William Holden and Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Vitals
William Holden as Joe Gillis, “well-known screenwriter, uranium smuggler, and Black Dahlia suspect”
Los Angeles, New Year’s Eve 1949
Film: Sunset Boulevard
Release Date: August 10, 1950
Director: Billy Wilder
Costume Designer: Edith Head
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy New Year! Billy Wilder’s iconic 1950 noir Sunset Blvd. features one of the most lavish yet depressing celebrations of this holiday, as the washed-up “silent movie queen” Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) organizes an intimate evening with her latest obsession, desperate screenwriter Joe Gillis.
“It was at her New Year’s party that I found out how she felt about me,” Joe narrates. “Maybe I’d been an idiot not to have sensed it was coming… that sad, embarrassing revelation.”
Clad in the new full evening tailcoat and white tie that Norma purchased for him, Joe strolls into Norma’s ballroom for the party… only to discover that he’s the only guest. Following an awkward tango, the two quarrel when he demands that she not fall in love with him. With less than an hour to midnight, Joe abandons the house “to be with people my own age… I had to hear somebody laugh again.”
The mission brings him to his pal Artie Green (Jack Webb)—self-described as “the Elsa Maxwell of assistant directors”—hosting his annual New Year’s Eve party in Las Palmas for a roomful of revelers including Artie’s girlfriend Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), whom Joe had met in a producer’s office months earlier. As he had hoped, the party is a refreshing change of scenery for Joe, who manages to score a bunk in Artie’s vacant room for a few weeks to engineer his escape from Norma.
Unfortunately, it isn’t even midnight yet when Norma’s dedicated valet—and former husband—Max (Erich von Stroheim) informs Joe that Norma cut her wrists with Joe’s razor, weaponizing Joe’s guilt to lure him back to the dreaded Desmond doorstep. Upstairs, Joe stands at Norma’s bedside, where the depressed diva threatens suicide if he leaves again, scored by the strains of “Auld Lang Syne” from the ballroom. Happy New Year indeed.
What’d He Wear?
Though white tie was far out of fashion among young revelers by the end of World War II—especially in the laidback atmosphere of Hollywood—Joe Gillis makes the case for the white tie dress code when he reluctantly dons his evening dress for New Year’s Eve. Norma had purchased the kit shortly after meeting Joe, when she had Max drive them to the “very best” men’s shop in Hollywood and insisted on outfitting him with a full wardrobe of proper evening attire.
Joe: I don’t need a tuxedo.
Norma: Of course you do! A tuxedo and tails, and—if you aren’t careful—you’ll get a cutaway!
Joe: Tails! That’s ridiculous.
Norma: You’ll need them for parties, you’ll need them for New Year’s Eve.
Weeks later, Joe understands what Norma meant when Max reminds him: “I better press your evening clothes, sir. Mr. Gillis has not forgotten Madame’s New Year’s party?” Clad in his freshly pressed white tie and tails, Joe responds to Norma’s praise (“I love that line!”) by assuring her that “it’s all padding, don’t let it fool you… you know, to me, getting dressed up was always just putting on my dark-blue suit.”
The formal attire looks appropriate in Norma’s “great big white elephant of a place,” but Joe looks glaringly out of touch after he ventures out among Hollywood revelers closer to his own age.
“Judas Priest! Who did you borrow that from, Adolphe Menjou?” Artie quips when Joe arrives in white tie and tails to his casual New Year’s Eve party.
The styling of a proper evening tailcoat has hardly charged since the mid-to-late 19th century, with only slight affectations to reflect an era’s specific tailoring. In Joe’s case, this may be only evident in the shoulders, which are structured with padding to be straight and wide, consistent with the fashionable menswear profile of the late 1940s—though this silhouette had also emerged in popularity through the previous decade, extended to white tie as exemplified on screen by stylish stars like Bing Crosby in Anything Goes (1936), William Powell in After the Thin Man (1936), and Cary Grant in The Awful Truth (1937).
Evening tailcoats resemble double-breasted tailoring with silk-faced peak lapels and three silk-covered buttons on each side of the front, though these buttons are purely vestigial and not designed to close. Styled with elegantly slanted gorges, Joe’s lapels are appropriately broad to harmonize with his tailcoat’s wider shoulders. The coat is waist-length around the front and sides, cutting away to the dramatic knee-length tails in the back—decorated by two black buttons along the rear waist line. The sleeves are also finished with three buttons at each cuff.
Lacking additional outer pockets, a welted breast pocket became increasingly standardized by the early 20th century; Joe appoints his with a white pocket square, though Norma adds a further decorative touch by pinning a white carnation to his left lapel.
The “white tie” dress code is so named for the prescribed white bow tie, traditionally made from cotton piqué (marcella) that matches the waistcoat and—if possible—shirt-front. Joe’s white cotton piqué bow tie is the conventional butterfly (thistle) shape, appropriately a self-tying model that wouldn’t show any clasps or adjusters against the exposed wing collar.
Joe’s white evening shirt has this requisite stiff wing collar (attached via studs through the front and back) as well as a stiff front bib with a single shining metal stud visible between the neckband and waistcoat opening, though Norma protests: “I don’t like the studs they sent. I want you to have a pearl—a big, luscious pearl!”
The studs presumably match the cuff links that Joe wears through the shirt’s single cuffs—an elegantly formal alternative to double (French) cuffs that are merely a single layer of fabric held together by links. The wing collar, stud-decorated front, and single cuffs are all preferred elements of white tie dress shirts.
Joe’s white formal waistcoat is appropriately the same cotton piqué material as his tie, properly cut with a high enough bottom so that it wouldn’t appear between the cutaway front of his tailcoat and his trousers. The waistcoat has a very low V-shaped opening framed by a squared-bottom shawl collar. Tailored with front darts, the waistcoat features two jetted pockets and three flat two-hole buttons, closely spaced on the front between the break point and the notched bottom.
Black barathea wool remained the traditional cloth for evening tailcoats and trousers, though—as with the less formal black tie dress code—midnight-blue emerged as a natty alternative during the interwar era of the 1920s and ’30s. Joe’s double reverse-pleated formal trousers would have been made from the same black or midnight wool as his tailcoat, with a long rise that properly conceals the waistband under the waistcoat.
The trousers are likely held up with suspenders (braces)—if I had to guess, white silk ones at that—which appropriately never appear on screen as suspenders were practically “underwear” during the era when full evening dress was standardized, meant to be hidden when the outfit was worn correctly.
The trousers have the conventional double galon of two black silk stripes running down along each leg’s outer side seam; double galon is typically reserved for white tie to distinguish it from the single-galon trousers worn with black tie. Side pockets are set-in along the seams to maintain an elegant minimalism while allowing gentlemen appropriate storage for items like keys, which Joe keeps in his right-hand pocket on a chain that connects under his waistcoat.
As Joe attempts to abandon the Desmond estate during a disastrous New Year’s Eve, his key-chain gets caught on the door handle… foreshadowing that he’s more inescapably trapped to the house—and its owner—than he thinks.
The plain-hemmed trouser bottoms break over the tops of Joe’s black leather plain-toe oxford shoes—the most widely accepted alternative to formal patent leather opera pumps (or “court shoes”). He also wears black dress socks, likely silk.
Norma’s sartorial gifts for her kept man appear to also include a fancy new wristwatch, consisting of an elegantly minimalist rectangular case with a squared white dial detailed with non-numeric hour indices. The silver-toned metal band resembles a “cordette” bracelet, with two prongs tapering out from each end that connects to the watch and banded together for a double-wired bracelet around Holden’s left wrist. In a concession to the formal guidelines preferring pocket watches for white tie, Joe wears this dressy cocktail watch with his evening dress.
Based on publicity photos that show him wearing the watch over a decade later, this was likely William Holden’s own personal timepiece. (Online discussion at WatchUSeek suggest either a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso or a Cartier Tank, the latter given Swanson’s long association with the brand.)
During their tango, Joe observes on his new watch that “it’s quarter past ten!” before asking about Norma’s non-existent fellow guests.
The camel-colored vicuña overcoat that Joe grabs from the closet before storming out of the house had also been purchased during their shopping trip to Hollywood. A salesman had presented Joe with both a camel’s-hair and the more expensive vicuña coats, quietly urging him to take the latter: “as long as the lady’s paying for it, why not take the vicuña?”
This premium wool is sourced from the fine hair of the vicuña (Lama vicugna), one of two wild camelids in South America, related to llamas and alpacas. The quality isn’t lost on Artie Green, who quips “what is this, mink?” before Joe dismissively balls his coat up and shoves it on a shelf.
Joe’s knee-length vicuña coat features an ulster collar and a four-button front—three buttons over his mid-section and a top button under the neck—though he typically prefers to just tie the belt around his waist, foregoing the belt’s buckle. The coat also has slanted side pockets, long double rear vents, and raglan sleeves that are finished with turnback cuffs that close with a single button in each upper corner.
What to Imbibe
“There’s always champagne on ice… plenty of caviar!” Joe later describes to Betty of life at the Desmond estate. Naturally, this extends to their New Year’s Eve celebration as Norma grabs the gilt-trimmed coupes of sparkling wine for Joe and herself.
Artie serves a much simpler punch at his party, urging his guests to “go easy on that punch bowl! Budget only calls for three drinks per extra.” Betty jokes that the recipe consists of two packages of cough drops dissolved in lukewarm grape juice, but we don’t get to hear the end of the bit as Joe is summoned back to an emergency at Norma’s.
How to Get the Look
William Holden in promotional photography for Sunset Boulevard (1950), sporting a top hat and gloves that didn’t make it into Joe Gillis’ New Year’s Eve kit.
Despite how out of touch he looks once removed from the Desmond estate, you can’t argue with Norma’s sense of taste as Joe Gillis’ immaculately tailored and traditionally informed full evening dress looks as elegant as intended.
- Black barathea wool evening dress tailcoat with silk-faced peak lapels, double-breasted 6×3-button arrangement, welted breast pocket, 3-button cuffs, and knee-length rear tails (with two decorative waist buttons)
- White cotton piqué 3-button formal waistcoat with squared lapels, V-shaped opening, and two jetted pockets
- Black barathea wool double reverse-pleated trousers with double black silk side galon, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
- White cotton piqué evening shirt with detachable stiff white collar, stiff shirt-front (with metal stud), and single cuffs (with metal links)
- White cotton piqué butterfly-shaped self-tying bow tie
- White silk suspenders
- Black leather plain-toe oxford shoes
- Black silk dress socks
- Camel-colored vicuña single-breasted knee-length overcoat with ulster collar, 4-button front, full belt (with buckle), slanted side pockets, raglan sleeves with single-button turnback cuffs, and long double vents
- Rectangular-cased dress watch with white square dial and dual-prong tapered steel “cordette” bracelet
- White pocket square
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
Has it ever occured to you that I might have a life of my own?
The post Sunset Boulevard: William Holden’s New Year’s Evening Dress appeared first on BAMF Style.