Jeff Bridges as Terry Brogan in Against All Odds (1984)
Vitals
Jeff Bridges as Terry Brogan, recently cut football player
Los Angeles, Fall 1983
Film: Against All Odds
Release Date: March 2, 1984
Director: Taylor Hackford
Costume Designer: Michael Kaplan
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
I’ve received several requests, most recently from BAMF Style reader Cecil, to highlight the style from Against All Odds, released forty years ago this weekend. A loose remake of Jacques Tourneur’s seminal 1947 film noir Out of the Past, Against All Odds reimagines the private eye protagonist as professional football player Terry Brogan (Jeff Bridges).
Recently cut from the Los Angeles Outlaws after a shoulder injury, Terry consults with his lawyer Steve Kirsch (Saul Rubinek), who refuses to represent him due to a conflict of interest given that the team’s owner Grace Wyler (Jane Greer) is his biggest client. He finds more receptive interest from Steve’s receptionist Edie (Swoosie Kurtz), who invites him for a drink sometime. Against the urging of the team’s trainer Hank Sully (Alex Karras), Terry takes a job with his shady bookie pal Jake Wise (James Woods) to track down his missing girlfriend Jessie (Rachel Ward)… who also happens to be Grace’s daughter.
Against All Odds nods to its noir influences by casting frequent hard-boiled heavy Richard Widmark alongside Jane Greer, who had portrayed the femme fatale in Out of the Past thirty-seven years earlier.
What’d He Wear?
After the opening vignette of Terry beginning his search for Jessie in Cozumel, we flash back a few weeks to L.A. when he learns he’s being cut from the Outlaws. He dresses after practice in a burgundy polo tucked into khaki slacks—a timeless and trusted casual ensemble which he supplements with sneakers (he is a pro athlete, after all) and a sport jacket to dress it up as needed.
The burgundy cotton pique polo shirt has a two-button placket (with faux pearl plastic buttons) and short sleeves that flatter Terry’s athletic physique.
The light khaki cotton flat-front trousers have belt loops, plain-hemmed bottoms, gently curved side pockets, and a set-in back right pocket covered with a pointed flap that closes through a single button. Terry holds them up with a dark brown leather belt that closes through a large shining brass-toned square single-prong buckle.
Through the first act of Against All Odds, Terry frequently pulls on a sports coat made of a slubby stone-gray herringbone fabric, helpful for dressing up his style for occasions like dropping into his lawyer’s office. The single-breasted jacket’s silhouette is typical of upscale ’80s fashion, with wide shoulders, lean chest, and low two-button stance. The two front buttons and matching three buttons decorating each cuff are a light-gray plastic that hardly contrasts against the material of the jacket. The jacket has notch lapels, long double vents, a welted breast pocket, and patch hip pockets.
Terry frequently wears stone-colored Nike sneakers, easily identifiable by the athletic brand’s black leather “swoosh” along each side of each shoe. The low-top uppers are stone-colored nylon with coordinated rounded suede toe caps. (We don’t get any solid close-ups of Terry’s shoes and I’m not well-versed enough in Nike’s model history to clearly identify them, but they appear to resemble the Diablo model contemporary to the early 1980s.)
Terry wears a Rolex Submariner dive watch in the classic configuration of a stainless steel 40mm case with a black dial and black bezel on a stainless “Oyster”-style three-piece link bracelet.
The lack of a date function suggests to be that it’s the same Submariner that likely belonged to Jeff Bridges in real life, as he had previously worn it in the 1976 remake of King Kong—suggested to be a ref. 5512 chronometer by Jake’s Rolex World or a ref. 5513 non-chronometer by Danny Milton for Hodinkee.
As a fashionable young athlete, Terry appropriately accessorizes with his sporty oversized aviator-inspired sunglasses. The brown gradient teardrop-shaped lenses are framed in dark brown, with light gray metal arms that have “TURBO” printed in black along each temple.
Inspired by Carrera, this was a popular style through the 1970s and ’80s with many examples still available—and relatively inexpensive—from secondhand sellers like eBay.
The frames are similar to the Vuarnet sunglasses that Bridges would famously wear as The Dude more than a decade later in The Big Lebowski.
The Car
Terry zips through L.A. in a flashy red 1983 Porsche 911 SC Cabrio. Introduced for the 1983 model year, the 911 Cabrio was Porsche’s first true convertible since production of the 356 ended in 1965. The “SC” refers to the 3.0-liter flat-six engine updated for the 1978 model year with a detuned 180 horsepower output that would remain the base engine for American-sold Porsches through 1983.
Despite the lower compression power output compared to non-U.S. models, Terry’s Porsche still performs admirably during the ill-advised street race against Jake’s 240-horsepower Ferrari 308 QV GTSi.
How to Get the Look
Jeff Bridges as Terry Brogan in Against All Odds (1984)
While still fashionable for the era, Terry Brogan eschews the more excessive trends of the ’80s and instead typically dresses with more timeless sensibilities as demonstrated by the burgundy pique polo and khakis that he wears for much of Against All Odds‘ first act, dressing it up with a smart sports coat… and dressing it down with Nike trainers that nod to his inherent athleticism.
- Burgundy cotton pique short-sleeved polo shirt with two-button placket
- Stone-gray slubby herringbone single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, patch-style hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, long double vents
- Light khaki cotton flat-front trousers with belt loops, gently slanted side pockets, set-in back-right pocket (with button-down pointed flap), and plain-hemmed bottoms
- Brown leather belt with shiny brass square single-prong buckle
- Stone nylon Nike sneakers with suede toe-caps and black swoosh logos
- Brown plastic-framed oversized sporty aviator sunglasses with brown gradient teardrop lenses and “TURBO”-printed gray metal arms
- Rolex Submariner dive watch with stainless steel 40mm case, black bezel, and black dial on stainless Oyster-style three-piece link bracelet
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
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