Kevin Costner and T.J. Lowther in A Perfect World (1993)
Vitals
Kevin Costner as Robert “Butch” Haynes, escaped convict
Texas, Fall 1963
Film: A Perfect World
Release Date: November 24, 1993
Director: Clint Eastwood
Costume Designer: Erica Edell Phillips
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Released 30 years ago today, A Perfect World overcame its initial lukewarm box office to be acclaimed as among the career-best works for both director Clint Eastwood and star Kevin Costner.
Costner stars as Robert “Butch” Haynes, a petty criminal who escapes from a Texas prison on the night of Halloween 1963. Despite Butch’s own distaste for him, he breaks out with the reckless Terry Pugh (Keith Szarabajka), who jeopardizes their getaway—and Butch’s own code of ethics—by attempting to force himself onto a suburban mother while the two look for a car to steal. Butch stops the situation before Terry can take it too far, but the commotion wakes up the neighborhood and results in the two fugitives taking a hostage—the mother’s eight-year-old son, Philip (T.J. Lowther), with whom Butch develops a special bond:
Me and you got a lot in common, Philip. The both of us is handsome devils, we both like RC Cola, and neither one of us got an old man worth a damn.
Now on the run with a young hostage in tow, Butch finds himself doggedly pursued by the taciturn Texas Ranger Chief “Red” Garnett (Clint Eastwood), reluctantly assisted in his manhunt by the state-appointed prison criminologist Sally Gerber (Laura Dern), whose banter with Red’s deputy Tom Adler (Leo Burmester) includes the title drop:
Tom: In a perfect world, Miss Gerber, we’d all lock arms and thrash the bushes until he turned up.
Sally: Well, in a perfect world, things like this wouldn’t happen in the first place.
The ironic title is also reflected by the frequent in-universe references to John F. Kennedy’s impending fateful visit to Dallas, an event often cited as a landmark in the national loss of innocence, though the events of the film help illustrate that the world was far from perfect before the fall of 1963.
Costner may be at his most charismatic as the undeniably dangerous outlaw who kills in cold blood but also sees himself as the surrogate patriarch of a sunny road trip through the dusty farms, small towns, and unfinished roads of central Texas. Costner’s Butch takes it upon himself to educate the young Philip on the traditions his Jehovah’s Witness upbringing bypassed from trick-or-treating to his “goddamn red, white, and blue American right to eat cotton candy and ride roller coasters,” even at one point falling back on the time-old parental rationale of “because I said so” when asking Philip to take cover during a car chase.
Costner portrays Butch with welcome nuance, with the audience always acutely aware of both Butch’s capacity to kill in cold blood as well as his authentic, protective warmth over the young hostage he has renamed “Buzz”, both the results of his own compromised childhood.
The idea to write about Costner’s wardrobe was suggested to me last week by long-time BAMF Style reader Ryan (who many of you may follow on Instagram at @IconicFilmStyle), just in time for me to watch this excellent film ahead of its 30th anniversary today—so thank you, Ryan, for the recommendation!
What’d He Wear?
After Butch and Larry escape in their prison whites, they split up Larry’s clothing for their disguises through the film’s first act—Terry gets Larry’s blue shirt and khaki slacks, while Butch merely pulls Larry’s red-and-black buffalo plaid wool zip-up hunting jacket over his whites.
At the same time that Butch and Philip go “car shopping” to swap their Chevy for a Ford, Butch also spies some clothing drying on a laundry line that can replace his prison whites and unseasonably heavy coat, so he takes a plaid sports shirt and jeans, keeping his same undershirt and boots.
Butch’s options are a bit limited when he decides to “shop” for clothes as well as a new car, but at least the jeans and plaid snap-front shirt will fit his style.
The short-sleeved shirt that Butch pulls from the line is a typical Western-styled shirt, with a snap-up placket, two chest pockets with pointed single-snap flaps, and pointed yokes over the front and back. Likely made from a lightweight polyester or polyester/cotton blend, the pastel plaid consists of tartan-style checks in teal, peach, sage, and purple.
The one visible piece of Butch’s wardrobe that he wears continuously from the prison escape through the finale is a white cotton crew-neck sleeveless undershirt. Rather than the ribbed athletic (“A-shirt”) undershirts—often derided as “wife-beaters” (a term that Butch would surely dislike)—Butch’s undershirt is more like a T-shirt with the short sleeves totally removed.
Butch also finds a pair of light blue denim Levi’s 501® Original Fit jeans, the iconic style that had existed in some form since Levi’s introduced their denim “waist overalls” in 1873. Eventually designated the 501, these were modernized after World War II into their current configuration, featuring belt loops (with no cinch-back or suspender buttons), rivets, and the familiar five-pocket layout that includes a watch pocket inset within the curved right-hand front pocket and two back pockets detailed with the brand’s signature arcuate stitch and “red tab”. Levi’s continues to evolve its 501 style, with subtle changes in the logos, labels, buttons, and details that—upon close inspection—can inform exactly when they were made. (As exemplified by Mads Jakobsen’s guide for Heddels.)
Appropriate for Butch’s “found costume”, the jeans look realistically distressed and worn-in, which one would expect from a hardworking farmer like the Ford owner that Butch stole them from. Additionally, costume designer Erica Edell Phillips deserves credit for using jeans somewhat oversized on Kevin Costner, to the extent that Butch needs to cinch his belt tight to keep them up and self-cuffs the bottoms—a more realistic scenario than if ~Hollywood Magic~ had led Butch to find a pair of jeans that fit him perfectly.
Butch’s dark brown leather belt has a simple curved silver-toned single-prong buckle and a matching silver Western-style pointed end.
Levi Strauss & Co. is evidently a Butch-favorite brand, as he later purchases a pair of darker indigo 501s for Philip from Friendly’s… though the youngster prefers to wear his shoplifted Casper costume (and who can blame him?)
The tan brand patch on the back-right waistband appears to be the Jacron cardstock patch which replaced the original leather patches in 1955. Butch’s self-cuffed bottoms expose the selvedge outseams and orange overlock stitch, illustrating that Butch’s jeans were made prior to the mid-1980s. Eagle-eyed viewers may be able to find other keys to when they were made, but these details alone tell me that they were made sometime between 1955 and 1985.
The centered position of the back belt loop, copper-orange (rather than yellow) stitching, and position of the cardstock patch offset from the top suggests that these were made later in this timeline, likely in the late ’70s or early ’80s… technically anachronistic for the early 1960s but only if you’re splitting hairs—or stitches.
Worn with white ribbed cotton-blend athletic crew socks, Butch’s tan leather work boots have a moc-toe and derby-style lacing through three sets of brass-finished eyelets, another three sets of speed hooks, and then a single pair of eyelets again around the top. The heavy, lugged outsoles are made from beige rubber.
Working the Chevy’s pedals with his work boots, Butch shows Philip how to operate the “time machine” while speeding away from where he killed Terry.
“If life’s movin’ too slow, you wanna project yourself into the future, you step on the gas right here… see? And if you wanna slow down? Well, hell, you just step on the brake here, and you slow ‘er down.”
Butch begins the movie wearing black acetate-framed sunglasses, recognizable as the iconic Ray-Ban Wayfarer frame. Ray-Ban launched the Wayfarer frame in 1952, their trapezoidal shape and blacked-out appearance growing the frame’s association with “bad boy” rebellion and counterculture well into the ’60s as worn by musicians like Bob Dylan, Buddy Holly, and Roy Orbison.
As Ray-Ban had started more visually branding its eyewear by the late ’80s with logos blasted onto the corners of the lenses. the absence of any outward Ray-Ban branding suggest that these are an earlier pair more consistent with the film’s setting.
Nothing says “bad boy” like handing off a .38 to an eight-year-old. At least it’s unloaded.
While at Friendly’s, self-billed as “the friendliest store in Texas,” Butch tries on a pair of black wraparound sunglasses and—based on the flirty sales clerk’s reaction—decides to keep them.
These are almost certainly the Ray-Ban Balorama, which A Perfect World director Clint Eastwood famously wore in movies like Coogan’s Bluff (1968), Dirty Harry (1971), and Magnum Force (1973), perhaps influencing the choice to be included as Butch’s super-cool eyewear upgrade… even though the Balorama frame wasn’t developed until at least 1967, four years after the events of A Perfect World.
“How do I look?”
Parts of Costner’s screen-worn costume, including Butch’s plaid shirt, Levi’s jeans, and prison whites, were at one point on display at Diamond Lil’s Bar & Grill in Deadwood, South Dakota, as posted to their Facebook page in 2014.
The Cars
“Don’t want a Buick, I want a Ford,” Butch comments to Terry as the two prowl a neighborhood in search of the car to swap Larry Billings’s blue 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air four-door sedan. Unfortunately, Terry’s fumbling of the Perry family situation leads to them clambering back into Larry’s Chevy for their getaway, this time with Philip as their hostage… and the late Larry rotting in the trunk.
1959 had marked the fourth redesign for the Bel Air, Chevrolet’s full-size model that launched at the beginning of the decade. Despite the fashionably dramatic tailfins added for ’59, the model year shifted the Bel Air down into the middle of Chevy’s lineup, with the Impala (which had previously been Bel Air’s top-of-the-line trim) now its own model at the top of the marque’s offerings. Like other Chevrolet models that year, the Bel Air’s range of available engines included the 235 cubic-inch “Blue Flame” straight-six and a variety of 283 cubic-inch V8 and 348 cubic-inch V8 engines, each mated to two- or three-speed automatic or three- or four-speed manual transmissions. The “crown sapphire” blue Bel Air in A Perfect World has an automatic transmission, with an IMCDB user having commented that the two Bel Airs used on screen were a straight-six and a 283 V8.
After killing Terry, Butch romanticizes the Bel Air as “a 20th century time machine” to Philip: “I’m the captain, and you’re the navigator. Out there, that’s the future. And back there? Well, that’s the past. If life’s movin’ too slow, you wanna project yourself into the future, you step on the gas right here… see? And if you wanna slow down? Well, hell, you just step on the brake here, and you slow ‘er down. This is the present, Philip. Enjoy it while it lasts. Yes, sir, we’re time-travelin’ through Texas!”
We gotta find us a Ford. My daddy always drove Fords, you know that?
Butch’s search for a Ford yields results when the two spy a lemon-yellow 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 town sedan parked on a farm. Two years after Ford introduced the model, the full-size Fairlane was redesigned for ’57 with a sleek, modernized look that appealed to customers to the extent that Ford outsold Chevy for the first time in over two decades. The Fairlane was available in ten trim levels and varying body styles, with one of the most popular being the four-door town sedan (58B) as featured in A Perfect World.
The ’57 Fairlane Town Sedan was offered with three possible engines: the base “Mileage Maker” straight-six, the 292 cubic-inch V8, and the high-performance 312-cubic inch V8, which could generate up to 245 horsepower, 270 horsepower, or even 285 horsepower with the “Racing Kit”. Though some Fairlanes were mated to three- and four-speed manual transmissions, many—including the one that Butch steals—feature the three-speed “Fordomatic” automatic transmission.
Local police recognize the stolen Farlane’s license plates in a small town, where Butch demolishes a few black-and-whites in a chase around the town square before he and a now fully complicit—or as complicit as an eight-year-old can get—Philip speed out of town.
After the chase through town tips the Ford to law enforcement, Butch and Philip are forced to yet again switch cars… just in time for their encounter with family man Bob Fielder (John M. Jackson), who is very proud of his 1964 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon, painted a shade that IMCDB commenters have suggested in the “antique rose” which Olds only offered in ’63.
“Just a loaner, Bob—not to worry,” Butch insists, to which Bob responds “it’s new, you know, so if you’d keep it under 45, say, for the next 500 miles, I’d appreciate it.”
“You know I will, Bob!” Butch responds with a salute before burning rubber as he peels out.
The Vista Cruiser—and GM’s sister model, the Buick Sport Wagon—debuted as mid-year introductions in February 1964 (three months after A Perfect World is set), boasting the innovative raised skyroof that featured glass panels over the last two rows of seating and the trunk. The standard engine was Buick’s standard 225 cubic-inch V6, mated to the two-speed Jetway automatic transmission, though some Vista Cruisers were also powered by variations of the Oldsmobile “Rocket 88” V8 and mated to three- and four-speed manual transmissions.
After learning that Philip has never been on a roller coaster, Butch uses his Vista Cruiser to provide a similar—if even more thrilling (and dangerous)—experience.
Luckily for Bob, the Vista Cruiser takes the least damage of all of Butch’s stolen cars.
The Gun
In addition to his Chevy, Butch and Terry also steal Larry’s Smith & Wesson Model 15 service revolver, though trigger-happy Terry wastes much of their handful of ammunition by shooting at water tanks and—to prove a point—the roof of their stolen Chevy.
Fed up, Butch takes the revolver from Terry—after punching him in the nose—and hands it off to Philip to keep Terry subdued in the back seat while Butch replenishes his supply of Lucky Strikes and “sodies” at a general store. Of course, likely anticipating that Terry would take it from the underwear-clad youngster, Butch secretly empties it. “Hell’s bells, no shells,” Terry grunts, as Butch replenishes that supply as well, purchasing a box of .38 Special shells that he uses to reload it and finally rid himself of Terry.
Butch delivers a fatal lesson to Terry on determining whether or not a revolver is actually loaded.
Butch is a little more tactful once he’s in command of the “pistola”, though he’s not above occasionally overdoing it, whether it’s firing a vindictive shot into the window of Friendly’s after a salesclerk curses at Philip for shoplifting or readjusting it in his belt when a pleasant woman in the country tells Philip he’s a day late for trick-or-treating.
Smith & Wesson had introduced the K-38 in 1947, a performance-minded evolution of the .38-caliber Military & Police (M&P) service revolver that had been a law enforcement favorite for nearly a half-century. Initially available as the Target Masterpiece (with a six-inch barrel) and the service-oriented Combat Masterpiece (with a four-inch barrel), the K-38 boasted a narrow rib above the barrel to level the sight plane between the Patridge front sight and micrometer click rear sight as well as improved trigger, hammer, and grips that appealed to competitive shooters. Per its appellation, the K-38 was chambered for the venerated .38 Special cartridge.
When Smith & Wesson began numbering its models in the late 1950s, the Target Masterpiece became the Model 14 while the Combat Masterpiece was renamed the Model 15. For nearly a half-century to follow, the Model 15 was a favorite among military and police agencies, ranging from the LAPD to the U.S. Air Force Security Forces.
Butch spies Larry’s Smith & Wesson Model 15 on the floor of the Perry home where Terry had dropped it.
How to Get the Look
Kevin Costner on the set of A Perfect World (1993)
Butch’s stolen plaid shirt and jeans suit his swaggering demeanor (and work boots) as he continues his escape across Texas. Though suitable for the film’s early 1960s setting, this simple and timeless casual getaway getup works just as well sixty years later.
- Teal, peach, sage, and purple plaid polyester short-sleeved Western-style shirt with narrow point collar, snap-up front placket, two chest pockets (with single-snap pointed flaps), and pointed front and back yokes
- White cotton crew-neck sleeveless undershirt
- Light blue stonewash denim Levi’s 501 Original Fit® button-fly jeans with belt loops, five-pocket layout, and self-cuffed bottoms
- Dark brown leather belt with silver-toned curved single-prong buckle and silver pointed end
- Tan leather moc-toe derby-laced work boots with brass-finished eyelets and speed hooks
- White ribbed cotton-blend athletic crew socks
- Black-framed Ray-Ban sunglasses… Butch favors both Wayfarers and Baloramas
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
No, I ain’t a good man… I ain’t the worst neither. Just a breed apart.
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