Joaquin Phoenix as Doc Sportello in Inherent Vice (2014)
Vitals
Joaquin Phoenix as Larry “Doc” Sportello, hippie private investigator
Los Angeles County, Fall 1970
Film: Inherent Vice
Release Date: December 12, 2014
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Costume Designer: Mark Bridges
Background
Adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s novel of the same name, Inherent Vice premiered as the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival ten years ago today on October 4, 2014, two months before its initial public release.
“Doc may not be a do-gooder, but he’s done good,” the trailer describes of the protagonist Larry “Doc” Sportello, the stoner sleuth played by Joaquin Pheonix who reprised his Oscar-winning role of Arthur Fleck in Joker: Folie à Deux, released in theaters today.
Five years before he first donned Joker’s clown makeup, Phoenix framed his face in mutton chops as the scraggly beach-dwelling private eye spurned into action by visits from his estranged ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston), first to ask his help in protecting the real estate developer she’s been seeing. After Shasta seemingly goes missing during the course of Doc’s investigation, she reappears in his home at the fictional Gordita Beach several nights later as he’s watching Adam-12.
What’d He Wear?
Following director Paul Thomas Anderson’s direction to “read the book,” costume designer and frequent collaborator Mark Bridges “dutifully underlined every description of every character, any grain of information that I could get from Pynchon, and then I decided how to convey these people in that moment of time—Los Angeles, 1970, beach community,” as he explained to Fast Company.
“A lot of the DNA for Doc was Neil Young,” Bridges elaborated to T Magazine, reflected in much of Doc’s regular wardrobe from his contemporary Army-issue “jungle jacket” to the pair of blue denim snap-up shirts he often wears when unknowingly entertaining Shasta’s late night visits.
Neil Young as photographed by Henry Diltz, circa 1971
Shirt #1
Doc begins Inherent Vice wearing a rich blue denim snap-front shirt that shows the wear and subtle distress indicating significant rotation through his wardrobe. This shirt has six white-finished snaps up the front placket, though Doc typically only fastens to bottom three—leaving the top casually undone.
Western-informed pointed yokes extend over the front and back, and the set-in sleeves are finished with two-snap squared cuffs and an additional snap to close each gauntlet, though Doc also typically leaves these fully unsnapped. The two patch-style chest pockets are each covered with a pointed single-snap flap and detailed with a “bull’s head” contrast stitch across each pocket.
Doc looks up to see a naked Shasta entering his living room, clad only in a necklace that falls among her décolletage à la Bob Seidemann’s famous portrait of Janis Joplin… yet another rock influence on the style of the Gordita Beach uni-Vice.
Doc initially wears this shirt untucked with his striped twill beach pants, which are patterned with alternating brown and beige bar stripes against an olive ground. These simple trousers are loose-fitting and generally unstructured, with plain-hemmed bottoms.
When Shasta returns to Doc’s pad midway through Inherent Vice, he’s wearing the shirt with the dirty cream cotton Levi’s jeans that he occasionally sports with his other outfits. These jeans follow the standard five-pocket layout with two front pockets, an inset coin/watch pocket on the right side, and two patch-style back pockets with the brand’s signature red tab sewn along the seam of the back-right pocket.
Shirt #2
When Doc meets to discuss the ongoing case with Detective “Bigfoot” Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), he wears a darker indigo-dyed denim shirt that follows a similar design with its snap-up placket, western yokes, and twin patch pockets with pointed bottoms and single-snap pointed flaps. He also keeps the double-snap flaps undone, though this shirt lacks the additional gauntlet snap. Doc layers this shirt over a navy turtleneck.
Doc wears this shirt combination with brown wide-waled corduroy flat-front trousers structured straight through the legs down to the plain-hemmed bottoms.
Rather than the “tire-tread Mexican huaraches” described in Pychon’s novel, costume designer Mark Bridges dressed Doc in dark-brown leather sandals that represent “his freewheeling existence… he doesn’t like to wear shoes unless he’s in disguise,” as explained to GQ, during the same interview where he shared sourcing the footwear from L.A.-based Palace Costume & Prop Co.
“You know a cop by his shoes. You also know a surf detective by his sandals,” Bridges summarized for T Magazine. Doc’s particular sandals have two wide straps—one over the instep and one just behind the toes—which are connected by a double-studded strap that features a brass loop-bit on each end. An additional heel strap wraps around the back, connecting to each end of the instep strap and closing around the outside through a brass single-prong buckle.
Doc and his attorney, Sauncho Smilax, Esq. (Benicio del Toro) stumble back to Doc’s home in Gordita Beach.
“The stop sign vintage glasses …. that’s something we found in the research that was actually provided by props, but I was in on choosing them,” remarked Bridges to Fast Company of Doc’s gold semi-hexagonal, semi-rimmed sunglasses. “They really were something that some music people from that time had, but they’re also from the ’30s and ’40s… old Hollywood.”
Updating the fedora-clad silhouette of hardboiled gumshoes lurking in the shadows of 1940s film noir, this Nixon-era beach-dwelling private eye regularly dons a wide-brimmed straw hat with a pinched crown and brown puggaree band.
What to Imbibe
Doc cracks open a can of Burgermeister beer for himself and another for Shasta. This San Francisco-brewed lager was playfully labeled “Burgie!” in bold red letters above the more traditional Burgermeister logo. Before national distribution, “Burgie!” referred to one of two regional beers named Burgermeister, the other brewed by Warsaw Brewing in Illinois.
Doc’s preferred Burgermeister came from northern California, specifically the San Francisco Brewing Company, which rebranded as Burgermeister Brewing in the 1950s after its flagship beer. However, the brand’s lifespan was short. Schlitz took over in the ’60s before selling it to Falstaff Brewing in 1971, around the time that Doc is depicted enjoying his Burgies. Sadly, the rise of America’s “big three” beers—Budweiser, Coors, and Miller—led to the demise of many regional brews, including Burgermeister. Falstaff closed its San Francisco plant in 1978, and the brand disappeared. (The Falstaff name itself was acquired by Pabst, which discontinued its production in 2005.)
How to Get the Look
Joaquin Phoenix as Doc Sportello in Inherent Vice (2014)
Indicated by Luke Guillory is touting the comfort of his denim Wrangler shirt for Esquire, this hardy ringspun snap-front shirt is still a smart choice more than a half-century after Doc Sportello was depicted wearing his with a “stoner Serpico” sensibility, untucked with casual trousers and accompanied with sandals, a straw hat, and retro sunglasses.
- Blue denim western shirt with pointed yokes, snap-up front placket, two pointed-bottom chest pockets (with single-snap pointed flaps), and two-snap squared cuffs
- Navy turtleneck
- Brown wide-waled corduroy flat-front straight-leg trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms
- Straw fedora-style beach hat with brown puggaree band
- Gold semi-rimmed semi-hexagonal vintage sunglasses with brown lenses
- Dark brown leather double-vamp strap vintage sandals with buckled heel strap
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie and read Thomas Pynchon’s novel.
The Quote
Que ser fuckin’ sera sera.
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