

By the time I reached adolescence in the early 2000s, cargo pants and their abbreviated but still baggy cousin—cargo shorts—were en vogue for teens of my ilk, and considerable photographic evidence exists of yours truly with overloaded cargo pockets bulging from my thighs. The “fashion” had subsided for years, though cargo pants are again trending thanks to Y2K nostalgia, though at least the modern revival embraces a slimmer silhouette than the looser cargo pants of the early-oughts.

As a treasure-hunter, Romer Treece would have benefited from the practical purposes of cargo trousers, which provided him the ability to swiftly pocket his deep-sea finds without the need for additional baggage. In addition to the left-thigh cargo pocket, Romer’s flat front trousers have on-seam side pockets, patch-style back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

Romer wears low shoes with blue canvas uppers and tan rubber outsoles, a deck-friendly evolution of both the classic warm-weather espadrille and the marine-minded Sperry Top-Sider boat shoe.

Romer appears to have kept his blue canvas shoes on even when diving, inserted into his favorite black flippers.

The only piece of Romer’s wardrobe that suggests an interest in dressing beyond practical purposes is his ivory cotton newsboy cap, a retro style that had returned to popularity in the 1970s after their appearance in period movies like The Great Gatsby and The Sting, the latter of which starred Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Shaw himself. Romer’s cap consists of a stiff visor and a soft, round eight-panel crown with a covered button at the center of the top where the tip of each panel meets.

It makes sense that a movie about diving would feature dive watches, and Nick Nolte’s David Sanders wears perhaps the most iconic diver of all-time—a Rolex Submariner—strapped to his wrist. Romer Treece also dresses for the job in a stainless steel dive watch. Romer’s watch has a narrow black bezel encircling a round black dial that’s detailed with luminous non-numeric hour markers and a date window at 3 o’clock, strapped to a micro-perforated black “tropic rubber” strap.

How to Get the Look

Robert Shaw as Romer Treece in The Deep (1977)

While you may prefer more underwater-oriented clothing when actually diving, Romer Treece’s everyday style of semi-buttoned cotton shirts, cargo pants, dive watch, and newsboy cap inspire a comfortably effective seaside look during these long late summer days.

• White (with narrow pink and gray stripe sets) cotton long-sleeved shirt with point collar, plain/French front, two chest pockets, button cuffs, and straight hem with side vents
• Khaki cotton flat front “cargo trousers” with straight/on-seam side pockets, flapped left-thigh pocket, patch-style back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Blue canvas slip-on shoes with tan outsoles
• Ivory cotton newsboy cap
• Stainless steel dive watch with black bezel, round black dial with luminous non-numeric hour markers and 3:00 date window, and micro-perforated black textured “tropic rubber” strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post The Deep: Robert Shaw’s Striped Shirt and Cargo Pants appeared first on BAMF Style.

Marcello Mastroianni as Marcello Rubini in La Dolce Vita (1960)

Vitals

Marcello Mastroianni as Marcello Rubini, playboy gossip journalist-turned-publicity agent

Fregene, Italy, Summer 1959

Film: La Dolce Vita
Release Date: February 5, 1960
Director: Federico Fellini
Costume Designer: Piero Gherardi
Tailor: Brioni

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

No, no one’s leaving. It’s a long way ’til dawn.

The seventh and final “episode” of Fellini’s divine comedy La Dolce Vita catches up with our sleek protagonist Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), erstwhile chronicler of Roman nightlife, as he and a group of friends descend upon his friend Riccardo’s beach house in Fregene, about 25 miles west of Rome on the Tyrrhenian coast.

Rendered cynical after a fruitless search for love and happiness marred by his friend’s murder-suicide, the graying Marcello has deserted his journalistic career and literary endeavors in favor of working as a publicity agent, a career derided by his friends. Nonchalant about his abandoned ambitions, Marcello pushes the party into debauchery, first set to a frantically dissonant recording of “Jingle Bells” before urging his newly divorced friend Nadia (Nadia Gray) to “christen her new life” with a striptease set to Perez Prado’s contemporary cha-cha “Patricia”. The display isn’t enough for the plastered Marcello, who unsuccessfully attempts to nudge the bacchanal into an all-out orgy.

Riccardo’s return pushes the party outside at dawn, where the revelers encounter a bloated leviathan caught in a fisherman’s nets. Reminded again of death, Marcello drifts from the party and spies across the bay Paola (Valeria Ciangottini), an almost-angelic young waitress he’d met earlier at a seaside restaurant. She calls out to him, urging him to join her but is drowned out by the sounds of the sea, leaving Marcello little to do but respond with a hapless shrug before dancing away with a fellow partygoer… ostensibly continuing his downward spiral into Fellini’s metaphorical hell.

What’d He Wear?

After spending most of La Dolce Vita dressed in his usual black suit, white shirts, and dark ties, Marcello reverses his formula for this final sequence, dressed in a bleached suit over a dark pullover shirt and black neckerchief.

“By the end of the film, our hero replaces his serious, black suit for a white one,” wrote Chris Cotonou for No Man Walks Alone. “He ditches the tie for a neckerchief, and swaps a white shirt for a polo—it’s still elegant, but more hip. Likewise, his personality shifts: first from sullen, or cynical and then to absurd and comical. Things have changed. It doesn’t take the clothes to realize this, but it certainly confirms our worst fears: that Marcello caved in to excess. Mastroianni himself suggested in an interview that every outfit was ‘intentional and had meaning,’ and the film went on to win an Oscar for Best Wardrobe that year—perhaps for these reasons.”

Even in the midst of an ostensible celebration, Marcello can’t conceal his defeated misery.

I’ve read descriptions of Marcello’s final suit describing the material as white linen, though—while the color is arguably correct—the suiting lacks some of linen’s signature qualities, such as a visible proneness to wrinkling, as Marcello’s suit would certainly be showing after an all-night bacchanal. Instead, the suit may be constructed of tropical worsted wool or cotton gabardine.

Like the rest of his wardrobe, Marcello’s final suit was likely tailored by Brioni, the legendary Italian fashion house that has operated out of the same boutique at Via Barberini 79 in Rome since its inception in 1945. Mastroianni’s elegant suits of La Dolce Vita elevated Brioni’s profile as well as consciousness of Roman tailoring with its form-following silhouette, blending sophisticated masculinity with a dash of romance. Or, as Hardy Amies more bluntly but still eloquently described in his 1964 volume ABCs of Men’s Fashion, “an air of masculine superiority softened with an almost feminine grace that intrigues women in the great game of sexual attraction.”

With fellow partiers and beachgoers distracted by the washed-up leviathan, a washed-up Marcello rises to his knees for a last desperate attempt to communicate with the beatific Paola. Note that one of the feathers from the orgy has tucked itself into the top of his “barchetta”-style breast pocket.

Marcello’s white single-breasted jacket follows the Roman tradition with its suppressed waist shaped by front darts and the clean, padded shoulders inspired by English military and equestrian tailoring. Italian tailors have been associated with both ventless and side-vented jacket, with the long and flared double vents of Marcello’s jacket clearly indicating the latter.

The notch lapels roll to a two-button front which, despite his frolicking antics, Marcello manages to keep fastened through the top button throughout the entire sequence. Each sleeve is finished with three flat pearl buttons that match the two on the front. The welted breast pocket has a gentle curve, a less dramatic example of the “barchetta”-style pocket characteristic of Italian tailoring. The straight, jetted hip pockets lacking flaps contribute to the slimmer, minimalist figure.

The suit’s matching white trousers are rigged with double forward-facing pleats on each side. The waistline has belt loops, though Marcello evidently foregoes a belt as he relies on the superior tailoring to keep his trousers up. (Though, given his orgiastic intentions for the party, it’s also possible he was removing any obstacles to gratification.) Detailed with a button-fly and side pockets along the seams, the trousers have a straight, full fit through the legs down to plain-hemmed bottoms with a medium break over his shoes.

Fellini demonstrates Marcello’s famous film-ending shrug for Mastroianni while filming La Dolce Vita‘s final sequence on Moai Beach in Passo Oscuro. Mastroianni not wearing the jacket allows us to see more of his long-sleeved polo shirt and pleated trousers.

Marcello wears a very dark pullover shirt which appears just a shade lighter than black, though any guess would be complete speculation unless color photography from these scenes emerge. The design resembles an elevated polo shirt with its large, soft collar and sporty two-button V-shaped placket, though the shirt is uniquely and incongruously designed with double (French) cuffs, typically reserved for more formal dress shirts. Marcello fastens the cuffs with a set of oversized light-colored disc-style links.

Honestly, a polo shirt with French cuffs befits the chaos of the scene.

With his necktie-wearing nightlife days behind him, Marcello has adopted the rakish practice of wearing a neckerchief, in this case a swath of black voile cloth loosely knotted around his neck. Given La Dolce Vita‘s considerably metaphorical and symbolic nature, the dark knotted kerchief could represent that Marcello has allowed darkness to take hold like a noose around his neck, albeit one he could fight his way out of if only he hadn’t been rendered so indifferent to his fate.

Marcello no longer wears the snappy single-strap monk shoes he had favored with his black suit, instead dressing down in a pair of dark leather slip-ons with a slotted strap across the vamp suggesting penny loafers. The lighter shade of his shoes, especially compared to his dark ribbed cotton lisle socks, suggests the possibility of brown leather uppers, which would be a softer contrast with the all-white suit than black leather.

Marcello, the shell [of a human] with shoes on.

How to Get the Look

Marcello Mastroianni as Marcello Rubini in La Dolce Vita (1960)

Marcello reverses his typical black-suited sartorial formula for the agrodolce finale of La Dolce Vita, wearing an all-white suit with a sporty knitted shirt and dark neckerchief apropos a beachside bacchanal.

• White gabardine tailored Brioni suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted “barchetta”-style breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and double vents
  • Double forward-pleated trousers with belt loops, button fly, on-seam side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark knitted long-sleeved polo shirt with large collar, 2-button V-shaped placket, and double/French cuffs
• Black sheer neckerchief
• Brown leather penny loafers
• Dark ribbed cotton voile socks

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, and read more about the style of La Dolce Vita at The Rake.

The Quote

I could keep you entertained for a week, but you must do as I say.

The post La Dolce Vita: Marcello’s White Party Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

Rock Hudson as Bob Merrick in Magnificent Obsession (1954)

Vitals

Rock Hudson as Bob Merrick, conscience-stricken millionaire and ex-medical student

Brightwood, New York, Spring 1949

Film: Magnificent Obsession
Release Date: August 4, 1954
Director: Douglas Sirk
Costume Designer: Bill Thomas (gowns)

Background

German-born director Douglas Sirk and actor Rock Hudson had collaborated on nine movies throughout the 1950s, though their association may be best remembered for a trio of lush Technicolor melodramas beginning with Magnificent Obsession, released 68 years ago this month in August 1954.

A remake of a 1935 film of the same name, Magnificent Obsession was the first of two Sirk-directed dramas that paired Hudson opposite Jane Wyman, eight years his senior and thus a welcome inversion of Hollywood frequently pairing older male stars with much younger actresses.

Wyman starred as Helen Phillips, recently a widow after her quasi-saint of a husband was unable to receive the lifesaving medical treatment he needed when resources were tied up reviving spoiled playboy Bob Merrick (Hudson) following a reckless boating accident. Feeling guilt about Dr. Phillips’ death, Bob’s attempt to make amends with Helen resulted in a car accident that left her blind. (If you haven’t seen Magnificent Obsession, just… stick with me here. It’s low-key one of the most insane movies I had seen in a while.)

As a blinded Helen recovers, Bob—who had previously abandoned his medical studies in favor of profligation—begins hanging around her home in the hope of finding a way to covertly assist her. Shockingly, given his clandestine activities like sitting a few yards away from her on a private beach in broad daylight, Bob is soon spotted by Helen’s precocious niece Judy (Judy Nugent), who calls out “hey, handsome!”, thus alerting Helen to his presence. Not wanting to reveal his true identity, an increasingly lovestruck Bob approaches her and introduces himself as a medical student with the very believable name of… Robbie Robinson.

What’d He Wear?

Bob—er, Robbie—dresses for the beach in a unique and sporty outfit, anchored by an imaginative variation of the classic Norfolk jacket that had been updated to reflect the era and setting.

As its name implies, the Norfolk jacket was pioneered in the English county of Norfolk sometimes in the 19th century as a loose-wearing hunting coat, said to be championed either by Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk, or Thomas William Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, who was also known as “Coke of Norfolk” and hosted duck-shooting events at his estate. The most popular iteration was made of a heavy tweed, appropriate for the English climate and rugged enough to withstand the rigor of outdoor sports. Norfolk jackets are typically characterized by box pleats and a belted waist, typically also detailed with notch lapels and patch pockets.

Bob Merrick’s jacket can qualify as Norfolk-inspired with its pleats and self-belt, though there are several interesting details that deviate from the traditional Norfolk jacket. One interesting differentiation is the buttoning arrangement, as Bob’s jacket lacks the traditional lineup of right-side buttons and coordinated left-side buttonholes, instead closing solely through the belt, which passes through each pleat and fastens to two mixed gray sew-through buttons on the front of each jacket, one on the left and one on the right.

In lieu of traditional buttons, Bob’s jacket closes through two buttons positioned horizontally to coordinate with buttonholes on the full Norfolk-style self-belt.

Another clear difference is the material, as Bob’s jacket appears to be constructed from a lightweight linen rather than heavy woolen tweed. The gray linen has a nailhead weave that presents as a neatly organized arrangement of white-threaded micro-squares, with irregular threading across and around some of the squares for streaks that resemble the contemporary “atomic fleck” trend.

As Bob knots some twine, note the unique fabrics of his nailhead linen jacket and toweling shirt.

Bob’s jacket reflects 1950s tailoring standards, designed to be full-fitting yet flattering, with padded shoulders and belted, suppressed waist contributing to an athletic silhouette. The sleeves are roped at the heads and finished with four-button cuffs.

Horizontal yokes extend across the front and back, below which wide box pleats extend down the length of the jacket. On the front, the two pleats go as far as just over the belt, allowing for flapped patch pockets on the hips; the two back pleats extend all the way to the hem, and a single vent splits the center.

The yoked, pleated, and belted back of Bob’s jacket echoes a traditional Norfolk jacket.

Bob’s terry-cloth pullover shirt predates the toweling casual-wear boom of the ’60s and ’70s that’s currently undergoing a revival thanks to brands like Busbee McQuade, Dandy Del Mar, OAS, and Orlebar Brown.

Designed like a traditional golf shirt or polo, Bob’s shirt consists of a solid navy-blue body and a contrasting ribbed white cutaway-style spread collar. The top consists of two buttons, the top button closing through a navy loop and the lower button through a non-placket buttonhole on the left side. Bob never removes his jacket to confirm this, but the shirt appears to be short-sleeved.

Similar to how he dressed when he first met Helen upon “escaping” from Dr. Phillips’ hospital, Bob nattily completes his look with a silk day cravat. This particular scarf is navy silk with a repeating paisley print that appears to be beige on one side and burgundy on the reverse.

Newly self-christened “Robbie Robinson”, Bob reintroduces himself to Helen.

Bob’s light gray flannel trousers bring his ensemble a little too near “mismatched suit” territory given the similar shade of his jacket, though they otherwise suit the season and sartorial context. The buttoned jacket covers most details around the waist, though we can assume based on prevailing trends during the era that they are pleated and styled with side pockets. The fit is full through the legs, finished with turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms.

The informality of Bob’s navy canvas sneakers coordinate with his casual shirt as well as more relaxed sartorial attitudes for a quiet afternoon on a secluded private beach. The shoes have flat navy woven laces that match the canvas uppers and are constructed on wide white rubber outsoles, possibly with siped bottoms for traction on wet surfaces. Bob wears thin navy socks that also blend into the color of his shoes, darkly contrasting against the gray trousers.

Bob wears an elegant gold wristwatch throughout Magnificent Obsession, which may or may not have been Rock Hudson’s personal watch but otherwise suits the affluent character. Worn on a smooth black leather strap, the watch has a round black dial detailed with gold non-numeric hour markers.

Bob’s gold watch gleams from his wrist as he converses with Tom Masterson (Gregg Palmer).

How to Get the Look

Rock Hudson as Bob Merrick in Magnificent Obsession (1954)

Bob Merrick pulls together an unorthodox but rakishly handsome casual outfit when engineering his beach reunion with Helen, wearing a linen jacket incorporating the sporty belt and pleats of a traditional Norfolk jacket as well as a silk day cravat and contrast-collared polo shirt in terry toweling cloth, a fabric then emerging as a leisure-wear favorite.

• Gray and white-streaked nailhead linen single-breasted quasi-Norfolk jacket with notch lapels, full self-belt with 2-button front closure, horizontal chest and back yoke, front and back box pleats, flapped patch hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and single vent
• Navy terry-cloth short-sleeved polo shirt with white ribbed spread collar and two-button top
• Navy paisley-printed silk day cravat
• Light-gray flannel pleated trousers with side pockets and turn-ups/cuffs
• Navy canvas sneakers with white rubber outsoles
• Navy socks
• Gold wristwatch with round black dial and gold non-numeric hour markers on black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post Magnificent Obsession: Rock Hudson’s Summer Norfolk Jacket and Toweling Polo appeared first on BAMF Style.

Ben Affleck as Joe Coughlin in Live by Night (2016)

Vitals

Ben Affleck as Joe Coughlin, gangster and war veteran

Ybor City, Florida, Spring 1933

Film: Live by Night
Release Date: December 25, 2016
Director: Ben Affleck
Costume Designer: Jacqueline West

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

After years of memes picturing him in various states of Dunkin’-fueled despair, Ben Affleck seems to be doing pretty well for himself these days, recently married to Jennifer Lopez as they have evidently to put the past—including Gigli—well behind them. On Affleck’s 50th birthday, let’s explore one of his more stylish roles as the Prohibition-era protagonist in Live By Night.

Affleck had first achieved the trifecta of starring, writing, and directing with The Town in 2010, returning to the crime genre for his follow-up effort, a self-penned adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s novel Live By Night. The central character is World War I veteran Joe Coughlin, who—after more than three years in prison—seeks revenge on the ruthless Irish gangster Albert White (Robert Glenister) by volunteering his services to White’s rival, Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone), as the Italian Mafia’s enforcer in the central Florida rum wars.

Maso: I could use someone committed to putting an end to Mr. White.
Joe: You’ve found your man right here.

Joe’s work for Maso includes sending $11 million in annual revenue up to the boss, but the impending end of Prohibition and the failure of his gambling venture have resulted in the Pescatore crime family coming down by train from Boston to Florida to confront Joe in person. The meeting goes better than expected as Maso offers Joe the position of consigliere, “teach[ing] Digger to fish” once the hotheaded Digger (Max Casella) is installed as new boss of the territory. Unfortunately, surrendering his financial take isn’t a viable option for Joe, who otherwise agrees to share leadership of the criminal empire that he’s built in the region. It’s all moot once Maso and Digger reveal that they’re now partnered with erstwhile enemy Albert White, who emerges from the bedroom with a Tommy gun.

At the end of a brutal gunfight, White and Pescatore are left dead as well as much of the latter’s crew, aside from those that have agreed to defect to Joe—or, rather, his partner Dion Bartolo (a mustached Chris Messina), to whom Joe has relinquished control: “He runs things now.”

What’d He Wear?

“You’re not a killer, Joseph, you’re a bandit in a suit,” Maso tells Joe, who sits before him in a cream-colored silk three-piece suit, one of several light-colored suits that comprise Joe’s Florida-friendly wardrobe.

Of dressing the 6’4″ Ben Affleck in period suits, costume designer Jacqueline West told USA Today, “Ben has a superhero’s body with the best shoulders in the business and a narrow waist. The men’s suit cuts were inspired by the new superhero comic-book phenomenon of the ’30s. So they looked perfect on him.”

Set through the 1920s into the early ’30s, Live by Night depicts a range of men’s tailoring including two- and three-piece suits and single- and double-breasted jackets, with Joe dressed for this high-caliber climactic sequence in a then-common combination of a three-piece suit with a double-breasted jacket, a style that has fallen by the wayside in the decades since due to wartime fabric rationing, decreasing formality standards, and warmer temperatures.

The white-suited Joe looks considerably more comfortably dressed for Florida than his pal Dion, though at least the latter has the right sunglasses and spectator shoes for the Sunshine State.

The double-breasted jacket’s matching ivory-colored recessed buttons are arranged in a classic 6×2 configuration; two vestigial buttons are spaced at chest level, tapering down to a narrower “square” of four buttons, with two to fasten. Double-breasted jackets like this can be “correctly” worn with either both buttons or just the top button closed, as Joe does… perhaps to allow swifter access to the pistol in his waistband. Affleck’s already imposing silhouette is reinforced by the jacket’s straight, padded shoulders.

Front darts add some shape to gently pull in the jacket at the waist, though the jacket presents a full fit with its long, squared skirt and ventless back. The peak lapels are detailed with pick-stitched edges and a buttonhole through each. The jacket also has a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, and four cuff buttons at the end of each sleeve.

Joe’s single-breasted waistcoat (vest) has six recessed ivory buttons, with the lowest button worn undone over the notched bottom. The waistcoat has front darts and an adjustable strap across the white satin-finished back.

The waistcoat has four welted pockets, with the outlines visible through the lightweight cloth. He keeps his gold pocket watch in the lower-right pocket, with the gold “single Albert”-style chain looped through the third buttonhole with a dangling fob.

The suit’s matching trousers have then-fashionable double forward-facing pleats that add roominess through the thighs, continued with a full fit through the legs down to the bottoms finished with turn-ups (cuffs). In addition to the side pockets, there are jetted pockets in the back as evident by their outlines visible through the cloth.

Joe’s belt and braces are only seen as Affleck wears his deconstructed costume behind the scenes of Live by Night.

Joe keeps his waistcoat fastened throughout the suit’s screen-time, but behind-the-scenes shots reveal a redundant “belt and braces” trouser support system; suspenders (braces) are traditionally favored with three-piece suits to avoid the potential bulge created by belt buckles. Joe indeed wears peach-and-black woven suspenders, with black leather double-eared hooks connected to buttons inside the trouser waistband, but his trousers are also held up with a cream-colored belt pulled through the waistband loops and fastened through a silver-toned box-style buckle. Though “belt and braces” are oft derided as redundant, the belt would provide more stalwart support for keeping Joe’s pistol relatively secured in his waistband.

Joe wears a light peach-colored shirt, likely made from a high-twist cotton that presents a silky finish. He fastens the collar with a convex gold pin or clip that holds it in place behind the tie knot. Though many of the shirt details are covered by the jacket and waistcoat, we see that it has a front placket, a breast pocket (seen only in behind-the-scenes photography), and double (French) cuffs fastened with a set of chunky round gold links.

Joe’s soft woolen tie has a yellowed beige ground that coordinates with his shirt, though patterned in a series of narrow black stripes, shadowed on the left with a medium brown stripe.

Joe keeps his cool even with a Tommy gun pressed into his chest.

Joe wears semi-brogue derby shoes in a shade of light brown leather often called “English tan”, detailed with woven-textured vamps but smooth toe caps, heel counters, and five-eyelet lace panels, all detailed with decorative perforations along the edges. Beige cotton lisle socks provide harmony with the deeper brown shoes and the lighter suit trousers.

Apropos the warm climate, Joe wears his usual white woven straw Panama hat with its distinctive “optimo crown”, a raised ridge across the center. The hat is detailed with a narrow band in plain black grosgrain.

The Guns

Joe Coughlin’s standard sidearm is the relatively little-seen Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammer, a John Browning design that resembles a precursor to the famous 1911 pistol series, though it had been initially introduced as a down-scaled variant of the Colt Model 1902. (For what it’s worth, Joe had carried the larger Model 1902 during a much earlier scene in Live by Night.)

As its nomenclature suggests, this semi-automatic pistol was introduced in 1903 and would be produced until well into the ’20s, though it never attained the popularity of contemporary Colt pistols like the Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless or the .45-caliber Model 1905 and M1911. Colt had intended the Model 1903 Pocket Hammer to be a contender for U.S. military usage, thus upgrading the rounded hammer to the more popular spur hammer in 1907, though it rarely saw any action beyond some limited secondary stocks.

A short-recoil pistol like the later M1911, the Model 1903 Pocket Hammer was plagued by chambering the relatively anemic .38 ACP ammunition, a semi-rimmed round that would be soon rendered obsolete by the more powerful 9x19mm Parabellum and .38 Super. To my knowledge, little more than 3,000 of these pistols were manufactured by the time Colt quietly ended production of the Model 1903 Pocket Hammer by 1927.

White had taken Joe’s Colt .38 from his waistband, but—once the shooting starts—Joe recovers his pistol and fights back.

Once Joe’s trusty Colt pistol runs out of ammunition, he grabs a Browning Automatic Rifle stashed away in Maso’s hotel room, using it to cut down White through the wall. Also designed by John Browning, the BAR had been developed for the American Expeditionary Force and rushed into production in time to make an impression on the battlefield during the final months of World War I.

The BAR was intended to be a cross between a rifle and machine gun, carried by infantrymen and able to deliver devastating automatic rifle against the enemy using the Army’s standardized .30-06 Springfield ammunition, which remains a popular hunting round more than a century later. BARs fed from a 20-round box magazine, which—when loaded—added nearly a pound-and-a-half to the M1918 BAR’s already substantial 16-pound weight.

Through generations of improvements and upgrades, the BAR remained a trusted military long arm that saw action in the first two World Wars as well as in Korea and even some limited service in Vietnam. Of course, its blend of portability and power also attracted the criminal element and it became a favorite of ’30s desperado Clyde Barrow of “Bonnie and Clyde” infamy.

As a WWI veteran, Joe would likely have been more intricately familiar with how to operate the BAR than his criminal cohorts, illustrated by how effectively he uses it to liquify the Pescatore mob. Note that the stock appears to have also been cut down for better portability.

The same year that Colt began marketing the Model 1903 Pocket Hammer, it also introduced the Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless, another John Browning design that considerable superseded the Pocket Hammer as far as contemporary and lasting popularity.

The original Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless was chambered in the light .32 ACP caliber, which Browning had initially developed for the Belgian-made FN M1900 pistol. Five years later, Browning designed the larger .380 ACP (9x17mm) round for a new variant of the Pocket Hammerless pistol. Though dimensionally smaller and less powerful than the .38 ACP fired by the Pocket Hammer, the rimless .380 ACP was better-suited to smaller blowback pistols like the Pocket Hammerless, further rendering the .38 ACP obsolete as more blowback pistols like the German-made Walther PP and PPK appeared in the 1930s.

The pistol’s slide extends over the back, shrouding the hammer—which does exist, despite the “Hammerless” moniker—to allow the weapon to be effectively carried and drawn from concealment without snagging on clothing. This made it a favorite of both law-abiding citizens and criminals like bank robber John Dillinger, who reportedly carried one in his trouser pocket when he was cornered and killed by FBI agents in July 1934.

Live by Night illustrates the Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless’ popularity among gangsters, both as Dion’s favored pistol and also seen—fitted with a suppressor—found by Joe Coughlin as he awaits Maso’s return.

Joe signals his transferring leadership to Dion by also handing over the silenced Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless that he used to consolidate power.

How to Get the Look

Ben Affleck as Joe Coughlin in Live by Night (2016)

Joe Coughlin dresses appropriately for the Florida heat during the waning days of Prohibition, standing apart from his colleagues in an off-white suit reflecting the early ’30s fashions of pairing a waistcoat with a double-breasted jacket and voluminously pleated trousers, naturally finished with a straw Panama hat rather than the warmer-wearing felt fedoras of the gangsters visiting from chillier Boston.

• Cream silk tailored three-piece suit:
  • Double-breasted 6×2-button jacket with pick-stitched peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Single-breasted 6-button vest/waistcoat with four welted pockets, notched bottom, and white satin-finished back with adjustable strap
  • Double forward-pleated trousers with belt loops, on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Peach high-twist cotton shirt with pinned point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and double/French cuffs
  • Gold round cuff links
• Beige, black, and brown vertical-striped wool tie
• Cream-colored belt with silver-toned box-style buckle
• Peach-and-black woven suspenders with black leather double-eared hooks
• Tan leather cap-toe semi-brogue 5-eyelet derby shoes with woven-textured vamps
• Beige cotton lisle socks
• White woven straw Panama hat with optimo crown and narrow black grosgrain band
• Gold pocket watch on gold “single Albert”-style chain with fob

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Whoever wants to go back to Boston has my blessing—go ahead. If any of you wanna stay down here where the sun is warm and the girls are pretty, we got jobs for you.

The post Live By Night: Ben Affleck’s White Gangster Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

Robert Redford and Natalie Wood in Inside Daisy Clover (1965)

Vitals

Robert Redford as Wade Lewis, cheeky, charismatic, and closeted actor

Santa Monica, California, Fall 1937

Film: Inside Daisy Clover
Release Date: December 22, 1965
Director: Robert Mulligan
Costume Designer: Bill Thomas

Background

Ahead of Robert Redford’s birthday tomorrow, let’s flashback to one of the actor and director’s earliest prominent roles. Redford had spent the early 1960s taking small parts in movies like Tall Story (1960) and War Hunt (1962), appearing occasionally on TV shows like Maverick, Perry Mason, Route 66, The Untouchables, and Alfred Hitchcock’s anthology series. His most significant performance at the time was on stage, originating the role of the hapless newlywed Paul Bratter in Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park, which would provide Redford’s breakthrough big screen success when adapted by Gene Saks in 1967.

The movie adaptation of Barefoot in the Park launched a nearly 40-year stretch where charismatic Redford exclusively played leading roles, following a two-year period of supporting performances in mostly forgettable movies like Inside Daisy Clover, which Gavin Lambert had adapted from his novel of the same name. The Depression-era story chronicled the troubled rise of an ambitious teenage actress through the Hollywood studio system. The eponymous Daisy was portrayed by Natalie Wood, who would have been able to tap into her own experiences as an exploited child star.

Christopher Plummer starred as Raymond Swan, the domineering studio head who guided Daisy into a manipulative affair, while Redford co-starred as Wade Lewis, a fellow young actor and Daisy’s eventual husband. At the time that Daisy met him, Wade was already rendered cynical by the studio’s bastardization of his identity, from changing his name (formerly Lewis Wade) to hiding his sexual orientation. This latter aspect of his character dampened from the novel—at the urging of both Warner Brothers as well as Redford himself—but still suggested in the movie by Melora Swan (Katharine Bard) reporting to Daisy that “your husband never could resist a charming boy.”

Rectifying their rocky start when he had been rude to her in high school, Inside Daisy Clover began a brief professional association but longer friendship between Redford and Wood. She later recalled how he eased her nerves during a precarious situation filming in a small boat at the Santa Monica Pier, made even scarier by her fear of water. A gust of wind caused a rogue wave to cast the boat to sea, away from the crew and technicians. “There was no way we could get Natalie and Bob off the boat, and the lines to keep them in place were breaking right and left,” director Robert Mulligan recalled, as quoted in an article by Sam Kashner for Vanity Fair. Despite the danger, Redford maintained a sense of humor that kept Wood relatively calm, earning her trust and beginning an enduring friendship.

What’d He Wear?

On the day that Wade impulsively proposes marriage to Daisy—”Sunday, 17th of October”, as Swan dictates for a press release—the two spend an idyllic afternoon at sea, with Wade appropriately dressed in a Breton-striped jumper.

As suggested by their name, Breton stripes originated in the Brittany region of France, where fishermen had long worn long-sleeved jumpers with bold horizontal stripes that would be readily spotted if in need of rescue. The French Navy took notice and officially adopted this marinière in 1858. The style went vogue after World War I thanks to Coco Chanel, who had spied Breton-striped jerseys on the fishermen toiling below her Deauville balcony and brought the look mainstream to the point where both women and men were sporting the look by the early 20th century, often by the sea but more at leisure than labor.

The Breton-striped Wade Lewis is arguably more into leisure than labor.

Though Inside Daisy Clover was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Color), the movie has often been criticized for depicting more contemporary styles of the ’60s than true period fashions of 1930s Hollywood. Indeed, Wade’s seagoing style recalls Sanford Roth’s famous photographs of James Dean, taken a decade earlier in 1955. The choice could have been coincidental as Breton stripes have long enjoyed seagoing associations, or it could have been a way to subtly code Wade as a bisexual actor like Dean, communicating via costume to subvert the restrictions of the waning “Hays Code”.

Wade echoed this attitude in his long-sleeved jumper with its arrangement of navy-and-white balanced stripes. Unlike the wide boat-necked tops of traditional marinière jumpers, Wade’s loose, easy-wearing pullover shirt follows Dean’s shirt design with its soft “Johnny collar” and V-neck opening, though a blue looped thread extending from under the left side of the collar suggests that it may connect to a button hidden under the right collar leaf to close over the chest, if necessary. The raglan sleeves are finished with elasticized cuffs in a lighter marine blue that matches the blouson-style waist hem.

Wade and Daisy announce their engagement.

Wade wears pale-blue cotton trousers that tonally coordinate with the blue-striped shirt as well as his aquatic environment. Clearly seen when Wade pulls his clothes back on after a belowdecks tryst with Daisy, the flat-front trousers have a unique elasticized waistband that’s also rigged with belt loops, though these go unused. The nature of the scene also reveals the trousers’ zip fly—which existed in the ’30s but wasn’t quite mainstream yet—and a short button-tab inside the fly to support the hidden hook-and-bar fastener.

These trousers also have slanted quarter-top side pockets and two back pockets that each close with a scalloped flap that closes through a single white button. The trouser bottoms are plain-hemmed, breaking clean over the tops of his all-white canvas sneakers, worn with dark navy socks.

Despite their lasting association with athletics, modern sneakers can trace their origins to the late 19th century development of plimsolls, designed with rubber soles to keep wearers’ feet dry on wet surfaces. These comfortable and casual shoes gained traction—so to speak—with athletes seeking footwear on tracks and tennis courts, resulting in more sport-oriented shoes appearing through the early 20th century on both sides of the pond from makers like J.W. Foster and Sons, Converse, Spalding, and Keds. The mid-1930s saw additional advances for both sport and sea-oriented sneakers, with Adidas successfully outfitting athletes like Jesse Owens during the 1936 Summer Olympics and Paul Sperry developing the “Top-Sider” siped sole.

While they may lack the then-innovative siped soles intended for wet decks, Wade’s low-top sneakers have white canvas uppers, white rubber soles, and follow the circular vamp oxford (CVO) design with oxford-style lacing and a rounded vamp. Today, all-white canvas CVO sneakers remain a staple from footwear outfitters like Sperry and Vans.

Production photo of Natalie Wood and Robert Redford, likely filming the scene that almost resulted in disaster when the boat unmoored from the pier during heavy winds.

Wade wears a simple yet elegant gold wristwatch with a flat round case and black exotic-scaled leather band. With its minimalist silver dial detailed only with gilt non-numeric hour markers, the piece resembles many contemporary dress watches from upscale brands like Jaeger-LeCoultre, Longines, Omega, and Tissot. Much like the rest of the style throughout Inside Daisy Clover, Wade’s watch better echoes styles of the ’60s than the ’30s, though it at least lacks any details like a date function that would make it undeniably anachronistic.

On the subject of watches… after attaining superstardom in the early ’70s, Redford acquired a Rolex Submariner that could be spied on his wrist in movies like The Candidate (1972), All the President’s Men (1976), and The Electric Horseman (1979).

How to Get the Look

Robert Redford as Wade Lewis in Inside Daisy Clover (1965)

Even early in his career, Robert Redford illustrated that he would be no stranger to great on-screen style, spending a day on the sea in Inside Daisy Clover wearing a classic—and contextually appropriate—Breton-striped pullover shirt with coordinated cotton trousers and canvas sneakers.

• White-and-navy Breton-striped cotton pullover shirt with “Johnny collar” V-neck, long raglan sleeves with blue elasticized cuffs, and blue elasticized waist hem
• Pale-blue cotton flat-front trousers with elasticized waistband, belt loops, quarter-top side pockets, scallop-flapped back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White canvas oxford-laced sneakers with white rubber soles
• Dark navy cotton lisle socks
• Gold dress watch with round gold minimalist dial on black scaled leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

What is it that makes us rich, successful, and unhappy?

The post Inside Daisy Clover: Robert Redford’s Breton Stripes at Sea appeared first on BAMF Style.

David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave in Blowup (1966)

Vitals

David Hemmings as Thomas, hip London photographer

Swinging London, Fall 1966

Film: Blowup
Release Date: December 18, 1966
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Costume Designer: Jocelyn Rickards

Background

Some people are bullfighters, some people are politicians… I’m a photographer.

August 19 being World Photography Day feels like an apt opportunity to delve into Blowup, Michelangelo Antonioni’s enticing and meandering mystery that won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and was nominated for two Academy Awards despite its then-unprecedented sexual content that defied the mainstream movies released under the aging Motion Picture Production Code that had been enforced in Hollywood for over three decades. Indeed, Blowup‘s critical popularity and box-office success has been credited as one of the final blows that killed the restrictive “Hays Code” once and for all, in favor of the MPAA rating system that ushered in a new, uninhibited era of American cinema.

Blowup centers around Thomas (David Hemmings), a stylish young photographer living the swinging London dream, though kept so busy that he bemoans “I haven’t even got a couple of minutes to have my appendix out.”

You’ve got to hand it to the hardworking Thomas, he’ll really do anything to take the perfect shot.

Thomas’ fashionable reputation and abilities attract scores of models, from global supermodel Veruschka (portraying herself) to two audaciously ambitious teens (Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills) who resort to their basest means to procure his talents. Yet, not even nude romps can distract Thomas from the dark possibilities he may have uncovered during a series of photos he snapped on his trusty Nikon F in Maryon Park featuring the mysterious Jane (Vanessa Redgrave), her lover, and a second man who may have been armed with a pistol.

What’d He Wear?

Aside from the oversized and unbuttoned indigo suede shirt and baggy khakis that he wore for the beginning sequence shooting Veruschka, Thomas spends the entirety of Blowup wearing—or at least changing in and out of—the same gingham shirt, white jeans, and boots, supplemented outside the studio with a dark green corduroy sports coat.

The single-breasted jacket is made from a cool shade of dark teal-green corduroy, the rugged cotton woven into tufted ridges known as “wales”. Thomas’ sports coat appears to be made from corduroy of a standard wale, typically measuring around 11 wales per inch. The narrower notch lapels, close fit, suppressed waist, and short length indicate the modernized, fashion-forward influence that would be expected of trendy Thomas, though it’s worth noting that all of his clothes are rooted in a tasteful realm that avoids the excess peacocking often associated with the contemporary mod subculture.

Indeed, aside from the closer fit, Thomas’ corduroy jacket reflects traditional English tailoring details like the full three-button front, double vents, and a flapped ticket pocket in addition to the flapped hip pockets. The shoulders are straight with some padding, and the sleeves are finished with two-button cuffs that match the three dark green plastic buttons on the front.

Thomas wears a light blue-and-white mini-gingham check cotton shirt with a substantial button-down collar that he always wears undone. The long-sleeved shirt also has button cuffs, a front placket, breast pocket, and a single pleat behind each shoulder that adds to the shirt’s roomy fit over Hemmings’ lean frame.

Particularly in shades of blue, gingham check shirts remain popular for men and women more than a half century later, with long-sleeved button-down versions (with breast pockets) available from retailers like J. Crew, L.L. Bean, and Vineyard Vines (via Nordstrom).

“Couple of minutes? I haven’t even got a couple of minutes to have my appendix out.”

Thomas’ white tapered-leg jeans have the distinctive Levi’s “white tab” sewn along the back right pocket, though sources like Beyond Retro and North Workshop have reported that Levi’s typically reserved its “white tab” during the ’60s and ’70s for corduroy and women’s clothing. In addition to Thomas’ trousers being intended for men, close-ups also reveal the cloth is a typical cotton twill rather than corduroy. Vintage finds and eBay listings (like this!) suggest that, if not as widely known, Levi’s did indeed assign its white tab to men’s non-corduroy jeans. (The modern equivalent of Thomas’ slim-cut white jeans would likely be the Levi’s 511.)

Thomas’ jeans follow the traditional five-pocket jeans design, with two curved front pockets, an inset watch pocket on the right, and two patch-style back pockets. Through the tall, narrow belt loops, Thomas wears a wide belt of smooth black leather that closes through a slender silver-toned single-prong buckle.

Though it’s reported that Levi’s typically reserved the “white tab” for corduroy items or women’s clothing, Thomas’ white jeans in Blowup are neither yet still have that distinctive tab sewn along the right back pocket.

Thomas’ well-traveled black leather slip-on boots feature black elastic side gussets similar to the Chelsea boots that were popular among Mods at the time. Unlike traditional Chelsea boots, however, Thomas’ boots appear to be built in two leather pieces—a large vamp piece that covers the toes and the quarters wrapping around the heel—with elastic over the instep, under the vamp, exposed on each side where the two pieces meet.

Thomas’ boots are also a few inches shorter than classic Chelsea boots, rising just over each respective ankle. This traditionally English style was also worn by the contemporary James Bond (Sean Connery) in the two movies that bookended Blowup—Thunderball (1965) and You Only Live Twice (1967)—worn with suits both times. Thomas wears black socks that create a “bootie” effect that make his footwear look a little higher.

Thomas kicks back, ignoring his two curious visitors (Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills) in favor of viewing the prints delivered by his assistant (Tsai Chin). Chin would have a brief role the following year in You Only Live Twice (1967), returning to the Bond franchise nearly forty years later as a poker player in Casino Royale (2006).

For Blowup wardrobe completists (whom I highly doubt exist), Thomas wears white cotton briefs that can be—er—briefly seen during his famous romp with Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills, as he wears his shirt tucked into them!

The final piece of Thomas’ wardrobe is his sleek gold dress watch, with a flat gold rectangular case and a minimalist silver dial detailed only with its gilted hands and matching non-numeric hour markers at only the 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions. He wears the watch strapped to his left wrist on a black leather band.

Another notable watch in Blowup is Jane’s stainless Rolex Submariner, which she wears on a black leather band around the outside of her shirt cuff… and continues wearing even after she takes off her shirt. The ref. 5513 Submariner follows the classic design configuration with its stainless steel case and black bezel, though its been reported that the black dial was actually the rare “Explorer”-style dial with Arabic numerals for the 3, 6, and 9 o’clock hour markers. You can read more about Vanessa Redgrave’s screen-worn Rolex in Nick Gould’s article for Quill & Pad.

The Car

Thomas is evidently doing well for himself, as he drives around London in a 1965 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III Drophead Coupé. The screen-used Rolls had once belonged to Jimmy Savile, manufactured by bespoke coachbuilder H. J. Mulliner Park Ward and delivered to the now-disgraced entertainer in January 1965, originally white but painted black sometime before it appeared on screen. (Source: Blowup: Then & Now)

Thomas finds the coolest way possible to slip behind the wheel of his Silver Cloud III, tossing out the offhand remark to Gillian Hills’ character to “get rid of that bag, it’s diabolical.” Many years later, the actress portraying her blonde pal would inspire Hermès to develop its iconic Birkin bag.

The ’65 Silver Cloud III on screen was manufactured during the penultimate year of Silver Cloud production, which spanned 1955 through 1966 with just under 7,400 produced. Of these, 2,044 were the final Silver Cloud III iteration, which had been introduced to the public in Paris in October 1962. This generation retained the 6.2-liter Rolls-Royce V8 engine developed for the Silver Cloud II, now producing an estimated 220 horsepower and mated to a 4-speed Hydramatic automatic transmission produced under license from General Motors.

How to Get the Look

David Hemmings as Thomas in Blowup (1966)

In his dark green corduroy sports coat, mini-gingham check shirt (rakishly worn with button-down collar undone), white jeans, and ankle boots, Thomas effectively blends timeless style with trendy fits and details to look suitable for his fashionable profession that so highly values personal appearance.

• Dark teal-green corduroy cotton single-breasted 3-button sport jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, flapped hip pockets with flapped ticket pocket, 2-button cuffs, and double vents
• Light blue-and-white mini-gingham check cotton shirt with button-down collar, front placket, breast pocket, button cuffs, and back side pleats
• White cotton twill Levi’s “white tab” tapered-leg jeans with belt loops, curved front pockets, inset watch pocket, patch back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black smooth leather wide belt with slim silver-toned single-prong buckle
• Black leather elastic-instep ankle boots
• Black socks
• White cotton underwear briefs
• Gold dress watch with squared case, squared silver minimalist dial with gold non-numeric hour markers, and smooth black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Nothing like a little disaster for sorting things out.

The post David Hemmings in Blowup appeared first on BAMF Style.

Burt Lancaster as Felix Happer in Local Hero (1983)

Vitals

Burt Lancaster as Felix Happer, eccentric oil executive

Scotland, Fall 1982

Film: Local Hero
Release Date: February 17, 1983
Director: Bill Forsyth
Costumes: Shawn Dale, Pip Newbery, and Penny Rose

Background

I’m talking about the sky, MacIntyre. The constellation of Virgo is very prominent in the sky right now in Scotland. I want you to keep an eye on Virgo for me. Will you do that?

As Leo season transitions into Virgo season, Local Hero feels like the appropriate focus, given the curious astronomy-themed orders under which Knox Oil and Gas president Felix Happer (Burt Lancaster) sends underling “Mac” MacIntyre (Peter Riegert) to Scotland, urging him to keep watching the sky, particularly for comet activity under the Leo and Virgo constellations.

Local Hero was one of the final roles for Burt Lancaster, who made several more film and miniseries appearances before his death in October 1994. We first meet Felix Happer as he sleeps through a business meeting—as so many of us may wish to do, but only Happer can get away with, given his leadership of the company. The meeting centers around a planned oil refinery in Scotland and the decision to send someone to broker the $60 million deal, ultimately choosing Mac who—despite his Scottish-sounding surname—actually has Hungarian roots.

“What soon becomes clear to Macintyre is that Happer is less interested in the details of the deal on the ground than he is about what may take place in the sky above,” writes Margaret McMurphy for Vissiniti.

The ambitious company man Mac arrives in fictional village of “Ferness”, primarily filmed in Pennan on the Aberdeenshire coast, where he meets many of the colorful locals, including their local rep Danny Oldsen (Peter Capaldi), mermaid marine researcher Marina (Jenny Seagrove), and aged beachcomber Ben Knox (Fulton Mackay), who actually owns the beach Mac hopes to purchase for the company and refuses to sell for any price. Finally, Happer himself arrives in Scotland to navigate the local resistance, determined to find an option that would satisfy all parties, including his own dream of operating an astronomical observatory.

Local Hero was nominated for seven BAFTAs, winning Best Direction for Bill Forsyth, who also wrote the BAFTA-nominated screenplay. Lancaster’s supporting performance was also nominated, as was Chris Menges’ cinematography, Michael Bradsell’s editing, Mark Knopfler’s memorable score, and the film itself.

What’d He Wear?

Whether out of sincerity, tact, or a blend of both, Felix Happer arrives in Scotland smartly attired in tweed, rather than the yuppified business suits that Mac had worn for his own arrival. The word “tweed” actually emerged from the Scottish word for twill (“tweel”), in reference to the diagonal weave used to construct this rough woolen fabric; in the early 1830s, London merchant James Locke had misinterpreted an order for “tweels” as a product near the River Tweed, and the corrupted designation soon superseded its original nomenclature.

Due to its rugged and reliable construction, tweed became a favorite cloth for sport jackets such as the belted Norfolk jacket that emerged among English sportsmen later in the 19th century. A full Norfolk jacket is characterized by front and black pleats and a full belt around the waist, followed by later variations like the “half-Norfolk” that sacrificed some traditional Norfolk detailing in favor of less prominent pleats and, typically, only a half-belt around the back.

Happer dresses for Scotland in a half-Norfolk jacket that resembles a standard sport jacket in the front but has the distinguishing back pleats and half-belt. Given the setting, the brown-and-cream nailhead-woven tweed is almost certainly a Harris tweed from the Scottish Hebrides rather than the Irish-made Donegal tweed or the Saxony tweed that originated in Germany.

Happer’s half-Norfolk jacket has notch lapels with straight gorges, rolling to a full three-button front that flatters Lancaster’s 6’2″ frame. The straight shoulders are padded with roped sleeveheads, and front darts shape the jacket to further flatter Lancaster, the former acrobat who retained his athletic silhouette even when pushing 70 during production of Local Hero.

Mac prepares to broker a meeting between the like-minded Felix Happer and Ben Knox.

As it’s a half-Norfolk rather than a full-Norfolk, the front design echoes regular sport jackets with its welted breast pocket and straight flapped hip pockets in lieu of pleats, belt, or bellowed pockets. The back is where the Norfolk-inspired details are presented, specifically the vertical box pleats that curve inwards from the shoulders, aligning parallel at mid-back and each looping over the half-belt, which is positioned about an inch above the crest of the single vent.

Happer wears a white cotton shirt detailed with a spread collar, front placket, and button cuffs. His brown soft woolen tie provides textural harmony with the rougher wool of his tweed jacket and cap.

Happer balances the jacket with a pair of darker chocolate-brown wool flat front trousers. The trousers’ lower rise produces the undesired “triangle” of white shirt fabric beneath the jacket’s buttoned point and the top of the trousers, but this befits a character of advanced age more interested in the sky than style. His belt is a lighter shade of brown that coordinates with his shoes.

Happer wears russet-brown leather monk shoes, a versatile style that Esquire‘s The Handbook of Style describes as “a true chameleon” appropriate for work and play, aptly worn in any but the most formal situation. “Devotees appreciate the monk’s superbly proportioned smartness and offbeat panache as well as its intermediate formality, registering somewhere between that of a slip-on and a lace-up shoe,” wrote Alan Flusser in his seminal volume Dressing the Man.

Apropos its name, these distinctive shoes with their buckled straps originated among 15th century friars in the Italian Alps and—according to Flusser—were popularized after the style was co-opted by a visiting English brother who had been presented with a pair. Monk shoes are typically equipped with either one or two straps that buckle across the vamp. Happer dresses his feet with the simpler single-strap monk shoes, detailed with a straight toe-cap and gold-finished side buckles. His socks are either black or a very dark brown.

Burt Lancaster relaxes on Camusdarach Sands between takes.

Happer wears a gold wristwatch with a smooth black leather strap, fluted bezel, and round white dial boasting a unique sub-register at 6:00 that appears to be a moon-phase complication, which would perfectly befit his fascination with astronomy. According to David Duggan Watches, Patek Phillippe introduced the moon-phase complication to wristwatches in 1925, followed nearly a quarter-century later by Rolex. The technology had been well-established by the early ’80s, though I don’t have the expertise to discern the exact manufacturer of Happer’s watch; the fluted bezel reminded me of Rolex’s Datejust and Day-Date models, but I don’t believe these were also used on their contemporary moon-phase watches.

Happer and Mac work out initial plans for what would ultimately be dubbed the “Happer Institute”.

Happer completes his look with a tan-and-brown striped twill woolen tweed flat cap… also known in Scotland as a “bunnet”, among many other names around the world.

How to Get the Look

Burt Lancaster as Felix Happer in Local Hero (1983)

The dignified if eccentric Felix Happer pays tribute to his destination as he arrives in Scotland wearing a Harris tweed half-Norfolk jacket and tweed checked flat cap, coordinated appropriately with brown woolen tie and trousers as well as monk shoes that bridge the formality of his status and sporty outfit.

• Brown-and-cream nailhead-woven Harris tweed half-Norfolk jacket with straight-gorge notch lapels, three-button cuffs, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and single vent
• White cotton shirt with spread collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Brown soft wool tie
• Dark brown wool flat-front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Brown leather belt
• Russet-brown leather cap-toe monk-strap shoes with gold buckle
• Dark brown socks
• Tan-and-brown striped twill woolen tweed flat cap
• Gold moon-phase watch with round white dial and smooth black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Oldsen, I could grow to love this place.

Footnote

Portraying the celestial-minded Felix Happer wasn’t Burt Lancaster’s first on-screen brush with astrological movies, having starred in Scorpio (1973) a decade earlier opposite Alain Delon; coincidentally, both Lancaster and Delon were Scorpios in real life.

The post Local Hero: Burt Lancaster’s Tweed in Scotland appeared first on BAMF Style.