Allied: Brad Pitt’s Flight Jacket and RCAF Uniform Gear

Brad Pitt as Max Vatan in Allied (2016)

Vitals

Brad Pitt as Max Vatan, Royal Canadian Air Force intelligence officer

London and Dieppe, Spring 1944

Film: Allied
Release Date: November 23, 2016
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Costume Designer: Joanna Johnston

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

The 2016 World War II romantic thriller Allied centered around Brad Pitt’s character Max Vatan, an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF)—the high-flying branch of the Canadian armed forces that was officially founded 100 years ago today on April 1, 1924.

I’ve read simplifications of Allied‘s plot as “Casablanca meets Notorious“, with Joanna Johnston’s Oscar-nominated costume design maintaining much of the 1940s elegance from both of those acclaimed classics. And indeed, the romantic and action-packed first act of Allied is set in Casablanca, where Max’s dangerous mission for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) pairs him with the alluring French Resistance circuit leader Marianne Beauséjour (Marion Cotillard).

Upon returning to England, Max receives clearance to bring Marianne into the country, where they marry despite Max’s boss, British Army Captain Frank Heslop (Jared Harris) advising him that “marriages made in the field never work.” (In fact, there were a few real-life spies who served the British during World War II that would later marry, such as SOE officers Peter Churchill and Odette Sansom, both of whom had been imprisoned and brutally interrogated by the Germans and whose service and relationship formed the basis of the 1950 film Odette. That said, Frank may have been onto something as the two divorced in 1955 after eight years of marriage.)

The newlywed Vatans in October 1942.

With their newborn daughter, the couple lives in domestic bliss—and domestic Blitz—for over a year until Max’s superiors alert him to their suspicions that Marianne is a German spy! Though he reluctantly agrees to follow the SOE’s plan to test Marianne’s allegiance with a “blue dye” procedure, Max remains convinced of her loyalty and sets out to prove it.

Max’s determination takes him as far as Dieppe, having “borrowed” an RAF Lysander to fly an equipment drop mission into northern France, where he hoped to meet Marianne’s former cohort Paul Delamar (Thierry Frémont) and confirm his wife’s identity. Despite his drunken stupor, Paul initially seems convinced that the woman from Max’s wedding photo is indeed the Marianne Beauséjour who bravely served alongside him in the Resistance… until mentioning her ability to play the piano, a skill that Max’s wife has never shown for him.

Upon returning to London with only hours remaining until the SOE will know for sure if Marianne is a double agent, Max brings her to their favorite pub and sits her at the piano, asking her to play “La Marseillaise” like the real Marianne had in a pub crowded with Germans three years earlier while pondering if their shared love would be enough for Max to ignore his duty.

What’d He Wear?

After rotating through natty custom suits and period-informed sportswear during their mission in Morocco, Max Vatan spends much of the second half of Allied dressed in elements of his RCAF service uniform. Given the intertwined history between the Royal Air Force and RCAF, the uniforms are nearly identical, including the blue wool serge No. 1 Service Dress uniform he frequently wears for life in London.

Costume designer Joanna Johnston explained to Maria Neuman for The Hollywood Reporter that she was advised by consultant Andrew Fletcher on getting the details of uniforms like Max’s RCAF service dress correct “because I knew I needed to be on terra firma for that since they have to be extremely accurate, and especially for Brad’s role, the uniforms were the anchor point.”

Costume designer Joanna Johnston with Cotillard and Pitt’s screen-worn costumes.
Photo by Charlie Gray, sourced from Deadline Hollywood.

No. 1 Service Dress Uniform

Like the RAF service uniform, this consists of a matching tunic, trousers, and cap with a lighter blue shirt and dark tie. The single-breasted uniform jacket fastens with four gilt buttons and a full self-belt around the waist that closes through a tall octagonal brass double-prong buckle. The two box-pleated chest pockets each close with a single button through a scalloped flap, and the two larger bellows pockets below the waist each close with a single button through a squared flap. The jacket also has a single back vent and short notch lapels—with softly rounded edges in Max’s case.

Max wears the same Wing Commander (OF-4) insignia as an equivalent officer in the RAF: three narrow sky-blue rings against a black band with thinner blue bands between them. Distinguishing his Canadian service is the blue arc “CANADA” badge at the top of each sleeve and his silk aircrew brevet badge with “RCAF” embroidered in white inside a brown wreath with a white King’s crown embroidered atop it, all flanked by white embroidered swift’s wings on each side.

The light mottled slate-blue cotton shirt has a point collar, front placket, and single-button squared cuffs. He also wears the issued black matte silk tie and gray cloth suspenders with silver adjusters and leather ears that connect to buttons on the inside of his trouser waistband.

These double forward-pleated trousers have a long rise to Brad Pitt’s natural waist, cut with side pockets and a straight cut down the legs to the plain-hemmed bottoms, which break atop his black calf leather cap-toe oxford shoes, made by Crockett & Jones and worn with black socks.

Also like his cohorts in the RAF, Max wears the requisite peaked officer’s cap with a soft blue barathea wool cover and brim that match his service uniform. Against the black mohair band, the cap boasts a black patent leather chinstrap and is distinguished by the gilt-wire RAF officers’ badge consisting of crown, eagle, and oak leaf embroidery.

For extra protection against the weather, Max pulls on an officer’s trench coat made from a waterproofed slate-blue woolen twill, detailed with rust-colored contrast stitching along the edges. Though some details differ from the traditional khaki trench coat that had been standardized for British officers leading up to World War I, the double-breasted cut with its broad lapels, storm flap on the right side, self-belt, and martial details arguably qualify it as a trench coat.

Crafted for the film by the London company Mackintosh (as Johnston explained to Nikki Baughan for Screen Daily), Max’s knee-length coat closes with an 8×4-button double-breasted front and a full belt that fastens through a double-prong buckle. The epaulets (shoulder straps) have buttons that fasten down at each shoulder, and the set-in sleeves end with a pointed semi-tab that closes through one of two buttons on the cuff to adjust the tightness over each wrist. The single back vent extends to about a foot shy of the belted waist, and the slanted hand pockets have button-through welts.

Max’s Mission Gear

“I wanted to ground it in the time, but I also wanted to give it its own look,” Joanna Johnston told Whitney Bauck for Fashionista. “So you kind of pick and mix, in that regard. I think it’s a very attractive period, and it looks good to our contemporary eyes at this point in time, so it’s not difficult to make it look good for the film.”

This contemporary relevance becomes evident for the final act, as Max dresses for his rogue nighttime expedition to Dieppe in the cockpit of a Lysander. He blends operational elements of his RCAF uniform with a leather flight jacket, which doesn’t appear to be of regular issue for any military service during the 1940s though it evokes classic styles. He may well have chosen a personal jacket to avoid something like the distinctive Irvin flying jacket easily identifying his affiliated service if he had to leave the plane after touching down in France… as he does.

The dark-brown leather jacket has a brass straight zip that can convert the collar into a funnel-neck when fastened to the top, but Max typically wears the jacket unzipped enough to keep the collar flat, showing the brown waffle-knit collar lining that matches the ribbed-knit cuffs and waist hem. The jacket has a straight horizontal yoke across the chest with straight vertical-entry hand pockets positioned just below it on each side. (Though Cromford Leather Co. has been credited with making the brown lamb suede belted-back jacket that Max wore for civilian life in London, I can’t confirm if they had a role in crafting this jacket.)

The way the collar lining is laid and the horizontal yoke always felt more modern to me, but that aligns with Joanna Johnston’s stated vision to mesh contemporary relevance with the glamour of 1940s fashion.

Max’s navy-blue wool turtleneck may be intended to represent the jumpers that were hand-knitted by volunteers on behalf of the RAF Comforts Committee during World War II, typically in shades of “Air Force blue” or a more natural cream-colored like the submariner’s sweater worn by James Garner as the American-born RAF Flight Lieutenant Hendley in The Great Escape. Worn over his open-neck slate-blue service uniform shirt, Max’s sweater has a ribbed roll-neck, hem, and cuffs at the end of the set-in sleeves.

Max continues to wear the same blue serge double forward-pleated trousers from his No. 1 Service Dress uniform, presumably still held up by suspenders as the trousers lack belt loops or any other self-suspension system. (And it would be very undesirable for a British airman leading a jail raid in occupied France to have his trousers falling down.)

Having your trousers fall down would also make it hard for someone to take you seriously when demanding they tell you the truth about their national allegiance during war.

Rather than his low service shoes, Max now wears black calf leather cap-toe combat boots that cover his ankles, with derby-style lacing and lugged outsoles. His navy-blue socks continue the leg line from his uniform trousers into the tops of his boots, though the height of the boots typically covers his socks under his plain-hemmed trouser bottoms.

Particularly in Dieppe, Max wears russet-brown leather three-point gloves while flying and leading Degas (Raphael Desprez) in combat against the Germans and French police.

When the action intensifies as the rain starts to fall during the final act, Max swaps out his leather jacket for the same blue-gray twill trench coat he had worn over his No. 1 Service Dress Uniform.

Max tours London on a rainy Sunday morning, dispatching German spy handlers.

Everything Else

Under his uniforms, Max presumably wears the cream mini-ribbed cotton henley-style undershirt that we see him wearing while in bed with Marianne on the Friday night that the “blue dye” procedure begins. This short-sleeved shirt has a four-button placket and reinforced bands around the round neck and the end of each sleeve.

TFW you have to keep cool during a “blue dye” procedure on your wife after she just blew- well, never mind.

 Max’s wristwatch follows the ref. 6W/16 design that was authorized for the Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal Canadian Navy, though its use in Allied is anachronistic as these weren’t produced until the early 1960s and RAF-affiliated pilots and navigators during World War II would have been issued the simpler ref. 6B/159 or the 6B/150 copied from the American A-11.

The stainless steel ref. 6W/16 monopusher chronograph was produced under contract for the Canadian armed forces by Breitling, Omega, and Rodania. Breitling and Rodania produced 36mm-wide versions with sterile dials, while the Omega ref. 6W/16 was slightly larger at 38mm wide and often (but not always) printed with the Omega logo clearly printed on the dial. The white dials featured a 30-minute totalizer sub-register at 3 o’clock and a running second-counter at 9 o’clock, lumed Arabic indices for 12 and 6 o’clock, and the remaining hour indices printed in black Arabic numerals with a luminous dot. You can read more about these watches and more issued by the Canadian military in Oren Hartov’s Worn & Wound article.

Max wears his 6W/16 pilot’s watch on a smooth brown leather strap that closes through a steel single-prong buckle.

Well-versed in tradecraft, Max rolls up his sleeve to falsify the puncture as if he had given blood—his excuse to Marianne for running late.

The Guns

Upon returning to London, Max Vatan’s main sidearm is a Webley .38 Mk IV, the double-action break-top revolver that had been authorized for British military service in 1942, approximately a decade after its development.

Webley & Scott had been manufacturing top-break service revolvers since the 1880s, primarily chambered for the formidable .455 Webley cartridge. However, after World War I, the British government sought smaller-caliber options to replace the .455. Following rigorous testing, they determined that a 200-grain .38-caliber cartridge struck the perfect balance between power and portability. Webley responded by downsizing the frame of their .455 Webley Mk IV revolver to create the Webley .38 Mk IV, a smaller and lighter revolver that retained the classic self-extracting top-break mechanism but fired the new .38/200 cartridge, also known as the .38 S&W.

Much to Webley & Scott’s disappointment, the British government handed the design to the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield (RSAF Enfield), who replicated it to produce the service revolver designated as the “No. 2 Mk I” upon its introduction in 1932. Webley & Scott took legal action against the government in response to this snub. Their vindication came during World War II when RSAF Enfield struggled to meet the demand for the No. 2 revolver, leading to the authorization of the Webley .38 Mk IV for British Army service alongside it. Over 25 years, Enfield produced approximately 270,000 No. 2 revolvers, while Webley & Scott nearly doubled that output with their .38 Mk IV revolvers before ceasing production in 1978.

I’m sure several parents out there can relate to having a really bad nanny.

Max keeps his Webley holstered in their bedroom.

True to its use often provided to SOE field operatives during World War II, the Sten Mk II reappears in combat when Max arms himself with one from the equipment he brought to Dieppe via Lysander. He had previously demonstrated his considerable skill with one during his training and mission in Casablanca, so he’s able to fend off a handful of German soldiers with considerable ease using this side-loading submachine gun.

How to Get the Look

Brad Pitt as Max Vatan in Allied (2016)

You should certainly not wear the uniform of the Royal Canadian Air Force (or any military branch) unless you’ve earned it, but there’s no stolen valor in evoking the spirit of a dashing World War II aviator spy with a rugged leather flight jacket with a vintage chronograph and military-informed blue shirt, sweater, and trousers.

• Dark-brown leather flight jacket with straight front-zip, brown waffle-knit collar lining, straight horizontal chest yoke, vertical-entry hand pockets, and brown ribbed-knit cuffs and hem
• Slate-blue mottled cotton shirt with point collar, front placket, and 1-button squared cuffs
• Navy-blue wool turtleneck with ribbed roll-neck, cuffs, and hem
• Blue wool serge double-reverse pleated No. 1 Service Dress uniform trousers with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Gray cloth suspenders with silver adjuster hardware
• Black calf leather cap-toe derby-laced combat boots
• Dark-blue socks
• Stainless steel ref. 6W/16 Canadian military monopusher chronograph watch with cream-white dial (with 3 and 9 o’clock sub-registers and luminous hour indices) on smooth brown leather strap
• Russet-brown leather three-point gloves

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

You know how it is; once you get in, you can’t get out.

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