Vitals
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Serge Alexandre Stavisky, debonair Russian-born French financier, impresario, and embezzler
Paris, Summer to Fall 1933
Film: Stavisky…
Release Date: May 15, 1974
Director: Alain Resnais
Costume Designer: Jacqueline Moreau
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
After a series of well-acclaimed and unconventionally presented films, Alain Resnais’ sixth feature Stavisky… was released 50 years ago today, starring the late Jean-Paul Belmondo as the famous financial fraudster Serge Alexandre Stavisky who made a fortune selling worthless bonds in interwar-era France.
Within a month of Stavisky’s crimes coming to light, the embezzler was found dead by gunshot in a Chamonix chalet on January 8, 1934. Though the cause of death was officially deemed to be a suicide, speculation instantly spread among the public and Parisian press that he had been murdered by the police to silence him.
Revelations of Stavisky’s associations with and protection under the Radical-Socialist government resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Camille Chautemps and a riot of far-right demonstrators on the night of February 6th that led to the death of up to 17 people when police fired at demonstrators on the orders of the new Minister of the Interior, Eugène Frot. Chautemps’ replacement Édouard Daladier resigned after less than two weeks in office, and the popular Gaston Doumergue returned to office and formed an ostensibly centrist “National Union” government that historians consider to have resolved the crisis.
The story formed the basis for Michael Curtiz’s 1937 drama Stolen Holiday starring Claude Rains as a thinly veiled Stavisky surrogate, though his real name was used four decades later when Resnais directed this stylish chronicle of the last six months of Stavisky’s life featuring a score by Stephen Sondheim.
We spend the first act getting to know Stavisky, introduced to us as he slowly descends in an elevator at the luxurious Hôtel Claridge Paris, where he maintains the nearest thing to a permanent address. In the lobby, he meets with his own taciturn lawyer Albert Borelli (François Périer) and the urbane Baron Jean Raoul (Charles Boyer) who would be two of his closest confidantes through the story. The clearly conservative baron challenges the “well-bred” Stavisky’s alignment with leftists and socialists, to which Stavisky pragmatically responds “What can I do? The Left Coalition won the elections. If your friends win next time, we’ll celebrate with champagne.”
Resnais always considered the film to be titled “Biarritz-Bonheur” in reference to the luxurious department store associated with Stavisky’s lifestyle. When the film’s distributors insisted on the eponymous title, Resnais appended the ellipsis to suggest a work more abstract than a detailed history of the man at the center of the so-called Stavisky affair.
What’d He Wear?
As implied by the title of this post, the costume design in Stavisky… showcases a clear influence of its 1970s production on the 1930s-style clothing, perhaps most evident on this dark-gray chalkstripe woolen flannel suit that Belmondo wears for all of Stavisky’s business dealings in Paris—always with a large red carnation affixed to his left lapel.
Sartorially minded audiences would be within reason to take exception with the most 1970s-informed aspects of Stavisky’s costumes—particularly those massive notch lapels that stretch across each side of his chest beyond the jacket’s armholes—though these exaggerated details could be argued as costume designer Jacqueline Moreau depicting Stavisky as a man of excess.
The suit’s single-breasted jacket has the aforementioned notch lapels that sharply taper to a two-button stance positioned over Belmondo’s waist. The ventless jacket has straight flapped hip pockets and—buried somewhere under that broad left lapel and one of his signature red carnation boutonnières—a welted breast pocket. The shoulders are wide with padding and roped at the sleeveheads, and each sleeve is finished with vestigial three-button cuffs.
The suit’s matching waistcoat has a double-breasted 6×3-button arrangement in two parallel columns that fasten cleanly over the notched bottom. The back is solid dark-gray with an adjustable strap made of the same material. Stavisky keeps his gold pocket watch in the left of two welted pockets, strung “single Albert”-style on a gold chain next to the second buttonhole.
The double forward-pleated trousers rise appropriately high enough for the waistband to be covered by the waistcoat. Though the trousers are rigged with belt loops, Stavisky opts for suspenders (braces)—as glimpsed by the narrow burgundy suspenders with silver adjusters and clips seen as he undresses in his room at the Claridge. Many consider braces preferable to belts when wearing three-piece suits or odd waistcoats as they wouldn’t show a belt buckle’s bulge and also keep the trousers more reliably in place to prevent them from falling, which would result in unsightly shirt fabric showing between waistcoat and trouser waistband.
Stavisky’s trousers have side pockets, button-through back pockets, and a roomy fit straight through the legs down to the bottoms, which are finished with turn-ups (cuffs) and have a full break.
Stavisky always wears plain white cotton shirts with stiff point collars attached to the shirt, rather than the old-fashioned detachable styles that still may have complimented a fussier suit like this. These shirts have front plackets and squared double (French) cuffs, worn with square gold links.
In the first scene at the Claridge, his cufflinks are all gold with a tonal checkerboard. By the time he and the Baron have arrived at his office later that day, these have been swapped out for another set of square gold cufflinks that are set with large pearl settings arranged into crosses.
Stavisky cycles through a trio of similar-looking light gray ties with this suit, keeping most of his clothing relatively monochromatic to make his red carnation command even greater attention. His first tie, worn throughout the events of July 23, 1933, is a mottled silver silk.
Months later, Stavisky is back in Paris and wears a tie with muted turquoise abstract lines swirling against a pale gray-blue ground, like a congealed evolution of the previous tie.
The last time Stavisky clearly wears this suit on screen is for a series of meetings set on his 47th birthday on November 20, 1933, now wearing a another silver tie woven in a pattern of two-by-two sets of light silver squares are separated by a gray mini-grid.
In addition to his usual dark-gray felt short-brimmed trilby with its black grosgrain silk band, Stavisky layers against the late fall chill with a knee-length Chesterfield coat and white dress scarf.
Woven in a gray-and-charcoal heavy-rib twill, the coat has notch lapels of considerably more moderate width than his suit jacket, styled with a charcoal velvet collar and a wide buttonhole in the left lapel. The coat also has a single-breasted covered-fly front, slanted narrow-welted hand pockets, a long back vent, and set-in sleeves that are cuffed at the ends.
Stavisky’s preferred shoes with this suit are black calfskin leather cap-toe oxfords with slightly raised heels, worn with black cotton lisle dress socks.
In the confines of his luxurious suite at the Claridge, Stavisky changes out of his jacket, waistcoat, and tie and into a luxurious burgundy-and-black jacquard velvet silk dressing gown. This knee-length robe has a scarlet matte silk shawl collar, cuffs, and sash, and a strip of scarlet across the top of each hip pocket.
Stavisky wears a trio of rings across both hands. On his right pinky, he wears a large gold ring with a squared jade setting. On his left hand, he wears his plain silver-toned wedding band on his ring finger next to a silver oval-faced monogrammed signet ring on his pinky.
How to Get the Look
Aside from the clear 1970s influence in his costume design, Stavisky livens up his conservative business suiting with flashy details like exaggerated lapels, a double-breasted waistcoat, an array of shining gold jewelry and accessories, and his usual eye-catching bright red carnation that stands out against the monochromatic gray chalkstripe suit, white shirt, and gray-toned ties.
- Dark-gray chalkstripe woolen flannel tailored suit:
- Single-breasted 2-button jacket with wide notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
- Double-breasted 6×3-button waistcoat with two welted pockets, notched bottom, and adjustable back strap
- Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
- White cotton shirt with point collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
- Pearl-set gold square cuff links
- Silver tonal-patterned silk tie
- Burgundy suspenders with silver hardware
- Black calfskin leather cap-toe oxford shoes
- Black cotton lisle dress socks
- Gray-and-charcoal woolen twill knee-length Chesterfield coat with notch lapels (with charcoal velvet collar), single-breasted covered-fly front, slanted narrow-welt hand pockets, long single vent, and cuffed sleeves
- Dark-gray felt short-brimmed trilby with black grosgrain band
- White dress scarf
- Gold ring with square jade setting, right pinky
- Plain silver wedding band, left ring finger
- Silver monogrammed signet ring, left pinky
- Gold pocket watch on gold “single Albert”-style chain
- Red carnation boutonnière
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
There’s nothing worse than a cultured provincial.
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