Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Bullet Train (2022). Photo credit: Scott Garfield.
Vitals
Aaron Taylor-Johnson as “Tangerine”, snarky contract killer
Tokyo to Kyoto, Japan, Spring 2021
Film: Bullet Train
Release Date: August 5, 2022
Director: David Leitch
Costume Designer: Sarah Evelyn
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Rumors continue swirling around who will be cast to replace Daniel Craig as James Bond. Henry Cavill, Richard Madden, Regé-Jean Page, and Aidan Turner have all been named as serious contenders, though English actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson often emerges as a current favorite for the likely choice. Thus, today’s 00-7th of the month post will focus not on a previous Mr. Bond but a possible future characterization of the sophisticated agent…by playing an contractor taking his codename from a “sophisticated” fruit.
Audiences and critics like Jack King (for British GQ) and Hayley Maitland (for Vogue) have likened Taylor-Johnson’s charismatic performance as the stylishly tailored killer Tangerine in David Leitch’s kinetic 2022 action comedy Bullet Train as his unofficial cinematic “audition” to illustrate he had the chops to play Bond—much as Craig did in the 2004 crime flick Layer Cake.
Adapted from Kōtarō Isaka’s 2010 novel Maria Beetle, Bullet Train is set across an all-night ride from Tokyo to Kyoto aboard a high-speed Shinkansen, where the jaded American assassin Ladybug (Brad Pitt) has been assigned to retrieve a briefcase full of cash being transported by Tangerine and his “twin” brother and partner-in-crime Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) amidst a handful of other violent interlopers.
What’d He Wear?
In addition to his longer hair and mustache, Tangerine’s blue striped three-piece suit, checked topcoat, and array of gold jewelry are all flashier than the smart tailoring associated with 007, but the visual signals align with his position in the criminal underworld.
Reinforcing the fact that they’re twins more than any physical aspect of their respective appearance, Tangerine and Lemon wear matching wool topcoats patterned in a black-and-brown gun club check against a beige ground. The single-breasted coats have ulster-style collars, three or four large black 4-hole buttons up the front, slanted hand pockets, and raglan sleeves with fully belted cuffs fastened through self-keepers and dark-brown leather-covered sliding-bar buckles.
The citrus-named twins in their matching checked raglan coats. Photo credit: Scott Garfield.
Tangerine’s Suit
“I think we always knew Tangerine was gonna wear a suit,” costume designer Sarah Evelyn shared in an interview with The Art of Costume. “We had his casting pretty early on, and I think the idea was that he wears a suit to contain the beast. He would’ve grown up probably in South London with his eye on Savile Row, with interest in gangster vibes! That’s where we got this idea of both the pinstripes and the banker’s collar, with the gold jewelry elements.”
Tangerine’s suiting is a vivid royal-blue worsted wool, patterned with a widely spaced white pinstripe. Unlike the shrunken-looking suits unfortunately considered fashionable for most of the previous decade (to the degree that they even made their way into the wardrobe of Craig’s Bond, beginning with Skyfall), Tangerine’s suit is tailored to be neither too trim nor excessively full.
Aligned with Ms. Evelyn’s reference to retro gangster styles, Tangerine’s suit follows a 1930s-inspired silhouette, rigging a single-breasted jacket with the peak lapels typically associated with double-breasted tailoring. These slightly slanted peak lapels taper to the two-button stance positioned over Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s waist. The jacket has a single vent, three-button cuffs, straight flapped hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket that Tangerine dresses with a white silk pocket square.
The suit’s matching waistcoat (vest) is cut lower on the chest for a more modern presentation, with Tangerine correctly fastening the top four of the waistcoat’s five buttons up the front, leaving the lowest undone over the notched bottom. Front darts and an adjustable strap across the plain navy-finished back keep the fit close on Taylor-Johnson’s athletic frame. The waistcoat also has two welted pockets.
Photo credit: Scott Garfield
The flat-front trousers rise properly high enough that—at least until Tangerine’s more intense fights with Ladybug—the waistband cannot be seen under the waistcoat, a testament to the tailoring and the suspension of the buckle-tab adjusters on each side of the waistband. The trousers have on-seam side pockets and button-through back pockets, and they taper down the legs to the plain-hemmed bottoms.
Note the bar-buckle side-adjuster tabs and the proportional relationship between waistcoat and trousers that correctly doesn’t show any of his shirt fabric.
Tangerine’s black calfskin leather cap-toe four-eyelet oxford shoes are a safe choice for any man’s closet, though he wears them with burgundy cotton lisle socks emblazoned with the West Ham United F.C. logo: a sky-blue shield framing “West Ham United” in white above the club’s signature golden-yellow crossed hammers, all against a claret ground matching the rest of the hosiery.
Tangerine is forever blowing bubbles.
Tangerine’s Shirt and Tie
Tangerine’s shirt has a pale-blue cotton body, contrasted by the stiffer white semi-spread collar. Also colloquially known as a “Winchester shirt”, Ms. Evelyn referred to this style as a “banker’s collar” in her interview with The Art of Costume, likely referring to its association with the finance industry as worn in movies like Wall Street (1987).
The shirt has white buttons up the plain front and—rather than simple button-fastened barrel cuffs or fussier double (French) cuffs—single cuffs, a style typically reserved for the most formal shirts typically reserved for full evening dress. Tangerine fastens these distinctive cuffs with distinctive links, a set of gold chain wraparound cuff links that traverse across the split in each cuff rather than merely connected through the cuff holes (like these!) Each sleeve also has a single button closing the respective gauntlet.
For those without the opportunity to spot Tangerine’s socks, he clearly indicates his favorite football club with a West Ham United decal on his phone case as well.
Bound with a Windsor knot, Tangerine’s dark-navy silk repp tie is printed with golden-yellow anchors, each fouled with a cable arced from the right side of the stock to the left fluke.
Tangerine’s tie indeed ties his outfit together, with the navy ground reflecting the blue in his suit and shirt while the yellow anchor print calls out the gold jewelry he wears across both hands, including that vintage “Bubbleback” Rolex.
Tangerine’s Gold Accessories
Tangerine’s wristwatch is a vintage Rolex Oyster Perpetual with a yellow-gold 32mm case known by collectors as the “Bubbleback”, referring to the domed expansion over the back of the case to safely house the thick self-winding movement that Rolex had pioneered in the early 1930s. The Bubbleback design remained a Rolex mainstay for over two decades until it was discontinued after 1955 when the case and movement had been effectively refined to the point where such measures to accommodate it were no longer necessary. (You can read more about Bubbleback Rolex watches in Paul Altieri’s article for Bob’s Watches.)
Strapped to a black edge-stitched leather bracelet, Tangerine’s Rolex features a light gold “California” dial, a 1940s rarity featuring a mix of Arabic and Roman numeral hour indices that was manufactured through the 1940s by a firm based in California.
Under his shirt, Tangerine wears an 18-karat yellow-gold vermeil-on-sterling silver pendant on a twisted-rope necklace, which we see him pull off to give Lemon at one point in the story. As opposed to the many suggesting it to be a St. Christopher medal, Redditor @Strwbry_M was the first person I’d seen to specifically identify this piece as the “Engravable Octagon Medallion Coin Necklace” by Lucy Williams.
Framed by a gold octagon to which it’s clamped at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions, the round centerpiece coin depicts a figure seated in a chair with a bird pecking at its right hand, described at MISSOMA as “a fresh interpretation to ancient Roman iconography.”
Tangerine balances the gold on his wrists by dressing his right wrist with a yellow-gold Cuban chain-link bracelet consisting of interlocking 8mm links and a “lobster claw”-style clasp.
His trio of rings include:
- Right middle finger: a gold signet ring with an etched relief on the elongated oval face
- Right ring finger: a gold triple-ridged ring that swells out to house a faux black sapphire setting
- Left pinky: a silver ring with a gold setting etched with a hornet
The latter two rings were included alongside Ladybug’s and Lemon’s respective rings in lot #664 of a Propstore Auction hosted in 2023.
Tangerine’s final gold accessory is a small, plain hoop earring worn in his left earlobe.
The Gun
Unlike Ladybug, who opts for “spiritual enlightenment” over his employer’s TTI-customized Glock, Tangerine travels armed with a Smith & Wesson Model 36-10 snub-nosed revolver holstered at the small of his back.
The Model 36 debuted during the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in 1950, when its initial “Chiefs Special” nomenclature was decided by vote. Later in the decade, Smith & Wesson switched to numbering its handgun models and this easily concealed “J-frame” five-shot revolver was designated the Model 36. Chambered for the .38 Special cartridge that was a favorite of American law enforcement for much of the 20th century, the double-action Model 36 has been available in a variety of configurations that differ by blued or nickel finish, two- or three-inch barrel length, and grip material.
Tangerine’s blued steel Model 36-10 was the latest iteration at the time that Bullet Train was produced in late 2020, featuring a barrel length just under two inches and the stock wooden grips replaced with hard black rubber grips.
Though movies tend to favor cool guys carrying firearms in this “6:00 position”, many experts advise against this as it’s harder to smoothly draw and reholster, it offers others the ability to grab the weapon, and it runs the risk of serious spinal damage if someone falls or makes hard contact with the holster against the small of their back. That said, at least Tangerine does use a holster, carrying his Model 36 in a black Kydex OWB rig.
The Car
In the flashback to Tangerine and Lemon recounting the 16 17 corpses left in their wake recovering “The Son” (Logan Lerman) from his Triad kidnappers, Tangerine whips a sleek black 2018 Audi A7 50 TDI Quattro Sportback through the Tokyo docks.
Audi introduced the A7 for the 2010 model year, with occasional upgrades and facelifts made through the first generation (C7) before launching the second generation (C8) for the 2018 model year. Mated to an eight-speed ZF automatic transmission with Tiptronic manual shift mode, the “50 TDI” configuration continued the 3.0-liter turbocharged V6 diesel engine, now generating 282 bhp (210 kW) power and 600 N⋅m (442.5 lb⋅ft) torque, pushing this aerodynamic five-door liftback sedan from 0-60 mph in less than six seconds.
How to Get the Look
Tangerine puts the “busy” in business suit, with his bold blue tailoring, shining gold jewelry, and character pieces like his West Ham United socks consistent with the stylistic chaos of Bullet Train.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Bullet Train (2022)
- Royal-blue pinstripe worsted wool tailored suit:
- Single-breasted 2-button jacket with peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
- Single-breasted 5-button waistcoat with welted pockets and adjustable back strap
- Flat-front trousers with buckle-tab side adjusters, on-seam side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
- Pale-blue cotton Winchester shirt with stiff white semi-spread collar, plain front, single cuffs, and single-button gauntlets
- Gold chain wraparound cuff links
- Navy silk repp tie with repeating golden-yellow anchor print
- Black calfskin leather cap-toe 4-eyelet oxford shoes
- Burgundy cotton lisle socks with West Ham United’s claret and sky-blue crest
- Beige with brown-and-black gun club check wool single-breasted topcoat with ulster-style collar, raglan sleeves with belted cuffs, and slanted hand pockets
- Yellow-gold octagonal medallion coin pendant on yellow-gold twisted-rope necklace
- Yellow-gold small hoop earring, left ear
- Yellow-gold Cuban chain-link bracelet with lobster-claw clasp
- Gold etched signet ring
- Gold triple-ridged ring with black sapphire setting
- Silver pinky ring with gold hornet-etched face
- Rolex Oyster Perpetual “Bubbleback” yellow-gold 32mm wristwatch with gold “California” dial on black edge-stitched leather strap
- Black Kydex OWB holster for 2″-barreled revolver
- White silk pocket square
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
For what it’s worth, you seem like a right fucking asshole, and I’m glad you’re going to fucking die with me.
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