Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby (1974)
Vitals
Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway, impressionable bachelor and bond salesman
Long Island, New York, Summer 1925
Film: The Great Gatsby
Release Date: March 29, 1974
Director: Jack Clayton
Costume Designer: Theoni V. Aldredge
Clothes by: Ralph Lauren
Background
Born on this day in 1896, F. Scott Fitzgerald left an indelible mark on American literature with his classic novel The Great Gatsby, which has been adapted for the screen at least a half dozen items—including Jack Clayton’s iconic 1974 film.
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, this lush adaptation stars Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, and Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway, the narrator and ostensibly a surrogate for Fitzgerald himself—though the author also reflected elements of himself in the romantic hero Jay Gatsby.
A knitwear-clad F. Scott Fitzgerald in the third-floor bedroom of his parents’ residence at 599 Summit Avenue in St. Paul, where he wrote This Side of Paradise. (Source: Twin Cities Pioneer Press)
After hosting the reunion between his married cousin Daisy and her old flame, Nick’s wealthy neighbor Gatsby, Nick spends the rest of the summer observing the couple retreat into furtive seclusion, dodging not only Daisy’s prideful husband but also the gossip of Gatsby’s now-dismissed household staff and newspaper reporters showing up at Nick’s door.
When curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest, the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night.
What’d He Wear?
Costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge skillfully balanced the fashions of the 1920s with contemporary relevance, blending timeless approaches to style with the opulent formalwear and colorful suits described in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel. This approach was particularly evident through Nick Carraway, the pragmatic everyman through whose eyes we observe Gatsby’s world, allowing audiences to connect with the story’s lavish era while still resonating with modern sensibilities.
While Nick certainly embraces his own natty tailoring—from his initial sporty white linen suit and Panama hat to the cream suit with a yellow shirt and tie for the film’s climactic moments—he also opts for casual knitwear around his humble West Egg abode. Appropriate for the roaring 1920s, these styles would have also looked suitable during the 1970s production timeframe and still hold up today during the not-so-roaring 2020s, proving the enduring appeal of Aldredge’s Academy Award-winning costume design.
Unlike Gatsby’s room dedicated to a multitude of custom shirts so beautiful that they reduce Daisy Buchanan to tears, Nick’s more modest budget and attitude require some versatility in his wardrobe. With both suits and knitwear, he often wears a cornflower-blue cotton shirt, patterned in double sets of white track-stripes that alternate between two different widths. The shirt has a front placket, single cuffs meant to be worn with links (like French cuffs), and a spread collar that he pins in place with a suit. For more casual afternoons at home, he foregoes the collar pin and cuff links, leaving his shirt open-neck and rolling up the sleeves.
NICK
Long relegated to an unflatteringly elderly association, the shawl-collar cardigan has maintained an impressive renaissance that arguably began with Daniel Craig’s James Bond—himself channeling ’60s “King of Cool” Steve McQueen—and has continued thanks to the “stealth wealth” style exemplified by productions like Succession.
For Nick Carraway in 1925, his tan cable-knit cardigan is hardly a status symbol as much as it’s a comfortably broken-in layer for staving off the cool evening breezes drifting off Long Island Sound. The sweater has a full-bellied shawl collar that abruptly tapers to six brown woven leather buttons up the front. There are also two set-in pockets, and Nick cuffs back the ends of each set-in sleeve.
Ralph Lauren’s contributions to The Great Gatsby have been frequently exaggerated in the half-century since the film’s release, though I understand that many of the men’s knitwear was sourced from Lauren’s Polo line, so it’s likely that Nick’s screen-worn shawl-collar cardigan was a Polo Ralph Lauren sweater.
“If you want to know something, why not ask Mr. Gatsby?”
Nick tucks the striped blue shirt into the tan trousers orphaned from the three-piece suit he wore for Gatsby and Daisy’s initial reunion in his own living room. These forward-pleated trousers have a self-suspended waistband, with an extended tab that pulls through a self-loop and buttons onto the right side of the waistband.
The trousers follow his usual design with on-seam side pockets and jetted back pockets (with a single-button pointed flap over the back-left pocket), as well as a small coin pocket on the front-right side that also closes through a single-button flap. The bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).
NICK
Instead of the flashy two-tone spectator wingtip shoes he often wears with both suits and casual attire, Nick sports white plimsolls—a fittingly informal shoe style for stepping into the surf to retrieve a dead seagull.
According to Nicholette Jones in The Plimsoll Sensation, the “plimsoll” name originated in 1870s England, referring to the similarity between the colored horizontal band around the sole to a ship’s Plimsoll line—or “load line”—indicating the legal limit to which a ship can be loaded and still maintain buoyancy; any water reaching above this line—whether on a ship or shoe—would get the contents wet. Plimsolls would be revolutionized in 1935 when Paul A. Sperry was inspired by his dog’s paws to develop siped soles that improved rubber soles’ traction on wet decks.
Nick’s CVO (circular vamp oxford) plimsolls have dirty white canvas uppers, oxford-laced through five sets of eyelets, with dark-blue rubber lines bordering along the tops of the white rubber outsoles. He also wears cream ribbed socks.
NICK
How to Get the Look
Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby (1974)
The Great Gatsby is set through a long and increasingly hot summer, though Nick Carraway’s casual wardrobe around his home—specifically during the cooler evenings on Long Island sound—would be suitable for transitional seasons as the summer turns to fall, layering a comfortable cardigan over a stylish and summer-friendly striped shirt, slacks, and sneakers.
- Tan cable-knit shawl-collar cardigan with six brown woven leather buttons and straight set-in pockets
- Cornflower-blue and white double-striped cotton shirt with spread collar, front placket, and single cuffs
- Tan forward-pleated trousers with self-suspended waistband, on-seam side pockets, flapped front-right coin pocket, jetted back-right pocket, flapped back-left pocket, and turn-ups/cuffs
- White canvas-upper CVO-style 5-eyelet plimsolls
- Cream ribbed socks
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie and read the book.
The Quote
They say you killed a man.
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