Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas (1984)
Vitals
Harry Dean Stanton as Travis Henderson, wandering drifter
West Texas to Los Angeles, Fall 1983
Film: Paris, Texas
Release Date: September 19, 1984
Director: Wim Wenders
Costume Designer: Birgitta Bjerke
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Wim Wenders’ masterpiece Paris, Texas debuted during 40 years ago today on May 19, 1984 during the 37th Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Palme d’Or among other accolades. The film arrived at theaters exactly four months later and would continue to garner critical acclaim including a BAFTA win for Wenders’ direction.
Co-written by Sam Shepard and L.M. Kit Carson, Paris, Texas presents a rare starring role for stalwart character actor Harry Dean Stanton—one of my personal favorites—who had been well-regarded for his performances in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Dillinger (1973), Alien (1979), Escape from New York (1981), and Christine (1983) before Shepard tapped the nearly 60-year-old actor for the leading role of the lost Travis Henderson.
The cast also includes Dean Stockwell as Travis’ successful brother Walt, who lives in suburban L.A. with his wife Anne (Aurore Clément) and Travis’ son Hunter (Hunter Carson), whom they unofficially adopted after assuming Travis had died four years ago following the dissolution of his relationship with Hunter’s biological mother Jane (Nastassja Kinski).
Paris, Texas rounds out its talent pool with cinematography by Wenders’ regular collaborator Robby Müller and an evocative slide-guitar score by Ry Cooder riffing on Blind Willie Jefferson’s gospel blues classic “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” that sets the evocative scene as we follow these characters’ respective journeys to find family and acceptance among the sparse milieu of the American Southwest.
What’d He Wear?
From Double-Breasted Pinstripes…
“What the hell happened to you anyway? You look like 40 miles of rough road!” Walt asks the wandering Travis, who indeed looks every bit the derelict drifter in his dusty double-breasted vintage suit, tattered shoes, and incongruous baseball cap.
The charcoal pinstripe wool suit looks like a relic from the 1950s, tailored with a full fit that likely flattered its original user but looks appropriately awkward on Travis after three decades out of fashion and several hundred miles of wandering in the desert. The double-breasted jacket features a traditional 6×2-button arrangement with very wide peak lapels that each have a buttonhole. The shoulders are heavily padded to a round shape, and the waist is suppressed for an hourglass-like silhouette emphasized by the gently flared skirt and ventless back. The sleeves are finished with three buttons at each cuff, and the jacket has a welted breast pocket and straight jetted hip pockets.
The matching trousers rise high to Harry Dean Stanton’s natural waist, where Travis holds them up with a brown leather belt that closes through a silver-toned single-prong buckle. The single reverse-facing pleats maintain a full cut through the hips, maintained down through the legs to the wide turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms.
The most hardscrabble element of Travis’ road-worn wardrobe are his tattered brown woven leather loafers, barely held together by black tape. The toes are worn away on both shoes, revealing Travis’ torn dark-green socks.
Walt compares his Wallabees with Travis’ threadbare shoes, resolving that his brother will definitely need some new boots for their journey home.
Rather than the plain white shirt one would expect to see with a suit like this, Travis’ mid-weight shirt is actually patterned in a tonal white-on-white floral paisley. Likely dating back to the ’70s, the shirt has a then-fashionably long point collar as well as a front placket and single-button squared cuffs.
The patterns on Travis’ pale-yellow, salmon, and tan tie recall hand-painted silk ties that were popular through the 1940s and ’50s.
The dust has come to stay. You may stay or pass through or whatever.
Providing some protection against the scorching sun is Travis’ plain red cotton twill baseball cap, detailed with six silver-toned ventilation grommets in each of the six panels comprising the crown.
Travis wears a plain stainless steel wristwatch with a busy dial and non-matching gold-toned expansion bracelet that doesn’t seem to survive the transition to his journey home with Walt.
…to Double Denim and Plaid
After Walt finds Travis, he helps physically transform him into the brother he had known years earlier, trimming his beard to a mustache and outfitting him with a new set of clothes… though the red baseball cap stays—at least at first.
Travis’ new shirt is a beige, blue, and white plaid, likely made from a lightweight polyester or poly/cotton blend. Fashioned with a horizontal back yoke but no front yokes, the shirt features a straight point collar, button cuffs, front placket, and two chest pockets with rounded corners and rounded-corner flaps—all of which fasten with white two-hole buttons.
Travis also receives a “Canadian tuxedo”—though, given the setting and the boots, it may be more appropriate to call it a “Texas tuxedo”—in the form of a Levi’s jacket and jeans made from matching dark indigo denim. Appropriately for new clothes, the denim initially looks stiff on Travis, not yet broken in from wear.
The trucker jacket is specifically the Levi’s 557XX, known as the “Type III” by collectors as this was the third evolution of the brand’s venerated waist-length denim jacket at the time it was introduced in 1962. The Type III has seen its own share of design updates, including the addition of hand pockets around 1984; the jacket that Walt purchases for Travis would have been one of the last to pre-date these pockets as it was acquired during Paris, Texas‘ production timeline through the fall of 1983.
Thus, Travis’ jacket follows the classic Type III design with six rivet buttons up the front, orange-threaded seams like the straight horizontal yokes which align with the top of both chest pockets, each covered with a pointed single-button flap. The jacket also has button cuffs and two-button adjuster tabs on each side of the waist hem.
By the 1980s, many outfitters sold denim trucker jackets inspired by the long Levi’s heritage, but the red tab sewn along the side of Travis’ left chest pocket identifies his jacket as a true Levi’s product.
Travis’ dark indigo denim jeans are the then-latest iteration of the Levi’s 501, the venerated straight-cut jeans dating back to when Levi Strauss & Co. patented their “copper-riveted waist overalls” in 1873. Like their jackets, Levi’s 501 jeans underwent several updates, with the modern iconic style introduced in the years following World War II. Levi’s had started phasing out selvedge denim by the mid-1980s, but the white-threaded overlocked edges seen on his self-cuffed bottoms indicate that Travis ‘ jeans are non-selvedge denim.
The maker is clearly identifiable by its brand trademarks, including the red tab sewn along the right-back pocket and the arcuate stitching across both back pockets in the same copper-orange thread that had totally superseded the brand’s previous lemon-yellow thread by the end of the ’70s. Styled with belt loops and the 501’s requisite button-fly, Travis’ jeans follow the traditional five-pocket layout, with two curved front pockets in addition to the back pockets and a smaller watch/coin pocket inset on the right; all three front pockets have copper rivets on the corners.
Travis holds his jeans up with a brown hybrid leather belt that consists of woven leather across much of the strap, though the pointed end is smooth with three punch-holes. The belt has a shining silver-toned single-prong buckle.
Travis receives a set of new smooth russet leather cowboy boots, which he eagerly trades for a set of Walt’s “old boots” after spending his first night at home obsessively shining all of Walt, Anne, and Hunter’s footwear. These older pointed-toe boots are the shorter “roper” style, with decoratively stitched mid-calf shafts equipped with pull tabs on each side. He wears them over pale-blue wool boot socks.
Travis pulls on Walt’s old boots.
Though he no longer wears the watch he had on with his suit, we get a brief glimpse at a digital watch on Travis’ left wrist during his first morning after staying with Walt, Anne, and Hunter. With its matte-gray case and lighter gray display frame, this watch may have been Harry Dean Stanton’s own timepiece that slipped onto the scene as we never see him wearing a wristwatch again after this.
Travis points out a truck to Anne, flashing a gray digital watch under his left shirt cuff.
How to Get the Look
Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas (1984)
We’ll leave the dusty suit and dilapidated shoes in the desert… Travis Henderson is dressed to re-enter society in a generally timeless outfit of western-informed workwear consisting of double dark denim, a plaid two-pocket work-shirt, and cowboy boots, with only Travis’ stalwart red cap surviving the transition.
- Beige, blue, and white multi-plaid polyester/cotton work shirt with point collar, front placket, two chest pockets (with button-down flaps), and button cuffs
- Dark indigo denim Levi’s 557XX “Type III” trucker jacket with six-button front, two chest pockets (with pointed button-down flaps), button cuffs, and button-tab side adjusters
- Dark indigo denim Levi’s 501 straight-cut jeans with belt loops, button-fly, and five-pocket layout
- Brown woven leather belt with silver-toned single-prong buckle and smooth leather end
- Russet-brown leather roper-style cowboy boots with stitched mid-calf shafts
- Pale-blue wool boot socks
- Red cotton twill baseball cap
While their selections are a little dressier than Travis wears on screen, it seems appropriate that the Houston-based Paris Texas Apparel Co. currently offers a selection of blue-checked shirts that look like the preppier modern equivalent of Travis’ work shirt.
Classic two-pocket 557XX trucker jackets are no longer made by Levi’s but can be sourced secondhand or, for that newly worn Travis look, from tributes like the Boncoura Type 3 (14.5 oz. denim) and the Full Count 2101 Type III (13.7 oz. denim).
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
Is four years a long time?
The post From Pinstripes to Plaid: Travis Henderson’s Transformation in Paris, Texas appeared first on BAMF Style.