Colin Farrell as Pádraic Súilleabháin in The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Vitals

Colin Farrell as Pádraic Súilleabháin, simple-minded pub regular

Ireland, Spring 1923

Film: The Banshees of Inisherin
Release Date: October 21, 2022
Director: Martin McDonagh
Costume Designer: Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

One hundred years ago today on April Fool’s Day 1923, aging musician Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) abruptly stopped talking to his erstwhile best friend Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell), like some fool of a moody schoolchild. Despite the timing and the fact that they weren’t rowing (though it does seem like they were rowing), this ignites a tragicomic personal drama of donkeys and amputated fingers that—at least for the sparse residents of the fictional isle of Inisherin—outweighs the bloody conflict across the sea on the Irish mainland.

Either a “happy lad” or “limited man” depending on who you ask, Pádraic is happy to eke out his simple life with his more intelligent sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon), his donkey Jenny, and drinking buddies like Colm and Dominic (Barry Keoghan), with little more characterizing his life than the occasional two-hour chat describing what was in his little donkey’s pony’s shite… until Colm strangely decides he wants more from his remaining years.

“More fool me?” Pádraic is in for a rude awakening after he briefly allows himself to consider Colm’s disavowal of their friendship to be a mere April Fool’s Day prank.

The Banshees of Inisherin reunited writer and director Martin McDonagh with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, both of whom had starred in McDonagh’s first film (In Bruges) 14 years earlier. Though nominated for nine feckin’ Academy Awards—including Best Picture and acting accolades for its lead and supporting cast—The Banshees of Inisherin didn’t win any Oscars, though it did receive three BAFTAs honoring McDonagh’s screenplay and Keoghan’s and Condon’s supporting performances.

Beautifully filmed by cinematographer Ben Davis, The Banshees of Inisherin meditates on niceness, depression, and how spite and relentless pessimism can erode seemingly relentless optimism, as illustrated by Pádraic’s decline from “one of life’s good guys” to a bitterly vengeful arsonist.

What’d He Wear?

Pádraic rotates through a limited but hard-wearing closet, all built by costume designer Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh’s team using regional fabrics like Irish linen and wool. Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh explained in conversation with Tomris Laffly for IndieWire that “‘Brendan and Colin really, really, really understand the importance of what a costume can bring to the character. They were engaged with the whole process,’ which entailed dipping the costumes into a variety of ‘crazy products,’ putting stones in pockets, tying garments up with twine, hanging them up, and in some cases, even burning them for a lived-in appearance.”

“That whole period is hugely important,” she added. “The Republic of Ireland came into being between 1916 and 1923. So everything is true to time. The silhouettes are all correct—we wanted those shapes on the little roads by the sea, on the way to church.”

The Striped Jacket

Pádraic’s everyday outfit consists of a mismatched jacket, waistcoat, and trousers, all in differently colored and patterned wool. The weathered single-breasted jacket is made from a charcoal wool, with a stripe that alternates between a beige chalk-stripe and a faded taupe stripe. The shape of its peak lapels resemble the decidedly French “cran necker” style, rolling to a three-button front.

Unstructured with natural shoulders, ventless back, and long sleeves, the jacket looks slightly oversized as evident by the long sleeves that envelop his wrists. Unlike conventional tailored jacket cuffs, the sleeves of Pádraic’s jacket are finished with banded edges devoid of buttons or vents. The jacket also has straight flapped hip pockets and a breast pocket with a subtle curve as it slopes downward toward his chest.

The Waistcoat

Pádraic typically wears a dark charcoal herringbone woolen flannel single-breasted waistcoat with seven mixed brown-and-tan buttons fastened up the front from the straight-cut bottom to the narrow notch lapels.

The despair of a lost friendship vs. the brief respite upon thinking it was just all one big April Fool’s Day gag.

Trousers

Pádraic’s woolen flat-front trousers are cut amply through the thighs and legs, where they differ between being finished with plain-hemmed bottoms or the odd pair with turn-ups (cuffs). He cycles through dark gray Donegal tweed trousers—characterized by their telltale flecks of colored yarn—and taupe flannel trousers.

Belt loops weren’t yet standardized on trousers, so Pádraic wearing his wide tan leather belt around the top of his trouser waistband illustrates how men—particularly those without the means to have their clothes professionally tailored—found solutions to hold their trousers up without suspenders (braces). The belt closes through a dulled silver-toned single-prong buckle.

Pádraic’s Shirts

Beverly Hills shirtmaker Anto shared in an Instagram post that they made shirts for The Banshees of Inisherin, and—given their high-profile customers on- and off-screen—it’s likely this would have included Colin Farrell’s shirts as Pádraic.

When we first meet our small cast on Inisherin on Friday, April 1, Pádraic wears a salmon-pink linen shirt, detailed with black shadow stripes that are arranged unconventionally diagonal and vertical across the long point collar rather than following the lines of the collar around the neck, as most striped shirts do. This shirt has tonal pink buttons up the wide front placket and on the barrel cuffs.

Shirt #1: Salmon-pink Irish linen with black shadow stripes

Pádraic also wears a nailhead-woven linen shirt, unevenly dyed in purple that shows richer in some spots and more faded in others. The shirt follows the same design with its large point collar and tonal buttons (in this case, purple) to close the front placket and cuffs.

Shirt #2: Irregularly dyed purple nailhead Irish linen

For the brief scene in which Pádraic cruelly hoodwinks Colm’s new friend and fellow musician Declan (Aaron Monaghan), he wears a beige shirt with widely spaced burgundy shadowed bar stripes that follow the same unique diagonal direction on the collar, perpendicular (rather than parallel) to its edges.

Shirt #3: Beige with widely spaced burgundy bar stripes

Though hardly formal, Pádraic’s dressiest shirt is off-white with closely spaced black pencil stripes, made from a smoother twill cloth than the coarser linen of his colorful shirts though the stripe follows the same irregular direction on the collar.

Shirt #4: Off-white with black pencil stripes

Blue “Sunday Best”

The first Sunday after Colm stops talking to Pádraic, the residents of Inisherin gather for church, with Pádraic dressed in a variation of his usual attire but debuting the white striped shirt with a newsboy cap, a charcoal striped tweed single-breasted coat, and a matching dark blue tic-checked tweed waistcoat and trousers.

The ventless three-breasted coat has notch lapels, welted breast pocket, and straight flapped hip pockets. We see only little more of the blue tic-checked tweed waistcoat, aside from the fact that it is single-breasted and rigged with dramatic notch lapels, so cut that each side is separated more into a wide collar and a sharp flap below it.

Pádraic’s Suit

After spending most of The Banshees of Inisherin cycling through various mismatched jackets, waistcoats, and trousers, Pádraic finally pulls on a matching three-piece suit for the somber weekend that begins with burying Jenny on Saturday night, confronting Colm, and then finally setting Colm’s house aflame on Sunday.

Completing the charcoal waistcoat that he often wore orphaned, the charcoal herringbone suit includes a single-breasted, three-button ventless jacket detailed with a welted breast pocket, jetted hip pockets, and three-button cuffs and a pair of flat-front trousers with side pockets and cuffed bottoms.

In a first for Pádraic’s on-screen wardrobe, he also wears a tie—made from a solid black cotton or Irish linen.

A black tie in church. Note the matching charcoal herringbone weave of Pádraic’s suit jacket and waistcoat, which appears to be the same waistcoat he’s worn throughout The Banshees of Inisherin.

Pádraic’s Sweaters

Any discussion of costumes in The Banshees of Inisherin would be lacking without celebrating the contributions of Delia Barry, the octogenarian artisan who hand-knit the film’s rich array of knitwear. After all, Finlay Renwick touted The Banshees of Inisherin as “the next great knitwear film” in his UK Esquire article.

The 83-year-old Mrs. Barry started knitting when she was a little girl, her talents growing to the point where she was frequently making clothes for herself and even crafted knitwear for Meryl Streep to wear in the 1998 Irish period drama Dancing at Lughnasa, as reported by the New York Times. After Paddy, her husband of nearly 49 years, died of pancreatic cancer in 2010, Mrs. Barry involved herself in local knitting groups to re-energize herself and distract from the sadness. Her involvement in The Banshees of Inisherin came through her neighbor in County Wicklow, Judith Devlin, who was the production’s costume supervisor and connected her with costume designer Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh.

“All Delia had to go on was a couple of black-and-white photos of some Irish fishermen in 1921 provided by costume designer Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh and rough measurements of the stars,” reports Jane Fryer for the Daily Mail. “The Banshees is the first film where she’s had her name in the credits. ‘I missed it because I’d left the cinema by then, but they sent me a photo—that was very nice.'”

“In some cases, she only had a partial image of a shoulder detail or chest to go on,” adds the blog Craft Fix. “Her daily target was to knit at least 100g of [Cushendale Double Knitting (DK)] yarn. Impressive stuff, especially when these are far from mindless knits in the round! Delia knit all the jumpers flat (in pieces) on two straight needles (mostly size 4.5mm) and then stitched them together at the end. Most of the sweaters have a drop shoulder construction, so there’s four rectangle shapes (excluding necklines) for the front, back and two sleeves.”

The most talked-about sweater from The Banshees of Inisherin is arguably the brick-red collared jumper that Pádraic wears on the Tuesday that Colm first sends a severed finger flying at his door. Jane Fryer for the Daily Mail describes it best as a “dark red fisherman’s jumper with [four] stockinette panels with moss stitch diamond and purl stitch criss-cross line motifs, separated by narrower columns of moss stitch,” though the most noticeable detail is arguably the large ribbed-knit Peter Pan-style collar.  “‘I’d never done a collar like that before!’ she says. ‘It took two days to figure it out. But when I saw them close-up on the big screen, I could see all the stitches and I thought I did a good job.'”

Good job, Delia!

Craft Fix goes into even greater detail, explaining that “she knit the ribbed collar as one piece on two straight needles, starting from the top of the neck working down, increasing stitches on alternate rows near each edge to form the long points.” After rising to the challenge of crafting one, Ms. Barry was required to create a second in a darker shade of red that was determined would present better on screen… and which may also represent the first blood spilled in Pádraic and Colm’s petty squabble. According to the Daily Mail, just the Cushendale DK wool for this single sweater cost about £130.

Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh theorized that the sweater would have been handmade for Pádraic by his sister to keep warm through a chilly winter, explaining to the New York Times that “Siobhan would have thought, ‘Well. Mammy and Daddy are dead, and he’s my little brother, and I’m going to look after him, and I want him to look good, so I’ll put a collar on it as a little touch.'”

“Wrapped up in that collar, and the boyish length of it, were Mr. Farrell’s character’s innocence and naïveté, which are essential to the film’s plot,” describes Lou Stoppard for the New York Times.

With the loss of Colm’s finger comes the loss of Pádraic’s innocence.

The following day, Pádraic wears his second of Ms. Barry’s lovingly crafted sweaters, this a more conventionally styled chunky fisherman’s turtleneck sweater in royal blue with a wide ribbed roll-neck.

Everything Else

Pádraic occasionally adds the layer of a knee-length coat made from a faded olive boiled-texture wool. The single-breasted coat has a large ulster collar, flapped hip pockets, and just two buttons to close at waist level.

Pádraic unknowingly says goodbye to a friendship… and one of Colm’s fingers.

Pádraic doesn’t often wear a hat, but when he does, it’s a charcoal tic-checked tweed newsboy cap that Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh specifically chose as “everybody wore one to protect themselves from the elements.”

Sorry, Declan.

While Pádraic may cycle through his tops, trousers, and outerwear, all he needs as far as footwear are one solid pair of boots. Crafted like more modern leather work boots, his hardy cap-toe boots have weathered dark brown leather uppers and are derby-laced through seven sets of metal eyelets.

Unfortunately, the best close-up of Pádraic’s boots also includes a close-up of a severed finger vomited up by a donkey.

What to Imbibe

There’s no place like an Irish pub to drink Guinness, and that appears to be the beer of choice poured for Pádraic and his pals from countless bottles stocked behind the bar at J.J. Devine’s pub. The Digital Fix recently reported on Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson praising the Guinness Zero non-alcoholic beer that they drank on screen, a proper replacement for the previous concoctions meant to stand in for the famous Irish stout.

Farrell said; “Guinness Zero, thank God for it. On the production, we’d have had to drink an inutterable amount of shite. And it’s not shite, it’s actually really tasty – the Guinness Zero. It’s a bit sweet for his [Brendan Gleeson’s] tongue, because he likes the proper stuff. But they only came out with it recently, and it’s delicious.” … Gleeson says that the old days when the props guys had to make Guinness substitutes were; “ghastly.” Farrell says; “it was grape juice with cream. All sorts of stuff you shouldn’t be mixing, curdled.” Gleeson says; “or flat coke with all sorts of unspeakables on top of it. It’s important to suffer for art, and this was suffering.”

Even authentic Guinness isn’t enough to repair Colm and Pádraic’s fractured friendship.

On a particularly tough night, Pádraic downs shots until he’s “out of his brains on whiskey,” as Dominic describes. While certainly Irish whiskey, we can’t see if he’s drinking H.S. Persse’s or Powers whiskey, both of which are advertised in the pub.

How to Get the Look

Colin Farrell as Pádraic Súilleabháin in The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). Photo credit: Jonathan Hession.

Pádraic Súilleabháin wears a series of hardy layers for his sea-hardened yet simple life on Inisherin, anchored by a trusty striped jacket and tonally coordinated waistcoat that he cycles through a number of colorful shirts buttoned up to the neck and uniquely detailed hand-knit sweaters.

That said, the standard Pádraic daily attire seems to consist of:

• Charcoal striped wool single-breasted 3-button jacket with cran necker lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, banded cuffs, and ventless back
• Pink striped or solid purple Irish linen long-sleeved shirt with long point collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Dark charcoal herringbone woolen flannel 7-button waistcoat with notch lapels and straight-cut bottom
• Dark gray Donegal tweed or taupe-brown woolen flannel flat-front trousers with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Tan leather belt with silver-toned single-prong buckle
• Dark brown leather derby-laced cap-toe work boots
• Dark brown socks

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie so.

You can read more about the style from The Banshees of Inisherin at these great articles I sourced for this post:

• Craft Fix: “How the Banshees of Inisherin Sweaters were Knit”
• Daily Mail: “And the Oscar for knitwear goes to… Delia Barry, 83, who started knitting classes after her husband died and is now the toast of Hollywood for her magnificent jumpers worn by Colin Farrell and Barry Keoghan in The Banshees of Inisherin” by Jane Fryer
• Esquire UK: “‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ Is the Next Great Knitwear Film” by Finlay Renwick
• GQ: “The Banshees of Inisherin Is Filled With Beautiful Colin Farrell Sweaters” by Gabriella Paiella
• IndieWire: “Want Colin Farrell’s ‘Banshees of Inisherin’ Sweaters? You’ll Need to Find an Octogenarian Knitter” by Tomris Laffly
• New York Times: “A Knitwear Sensation at 83” by Lou Stoppard
• Vogue: “Bury Me in a Banshees of Inisherin Knit” by Liam Hess

The Quote

I am not putting me donkey outside when I’m sad, okay?

The post Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin appeared first on BAMF Style.

Leslie Howard and Bette Davis in The Petrified Forest (1936)

Vitals

Leslie Howard as Alan Squier, itinerant and nihilistic writer “… in a way”

Black Mesa, Arizona, January 1936

Film: The Petrified Forest
Release Date: February 6, 1936
Director: Archie Mayo
Costume Designer: Orry-Kelly (uncredited)

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

“Petrified Forest, eh? A suitable haven for me. Well, perhaps that’s what I’m destined to become… an interesting fossil for future study,” suggests the self-deprecating Alan Squier (Leslie Howard) after he learns more about the surrounding desert region he’s entered after his thumb-powered journey to “set forth and discover America.”

Alan was portrayed on both stage and screen by the multi-talented Leslie Howard, an English actor, director, producer, and writer who was born 130 years ago today on April 3, 1893. Howard was one of the biggest stars of the 1930s, thanks to his performances in movies like Of Human Bondage (1934), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), Pygmalion (1938), and his perhaps most enduring performance as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind (1939).

Portending his fervent wartime activity in service to the Allies during World War II, one of Howard’s final roles was in Pimpernel Smith, a 1941 retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel that Howard also produced and directed, updating the story to a contemporary anti-Nazi thriller. Pimpernel Smith was considered to be such effective pro-British propaganda that it has been cited as a factor in why BOAC Flight 777 may have been specifically targeted when it was shot down by eight German fighters on June 1, 1943, killing all 17 aboard including the 50-year-old Leslie Howard.

Like many of his generation, Howard was an accomplished actor of both stage and screen. It was while originating the role of Alan Squier when The Petrified Forest opened on Broadway in 1935 that Howard encountered a talented but relatively unknown actor named Humphrey Bogart, who was playing the John Dillinger-inspired outlaw “Duke” Mantee, whose armed takeover of the Petrified Forest BBQ catalyzes the drama. When Warner Brothers tapped Howard for the screen adaptation but wanted to cast the more established—and thus bankable—Edward G. Robinson as Duke, Howard refused to reprise his own role without Bogart opposite him. Proving Howard’s own bankability, Warner Brothers caved and a cinematic legend was born as The Petrified Forest reignited Bogart’s screen career, leading to his own stardom within five years. Bogart would remain forever grateful to Howard, to the extent that he and Lauren Bacall named their second child Leslie Howard Bogart in tribute to the late actor when she was born in 1952.

The Petrified Forest on Broadway in 1935. Note how closely the costumes worn by Humphrey Bogart (far left, seated in dark waistcoat) and Leslie Howard (far right, standing in two-button tweed jacket) resemble what they would wear in the following year’s film adaptation.

The Petrified Forest is set in an isolated diner at the edge of the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, run by Jason Maple (Porter Hall) with the help of his nostalgic cowboy father “Gramp” (Charley Grapewin) and his daughter, the lonely artist Gabrielle (Bette Davis) who is instantly smitten as the dusty and disillusioned Alan strolls into their eatery and regales them with the stories of his experiences.

“A writer? Well, that’s a funny thing,” comments Gramp. “Yes, it is,” laughs Alan, adding “I belong to a vanishing race… I’m one of the intellectuals.” Alan elaborates on feeling increasingly out of place in the world, as he was “born in 1901, the year Victoria died… I was just too late for the Great War and too soon for the new order.”

On the lam after a deadly robbery, Duke’s gang ultimately takes over the Petrified Forest BBQ, frightening its handful of staff and patrons… aside from the fatalistic Alan, who sees the situation as an opportunity for engaging the dangerous Duke in philosophical debates—and perhaps an opportunity for a sacrifice that would allow Gabrielle to escape her dead-end life and follow her dreams beyond the petrified forest.

Alan: Do you believe in astrology?
Duke: I couldn’t say, pal.
Alan: Well, I don’t normally. But tonight, as I was walking along that road… I began to feel the enchantment of this desert. I looked up at the sky, and the stars seemed to be mocking me, reproving me. They were pointing the way to that gleaming sign and saying: “There’s the end of your tether. You thought you could escape and skip off to the Phoenix Palace… but we know better.” That’s what the stars told me… for perhaps they know that carnage is imminent, and that I’m due to be among the fallen. Fascinating thought.
Duke: Let’s skip it. Here’s happy days.

What’d He Wear?

Alan Squier may be a drifter, but he’s still a philosophical one and dresses the part in his tweed jacket and tie, albeit dusty and disheveled after his extended time on the road, a look that was requested several years ago by a BAMF Style reader.

The single-breasted tweed sports coat has two buttons that Leslie Howard always wears both fastened, bucking the sartorial convention that informs men to never button the bottom button of their jackets, and there are three buttons at the end of each cuff. The tweed birdseye weave is a larger scale than usual, resulting in a jacquard diamond-shaped pattern with irregular flecks of fabric adding texture and character. The ventless jacket has notch lapels and patch pockets over the hips and left breast, the latter dressed with a white linen handkerchief.

Alan wears a plain white cotton shirt with a long spearpoint-style collar, front placket, and button cuffs which he often wears fastened but with the rounded edges self-cuffed. Unlike most drifters—even of that era—who likely wouldn’t bother with neckwear, Alan still wears a light-colored woolen knit tie, its coarse texture harmonious coordinating with his tweed jacket.

Alan’s mid-colored woolen flannel trousers are likely pleated and possibly even worn with a belt, though his practice of keeping both buttons of his jacket fastened prevents us from clearly seeing any details around the waist. The trousers have side pockets and a full fit through the legs down to the bottoms, which are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

The lighter color of his apron-toe derby shoes suggests tan leather, worn with dark socks.

Alan’s medium-colored felt trilby looks a bit misshapen and dusty from his hard travel, detailed with a darker narrow grosgrain ribbon.

Signifying him as more of an intellectual than the stereotypical vagrant, Alan wears a pair of pinky rings—one on each hand. The ring on his right pinky appears to be a simple band, while the left pinky ring is a chunkier signet ring.

What to Imbibe

Alan pairs his lunch with a refreshing Apache Beer, a regional brew that the Petrified Forest BBQ advertises extensively in signs posted throughout the dining area. Phoenix-based Arizona Brewing Company had just introduced the beer in June 1934, just a year and a half before The Petrified Forest was filmed and released.

Apache touted itself as “the most popular beer in Arizona” and, within a year, it was being distributed throughout the southwestern United States. The brewery continued to innovate both its products and packaging, through it restructured during World War II and ceased production of Apache Beer just shy of a decade after it was introduced, realigning behind its new A-1 Beer brand. In October 1964, the brewery was sold to the Carling Brewing Company of Cleveland. (You can read more about Apache and the Arizona Brewing Company in this comprehensive article by Ed Sipos for American Breweriana Journal, excerpted by BeerHistory.com.)

When Alan returns after Duke Mantee’s takeover of the Petrified Forest BBQ, Duke offers him a beer, but Alan requests “do you mind if I have some of that whiskey instead?” He gets served a pint of Golden Eagle rye whiskey which, like Apache Beer, is considerably well-advertised throughout the joint.

Unlike Apache Beer, I can’t verify if Golden Eagle was an actual brand at the time of production or if this was merely a prop label. There was a Golden Eagle Distilleries Company which produced bourbon and rye, founded in San Francisco in 1903, though it would be negatively impacted by the famous earthquake three years later and wouldn’t survive for more than a decade, all but vanished from the City by the Bay by 1912 according to the Virtual Museum of Historical Bottles and Glass.

“You better not drink any more of that rye whiskey,” Gabrielle later warns him. “It isn’t the rye, it’s the same disease that’s afflicting Boze… frustration!” Alan exclaims in response.

How to Get the Look

Leslie Howard as Alan Squier in The Petrified Forest (1936)

After brushing off the dust and adjusting a button here and a tie knot there, the dignified drifter Alan Squier presents a relatively timeless traveling outfit in his tweed sports coat, woolen tie, and flannel trousers.

• Diamond jacquard birdseye-woven tweed single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• White cotton shirt with spearpoint collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Light-colored woolen knit tie
• Mid-colored woolen flannel pleated trousers with side pockets and turn-ups/cuffs
• Tan leather apron-toe derby shoes
• Dark socks
• Dark felt trilby
• Simple band ring, worn on right pinky
• Signet ring, worn on left pinky

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Oh, I’m eternally right… but what good does it do me?

The post Leslie Howard in The Petrified Forest appeared first on BAMF Style.

Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale on Poker Face, Episode 1.01: “Dead Man’s Hand”

Vitals

Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale, casino cocktail waitress and human lie detector

Nevada, November 2021

Series: Poker Face
Episode: “Dead Man’s Hand” (Episode 1.01)
Air Date: January 26, 2023
Director: Rian Johnson
Creator: Rian Johnson
Costume Designer: Trayce Gigi Field

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Despite the mysteries that drive each episode, it was no mystery to me that Poker Face would immediately become one of my favorite new shows of 2023. As intended, this case-of-the-week series could softly be described as a modern update to Columbo, with its “howcatchem” structure (rather than the traditional murder-mystery “whodunit”) and a scrappy lead character with an uncanny ability to read people, here brought to life by the amazing Natasha Lyonne, who celebrates her 44th birthday today.

Of course, Lyonne’s Charlie Cale isn’t a cop—as she’s quick to remind people. Instead, she’s on the run—in a distinctive car, like Lieutenant Columbo—adding an itinerant element suggestive of the ’60s TV series The Fugitive as Charlie is forced to earn her living through odd jobs in various cities all while eluding capture… though it’s not intrepid police hounding Charlie, but rather Cliff Legrand (Benjamin Bratt), the slick enforcer of a dangerous gambling syndicate.

Lyonne explained to The Hollywood Reporter that she found further character inspiration for Charlie Cale among Gene Hackman in Night Moves, Elliot Gould’s interpretation of Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye, and Peter Falk in both Columbo and Wings of Desire, as well as Jeff Bridges’ relaxed stoner at the heart of The Big Lebowski.

We first meet Charlie living a comfortably simple and booze-soaked existence in her trailer, parked in the desert outside the Reno-like city where she earns her living as a cocktail waitress in a casino run by the crooked Sterling Frost Jr. (Adrian Brody), who ultimately calls on Charlie and her innate ability to detect lies or, more accurately, to call bullshit! when she hears it.

What’d He Wear?

Departing from the boho-Manhattanite garb that Natasha Lyonne wears in her Emmy-winning Netflix series Russian Doll, costume designer Trayce Gigi Field explained to Jason Diamond for GQ that she developed a “1970s meets Western meets desert” mood board that ran the gamut from classic rock stars to California Split. “And while some stars might give no input or—possibly worse—too much to say about their styling, Lyonne was instantly sold on Field’s vision. And Lyonne pulls off the looks—which Field says incorporated a mix of new and vintage, from brands including YSL and Banana Republic—like she’s wearing her own clothes.”

We’re introduced to Charlie before her workday begins, with a morning ritual that includes a cardigan and a Coors Light. She crosses from her trailer to a distinctive cardigan draped over a folding chair, pulling it on and tying the sash before settling in for her pre-shift brewski.

Recalling The Dude’s famous Pendleton sweater in The Big Lebowski, Charlie wears a Banana Republic Heritage Jacquard Cardigan, reissued within the past few years when it retailed for $190. “Our designers found this geometric, jacquard pattern used in a piece from the Banana Republic archives and chose to revive it here in a shawl-collar silhouette, knitted from one of our softest, most-sustainably minded yarns,” read the description.

Though Banana Republic described the color as “latte cream”, the finished look is more of a charcoal-on-tan jacquard Southwestern design of triangles and squares, crafted in a comfortably thick blend of 42% organic cotton, 32% recycled polyester, and 26% wool. (“Jacquard” refers more to the weaving method than the design, consisting of a motif woven directly into the fabric—often using differently colored yarns—rather than a print.) The shawl collar and sash are trimmed with charcoal edges, and the ribbed sleeves and hem are a solid tan. Detailed with patch-style hip pockets, the sweater offers a loose, relaxed fit that extends to Lyonne’s legs at mid-thigh.

“Trayce was so great at realizing the sweet spot between the oversized sweater we stole from The Dude in The Big Lebowski to her more standard uniform with added flair, like sunglasses and baseball hats from trucker stops [while we were] on the road.,” Natasha Lyonne explained to W Magazine.

The shorts have a copper snap closure, and the waistband is elasticized across the back. The two large patch pockets on the front extend from the waistline to the hem with curved openings, and there’s an additional patch pocket over the back right.

Tucked into her shorts, Charlie wears a dark heathered gray short-sleeved crew-neck T-shirt that isn’t one of her retro-styled band tees like the fan-favorite Fleetwood Mac shirt she later wears.

Note the small Hammies tag embroidered onto the left thigh of Charlie’s shorts as she kickstarts her day.

Charlie continues dressing for comfort in her slipper boots, identified as the “Aval” style from Blazin Roxx, a division of M&F Western Products. (While currently sold out as of April 2023, these have frequently appeared affordably listed on Walmart and Zulilly.)

Though marketed as a red-and-blue colorway, the calf-high textile uppers are an Aztec-inspired geometric print in brick-red, slate-blue, navy, gray, and tan, accented with brown faux shearling lining and brown rawhide tassel accents laced through a single large gunmetal-finished eyelet on each side atop the shafts. The brown studded rubber soles allow Charlie to effectively wear them as boots while out and about.

Charlie coordinates the Southwestern designs in her cardigan and slipper boots.

Though I don’t believe either of these pieces reappear in Charlie’s “road closet” once she goes on the run and cycles through many of the same pieces, one constant of her wardrobe is her Arizona trucker hat, which Field explained to Fashionista‘s Fawnia Soo Hoo served a practical purpose: “The hat just keeps the sun [out of her eyes],” says Field. “It’s all genuine and comes from a real place. So whenever it was appropriate for her to wear it, we put it on. Also, because Natasha loves hats.”

An embroidered brown “Z” against the off-white mesh identifies her hat as a Zephyr, available from Amazon.The structured front is a brown 65% polyester and 35% cotton blend twill, with a brown, beige, and tan pentagonal patch celebrating the great state of Arizona and one of its stately buildings.

Charlie would transition to more squared “Elvis”-style sunglasses for most of the series, but she begins in a set of oversized gold-framed aviator sunglasses with green-tinted lenses and a reinforced brow bar recalling the Ray-Ban Outdoorsman frame. “The shades, particularly their size, represent one of the many ways you can see Lyonne’s personal style bleeding into the character: they call to mind the Gen X slacker-cool 1990s era when Lyonne started making a name for herself,” explains Jason Diamond for GQ.

Charlie tweets while catching a ride to work with her ill-fated friend and fellow casino employee Natalie (Dascha Polanco).

Charlie stacks her middle fingers with multiple rings, not spreading them to any of her other fingers. At the outset, she appears to wear two on her right middle finger: a plain yellow-gold band and a chunkier ring that Meideya identified via TikTok as their Red Hexagon Ring, so-named for the red hexagonal surface against the 18-karat gold-filled steel ring. On Charlie’s left hand, she wears two more gold rings and a wider ribbed silver ring.

Field explained to GQ that Charlie’s simple digital watch was a suggestion from Rian Johnson. She wears a stainless steel Casio A158WA-1DF, the type of metal-cased and -strapped digital timepiece that’s been undergoing a revival thanks to Stranger Things-inspired ’80s nostalgia. Inside its 33mm case, the quartz-powered watch boasts a luminous rectangular dial with an alarm and stopwatch, strapped to a steel three-piece link bracelet.

Just as she isn’t afraid to mix metal tones on her hands, Charlie wears both gold and silver necklaces at the same time. Her primary necklace is a flat 18-karat yellow gold necklace that is likely from Emily & Lucy Jewelry, based on one of Field’s Instagram posts that tags this L.A.-based designer. Though she occasionally wears this with another gold necklace, she wears it in “Dead Man’s Hand” with a longer silver chain-link necklace.

Though Charlie’s style would differ more on the road with leather jackets, vintage vests, black jeans, and cowboy boots, she ultimately returns to a similar aesthetic when she’s brought back to Nevada in the final episode of the first season in yet another patterned cardigan worn with a gray T-shirt.

What to Imbibe

Charlie establishes her beer of choice as Coors Light, cracking a can to start the day before she even goes to work. Even at work, the staff knows of Charlie’s preference, automatically pushing a silver bullet in front of her when she sidles up to the bar for breakfast the next day.

Following the success of Miller Lite in the early 1970s, the Colorado-based Coors Brewing Company revived the “Coors Light” brand it had briefly introduced as a low-caloric alternative just before World War II. This current iteration of Coors Light was introduced in August 1978 with a 4.2% ABV and remains one of the top-selling beers in the United States, ranked #2 in 2020.

Coors Light is notably packaged in a silver can, designed by Cuban-American artist Marc Barrios to visually differentiated from the famous yellow cans of Coors Banquet. In the late 2000s, Coors rolled out Lyle Small’s “cold-activated” can technology designed to gradually turn the mountains on the can blue as the lager inside reached optimal drinking temperature… around 46 °F.

She may live at a relaxed pace, but Charlie prefers not to wait until her can turns blue to drink her morning Coors Light.

During her meeting with Sterling Frost Jr. in his office, she delays on his invitation to take a drink until asking “bar still open?” and grabbing a can of Heineken for herself. This 5.0% ABV Dutch pale lager celebrated its 150th anniversary this year, as the first Heineken was brewed in 1873. Like Coors Light, Heineken’s packaging has reached iconic status, sold in green bottles (or cans) detailed with a red star.

The Car

A secondary star to Natasha Lyonne is Charlie’s blue 1969 Plymouth Barracuda fastback, a classic compact American muscle car that was inspired by a real-life Barracuda owned by Noah Segan. Given to him by cinematographer Tom Richmond, Segan’s Barracuda also prominently featured in the actor’s directorial debut, Blood Relatives.

Though it initially fails to start at the beginning of “Dead Man’s Hand”, Charlie’s Barracuda would become intrinsically tied to her character as she snakes her way across the blue highways of the United States in this classic compact of Detroit muscle.

How to Get the Look

Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale on Poker Face, Episode 1.01: “Dead Man’s Hand”

In her comfortably broken-in style anchored by a chunky cardigan, aviators, and a trucker snapback cap, laidback lie detector Charlie Cale sets a sartorial example of relaxed leisure that defies gender.

• Charcoal-on-tan jacquard Southwestern-print cotton/polyester/wool-blend shawl-collar cardigan with waist sash and hip pockets
  • Banana Republic Heritage Jacquard Cardigan
• Dark heathered gray crew-neck short sleeve T-shirt
• Rust-brown stretch corduroy 2″-inseam shorts with elasticized waistband, curved-entry front patch pockets, and back-left patch pocket
  • Hammies Women’s Fall Short
• Blue, red, tan, and gray Southwestern-printed calf-high “slipper boots” with brown faux shearling lining, tassel accents, and studded rubber soles
  • Blazin Roxx Aval Geometric Tassel-Accent Slipper Boots
• Brown-and-beige “Arizona” snapback trucker hat
  • Zephyr
• Gold-framed “Outdoorsman”-style aviator sunglasses with reinforced brow bar and green-tinted lenses
• Yellow-gold flat necklace
• Silver chain-link necklace
• Two rings on her right middle ringer:
  • 18-karat gold-filled steel Meidya Red Hexagon Ring with red hexagonal surface
  • Gold band
• Three rings on her left middle finger:
  • Two gold rings
  • Silver ribbed ring
• Casio A158WA-1DF stainless steel digital watch on steel three-piece link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, currently streaming on Peacock.

Learn more about the style and costume design of Poker Face from these great articles that I sourced from for this post:

• Fashionista: “In ‘Poker Face,’ Natasha Lyonne Solves Murders in a ’70s-meets-‘Big Lebowski’ Wardrobe” by Fawnia Soo Hoo
• GQ: “Natasha Lyonne’s Poker Face Character Is TV’s Best-Dressed Drifter” by Jason Diamond
• The Hollywood Reporter: “In ‘Poker Face,’ Natasha Lyonne Can’t Help But to Crack the Case” by Jackie Strause
• The Mary Sue: “‘Poker Face’ Is Your Next Rian Johnson Fashion Obsession” by Rachel Leishman
• Reddit: “r/PokerFace Costume/Wardrobe Megathread!?”
• Salon: “”She goes chic very fast”: “Poker Face” costume designer on creating Natasha Lyonne’s iconic outfits” by Joy Saha
• Shop Your TV: “Poker Face”
• Spotern: “Poker Face”
• W Magazine: “How Poker Face’s Costume Designer Transformed Hollywood’s Most Recognizable Stars” by Dino Bonacic

The Quote

I’m still pretty much a dumbass, and I’m doin’ just fine.

The post Poker Face: Charlie’s Jacquard Cardigan appeared first on BAMF Style.

Roger Moore and Kristina Wayborn in Octopussy (1983)

Vitals

Roger Moore as James Bond, British government agent

Udaipur, India, Spring 1983

Film: Octopussy
Release Date: June 6, 1983
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Emma Porteous
Tailor: Douglas Hayward

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy 00-7th of April! Easter weekend feels like the appropriate occasion to celebrate the debonair Roger Moore’s evening-wear for James Bond’s memorable “egg hunt” in his penultimate 007 adventure—the provocatively titled Octopussy, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this June.

Expanded from one of Ian Fleming’s short stories of the same name, Octopussy sent Mr. Bond to India for the first time. During his first night in Udaipur, he tracks down Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan) to the casino where he’s playing his nightly backgammon. Following his, uh, instinct, Bond abandons watching Kamal’s shady backgammon game to join the seductive blonde Magda (Kristina Wayborn) at the bar… striking out almost immediately. He follows her back to the game, where he steps in for a blowhard major to challenge Kamal to a 100,000-rupee round of backgammon… offering a Fabergé egg that he had somehow concealed in his right hip pocket the entire time.

As Bond and his pal Vijay (Vijay Amritraj) end up leading Khan’s assassin Gobinda (Kabir Bedi) on a chase through the streets of Udaipur, Octopussy illustrates how much fun the Bond franchise could have without relying on gadgets as Bond utilizes found items—not even necessarily weapons—to ward off his attackers, ultimately escaping to a hidden MI6 safehouse where it seems like the reliable Q (Desmond Llewelyn) has gotten his new workshop set up in less than a day, having been sent in quickly on Bond’s heels. Returning to his hotel that evening, Bond is surprised to find an invitation to meet the mysterious Magda… and her eyebrow-raising “little octopussy.”

What’d He Wear?

James Bond often wears black tie for gambling, here adequately dressed for the hot climate in an ivory dinner jacket. White and off-white dinner jackets were popularized as warm-weather alternatives during the interwar era, gaining widespread acceptance among gentlemen dressing for equatorial evenings on holiday in the 1930s. In his excellent analysis of the outfit at Bond Suits, Matt Spaiser concludes that the jacket may be either a lightweight plain-weave worsted wool or a linen-and-wool blend.

Like Moore’s other on-screen suits and tailored jackets in the early ’80s (and often off-screen as well), this jacket was made by Douglas Hayward. The peak lapels are self-faced, following convention for white dinner jackets, with a fashionably low single-button stance that proportionally meets the waistband of Bond’s trousers. The single white mother-of-pearl button on the front matches the three on each cuff. The jacket has gently padded shoulders, double vents, straight jetted hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket.

The dinner jacket suffers a considerable tear over the breast pocket from an assassin’s knife, though Bond’s wad of cash saved him from doing any greater damage (“thank God for hard currency!”) Bond hands the jacket over to one of Q’s technicians who sells herself short by calling the seamless repair job “the best we could do”.

Egg-cellent work, 007!

Echoing his lightweight dinner jacket, Bond dresses to beat the heat in a white shirt made of cotton voile, a lightweight, plain-woven fabric characterized by its semi-transparent sheer nature. The sections of the shirt with more than a single layer of fabric appear more opaque—such as the spread collar, front placket, and double (French) cuffs—while the single-layered body of the shirt shows Roger Moore’s skin beneath the fabric. Bond fastens the rounded double cuffs with onyx-filled silver square cuff links.

A more formal evening shirt may have a front bib or pleats that would hide more of the skin from the section that shows when worn with a jacket, but Bond prioritizes comfort over decorum in this instance. (Not that I could blame him, as the several gentlemen wearing belts with their evening-wear in the casino would suggest a culture less bound by the “rules” of black tie.)

The shirt was made by London shirtmaker Frank Foster, who counted Moore among his many celebrity clients and crafted most of the shirts he wore as James Bond.

Bond wears a black silk self-tied bow tie, in the classic butterfly (thistle) shape.

Bond rarely wears the prescribed waist covering like cummerbund or waistcoat with his evening-wear, instead opting for elegant built-in solutions like this black silk waistband around the top of his trousers that closes through two silk-covered buttons on the right side. These black flat-front trousers are otherwise similar to conventional formal trousers with a black satin stripe down the side of each leg, finished with the requisite plain-hemmed bottoms rather than cuffs.

Promotional photo of Roger Moore, Vijay Amritraj, and Desmond Llewelyn in Q’s makeshift Indian laboratory as Bond hands over his damaged jacket for repair.

Bond wears an updated variation of the patent leather pump (also known as a court shoe) that had long been designated the most formal men’s shoe. Likely made by Ferragamo, these black patent leather slip-on shoes retain the basic silhouette of the plain-toe opera pump but with higher vamps each decorated with a plain strip of black grosgrain, a simpler alternative to the traditional grosgrain bow. He wears them with dressy socks made of thin black silk.

While debriefing with Q, Bond is instructed how he can track down the Fabergé egg. “The homing device is compatible with a standard-issue radio directional finder in your watch… if you haven’t lost it,” Q mentions, prompting 007 to pull back his shirt cuff and show off the Seiko G757 Sports 100 watch strapped to his left wrist. After two decades as a cinematic stalwart representing the height of sophistication and style, it’s surprising to see that Bond wears not just a sports watch with his black-tie ensemble but also such an inelegant digital watch… but that’s product placement for you!

This quartz-powered watch has a stainless steel case inset by a black polyurethane mitred-corner “bezel”, shaped like an inverted horseshoe with four retaining screws and “SPORTS 100” printed across the top. The large octagonal LCD display under the crystal consists of an “analog” clock in the upper left corner while the monochromatic digital time display extends across the bottom, complete with day/date functionality. As listed in the upper right corner, the other functions include a timer, alarm, dual timer, and stopwatch. The stainless steel link bracelet closes through a black-finished butterfly-style clasp.

You can read more about the now-rare Seiko G757 at James Bond Lifestyle, which also mentions the Casio AE1200WHD-1A as an inexpensive, modern-day lookalike.

The date suggests Sunday the 16th, which—in the year or so leading up to the film’s June 1983 release—could only have been Sunday, May 16, 1982 or Sunday, January 16, 1983. However, it also shows the time as 7:10 AM! Even if Bond’s watch was still on London time, this would make it 11:40 AM in India, when it’s clearly supposed to be late afternoon or early evening.

While in Q’s lab, a couple of things also catch Bond’s eye, including a Seiko TV Watch that he uses to zoom in on a couple of other things that caught his eye.

Fresh off the success of pioneering the world’s first quartz watch in 1969, Seiko spent the ’70s racing against Casio to develop “computer watches” that would prefigure the modern smartwatch. As each met each other’s challenge with the Casio Databank and the Seiko Data 2000, Seiko finally took a great leap toward capturing the “active couch potato” market with the introduction of a TV that could be worn on the wrist, introduced in October 1982. The timing neatly coincides with production of Octopussy, which had started filming two months earlier and likely used a prototype for the “liquid crystal TV” watch that Bond would wear for the final act.

The wrist-wearing portion of the steel-cased Seiko TV Watch hardly differs in size from the modern Apple Watch with a display measuring 1.5 inches wide by 2 inches tall, consisting of a single-row digital timekeeper along the top with a 1.2″ liquid crystal display (LCD), responsive only to direct external light. As High Techies‘ excellent write-up of the watch explains, “the brighter the light, the clearer the picture.” Of course, there’s no watching TV at all without wiring the watch to the Walkman-sized TR02-01 receiver, shipped with the watch and designed to be worn inside the pocket… “assuming one has a convenient pocket,” of course. Q Branch appears to have modified Bond’s TV Watch to not only not require the wired receiver but also to provide an almost theatrical-quality resolution no doubt clearer than the 32-pixel display would provide in even the best light.

Bond discovers yet another Q Branch innovation that could “allow a man to stop off for a quick one en route,” so to speak.

More traditionally aligned with Bond’s duties as a secret agent, 007 carries his Walther in a tan leather shoulder holster under his left armpit, with a cream-colored nylon strap that loops over his right shoulder to retain the rig.

The Gun

When Bond and Vijay’s “company car” is being chased by a blunderbuss-wielding Gobinda through the streets of Udaipur, 007 naturally reaches inside his jacket to draw his Walther—only it’s not the Walther we’d gotten used to seeing over 20 years!

Instead, Bond was armed in Octopussy with the Walther P5, an updated design introduced by Walther in the late 1970s specifically to replace older, smaller-caliber pistols like Bond’s trusty PPK. Walther was so insistent on their new pistol that it was used not just for Roger Moore’s Bond but also the version of the character portrayed by Sean Connery, making his one-off return to the role in the “unofficial” competitor Never Say Never Again, released later in the year.

Intended to replace pistols like the blowback Walther PP series, the Walther P5 shared much of its mechanical design with the older Walther P38, including that both are recoil-operated pistols chambered for the 9×19 mm Parabellum cartridge as opposed to the smaller .32 and .380 rounds fired through the blowback-operated PP series. The aluminum alloy frame kept the P5 relatively light for its larger size and load, weighing about 1.75 pounds compared to the 1.43-pound PPK. While about 10,000 P5 Compact variations were made, the standard P5 was reasonably sized for Bond to conceal with an overall length of 7.1 inches and a 3.5-inch barrel.

Bond draws his Walther P5.

The P5 gets kicked from Bond’s hands before he has the opportunity to use it. When Bond later tells Q “I’ve also mislaid my PPK” to account for its absence, it’s likely a mistake from the original script that failed to account for the fact that 007 would be carrying a different Walther in Octopussy.

Bond would again be armed with the traditional Walther PPK for the following film, A View to a Kill, and this would remain Bond’s preferred service weapon through the late ’90s when it would be more prolifically replaced by the larger Walther P99.

What to Imbibe

James Bond’s cinematic association with Bollinger champagne began at the start of Roger Moore’s tenure when his 007 ordered a bottle to his hotel room in Live and Let Die. Ten years later, the storied champagne house founded in Aÿ in 1829 remained his preferred bubbly, especially when toasting with lovers like Magda.

While Bollinger may have first appeared in a Bond film in 1973, its association with the character dates back to Ian Fleming’s novels, specifically the 22nd chapter of Diamonds are Forever, when Tiffany Case sends a steak (notably served with Sauce Béarnaise) and a bottle to his stateroom aboard the Queen Elizabeth: “There was a quarter bottle of Bollinger, a chafing dish containing four small slivers of steak of toast canapés, and a small bowl of sauce… Bond filled a glass with champagne and spread a lot of the Béarnaise on a piece of the steak and munched it carefully.”

How to Get the Look

Roger Moore as James Bond while filming Octopussy (1983). Photo sourced from thunderballs.org.

James Bond wears a tastefully distinctive yet traditional warm-weather black tie kit in India, with plenty of character from the cool-wearing cloth of his off-white dinner jacket and voile shirt to the simple silk-adorned elegance of his trousers’ self-cummerbund and updated pumps… only his presumably MI6-issued sporty digital watch seems truly out of place.

• Ivory linen-and-wool blend single-button dinner jacket with self-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and double vents
• White cotton voile shirt with spread collar, front placket, and rounded double/French cuffs
• Black silk butterfly/thistle-shaped bow tie
• Black flat-front formal trousers with silk waistband (with two-button right-side fastening), silk side stripes, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black patent leather pump shoes with black grosgrain vamp strips
• Black silk dress socks
• Tan leather shoulder holster with cream-colored nylon strap
• Seiko G757 Sports 100 stainless steel digital watch with LCD display, timer/alarm/stopwatch functions, and stainless link bracelet with black-finished butterfly-style clasp

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Easy come, easy go!

The post Roger Moore’s Ivory Dinner Jacket in Octopussy appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jean-Paul Belmondo as Joss Beaumont in The Professional/Le Professionnel (1981)

Vitals

Jean-Paul Belmondo as Josselin “Joss” Beaumont, vengeful French secret agent specializing in “espionage and brawls”

Paris, Spring 1981

Film: The Professional
(French title: Le Professionnel)
Release Date: October 21, 1981
Director: Georges Lautner
Costume Designer: Paulette Breil

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today would have been the 90th birthday of Jean-Paul Belmondo, the prolific and popular French star who rose to fame during the New Wave cinematic movement in movies like Breathless and Pierrot le Fou before he was established as a dynamic hero of action and adventure movies. Belmondo actually appeared in a 1984 movie titled Happy Easter, but—despite the egg-cellent holiday today—let’s refocus to three years earlier and Bébel’s iconic action role in The Professional, released in France as Le Professionnel.

Boasting a memorable Ennio Morricone score, this fun and quotable movie was adapted from Patrick Alexander’s 1976 novel Death of a Thin-Skinned Animal and was one of the most popular movies in France the year it was released, ranking just behind La Chèvre, The Fox and the Hound, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Regarding the latter, Steven Spielberg had cited Belmondo’s 1964 movie That Man from Rio as one of his many influences in creating Indiana Jones.)

Our eponymous professional is Joss Beaumont, a French secret agent who had been sent to kill Colonel Njala, dictator of the fictional central African nation of Malagawi. After a shift in the political climate, Beaumont’s agency betrays him to the Malagawian authorities, who convict him in a kangaroo court. Sentenced to a hard labor camp, Beaumont escapes with a fellow inmate and returns to France, where he makes no secret of his determination to carry out his mission when Njala arrives for an official visit… prompting the agency to make their own former agent their #1 target.

What’d He Wear?

After wearing a charcoal suit and black tie for his mission and subsequent show-trial, Joss Beaumont was imprisoned in olive drab fatigues that he wore while making his escape, then arrived in Paris wearing a fraying cream linen suit that he supplemented with garb traded from a homeless denizen.

Beaumont finally wears in his own clothes after arriving home, where his wife—consistent with my assumptions of Gallic convention—asks Beaumont if he was considerate enough to let his mistress know he has returned.

Beaumont’s action attire is anchored by a heroic leather jacket, made from a dark slate-blue leather (appropriately similar to the shade known as “French blue”) rather than the more traditional black or brown tones. The French military issued flying jackets in a similar shade of “petrol blue” leather through the ’70s and ’80s, though—despite his affiliations—Beaumont’s jacket is certainly not one of these.

The waist-length jacket is styled like a cross between a flight jacket and a motorcycle jacket, with a blouson-like ribbed-knit hem and “action-back” side pleats below each shoulder to allow a greater range of movement. The body of the jacket is constructed with identical vertical panels, including six across the back between the side seams.

The jacket’s zip-up front is covered by a fly that snaps closed at the top and bottom. A throat-latch extends from the left side of the collar to connect through a button on the right side. The jacket has vertical-entry open side pockets at hand level.

The set-in sleeves are finished with single-snap cuffs that Belmondo wears undone and folded back over each wrist. The front of the upper left sleeve is detailed with a short gold-toned vertical zipper just ahead of the shoulder seam, presumably to access a small and uniquely positioned utility pocket.

Beaumont wears a cornflower blue shirt made from a silky nylon reminiscent of Qiana, the DuPont-patented polyamide fiber used throughout the ’70s on men’s sport shirts. The shirt has a point collar, breast pocket, single-button mitred cuffs, and a front placket he wears with the top few smoke-colored buttons undone.

Beaumont’s light-gray polyester darted-front trousers are consistent with the fashions of the era, fitting closely through the hips and thighs but flaring out at the plain-hemmed bottoms. In addition to the curved side pockets, the trousers have a patch pocket on the back-right, covered with a flap that closes through a single button. The waistband has a pointed button-through tab that extends about an inch past the fly.

Though swapped out with a smooth black leather belt of similar dimensions in some shots, he primarily wears a narrow dark-brown leather belt that closes through a Western-shaped dulled silver single-prong buckle. The belt is considerably long, with the end extending far past the buckle and hanging down from his waist.

Beaumont’s black leather loafers are detailed with a gold-tipped bar across each vamp and raised heels that add some height to Belmondo’s lean 5’9″ frame. The full break of his flared trouser bottoms cover much of shoes and socks, though we get some glimpses at his black socks.

While in bed with his wife the night before setting out for revenge, Beaumont donned the pieces of his previous life: his French military “dog tag” and his dive watch, which appears to be a Rolex Submariner.

Jean-Paul Belmondo was a Rolex enthusiast in real life, as Jake’s Rolex World illustrates the actor wearing stainless and yellow-gold Daytonas, a two-tone Datejust, a yellow gold Day-Date, and date and non-date stainless Submariners.

Beaumont’s stainless steel Submariner reflects the classic configuration of a black-finished rotating bezel and round black matte dial, complete with luminous hour indices and a white date window at the 3 o’clock position that was added with the ref. 1680 iteration in the late 1960s. In 1977, the similarly styled ref. 16800 was introduced with a sapphire crystal (as opposed to the raised acrylic crystal on the ref. 1680) and a quick-set date feature, though both references were still in production in 1981 when The Professional was made, and my horological eye isn’t as fine-tuned as it could be to discern which model is strapped to Belmondo’s left wrist on the familiar “Oyster” three-piece link bracelet.

Rolex strapped to his wrist, Beaumont checks Rosen’s corpse.

After killing Rosen (Robert Hossein), Beaumont creates confusion by swapping Rosen’s identity card for his own dog tag, which he’d been wearing on a hardy silver chain-link necklace up to this point. The style of French Army identity disc dates back to the 1950s and ’60s with its center perforation that could allow one side to be torn away for record-keeping.

The Gun

Beaumont arms himself with a blued Colt Python taken from his old friend, Captain Valeras (Michel Beaune). Considered one of the premier double-action revolvers, the Python was introduced in 1955 on Colt’s large I-frame platform and chambered for .357 Magnum. The Colt Python quickly gained a reputation for reliability with its tight action, smooth trigger, and precision adjustable sights that aided shooters’ accuracy.

The ventilated rib running the length of the top of the barrel gives the Python its distinctive appearance, mated to the full underlug that shrouds the ejector rod. Barrel lengths ranged from 2.5″ to 8″, with the most popular arguably being the 6″-barreled model as carried by Beaumont. The Python was already considerably heavy for a handgun, with the six-inch barrel increasing the overall weight (even unloaded) to just under three pounds.

Beaumont holds his Colt Python on Ferges (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), the denim-clad agent he frequently foils over the course of the movie.

Colt ended production of the Python in the early 2000s, citing the cost of production, though the iconic design was revived with a new series of Python revolvers introduced in January 2020.

The Car

Beaumont commandeers a red 1981 Fiat 181 Supermirafiori 2000 TC that he uses when chasing Rosen and Ferges through the streets of Paris, including a memorable sprint through the Trocadéro. (Not only did Belmondo perform his own stunts, including driving, he reportedly also received help from his father—sculptor Paul Belmondo—to secure authorization for the Trocadéro stunt.)

Fiat debuted the 131 family sedan at the 1974 Turin Motor Show. The popular Italian car evolved through three generations, resulting in the “Series 3” introduced in March 1981. This continued the Supermirafiori badging that appeared at the start of the second series, indicating models powered by a “Twin Cam” (TC) DOHC engine as opposed to the base model engines in the Mirafiori models, named for the Turin suburb where the cars were built. However, the Series 3 Supermirafiori inherited the larger 2000 TC straight-four engine from the now-discontinued Brava and Racing models, increasing power to 113 hp.

For a few months, the Series 3 Supermirafiori was the most powerful Fiat 131 until the June 1981 introduction of the sporty Volumetrico Abarth sport model that supercharged the same 2000 TC to 138 hp. However, only a couple hundred Volumetrico Abarth models were produced, making the Supermirafiori the best-performing mass-produced Fiat 131 until production ended for the 1984 model year.

How to Get the Look

Jean-Paul Belmondo as Joss Beaumont in The Professional/Le Professionnel (1981)

A polyester shirt and trousers with heeled loafers may be a bit too rooted in the late ’70s/early ’80s era, but Joss Beaumont elevates his outfit to heroic status with his French blue leather jacket… and Jean-Paul Belmondo’s natural charisma.

• Dark slate-blue leather blouson-style jacket with snap-down collar (with left-side throat-latch), side pockets, zip-up left-shoulder utility pocket, single-snap cuffs, “action-back” side pleats, and ribbed-knit hem
• Cornflower-blue silky nylon shirt with point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Light-gray polyester darted-front trousers with belt loops, curved side pockets, back-right patch pocket (with button-down flap), and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark-brown leather narrow belt with dulled silver Western-style single-prong buckle
• Black leather heeled loafers with gold-ended vamp detail
• Black socks
• Silver chain-link necklace with center-perforated French Army “dog tag” identity disc
• Rolex Submariner Date stainless steel dive watch with black rotating bezel, round black matte dial (with 3:00 date window), and stainless steel Oyster-style three-piece link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

That’s what misled you, this idea of values. Right, wrong, good, evil… in short, vague notions.

The post The Professional: Belmondo’s Blue Leather Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

David Warner as Lawrence Beesley in S.O.S. Titanic (1979)

Vitals

David Warner as Lawrence Beesley, serious and sensitive schoolteacher

North Atlantic Ocean, April 1912

Film: S.O.S. Titanic
Air Date: September 23, 1979
Director: William Hale
Costume Designer: Barbara Lane

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Nearly twenty years before he chased Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet through the flooding corridors of the sinking ship, the late David Warner made his first foray in Titanic cinematic lore in S.O.S. Titanic, a made-for-TV movie that aired on ABC in September 1979.

A far cry from the cynical, pistol-packing Spicer Lovejoy, Warner starred as Lawrence Beesley, a real-life passenger who sailed on RMS Titanic during her fateful maiden voyage 111 years ago this week in April 1912.

Despite some of S.O.S. Titanic‘s shortcomings, Warner thoughtfully portrays Beesley true to life, as an intelligent science teacher who spent much of the voyage reading. In fact, Beesley had been engrossed in a book in his cabin, D-56, when Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40 PM on the night of Sunday, April 14. (It should be noted that the sinking was decidedly not on April 12, which is the date S.O.S. Titanic curiously provides in a subtitle that was likely an unfortunate typographical error not corrected before the movie’s completion.)

After a noncommittal answer from a steward about the distress and then noticing the ship’s list for himself, Beesley loaded his pockets with books and made his way to the boat deck. Fortune found Beesley on the ship’s starboard side, where First Officer William Murdoch was loading lifeboats with the philosophy of “women and children first” as opposed to Second Officer Charles Lightoller’s port side command of “women and children only!” Around 1:25 AM, lifeboat number 13 was being lowered down the side, nearly filled to its capacity of 65, though a crewman in the boat noticed Beesley standing nearby and offered him the opportunity to jump into the boat.

Beesley may have regretted the decision shortly after, as lifeboat number 13 nearly met its own peril as the ship’s tilt positioned lifeboat number 15 almost directly above it as it too was being lowered, a moment that would briefly be depicted in James Cameron’s Titanic as well. Before lifeboat number 15 would have landed atop the occupants of boat 13—which would have inevitably resulted in disaster for the nearly 140 people occupying both boats—lead stoker Frederick Barrett managed to cut the falls that allowed boat 13 to drift free from the ship.

Beesley and his 63 fellow occupants of lifeboat 13 then watched in despair for the next hour as Titanic continued to founder, finally breaking apart and sinking beneath the waves at 2:20 AM in the early hours of Monday, April 15, taking approximately 1,500 passengers and crew to their deaths as the remaining 700-odd survivors awaited the arrival of the RMS Carpathia to rescue them.

Beesley rises in lifeboat number 13, silhouetted against the sinking ship. The limited budget for S.O.S. Titanic resulted in the production relying on composite techniques like matte artwork and colorized scenes “borrowed” from A Night to Remember, as seen here.

Following the disaster, the literary-minded Beesley was quick to pen his own book detailing the disaster—The Loss of the S.S. Titanic: Its Story and Its Lessons—released within six weeks of the sinking and written in his characteristic fact-oriented style that elevated it to join fellow survivor Archibald Gracie’s book as one of the most authoritative accounts of the sinking for decades. His intelligence and observational skills made him a valuable subject for interviews about Titanic. The now-octogenarian Beesley served as a consultant during the production of A Night to Remember in 1958, though he took his participation a level too far by gatecrashing the set and attempting to “go down with” the sinking model ship. (Among other reasons, director Roy Ward Baker protested Beesley’s appearance on set as he wasn’t a union actor!)

Lawrence Beelsey died on Valentine’s Day 1967 at the age of 89. Despite his prominence among Titanic historians, Beesley was only prominently portrayed on screen in S.O.S. Titanic, during which we follow his class-focused conversations and flirtation with fellow second-class passenger Leigh Goodwin (Susan Saint James), one of the film’s few composite characters, based on two women whom Beesley had been acquainted with aboard the ship.

The real Lawrence Beesley in 1912, posing with an unknown woman in Titanic‘s gymnasium prior to its departure from Southampton (left) and aboard the Laconia before sailing home to England (right). Note that Beesley wears a belted half-Norfolk jacket not unlike how Warner was costumed in S.O.S. Titanic.

What’d He Wear?

“I dressed in a Norfolk jacket and trousers,” Lawrence Beesley recounted in his account of the sinking, initially dressing to investigate the cause of the commotion before returning to D-56, where “I placed the two books I was reading in the side pockets of my Norfolk jacket, picked up my lifebelt (curiously enough, I had taken it down for the first time that night from the wardrobe when I first retired to my cabin), and my dressing-gown, and walked upstairs tying on the lifebelt.”

Beesley gave no additional description of his jacket, but contemporary photography from his return voyage on the RMS Laconia shows a belted four-button jacket with voluminous side pockets (no doubt large enough to hold Beesley’s books) but lacking the characteristic pleated strips of a Norfolk jacket, thus qualifying his garment as a “half-Norfolk jacket”.

Between a barely disguised Queen Mary filling in for Titanic and some curious facial hair decisions (e.g., David Janssen’s fully bearded John Jacob Astor IV!), S.O.S. Titanic offers a refreshing dose of reality-informed accuracy in that David Warner’s costume as Beesley reflects how his real-life counterpart dressed during the voyage and sinking.

Given the garment’s sporting origins, true Norfolk jackets are invariably made of woolen tweed, a coarse and rugged cloth with insular properties that would have kept Beesley warm in an open lifeboat sailing through below-freezing ocean. Norfolk jackets are also typically worn in the country, where brown was conventionally worn under English tradition during the Edwardian era, so it’s historically informed that Warner’s screen-worn tweed is woven in a brown-and-cream tic-check, arranged by brown vertical stripes.

This Cheviot tweed’s complex weave almost disguises the fact that it indeed features the vertical sewn-down box pleats on each side of the jacket that characterize a “full” Norfolk jacket. As these pleats run over the chest, the jacket has no breast pocket but still has hip pockets; in fact, Riccardo Villarosa and Giulano Angeli explains in The Elegant Man that these are “designed to support the weight of cartridges in the pockets,” related to the Norfolk jacket’s original purpose as a shooting garment. The patch pockets on Warner’s Norfolk jacket are covered with pointed flaps that each close through a single button.

Warner’s single-breasted Norfolk jacket has well-padded shoulders, a single vent, notch lapels, and a high-fastening four-button front with the lowest button aligned with the self-belt around the waist. The sleeves are finished without any cuff buttons.

During the sinking, Beesley is shown to layer the Norfolk jacket over a dark brown woolen cardigan sweater, with a button-up front that rises nearly as high as his jacket.

With all of his shipboard attire—which also includes a black three-piece suit and a gray herringbone tweed suit—Beesley wears a white cotton shirt with a front placket, double (French) cuffs, and a detachable stiff white club collar, fastened to his neckband with a gold stud.

His ties echo the brown tones in his jacket. His first tie is black with rust-brown bar stripes in the traditionally English “uphill” direction.

For another day spent on deck with Leigh, Beesley wears a woolen knit tie in a tan, black, and rust micro houndstooth check.

Beesley balances the jacket with dark brown woolen trousers finished with plain-hemmed bottoms that break high over his black leather Chelsea boots. This slip-on ankle boot originated during the Victorian era when shoemaker Joseph Sparkes Hall designed them for the queen. Characterized by their elastic side gussets, the style became a reigning men’s footwear staple for the better part of a century through the start of World War I, though the Chelsea boot’s popularity would be revived in the 1950s and ’60s.

Beesley protects himself against the cold in blue knitted outerwear accessories, including a scarf and fingerless gloves in a vivid shade of royal blue.

Beesley gets pulled aboard lifeboat 13, wearing his blue knitted gloves and scarf, though he can’t account for why he brought his dressing gown.

As he describes in his book and would later be pictured wearing aboard Carpathia after their rescue, Beesley had brought his gold paisley robe dressing gown, with a light fawn-colored quilted shawl collar and cuffs that continues through the lining.

“Dressing gown, what you wanna bring that for?” asks the crewman who helps Beesley into lifeboat 13, prompting Beesley to respond “I don’t know…” with a sheepish laugh.

Appropriately attired for his slumber in a dressing gown and pajamas, Beesley stops a steward in his D-Deck corridor to ask what happened to the ship. Though he would later change into his Norfolk jacket, he would still bring his dressing gown.

How to Get the Look

David Warner and Susan Saint James in S.O.S. Titanic (1979)

While tweed Norfolk jackets may be more associated with the sporting pursuits of the English countryside, Titanic passengers like Lawrence Beesley may have appreciated their warmth whether on deck or braving the open air of a lifeboat in the below-freezing sea.

• Brown-and-cream tick-checked striped Cheviot tweed single-breasted 4-button Norfolk jacket with box pleats, self-belt, patch hip pockets (with button-down pointed flaps), and single vent
• White cotton shirt with detachable stiff club collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
• Black-and-brown patterned tie
• Dark-brown wool cardigan sweater
• Dark-brown wool trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather Chelsea boots
• Blue knitted scarf
• Royal-blue knitted fingerless gloves

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie as well as Beesley’s contemporary account of the sinking, The Loss of the S.S. Titanic.

The Quote

All the arrogance of class isn’t at the very top, you see.

The post S.O.S. Titanic: David Warner’s Tweed Norfolk Jacket as Lawrence Beesley appeared first on BAMF Style.

Robert Ayres as Major Arthur Peuchen in A Night to Remember (1958)

Vitals

Robert Ayres as Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, resourceful Canadian industrialist and yachtsman

North Atlantic Ocean, April 1912

Film: A Night to Remember
Release Date: July 3, 1958
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Costume Designer: Yvonne Caffin

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

111 years ago tonight, around 11:40 PM on Sunday, April 12, 1912, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean. The ship would sink in less than three hours, taking more than 1,500 to their death and leaving just over 700 survivors in open boats scattered across the sea, waiting for rescue.

“Women and children first” had the been the standing order of survival as lifeboats were loaded and lowered, first cautiously and then with increasing alarm as those aboard realized the ship’s desperate condition. Unfortunately, there was only room in the lifeboats for about half of those aboard and a fatal combination of initial trepidation among the passengers and restrictive attitudes by some officers responsible loading the boats resulted in most not being filled to capacity.

Nearly half of the survivors were men, though this still translated to only about 20% of the male passengers and crew that had been aboard the liner. One of these men was Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, a chemical manufacturer and militia major from Toronto who was three days shy of his 53rd birthday as he sat shivering in lifeboat number 6.

The real Arthur Godfrey Peuchen (1859-1929)

Major Peuchen was making his 40th transatlantic voyage when Titanic struck the iceberg, and his resourceful nature may have resulted in his survival even if he hadn’t been selected to enter lifeboat number 6, perhaps having been among the likes of Second Officer Charles Lightoller, junior wireless operator Harold Bride, and fellow passenger and adventurer Archibald Gracie to have climbed atop the overturned collapsible lifeboat B as the ship sunk. However, Peuchen would have the distinction of being the sole adult male passenger that was allowed into a lifeboat by Lightoller, whose obsession with “women and children only” resulted in launching many port-side lifeboats far from full.

Of course, Peuchen didn’t just take a seat in the boat like the women and children that Lightoller had allowed. In one of the many dramatic stories from the sinking, boat no. 6 was about halfway down the side of the ship when Molly Brown—yes, that Molly Brown—realized that they were short of seamen in the boat, save for Quartermaster Robert Hichens, who had been steering Titanic when it struck the iceberg and whose character Mrs. Brown and others would be justified to question. Lightoller scanned the deck in search of hands to help man the boat, at which point Peuchen—who had sailed across the Atlantic in his own yacht and served in leadership positions of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club—stepped forward, cautiously offering his services as a yachtsman.

“If you’re sailor enough to get out on that fall, you can go down,” Lightoller replied, according to Walter Lord’s well-researched book A Night to Remember, which inspired the film of the same name. After the possible intervention of Captain E.J. Smith, brainstorming that Peuchen go down and break a window to shorten the distance of his entry to the boat, Peuchen did as Lightoller initially instructed, swinging himself out onto the boat’s forward fall and deftly climbing down to join the less-than-two dozen occupants of lifeboat number 6, full to only about one-third of its total capacity. In the process, he lost his wallet, which would be ultimately recovered from the wreck site in 1987 with Peuchen’s calling card, tickets, and travelers’ checks generally intact!

A Night to Remember faithfully depicted how Lightoller (Kenneth More) recruited Peuchen to climb down the falls into boat 6.

Once aboard the boat, Peuchen took his place aside lookout Frederick Fleet, who had been the first to spot the iceberg and alert the bridge nearly two hours earlier. Peuchen would soon run afoul of Quartermaster Hichens, whom Don Lynch proposes in Titanic: An Illustrated History “seemed threatened by Peuchen’s military bearing and knowledge of boats,” frequently reasserting his authority and insistence that the boat be pulled as far from the sinking vessel as possible to avoid any potential suction… and avoid the responsibility of saving additional survivors.

Indeed, no less than Captain Smith had specifically instructed that Hichens keep boat 6 nearby to pick up survivors, but Hichens flatly refused and was frequently given to grim and tactless tirades, particularly insensitive given the number of women in the boat who had just left their doomed husbands and loved ones aboard the sinking ship. Peuchen himself received some scorn in his native Canada, not just for surviving the disaster but also for not taking a firmer stand against Hichens, though it has also been suggested in Peuchen’s defense that he would naturally want to avoid any actions considered potentially mutinous.

Carpathia passenger Louis M. Ogden photographed scenes from the rescue, including this shot of lifeboat 6 approaching the ship. Peuchen can be seen toward the front on the port side (wearing a cap and life jacket), while Hichens mans the rudder at the stern and Fleet (in a dark cap and coat) is crouched over the bow.

Despite rumors to the contrary and the cultural prejudice against male survivors, Peuchen received his scheduled promotion to lieutenant colonel in the Queens’ Own Rifles just a month after Titanic sank. When World War I broke out, he retired from his profitable position as president of Standard Chemical to command the Home Battalion of the Queen’s Own Rifles. The stigma of survivorship followed Peuchen after both the sinking and the war, and—after a series of some poor investments through the ’20s—Peuchen died at his Toronto home on December 7, 1929.

“‘They told me of the navigation laws restricting men from the boats when women and children were on board,’ Margaret wrote. ‘I replied that such must have been the ancient law, and now that equal rights existed… their conscience on that score should be relieved,” recounts author Kristen Iversen in the biography Molly Brown, describing Mrs. Brown’s non-judgmental attitude toward Peuchen and his fellow male survivors. Lightoller also recounted in his memoir Titanic and Other Ships that he ordered Peuchen to board lifeboat 6, and that “he did, and has been very unfairly critized for carrying out what was a direct order.”

Peuchen’s actions the evening of the sinking would be prominently depicted in the 1958 film A Night to Remember, considered to be one of the most accurate dramatizations of the Titanic disaster. (Of course, this is overlooking some understandable technical inaccuracies, including the fact that the ship broke apart while sinking—the contemporary testimony provided by Lightoller, Peuchen, and scores of others was that Titanic had sunk intact, consisted with the informed written accounts of survivors Archibald Gracie and Lawrence Beesley, and this was considered the prevailing wisdom until Robert Ballard’s 1985 discovery of the wreck proved otherwise.)

In A Night to Remember, Peuchen was portrayed by English actor Robert Ayres, a familiar face of ’50s cinema and ’60s television. The character can also be briefly spotted in James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster Titanic, by an uncredited actor more closely resembling the actual Peuchen, though far less of the character’s story is presented in the finished film.

James Cameron’s exhaustive attention to detail is illustrated by the undeniable presence of Peuchen on lifeboat 6, seen here in Titanic as Molly Brown (Kathy Bates) debates the virtues of returning to pick up survivors with an angry Hichens (Paul Brightwell). The uncredited actor portraying Peuchen—who is never mentioned by name, has no lines, and whose daring entry into the boat isn’t depicted—very closely resembles the actual man.

What’d He Wear?

Major Arthur Peuchen looked at the tin box on the table in C-104. Inside were 200,000 dollars in bonds, 100,000 dollars in preferred stock. He thought a good deal about it as he took off his dinner jacket, put on two suits of long underwear and some heavy clothes. … He slammed the door, leaving behind the tin box on the table. In another minute he was back. Quickly he picked up a good-luck pin and three oranges. As he left for the last time, the tin box was still on the table.

— Walter Lord, A Night to Remember, Chapter III: “God Himself Could Not Sink This Ship”

Peuchen’s testimony to the U.S. Senate in the month following the disaster also includes mention of an overcoat with these “heavy clothes” but no further description, leaving the character’s wardrobe generally to the imagination of costume designers.

Echoing real-life passengers like Lawrence Beesley—and his eventual portrayal by David Warner in the 1979 made-for-TV movie S.O.S. Titanic, as featured in my most recent post—A Night to Remember‘s costume designer Yvonne Caffin dressed Robert Ayres as Peuchen in a Norfolk jacket, the hardy country garment initially developed in England for outdoor shooting.

While a classic “full” Norfolk jacket is typically characterized by a full self-belt, hefty hip pockets, and vertical box pleats, jackets lacking the latter are often classified as a “half-Norfolk” jacket. Made from a gun club check tweed, the half-Norfolk jacket worn by the film’s Peuchen has the typical full self-belt, here with a pointed end and closing through two buttons. A single vent in the back extends almost as high as the belt.

Norfolk jackets were initially designed with voluminous hip pockets to carry rifle and shotgun ammunition, and Peuchen’s half-Norfolk jacket continues this tradition with its large patch pockets that each close with a button-down rectangular flap. The single-breasted jacket is tailored with straight shoulders, roped sleeveheads, and a high three-button front. The sleeves are plain at the cuff, with no buttons or vents. The short notch lapels are finished with sporty swelled edges, and we see Peuchen affix the “good-luck pin” from his yacht club mentioned in Lord’s book to his left lapel before leaving the room.

Peuchen wears a light-colored (non-white) cotton shirt designed with a front placket and squared double (French) cuffs that he fastens with narrow bar-shaped two-sided cuff links. He also attaches a stiff white club collar that allows him to neatly wear a very straight and narrow silk bow-tie patterned with white pin-dots. To keep warm, he layers a light-colored long-sleeved V-neck sweater with ribbed cuffs under the Norfolk jacket.

Peuchen admires the good-luck pin he attaches to his left lapel, and his admiration would likely only increase after he finds himself in the lucky position of being asked to join the occupants of a port-side lifeboat when few other male passengers were permitted entry.

Rather than traditional trousers, Peuchen’s Norfolk suit has matching breeches, specifically the type of full-fitting knickerbockers known as “plus-twos” as they extend about two inches beyond the knees, where they would be fastened tightly under the ribbed tops of Peuchen’s light-colored socks. His dark cap-toe derby shoes are likely brown leather, consistent with the outfit’s country associations.

Peuchen completes his attire with a medium-colored pinwale corduroy flat cap, the cloth and style harmonizing with the country associations of his other attire. A signet ring shines from his left pinky finger.

Peuchen sides with Molly Brown and her fellow passengers against Hichens in lifeboat 6.

Understandably, Peuchen also pulls on a life vest when joining his fellow passengers topside during the sinking. Covered in a hardy white linen, these life vests comprised of six cork-filled rectangles on each side—front and back—laced together on the right and left sides. Though Titanic only had room in her lifeboats for a total of 1,178, the ship at least carried more than 3,500 of these life vests, made for White Star Line by the Barking-based manufacturer Fosbery and Co.

How to Get the Look

Robert Ayres as Major Arthur Peuchen in A Night to Remember (1958)

A Night to Remember presents Major Peuchen dressed for a proper day of Edwardian era sport shooting as he joins his fellow passengers evacuating the sinking Titanic, though the heavy cloth and full coverage of his half-Norfolk suit would have likely provided him both warmth and a wide range of movement while operating the oars in his lifeboat.

• Gun club check tweed Norfolk suit:
  • Single-breasted half-Norfolk jacket with high three-button front, two-button pointed self-belt, patch hip pockets (with button-down flaps), plain cuffs, and single vent
  • “Plus-two” knickerbocker breeches
• Light-colored cotton shirt with detachable stiff club collar, front placket, and squared double/French cuffs
• Dark silk pin-dot straight and narrow bow tie
• Light-colored wool V-neck long-sleeved sweater
• Dark brown leather cap-toe derby shoes
• Light-colored knee-high socks with ribbed tops
• Medium-colored pinwale corduroy flat cap
• Signet pinky ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie as well as Walter Lord’s extensively researched book that provided much of the source material.

And please don’t fall for the much-debunked theory that the Titanic was switched out for her sister ship, the Olympic (or, ahem, the Omplec), which has been making the rounds on TikTok!

The post A Night to Remember: Titanic Passenger Major Peuchen appeared first on BAMF Style.

Paul Newman as Brick Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Vitals

Paul Newman as Brick Pollitt, bitter and repressed ex-athlete

Mississippi, Summer 1958

Film: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Release Date: August 27, 1958
Director: Richard Brooks
Wardrobe Credit: Helen Rose

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

April 16 is traditionally National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day, designed as a sartorial reprieve after the stress of meeting a late-night deadline to file taxes by April 15. As it felt incongruous to celebrate that “holiday” on a Sunday, I waited until today to celebrate a Hollywood icon who had the good fortune to wear pajamas for the majority of his screen-time in his first Oscar-nominated performance.

Thanks to movies like Somebody Up There Likes Me and The Long, Hot Summer, Paul Newman’s career was on the rise through the late 1950s when he was cast as Brick Pollitt alongside Elizabeth Taylor in the cinematic adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Due to the restrictions of the Motion Picture Production Code, many of the themes in the play—particularly around Brick’s history of homosexuality—were revised to the extent that Williams himself reportedly urged audiences to avoid it. Despite his own frustrations with the deviations to the source material, Newman received his first of nine acting-related Academy Awards for his performance as Brick. The film was nominated for six awards, including nods for Newman, Taylor, and Best Picture but ultimately received none.

In both the play and film, Brick is a jaded former football star-turned-commentator who has turned to excessive drinking to cope with the emotional pain in his life, including a complex dynamic with his domineering father “Big Daddy” (Burl Ives), his fiery wife Maggie “the Cat” (Elizabeth Taylor), and his estranged friend Skipper, whose death has left Brick feeling considerable shame and guilt given the unresolved feelings between the two men that may have contributed to Skipper’s demise.

Brick’s drunken attempt to relive the glory of high school athleticism resulted in a broken ankle that leaves him needing a crutch—both literally and metaphorically, in the form of bourbon—on the eve of Big Daddy’s 65th birthday.

What’d He Wear?

After the brief prologue of Brick unwisely attempting some drunken late-night hurdles in a light-blue cotton suit, we next see him reclining in pajamas in the grand bedroom he shares with Maggie on the Pollitt family’s Mississippi estate.

The pajamas are made from a slate-gray cloth with an iridescent sheen suggestive of high-twist cotton, matte silk, or perhaps a blend. (Later, when Brick wears his robe to dry off after a shower, Maggie asks him “why don’t you put on your nice silk pajamas?” It’s not clear if she’s referring to these pajamas or others, though I suspect she means a more “presentable” and unseen set which may be made of a showier satin silk.)

The two-piece set consists of a pajama jacket that has four large smoke buttons up the front. The convertible collar could be worn buttoned up to the neck, fastened through a diagonal buttonhole, though Brick leaves the top button undone and the collar flat like a camp collar. The pajama jacket has three patch pockets—one over the left breast and one on each hip—and the set-in sleeves are finished with scallop-banded cuffs.

Arguably the most memorable costume from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was the belted white chiffon cocktail dress that Elizabeth Taylor wore as Maggie during the final act.

Like the jacket sleeves, the pajama pants are also banded around the ends, though the bands are straight as opposed to the more shapely bands around the jacket cuffs.

While his right foot is in a cast following the ankle injury, Brick wears a brown leather moc-toe Grecian slipper on his left foot. Named in reference for a style that dates back to ancient Greece, this type of flat-soled leather house slipper consists of two-piece uppers: one piece around the heel and another low-cut piece over the vamp and toes.

“What’s Uncle Brick doing on the floor?”
“I tried to kill your Aunt Maggie, but I failed and I fell. Little girl, would you hand me my crutch, please?”

Brick wears both a pendant on a thin gold necklace and a silver ring on his right pinky, though I’m not sure if these are character pieces or were Paul Newman’s own personal jewelry. For what it’s worth, Newman wore neither just four years later when starring in Sweet Bird of Youth, another adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play.

After his shower, Brick dries off and pulls on a powder-blue bathrobe made of terry-cloth cotton, the same absorbent cloth often used for toweling due to its long-looped construction. This is a very common color and cloth for men’s bathrobes, but the rest of the details make Brick’s bathrobe unique.

While most bathrobes close with a simple sash, Brick’s robe includes features like a tailored jacket such as its broad Parisian (or “cran necker”) lapels and a button-front closure, with its four flat mother-of-pearl buttons arranged in a 4×2-button double-breasted configuration. In addition to the requisite sash to support the buttons, Brick’s robe has a patch-style breast pocket and somewhat larger patch pockets over the hips. The set-in sleeves are reinforced with pointed yokes around each cuff.

Brick eventually dresses for Big Daddy’s party in an off-the-rack ivory button-down shirt and tan corduroys, keeping his Grecian slipper on his left foot but adding a gray sock.

What to Imbibe

Big Daddy: Son, you know you got a real liquor problem?
Brick (pouring another): Yessir, I know!

Devoted to “the occupation of drinkin'” according to his wife Maggie, Brick downs plenty of the Golden Delight bourbon whiskey he keeps in his bedroom.

The play often referenced the actual brand Echo Spring, but the movie avoided associating any real-life liquor brand with Brick’s alcoholism, falling back to the fictional “Golden Delight” label that appeared in contemporary MGM productions like The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), Some Came Running (1958), Ride the High Country (1962), and even an appearance on The Twilight Zone.

Brick drinks his bourbon neat, forgoing ice even in the heat of a Southern summer, but we learn that he isn’t drinking to refresh himself… he’s on a mission to feel “that mechanical click” that makes him feel at peace:

Like a switch clicking off in my head. Turns the hot light off and the cool one on. All of a sudden, there’s peace.

Enough of that 86-proof bourbon may help Brick feel a peace-inducing click in his head, but I know I’d probably be somewhere between my head in a toilet and a bottle of Advil.

The prop bottle of bourbon that appears in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is actually a bottle of the real whiskey brand Early Times, as evident by the distinctive yellow label with its black text that uses red for accents, including the red “Early Times” in the last line of the descriptive paragraph on the back of the bottle.

As stated in the back label’s upper corner, Early Times was introduced in Kentucky in 1860 and was described as a “Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey” for much of its manufacture until it was deemed that Early Times does not actually meet all the legal requirements to be marketed as bourbon in the U.S., where it remains marketed as simply “Kentucky Whisky”, joining fellow Kentucky distiller Maker’s Mark in borrowing the traditional Scottish spelling for its spirit.

How to Get the Look

Paul Newman as Brick Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Feeling little reason to celebrate, Brick Pollitt dresses for recovery and respite in his silky pajama set and lone slipper on his non-casted foot.

• Slate-blue silky high-twist cotton pajama set:
  • Four-button pajama jacket with convertible collar, patch breast pocket, and patch hip pockets
  • Flat front pajama pants
• Dark brown leather moc-toe Grecian slippers
• Thin gold necklace with pendant
• Silver pinky ring
• Powder-blue terry-cloth toweling cotton bathrobe with cran necker/Parisian lapels, 4×2-button double-breasted front, self-belted sash, patch breast pocket, and patch hip pockets

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, and read Tennessee Williams’ original play!

You can also read more about Cat on a Hot Tin Roof‘s costume design, specifically Elizabeth Taylor’s attire, at Classiq.

The Quote

What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?

The post Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Paul Newman’s Pajamas appeared first on BAMF Style.

Michael Gladis as Paul Kinsey on Mad Men, Episode 3.03: “My Old Kentucky Home”

Vitals

Michael Gladis as Paul Kinsey, blowhard advertising copywriter

New York City, Spring 1963

Series: Mad Men
Episode: “My Old Kentucky Home” (Episode 3.03)
Air Date: August 30, 2009
Director: Jennifer Getzinger
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

Background

Though Mad Men is typically associated with alcohol, especially in the early seasons set early in the 1960s, the series still included a handful of memorable 420 moments, from Don Draper’s flashback-inducing toke at a Bohemian shindig to when Pete Campbell finally chills out with a much-needed spliff to the tune of Janis Joplin toward the end of the sixth season. But before we get to that point, we have a trio of Sterling Cooper creatives spending their Saturday afternoon trying to smoke their way to success on the Bacardi account in the third-season episode “My Old Kentucky Home”, set sixty years ago in the spring of 1963.

While the senior staff are invited to “work disguised as a party” hosted by Roger Sterling and his new wife Jane, copywriter Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) is among the Sterling Cooper skeleton crew of Smitty Smith (Patrick Cavanaugh) and Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) stranded in the office on this sunny spring weekend.

Little of Kinsey’s interests beyond an enthusiasm for science fiction remain consistent throughout the series, as he continually grasps at shifting identities out of desperation for acceptance. When we met him in the spring of 1960, he was nearly identical to his clean-shaven, suit-and-tie colleagues who spent their workdays drinking and harassing secretaries. Two years later, Kinsey has embraced a more Bohemian image and lifestyle in keeping with his wish to be perceived as creative and socially aware, having grown out a beard and given to Orson Welles-inspired pontification. (If you think this doesn’t suit him, just wait a few years until he’s joined the Hare Krishna movement… while still writing Star Trek spec scripts.)

Kinsey typically takes pompous puffs from his pipe, but the lack of oversight in the office—and perhaps the desire to look interesting in front of younger colleagues whom he likely perceives as threats to his professional relevance—inspires him to call in an old pal from Princeton to hook him up with weed, leading to one of the most memed moments from the series:

What’d He Wear?

With his patterned sports coats, tab-collar dress shirts, and monk shoes, Paul Kinsey developed his style to become one of the more interesting dressers among the men of Sterling Cooper by the second season—and I’m sure he’d only be too delighted to hear it. Of course, when Kinsey’s hookup insists they limit their exposure by using Kinsey’s cardigan to keep their smoke from escaping out into the rest of the office, where Peggy’s judgmental secretary Olive (Judy Kane) sits, Kinsey instantly reveals his lack of cool when he protests:

It’s mohair!

The six-button mohair sweater in question is color-blocked in three shades of brown: tan across the shoulders, cognac across the chest, and a darker walnut shade around the bottom, this being the same color that trims the edges. The sleeves are set-in at the shoulder and reflect the same color-blocking scheme down each arm.

“It’s mohair!”

Kinsey’s coordinated shirt is beige cotton with a faint tonal stripe. The spread collar is shaped with a roll similar to a button-down collar, and the shirt has a breast pocket with mitred bottom corners. The 7-button front placket is stitched close to the edges, and the barrel cuffs also have button closures.

Like his boss Draper, Kinsey wears a plain white cotton short-sleeved undershirt, though wearing his shirt open at the neck shows the top of the undershirt’s crew-neck.

Kinsey may consider himself among those who think young, but his mohair cardigan and rumpled shirt are no match for the youthful Smitty in his leather jacket and dark striped shirt.

Kinsey maintains the color continuity of his outfit through the brown wool flat-front trousers, held up by a narrow dark brown leather belt that closes through an etched gold box-style buckle. The trousers have quarter-top side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

Likely appreciating them as an offbeat but professional alternative to his colleagues’ lace-ups, Kinsey wears brown calf leather monk shoes. As the name implies, this footwear originated among monks in 15th century Europe, characterized by one or two straps that buckle closed over the vamp. Kinsey’s plain-toe monk shoes are of the single-strap variety, closed through a brass-finished single-prong buckle. His chocolate brown cotton lisle socks more closely match his shoe leather than his trouser fabric.

Despite his desire to establish himself as a creative individualist, his watch is far more commonplace than the Rolex or Jaeger-LeCoultre models worn by his boss Draper or the gold triangular-cased Hamilton that accounts man Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) would show off two episodes later as a gift from a client.

Kinsey’s gold-toned dress watch has a round champagne-colored dial and is worn on a dark brown leather strap.

Luckily, Sterling Cooper’s client Utz is able to satisfy the creative team’s munchies.

Kinsey’s friend Jeffrey Graves (Miles Fisher) wears a plaid cotton sports coat that would have fit in at the Sterling Cooper garden party, while also strikingly resembling the plaid jackets issued as part of Banana Republic’s Mad Men collection several years later.

How to Get the Look

Michael Gladis as Paul Kinsey on Mad Men, Episode 3.03: “My Old Kentucky Home”

Paul Kinsey’s mohair cardigan may not be iconic stoner-wear on the level of The Dude’s Pendleton zip-up sweater in The Big Lebowski, but it’s still a unique piece to elevate his weekend office-wear. I can’t really blame him for wanting to protect it after he’s asked to stuff it under the door, but he may have been wise to find a cooler way to protest.

• Brown tri-tone mohair 6-button cardigan sweater
• Ecru tonal-striped cotton shirt with shaped spread collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Brown wool flat-front trousers with belt loops, quarter-top side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark brown leather belt with engraved gold-toned rectangular box-style buckle
• Brown calf leather plain-toe single-monk shoes
• Dark-brown socks
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeved undershirt
• Gold dress watch with round gold dial on dark brown leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the whole series.

The Quote

This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends….

The post Mad Men: Kinsey’s 420-Friendly Mohair Cardigan appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jack Nicholson as George Hanson in Easy Rider (1969)

Vitals

Jack Nicholson as George Hanson, civil rights attorney

New Mexico to Louisiana, February 1968

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

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today is the 86th birthday of Jack Nicholson, the screen icon who recently [sort of] made headlines—and more than a few memes—after being photographed for the first time in 18 months, proving that not even an octogenarian retiree is spared superficial judgements about appearance.

Nicholson’s prolific career spanned six decades, and his 12 Academy Award nominations establish him as the most nominated male acting nominee in Oscar history. His first nomination recognized his memorable turn in Easy Rider as George Hanson, the easygoing lawyer who joins countercultural bikers Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper) on their freewheeling trek across America.

What’d He Wear?

Despite his affability and open mind, George Hanson still comes across as a relative square when compared to the leather-clad Wyatt and fringed Billy. George’s linen suit and bright tie may be more offbeat than the conservative blue or gray business suit, but it’s still a suit and tie—the sartorial symbol of establishment.

That said, our group first meets in a New Mexico jail cell, so even the white shirt and tie inform us that George may have more of a countercultural spirit than his clothing would otherwise suggest. His wrinkled linen suit and loosened tie evokes the classic image of the hardworking, civic-minded Southern lawyer in cool-wearing seersucker as popularized by Atticus Finch and Ben Matlock.

George wears a plain white cotton shirt with a spread collar, plain front, breast pocket, and squared single-button cuffs. His scarlet-red silk tie flares out toward the broad-tipped blade, with two wide white chevrons spaced out below the knot. Each chevron is filled with a scarlet medallion-print design.

George’s cream linen suit would be comfortably cool in the heat of the southwest. The suit’s outmoded details and oversized jacket suggest it was purchased secondhand, with the latter sin particularly evident in how far the shoulders fall off from Nicholson’s frame, the effect exacerbated by extra-long sleeves. The jacket has a single-breasted, three-button front, a ventless back, and two-button cuffs. The breast pocket and hip pockets are sporty patch pockets.

The suit’s matching trousers have a medium-high rise, held up with a set of ivory ribbed cloth suspenders (braces) that have gold-toned adjusters and white leather hooks to connect to buttons along the inside of the trouser waistband.

The trousers have a short reverse pleat on each side, as well as belt loops that go unused, and the bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs). They also have vertical side pockets and button-through back pockets.

Even beyond its excessive fit, the outdated details of George’s suit would have made it considerably unfashionable by the late ’60s. While this could suggest someone yearning for an earlier time, I interpret it to communicate that George may not totally fit into the persona he has chosen for himself, serving as a quiet rebellion to the conformity of his profession. After he abandons his old life to hit the road with Wyatt and Billy, the haphazard way he deconstructs his suit—such as wearing the suspender-rigged trousers with his T-shirt, football helmet, and cowboy boots—creates a sartorial chaos that aligns him with the outcasts he has befriended.

A more decorum-informed lawyer than George may have worn low shoes like oxfords with his suit, but his weathered brown leather cowboy boots neatly transfer to his new life. The tall shafts provide ankle support and protection while riding, while the design also fortuitously lacks any laces that could be caught in the chain, sprocket, or gears of Wyatt’s Harley-Davidson.

“Oh, I’ve got a helmet! I got a beauty,” George responds to Wyatt’s question, which serves as his invitation to join them en route Mardi Gras. To the tune of the Holy Modal Rounders, we catch up with George now riding with the boys, protecting his head in an old-fashioned football helmet, presumably from his undergrad days at the University of Michigan as the colors of his helmet and varsity sweater suggest. The hard plastic helmet is painted gold, with a blue anteroposterior stripe across the center, flanked on top by two ventilation holes. The white leather chin strap is secured with a buckle.

George wears black Shuron Ronsir Zyl glasses. Shuron originated the distinctive “browline” frame when they introduced the Ronsir in the late 1940s, and it grew to iconic status throughout the ’60s thanks to wearers like LBJ, Vince Lombardi, and Malcolm X. To convert them into sunglasses as needed, he clips on a set of sunglass lenses specifically designed to fit the Ronsir-style frame, connected by a narrow gold bar across the top.

George swaps out his tie for a varsity sweater for the first leg of his journey to Mardi Gras with Wyatt and Billy, as well as the memorable marijuana scene around the trio’s campfire. Also known as a “Letterman sweater” (for the large letter embroidered across the front), varsity sweaters originated at Harvard in the late 19th century as students began customizing sweaters to show their enthusiasm for their athletic pursuits. Eventually, the varsity sweaters caught on at high schools and universities across the country to become an established staple of American sports culture.

George’s navy ribbed wool sweater has a large gold boiled wool “M” stitched onto the torso, reinforcing the theory he attended the University of Michigan. The football in the upper right corner informs us of his chosen sport, while the star in the opposing corner suggests that George may have been the captain of his team. The three golden bands over his left bicep tell us that he was on the team for at least three years.

When the trio rides into Louisiana to dine at a small-town restaurant, he’s stripped down to a plain burgundy cotton crew-neck short-sleeved T-shirt with a squared breast pocket.

George wears a gold-toned wristwatch with a round champagne-colored dial, sparsely detailed with non-numeric hour indices, on a gold-toned expanding band.

What to Imbibe

“Here’s the first of the day, fellas,” George announces as he raises his flask-bottle of Jim Beam before taking a long swig of the bourbon and absorbing the effect with an odd extended gesture reportedly ad-libbed by Jack Nicholson.

“To old D.H. Lawrence!”

Now practically a household name, Jim Beam bourbon wasn’t actually known as such until a decade after Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Long known as “Old Tub”, the bourbon was rebranded “Jim Beam” in 1943 in tribute to then-president James Beauregard Beam, great-great grandson of German immigrant Johannes “Jacob” Beam, who had started the operation in the late 18th century.

How to Get the Look

Jack Nicholson as George Hanson in Easy Rider (1969)

George Hanson’s cream linen suit with its oversized patch-pocket jacket and pleated trousers held up with suspenders would have been relatively outdated by the late 1960s setting, signifying his initial alignment with a more conservative establishment. Luckily for our heroes, George is all too happy to deconstruct his suit and tie as he straps his “beauty” of his helmet and hops aboard the back of Captain America’s Harley-Davidson.

• Cream linen suit:
  • Single-breasted 3-button jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Single reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with spread collar, plain front, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Scarlet-red silk tie with medallion-printed large white chevrons
• Ivory ribbed cloth suspenders with gold-toned adjusters and white leather hooks
• Brown leather cowboy boots
• Shuron Ronsir Zyl black browline-framed glasses with clip-on sunglasses
• Gold-toned wristwatch with round champagne dial on gold-finished expanded bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and the classic rock soundtrack.

The Quote

You know, this used to be a hell of a good country.

The post Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider appeared first on BAMF Style.

David Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

Vitals

David Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton, ambitious humanoid alien

New Mexico, Summer 1975

Film: The Man Who Fell to Earth
Release Date: March 18, 1976
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Costume Designer: May Routh

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today is World Table Tennis Day! For nearly a decade since it was established, WTTD had been celebrated on April 6 until the ITTF Foundation announced that it would be moved this year to April 23, to mark the birthday of Ivor Montagu, founder of the International Table Tennis Federation who organized the first World Table Tennis Championships in 1926. History buffs may also recognize his name as Ivor Montagu was also recruited by Soviet intelligence during World War II, at the same time that his older brother Ewen Montagu was developing the famous Operation Mincemeat on behalf of British intelligence.

Among the many movies that feature table tennis—or ping-pong, if you prefer its onomatopoeiac nomenclature—is The Man Who Fell to Earth, Nicolas Roeg’s surreal science fiction drama based on Walter Tevis’ 1963 novel of the same name. David Bowie stars as the titular Thomas Jerome Newton, a humanoid alien subject to an isolated life in government captivity.

Years of torture and experimentation crushed Newton’s idealism into a cynical disillusionment, furthered by a tragic visit from his one-time love Mary Lou (Candy Clark). After a final romp fueled by guns, sex, and martinis, the two play a few sad rounds of table tennis in a room wallpapered—and scattered with leaves on the ground—to resemble a rustic outdoor scene. She tries to convince him to stay on Earth, despite their mutual admissions that they’ve fallen out of love.

What’d He Wear?

There’s something comical about the two pathetic figures decked out in tennis whites and colorful visors to play a few meaningless rounds of table tennis. On the film’s 40th anniversary, costume designer May Routh recounted to Dazed that “at one point they’re playing ping-pong and it was just working it out so that his visor cast a green light on his face—just things that, as a viewer, you never really think of but they’ve been thought out.”

Unlike the usual sports visors that typically consist of just a crownless band encircling the wearer’s head, Newton’s white visor cap has two straps that cross over the top of his head. The long, curved visor itself is green translucent cellulose acetate, trimmed in white to match the rest of the cap.

Newton wears one of his usual white cotton piqué shirts, designed with a plain front (no placket) that he wears buttoned at the neck, even when some of the buttons below it are undone. The shirt also has a semi-spread collar and very short sleeves, more resembling those of a T-shirt than a polo or button-up shirt.

Newton wraps a white belt around the bottom of the untucked shirt, allowing the hem to “skirt” out. The belt closes through a squared single-prong buckle. To complete the look, Newton wears white cotton flat-front shorts with a mid-thigh inseam.

My legitimately diagnosed OCD quivers at the sight of a martini glass on the playing surface (and in bounds, no less!) during Newton’s match.

Apropos the athletic context, Newton wears white CVO-style deck sneakers with white ribbed cotton crew socks, rolled down to just cover his ankles. The shoes have white canvas twill uppers with white cotton laces through five sets of silver-toned eyelets, and a dark blue “foxing strip” trims the tops of the white rubber outsoles.

I’ve seen “CVO” described as meaning both “Circular Vamp Oxford” and “Canvas Vulcanized Oxford”, the former referring to the overall shape while the latter relates to the canvas uppers and vulcanized rubber soles. These qualities make them popular for activities like sports or sailing, with the canvas uppers both lightweight and durable for lots of movement while the soles provide extra traction.

Originating in the 1930s when Sperry developed siped soles for the seagoing Top Siders, this style has been popularized over the decades by brands like Converse, Sperry, and Vans, with Bowie’s screen-worn sneakers looking most consistent with the current Sperry Striper II model.

Newton wears a white sweatband on each wrist, made of terry-cloth toweling cotton to absorb sweat.

What to Imbibe

Newton’s initial meeting with Mary Lou in that New Mexico motel room years earlier introduced him to gin, which would be established as his kryptonite as he descends into the alcoholism that wrecks his spirit.

While that’s not much of an endorsement, there’s something charmingly incongruous about the pair drinking martinis during their table tennis match, presumably mixed from the Gordon’s gin and Martini & Rossi extra dry vermouth seen on a side table, and garnished with a lemon twist.

Who needs Gatorade?

How to Get the Look

David Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

The tradition of wearing all white for tennis dates back to the Victorian era, as the colorless materials were best for reflecting sunlight when playing outside. Despite the rustic wallpaper surrounding them, Newton and Mary Lou are conducting their informal game indoors, so he’s likely sporting all white to entertain himself… after all, what else is there to do when spending years in enforced isolation?

• White cotton piqué short-sleeved shirt with semi-spread collar and plain front
• White cotton flat-front shorts
• White belt with squared single-prong buckle (worn outside of shirt)
• White canvas 5-eyelet CVO-style deck sneakers with blue foxing stripe and white rubber outsoles
• White ribbed cotton crew socks
• White visor cap with crossed-top crown and green translucent visor
• White terry-cloth armbands

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and Walter Tevis’ novel.

The post The Man Who Fell to Earth: David Bowie’s Table Tennis Whites appeared first on BAMF Style.

Al Pacino as Vincent Hanna in Heat (1995)

Vitals

Al Pacino as Vincent Hanna, intense LAPD detective-lieutenant and Marine Corps veteran

Los Angeles, Spring 1995

Film: Heat
Release Date: December 15, 1995
Director: Michael Mann
Costume Designer: Deborah Lynn Scott

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy 83rd birthday to Al Pacino, the iconic actor born April 25, 1940. Pacino rose to fame after his performance as Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather, Part II (1974), the latter also establishing his co-star Robert De Niro. After two decades heralded as two of the best actors of their generation, Pacino and De Niro were finally reunited in Heat, sharing the screen for the first time as their characters in The Godfather, Part II never appeared together.

Michael Mann was inspired by the real-life exploits of Chicago detective Chuck Adamson’s investigation into an early 1960s bank robber named Neil McCauley to write and direct Heat, which was actually Mann’s second go at the story which he had originally filmed as a much lower-budget, less complicated made-for-TV movie in 1989 called L.A. Takedown.

Pacino stars in Heat as Vincent Hanna, an intense and idiosyncratic lieutenant in the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division given to bombastic outbursts (especially when women’s asses are a topic of discussion), explained in the original screenplay as the byproduct of Hanna’s cocaine addiction. Hanna is as “funny as a heart attack,” as described to Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro), the professional armed robber whom Hanna becomes increasingly obsessed with hunting, sure that McCauley is planning on a major score but unsure of what it will be.

Once the anticipated heist is in progress, Hanna finally receives a tip that McCauley’s crew is taking down the Far East bank in downtown L.A., giving Hanna and his team just enough team to load up and ride onto the scene, resulting in one of the most famous and exciting movie gunfights—and one that would eerily parallel a real-life event two years later.

After the bloody afternoon that leaves two crooks and a handful of cops dead, Hanna doggedly continues his pursuit of McCauley, ignoring his own tenuous relationship to his wife and stepdaughter as he fears he’ll lose the chance to bag the master criminal…

Bon voyage, motherfucker! You were good…

What’d He Wear?

While I’ve written extensively about Robert De Niro’s style as Neil McCauley, I’ve also received a few requests from readers interested in how Al Pacino dresses as his intrepid predator, Vincent Hanna. If McCauley follows the Mann criminal “uniform” of gray-toned suits and white open-neck shirts as also seen in Collateral (2004) and—to some extent—Thief (1981), Hanna has his own sartorial guidelines defined by warmer suits, generally in shades of brown with dark shirts and low-contrast ties.

The happy Hannas.

Hanna’s generously tailored Canali suits reflect the baggy trends of the 1990s, partly developed in reaction to the more form-fitting styles of the 1980s while also expressing a more relaxed style in increasingly informal workplaces. A Canali label can be spied on the inside of Pacino’s jacket as Hanna undresses in his hotel room while estranged from his wife Justine (Diane Venora).

Note the Canali label on Hanna’s suit jacket.

Hanna gets the tip about McCauley’s robbery while dressed in a brown-and-black micro-checked suit.  This single-breasted jacket has notch lapels with a low gorge similar to his other suits, though the low button stance is only for one button as opposed to his other two-button jackets. One-button jackets are typically most flattering for shorter men, and Al Pacino’s 5’7″ height makes him the ideal candidate to ideal from the balance of a one-button jacket.

The jacket has straight jetted hip pockets and a welted breast pocket, from which Hanna visibly hangs his LAPD badge to quickly identify his alliance—and thus avoid friendly fire—during the gunfight along South Figueroa Street. Each sleeve is finished with two buttons at the cuff. The ventless jacket has wide and heavily padded shoulders, which look even more pronounced given the then-fashionably baggy fit.

“The suits definitely do reflect 1995 very well—the very wide shoulders, the low gorges,” observed Ken Stauffer while discussing Heat‘s costume design on Pete Brooker’s podcast From Tailors With Love. “[Pacino] kind of gets swallowed up in those Italian designer suits.”

The low rise and bunched bottoms of Hanna’s suit would have been unfortunately trendy at the time, but they may also be the byproduct of his hefting more than two pounds onto his belt in the form of the fully loaded Colt Officer’s ACP pistol, carried in a black leather Yaqui slide holster on his left side. Yaqui-style holsters are a relatively simple design, consisting of a large leather loop around the center of a handgun’s frame to secure it snugly to the wearer, worn outside-the-waistband (OWB). Hanna keeps his positioned horizontally with the grip facing forward for a right-handed cross-draw.

Hanna reminds Justine’s one-night-stand Ralph (Xander Berkeley) of his place by keeping his holstered Colt Officer’s ACP exposed while, uh, uninstalling his TV.

While his LAPD colleagues all wear traditional business suits and ties with white, blue, and striped shirts, Vincent Hanna follows a flashier pattern of dress with dark shirts and ties. This presents an interesting costume inversion as the criminal Neil McCauley’s gray suits and white shirts are more aligned with more conventional style while Hanna’s darker suits, shirts, and ties are more traditionally associated with underworld characters; consider Robert de Niro’s costumes in Casino, released the same year as Heat.

Unless he’s wearing a black suit, Hanna typically wears black shirts made by Anto Beverly Hills, with a silky finish suggestive of either high-twist cotton, silk, or a blend; synthetic fabrics can also be made to look silky, but the prestige of Hanna’s attire would suggest he prefers higher-quality natural fabrics. The shirts are designed with point collars, button cuffs, and a plain front (no placket).

Hanna’s black tie has a low-contrast foulard pattern, which appears to be a series of dark blue lines against shadowed slate-gray triangles.

After a day that saw many lives ended, Hanna does his best to save one after his anxious stepdaughter Lauren (Natalie Portman) attempts suicide in his hotel bathroom.

Anticipating some heavy action, Hanna layers a dark blue ballistic vest under his suit jacket for the downtown gunfight. Body armor like this typically consists of tightly woven “bulletproof” synthetic fibers like Kevlar to provide ballistic protection in combat by absorbing and dispersing the force of a bullet, reducing the force that is transmitted to the wearer’s body.

Hanna and his fellow officers wear vests made of two pieces—one protecting the front, another protecting the back—secured by shoulder straps and two straps around the torso.

Hanna often wears black leather shoes as expected with his business suits, but a quick glance at his feet during the gunfight reveals a pair of black-and-gray apron-toe sneakers with flat black woven laces. I can’t find much verified information about these shoes, other than a suggested comment that they may be Nike Air Trainer SC sneakers.

Their prominence on screen suggests that the choice was intentional (especially given Michael Mann’s attention to detail), so it’s possible that Hanna keeps these more movement-oriented shoes at his office and changes into them when preparing for action.

Hanna dresses his left wrist with both a silver Jerusalem cross charm bracelet and his wristwatch, which Danny Hilton described last year for Hodinkee as “a period-perfect ’90s Bulgari watch that jives with his character’s off-kilter and frankly unhinged demeanor.” Like their taste in suits, Hanna’s conspicuous Bulgari contrasts against the function-driven practicality of Neal McCauley’s digital Timex Stealth. Recalling Pacino’s earlier role in Scarface, Albert Tong wrote previously for British GQ that Hanna’s Bulgari Diagono is “the kind of watch a Miami drug lord would wear diving off the back of a yacht, rather than an upstanding member of the LAPD.”

Bulgari introduced the Diagono the late 1980s, blending a sporty touch into Bulgari’s heritage of luxury. Hanna’s model is a quartz-powered chronograph, strapped to a black leather band that swells through the center. The stainless steel case includes a fixed bezel with “BVLGARI” etched across the top and bottom, with a standard crown positioned at 3 o’clock, flanked by pushers at the 2 and 4 o’clock positions. The black dial has three silver sub-registers positioned across the bottom, with a small black date window between the 4 and 5 o’clock positions. Each hour is indicated with non-numeric indices.

Hanna dresses his left hand with the BVLGARI-branded chronograph and a Jerusalem cross bracelet.

On the middle finger of his right hand, Hanna wears a brass ring, shaped like an oval-faced signet ring but with an aquamarine cabochon that has a blue-starred center. The ring is etched with three lines along each side of the band.

Hanna performs a brass check on his Colt Officer’s ACP to confirm that he has a round chambered. The method—including trigger discipline—as well as the action itself are all hallmarks of Michael Mann’s attention to realistically depicting firearms usage.

He rarely wears them elsewhere, but Hanna sports black-rimmed rectangular reading glasses when his team gets Hugh Benny’s tip about the bank job. Otherwise, his eyewear is typically a set of narrow-framed Revo sunglasses.

Hanna also wears his usual pair of gold necklaces, including one on a narrow link-chain that has a stamped gold circular pendant.

The Guns

Beginning with his directorial debut (Thief), Michael Mann grew a deserved reputation for his meticulous attention to technical detail, including the use of firearms and his characters’ proficiency with them. For Heat, Mann brought in well-known SAS operators to instruct the respective teams in the use of their weapons—Andy McNab trained De Niro’s crew of crooks while Mick Gould worked with Pacino and his fellow cops, thus establishing distinctive styles for the gunmen on each side of the law.

Harry Lu was the lead weapons master, and the film’s weapons were rented from the L.A.-based Stembridge Gun Rentals; according to the IMFDB discussion page, some—including Hanna’s rifle for the street gunfight—may have been originally rented from Mike Papac at Cinema Weaponry until the production duration required replacements.

Over the course of Heat, Hanna cycles through his everyday Colt Officer’s ACP pistol, a heavier-duty FN FNC rifle, and a commandeered Mossberg 590 shotgun, all models that had been introduced within the previous decade or two as tactic-informed evolutions of older designs.

Colt Officer’s ACP

Lieutenant Hanna’s primary sidearm is a Colt Officer’s ACP, a scaled-down 1911-style semi-automatic pistol introduced by Colt’s Manufacturing Company in 1985. Designed for concealed carry and personal defense, the Colt M1991A1 Series 80 Officer’s ACP has a 3.5-inch barrel (as opposed to the 5″-barreled full-size 1911) and a shortened grip frame that holds a six-round magazine, to be loaded with the same .45 ACP ammunition as associated with the standard 1911 pistol. Despite its reduced size and lighter-weight aluminum alloy frame, the Colt Officer’s ACP is still a substantial weapon and can weigh more than two pounds when fully loaded. The Officer’s ACP was available in blued and stainless finishes—Hanna opts for a parkerized blued model with custom ivory grips.

One of Al Pacino’s screen-used Colt Officer’s ACP pistols from Heat, serial #CP21094. Photo sourced from Julien’s Live auction.

Though primarily marketed to civilian buyers, the Colt Officer’s ACP also saw use by some law enforcement agencies, particularly those requiring smaller armament for undercover work or off-duty carry. That said, I can’t confirm if such a weapon would have been authorized for LAPD usage. Through the ’90s, the issued sidearm for LAPD personnel was the Beretta 92F and 92FS pistol in 9mm, as exemplified by “loose cannon” LAPD detective Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) in the Lethal Weapon series. Given that SWAT officers carried Colt Mk IV Series 70 1911 pistols, Hanna may have argued his case to carry his own downsized 1911… or he just may not have cared what his superiors thought.

Stembridge Gun Rentals provided two Colt Officer’s ACP pistols—serial numbers CP21094 and CP21263—to be used in Heat, purchased from Colt specifically for the production and loaned out from February through July of 1995. According to a letter from Brandon Alinger of The Prop Store in London (as related by The Firearms Blog), Mann was so concerned about the possibility of seeing the barrel restrictor on film that the blank-firing adapter was threaded deeper than usual. One of the two pistols—serial number CP21094—has been auctioned several times, including most recently in April 2021 by Julien’s Live.

Hanna stalks McCauley with his .45 cocked and ready. Note the “COMPACT MODEL” etched on the right side of the slide. (The other side says “MODEL M1991A1”).

FN FNC

Rightly anticipating heavy firepower when confronting McCauley’s crew during the daytime bank heist, Hanna supplements his usual pistol with an FN FNC battle rifle. The FNC was developed through the late 1970s by the Belgian manufacturer Fabrique Nationale (FN) was introduced in 1979 as an intended replacement for the older FN FAL.

Designed to be lightweight, reliable, and modular, the FN FNC features a gas-operated action with a rotating bolt, and is fed from a 30-round detachable STANAG box magazine, chambered for the same 5.56x45mm NATO ammunition as the venerated M16 rifle series. All with a lightweight alloy side-folding skeleton stock, the FN FNC is offered in three different standard barrel lengths: a 17.1-inch “Standard” rifle, the 14.3-inch “Short” carbine, and the 16.1-inch Law Enforcement carbines offered only in semi-automatic mode.

Hanna takes aim with his FN FNC during a crucial moment when precision is more important than power.

The FN FNC has primarily been used by military and law enforcement agencies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, although it has also seen limited use by some U.S. law enforcement agencies and civilian gun owners. While it is a reliable and versatile rifle, its use in the U.S. has been limited by its relatively high cost compared to other options on the market, as well as restrictions on the availability of select-fire rifles to civilians.

“According to the on-set armorer, Hanna’s rifle was a select-fire FNC (as opposed to the semi-auto only civilian version) that was chopped down by the armorer to a Para length barrel, and an M16-style birdcage flash-hider was attached,” according to IMFDB. “Despite being a full-auto weapon, Michael Mann instructed Al Pacino to fire only in semi-automatic mode, because Hanna and all of the other cops who were involved in the shootout would be concerned about the possibility of endangering bystanders.”

Hanna takes cover during the gunfight to reload his FN FNC.

Mossberg 590

When Neil McCauley finally feels the heat coming around the corner at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport, Hanna again recognizes that he may need a heavier-duty weapon and takes a Mossberg 590 pump-action shotgun from a uniformed LAPD officer when chasing McCauley onto the LAX tarmac.

O.F. Mossberg & Sons introduced the Model 590 in 1987 as a tactical variation of the older Mossberg 590 shotgun, generally differentiated by its magazine tube that was designed to be opened at the muzzle end for simplified cleaning and maintenance. The standard Model 590 configuration loads eight-plus-one 12-gauge rounds into the tube under the 20-inch barrel, though Mossberg has evolved the Model 590 to include a range of ammunition (including .410 bore and 20-gauge), shorter 18.5″ barrels, and pistol grips.

The Mossberg 590 requisitioned by Hanna during the finale of Heat features the standard 20″ barrel length in addition to black synthetic furniture, bayonet lug, and heat shield.

Hanna chases McCauley with his shotgun.

What to Imbibe

Contrasting the undepicted substance rumored to fuel his many outbursts, Vincent Hanna takes the edge off with the help of Jack Daniel’s, the Tennessee whiskey celebrated as a favorite of Frank Sinatra, Keith Richards, and Clark Griswold’s dad. He keeps a bottle on his desk during the second day of the McCauley manhunt, but we more prominently see him drinking some—neat, of course—at the start of the movie when Justine confronts him about his late hours.

“I’ve got three dead bodies on a sidewalk off Venice Boulevard, Justine. I’m sorry if the goddamn…chicken…got over… cooked.”

How to Get the Look

Al Pacino as Vincent Hanna in Heat (1995)

Unlike his colleagues, Vincent Hanna dresses more like a celebrity—or even a celebrity criminal—than a typical cop with his then-fashionably baggy Italian suits, low-contrasting dark shirts and ties, and array of jewelry that includes a luxury chronograph and a chunky ring on his shooting hand.

• Brown-and-black mini-check Canali suit:
  • Single-breasted 1-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 2-button cuffs
  • Single-pleated trousers with side pockets and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black silky shirt with point collar, plain front, and button cuffs
• Black tonal-patterned tie
• Black leather belt with gold-toned square single-prong buckle
• Black leather Yaqui-style OWB slide holster, worn butt-forward on the left side
• Black-and-gray sneakers
• Black socks
• Brass signet-like ring with aquamarine cabochon
• Silver Jerusalem cross bracelet
• Bulgari Diagono stainless steel chronograph watch with “BVLGARI”-etched fixed bezel, black dial with three silver sub-registers and date window, and black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie as well as the 2022 episode of the From Tailors With Love podcast featuring my friends Pete, Ken, and Kyle discussing Heat‘s costume design.

The Quote

I’m very angry, Ralph. You know, you can borrow my wife—if she wants you to. You can lounge around here on her sofa in her ex-husband’s dead-tech, post-modernistic, bullshit house if you want to. But you do not get to watch my fucking television set!

The post Pacino in Heat: Vincent Hanna’s Checked Canali Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

Kieran Culkin as Roman Roy on Succession, Episode 4.05 (“Kill List”)

Vitals

Kieran Culkin as Roman Roy, newly ascended “CE-bro”

Møre og Romsdal, Norway, Fall 2020

Series: Succession
Episode: “Kill List” (Episode 4.05)
Air Date: April 23, 2023
Director: Andrij Parekh
Creator: Jesse Armstrong
Costume Designer: Michelle Matland

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

My favorite Succession looks are always when the Roy family and their hangers-on are out of the office—or, even better—far from the city, either dressed down in linens for a sunny day at sea or layered in knitwear and Barbours for the country.

Midway through the series’ fourth and final season, “Kill List” was an example of the latter, transporting the Waystar RoyCo corporate entourage to western Norway for tech giant GoJo’s corporate retreat, where they plan to land a deal with its insufferably erratic Elon-esque billionaire CEO, Lukas Mattson (Alexander Skarsgård).

The Scandinavian woods brought out plenty of great style, from Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) in his shearling-lined bomber and one of his trademark cashmere caps to Siobhan (Sarah Snook) rotating through a few neutral turtlenecks layered under sport jackets… not to forget her soon-to-be-ex-husband Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) channeling Steve McQueen in a similar sport jacket and turtleneck, albeit with sneakers so white they threaten to confuse the molly-addled Swedes among them.

Among many great performances, the episode belonged to Kieran Culkin as Roman Roy, who was already an exceedingly entertaining character but whose mourning through the latest season brought out an even greater depth in the character. Succession has chronicled Roman’s growth from an immature prankster to a more business-minded professional—albeit still not one above his occasional dick joke (or pic, with apologies to Gerri Kellman). His quest for his father’s approval—even posthumously—has shown Roman taking himself more seriously while still battling his own unresolved inner turmoil.

Far departed from the douche-bro who tore up a life-changing check in front of a tearful child who blew his chance at a million-dollar home run in the first episode, the still-snarky Roman may be revealing himself to be the most empathetic Roy sibling, urging the family to support eldest son Connor (Alan Ruck) during his all-but-doomed nuptials, stepping in to support his late father’s assistant-cum-mistress Kerry (Zoe Winters) despite their mutual loathing, and now frequently reminding Kendall that their self-determined leadership model is actually a trifecta that includes Shiv.

Roman may also be the Roy most comfortable to be authentic with his emotions, brilliantly brought out by Culkin during Roman’s mountaintop smackdown on Mattson, a cathartic moment for all of us who have practiced rants against our nemeses in the shower or car, only for the diatribe to remain forever unspoken. Frustrated at being “Scooby-dooed”, Mattson mocks the CE-bros for not being like their father, in turn denouncing the late Logan (Brian Cox) as a “prick” who would be ashamed of his sons in the moment… resulting in Roman’s pointed tear-down that, in collaboration with his wardrobe, illustrates that he may have more in common with his father than anyone had anticipated.

What’d He Wear?

Roman dresses smartly for their Scandinavian destination in layered cool tones of blue, black, and gray, anchored on the first day with a rich navy shawl-collar cardigan that looks just like one his late father would have worn.

The partial back shot of Roman during his and Kendall’s tête-à-trois against Mattson recalls Logan in his similarly styled cable-knit cardigan in the opening credits.

There has been some romantic online speculation that Roman, echoing when he sent cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) back to a then-ailing Logan’s apartment in the second episode to bring Roman a piece of his clothing that smells like him, perhaps swiped the cardigan he saw draped over the back of Logan’s chair in the previous episode. Shiv seems to endorse this in “Kill List”, commenting on the futility of holding onto their father’s reactionary news division: “let’s just keep one of his old sweaters. Less racist.”

However, I’d argue that a sweater would have been two dramatically different sizes to fit both the lean-framed Kieran Culkin and Brian Cox, who described himself as “more physically robust” in an interview with Caroline Reilly for InsideHook. I believe that Roman more likely was inspired by his father’s example and chose to continue his legacy by dressing for power plays like the GoJo retreat, echoing Cox’s statement from the same interview that “[Logan] wears his wealth on his back, especially those cardigans. I love Logan’s cardigans. The very fabric of his clothes gives him power.”

Is Roman hoping to channel his father’s ruthless vigor by dressing in a navy shawl-collar cardigan?

Roman’s cardigan is even from one of the deceased patriarch’s preferred brands, Polo Ralph Lauren, as identified by the great Instagram account @successionfashion which also included the MSRP of $598, apropos the Roy world of quiet luxury.

The purl knit fabric is an indigo-blue blend of 96% wool and 4% cashmere. Polo Ralph Lauren markets this as the “shawl-lapel ribbed-trim cardigan”, referencing the ribbing along the shawl collar, sleeves, straight hem, and back, as well as along the front where six buttons are lined up, including two closely positioned on the waistband—there are also two smaller buttons under the right collar. The matte chest panels extend from the shoulders down to waist hem, with patch pockets placed over the lower half of each, each with a pointed flap that closes through a single button. The set-in sleeves also have matte elbow “patches” matching the chest panels.

Shop the cardigan:

Polo Ralph Lauren Shawl-Lapel Ribbed-Trim Cardigan in indigo blue ($598 $419, Farfetch)

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Price and availability current as of April 26, 2023.

When not dressed to his typical formula of a button-up shirt tucked into trousers, V-neck T-shirts are a staple of Roman Roy’s wardrobe. Layering his Logan-esque cardigan over a black cotton V-neck T-shirt illustrates how effectively Roman is able to incorporate his dad’s style into his own.

On a show celebrated for its accurate depiction of “stealth wealth” complete with $600 cashmere baseball caps and $25,000 watches, I was surprised to see that Roman’s slate-gray jeans are clearly Levi’s, as indicated by the red tab along the seam of the right back pocket and the low-contrasting arcuate stitch across both back pockets. Levi Strauss & Co. may be a 170-year-old American heritage brand, but it’s still considerably more pedestrian than the Brunello Cucinelli, Loro Piana, Ralph Lauren, and Tom Ford fits that we’re used to seeing among the men of Succession.

These may be the Levi’s 505 Regular Fit Men’s Pants, made from a gray “Comfort Stretch” cotton blend and styled with a straight leg, zip fly, and the same five-pocket layout found on most standard pairs of jeans.

Negotiating $187 billion deals in $69 Levi’s.

Shop the pants:

Levi's 505 Regular Fit Men's Pants in gray ($69.50)

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Price and availability current as of April 26, 2023.

Roman wears black leather derby-laced boots, a hardier style than the trainers that Kendall wears and bemoans after he “already got mud on my sneaks.”

To combat the weather, Roman wears a dark navy tech jacket, likely made from a weather-resistant polyester or synthetic blend. The trim-fitting jacket has a zip-up front that extends from the straight waist hem to the top of the standing collar, covered by a snap-front fly. The set-in sleeves are finished with squared button cuffs that he wears undone, and the low-slung side pockets zip up to close.

For added prep against the inclement weather, Roman adds an additional layer after the Mattson meeting with a navy polyurethane-coated polyester marsh jacket, slightly longer than his tech jacket. The back has a storm flap and a fishtail hem. Lined in black polyester, the jacket has six navy-covered snaps up the front with two more to close at the neck. The hood cinches with a dark-blue drawstring, and there are snap-closed slanted side pockets.

@successionfashion identified this waterproof jacket as made by Rains, who offers it in more than a dozen colors for only $110… yet another surprisingly affordable piece in Roman’s “Kill List” costume.

Roman spent the first three seasons of Succession exclusively wearing Rolex watches, a tradition he continued into the fourth-season premiere. For the following three episodes, Roman wore a blue-dialed steel IWC Mark XX pilot’s watch on a leather band.

The “Kill List” pre-credits sequence set at the Waystar Royco office debuts yet another new watch for Romulus: a stainless chronograph with a white dial on a black leather strap. We know Logan’s will made provisions for watches—including a Rolex Daytona Lapis for his trusted body-man (and best friend?) Colin—so it’s possible that this newly seen piece is a Logan hand-me-down that, like the navy shawl-collar cardigan, Roman wears in the hopes of channeling his father during this high-stakes negotiation.

His cold-weather layers in Norway generally cover his left wrist, but a quick glimpse as he hangs his arms out the car window prior to departure suggests that he’s wearing the same watch.

How to Get the Look

Kieran Culkin as Roman Roy on Succession, Episode 4.05 (“Kill List”)

Roman keeps Logan’s legacy alive for the negotiations in a navy shawl-collar cardigan inspired by the departed patriarch’s wardrobe, neatly incorporated into his own trim sense of style comprised of cool tones and easy layers to counter the wet western Norwegian climate.

• Indigo-blue ribbed purl-knit wool/cashmere Polo Ralph Lauren shawl-collar cardigan with 6-button front, matte chest panels with button-flapped patch pockets, and matte elbow patches
• Black cotton V-neck short-sleeve T-shirt
• Gray stretch cotton Levi’s jeans
• Black leather derby-laced boots
• Dark navy polyester tech jacket with zip/snap-up front, standing collar, zip-up pockets, and squared button cuffs
• Navy polyester marsh jacket with drawstring-cinched hood, snap-up front, snap-closed pockets, and back storm flap
• Stainless steel chronograph watch with white dial on black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, currently streaming on HBO Max.

For fans of the show’s style, I recommend following the great Instagram accounts @successionfashion and @successionfits.

The Quote

Why’s that making you smile? That shouldn’t make you smile. Who likes tightrope-walking on a straight razor, nut bag?

The post Succession: Roman’s Cardigan for Norway appeared first on BAMF Style.

Willie Nelson as Wendell Hickson in The Electric Horseman (1979)

Vitals

Willie Nelson as Wendell Hickson, trusty talent manager and cowboy singer

Las Vegas, Fall 1978

Film: The Electric Horseman
Release Date: December 21, 1979
Director: Sydney Pollack
Costume Designer: Bernie Pollack

Background

Happy 90th birthday, Willie Nelson! Best known as a country singer/songwriter and prolific stoner, Nelson made his screen acting debut in The Electric Horseman as Wendell Hickson, the laidback and loyal yet understandably weary manager to Sonny Steele (Robert Redford), an increasingly erratic ex-rodeo star who has been reduced to PR appearances promoting cereal for his corporate overlords.

Naturally, Willie also contributed three songs for the film’s soundtrack, including the outlaw standards “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys”, “Midnight Rider”, and “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys”.

What’d He Wear?

Like Willie Nelson and his real-life country contemporaries, Wendell Hickson maintains a country-and-western image, built from pieces inspired by cowboy and Native American tradition.

Wendell anchors his look with a fringe jacket made of cognac-brown suede. Fringe jackets have long been associated with Native American culture, when tribes would make outerwear from animal hides that were detailed with long strands that served both function and form: as a means of weather insulation and shedding water while also providing a canvas for decoration like embroidery or beads. Like many Native American styles, fringed outerwear became popular in mainstream fashion through the later 20th century, thanks in part to its appearance in movies like Midnight Cowboy (1969), as modeled by Jon Voight.

Wendell’s three-button fringe jacket is cut like a thigh-length chore coat—with a long flat camp-style collar and hip pockets—detailed by the long fringe hanging from the yokes and sleeve seams. The jacket has pointed chest yokes and a straight back yoke, though the fringes are longer in the center of his back. The sleeves are set-in, with fringes hanging from the back seams along nearly the entire length of each arm. Each hip pocket also has its own yoke, detailed with respective fringe.

Both Wendell and his troublesome client wear brown suede, with the celebrity Sonny in a lighter tobacco-colored jacket with a trendier cut while Wendell sports a darker cognac shade of brown on his traditional fringed jacket.

Wendell cycles through a series of shirts, most of them Western-styled with the traditional snap-front placket and pair of chest pockets that each close with a single snap on a pointed flap, in addition to the long point collar that was a 1970s requisite.

His shirts include solid and faintly striped tan shirts (both worn over a white cotton crew-neck undershirt), a light-blue shirt with a white graph check (worn over a black T-shirt), and an ecru shirt with a purple floral print.

Wendell generally maintains a consistent style with his patterned snap-front Western shirts, often layered over a T-shirt and under his fringe jacket.

Finally, for an afternoon drinking poolside in Las Vegas after Sonny’s horseback retreat into the desert, Wendell foregoes his usual Western shirt for a boldly printed indigo polyester shirt with white all-over floral etching overlaid with more detailed purple, sage, and orange flowers. Unlike the other shirts, this has a plain button-up placket and an extra-long collar, characteristic of the disco decade.

For someone who sings about how his heroes had always been cowboys, Wendell appoints himself appropriately in a tall-crowned cattleman’s-style cowboy hat made of dark taupe-brown felt, including the narrow self-band detailed with a golden feather tucked in along the left side.

Wendell typically wears light blue jeans, traditionally styled with the five-pocket configuration, rivets, and belt loops, though we don’t see the back of the jeans to determine if they’re the Wrangler jeans that Willie Nelson would endorse through the ’80s or the singer’s own “Willie”-branded jeans. The latter were signified by a metal tag etched with Willie’s autograph along the top seam of the back-right pocket, while the pocket itself was boldly embroidered with “Willie” in scripted yellow font above the state of Texas, embroidered in white and filled in with a pair of spur-bedecked sneakers.

To allow for Wendell’s signature footwear, the jeans have traditional boot-cut bottoms with fortunately none of the exaggerated flare seen throughout trendier pants of the ’70s.

Wendell downs grenade bottles of Coors Banquet while watching Sonny’s exploits covered on the local news.

Wendell holds up his jeans with a black leather belt, covered in large round silver studs. He further embraces his cowboy image with a set of tan soft leather cowboy boots.

Willie Nelson wore both of his own rings in The Electric Horseman, including a silver-toned wedding band on his left hand and a large gold signet-style ring on the ring finger of his right hand, detailed with five diamonds set against the round surface.

“That’s an interesting watchband,” Hallie (Jane Fonda) comments of the timepiece dressing Wendell’s left wrist. “Thank you, it’s Indian,” he responds, slipping it off for her review. The turquoise, white, and red-tiled cuff flanking his watch is affixed to a silver expanding band for easier removal. The digital watch itself consists of a plain round stainless steel case with a green rectangular LCD display. This style was popular through the late ’70s following the “quartz revolution”, as illustrated by the Casio 94QR-26, Timex LCD Digital, and Timex SSQ models.

Time[pieces] of the preacher…

How to Get the Look

Willie Nelson as Wendell Hickson in The Electric Horseman (1979)

Willie Nelson contributed much of his own persona into the character of Wendell Hickson, including his country-and-western garb that takes sartorial queues from cowboy culture and Native American tradition.

• Cognac-brown suede three-button fringe jacket with long camp-style collar, fringed chest and back yokes, and fringed hip pockets
• Light-colored printed Western-styled shirt with long point collar, snap-front placket, two chest pockets with snap-down flaps, and snap cuffs
• Light blue denim jeans
• Black large-studded leather belt
• Tan soft leather cowboy boots
• Gold five-diamond ring
• Silver-toned wedding band
• Stainless steel digital watch with rectangular green LCD display on turquoise, white, and red-tiled cuff with expanding band

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I don’t know what you’re gonna do… I’m gonna get me a bottle of tequila, one of those little keno girls that can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch, and kinda kick back.

The post Willie Nelson’s Fringe Jacket in The Electric Horseman appeared first on BAMF Style.

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos (Episode 1.12: “Isabella”)

Vitals

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, depressed New Jersey mob chief

Montclair, New Jersey, Fall 1998

Series: The Sopranos
Episode: “Isabella” (Episode 1.12)
Air Date: March 28, 1999
Director: Allen Coulter
Creator: David Chase
Costume Designer: Juliet Polcsa

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Since 1949, May has been observed as Mental Health Awareness Month. The first day of May aligning with the informal BAMF Style observance of “Mafia Monday” feels fortuitous as it was The Sopranos that helped me get more in touch with my own anxiety and depression.

I was starting college when I first watched The Sopranos, just months after the final episode stymied audiences when it cut to black. I had long loved movies like Goodfellas, Casino, and The Godfather, so I was excited when my roommate introduced me to this acclaimed HBO series centered around the mob… and I was instantly intrigued when it pulled me into a deeper exploration of identity, masculinity, and mental health. Tony’s psychiatric treatment with Dr. Melfi helped me recognize symptoms that I thought were just “normal” sadness as brought me to a point where—with the added help of real-life professionals (of course!)—I was more comfortable with healthy expression than repression.

The twelfth episode, “Isabella”, arguably presents Tony Soprano at his lowest point—heavily medicated to the point of hallucination, barely dressing himself, and hardly enough wits to fight back during an attempted assassination as two gunmen corner him on Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair. But fight back he does, subconsciously proving himself that—despite the numbness of his depression and the medication he’s been prescribed to treat it—he wants to continue living.

“Tony’s stuck in neutral, but he roars back to life when the two hitmen approach him by the newsstand,” write Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall in The Sopranos Sessions. “Tony’s murder of Febby showed he’s not a man to be trifled with physically, but Tony’s resistance is even more impressive given that he’s being ambushed and has to emerge from a deep stupor to survive. It’s animal instinct: Tony baring his fangs and growling, using the car as a weapon while exploiting his would-be assassins’ bad aim… ‘To tell you the truth, I feel pretty good,’ Tony tells Melfi later. ‘Every fuckin’ particle of my being was fighting to live.'”

What’d He Wear?

When it debuted, The Sopranos marketed much of its appeal around the dual meaning of the word “family” as it applied to Tony as both a suburban dad and mob boss—“If one family doesn’t kill him… the other family will,” drolly observed the first season’s promotional material.

From my recollection growing up in the ’90s, few dads had frequently wore flashy printed silk shirts and Italian knitwear or gleaming pinky rings and stately gold Rolexes, all staples of Tony’s wardrobe as accounts like my friend @tonysopranostyle have chronicled.

Depressed and dulled by lithium at the start of “Isabella”, Tony foregoes his usual drip, barely able to change out of his wardrobe. When he does finally leave the house, he’s pulled together a comfortable outfit of basics that—unlike the silk patterned shirts and Tabasco sauce polos—could be realistically found in any suburban dad’s closet.

Tony wears a light sage-green pique long-sleeved polo shirt, with a narrowly ribbed collar and three-button placket of mixed brown plastic buttons. The shirt has a straight hem, with a short vent at each side seam. During his struggle with the assassins in his Suburban, we briefly see the manufacturer’s dark blue label with its white-embroidered italicized logo, but I’m not equipped to identify it from this brief and blurry glimpse.

Tony’s act of buying orange juice right before he’s nearly shot by rivals on the street, serves as a modern update to the famous scene in The Godfather where a similar incident befell Marlon Brando’s Don Vito Corleone as he was shopping for oranges, establishing that series’ long-standing association between oranges and death.

In the fourth season finale of Seinfeld, Jerry berates George for his lazy fashion choice: “You know the message you’re sending out to the world with these sweatpants? You’re telling the world: ‘I give up! I can’t compete in normal society… I’m miserable, so I might as well be comfortable!'”

Say what you will about Jerry Seinfeld’s style, but he’s right on the money when describing a mental state that would result in the typically well-dressed Tony venturing out in public wearing elastic-waisted sweatpants. While there does seem to be some cultural leeway granted to gangsters in tracksuits, Tony’s sweatpants in “Isabella” aren’t even that, instead the basic heathered light gray cotton or cotton/polyester-blend sweatpants from Champion, Gildan, or Reebok that you could cop for less than $20 at TJ Maxx.

Perhaps the most stereotypical “’90s dad” part of Tony’s costume are his all-white Nike sneakers, the familiar trainers that have so long been associated with suburban fatherhood that no less than Esquire, Glamour, and the Wall Street Journal have touted the current New Balance-led renaissance of “Dad Shoes”. Tony wears his with light sage-green ribbed socks that almost match his shirt.

Tony Soprano finding out that some doofus blogger 24 years later is describing him at his lowest moment as a Maxxinista leading the Dad Shoe revolution might have been a little too much for his vulnerable state of mind in this episode.

Tony wears a pared-down assortment of his usual gold jewelry, leaving his Rolex and pinky ring at home. Instead, he wears his gold wedding ring, his gold necklace with a St. Anthony pendant, and the gold chain-link bracelet on his right wrist—all three items that he wears even while sleeping and thus wouldn’t need to bother actively putting on in the morning.

My friend @tonysopranostyle describes the Skip’s gold bracelet as resembling “a Cuban curbed link chain and an Italian Figaro link chain with a twist.”

What to Imbibe

This section typically details a character’s cocktail or spirits of choice, but when you’re feeling low, it’s more important to focus on rehydrating and getting nutrients and vitamins rather than boozing. Luckily, depressed Tony has the foresight to buy some orange juice… though you can tell the difference in his mental state as the Tropicana Pure Premium Original variety he purchases from the newsstand has no pulp! And Tony likes some pulp!

So what is the definitive Tony Soprano orange juice? Over the course of the series, we see the Soprano household stocked with different varieties of Farmland, Florida’s Natural, Minute Maid, and Tropicana, with the latter seemingly being Tony’s preferred brand. He only protests against the Tropicana Grovestand Calcium with Pulp that Carmela bought him in “Second Opinion” (Episode 3.07), and she notably stocks the house with Tropicana Homestyle in the fifth season after Tony had moved out.

Though we most frequently see him drinking pulp-less Tropicana, his pro-pulp declaration in “Second Opinion” and the on-screen appearance of Tropicana “Some Pulp” at the beginning of the following season would suggest this to be the ideal Tony Soprano orange juice.

How to Get the Look

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos (Episode 1.12: “Isabella”)

While I’d encourage anyone to pull it together enough to at least not wear sweatpants outside the house, Tony’s presentable polo with sweatpants and sneakers reminds me of how I started dressing when working-from-home became the norm during COVID lockdowns: an easy-to-wear collared shirt on top for video calls, paired [off-screen] with my comfiest sweatpants.

• Light sage-green pique long-sleeve polo shirt with 3-button placket
• Light heathered gray cotton/poly sweatpants with drawstring waistband and side pockets
• White Nike sneakers
• Light sage-green ribbed socks
• Gold open-link chain bracelet
• Gold wedding ring
• Gold open-link chain necklace with round St. Anthony pendant

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series.

You should call 988 if you or a loved one are in distress and thinking about suicide. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (previously the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) is a national network of more than 200 crisis centers that offer trained crisis counselors, available 24/7. They can help people experiencing mental health-related distress, including thoughts of suicide or any other kind of emotional distress.

The post Tony Soprano’s Depressed Dad Duds in “Isabella” appeared first on BAMF Style.

Matthew Macfadyen as Charles Cholmondeley in Operation Mincemeat (2022)

Vitals

Matthew Macfadyen as Charles Cholmondeley, Flight Lieutenant (temporary), RAF Intelligence and Security Department, seconded to MI5

London, Spring 1943

Film: Operation Mincemeat
Release Date: April 15, 2022
Director: John Madden
Costume Designer: Andrea Flesch

Background

It was 80 years ago this week when a corpse identified as Major William Martin of the Royal Marines was discovered by Spanish fishermen off the Andalusian coast on the morning of Friday, April 30, 1943. Of course, sardine spotter José Antonio Rey María had no idea that the putrefying body in uniform that he brought to shore and delivered to the nearby regiment of Spanish shoulders was not a decorated British officer but instead a pawn in one of the most famous acts of wartime deception, known internally as Operation Mincemeat.

Though formally set in motion about four months earlier, the tactic originated in a memo circulated by Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence, in September 1939, just weeks after Germany declared war on England. “It was issued under Godfrey’s name, but it more all the hallmarks of his personal assistant, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, who would go on to write the James Bond novels,” alluded author Ben Macintyre in his volume Operation Mincemeat, which was recently adapted into a Netflix film of the same name.

Known as the “Trout Memo” for its metaphor comparing counterespionage to trout fishing, the memorandum offered a total of 51 proposed plans for “introducing ideas into the heads of the Germans.” Listed as number 28 was “A Suggestion (not a very nice one)” which Godfrey and Fleming freely admit was borrowed from colorful author Basil Thomson’s novel The Milliner’s Hat Mystery, consisting of “a corpse dressed as an airman,” with his pockets and belongings detailing falsified plans for an invasion.

While the literary-influenced idea sounds nothing short of fantastic, it found a foothold in “the corkscrew mind” of Charles Cholmondeley, a young, shy, and somewhat eccentric Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve officer who served as secretary for the top-secret XX Committee, so named as the Roman numerals for twenty also form a “double cross”… which should provide some hint into both the type of work conducted by the group as well as the minds that directed it.

Cholmondeley reworked Fleming’s “not a very nice” suggestion into a plan he understandably called “Trojan Horse” while outlining both its relative merits and issues to the XX Committee in the fall of 1942. As the body would be washing ashore, the operation was considered one of naval concern so Cholmondeley was tasked to work with Lieutentant Commander Ewen Montagu, a whip-smart workaholic lawyer and naval reservist representing the Naval Intelligence Department on the XX Committee.

The 2022 film Operation Mincemeat stars Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen as Montagu and Cholmondeley, respectively, the latter an almost perfect likeness for the charmingly awkward 6’3″ officer who mentions living in the wake of his heroic late brother and describes himself as “a penguin… RAF pilot and officer with big feet and bad eyes which means I’m—in effect—grounded. Flightless bird.”

Left: Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen as Montagu and Cholmondeley, respectively.
Right: The real Cholmondeley and Montagu on April 17, 1943, dressed in topcoats for their top secret work of transporting “Major Martin” to the submarine HMS Seraph.

Of course, having two actors who portrayed Mr. Darcy in the same movie may have provided too much temptation to avoid adding a romantic subplot, so the film Operation Mincemeat upgrades what were mere flirtations—and the occasional dinner date—in real life to a full-scale romantic triangle as the married Montagu and the bachelor Cholmondeley vie for the affections of Jean Leslie (Kelly Macdonald), the bright MI5 secretary whose swimsuit-clad photograph was chosen to be among Major Martin’s possessions.

Which brings us back to the mysterious Major Martin… “the man who never was,” as immortalized by Montagu’s own memoir of the mission that became a film of the same name starring Clifton Webb as Montagu. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s when the true identity of “William Martin” was revealed to be Glyndwr Michael, and indigent and unfortunate Welshman who died in late January 1943 after ingesting rat poison—likely means to end his own life. The late Michael was “introduced” to Montagu and Cholmondeley by trusted coroner Bentley Purchase, who was aware of the age and physical parameters of the corpse they needed to effectively portray an active Royal Marines officer, even if Purchase was blissfully ignorant of the gambit itself.

Montagu and Cholmondeley’s small team spent the next three months or so with Michael’s corpse preserved while preparing his personal effects and the falsified documents meant to convince the Germans that the Allies would commence their invasion of Europe via Greece and Sardinia, rather than Sicily as planned.

Montagu attempts to photograph Michael’s corpse—clad in Royal Marines battle dress—to create identity papers for the fictitious Major William Martin.

Montagu, Cholmondeley, and Purchase spent the early morning of April 17, 1943 completing the effect by dressing Michael’s corpse as Major Martin—including the grisly task of defrosting his feet to fit into the boots—with the personal effects (“pocket litter”) put into place and the briefcase with its false invasion documents attached to his wrist. The corpse was placed in a canister filled with dry ice which was then loaded into a 1937 Fordson van, accompanied by Montagu and Cholmondeley with racing champion St. John “Jock” Horsfall at the wheel to speed through the night to western Scotland, where it was loaded onto the submarine HMS Seraph commanded by Lt. Bill Jewell.

The Seraph surfaced off the coast of Huelva in the early hours of April 30, when Jewell and his trusted officers lowered “Major Martin” into the water. Jewell then ordered the Seraph engines to “full astern”, propelling the corpse behind it toward the shore. After taking efforts to destroy the canister several more miles offshore, Jewell telegraphed the Admiralty: “Mincemeat completed.”

The planners were then forced to wait and watch as their network of spies reported on the body’s discovery and whether the plans were discovered—and, more importantly, believed—by the Germans. Indeed, Hitler pulled troops from across Europe to defend the Balkans against a potential invasion… leaving Sicily considerably under-defended when the Allies landed in July 1943, considered to be a major milestone in the tide of World War II turning toward the Allies.

What’d He Wear?

Since the idea had originated in Naval Intelligence, it was more sensible to make [Martin] a naval officer, thus keeping the secret within naval circles. A naval officer, however, would be unlikely to carry documents relating to the planned invasion, and such officers always travelled in full naval display’ uniform, complete with braid and badges of rank on the sleeve. The idea of getting the corpse measured up by a tailor was too ghoulish (and too dangerous) to contemplate. The Secret Service contained men of varied talents and occupations, but no gentlemen’s outfitters with experience of dressing the dead.

After much discussion, it was decided that the body would be dressed as a Royal Marine, the corps which forms the amphibious infantry of the Royal Navy. Marines always travelled in battledress, made up of beret or cap, khaki blouse and trousers, gaiters and boots. This uniform came in standard sizes.

— Ben Macintyre, Operation Mincemeat, Chapter 6: “A Novel Approach”

One aspect that makes Operation Mincemeat so interesting from a sartorial perspective is the level of detail that had to go into the fictional Major Martin’s Royal Marines uniform. The movie introduces the subject during one of a planning session at the Gargoyle Club, where Montagu determines that “now all we need in his photograph.”

“In Royal Marine blues,” adds Hester Leggett (Penelope Wilton), head of the secretarial unit.

“No, no, Marines travel in battledress, and our Marine will be traveling,” Cholmondeley corrects her. “And the uniform cannot appear new, it must be broken-down; it must have exactly the right patina of wear.”

To achieve the latter end, Cholmondeley himself wears the appropriated Royal Marines battledress during the weeks of planning to follow, when his official duties don’t require him to wear his own Royal Air Force service uniform.

While Montago wears his own RNVR uniform, Cholmondeley appears in “Major Martin”‘s Royal Marines battledress as the make the case to Admiral Godfrey for continuing the operation.

While Montagu searched for the right face, “rudely staring at anyone with whom we came into contact”, Cholmondeley went clothes shopping. Glyndwr Michael had been tall and thin, “almost the same build” as Cholmondeley himself. Cholmondeley first bought braces, gaiters, and standard issue military boots, size 12. Then, having obtained permission from Colonel Neville of the Royal Marines, he presented himself at Gieves, the military tailors in Piccadilly, to be fitted for a Royal Marines battledress, complete with appropriate badges of rank, Royal Marines flashes and the badge flashes of Combined Operations. The uniform was finished off with a trench coat and beret. The clothes would need the patina of wear, so Cholmondeley climbed into the uniform, and wore it every day for the next three months.

— Ben Macintyre, Operation Mincemeat, Chapter 6: “A Novel Approach”

As in the other branches of the British armed forces, the Royal Marines introduced battledress during World War II, in both khaki and blue varieties. Cholmondeley wears the former for “Major Martin”‘s uniform, made from brown wool serge. Battledress evolved through three basic patterns over the course of World War II, all of which consisted of a waist-length blouse with a shirt-style collar, two chest pockets, and a self-belted waist.

Cholmondeley wears the earliest of these three, designated “Battledress, Serge” but also known colloquially as the “1937 Pattern”. The covered five-button fly, brass buttons on the shoulder straps (epaulets), and box-pleated pockets with flaps that close through a concealed button are characteristic of both the 1937 and 1940 patterns, though Cholmondeley’s unlined collar and simplified belt buckle identify it as the earlier model. (The “Austerity” Pattern, introduced in 1942, is most visually differentiated by the exposed buttons on the front, cuffs, and non-pleated pockets.)

Hester Leggett helps Cholmondeley into the battledress blouse they selected for “Major Martin”.

On each shoulder strap, Cholmondeley wears the brass insignia of a Royal Marines Major (OF-3), thus “promoting” himself one rank higher than his Royal Air Force rank of Flight Lieutenant (OF-2). At the top of each sleeve, he wears the rectangular branch flash embroidered “ROYAL MARINES” in red-on-black above the round Combined Operations badge flash, depicting an albatross with a submachine gun over an anchor to reflect the three service arms that comprised the Combined Operations department: the RAF, British Army, and Royal Navy.

Cholmondeley wears the khaki cotton drill service shirt and olive-drab cotton tie that tonally compliments the brown serge battledress blouse and trousers.

Authorized for British Commonwealth armed services, these shirts are designed with a button-down point collar that neatly secures in place with two hidden buttons. Cholmondeley never removes his battledress blouse on screen, but we can presume that his long-sleeved shirt also features the two box-pleated chest pockets that each close through a button-down flap with mitred corners. The shirts also have six brown plastic buttons on the front placket and button-fastened cuffs.

Cholmondeley’s brown wool serge trousers are consistent with the first pattern of “Battledress, serge” to match his jacket. Held up by suspenders (braces), these flat-front trousers have a long rise to the wearer’s natural waist, where they’re rigged with large belt loops and a trio of buttons across the back that fasten to a cotton drill tab concealed along the back of the blouse, keeping both pieces harmoniously in place.

All battledress trousers have a button fly, straight side pockets, a dressing pocket on the right hip, and a map pocket on the left thigh with a closable flap that modern audiences may call a “cargo pocket”. Cholmondeley clearly and correctly wears the first pattern trousers, most identifiable by the single-pleated dressing pocket as opposed to the large, box-pleated, button-through pocket of later designs.) Like the pockets on his blouse, the map pocket and back-right pocket each have a flap that closes with a concealed button.

Battledress trouser bottoms were plain-hemmed and typically rigged with square-ended tabs that closed through a button to adjust the fit over each ankle.

The size 12 boots that Cholmondeley wore and passed along to “Major Martin” appear on screen to be the storied ammunition boots (or “ammo boots”), so named for having been originally procured by the Master Gunner and the Munitions Board at Woolwich when they were first authorized for British military wear in the 1860s. Over their century of service, these unlined derby-laced ankle boots varied between black and brown grain leather uppers, between plain-toe or cap-toe styles, and in the number of hobnails on their hard leather soles. As Martin would be a Royal Marine, Cholmondeley correctly procured for him a pair of plain-toe ammo boots in the shade of brown leather often known as “British tan”.

The corpse of “Major Martin” is transported to Huelva, with his feet in their hobnailed ammo boots hanging off the back of the local fishermen’s wagon.

Cholmondeley completes Martin’s uniform with the coat and hat that would accompany him on his journey to the Spanish coast.

The all-khaki serge peaked service cap has a flat and round crown, a brown leather chin strap secured at each end by a brass Royal Marines button, and the bronzed “King’s Crown” cap badge worn by the Royal Marines, consisting of a crowned lion perched atop a larger king’s crown, positioned above a relief of the Earth encircled by laurels.

Following a pattern worn by the British Army and Royal Marines from World War I through the 1950s, the long brown melton wool double-breasted greatcoat has eight gilted shank buttons in an 8×4-button configuration that tapers from the shoulders down to the waist, creating broad-flapped lapels that can be fully closed over the chest and locked with a small throat latch at the neck. Cholmondeley wears his Royal Marines Major insignia on the shoulder straps, echoing the battledress blouse beneath it. There are flapped pockets slanted at each hip, and the set-in sleeves are banded at each cuff. The back has an inverted pleat down the center, a long single vent, and partial self-belt at the waist attached to a gilt button at each end.

“Cholmondeley gazed at the world through thick pebble spectacles,” writes Ben Macintyre in Operation Mincemeat. These are represented on screen through a handsome set of round tortoise-framed glasses with narrow gold arms.

He wears a plain-featured stainless steel wristwatch with a tan dial on a brown leather strap, similar to contemporary examples worn by RAF officers by the likes of Jaeger-LeCoultre, Longines, and Omega, with features not bound to the black-dialed stipulations of the “Dirty Dozen” watches authorized by the Ministry of Defence for the British Army.

When in his regular uniform, Cholmondeley exclusively wears the RAF’s No. 1 Service Dress blue serge uniform, consisting of a belted single-breasted jacket with his Flight Lieutenant rank insignia banded around the cuffs and the “VR” badges on his notch lapels indicating his membership in the Volunteer Reserve.

For what it’s worth, his naval colleagues like Lieutenant Commanders Ewen Montagu and Ian Fleming also wear the “wavy Navy” rank insignia of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, as opposed to the “straight rings” worn by regular Royal Navy officers.

Lieutenant Commander Montagu and Flight Lieutenant Cholmondeley wear uniform devices indicating service in their respective branch’s Volunteer Reserve.

What to Imbibe

Operation Mincemeat depicts Montagu regularly inviting Cholmondeley and Hester Leggett—and, eventually, Joan Leslie—to the Gargoyle Club in Soho for drinks and discussion of the operation, though the wisdom of this locale grows increasingly suspect given the proximity of their discussions to waiters like Teddy (Jonjo O’Neill).

Montagu pours himself drams from a bottle of Highland single malt Scotch whisky, Hester is served a cloudy concoction described as “gin and lemon”, and Cholmondeley enjoys the stalwart Martini, garnished always with a single olive.

Scotch for Montagu, a martini for Cholmondeley, and “gin and lemon” for Hester Leggett.

“Major Martin” Battledress

Matthew Macfadyen as Charles Cholmondeley in Operation Mincemeat (2022)

Let’s imagine that you too have been recruited by British Intelligence to plant a uniformed corpse to fool the enemy. The below formula has worked before, it may work again for you! (In the spirit of comprehensiveness, note also that Montagu and Cholmondeley also borrowed flannel underwear from a deceased Oxford don—given the relative scarcity of quality underwear under wartime rationing.)

• Brown wool serge “Battledress, serge” uniform:
  • Waist-length blouse with unlined shirt-style collar, covered five-button front fly, two box-pleated chest pockets (with covered-button pointed flaps), button cuffs, shoulder straps/epaulets, and self-belted waist
    • Royal Marines shoulder flashes
    • Combined Operations sleeve flashes
    • Major rank insignia
  • Flat-front trousers with large belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, single-pleated dressing pocket on right hip, flapped map pocket on left thigh, flapped back-right pocket, and button-adjustable plain-hemmed bottoms
• Khaki cotton drill service shirt with concealed button-down point collar, front placket, two box-pleated chest pockets (with button-down flaps), and button cuffs
• Olive-drab cotton tie
• Suspenders/braces
• British tan grain leather derby-laced ammo boots with hobnailed hard leather soles
• Brown melton wool double-breasted 8×4-button greatcoat with broad-flapped lapels, throat latch, slanted flapped hip pockets, shoulder straps/epaulets, invert-pleated back, 2-button back belt, and long single vent
• Brown wool serge peaked service cap with Royal Marines “King’s Crown” badge and brown leather chin-strap
• Tortoise round-framed glasses with gold arms
• Stainless steel watch with round tan dial on brown leather strap

You can learn more about World War II-era British battledress at this excellent video by Rifleman Moore.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and Ben Macintyre’s nonfiction source book.

You can also read Ewen Montagu’s firsthand account The Man Who Never Was and watch its cinematic adaptation, which starred Clifton Webb as Montagu.

The Quote

We are not sending 100,000 men into battle on a missing eyelash!

The post Operation Mincemeat: Major Martin’s Royal Marines Battledress appeared first on BAMF Style.

I’m again pleased to present a guest post contributed by my friend Ken Stauffer, who has written several pieces for BAMF Style previously and chronicles the style of the Ocean’s film series on his excellent Instagram account, @oceansographer.

George Clooney as Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Thirteen (2007). Excerpted from a photo by Timothy White.

Vitals

George Clooney as Danny Ocean, veteran casino heister

Las Vegas, Summer 2007

Film: Ocean’s Thirteen
Release Date: June 8, 2007
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Costume Designer: Louise Frogley

Background

Happy birthday to George Clooney, who turns 62 today! To honor the two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker and tequila company founder, we’re taking a look back at a standout outfit he wore in his last turn as Danny Ocean (so far) in Ocean’s Thirteen.

After the mixed reception that Ocean’s Twelve received, it was decided that the gang would return to Las Vegas for the duration of the next film. As such, the 2007 threequel finds Ocean & Co. reuniting to get revenge on ruthless hotel tycoon Willy Bank (Al Pacino, in one of his best late career roles) after he swindles their brother-in-arms Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould), sending him into a coma by way of a heart attack. The bulk of the action takes place as the crew prepares for the grand opening of Bank’s opulent new Vegas Strip casino on July 3rd.

Mid-way through the film, we watch as Danny and his right hand man, Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt), navigate a series of debilitating setbacks while running around Las Vegas on one very long June day. Sure, they’re out of time and money, and their plan is falling apart, but you’d never know it to look at them. Through a combination of movie star charm and expert tailoring, the pair manage to exude an effortlessly cool air even in 100°F+ desert temps.

What’d He Wear?

Though he’s most often seen in dark colors, Danny opts for a decidedly lighter ensemble on the day that Reuben finally awakens from his six-month coma. Consisting of a mid-gray two-button suit, white dress shirt, black belt, and black shoes, the outfit interestingly mirrors one that the thief wore six years prior when he pitched the original Bellagio job to Reuben during a poolside meal. This ended up being the outfit seen throughout almost all promotional material for the film, though it was notably darkened on some posters.

Costume designer Louise Frogley—a frequent collaborator to both Steven Soderbergh and Clooney—was new to the Ocean’s series when she took on the daunting task of styling the film’s large A-list cast. To keep things manageable, she consciously gave each member of the gang “an instantly recognizable silhouette.” For Ocean, that meant classically tailored, solid-color, two-button suits paired with simple dress shirts and polos, worn open at the neck.

Fun fact: In the movie, Danny reminisces that he first met Reuben at a Vegas craps table when he was 22. In reality, George Clooney booked his first recurring role at age 22 on the 1984 sitcom E/R which starred…Elliott Gould!
Photo by Timothy White.

While the suits in Ocean’s Eleven were designed by Jeffrey Kurland and custom-made specifically for the productions by Dominic Gherardi, Frogley opted to source costumes from a number of designer brands that she felt fit the style of the individual characters. As she described to the Daily Mail, “as suave leader Danny Ocean, Clooney needed to espouse the most understated elegance in particular, so all of his shirts are made-to-measure and his suits are classic Gucci and Armani.”

This particular suit was made by Gucci, as were the two suits that the smooth criminal wore in Ocean’s Twelve, and at least five that he wears over the course of this film. It’s cut in a traditional fit sporting a two-button front, medium notch lapels, a center vent, and is fully lined in a coordinating gray Bemberg. The shoulders are moderately padded and roped, elegantly enhancing Clooney’s frame with a slight extension. The straight hip pockets have flaps with very rounded corners, and the welted breast pocket is set a little low and close to the shoulder seam to avoid being covered by the lapel.

“It’s all Gucci!”

Fitting for the 2006 filming date, the suit has a raised button stance, resting above the actor’s natural waist, while the length remains traditional, ending near the bottom of Clooney’s thumbs. The bottom button ends up visibly higher than the top welt of the hip pockets, as well as the point where the foreparts of the jacket curve away from center. This unfortunately allows the wearer to fasten the lowest button without realizing it, an unfortunate recurring habit of Clooney’s in the aughts.

We get our best look at the suit when Danny wears it a second time to a group brainstorming session with new senior partner Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia). The buttons on the suit are made from dark brown horn, each etched with the Gucci logo on the rim. All of the buttonholes, including the one on the lapel, are sewn in a charcoal thread darker than the suit fabric, creating a slight contrast. The sleeves are completed with five kissing buttons, a distinctive feature on many Gucci suits ever since Tom Ford’s tenure, that take up a good deal of real estate on each forearm.

The team meeting scene is meant to mirror the original debriefing on the Bellagio heist in Ocean’s Eleven. This time though, Reuben is absent with Benedict having taken his place as financier, and the locale has changed from the former’s mid-century home to a Bellagio suite.

Now, what really differentiates this suit is its fabric: a wool-mohair blend that’s great for the summer heat. While earth-tone linens and cottons are more ubiquitous warm weather options today, they tend to lend one a more casual air. Mohair offers similar temperature control, but with a smoother appearance and slick sheen, more often in cooler tones of gray and blue. Perhaps most popular in the ’60s, when it was worn by everyone from British mods to the Rat Pack, mohair blends have become a premium fabric in menswear.

Unlike high-twist wools and cashmere that are silky or soft to the touch, mohair is a bit more stiff and coarse. This gives it a natural resistance to wrinkles, helping maintain a more polished and professional appearance throughout the day. It also means that mohair necessarily needs to be blended with other, softer materials to allow for movement and comfort. This suit was made from a 75% wool / 25% mohair blend in a plain weave. The color is a semi-solid medium gray created by weaving light gray threads in one direction and black ones in the other.

A similar Gucci off-the-rack suit from around the time Ocean’s Thirteen was produced in 2006.

The suit’s matching trousers have a flat front, on-seam side pockets, and a hook-and-bar closure at the center of the waistband. The legs are cut straight with plain bottoms, and Danny wears them with a black dress belt, with a simple, square silver-tone buckle and two matching leather loop keepers.

On his feet, Clooney wears a pair of cap-toe derbies in smooth black calf leather, polished to a high shine. They have four eyelets and black rubber soles, and due to Ocean’s penchant for suits in a limited color palette, he wears them throughout the entirety of the film. Rather than coordinate his socks to his suit, Danny opts for a pair of black socks here to match his shoes (a choice which shocked me when I discovered it, but I spend a lot of time thinking about these things).

Clooney’s trousers seem to be sagging a bit in this photo shoot, as they didn’t have such a large break in the finished film. Brad Pitt and Matt Damon are literally charming the pants off him.
Photo by Timothy White.

On both occasions when this suit makes an appearance, the white shirt beneath it looks the same. It’s made from white cotton and has a tall semi-spread collar—always worn open—and a traditional placket that shows some puckering. The sleeves end with long mitered cuffs that fasten with two buttons. They’re cut just a bit wide, allowing them to slide down Clooney’s hands, and as a result, the character shows a bit more cuff than usual.

We get a quick look at the back of the shirt when Danny takes off his jacket to enjoy some “Cantonese-inspired Schezwan cuisine.” It has no pleats, but is darted to create a more contoured fit. Though Anto made shirts for every star in the film, including Clooney, this wasn’t one of them, and indeed this shirt is cut slimmer than those bespoke ones. Given all the details, it’s most likely also from Gucci.

As he’s inexplicably ditched his wedding band before the start of the film, the only jewelry that Danny wears in the film is his understated watch. Upon careful examination, it appears to be a Patek Philippe Calatrava, reference number 5196R-001. The Calatrava is truly the original, quintessential dress watch, and this modern iteration is a pretty faithful recreation of the brand’s archetypal Reference 96 from 1932, only scaled up from 30mm to 37mm. It’s a fitting choice as the Hamilton Linwood Viewmatic that Ocean wore in the previous 2 films was largely influenced by the Calatrava’s classic lines.

The watch has a silver opaline dial with polished, applied hour markers, classic dauphine hour and minute hands, and a small seconds display at 6 o’clock, housed in a solid 18-karat rose gold case. It’s worn upon a brown alligator leather strap that closes with a distinctive pointed tang buckle. The model launched in 2004 and was discontinued just last year, remaining unchanged for its 18-year run.

An 18k rose gold Patek Philippe Calatrava ref. 5169R-001, an identical model to the watch worn by George Clooney in Ocean’s Thirteen.

While George is now indelibly linked with Omega timepieces, he didn’t become an ambassador for the brand until March 2007, three months before this film premiered, but months after it was shot in the summer of 2006. Along with Michael Clayton that came out a few months later (in which he dons a Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Hometime), this would be one of the final times the actor was seen without an Omega on his wrist.

How to Get the Look

George Clooney as Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Thirteen (2007)

No one can wear a suit quite like George Clooney, and this one stands out from the crowd. Equal parts conservative and snazzy, classic and contemporary, the outfit perfectly conveys the sophisticated cool of both the character and film:

• Gray 75% wool / 25% mohair suit from Gucci:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with raised button stance, medium notch lapel, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 5-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Flat-front trousers with belt loops, on-seam side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton dress shirt with tall semi-spread collar, traditional placket, darted back and two-button mitered cuffs
• Black leather belt with silver-toned square single-prong buckle
• Black leather cap-toe derby dress shoes with 4 eyelets and black rubber soles
• Black dress socks
• Patek Philippe Calatrava 5169 in 18-karat rose gold with silver dial on brown crocodile strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Cash out at the craps table while you’re up… and check out the movie.

The Quote

We’ll send them a check… we’ll post-date it.

The post George Clooney’s Gray Mohair Suit in Ocean’s Thirteen appeared first on BAMF Style.

Ryan O’Neal with Tatum O’Neal in Paper Moon (1973)

Vitals

Ryan O’Neal as Moses “Moze” Pray, charismatic con artist

Kansas to Missouri, Spring 1936

Film: Paper Moon
Release Date: May 9, 1973
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Costume Designer: Polly Platt (uncredited)

Background

Today is the 50th anniversary of Paper Moon, Peter Bogdanovich’s artfully nostalgic road comedy that was released May 9, 1973, exactly a month after its Hollywood premiere. Filmed in black-and-white and set during the Great Depression, Paper Moon stars Ryan O’Neal and his real-life daughter Tatum O’Neal in her big-screen debut who turned nine during the film’s production. When 10-year-old Tatum won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Paper Moon, she set a record as the youngest-ever performer to win a competitive Oscar.

Though the material was based on Joe David Brown’s novel Addie Pray, Bogdanovich was inspired to change the title when he heard the 1933 song “It’s Only a Paper Moon” while compiling the soundtrack. When he suggested Paper Moon as an alternate title, Orson Welles reportedly told him “that title is so good, you shouldn’t even make the picture, you should just release the title!” Luckily for us, Bogdanovich completed the movie, including a scene where Addie had a sourvenir photo taken in a paper moon so that he could validate his choice to Paramount Pictures.

“We’re lookin’ for the child’s kin, thought I saw some resemblance,” a woman tells Moses “Moze” Pray as he stops by a former fling’s roadside funeral in Russell County, Kansas. The mourners are looking for a Good Samaritan to help escort the now-orphaned Addie Loggins to the only known family she has remaining, nearly 300 miles east in St. Joseph, Missouri. Moze takes one glance at the dour pre-teen girl mourning her newly buried mother… and sees more of an opportunity for profit than for empathy.

Addie: How come you’re takin’ me?
Moze: ‘Cause I’m goin’ that way, honey… though I do have to make just one stop before we leave town. Got a little business to take care of.

Always with a mind for grifting, Moze immediately puts Addie to use, extorting the local businessman whose brother caused the accident that killed her mother. With $200 freshly lining his pockets, he moves to offload Addie onto a train to St. Joe… but the scrappy youngster overheard his conversation and demands her share of the money that Moze took from the man after citing her misfortune.

Addie: It ain’t as if you was my pa, that would be different.
Moze: Well, I ain’t your pa, so just get that out of your head! I don’t care what those neighbor-ladies said.
Addie: I look like—
Moze: You don’t look nothin’ like me. You don’t look any more like me than- than you do that Coney Island, eat that damn thing, you hear!
Addie: We got the same jaw!
Moze: Lots of people got the same jaw.
Addie: It’s possible!
Moze: No, no, it ain’t possible.
Addie: THEN I WANT MY TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS!

To fund their journey and Moze’s repayment, the chain-smoking Addie learns the art of the con from Moze as they grift their way through the dusty small towns of Depression-era Kansas in his battered roadster, selling bibles to widows and ripping off cashiers, until the stakes grow higher as they target a sinister moonshiner (John Hillerman). Along the way, their deceptions are halted when Moze falls prey to the seductions of the carnival striptease dancer and champion winky-tinker Miss Trixie Delight (Madeline Kahn), whose teenage maid Imogene (P.J. Johnson) conspires with Addie to end the toxic couple’s association.

Through it all, the real-life father and daughter show a remarkable screen chemistry as Moze and Addie bicker their way through Kansas, all the while solidifying a relationship which illustrates that, if they aren’t actually kin, they make dynamic partners in crime.

Moze: You don’t have to worry, I ain’t about to leave some poor little child stranded in the middle of nowhere. I got scruples too, you know? You know what that is, scruples?
Addie: No, I don’t know what it is, but if you got ’em, you sure bet they belong to somebody else.

I’ve loved this movie ever since my parents had the wisdom to introduce me to it when I was in middle school. Even before I had a record player of my own, one of my first eBay purchases I made was to track down an original pressing of the soundtrack on vinyl LP record, consisting of vocal, jazz, and country hits of the early-to-mid 1930s, including the title song “It’s Only a Paper Moon” recorded in 1933 by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra with vocalist Peggy Healy.

What’d He Wear?

Now considered one of the best movies of his filmography—and, by some, of all time—Peter Bogdanovich had been initially reluctant to make Paper Moon until he was convinced by his then-wife Polly Platt. An accomplished and talented film professional, Platt was the first female member of the Art Directors Guild. Despite their estrangement by the time production began due to Bogdanovich’s open affair with Cybill Shepherd, Platt agreed to work as a production designer on Paper Moon… on the reasonable condition that Shepherd not visit the set.

Platt’s production design duties also extended into uncredited costume design, pulling suits from the Paramount costume archives. According to IMDB, she landed on a seersucker suits for Moses Pray, ultimately discovering a piece of tape inside that indicated it was a period-correct suit that had been previously worn on screen by George Raft. I can’t find any additional sources to verify the story, nor do I know which of Moze’s costumes the story is meant to apply to, as neither of his suits have the puckered fabric characteristic of seersucker, though this could suggest that his suits are a summer-weight cotton.

Bogdanovich and master cinematographer László Kovács effectively crafted a vintage feel by shooting Paper Moon in black and white. Luckily for those interested in the details of its costumes a half-century later, there exists some contemporary color photography from the production that shows the colors of Ryan O’Neal’s costumes as Moze mixes pieces from his road closet.

The O’Neals in respite between takes while on location in Kansas. Photo by Steve Schapiro.

Mismatched Suit Pieces

Like all con artists of at least moderate success, Moze knows the importance of how he presents himself to make a first impression on potential marks. While many other men of comparable means in Depression-era Kansas are clad in plaid work shirts and denim overalls, Moze strives to maintain the look of a well-to-do—but not too-affluent—professional, though a closer look at his initial wardrobe reveals an incomplete of matching jacket and waistcoat, with either misplaced or damaged trousers swapped out for tonally similar (but ultimately different) trousers that create a more slapdash appearance.

Moze tries to compile a full three-piece suit effect with mismatched trousers, beginning with these darker chalk-striped trousers worn with matching striped jacket and waistcoat.

The jacket and waistcoat are made from a medium-gray cotton, detailed by pencil stripes that alternate between pale-gray and a darker charcoal. As is still the case today, wool was still the predominant cloth for acceptable business suits during the 1930s, though cotton’s cool-wearing properties would have served Moze during his itinerant life of stress-inducing scams across the Great Plains. Cotton’s proneness to wrinkling would have also served Polly Platt’s likely costume vision of Moze not quite fitting his desired image of a neatly attired businessman.

With four new tires and a new hood ornament, Mose is ready to roll. Note the stiffly wrinkled texture of his suit, which suggests cotton to me.

The single-breasted suit jacket has a full three-button front, an effective visual balance on Ryan O’Neal’s lean 6’1″ frame. The ventless jacket has notch lapels, a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, and three-button cuffs. The straight shoulders are likely structured with some padding.

The matching single-breasted waistcoat (vest) follows typical 1930s design, with a high-fastening front and congruously short bottom, designed to just cover the top of trousers that rise to the wearer’s natural waist. The six buttons are made from a dark Bakelite plastic, matching those on the jacket, and Moze wears all six fastened, suggesting an unfamiliarity with sartorial decorum as men traditionally wear the lowest waistcoat button undone.

The waistcoat has four welted pockets, and he alternates keeping his pocket watch in either the top or bottom pocket on the left side. He wears the watch on a short chain attached to a diamond-studded horseshoe-shaped fob, though this chain isn’t connected to anything or worn across his waistcoat as was often a practice at the time.

Moze gauges how much time he needs to kill with Addie before offloading her onto a train… unaware that they’re going to be spending plenty more time together than he expected.

Moze occasionally swaps out the suit’s matching waistcoat for a contrasting vest made of black moleskin, a heavy brushed cotton. If Moze was wearing a matching suit jacket and trousers, this contrasting waistcoat would qualify as an “odd” waistcoat, but here it provides an almost harmonious contrast between the different jacket and trousers.

The black moleskin vest has six black buttons which, again, Moze wears fully fastened. It lacks upper buttons, likely only styled with two lower buttons. The satin-finished back lining is a dark foulard print.

The contrasting waistcoat with mismatched jacket and trousers makes Moze’s slapdash suit look more intentional (to me, anyway) than when he wears the jacket’s matching waistcoat but still with odd trousers.

We don’t know much about Moze before he met Addie—other than his brief assignation with Addie’s mother—so it’s quite possible that he’s been wearing these clothes for a long time. His suit may have once been a complete three-piece suit, with the trousers long since misplaced or worn out, as the pattern of wearing makes wont to happen to a suit’s trousers before it happens to jacket… especially when the wearer is incapable of properly maintaining it.

If the latter happened, Moze has presumably learned his lesson, as we see him go to great lengths to preserve the sanctity of his current trousers; even while inebriated, Moze takes the effort to remove and neatly fold his trousers—then slaps them under the mattress in the cheap motel room where he catches forty winks. (It’s also possible that he was once awakened while the suit’s matching trousers were similarly being self-pressed, and that he had to abandon them when either a wronged woman or a con gone wrong forced him to flee without taking the time to retrieve his pants!)

There must be better ways of keeping your trousers pressed while on the road, but at least he’s trying!

Moze alternates between two pairs of gray striped trousers, neither of which are a perfect match for his orphaned gray striped suit jacket and trousers. When we meet Moze, he’s wearing dark gray trousers with a light chalk-stripe. Later, he wears lighter striped-weave trousers with a spaced medium-gray stripe, which we see have side pockets and jetted back pockets.

Both trousers are similarly styled, with double reverse pleats and a generous cut through the legs down to the bottoms, which are finished with turn-ups (cuffs). The belt loops on both pairs of trousers go unused in lieu of vertical-striped suspenders (braces) with white leather hooks that connect to buttons along the inside of the trouser waistband.

Steve Martin’s character from My Blue Heaven would pinpoint this lackadaisical lounging as the reason why Moze may need to replace his trousers so frequently!

Moze typically prefers to wear a plain white cotton shirt, though he occasionally wears shirts with a fancy stripe, a unique tonal pattern, or a field of spots against a white ground. All of his shirts are designed with a shaped semi-spread collar, front placket, and two chest pockets. All of the shirts he wears as part of this outfit have traditional button-fastened barrel cuffs.

Addie and Moze just need to keep on veerin’, that’s all.

Moze makes the most of his limited wardrobe by cycling through at least eight distinctively patterned ties, always keeping his appearance fresh. He begins and ends the adventure in a light-colored tie with an abstract Deco-style design, also rotating through at least two dark polka-dotted ties, a lighter tie with dots arranged in triple sets of “downhill”-directional rows, a medallion-printed tie, and a brown paisley tie.

With a handful of neckties and a pair of waistcoats, Moze can keep his looks fresh as he and Addie con their way through the countryside.

One of his most unique ties defies a simple description, consisting of a field of spiky red shapes against a slate-colored ground. (While not strictly accurate to the design, I mentally referred to this as Moze’s “caterpillar tie” every time I saw it appear on screen.)

Moze is about to realize how useful a sweet (or, at least, sweet-looking) child will be for his career.

Moze can clean his shirts, cycle through ties, and self-press his trousers under his mattress, but there’s little he can do to hide how well-traveled his shoes look during a life lived on the road during the Dust Bowl. The brown leather uppers of his wingtip brogues are quick to show their dusty patina, derby-laced through four sets of eyelets each.

Pedal to the metal.

Moze typically wears dark ribbed cotton socks, including at least one chocolate-brown pair as seen during a color photograph on set. As observed when a drunken Moze partially undresses in his motel room, he routinely wears sock garters, the now-outmoded system of elastic bands around the wearer’s thighs, attached to clips that hold up the socks to prevent them from falling and bunching around ankles.

While at a country festival, he begins wearing sportier spectator shoes with this suit, but I associate them more with his costume change through the second half of Paper Moon. Which brings me to…

Ryan O’Neal with Tatum O’Neal while making Paper Moon. Photo by Steve Schapiro/Corbis via Getty Images.

The Checked Suit

Moze spends the entirety of his “romance” with Trixie Delight wearing a checked suit—likely newly purchased to impress the flamboyant dancer. Thanks to Steve Schapiro’s contemporary photography, we know that this suit follows a similar color scheme as his previous tailoring: a light-gray body patterned in a single-line graph check that alternates between black and white, with the added complexity of a micro two-and-two check framing the white check.

Thanks in part to the darted jacket, this suit offers more of a shape than its predecessor, which would have surely delighted the bone structure-obsessed Miss Delight. Still, it can look a bit misshapen on O’Neal, realistically suggesting that Moze lacked either the funds, time, and/or knowledge to consider having it altered for a more flattering fit.

The single-breasted jacket has straight and broad peak lapels, echoing the wide and padded shoulders. The lapels roll to a two-button front, with Moze again showing that just because he has the clothes doesn’t mean he knows how to wear them, often buttoning both buttons—though he rectifies this by the end. Also ventless per 1930s convention, this suit has a welted breast pocket, flapped hip pockets that slant rearward, and two-button cuffs.

Trixie and Moze take on the Depression in their own “fine apparel”.

These trousers differ from his earlier pairs by lacking pleats and belt loops, with a cleaner flat front and waistband. The same striped suspenders as before connect to buttons along the inside of the waistband. The trousers also have side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs).

Moze hurriedly strikes a pose of nonchalance, flashing the long-rise of his flat-front trousers, held up by his usual suspenders.

Moze also aims to impress in his sporty new black-and-white spectator shoes, also known as “co-respondent shoes” for their rumored association with the co-respondent third parties in English divorce cases. Moze’s plain-toe spectator shoes have white leather pieces on the front and back, connected by black lace panels for the oxford-laced system of white laces through five sets of white-finished eyelets, all welted to black leather soles.

“Get your things, Addie. We’re leaving.”

Moze evidently picked out a few new shirts to complement the new suit, picking up Trixie from the dismantled carnival in a shirt patterned with pink and periwinkle awning stripes against a white ground. When the menagerie stops for a roadside picnic, Moze wears another fancy-striped white shirt, further notable for its contrasting white collar. Also known as a “Winchester shirt”, this latter style of shirt is a visual callback to decades earlier when men wore stiff white detachable collars, though Moze’s shirt—and, indeed, most Winchester shirts made through the rest of the century—has an attached turndown collar, consistent with the simpler standard of menswear that evolved through the 1920s and ’30s.

These shirts have the same shaped semi-spread collar, front placket, and twin chest pockets as his earlier shirts, though they’re also rigged with more formal double (French) cuffs, fastened with cuff links.

Moze has his jacket, tie, and cuff links in place while driving, though he pares it down to just his shirt-sleeves—undone and rolled up—for a roadside picnic.

Despite the new suit, shirts, and shoes, Moze still wears many of the same ties as earlier, including the medallion-print tie, the “caterpillar tie”, and the more boldly dotted of his dark polka-dot ties, which presents a dark solid-colored knot when tied. He somewhat chaotically wears this latter dotted tie with a button-cuff shirt patterned with high-contrasting candy stripes.

Waffles, coffee, and clashing patterns.

After Trixie’s perfidy—engineered by Addie and Imogene—Moze continues wearing the suit but dressed down with one of his familiar white two-pocket shirts and the worn-out wingtips from before he met Trixie. He ditches any ties and wears his shirt with the top few buttons undone for an appropriately relaxed vibe at the country motel outside of Hays, Kansas, where he and Addie unwisely decide to swindle a well-connected bootlegger by selling him his own whiskey.

Things aren’t looking so good for Moze and Addie when the bootlegger’s brother turns out to be the sheriff, but the crafty Addie gets them out of custody while Moze’s skill behind the wheel—and his surprising skill at country wrasslin’—gets the duo across the river to St. Joseph, Missouri. Addie despairs when she thinks Moze has a mind to finally return her to her relatives, but her mood lightens when he shares a plan to collaborate on conning a silver miner. Like Johnny Hamp’s Kentucky Serenaders on the radio, Moze keeps his sunnyside up while prepping for the scam, dressing to the nines in his “caterpillar” tie, a pair of checkerboard-patterned socks, and his trusty gold tooth.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the sheriff to track the pair down as they were only 20 miles east from Doniphan County… and being out of his jurisdiction means he has no plans to arrest Moze, but instead to make his remaining time in St. Joe’s as uncomfortable as possible. Addie stakes out the con at the appointed time, only to find the disappointed mark walking away… and a bloodied Moze groaning on a recessed stoop just a few steps away.

Oh, Moze!

Back to Basics

After his clothes (and spirit) were presumably ruined by Sheriff Hardin and his two deputies, Moze reverts to his old wardrobe when taking Addie to her aunt Billie outside of St. Joseph, again clad in the matching gray striped suit jacket and waistcoat, the light gray striped trousers, and the Deco-patterned tie he had been wearing when he first met Addie.

A few miles outside of St. Joe, Moze meditates over the last few months with Addie between drags of his Lucky Strike in the cockpit of the dilapidated Ford truck he swapped for across the river.

Everything Else

Throughout all of his costume changes in Paper Moon, two notable pieces of Moze’s wardrobe remain constant: his white Panama hat and his signet ring.

Moze’s Panama hat features the distinctive “optimo crown”, characterized by the raised ridge across the top of the round crown. The body of the hat is tightly woven from lightweight Toquilla palm, bleached to a bright white and finished with a black grosgrain band.

Worn on the ring finger of his left hand, Moze’s yellow gold signet ring appears to be monogrammed with an etched “M.P.”

Likely also constant is Moze’s choice of undergarments, specifically his striped cotton boxer shorts and white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt. The latter would have been a relatively new invention at the time of Paper Moon‘s setting through the spring of 1936, though sleeveless undershirts had been worn for decades.

What to Imbibe

You hungry? You want a Nehi and a Coney Island?

While Addie leaves her soda and hot dog untouched, Moze treats himself to some ice cream and coffee, the latter punctuated by plenty of sugar. Not realizing that her distaste comes from his withholding the $200 he swindled in her name, Moze thinks relish will help her appetite (“a Coney Island ain’t no good without relish”), but she doesn’t relish the addition.

We later see Moze drinking his own Nehi in a hotel room as he considers Addie’s fitness for a professional partnership. This soft drink originated in 1924, available in a range of fruit-flavored varieties from the orange soda that Moze and Addie drink to the grape soda said to be Radar O’Reilly’s favorite on M*A*S*H.

Now a brand of Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Nehi continues to exist as a mostly nostalgia-informed sub-brand, though I did have the opportunity ten years ago to enjoy an orange Nehi that I found at a South Carolina gas station.

Addie’s orange Nehi goes mostly untouched as she and Moze spar over $200 in a Kansas greasy-spoon.

If you’re looking for something harder, the official spirit of Paper Moon would be the Three Feathers bonded whiskey that Moze riskily sells back to Jess Hardin from his own supply… though it may perhaps be for the best that Three Feathers has been discontinued for decades, ridding you of the temptation to sell a bootlegger’s own stock back to him.

Named for the Brothers Grimm story of the same name, Three Feathers was a blended American whiskey that debuted in 1882, though production halted when Prohibition went into effect during the 1920s. Around that same time, enterprising businessman Lewis Rosensteil purchased a series of now-defunct distilleries, including Three Feathers. Armed with a license to produce medicinal whiskey, Rosensteil organized the Schenley Products Company, headquartered in the Empire State Building and named after one of his acquisitions in Schenley, Pennsylvania. After Prohibition ended in 1933, Rosensteil rebranded the organization as Schenley Distillers Company, well-positioned to dominate American liquor sales alongside Hiram Walker, National Distillers, and Seagram.

Bottled at the Pennsylvania plant, Three Feathers remained one of Schenley’s top brands from the post-Prohibition era through the 1940s and ’50s, though I believe production quietly ceased not long after Paper Moon was made in the early ’70s.

Moze and Addie load up their Ford with enough crates of Three Feathers whiskey to make a sweet $625 profit from bootlegger Jess Hardin.

Imbibers hoping for a similar taste may find what they’re looking for in Old Overholt, which shares a similar Pennsylvania heritage that dates to the 19th century and survived Prohibition. The 86-proof straight rye bottling is the best-known Old Overholt variant, but a four-year-old bottled-in-bond 100-proof version introduced in 2017 feels like the most appropriate recommendation.

The Cars

Moses Pray drives three different vehicles (all Fords!) during Paper Moon, each correlating to his financial state during the respective act.

During the first act, when Moze meets Addie and the pair cultivate their “father-daughter” con, he drives a black 1930 Ford Model A roadster. With the windfall $200 he scams from the man whose brother caused the accident that killed Addie’s mother, he treats himself—and the car—to four new tires and a decorative radiator cap. This hood ornament consists of a set of propellers that spin while blown by the wind.

Ford reintroduced the Model A nomenclature in 1927, replacing the venerated Model T as its “everyman” line of standard passenger cars through the 1931 model year. All Model A cars were powered by the “L-head” 3.3-liter four-cylinder engine that provided 40 horsepower, propelling the car to a top speed of around 65 mph. This was mated to a “three-on-the-floor” unsynchronized sliding-mesh three-speed manual transmission, evolved from the simple two-speed planetary transmission in the Model T.

Millions of Model A cars were produced across nearly three dozen body styles, ranging from basic two-door coupes and pickup trucks to deluxe four-door phaetons and wagons. Though one of the more affordable Model A configurations, the convertible roadster—available in standard, Sport, and DeLuxe trim—remains one of the most iconic automobiles of the 1930s for its stylish design, comprised of a two-door body with a rag top, rear-mounted spare tire, and fold-out rumble seat with an upholstered bench for an exposed second row of seating. Also known as a “mother-in-law seat” or a “dicky seat” (in the UK), rumble seats generally fell out of fashion on American cars by the end of the 1930s.

Moze looks over the sixty-odd dollars of work that went into improvements for his well-traveled Model A roadster, presumably a set of four new tires and a spinning hood ornament.

Addie is dismayed to find that, in his continued quest to impress Trixie, Moze has spent a considerable amount of their earnings on a 1936 Ford V8 DeLuxe four-door convertible sedan. Considerably larger than his previous Ford, the V8 DeLuxe incorporates the second row of seating into the passenger compartment—as found in all modern cars—with a separate trunk compartment on the back.

Ford had introduced its popular 3.6-liter 90° “flathead” V8 engine for the Model 18 in 1932, concurrent with the four-cylinder Model B that superseded the Model A. However, the four-cylinder models were rendered all but obsolete in the wake of the V8, popular for its relatively affordable combination of reliability and power, famously celebrated at the time by outlaw Clyde Barrow’s personal letter to Henry Ford.

For the 1935 model year, Ford finally abandoned the low-selling four-cylinder engine and equipped all of its cars and trucks with the 85-horsepower flathead V8. Now designated the Model 48, all body styles and trim lines followed a streamlined, Deco-influenced redesign for ’35.

The 1936 model year generally retained the same design as previous, albeit with continued updates to the grille and wheels. 1936 DeLuxe models were officially designated the Model 68 and could be visually differentiated by a trio of chrome side strips along each front panel between the hood and fender. The four-door DeLuxe convertible featured in Paper Moon would have cost about $750 new in 1936.

Moze prepares to wrestle a country bumpkin (Randy Quaid!) for the opportunity to trade his own brand-new convertible for a broken-down truck. You just had to be there to understand.

After Moze’s Model 68 convertible is tagged by the vindictive sheriff of Doniphan County, Kansas, he and Addie speed off onto a side road where he encounters a dilapidated Ford Model TT pickup truck, presumably owned by the hillbillies dwelling on the property. With limited time and transportation choices, he examines the truck’s fitness for a potential swap, appreciating that at least the radio seems to be working… even if the driver’s side door and engine don’t.

Invariably black per Henry Ford’s 1909 quip about customer choice, the Model TT was developed in 1917 as the truck-only variation of the Ford Model T. Production officially began for the 1918 model year with nearly 1.5 million trucks manufactured until the Model T and TT was discontinued in May 1927. By that time, the price had decreased from around $600 to around $325.

Unlike the base Model T, the Model TT was powered by a 3.3-liter inline four-cylinder engine as would later be found in the Model A, mated to a three-speed manual transmission that was more effective for the heavy truck to climb hills than the Model T’s two-speed planetary transmission. Unfortunately for Moze, even this special gearing wouldn’t make the Model TT a very effective getaway vehicle, as drivers were advised not to expect the truck to perform at speeds higher than 22 mph.

Moze and Addie check out their new set of wheels… and its lacking set of doors.

Perhaps optimistically, Moze dresses the swapped truck with the same spinning-propeller hood ornament that had decorated the bow of his speedier Model A roadster.

I could argue a personal connection to the 1936 Ford model year, as one of the six stainless steel-bodied cars built in collaboration between Ford and the Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corporation of Pittsburgh is on permanent display at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, where I was married in October. The distinctive steel two-door sedan can be prominently seen behind me and my wife as we delivered our welcome speech to guests.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Maybe we got the same jaw, but the same jaw don’t mean the same blood. I know a woman that looks like a bull-frog, but that don’t mean she’s the damn thing’s mother!

The post Ryan O’Neal in Paper Moon appeared first on BAMF Style.

Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Jerry Seinfeld in a promotional photo for Seinfeld

Vitals

Series: Seinfeld
Air Dates: July 5, 1989 — May 14, 1998
Created by: Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld
Costume Designers:
* Charmaine Nash Simmons (seasons 4-9)
* Ruth E. Carter (episode 1 only)
* Jane Ruhm (rest of season 1)
* Llandys Williams (season 2)
* Marie H. Burk (season 3)
Costume Supervisor/Key Costumer: Stephanie Kennedy (seasons 5-9)

Background

This Sunday will be the 25th anniversary of the finale of Seinfeld, the NBC sitcom that remains a pop culture touchstone more than a quarter-century later with phrases like “double-dipping”, “re-gifting”, “shrinkage”, and “yada yada yada” an enduring part of our lexicon… even if those saying them don’t know they originated from Seinfeld.

Centered around the neuroses and misadventures of four everyday New Yorkers, Seinfeld was hardly a fashion-oriented show, yet its focus on the minutiae of life means plenty of focus on the kind of comedy that can be derived from clothing, whether it’s as broad as a ridiculous jacket or as nitpicky as two buttons placed too closely together.

You can always tell what was the best year of your father’s life, because they seem to just freeze that clothing style and just ride it out to the end, don’t they? And it’s not like they don’t continue shopping, it’s just they somehow manage to find new old clothes. Every father is like this fashion time capsule, you know what I mean. It’s like they should be on a pedestal, with someone next to ’em going “This was 1965”.

To me the worst thing is shopping for pants. I hate dressing and undressing in that little room. What men need is a place to shop where you go in, you check your pants at the door, and you just walk around the store in your underwear. That would be the best way. Then you’d really have to lie to the salesman. “Need some help?” “No, just getting some air.”

— Jerry’s monologue in “The Cigar Store Indian” (Episode 5.10)

Perhaps surprising but consistent with the cyclical nature of fashion, there has recently been renewed interest in the everyday outfits worn by Jerry Seinfeld, George Costanza (Jason Alexander), and Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Across the hall from Jerry, “hipster doofus” Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) was hardly ever an average dresser, though his wardrobe of ’60s-inspired jackets and sport shirts has inspired considerable interest of its own.

In July 2018, Derek Guy (aka the “menswear guy” @dieworkwear on Twitter) chronicled Seinfeld‘s contemporary influence on men’s style for Put This On. The blog Second Button of Seinfeld explores the coding behind clothing on the “show about nothing”, and its key costumer Stephanie Kennedy has taken Seinfeld fans behind the sartorial scenes on her Instagram account @seinfeldbackstage.

What’d They Wear?

I could probably find hundreds of instances of clothing-derived humor on Seinfeld—with Kramer alone providing plenty with his seemingly endless closet of disguises, whether he’s dressing the part of a Joe Friday-like detective (“The Statue”) or a pipe-smoking professor, wearing a three-piece business suit for a short-lived office job (“The Bizarro Jerry”), or hosting a ’70s-influenced talk show in his apartment (“The Merv Griffin Show”).

For the sake of this blog’s focus, I tried to limit my selections to 40 significant menswear-related moments (with apologies to Elaine’s “urban sombrero” and Orioles cap, Sue Ellen Mishke’s bra, or Jerry’s girlfriend who always wore the same black-and-white dress), all ranging from almost innocuous throwaway jokes to character signatures and major plot points.

1. George’s Closely Spaced Shirt Buttons

Episode: “The Seinfeld Chronicles” (Episode 1.01)
Air Date: July 5, 1989
Director: Art Wolff
Costume Designer: Ruth E. Carter

After Jerry’s opening comedy monologue, the very first lines of Seinfeld are about… clothes!

“See now, to me, that button’s in the worst possible spot,” Jerry comments on George’s purple button-down shirt. “The second button literally makes or breaks the shirt—look at it! It’s too high, it’s in no-man’s land. You look like you live with your mother.”

“You do, of course, try on when you buy?” Jerry confirms. “Yes, it was purple, I liked it, I don’t actually recall considering the button,” an exasperated George responds.

“Are you through?” George eventually asks. Of course, Seinfeld is far from through—it’s literally just getting started.

For what it’s worth, Jerry’s not wrong…

…though Jerry is certainly one to talk in his strange henley-over-T-shirt combo.

Fun fact: The first episode of Seinfeld was one of the first credits for costume designer Ruth E. Carter, a year after after her first project, Spike Lee’s 1988 film School Daze. Carter has since become one of the most prolific costume designers working today, with four Academy Award nominations and two wins (for Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.)

2. Jerry’s Obnoxiously Lined Suede Jacket

Episode: “The Jacket” (Episode 2.03)
Air Date: February 6, 1991
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Designer: Llandys Williams

Early in the second season, Seinfeld continues its long pattern of clothing-driven comedy when Jerry finds a handsome suede jacket while shopping with Elaine at Beau Brummell Sports on Columbus Avenue. Jerry describes the brown suede jacket as one that “has completed changed my life” as far as boosting his confidence, though George—while forced to admit “it’s fabulous”—can’t fathom the price tag, which he suspects is well over a thousand dollars.

It’s a very attractive jacket, cut like a waist-length bomber and styled with a classic button-up front and flapped hand pockets. There’s just one drawback—despite the luxuriously supple dark brown suede outer shell, the lining is awning-striped in white and pink, which makes Jerry look like “a damn fool” according to Elaine’s intimidating father Alton Benes (Lawrence Tierney) when he turns it inside-out to protect it from unexpected rainfall.

“What’s with the pink lining and the candy stripes?”

Alton’s grumbling protestations result in Jerry wearing the stylish but sensitive suede jacket out in the rain, all but ruining the cloth. Jerry has no more use for the jacket, gifting it to Kramer, who indeed wears its again several episodes later in “The Heart Attack”.

Read more about this jacket in this BAMF Style post. You can also pay tribute to Jerry’s jacket with the Seinfeld x Percival reversible bomber jacket with a more weather-friendly brown cotton shell but a similar pink-and-white striped lining.

3. George’s Chocolate-Stained Shirt

Episode: “The Baby Shower” (Episode 2.10)
Air Date: May 16, 1991
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Designer: Llandys Williams

Years after Elaine’s domineering friend Leslie (Christine Dunford) unapologetically spilled a can of chocolate syrup all over his “new red shirt” during a date from hell, George finds the opportunity for revenge when she hosts a baby shower in Jerry’s apartment. Jerry should have noticed something awry when the typically selfish George actually volunteered to drive him home from the airport, though he spots the collar resting flat above the crew neck of George’s striped sweater and remembers that George had once said “the collar’s okay, I wear it under sweaters.”

“Red shirt, red shirt!” Jerry calls out, before confronting George about the futility of his plan: “What are you gonna do, badger a pregnant woman at her own baby shower? What, are you gonna take it off and make her rinse it in club soda?” “No, I’m gonna hold it under her nose so she can make her smell the scent of stale Bosco that I had to live with for three years and then say to her ‘Remember this shirt, baby? Well, it’s payback time!'”

George would evidently get over his distaste for Bosco by the time he would need to come up with a secret code for his ATM card.

Of course, this being George, he retreats into humiliation as the shirt suffers another defeat when one of Jerry’s spurned exes bumps into Leslie… whose piece of cake lands directly on George’s chest.

Luckily for George, the offense would be rectified by a future girlfriend in “The Maestro” (Episode 7.03) when George’s fiancée Susan (Heidi Swedberg) buys him another red shirt so bright that Jerry jokes that it burns his retinas.

4. Kramer’s Khaki “Kavorka” Jacket

“That’s a nice jacket,” George observes of Kramer’s khaki leisure jacket when it debuts in the bottle episode “The Parking Garage” (Episode 3.06). Likely produced during the golden age of leisure jackets in the 1970s, Kramer’s light brown jacket has a wide revere collar, padded shoulders, open-top hip pockets, and a box pleat that extends down each side of the chest and the center of the back from horizontal yokes. The ’70s-era details aren’t the only elements showing the jacket’s age, as it also appears to be missing the top of three buttons on the front.

We get more backstory around the jacket in the following episode, “The Cafe” (Episode 3.07), when Kramer presents Jerry with a conundrum.

Kramer: This guy leaves this jacket at my mother’s house two years ago. Now she hasn’t spoken to him since, so now he says he wants the jacket back.
Jerry: So?
Kramer: Well, I’m not giving it back!
Jerry: Why not?
Kramer: Because I meet a lot of women in this jacket! You know, they’re attracted to it. Why do you think my mother went out with him?

As the man, Albert Pepper, continues harassing Kramer about the jacket’s return, Elaine advises that he just give it back, but Kramer ups the stakes: “He’ll have to kill me.” Though Kramer yields the coat in “The Cafe”, Albert’s arrest for mail fraud results in Kramer’s opportunity to recover the jacket from his landlord two episodes later in “The Nose Job” (Episode 3.09), where he proves its power when he escorts George’s post-rhinoplasty ex Audrey (Susan Diol) on a date. It invites further comment from a Cuban diplomat in “The Cheever Letters” (Episode 4.08).

The jacket gets immortalized when Kramer wears it to have his portrait painted by Jerry’s jealous girlfriend Nina (Catherine Keener) in “The Letter” (Episode 3.21).

“He is a loathsome, offensive brute. Yet I can’t look away.”

Though Kramer attributes so much romantic success to the jacket, it may just be a byproduct of his natural “kavorka”, the quality described to him by a Latvian Orthodox priest in “The Conversion” (Episode 5.11) as “the lure of the animal.”

5. The “Red Dot” Cashmere Sweater

Episode: “The Red Dot” (Episode 3.12)
Air Date: December 11, 1991
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Supervisor: Marie H. Burk

In Seinfeld‘s first Christmas-themed episode, George is urged by Jerry to show his gratitude to Elaine for helping him find a short-lived job at Pendant Publishing by buying her a gift. They find an ivory cashmere cardigan marked down from $600 to only $85, a deal that must be too good to be true… because it is. The saleswoman points out a small red dot, but George thinks it’s not immediately noticeable and asks Jerry to take an overview.

“You want me to take an overview? I see a very cheap man, holding a sweater, trying to get away with something, that’s my overview.”

Elaine is over the moon about George’s “generosity”, but Kramer’s Scotch-tuned eagle eye spots the red dot and gradually converts Elaine’s excitement into resentment. Foiled by the store’s no-return policy on damaged items, the sweater inexorably returns to our heroes despite their many attempts to rid themselves of it, first when George attempts to satiate Evie the cashmere-loving cleaning woman (Bridget Sienna) and again when hoping to distract Elaine’s violently alcoholic ex and colleague Dick (David Naughton). Though we the viewers never see the red dot, it only further angers Evie and Dick.

6. Jerry’s Date Shirt with Keith Hernandez

Episode: “The Boyfriend” (Episode 3.17/3.18)
Air Date: February 12, 1992
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Supervisor: Marie H. Burk

Nervous about an evening spent with his new friend, former Mets first baseman and five-time MLB All-Star Keith Hernandez, Jerry dresses in a garish two-toned red fly-front shirt with a bronze-and-green equestrian print tucked into his black Levi’s.

“What about this shirt, is this okay?” he asks Elaine, who responds with a reality check: “Jerry… he’s a guy.” Still self-conscious, Jerry then turns to Kramer, perhaps the most oddball dresser of the bunch who still offers the accurate feedback: “Nah, it’s too busy.”

I gotta side with Kramer on this one, Jerry.

Jerry foregoes both of his friends’ advice and wears the shirt to dinner with Keith, layering it under a tan suede baseball jacket… perhaps a nod to Hernandez’s career.

Also, it’s while still wearing this shirt that Jerry delivers the famous “magic loogie” scene inspired by Kevin Costner’s “magic bullet” monologue from JFK, which had been released just two months earlier.

7. George in “Morning Mist”

Episode: “The Trip, Part I” (Episode 4.01)
Air Date: August 12, 1992
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Seinfeld‘s groundbreaking fourth season marked new directions that came to define the series, including the introduction of a solidified season-long arc (Jerry and George’s TV pilot) and the beginning of Charmaine Nash Simmons’ tenure as costume designer, the latter particularly coinciding with an increased emphasis on clothing-centric humor.

Early in the episode, George brings his bevy of baggage into Jerry’s apartment before their flight to L.A., dressed in a light-blue oxford button-down shirt tucked into jeans, held up with a tan surcingle belt and accessorized with a gun club check hunting cap and white sneakers.

Jerry: We’re going on a two-day trip, what are you, Diana Ross?
George: I happen to dress based on mood.
Jerry: Oh. But you essentially wear the same thing all the time.
George: Seemingly, seemingly. But within that basic framework there are many subtle variations, only discernible to an acute observer, that reflect the many moods, the many shades, the many sides of George Costanza.
Jerry: And what mood is this?
George: This is Morning Mist.

I only wish this bit has continued, as I’d love to know what Bath & Body Works scent-adjacent moods inform George Costanza’s sense of attire.

8. Jerry’s Slow Watch

Episode: “The Pitch/The Ticket” (Episode 4.03/4.04)
Air Date: September 16, 1992
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Jerry Seinfeld is a Breitling watch enthusiast in real life, a quality he extended to his fictional counterpart on Seinfeld, wearing Navitimer models from the second season onward. You’d think that his in-universe parents would have known better than to gift him a cheap Timex watch at the start of the fourth season. After the slow-running timepiece nearly makes him and George late for a crucial pitch meeting with NBC, he pulls it off his wrist in the street and tosses it into the first garbage can he sees.

“That’s it for this piece of junk, I’ve had it!” The watch brand is never mentioned by name on the show, but the glimpse we see of it at the top of the trash appears to show that it’s a plain stainless Timex with a date window at 3:00.

The watch is then recovered by Jerry’s “frugal” uncle Leo (Len Lesser), who holds it to his ear and—hearing that quartz-powered tick—giddily slides the expanding band over his watch. The coincidence results in a slow burn over the next two episodes until “The Watch” (Episode 4.06) when Jerry offers to buy the repaired watch back from his uncle so that his parents won’t know he threw it away.

Leo refuses, citing “I haven’t seen too many like these!” despite the fact that it’s a very common drugstore watch. Jerry attempts to cover the $60 retail price and the $40 repair bill, but Leo remains stubborn: “I’ve never seen a band like this!”, negotiating Jerry up to spending $350 for a simple Timex… just in time for his father to witness the curious transaction: “What the hell is going on here?”

9. George’s Sweatpants

Episode: “The Pilot” (Episode 4.23/4.24)
Air Date: May 20, 1993
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Long before the lazy Summer of George, Jerry berates his writing partner’s choice of leisurewear when George strolls into his apartment wearing a rust-colored pique polo and navy sweatpants. “Again with the sweatpants?” Jerry asks. “What? I’m comfortable,” George responds between handfuls of Ruffles.

“You know the message you’re sending out to the world with these sweatpants? You’re telling the world ‘I give up! I can’t compete in normal society, I’m miserable, so I might as well be comfortable.”

10. The Puffy Shirt

Episode: “The Puffy Shirt” (Episode 5.02)
Air Date: September 23, 1993
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

But I don’t wanna be a pirate!

… Jerry famously whined after he realizes his polite affirmations resulted in his unconscious agreement to model a hideous, pirate-inspired shirt in front of an audience of millions on The Today Show. The misunderstanding emerged from a dinner with Jerry and Elaine with Kramer and his clothing designer girlfriend, a “low-talker” named Leslie (Wendel Meldrum) whose latest creation Kramer is convinced will be “the big new look of men’s fashions.”

“Big” being the operative word here. The cream-colored silk shirt has a full front placket with spherical pearl buttons, including two on the standing collar. A frilly triple-layered jabot is attached like a bib, covering both sides of the chest, echoing the similar triple-puffed effect down each sleeve, with banded French cuffs fastened by cuff links. “It’s all puffy, like the pirates used to wear,” Kramer describes. “See, I think people wanna look like pirates. You know, it’s the right time for it, to be all puffy and devil-may-care.”

Jerry is disgusted by the concept of wearing such a ridiculous shirt on the air, but Kramer urges to him to make good on the agreement, as stores have been stocking the shirt in anticipation of Jerry wearing it on the air with Bryant Gumbel. It only adds insult to injury when Elaine begs Jerry not to wear it, reminding him that he’s promoting a benefit for Goodwill Industries to clothe homeless people: “You’re supposed to be a compassionate person that cares about poor people! You look like you’re gonna swing in on a chandelier!”

Avast, ye matey!

Bryant Gumbel obsesses over the “puffed-up” shirt to the point that Jerry publicly disowns it as “the stupidest shirt I’ve ever seen,” humiliating Leslie and dooming the shirt as well as the benefit.

A few days later, Jerry and the gang encounter a few homeless men dressed in the unsold shirts that had been donated to Goodwill, asking if they can “spare a little change for an old buccaneer.” Just as George would needle his way into the mind of a date (“Co-stanza!”) the shirt has evidently grown on Jerry with its repeated exposure, and he ends the episode by determining, “you know, it’s really not a bad-lookin’ shirt.”

The shirt was conceptualized by co-creator Larry David and executed by costume designer Charmaine Nash Simmons, who told The Washington Post that she was inspired by an ugly shirt given to her by her mother to design “the most uncomfortable, unwearable shirt you could find,” creating a total of three to be worn on screen.

Perhaps the most iconic costume from Seinfeld‘s nine-season run, one of the puffy shirts was donated to the Smithsonian by Jerry Seinfeld in 2004 and remains in the possession of the National Museum of American History. Another shirt was auctioned for a five-figure sum in 2017.

11. George’s Old Lady Glasses

Episode: “The Glasses” (Episode 5.03)
Air Date: September 30, 1993
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

After misplacing his prescription glasses at the health club (and lacking an old pair that broke while running form a bee), George is in the market for new glasses. Kramer steps in to help, promising a 30% discount from his friend Dwayne at J&T Optical on Columbus Avenue.

George brings Jerry and Elaine for help picking out his “new face”, but he hasn’t yet selected new frames until the duo need to leave him to get Elaine treated for a potentially rabid dog bite. Without any guidance from his better-seeing frames, George allows Dwayne to talk him into purchasing “an exciting new frame”… from the Gloria Vanderbilt Collection, as Kramer later points out.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Elton,” Jerry comments. “They’re ladies’ glasses! All you need is that little chain around your neck so you can wear ’em while you’re playing canasta.”

12. Jerry’s Allergy-Triggering Mohair Sweater

Episode: “The Sniffing Accountant” (Episode 5.04)
Air Date: October 7, 1993
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Jerry begins the episode dressed in an uncharacteristic fuzzy gray mohair oversized mock-neck sweater, characterized by colorful teal, gold, black, and white flecks of yarn throughout.

George: Jerry, where’d you get that sweater?
Jerry: What do you think? I found it in the back of my closet.
George: I think that’s what the back of closets are for.

While chatting with Elaine and George (about clothing, of course, specifically Elaine’s gabardine jacket), he encounters his accountant, Barry Prophet (John Kapelos), who can’t stop sniffing through their entire conversation.

Kramer validates Jerry’s suspicious theory that Barry is a cocaine addict, but they determine further investigation is required… so Kramer borrows Jerry’s itchy sweater, dons a pair of sunglasses, and sidles up to Barry in a bar in an attempt to con him in to admitting drug use:

Here’s to feeling good all the time!

Kramer’s hip to the whole bathroom scene. Sniff sniff.

Though Kramer’s attempt to bust in on Barry in the bathroom with a Polaroid yielded little by way of evidence of illicit drug use, the fact that Barry was sniffing again gives Jerry all the cause he believes he needs to terminate their professional relationship. As a postal worker and one of Barry’s clients, Newman (Wayne Knight) is entrusted with the letter firing Barry, though he’s only minutes away by the time a delivery driver bringing pizza to Jerry’s apartment starts uncontrollably sniffling, citing an allergy to mohair—the central fiber of Jerry’s sweater that Kramer is still wearing.

Fun fact: Seinfeld fans have spotted that the sweater previously appeared in the third-season episode “The Boyfriend”, worn by George’s date Carrie Sokol (Carol Ann Susi). On her Instagram account @seinfeldbackstage, key costumer Stephanie Kennedy confirmed that it is indeed the same sweater, the result of staff changes and a tagging mix-up between seasons.

Evidently, Carrie and Jerry shopped at some of the same knitwear outfitters.

13. George’s Gore-Tex Jacket

Episode: “The Dinner Party” (Episode 5.13)
Air Date: February 3, 1994
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Jerry and Elaine are debating the weather when George’s entrance perfectly aligns with Elaine asking for Jerry’s definition of “scary cold”. “That,” Jerry responds, pointing at George in his overly puffed puffer jacket.

Made of black Gore-Tex polyester, George’s jacket features the usual down-filled quilting that characterizes puffer jackets, though inflated beyond comical proportions. “It was like inflating a bike tire,” key costumer Stephanie Kennedy recently recalled in an Instagram post. Following direction from the script and costume supervisor Charmaine Simmons, Kennedy purchased the coat from a downtown L.A. discount sports shop before preparing it for its use on screen. “We ran out to the fabric store and grabbed bags and bags of polyester fill batting (like what you put in pillows) and had our seamstress, Sylvia, open up the side seams of the body and sleeves and shove about 10 bags of filler in.”

Jerry: When did you get that?
George: This week! My father got a deal from a friend of his. It’s Gore-Tex. You know about Gore-Tex?
Jerry: You like saying Gore-Tex, don’t you?

The coat has a hood lined with synthetic fur, and the Western-yoked shoulder patches are a tobacco-brown faux suede. Extending to George’s thighs, the coat also has double-snapped slanted pockets over the chest and two flapped pockets lower on the body. Though it keeps him adequately warm both outdoors and in, it irrationally angers a man on a street (“you better be careful with that thing, you’d start a war,” Kramer warns) and unfortunately gets sacrificed to cover the cost of the bottles of “some cheap chardonnay” that shatter when George’s massive coat inadvertently knocks them off a display in a liquor store.

A few episodes later, Jerry has Gore-Tex on the mind when he tries “a sport jacket and scarf thing, like an unemployed actor,” in “The Wife” (Episode 5.17). His new girlfriend Meryl (Courteney Cox) feels the material—another callback—and asks “Cashmere?” “No, Gore-Tex,” Jerry responds.

14. Jerry’s “Golden Boy” T-shirt

Episode: “The Marine Biologist” (Episode 5.14)
Air Date: February 10, 1994
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

“Elaine, see this T-shirt? Six years I’ve had this T-shirt, it’s my best one. I call him ‘Golden Boy’,” Jerry explains to Elaine at the start of the episode. “Golden Boy’s always the first shirt I wear out of the laundry… but see, look at the collar. It’s fraying. Golden Boy is slowly dying. Each wash brings him one step closer! That’s what makes the T-shirt such a tragic figure.”

“Why don’t you just let Golden Boy soak in the sink with some Woolite?” Elaine asks, to Jerry’s great offense. “No! The reason he’s the iron man is because he goes out there and he plays every game! Wash, spin, rinse, spin! You take that away from him, you break his spirit!”

Golden Boy’s last stand. Jerry may be canonically more of a neat freak than I am, but I still think Golden Boy’s got a few more good washes left in him.

Just like George’s Gore-Tex coat in the previous episode, Golden Boy doesn’t make it to the end, though it’s a victim of one laundry load too many rather than any liquor store hijinks. Despite his stated enthusiasm for the shirt, I don’t believe we ever actually see Jerry wearing Golden Boy on screen… though he does debut “Golden Boy’s son, ‘Baby Blue'” in the final scene.

15. George’s Swishy Suit

Episode: “The Pie” (Episode 5.15)
Air Date: February 17, 1994
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

After Kramer tips Elaine off about a clothing store with a mannequin that looks just like her, George tags along with her in search of a “cool suit” for a job interview. He picks out a three-piece suit striped in multiple shades of brown and allows an assertive blonde saleswoman to talk him into buying it… once it’s half price during an unadvertised sale in a couple of days. Knowing he had competition from a “fellow 40 short” who would be waiting for the doors to open on Friday morning, George had stashed the suit on another rack so that only he would know where to find it.

The typically neurotic George is thus all confidence when he strolls into Monk’s to meet his friends before the interview, at least until Jerry and Elaine point out the “swoosh” that the fabric makes as it rubs between his thighs. Having heard stories about the hiring manager’s angry misophobia, George frets, but his honesty initially pays off when he and the manager laugh about his “rustling” trousers over lunch.

George panics after Elaine and Jerry point out the swishing sound that his suit trousers make.

Fun Fact: “The Pie” also marks the debut of Kramer’s iconic lobster-printed shirt.

16. The Executive, Morty Seinfeld’s Beltless Trench Coat

Episode: “The Raincoats, Parts I & II” (Episode 5.17/5.18)
Air Date: April 28, 1994
Director: Tom Cherones
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

“Look at that, Helen! Do you see what he’s wearing? That’s the Executive!” Morty Seinfeld (Barney Martin) beams with pride as Kramer makes yet another memorable arrival into Jerry’s apartment, now clad in a beltless trench coat purchased from the secondhand shop Rudy’s, where Kramer explains they’re “a hot item.”

Kramer: Now what is the Executive?
Jerry: The beltless trench coat. My father invented it!
Morty: I sure did… raincoats were my business. The Executive was a classic. These haven’t been made in twenty years.

Raincoats without belts are hardly revolutionary, but trench coats without belts are indeed a whole new coat altogether. “I came home one night, and I tripped over one of Jerry’s toys,” Morty recalls of the serendipitous origin. “So I took out my belt, just to threaten him, and I got a glimpse of myself in the mirror… so that night I cut off the loops, and the Executive was born.”

Kramer and Morty Seinfeld enter a business partnership, also bringing in Morty’s cantankerous neighbor Jack Klompus to ship a series of poorly packed boxes of about fifty coats up from the Seinfelds’ garage in Florida.

Dressed in one of the titular trench coats, Kramer renegotiate the terms of his partnership with Mr. Seinfeld… resulting in exactly what the terms had been before the negotiation.

“The Raincoats” expanded on a concept first mentioned three seasons earlier in “The Pony Remark” (Episode 2.02) when Morty meditates on the greatest moment of his life being 1946, when he started working for Harry Fleming “and I came up with the idea for the beltless trench coat,” shining his laurels in the midst of his wife criticizing his taste in sport jackets. Especially from an era before when “show bibles” guaranteed a series maintaining narrative continuity, Seinfeld does an impressive job of staying consistent with Morty’s biography several seasons later, though it can be assumed that the actual Executive would have been developed at least a decade after he started working for Fleming to fit with his recollection that he was inspired by tripping over one of Jerry’s toys.

The Executive would make a few more appearances over the course of Seinfeld, next worn by Newman the noir hero while picking up Kramer’s mom Babs in “The Switch” (Episode 6.11) and again by Morty himself while visiting Jerry in “The Doodle” (Episode 6.20).

In the Seinfeld universe, the right outerwear has an almost supernatural effect on a man’s ability to attract women, as illustrated by Newman wearing the Executive when meeting Babs Kramer (Sheree North) on the street in “The Switch” (Episode 6.11).

17. Mr. Pitt’s White Socks

Episode: “The Chaperone” (Episode 6.01)
Air Date: September 22, 1994
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Elaine’s new job for Mr. Pitt (Ian Abercrombie) is hardly glamorous, with duties including outfitting the finicky publishing executive with his white socks. “They’re too tight! There’s no elastic, you need to pull too much!” he complains of the pair she initially purchases for him. The task proves to be Sisyphean as her follow-up attempts are either too loose or still too tight.

“I want a decent sock that’s comfortable that will stay on my foot!” Mr. Pitt barks at a hapless Elaine, despite her desperate attempts to find him the Goldilocks of socks.

“The Chaperone” also includes a sub-plot following George’s ill-advised attempt to outfit the Yankees in more comfortable cotton uniforms instead of the MLB standard polyester.

18. Larry David’s Cape

Episode: “The Chinese Woman” (Episode 6.04)
Air Date: October 13, 1994
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Our protagonists are understandably bemused after Jerry and Elaine spot Frank Costanza (Jerry Stiller) talking to a mysterious man dressed in a cape (Larry David). “It is good cape weather… cool, breezy,” Jerry quips, but Elaine continues to ruminate:

But why a cape? Who wears a cape? Where do you even get a cape?

Frank Costanza consults with a caped man who we later learn to be his lawyer. Jerry was evidently so thrown off by the cape that he mistakenly tells George that Frank was wearing a “jacket and tie, no cape,” despite Frank not having worn a tie with one of his trademark leisure jackets.

“It was a reversible, double sided [cape] made of luxurious dark velvet. Heavy but not too heavy,” key costumer Stephanie Kennedy recalled in an Instagram post about the vintage cape she sourced from a studio rental house.

“The Chinese Woman” includes the additional clothing-related sub-plot of a free and unfettered Kramer abandoning both boxer shorts and “the secure packaging of Jockeys”, going commando much to everyone’s horror that there’s nothing between them and Kramer’s “boys” but “a thin layer of gabardine”:

I’m out there, Jerry, and I’m lovin’ every minute of it!

19. Bania’s Armani Suit

Episode: “The Soup” (Episode 6.07)
Air Date: November 10, 1994
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Jerry’s obnoxious fellow comedian Kenny Bania (Steve Hytner) has been proudly “workin’ out” and, now that he’s a size 42 instead of a 40, no longer has any need for a brand-new taupe Armani suit.

“I don’t even want anything for it,” Bania declares as Kramer extols his generosity, though the drawn-out conversation leads to Bania adding the condition that Jerry take him out to dinner in exchange for the suit.

20. Jerry’s Cowboy Boots

Episode: “The Mom & Pop Store” (Episode 6.08)
Air Date: November 17, 1994
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Famously a sneaker-head, Jerry is forced to abandon his favored footwear when Kramer takes them for cleaning at a mom-and-pop store he’s been frequenting, despite telling him “I really don’t wear the kind of shoes that need to be cobbled.” Rather than a pair or two, Kramer takes all but one pair that Jerry owns to give the titular “Mom and Pop” as much business as possible.

Mom: So many sneakers!
Kramer: Well, he’s got a Peter Pan complex.

When Jerry gets gum on the soles of his Nikes, George demands he change his shoes before riding around in his new Lebaron that may or may not have belonged to the actor Jon Voight. Jerry discovers that Kramer left him only a pair of cowboy boots—given to him by a Dallas comedy club in lieu of payment—that he rightly fears will make him look ridiculous on the streets of Manhattan.

“Hey cowboy, where’s your horse?”

Kramer: You look like a cowboy!
Jerry: (recalling “The Puffy Shirt”) I don’t wanna be a cowboy!

When Kramer gets characteristically over-involved with the octogenarians’ business and encourages an electrical inspection, Mom and Pop opt to close their store down rather than dish out the $4,000 needed to continue safely operating… evidently taking all of Jerry’s sneakers with them, though Elaine mocks Kramer’s suggestion of conspiracy.

21. The Bro Manssiere

Episode: “The Doorman” (Episode 6.18)
Air Date: February 23, 1995
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

A season after partnering with Jerry’s dad on a clothing-related business enterprise, Kramer has set his sights on another of his friends’ fathers: the recently divorced Frank Costanza. After he and George catch a sight of Frank shirtless, the entrepreneurially minded Kramer recognizes yet another business opportunity by developing a supportive undergarment for large-breasted men like Frank.

Frank: You want me to wear a bra?
Kramer: No, no, a bra is for ladies. Meet the Bro.

“As soon as he leaves the house, he turns into J. Edgar Hoover!”

Despite the embarrassment of George and his mother walking in during the initial fitting, Frank marvels at his improved posture, breathing, and comfort while wearing it and agrees to hook Kramer up with his bra executive pal, Sid Farkus, “the best in the business” who had interviewed George to be a bra salesman at the start of the previous season. Sid is interested, having noticed some jiggling on his own chest, particularly when wearing Ban-Lon, prompting Frank to add: “I wouldn’t be caught dead in Ban-Lon.”

Of course, first they need to decide on a name. Frank is against Kramer’s choice of “bro” as “too ethnic” and advocates for his own pun-inspired nomenclature: the manssiere, “a brassiere for a man!”

22. George Draped in Velvet

Episode: “The Doodle” (Episode 6.20)
Air Date: April 6, 1995
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

“I would drape myself in velvet if it were socially acceptable,” George had stated several episodes earlier in “The Label Maker” (Episode 6.12) and his relationship with Elaine’s friend Paula (Christa Miller) makes this dream a reality as he comes to terms with the facts that she doesn’t care how he presents himself.

“She’s seen you in this thing?” Jerry asks as George strolls into Monk’s Cafe dressed in a dark green velvet tracksuit. “That’s right! We just had sex,” George proudly asserts. When Jerry is displaced by fleas in his apartment and a bitter ex-girlfriend, he comments—in reference to George’s lush apparel and Mel Torme’s cameo in the previous episode—”I guess I’m stuck with the Velvet Fog.”

23. Jerry’s 32-Waisted Jeans

Episode: “The Sponge” (Episode 7.09)
Air Date: December 7, 1995
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

“You see these jeans I’m wearing?” Jerry shares with his new girlfriend Lena (Jennifer Guthrie), moving his belt to show the signature Levi’s patch over the back right waist line. “I change the waist on the label to a 31 on all my jeans.”

The “confession” was his attempt to maintain the relationship after finding Lena’s supply of contraceptive sponges… but it backfires and she dumps Jerry for his vanity.

We learn more about Jerry’s jeans preferences as far back as “The Good Samaritan” (Episode 3.20) when George complains about his button-fly, but Jerry advocates for it as “that is one place on my wardrobe I do not need sharp, interlocking metal teeth. It’s like a mink trap down there.”

24. The Maestro’s Trouser Tip

Episode: “The Doll” (Episode 7.17)
Air Date: February 22, 1996
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

During a visit to the Maestro (Mark Metcalf), one of Elaine’s ex-boyfriends, Kramer and Frank are befuddled when the conductor rises from his desk and reveals himself to be wearing white tie, wing collar, and tailcoat… and no trousers.

“Oh… my pants! It’s an old conductors’ trick I learned from Leonard Bernstein,” the Maestro shares. “You keep a perfect crease by not sitting in them before the performance.” Eventually the practice would be adopted by Kramer, Frank, and even Jerry. “This is remarkable… I’m lounging, and yet my pants remain perfectly creased!” Kramer marvels as the Maestro joins him and Frank in George’s old bedroom, now converted to a bedroom parlor, and yet another opportunity for Estelle to walk in on an underwear-clad Frank and Kramer in a compromising position.

“Oh my god!”

Movie fans may recall Robert de Niro’s perfectionist gambling executive Sam “Ace” Rothstein had done something similar with his suits in Casino, reportedly inspired by his real-life counterpart Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal.

25. Jerry’s Misplaced Blazer

Episode: “The Friar’s Club” (Episode 7.18)
Air Date: March 7, 1996
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Jerry joins George, Susan, and Susan’s friend Hallie for dinner at the Friar’s Club, but he arrives without wearing the jacket required for the dining room. The maitre’d thus issues Jerry one of the club’s own jackets, a navy blazer with a moose-less crest embroidered over the breast pocket, which he accidentally continues wearing through the rest of the evening. He plans on returning it the following evening, after another double-date to see the Flying Sandos Brothers, but the group incorporates the blazer into their magic act and then doesn’t give it back after making it “disappear”, resulting in Jerry spending much of the episode trying to retrieve it.

In the following episode, “The Wig Master” (Episode 7.19), Jerry reveals he gained such an appetite for the crested blazer that he goes shopping for his own, resulting in an ongoing battle with a snooty salesman.

26. Kramer the Pimp

Episode: “The Wig Master” (Episode 7.19)
Air Date: April 4, 1996
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Susan’s friend Ethan (Patrick Bristow), the wig master for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, enters the orbit of the friends and agrees to lend Kramer the famous coat. One night, he takes the coat out for a stroll while carrying the J. Peterman walking stick Elaine gave him after working on it for a catalog piece. A middle-aged woman’s white fur-trimmed fedora blows off her head and directly into Kramer’s path, giving him the final ingredient he needed to inadvertently create the look of a pimp.

The costume doesn’t do Kramer any favors when he gets into a fight with one of the Jiffy Park prostitutes who was using his Cadillac convertible as a meeting place with a john, leading to Kramer’s arrest despite his admission: “I’m not a pimp!”

27. Kramer’s Skin-tight Jeans

Episode: “The Wait-Out” (Episode 7.23)
Air Date: May 9, 1996
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Following Jerry’s implication that Kramer could no longer fit into his old jeans, Kramer stiffly struts into Jerry’s apartment wearing the new jeans he promised he would buy.

Kramer: Yeah, I bought dungarees.
Elaine: Kramer, they’re painted on!
Kramer: They’re slim-fit.

Jerry can’t pull Kramer out of his jeans, identifiable as Wranglers by the signature leather patch and “W” pocket stitch on the back.

Key costumer Stephanie Kennedy explained the process of finding Kramer’s famous jeans in a @seinfeldbackstage Instagram post, which began with the stipulations that they be stiff, long enough to fit Michael Richards’ 6’3″ frame, and a dark wash to appear new and stand out on camera: “Even though we knew Michael’s waist size of course, we weren’t sure how tight he’d want to go. He tried on a few different styles but he really liked the feel and the stiffness of the classic Wranglers. These were rigid, unwashed denim and he kept going down sizes, tighter and tighter AND TIGHTER!”

28. Jeannie’s Sweater Comment

Episode: “The Invitations” (Episode 7.24)
Air Date: May 16, 1996
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

“Oh, see? To me this is a waste… the shirt you got on under your sweater. It sits in a drawer for three weeks waiting to come out, and when it does, it only sticks up half an inch out of your collar,” Jeannie (Janeane Garofolo) comments to Jerry almost immediately upon meeting him when she pushes him out of the path of a speeding car. It’s just the sort of shallow, fairly obvious observation he himself would make… and he determines that perhaps he’s met his soulmate.

J.S. meets J.S. and bond over trite clothing observations.

29. Eddie’s Camo Fatigues

Episode: “The Fatigues” (Episode 8.06)
Air Date: October 31, 1996
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Indefinitely in charge of the famous clothier after J. Peterman’s nervous breakdown, Elaine summons the incompetent mail room manager Eddie Sherman (Ned Bellamy) into her office to fire him, only to promote him after being intimidated by his tough disposition and camouflage ripstop U.S. Army BDU with cut-off sleeves. (They’re clearly not his own, as the name reads “Yount” rather than “Sherman”, but that’s besides the point.)

Of course, his ideas are disastrously depressing and violent, but Elaine feels forced to retain him on the writing staff. After collaborating on a surprisingly successful catalog, Elaine finally asks him “what’s with the fatigues and all the psychotic imagery?”, likely expecting a traumatic war story but instead he admits that he “went on a couple of dates with this woman, I thought she really liked me, and things kinda cooled off.”

The true trauma in the episode would fall to Frank Costanza, who spots the fatigue-clad Eddie choking on the food he cooked for a Jewish singles mixer and flashes back to when he accidentally gave his unit food poisoning as an Army cook during the Korean War.

30. George’s Sable Hat

Episode: “The Chicken Roaster” (Episode 8.08)
Air Date: November 14, 1996
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Impressed by an attractive Barneys saleswoman’s response to him wearing it, George picks out an $8,000 Russian sable fur hat that Elaine—still acting president—irresponsibly charges to her J. Peterman expense account. He actually manages to score a date with her, though her obvious lack of interest inspires him to leave behind the hat as an excuse to see her again.

“This hat just bottles in the heat, I don’t even need a coat!”

The J. Peterman accounting department demands to see the hat Elaine purchased to the account, but Heather refuses to see George again, so he and Elaine are forced to resort to one of Kramer’s shady unseen friends tfor an alternative. Unfortunately, the fabled Bob Sacamano can only get her a cheap simile made not of fine sable but nutria… “a kind of rat.”

Alec Berg and Jeff Schaffer were inspired to write this plot by a friend who had been warned against buying a Russian hat without doing his due diligence as there was an abundance of cheap “rat hats” made of nutria rather than sable.

31. A Backless Entry for George

Episode: “The Susie” (Episode 8.15)
Air Date: February 13, 1997
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Ahead of “Yankee prom”, George finally has the opportunity to make an entrance with his beautiful new girlfriend Allison (Shannon Kenny), whom he describes as “genetically engineered to go to a ball,” specifically to twirl into the room in her elegant backless dress. Of course, he’s George, so she’s looking for ways to end it. In the pre-ghosting era, George thinks that all he needs to do is avoid her until the ball, using Kramer as an intermediary.

Understandably fed up, Allison bails on George before the ball and leaves just Kramer to accompany him, dressed in a purple bow tie, wing collar, and peak-lapel dinner jacket. “Like the tuxedo? It’s a rental, but I’ve had it for fifteen years,” Kramer shares.

George tries to prevent Kramer from entering as his date, but the struggle just peels away the back of Kramer’s jacket and shirt as he spins into the room… delivering not the twirling backless entry into the ball that George needed but the twirling backless entry into the ball that George deserved.

32. #1 Dad T-shirt

Episode: “The English Patient” (Episode 8.17)
Air Date: March 13, 1997
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

“This shirt will never leave my body!” Morty declares of the generic #1 Dad T-shirt that Jerry gifted him for Father’s Day, though there’s no way that either Seinfeld could have anticipated the controversy it would cause, instigating the fiercely competitive octogenarian athlete Izzy Mandelbaum (Lloyd Bridges).

“Oh, I see how it works now… he knocks me out of commission so you can strut around in your fancy #1 shirt!” Izzy concludes, encourages his son to make him a “World’s Greatest Dad” in the hopes that he would now outrank Morty.

33. George the Tourist

Episode: “The Muffin Tops” (Episode 8.21)
Air Date: May 8, 1997
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

George and Jerry are walking down the street when a man asks George to watch his suitcase. After the man fails to return in a period of time deemed adequate, George keeps the contents for himself and begins dressing himself from the man’s bright duds. The uncharacteristic clothing includes a yellow Derby-style golf jacket, pastel shirts, and pleated chinos in shades of off-white and mint-green.

The decision proves to be surprisingly fortuitous for meeting women, when the attractive Visitor’s Center rep Mary Anne (Rena Sofer) mistakes George for a tourist and agrees to help him navigate the Big Apple, as she’s convinced the city would “eat him alive” otherwise.

34. Jerry’s “Hacky” Suspenders

Episode: “The Butter Shave” (Episode 9.01)
Air Date: September 25, 1997
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Hoping to sabotage Kenny Bania’s act that follows his, Jerry abandons his usual comedy routine for a more obnoxious and obvious style, complete with a purple T-shirt worn under a pair of rainbow suspenders. The plan goes awry, thanks to a sun-baked Kramer and a hungry Newman, as the visiting NBC executives are impressed with Bania while merely informing Jerry that his suspenders are “… a little hacky.”

35. Kramer Dressed Like Jerry

Episode: “The Voice” (Episode 9.02)
Air Date: October 2, 1997
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Kramer briefly gets an eager intern, Darin (Jarrad Paul), whose internship is ended by NYU when they discover that Kramerica Industries is “a solitary man with a messy apartment that may or may not contain a chicken.” One of Darin’s duties had been Kramer’s laundry, though—echoing the fate of Jerry’s shoes in “The Mom & Pop Store”—Kramer was left unable to find any of his clothes after Darin took them to a random cleaner, leaving Kramer to forage in Jerry’s closet for something to wear… hence his very Seinfeldian outfit of a light blue oxford-cloth button-down shirt and blue jeans.

36. George’s Painted Timberlands

Episode: “The Betrayal” (Episode 9.08)
Air Date: November 20, 1997
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

George gets new Timberland boots that make him feel like “a whole new me… I’m up two inches in these babies!” After meeting Jerry’s friend Nina (Justine Miceli) and securing a date with her, George realizes that he had been standing eye-to-eye with her due to the boots and doesn’t want to revert to standing 5’6″ tall when seeing her again (“I can’t go eye to chin!”), so he continues wearing them exclusively through the episode, including to a wedding in India.

“George, you’ve been wearing those boots since I met you, you’re not gonna wear them to the wedding, are you?” Nina asks after their plane lands in India. “No,” he snorts, “I’m gonna wear black shoes.”

Unfortunately, George’s black-shoed solution is merely to attempt to paint his classic wheat-colored nubuck work boots, which Elaine immediately spots (“Are those Timberlands? Painted black?”) and which Nina calls out after the wedding falls apart due to petty jealousies among the friends. It’s a shame that George didn’t feel comfortable standing at his true height, as he dresses for the wedding in an otherwise tasteful cream-colored tonal-checked linen suit that would have looked great with a set of tan derbies.

George haplessly tries to convert his Timberlands to dress shoes to maintain an illusion of height.

George’s frustrations recall the plot of Kramer’s actor pal Mickey Abbott (Danny Woodburn), a little person who was caught by his colleagues using lifts in his shoes to “heighten”.

37. Denim Vest

Episode: “The Strike” (Episode 9.10)
Air Date: December 18, 1997
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

At Tim Whatley’s Hanukkah party, Elaine can’t avoid the advances of a guy she refers to—for obvious reasons—as “Denim Vest” (Kevin Macdonald), finding it particularly loathsome when he smooths it out when striding over to approach her. “Nice vest, I like the big metal buttons,” Elaine tells him. “They’re snaps,” he responds. She sends him away with a fake phone number but, when realizing she handed out the number on a card she needed to redeem a free sub, she arranges to meet him again.

“I see you’re still stickin’ with the denim,” she comments of Steve’s Levi’s Type III trucker jacket he has layered on when they meet in the street, bringing his total denim-adjacent pieces to four: the jacket, the three-button “orange tab” Levi’s vest, a light blue chambray shirt, and blue jeans.

Yama-hama…

38. George’s Cuff Links

Episode: “The Strike” (Episode 9.10)
Air Date: December 18, 1997
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

The season of giving is alive at Kruger Industrial Smoothing (“we don’t care, and it shows”), where George takes a page out of Tim Whatley’s book by handing out charity donations as gifts to his colleagues. The only problem is that the charity in question, the Human Fund, is totally made-up… which adds insult to injury as George receives considerably more meaningful Christmas gifts in return, including a set of gold rectangular cuff links with a black bar through the center.

George proudly shows his new cuff links to Jerry, who observes “that’s not a French cuff shirt, you know.” George confirms that, rather than buying a new shirt to accommodate the links, he merely cut off the existing cuff buttons and poked holes through the barrel cuffs with a letter-opener. “Oh, that’s classy,” Jerry deadpans.

“Office Christmas gift!”

Cuff links would return as a more significant plot point four episodes later when Jerry stores Jerry Lewis’ cuff links in Kramer’s strongbox.

39. The “Fancy Boy” Fur Coat

Episode: “The Reverse Peephole” (Episode 9.12)
Air Date: January 15, 1998
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Elaine’s constant on/off-again boyfriend David Puddy (Patrick Warburton) doesn’t understand what’s so funny about his “winter coat”, a thigh-length fur coat with three toggle buttons.

Jerry: So Puddy wears a man fur?
Elaine: He was struttin’ around the coffee shop like Stein Eriksen.
Jerry: And of course you find fur morally reprehensible?
Elaine: Eh, anti-fur, who has the time anymore? This is more about hanging off the arm of an idiot.

Fur coats were evidently in season among Seinfeld‘s men in the winter of 1998, as Elaine believes she’s ridding Puddy of the dreaded coat when she throws it out the window of Joe Mayo’s party… only to learn that the discarded coat belonged to Joe Mayo (Pat Finn) himself. (Why Joe Mayo tosses his own coat among the guests’ jackets isn’t explained, but characters on Seinfeld often defy basic behavioral expectations.)

The always-opportunistic Newman stumbles onto the coat and gifts it to his secret girlfriend, whose husband Silvio (Jon Polito) is their building’s landlord. When Silvio discovers the coat and suspects perfidy, Kramer convinces him that it’s a man’s coat like one worn by Jerry, a “fancy boy” celebrity. The ruse that isn’t hard to convince Silvio given that Jerry has already abandoned his wallet in favor of a European carry-all purse.

Who wore it better?

Seeing Jerry looking like “a bit of a dandy” in the fur coat inspires Puddy to ditch his fur coat in favor of…

40. Putty’s 8-Ball Jacket

Episode: “The Reverse Peephole” (Episode 9.12)
Air Date: January 15, 1998
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Elaine is none too thrilled when Puddy replaces the fur coat with a leather 8-ball jacket, which he continues wearing through the rest of the season as seen in “The Burning” (Episode 9.16) and “The Finale” (Episode 9.23/9.24).

Puddy: “You got a question, you ask the 8-Ball.”
Elaine: “You’re gonna wear this all the time?”
Puddy: “All signs point to ‘yes!'”

Developed in 1990 by San Francisco-based designer Michael Hoban, 8-ball jackets were most popular through the early years of the decade when they were associated with bold sports stars and hip-hop figures, quickly so in demand that there were actually many cases of wearers who were fatally shot or stabbed by robbers who wanted their 8-ball jackets. Their high cost, the violence surrounding them, and the fleeting nature of fashion meant popularity had mostly waned within two years… and thus were perfectly passé when writer Spike Feresten selected it as the blockheaded Puddy’s new favorite jacket.

Feresten later told the New York Times that he was hoping to solidify the uncool association between Puddy and 8-ball jackets, but the surprising result was a somewhat ironic renaissance for the colorful outerwear.

…and, ending with a familiar conversation

Episode: “The Pilot” (Episode 4.23/4.24)
Air Date: May 14, 1998
Director: Andy Ackerman
Costume Designer: Charmaine Nash Simmons

Of course, the series’ double-length finale would include its share of clothing-based humor as well, including continuing the bit of Kramer’s outlandish lawyer Jackie Chiles (Phil Morris) whose brash tailoring recalls the real-life Johnnie Cochran.

After the four are arrested in Massachusetts for violating the “Good Samaritan law” that required them to intervene while witnessing a crime in progress, Jackie is brought in to defend them, extending his legal strategy into sartorial schemes, ranging from swapping out Jerry’s tie to informing George’s courtroom attire:

Jackie: Didn’t I tell you I wanted you to wear the cardigan?
George: It makes me look older.
Jackie: Look older? You think this is a game? That what you think this is? I’m tryin’ to give you a moral compass, you have no moral compass! You walk into that courtroom and the jury’s gonna see a mean, nasty, evil George Costanza. I want ’em to see Perry Como! No one’s gonna convict Perry Como. Perry Como helps out a fat tub who’s getting robbed!

George takes heed and sports a soft cardigan and open-neck shirt, though the evidence collected over nine seasons of misdeeds can’t stop Judge Art Vandelay (Stanley Anderson) from convicting the “New York four.”

At the start of their year-long imprisonment, George’s lack of tie allows Jerry the opportunity to size up his shirt… specifically the spacing of its buttons along the placket, just like their very first conversation at the start of the series.

Jerry: See now, to me, that button is in the worst possible spot.
George: Really?
Jerry: Oh, yeah. The second button is the key button. It literally makes or breaks the shirt. Look at it! It’s too high. It’s in no man’s land.
George: Haven’t we had this conversation before?

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, currently streaming on Netflix.

The post Seinfeld: 40 Significant Style Moments appeared first on BAMF Style.

John Cusack with Anjelica Huston and Annette Bening in The Grifters (1990)

Vitals

John Cusack as Roy Dillon, swaggering con man with mommy issues

Phoenix and Los Angeles, Summer 1990

Film: The Grifters
Release Date: December 5, 1990
Director: Stephen Frears
Costume Designer: Richard Hornung

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

At seventeen going on eighteen, Roy Dillon had left home. He took nothing with him but the clothes he wore—clothes he had bought and paid for himself. He took no money but the little in the pockets of his clothes, and that too he had earned.

He wanted nothing from Lilly. She had given him nothing when he needed it, when he was too small to get for himself, and he wasn’t letting her into the game at this late date.

He had no contact with her during the first six months he was away. Then, at Christmas time, he sent her a card, and on Mother’s Day he sent her another. Both were of the gooey sentimental type, dripping with sickly sweetness, but the latter was a real dilly. Hearts and flowers and fat little angels swarmed over it in an insanely hilarious montage. The engraved message was dedicated to Dear Old Mom, and it gushed tearfully of goodnight kisses and platters and pitchers of oven-fresh cookies and milk when a little boy came in from play.

You would have thought that Dear Old Mom (God bless her silvering hair) had been the proprietor of a combination dairy-bakery, serving no customer but her own little tyke (on his brand-new bike).

He was laughing so hard when he sent it that he almost botched up the address. But afterward, he had some sobering second thoughts. Perhaps the joke was on him, yes? Perhaps by gibing at her he was revealing a deep and lasting hurt, admitting that she was tougher than he. And that, naturally, wouldn’t do. He’d taken everything she had to hand out, and it hadn’t made a dent in him. He damned well mustn’t ever let it think it had.

— Jim Thompson, The Grifters, Chapter 5

Reading this passage from one of my favorite pulp novelists inspired today’s Mother’s Day post, by way of Jim Thompson’s acid pen translated onto the screen.

Nominated for four Academy Awards, Stephen Frears’ slick 1990 neo-noir The Grifters joins Psycho (1960) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962) in a cinematic fraternity of twisted depictions of mother-son relationships, represented by short-con operator Roy Dillon (John Cusack) and his estranged mother Lilly (Anjelica Huston), a fellow swindler who has long been in service to sadistic bookie Bobo Justus (Pat Hingle) and eventually requires resources from her son to make her clean getaway:

I gave you your life twice. I’m asking you to give me mine once.

Roy and Lilly’s reunion is complicated by Roy’s hustler girlfriend Myra Langtry (Annette Bening), who schemes to remove the domineering matriarch as an obstacle to partnering with Roy.

Mother and son, reunited again.

Martin Scorsese grew interested in producing the story through the ’80s, signing on Stephen Frears to direct. As Jim Thompson had died in 1977, Scorsese and Frears approached Thompson’s crime fiction contemporary Donald E. Westlake—who also published under the name “Richard Stark”—to adapt Thompson’s 1963 novel for the screen. Though Westlake initially believed the devious, incestuous, story of filicide and sexual assault to be “too gloomy” (gee, I wonder why!), Frears remained steadfast in realizing his vision for a story he described as “pulp fiction meets Greek tragedy” and Westlake’s involvement was eventually secured.

John Cusack had been eagerly pursuing bringing the project to the screen after reading the novel in 1985 and flung himself into the role of Roy Dillon, practicing with actual grifters to the extent that he grew so proficient at Roy’s dice tricks and $20 switches that he actually pulled the latter on a bartender he knew, according to Joan Goodman’s contemporary reporting for The Guardian.

Though updated for a contemporary setting, The Grifters generally follows Thompson’s novel, aside from mostly dropping one of its darkest sub-plots involving Roy’s seduction—and hasty abandonment—of his Austrian-born nurse Carol, a Holocaust survivor who had been sexually experimented on by the Nazis during her preadolescent years imprisoned at Dachau. (For those who haven’t read Jim Thompson… yes, he can be a very dark writer.)

As in the novel, the third act of The Grifters begins with Roy receiving a call with the alarming news that his mother has committed suicide at an Arizona motel. He flies out to Phoenix to claim the corpse, which lacks the burn from Bobo’s cigar where he expected to see it on her right hand… revealing to Roy—and Roy only—that the complicated psychosexual web between him, Lilly, and Myra has only grown increasingly complex.

What’d He Wear?

The context is appropriately funereal for a black suit, as Roy Dillon has been summoned to Phoenix to identify his mother’s corpse. The cut follows the baggy silhouette that was popular through the late 1980s into the ’90s, similar to the dark gray pinstripe business suit he had worn at the start of the film.

The single-breasted suit jacket has notch lapels with then-fashionably low gorges, rolling to a similarly low two-button stance. The shoulders are heavily padded and roped at the sleeve-heads, the sleeves themselves finished with three buttons at each cuff. All of these details, including the ventless back, are hallmarks of menswear trends circa 1990 when The Grifters was produced and released.

The jacket has patch pockets over the hips, a sportier alternative to more formal set-in pockets that would feature jetting or flaps. Roy stores his sunglasses in his welted breast pocket.

Roy’s matching suit trousers rise to just below John Cusack’s natural waist, a refreshingly proportional alternative to the lower-rise trousers that have become popular in the decades since. The trousers have long reverse-facing pleats, side pockets, and bottoms finished with turn-ups (cuffs). He holds up the trousers with a black leather belt that closes through a silver-toned square single-prong buckle.

The corpse’s hand provides Roy with a clue about what really happened in that Arizona motel room.

Roy wears black leather oxford shoes with black socks, consistent with the black suit. While some may be able to pull it off, any other footwear would be risky and far too flashy for a smart grifter like Roy who tries to stay under the radar.

If you missed the Spoiler alert! at the top of this post, then I’m sure you can discern that this is the scene where Roy is aghast after spilling spaghetti sauce all over himself, so his mother frantically tries to gather enough cash for him to buy more spaghetti sauce. Very touching.

Dressing for a purpose rather than flash or fashionability, Roy’s white shirt and dark, understated tie appropriately coordinate with the sobriety of his funereal black suit.

At least two shirts were used during the scene, mostly evident by looking closely at the collar and the breast pocket which switches from a distinctive set-in pocket to a more conventional patch-style pocket when Roy is in the morgue. Both shirts have a point collar, though the stiffer “morgue shirt” collar is edge-stitched while the shirt seen in most of the other scenes has a collar stitched several millimeters from the edge. Both shirts button up a front placket and have squared barrel cuffs that close through one of two buttons for an adjustable fit.

Roy’s generally similar white shirts can be differentiated by the stitching along the point collar and the style of breast pocket. In other words, this illustrates a subtle costume-related continuity error that’s less the fault of the costume design team and more an indication that I need to go touch some grass for noticing it.

Roy’s narrow dark gray tie features a black geometric pattern. Held in place by a straight, gold-toned tie bar appropriately clipped at mid-torso, the tie is knotted in a small and tight four-in-hand.

Roy wears large tortoise-framed sunglasses with narrow, tapered arms. Though I’ve never seen a positive confirmation on who made Roy’s screen-worn sunglasses, modern shoppers hoping to channel his look could do so with the square-shaped Ray-Ban Elliott (RB2197) with polished Havana acetate frames.

Jim Thompson’s novel The Grifters describes Roy as wearing a “fancy wristwatch” during his early years as a con artist, brought to life on Cusack’s wrist with a sporty two-toned Seiko 7A34-7019 quartz-powered chronograph.

As clearly seen among some of Roy’s other props in a 2021 Prop Store listing, at least two of these stainless steel watches were used in the movie, each with a fixed gold-finished bezel (etched “CHRONOGRAPH” in block text across the top) and gold-toned center links around the center of the three-piece bracelet. The beige dial boasts a trio of sub-registers at 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions, and the semi-rounded gold shape at 12 o’clock includes a circular black date window. The other hours (1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, and 11 o’clock) are all marked by a single gold bar rather than any numeric indices. The watch has a neat, symmetrical appearance due to gold-toned pushers at 2 and 4 o’clock, and—on the other side—a matching pusher at 10 o’clock and a crown at 8 o’clock.

What to Imbibe

The cinematic Roy Dillon drinks mostly beer—specifically Miller brands like Miller Genuine Draft and Miller High Life—while his literary counterpart enjoys a little more variety, memorably sharing some Ballantine’s ale with a San Diego dive bar proprietor and killing time on a train with some bonded bourbon and water.

While anyone can crack a beer and enjoy it, Thompson’s novel includes a far more creative gateway to intoxication as Roy’s girlfriend Mrs. Langtry—Moira in the book, rather than Myra as on screen—specifies the cocktail to accompany her lunch:

“Something with a little more character, I believe. A sidecar, say, with bourbon instead of brandy. And Allen, no triple sec, please.”

“Emphatically!” The writer wrote on his pad. “We always use Cointreau in a sidecar. Now, would you like the rim of the glass sugared or plain?”

“Plain. About an ounce and a half of bourbon to an ounce of Cointreau, and a twist of lime peel instead of lemon.”

“Right away, Mrs. Langtry.”

“And Allen…”

“Yes, Mrs. Langtry?”

“I want that served in a champagne glass. A thoroughly chilled glass, please.”

Moira’s detailed order for a Bourbon Sidecar could be compared to James Bond’s comprehensive request in the book and film Casino Royale that would eventually be immortalized as the Vesper martini.

Likely evolved from the Brandy Crusta cocktail, the original Sidecar recipe originated during the post-World War I years in Europe, where the Ritz Hotel in Paris claims origin and where it became associated with the “movable feast” of Ernest Hemingway and his fellow expats in Jazz Age Paris. “Legend has it that the cocktail was created for a regular who always rode in on a motorcycle with a sidecar,” writes Alfred Tong in The Gentleman’s Guide to Cocktails.

More than a hundred years after the first recipes appeared in print, the IBA-specified directions call for cognac, Cointreau, and lemon juice shaken over ice and strained into a cocktail glass—often with a sugared rim. Typical garnishment ranges between lemons and oranges, though fans of The Grifters may consider (or want to avoid) the latter, given how Bobo Justus uses them to dole out punishment.

How to Get the Look

John Cusack as Roy Dillon in The Grifters (1990)

Black suits are traditionally worn for mourning, which is the unfortunate purpose for Roy Dillon to pull this then-fashionably baggy two-piece from his closet, worn with the conventional white shirt and understated dark tie apropos the funereal context.

• Black suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Single reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with point collar, front placket, set-in breast pocket, and squared barrel cuffs
• Dark gray tie with a black geometric pattern
  • Gold straight tie bar
• Black leather belt with silver-toned square single-prong buckle
• Black leather oxford shoes
• Black socks
• Tortoise square-framed sunglasses with tapered arms
• Seiko 7A34-7019 quartz-powered stainless steel chronograph with gold-toned fixed bezel, beige dial with 3 sub-registers, and mixed-metal

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and Jim Thompson’s source novel.

The Quote

Not many laughs in this room, huh?

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