Donald Sutherland in Don’t Look Now (1973)
Vitals
Donald Sutherland as John Baxter, architect and grieving father
Venice, Italy, Winter/Spring 1973
Film: Don’t Look Now
Release Date: October 16, 1973
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Wardrobe Credit: Anna Maria Feo
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today’s post pays tribute to the late, great Donald Sutherland (1935-2024), the Canadian-born actor who died last week at the age of 88. One of the actor’s most-discussed films is Nicolas Roeg’s haunting horror tale Don’t Look Now, for which he received a BAFTA nomination.
Sutherland stars opposite Julie Christie as John and Laura Baxter, a couple mourning the recent death of their young daughter while he takes a job restoring a 12th century church in Venice. While John busies himself with his work under the auspices of the enigmatic Bishop Barbarrigo (Massimo Serato), Laura becomes convinced that a blind psychic has been in contact with their deceased daughter.
Though John is hesitant to “get involved with two neurotic old women in a session of mumbo-jumbo,” he’s relieved that his grieving wife has embraced a more optimistic attitude, an optimism embodied during the film’s famous—and, despite rumors, properly simulated—sex scene intercut between the couple preparing for dinner.
In the midst of a serial killer preying on the City of Canals and a series of strange sightings, it soon becomes clear that nothing is what it seems.
What’d He Wear?
Upon catching up with the Baxter couple during the chilly early months of 1973, John dresses for his work in a brown, mustard, beige, and indigo glen plaid sports coat that reappears several times over the course of Don’t Look Now, clearly a staple for the grieving architect. The wide notch lapels are consistent with the more excessive fashions of the decade while still proportional enough to the rest of his outfit to be argued as within good taste. Detailed with sporty swelled edges, the lapels roll to the top of a two-button front positioned around the lean-framed Donald Sutherland’s natural waist. Like the lapels, the long single vent was a trendy tailoring detail through the ’70s.
The jacket has straight, padded shoulders out to the roped sleeveheads, and the sleeves are finished with three-button cuffs. In addition to the standard welted breast pocket, the patch-style hip pockets are covered with rectangular flaps that each close through a single button—a sporty detail that harmonizes with this countrified sports coat.
For the first sequence in Venice that begins with John wrapping up a workday, joining Laura for lunch, and ultimately returning home with her before their notorious nude romp, he dresses up the jacket with a shirt and tie. Designed with a point collar, front placket, and button cuffs, the shirt is made from a beige poplin that nicely calls out the beige tones in his jacket while providing a soft solid contrast. His matte-finished tie in a solid muted maroon also offers an eye-catching restraint against the busy plaid in his jacket.
The next day, John is back at work and being observed by a distracted Laura, now wearing a light-blue poplin shirt with the collar pulled out over the crew-neck opening of a navy-blue merino wool sweater. While the beige shirt and maroon tie had pulled out an admittedly muted warmth from the jacket, this blue shirt-and-sweater combination coordinates with the violet check in his jacket, appealing to a cooler palette that may visually communicate the dispositional divide growing between the romantically optimistic Laura and the skeptical John.
Across both days, John balances the plaid jacket with solid-colored tan trousers, styled with a flat-front, “quarter top” side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms. These casual trousers have a fashionably close fit through the hips and thighs, slightly flaring out below the knee in a pattern more consistent with boot-cut jeans than the decade’s infamous bell-bottoms. The outer side seam is swollen from waist to hem.
John holds these trousers up with a dark-brown leather belt that closes through a carved brass-toned buckle only briefly glimpsed under the buttoned jacket.
He wears russet-brown leather plain-toe derby shoes, typically with brown socks though a brief continuity error while he’s up the scaffold in his navy sweater appears to show bright-red socks from a wide shot before we see his usual brown hosiery once we get closer.
John layers against the cold in the same royal-blue overcoat, color-blocked scarf, and fuzzy brown woolen gloves that he wears over his other suits. The knee-length coat is made from a soft napped wool in a bolder shade of blue than the staid navy more traditionally found in men’s tailoring and outerwear. The coat’s notch lapels roll to the top of the three-button single-breasted front. John’s coat also has a single back vent, slanted hand pockets with welted openings, and raglan sleeves that are finished with single-button straps at each cuff. His cashmere twill scarf is horizontally striped and presents red, yellow, and dark-blue stripes on one side, with red, orange, and violet presented on the reverse, and the ends are fringed.
John wears a gold rectangular-cased wristwatch with a minimalist beige square dial, detailed only with gold non-numeric hour indices, and strapped to a brown leather strap. Also on his left hand, John wears a thin yellow-gold “braided” wedding band on his ring finger.
Last year, Eric Twardzik published an excellent essay for The Search Continues celebrating the costume design Don’t Look Now, entitled “We All Dress Like Donald Sutherland Now” and delivering on its intended purpose to explore “what an erotically charged 1970s psychological thriller says about menswear in 2023.”
What to Imbibe
After John and Laura’s passionate romp in their Venice bedroom, John dresses in a slate-blue suit with a rust-colored windowpane and pulls a bottle of Macallan 1954 single malt Scotch whisky from the bedside table to pour himself a dram. One of the film’s screenwriters, Allan Scott, was deputy chairman of the Macallan distillery at the time and was reportedly pleased to see the whisky featured so prominently.
How to Get the Look
Under his colorful coat and scarf, John Baxter regularly dresses for his Venice restoration work in a glen plaid sports coat with tan trousers, coordinated shirts, and either a tie or sweater.
Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie in Don’t Look Now (1973)
- Brown, mustard, beige, and violet glen plaid single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with wide notch lapels, welted breast pocket, patch-style hip pockets (with button-down flaps), 3-button cuffs, and long single vent
- Beige poplin shirt with point collar, front placket, and button cuffs
- Worn with muted maroon tie
- Light-blue poplin shirt with point collar and button cuffs
- Worn with navy merino wool crew-neck sweater
- Tan flat-front trousers with belt loops, “quarter top” side pockets, swelled side seams, and boot-cut plain-hemmed bottoms
- Dark-brown leather belt with brass carved buckle
- Russet-brown leather plain-toe derby shoes
- Brown socks
- Royal-blue napped wool single-breasted 3-button knee-length overcoat with notch lapels, raglan sleeves (with single-button strap cuffs), slanted welted hand pockets, and single vent
- Red, yellow, and dark-blue (and red, orange, and violet reverse) cashmere twill scarf with fringed ends
- Dark-brown fuzzy woolen gloves
- Gold braided wedding ring
- Gold rectangular-cased wristwatch with beige square dial (with gold non-numeric hour indices) on brown leather strap
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
I get the sensation that he doesn’t give an ecclesiastical fuck about the church.
The post Don’t Look Now: Donald Sutherland’s Glen Plaid Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.