Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer (2023). Photo credit: Melinda Sue Gordon.
Vitals
Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, theoretical physicist and “father of the atomic bomb”
Los Alamos, New Mexico, Spring 1943 through Summer 1945
Film: Oppenheimer
Release Date: July 21, 2023
Director: Christopher Nolan
Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Released last summer (on my 34th birthday!), Oppenheimer has been deservedly sweeping accolades this year, including seven BAFTAs, five Golden Globes, and 13 Academy Award nominations ahead of the ceremony this Sunday, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Christopher Nolan, a trio of acting nominations, and Best Costume Design for Ellen Mirojnick.
Adapted by Nolan from Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s biography American Prometheus, this epic cinematic portrait of J. Robert Oppenheimer chronicles the prolific physicist’s career from his 1920s studies in Europe through his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II and the ultimate revocation of his security clearance in the 1950s, depicted as the result of Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss’ petty resentment.
In addition to Cillian Murphy’s award-winning portrayal of the “father of the atomic bomb”, Oppenheimer‘s talented supporting cast includes Emily Blunt as his fiery wife Kitty, Florence Pugh as his former lover and Communist activist Jean Tatlock, Matt Damon as Manhattan Project leader General Leslie Groves, and Robert Downey Jr. as Strauss.
What’d He Wear?
The film includes Oppenheimer’s tenure from 1943 through 1945 as the inaugural director of Los Alamos, a top-secret nuclear laboratory in a location Oppie himself had selected in the New Mexico desert, northwest of Santa Fe.
In the regular trappings of his scientific world—between the labs of Berkeley and the hearing rooms of Washington—Oppenheimer typically wears the conservative gray and blue tailoring expected from professional men of the era. But here at Los Alamos, where Oppenheimer can feel the most at home while dedicated to his work, his costume evokes the colors around him: neutral-yet-natural-shaded suits reflecting the desert sand and brilliant blue shirts evoking the open skies.
Production photo of Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer. Photo credit: Melinda Sue Gordon.
I was honored to communicate with prolific costume designer Ellen Mirojnick, who has received at least twelve major award nominations for her work on Oppenheimer and shared with me that “Oppenheimer’s costumes were informed by historical research and then adapted for the film.”
Oppenheimer begins the project dressed in the U.S. Army “pinks and greens” service uniform at the insistence of General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), until his colleague Isidor Isaac Rabi (David Krumholtz) candidly tells him to “take off that ridiculous uniform… you’re a scientist. They need us for who we are, so be yourself—only better.”
Indeed, who wouldn’t want to dress to impress in the smart service uniforms that the U.S. Army adopted prior to World War II? “Pinks and greens” proved to be so enduringly popular that they were recently phased back in as the Army Green Service Uniform (AGSU) after more than 60 years since they had been last authorized. Of course, Oppie doesn’t wear rank insignia, though his lapels are adorned with the gold “castle” insignia of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), General Groves’ unit which had established the Manhattan Project.
Heeding Rabi’s advice, Oppenheimer gets his superhero moment as the camera follows him building the quintessential Oppie look of a hardy twill two-piece suit, turquoise-inlaid belt buckle, pipe, and—of course—that wide-brimmed hat.
“A rock star is born,” costume designer Ellen Mirojnick observed to Esther Zuckerman for Vox, adding that “there’s an elegance, an empowerment, and a strength about who that man has become as he walks out of this office in the totality of this outfit.”
Written in first person, Christopher Nolan’s screenplay describes the moment: “I pull on a jacket. Run a hand through newly shorn closecropped dark hair. Put on a PORK PIE HAT. Pick up my pipe…”
The Hat
“Oppenheimer’s silhouette was very distinctive,” Ms. Mirojnick explained to me. “The shoulder, the drape, and the pant were all a bit larger than you would expect. He was very committed to creating his iconography. He knew exactly how to create the image. This of course included the hat.”
The real Oppie’s headgear was inspired by Dr. Siegfried Bernfeld, a Freudian analyst who arrived in San Francisco with his wife in the fall of 1937. “Tall and gaunt, he wore a distinctive porkpie hat, a felt hat with a low, flat top,” Bird and Sherwin write of Bernfeld in American Prometheus. “Oppenheimer was deeply impressed—and soon took to wearing a porkpie hat like Bernfeld’s.”
Even after he married Kitty, who inspired him to begin wearing more expensive suits that befit his elevated station, Oppenheimer remained attached to his brown porkpie hat to the effect that Los Alamos telephone switchboard operator Eleanor Stone Roensch later recalled that “his porkpie hat, his pipe, and something about his eyes gave him a certain aura.”
A global search for the ideal Oppenheimer hat led Mirojnick’s team to the California-based Baron Hats, who crafted the distinctive headgear from an undyed taupish-gray South American felt. Described by Mirojnick on The Art of Costume podcast as “a hybrid of a porkpie with an extended brim,” the shape blends the contemporary sensibilities of a professional’s fedora with a western-informed aesthetic suggested by the dark leather band.
Christopher Nolan gave Mirojnick the direction that no one was to wear hats on screen aside from Oppenheimer, with exceptions made for military personnel and Albert Einstein (Tom Conti), whose airborne hat is prominently featured in a key scene.
The Suits
As the son of textile importer Julius Oppenheimer, described in American Prometheus as “one of the most knowledgable fabrics men in New York,” Oppie would have been keenly familiar with quality suiting. Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin write that, by the time he was at the Institute for Advanced Study after the war, Oppenheimer “often wore expensive English wool suits hand-tailored for him at Langrocks, the local tailor for Princeton’s upper crust.” However, his suits would serve a different purpose at Los Alamos than in the more urban worlds of academia, necessitating “a working suit,” as Ellen Mirojnick summarized to Emma Fraser for Backstage.
Thus, his Los Alamos-worn suits in Oppenheimer were constructed from a high-twist worsted cavalry twill—a tightly woven, warp-facing, and steep-angled twill fabric similar to whipcord. These working suits were constructed in two similar shades of light brown, selected by Ms. Mirojnick “to work with the landscape of New Mexico”:
- A rich tobacco brown
- A lighter, taupe-like sand, which he only begins to wear leading up to the Trinity test in mid-July 1945 (“All of the effort of his life is drained out and into that one focus, the bomb,” Mirojnick contextualized in a Variety interview with Jazz Tangcay)
Oppie’s two primary suits at Los Alamos: A rich tobacco brown (left) and a lighter sand (right), both constructed from a whipcord-like high-twist cavalry twill.
Though Oppenheimer spans four decades, Oppie’s tailored silhouette hardly changes over time, aside from the occasional era-informed adjustment. On these Los Alamos suits, that means more drape and exaggerated shoulders, resulting in a powerful silhouette that would have also been fashionably voluminous for the early 1940s without enveloping Cillian Murphy’s lean frame.
“It was the opposite of his physical strength,” Mirojnick explained in the Backstage interview. “It was more about his physical fragility, and the suiting became his armor. It was through that silhouette that he was able to assume all that he was at that moment in time.”
The single-breasted suit jackets follow a conventional design for the period, with broad notch lapels that roll to a two-button front positioned over Cillian Murphy’s natural waist, though I don’t believe we ever see Oppie’s jacket buttoned during these sequences. While on the grounds at Los Alamos, he regularly wears his round white security badge—printed with his unique identification number “K-6″—pinned to his left lapel. The ventless jackets have a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, and four-button cuffs.
Only Oppenheimer’s blue shirts distinguish his clothing from that of his drab, brown, and khaki-clad Army colleagues like General Groves.
Rising high to Murphy’s waist, the suits’ matching trousers are harmoniously proportional to the voluminous cuts of the jackets—”full but not excessive to the point of clownish,” as Ellen Mirojnick described to Yusra Siddiqui for Who What Wear.
Pleats and cuffs were a predominant fashion of the era, and Oppie’s trousers are fashioned accordingly with double sets of reverse-facing pleats on each side and the bottoms finished with turn-ups (cuffs). The side pockets are cut with a gently slanted entry, and the two back pockets are jetted.
Oppenheimer’s roomy pleated trousers harmonize with the fit of his suits and also sit comfortably well on their own when working in his shirt sleeves. During the Trinity test in particular, he wears an additional security badge (“47”) affixed to a belt loop on the right side of his trouser waistband.
Up until the Los Alamos scenes, Oppenheimer had almost exclusively worn three-piece suits with trousers held up by suspenders (braces), echoing 1930s style conventions and the rationale that belt buckles can cause unsightly bulges under waistcoats. By the time he gets to Los Alamos, he’s dressing more for function than for form in his two-piece suits of a hardy cloth, the trousers now rigged with loops to be worn with a belt that also adds a dash of the cowboy aesthetic to Oppie’s New Mexico style.
Thus, Oppenheimer wears a narrow belt of smooth brown leather that closes through a sterling silver rectangular belt buckle, which Ms. Mirojnick clarified to me was “engraved in a native motif” that framed a turquoise stone in its center.
While these brown suits are specifically reserved for the Manhattan Project development scenes at Los Alamos, Oppenheimer does occasionally cycle through his other clothing in New Mexico at this time, such as the jacket and trousers of his dark-blue flannel three-piece suit (specifically during the Christmas party) and his dark flannel sports coat and fawn-colored slacks (while moving Kitty and their young son Peter into their new home on the ranch.)
Shirts and Ties
Oppenheimer almost exclusively wears blue cotton shirts, especially at Los Alamos, where he begins often wearing a rich cornflower-blue shirt with his tobacco suit before switching to a paler blue shirt with his lighter sand-colored suit. “It could be a different color blue, depending on the mood,” Ms. Mirojnick explained to Variety, “but the silhouette was the same, and depending on the season, that would determine how heavy or thin the material would be.”
These shirts are styled with a plain button-up front and a semi-spread collar that better balances Murphy’s angular face than a sharper point collar. The double (French) cuffs add a welcome dash of fussiness to his working suits, fastened in at least one scene with a set of silver eight-pointed star cuff links.
All of Oppie’s screen-worn ties are solid-colored in shades of brown, green, blue, and burgundy, with both dark-brown and forest-green ties worn during the Los Alamos sequences. Knotted in a classic four-in-hand, the ties have a wider girth in accordance with 1940s trends and are short enough that the tip of the blade just touches his belt buckle.
Everything Else
As he did in academia, Oppenheimer continues to wear black leather boots, though the supple leather of his plain-toed, derby-laced boots absorb much of the desert sand as he walks the grounds of Los Alamos and the surrounding desert.
Oppenheimer has a troubling vision while celebrating the bomb’s impact with his fellow scientists.
To combat the intense rainstorm on the evening before the Trinity test, Oppie pulls on his usual dark brown oilskin riding coat. The long coat has an 8×4-button double-breasted front, consisting of two parallel columns of four brass four-hole buttons each. Lined in a soft brown felt, the short standing collar has two small brass buttons on each side for Oppie to adjust the rectangular throat latch. There is a squared patch-style pocket over each hip, each covered by a rectangular flap.
General Groves and Oppie in their respective raincoats while waiting out the rain on the eve of the Trinity test deployment.
Continuing a collaboration with director Christopher Nolan that began with Tenet, Hamilton provided a number of period-accurate vintage watches (from when the now-Swiss company was still producing watches in Lancaster, Pennsylvania) for the cast of Oppenheimer to wear, including three for Oppie himself: a gold Cushion B from the 1930s, a gold 1940s Endicott on a tan leather band, and a stainless World War II-era Lexington field watch.
In keeping with his work with the Army, Oppie wears the Hamilton Lexington, a handsome wristwatch echoing the design of military watches like the “dirty dozen” field watches issued to British servicemen over the last two years of World War II. The 17-jewel Lexington was Hamilton’s first stainless steel-cased wristwatch when it was launched in 1941, though the model was short-lived as Hamilton discontinued all civilian watchmaking the following year for the duration of the war and never resumed manufacturing the Lexington.
The 29mm stainless steel case houses a round black dial with a second-counting sub-dial at the 6:00 position. The white Arabic numeral hour indices are applied in a stylish Deco-style font, differentiating the Lexington from its martial cousins. Oppenheimer’s screen-worn Lexington was secured to an edge-stitched gray leather bracelet.
During the Los Alamos sequence, Oppie echoed the spirit of his government work and Army colleagues by sporting Hamilton’s commercial equivalent of a contemporary military-issued field watch—a 1940s-era Lexington, specifically the screen-worn model pictured here from Hamilton’s Oppenheimer collaboration page.
While the cinematic Oppenheimer exclusively wears his light brown twill suits, blue shirts, and solid ties at Los Alamos, American Prometheus also mentions how frequently the real Oppenheimer dressed down: “But even on workdays he usually wore casual clothes, reverting to his New Mexico wardrobe of jeans or khaki pants with a blue tieless work-shirt.”
Of course, there are many photos and recollections of his natty suits and iconic porkpie hat, including during the Trinity test on July 16, 1945 when he wore a solid broad-shouldered suit, light-colored shirt, and solid tie that echoes how costume designer Ellen Mirojnick dressed Cillian Murphy on screen.
Matt Damon and Cillian Murphy as Major General Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer, also pictured here in real-life after the Trinity test in July 1945.
The real J. Robert Oppenheimer, flanked by project manager Dorothy McKibbin and physicist Victor Weisskopf during a 1940s party at his home, likely photographed by John Michnovicz. Note how closely Oppie’s drapey two-piece suit, non-white shirt, dark tie, and chukka boots resemble Ellen Mirojnick’s costume design for Cillian Murphy.
What to Imbibe
American Prometheus details the real Oppenheimer’s fondness for gin-based cocktails, specifically a Gin Sour or Martini that prefaced his typical dinner of steak, asparagus, and potatoes. Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin write that Oppie “made a ceremony of mixing his martinis,” and that “the driest of dry martinis” were the cocktail of choice for Los Alamos’ first major social event—a celebration of Oppie’s 39th birthday on April 22, 1943.
Bird and Sherwin specifically detail that Oppenheimer “would subject his guests to his potent martini, shaken with elaborate ceremony and poured into chilled glasses. Sometimes he dipped the rims of the martini glasses in lime juice and honey,” a gesture suggested as we see him busying with his crystal stemware during an uncomfortable conversation with Haakon Chevalier (Jefferson Hall) on screen.
Presumably, Oppie’s fussiness over the martini glasses in this scene in his kitchen depicted him applying his concoction of lime and honey to the rims. Note that he’s wearing an ice-blue shirt and suspenders, rather than the deeper blue shirts and belts he would frequently wear at Los Alamos.
Oppie’s martini punctilio remains so integrated with his legacy that even the official Los Alamos gift shop sells a stainless steel shaker and martini glass—$25 each—that are both etched with a recipe for “The Oppenheimer Martini”:
- 4 ounces good gin
- A smidge of dry vermouth
- A lime juice and honey syrup
- Stir liquids with ice until chilled, then strain into chilled martini glass with honey-lime juice applied to rim.
How to Get the Look
Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer (2023). Photo credit: Melinda Sue Gordon.
J. Robert Oppenheimer’s working “uniform” at Los Alamos is depicted as brown drapey two-piece suits made of a hardy high-twist cavalry twill, worn with comfortable light blue shirts and solid earth-toned ties, all dashed with setting-appropriate western flavor via a turquoise-studded belt buckle and Oppie’s signature brown wide-brimmed porkpie hat.
- Light-brown high-twist worsted cavalry twill suits:
- Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
- Double reverse-pleated long-rise trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
- Light-blue cotton shirt with semi-spread collar, plain front, and double/French cuffs
- Silver eight-pointed star cuff links
- Dark-brown and forest-green ties
- Brown leather belt with sterling silver rectangular carved and turquoise-accented belt buckle
- Black leather plain-toe derby-laced boots
- Taupe-gray felt porkpie-style hat with brown leather band and extended brim
- Gold wedding ring
- Hamilton Lexington stainless steel 29mm-cased field watch with round black dial (with white Arabic numerals and 6:00 sub-dial) on gray leather strap
- White round “K-6” security badge
Sources:
In addition to my personal correspondence with Ellen Mirojnick, these below articles provided a wealth of valuable information about Oppenheimer’s on-screen style:
- The Art of Costume — “A Fusion of Style and Substance: An Exclusive Conversation with ‘Oppenheimer’ Costume Designer Ellen Mirojnick” by Spencer Williams
- Backstage — “How ‘Oppenheimer’ Costume Designer Ellen Mirojnick Found the Perfect Hat” by Emma Fraser
- GQ UK — “Oppenheimer‘s suits make it the biggest menswear movie in ages” by Zak Maoui
- Hodinkee — “Cillian Murphy Wears Three Vintage Hamiltons As J. Robert Oppenheimer In Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer'” by Danny Milton
- A Little Bit of Rest — “The Menswear of Barbenheimer” by Ethan M. Wong
- Variety — “How the ‘Oppenheimer’ Costume Designer Searched the Globe for Cillian Murphy’s Hat” by Jazz Tangcay
- Vox — “Oppenheimer is the surprise fashion movie of the summer” by Esther Zuckerman
- Who What Wear — “Oppenheimer Has Gone Viral, But Its Effect on Menswear Is Underrated” by Yusra Siddiqui
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
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