Alexander Skarsgård and Amir Khoury in The Little Drummer Girl (2018)

Vitals

Alexander Skarsgård as Gadi Becker, taciturn Mossad agent, and
Amir Khoury as Salim Al-Khadar, aka “Michel”, Palestinian revolutionary leader

Athens to Munich, Spring 1979

Series: The Little Drummer Girl (Episodes 1-3)
Air Date: October 28, 2018 to November 11, 2018
Director: Park Chan-wook
Costume Design: Sheena Napier & Steven Noble

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

John le Carré was one of the most prolific espionage authors, penning more than two dozen novels including The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and The Tailor of Panama, many of which were successfully adapted as movies or limited series that made the most of le Carré’s richly drawn worlds of deception.

Le Carré died in December 2020 at the age of 89, following in death within the month by his half-sister Charlotte Cornwall. Charlotte reportedly inspired the titular character at the center of his novel The Little Drummer Girl about a free-spirited, idealistic, and impressionable actress named Charmian “Charlie” Ross who gets pulled into the world of espionage.

Upon its publishing in 1983, The Little Drummer Girl was almost immediately adapted for the screen, its leading character transformed from a twentysomething Brit to an American in her thirties to accommodate Diane Keaton’s age and nationality. Decades later, BBC’s successful miniseries adaptation of le Carré’s The Night Manager encouraged the network to look at faithfully re-adapting The Little Drummer Girl, this time casting the eponymous Charlie as written with the excellent Oxford-born Florence Pugh.

Following a few sparingly attended performances in London, Charlie follows her theater friends on holiday in Greece, where she encounters the mysterious Peter who spirits her away to Athens… and eventually reveals that he’s an Israeli agent named Gadi Becker, hired to recruit her into the Mossad’s operation against a Palestinian terrorist group. Charlie’s acting experience and history of deception signals her ability—if not her enthusiasm—to play the role of the latest in a slew of young women seduced by the dashing bomber Salim Al-Khadar, known as “Michel”, who had used his manipulative charm to recruit vulnerable women as couriers in his dangerous network… until he was apprehended by agents led by Israeli spymaster Martin Kurtz (Michael Shannon), leaving Gadi to pose as Michel while traveling with Charlie across Europe to establish her credentials.

By establishing one of their own recruits as one of Michel’s trusted confidantes, Charlie’s Mossad handlers hope she can infiltrate the Palestinian revolutionary group and lead them to the leader, Salim’s enigmatic brother Khalil. Of course, as Charlie’s situation grows more dangerous, the reluctant double agent’s loyalties fall into question as the conflicted fledgling spy finds herself drawn to both her case officer Gadi and the Palestinian cause.

What’d They Wear?

The Real “Michel”

For most of the first episode, we primarily see the “real” Michel, Salim Al-Khadar, wearing his signature green jacket. The material is a rich and supple bottle green sueded leather, light-wearing but insulated enough to be an effective layer for transitional seasons like spring. (Indeed, the first few episodes are established to be set during the final days of March 1979, as opposed to the novel’s summer setting.)

Michel’s recognizable green suede jacket is a blouson, fitted at the waist hem with elasticized sides that the jacket “blouses” over. The front zip is reinforced by single brass-finished snaps at the top and bottom of the fly, though he never zips up more than halfway and thus leaves the neck open with the shirt-style collar laying flat. Though the jacket has set-in sleeves, there are seams that stretch diagonally over the chest from each armpit to the neck—raglan-style—from which a vertical seam extends down to the waist. A single brass-finished snap on each squared cuff echoes the hardware across the jacket, and there are two gently slanted hand pockets.

Michel oversees a bombing in West Germany.

Michel exclusively wears sporty red shirts with the green jacket, beginning with a coral-hued knitted shirt textured with a ridged self-stripe. The polo-style shirt has short set-in sleeves with narrow ribbed bands and a non-textured collar that matches the three-button placket. Michel fastens the bottom two of the three dark brown two-hole buttons, leaving the top undone.

Another signature of Michel’s attire is the silver arrowhead pendant he wears on a thin gold necklace, typically on the outside of his shirts but with the necklace chain under the collar (almost like a necktie).

Charlie creates a memory of Michel speaking to her through a letter.

Mossad agents surveil Michel returning to his Munich apartment, dressed in a trendier crimson shirt that would have been fashionable during the Saturday Night Fever era of the late ’70s with its disco-friendly fit, long-pointed collar, and his penchant for wearing half the mother-of-pearl buttons undone up the plain “French placket” front. The shirt is uniquely patterned with scattered but organized rust-shaded dots against the crimson ground, broken up by long, narrow, vertical shapes.

Michel works his manipulative charm under the watchful eyes of Mossad agents.

Inside the apartment, he wears plain black flat front trousers, but Michel otherwise prefers his uniquely textured stone-gray trousers detailed with dark, widely spaced stripes. These flat front trousers have side pockets, jetted back pockets (with a button through the left), and wide belt loops for his dark brown leather belt with its silver-toned rectangular single-prong buckle.

The short break of Michel’s fashionably flared trouser bottoms keep them clear above his cognac brown leather apron-toe tasseled loafers, though this also shows plenty of his dark brown socks. Le Carré describes Michel’s “Gucci shoes” that he stops to have polished on a promenade in Istanbul.

Detailed with braided straps across the vamps from which the tassels are hooked, these would be comfortable shoes for motoring across Europe for hundreds of miles.

Michel falls into a Mossad trap.

Once Michel is in Mossad custody, the agents are thorough in making sure Charlie is well-acquainted with every detail of her supposed lover, which even means pulling down the short black briefs he wears as underwear.

Mossad agents conduct thorough research in order to make sure Charlie is properly prepped for her role.

More instantly recognizable to the casual observer would be Michel’s flashy gold jewelry on his left hand, including a pinky ring with a flush-set diamond positioned toward the front of the round surface.

Michel’s gold Omega Constellation watch would be crucial to Gadi establishing his Michel “disguise”. Omega has issued many versions of the Constellation since its 1952 introduction, responsive to each era’s horological trends. In 1969, Omega introduced a streamlined Constellation with a square-shaped case and integrated five-piece link bracelet, and it’s this ref. BA 368.0847 that Michel prominently wears in The Little Drummer Girl. Powered by a 20-jewel automatic movement, this 18-karat solid yellow gold watch has a light gold squared dial with rounded edges, gold non-numeric hour markers, and a 3:00 date window.

You couldn’t ask for a better shot of the Omega or the ring!

Consistent with his playboy image and reputation, Michel also sports a pair of hip gold-framed aviator-style sunglasses with brown gradient-tinted lenses.

Le Carré describes the jewelry appropriated from Michel (also known as Yanuka in the novel) as “his fine gold watch by Cellini and his linked gold bracelet and the gold-plated charm that Yanuka liked to wear against his heart, believed to be a gift from his beloved sister Fatmeh,” in addition to “a pair of expensive Polaroid sunglasses.”

Gadi as Michel

When we meet Gadi during Charlie’s holiday in Greece, the squared gold Omega and shining pinky ring may indicate to some eagle-eyed viewers that something is awry, though he doesn’t fully assume Michel’s look until toward the end of this first episode. By this time, we know Michel is in Mossad custody, never to be freed again and only dressed in his signature threads when he needs to be identified after his death is arranged at the end of the third episode.

However, Charlie still remains blissfully ignorant as she follows the laconic man she knows as “Peter” through the Athens port to the red Mercedes-Benz which had just been, er, liberated from Michel at the border. It isn’t until she glimpses in the back seat that she sees a green jacket which raises a red flag…

“My mate has a jacket just like that,” Charlie suspiciously comments upon spotting Michel’s green suede jacket in the back of Gadi’s Mercedes. In le Carré’s novel, the coat in question is actually a red blazer with brass buttons.

Gadi slips on the jacket upon their arrival at the Acropolis, a spectacle that momentarily distracts Charlie enough to take her mind off of the familiar jacket, but the distinctive gold ring and watch are too many similarities for her to ignore. The lead-footed Gadi speeds an increasingly nervous Charlie back to the luxurious Mossad safe house, where she’s given a comprehensive—if truncated—briefing into her nerve-rattling mission.

Charlie learns that the first leg of her mission will be to establish a convincing background as the latest young woman to fall for the seductive charms of Michel’s seductive charms, with Gadi conveniently standing in for Michel. To make the guise more convincing, Gadi will continue appropriating Michel’s manner of dress, from his red shirts and green suede blouson to the distinctive jewelry and accessories.

Gadi completes the Michel look with his sunglasses.

From Gadi and Charlie’s arrival in Athens toward the end of the first episode and into the second, Gadi wears what appears to be the exact same coral red textured-stripe knitted short-sleeve polo shirt that Michel had worn during the opening bombing.

He may have the right clothes, but his homework left one detail unaddressed; Gadi indeed wears the arrowhead necklace over his shirt but neglects to tuck the chain under his collar as Michel had.

Gadi’s trousers illustrate another departure from Michel’s established style as he dresses in a pair of plum-colored cotton chinos. These flat front trousers have side pockets, button-through back pockets, and even the slightly flared plain-hemmed bottoms, but he also wears a black leather belt with a silver-toned single-prong buckle that not only differs from Michel’s brown belts, it also contrasts with his shoe leather.

Gadi wears Michel’s same cognac leather apron-toe loafers, with the scenes of his driving through Athens illustrating more unique detailing of these slip-on shoes like the braided leather straps across the vamps, over which the double tassel is looped. During this first day, he wears olive green ribbed cotton lisle socks.

Comfortable and well-fitting driving shoes are particularly an asset for cars with manual transmissions that require negotiating across three pedals.

Midway through Gadi and Charlie’s journey in the second episode and into the third, Gadi wears his most contemporary and unique shirt.

Bright red with white accents and large creamy off-white buttons, this short-sleeved Ban-Lon shirt has large, curved chest yokes that resemble the storm flaps on a trench coat, accented by a vestigial button at the inner corner of each “flap” positioned just above the open-top patch pocket on each side of the chest. The edges of both of these chest pockets, the shoulder flaps, and the large collar are all piped with double tan-and-white contrast stitching.

Gadi’s olive green flat front trousers are styled like his purple chinos, worn with the same black leather belt and brown braided-strap tassel loafers.

Beginning midway through the third episode, Gadi concludes his guise as Michel by wearing the green suede jacket over a silky red long-sleeved shirt that reflects a subtle tonal checkerboard pattern in certain light. He wears the top few flat pearl buttons undone on the narrow front placket.

This may be the most conventional shirt of the trio and is worn with the most conventional trousers, made from a plain stone-gray wool with gentle napping that suggests a lighter-weight flannel. These flat front trousers are styled the same as his others and also worn with the black leather belt and brown tassel loafers.

Aware that people notice details, Gadi is sure to wear the same distinctive gold pinky ring and squared Omega Constellation that Michel had sported on his left hand. Both Gadi and Michel are surrounded by colleagues in less expensive Sekonda watches (for Gadi, this includes fellow agent Shimon Litvak; for Michel, his brother Khalil), but Gadi remains in character with his gold Omega… suggesting that there may indeed be occasion for government agencies to issue Omega watches to their spies beyond the world of Bond!

A spy in an Omega!

Gadi also makes use of Michel’s sunglasses, the gold aviators with brown gradient-tinted lenses in the rectangular frames.

The fourth episode reveals how the Mossad’s plan all comes together as their own surveillance photos of Gadi and Charlie are doctored to position Michel’s head over Gadi’s.

In the same episode, Gadi wears the green suede blouson for a final time, more to “get in character” as he gives Charlie shooting lessons in the English forest. In this instance, he wears it with his own clothing, layering it under his well-worn brown leather flight jacket with a navy turtleneck and jeans.

Promotional photo of Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgård in The Little Drummer Girl.
Photo: Jonathan Olley/AMC/Ink Factor

The Gun

The “real” Michel is never prominently armed, but Gadi carries an M11911A1 semi-automatic pistol that he reveals to Charlie before slipping it under his pillow in one of the hotels they patronize while driving across Europe. Later in England, Gadi would again draw this pistol when teaching Charlie how to shoot and familiarizing her with Khalil’s preferred weapon.

Gadi reveals his .45.

The venerable M1911 semi-automatic pistol was designed by John Browning and introduced into U.S. military service in the years leading up to World War I. During the ’20s, the pistol was upgraded with a shorter trigger, arched spring housing, and longer hammer and spur, designated the M1911A1.

1911-style pistols are primarily associated with the .45 ACP cartridge that Browning had designed in 1904 for his prototypes that would eventually become the M1911 and M1911A1 series, though 1911s have been produced in multiple different calibers from .22 LR and 9×19 mm Parabellum to .38 Super and .455 Webley Auto, depending on usage and country of service.

The Car

Part of the Israeli team’s gambit includes obtaining an additional red Mercedes-Benz W123 like the 230E sedan that Michel famously drives across Europe, though the specific screen-used E-Class sedans have been identified by IMCDB as a 1983 model, making it slightly anachronistic for the 1979 setting. (Le Carré’s source novel describes “the polished wine-red Mercedes—not new, but handsome enough.”)

If one red W123 is admirable, imagine having two!

E-Class? 230E? W123? How many different names does this car have?

“E-Class” refers to Mercedes-Benz’s platform of mid-range executive cars that has been continuously produced since 1953, though it wasn’t until the early ’90s that the German automaker formally adopted the E-Class nomenclature. Each generation of the E-segment is differentiated by its one-letter and three-digit code, beginning with the W120 in the ’50s, the W110 in the ’60s, and the W114 and W115 that was produced from 1968 to 1976 and which featured in the 1984 adaptation of The Little Drummer Girl.

Mercedes-Benz introduced its W123 sedan for 1976, which would be expanded to include the C123 coupe, V123 and F123 extended wheelbase, and S123 estate wagon. Within the W123’s ten-year timeline, there were multiple different sub-generations, culminating in a “third series” introduced in September 1982. Within these were sub-models named for engine displacement, chassis, and fuel delivery and system. Thus, Michel’s 230E driven in The Little Drummer Girl would refer to the 2299 cc engine (230) with Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection (E) as opposed to, say, the 200T, a wagon powered by a 1997 cc engine with a carburetor or the 300CD, a diesel-fueled coupe with a 3005 cc engine.

1983 Mercedes-Benz 230E

Body Style: 4-door full-size executive sedan

Layout: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

Engine: 2299 cc (2.3 L) Mercedes-Benz M102 E 23 I4 with Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection

Power: 134 hp (100 kW; 136 PS) @ 5100 rpm

Torque: 151 lb·ft (205 N·m) @ 3500 rpm

Transmission: 4-speed manual

Wheelbase: 116.5 inches (2960 mm)

Length: 199.2 inches (5060 mm)

Width: 73.6 inches (1870 mm)

Height: 56.3 inches (1430 mm)

More than 2.6 million W123 automobiles were manufactured before production transferred to the new W124 generation from 1986 through 1994. Beginning in in 1993, Mercedes-Benz officially adopted the “E-Class” designation that would be used for the W124, W210, W211, W212, and current W213 generations.

What to Imbibe

Gadi isn’t much of a drinker (at least not as much as some other Omega-wearing spies), but he and Charlie do toast to their mission with a shot of vodka each.

“As a man, I naturally drink more than you. I don’t drink well; alcohol gives me a headache, occasionally it makes me sick. But vodka is what I like,” he instructs Charlie in the novel, informing the spirit of choice seen frequently across nearly each episode fhte series.

Cheers!

Later in Munich, room service brings them a 1974 vintage Riesling with the fictional “Ribaroff” label. In the same scene, he pours Charlie some of the equally fictional “Korolevska” vodka with a dash of lemonade.

How to Get the Look

Alexander Skarsgård as Gadi Becker in The Little Drummer Girl (2018) (Photo by Jonathan Olley/AMC/Ink Factory via AP)

In his distinctive bottle green suede jacket, red shirts, and gold jewelry—including that gold contemporary Omega Constellation—terrorist Michel sets a straightforward template for Mossad agent Gadi Becker to follow when stealing his style for a trip across the continent.

• Green suede blouson jacket with shirt-style collar, zip-up fly with top and bottom snaps, slanted side pockets, and set-in sleeves with single-snap cuffs
• Red short-sleeved polo or button-up sport shirt
• Flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, button-through back pockets, and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark leather belt with rectangular single-prong buckle
• Cognac brown leather apron-toe tassel-strap loafers
• Dark brown socks
• Silver arrowhead pendant on thin gold necklace
• Omega Constellation BA 368.0847 yellow gold square-cased automatic watch with squared gold dial (with non-numeric hour markers and 3:00 date window) on integrated five-piece link bracelet
• Gold pinky ring with small diamond on round ridged surface
• Gold-framed aviator sunglasses with brown gradient-tinted lenses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, described by Troy Patterson for The New Yorker as “a chic, surreal adaptation… that approaches spy craft as a form of experimental art”, and read John le Carré’s 1983 novel.

I’ll be returning to the series this summer to take a look at some of Gadi’s beach looks when he’s undercover in Greece, laying the foundation for ultimately seducing Charlie into the Mossad’s service.

The Quote

The good news is… I’ve lied to you as little as possible.

The post The Little Drummer Girl: Michel’s Green Suede Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 2.04: “Three Sundays”)

Vitals

Jon Hamm as Don Draper, mysterious ad man and wannabe family man

Ossining, New York, Spring 1962

Series: Mad Men
Episode: “Three Sundays” (Episode 2.04)
Air Date: August 17, 2008
Director: Tim Hunter
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

The anthological fourth episode of Mad Men‘s second season checks in with our regulars—particularly Don Draper and Peggy Olsen—with explorations of parenting and piety leading up to Easter Sunday 1962.

April 8th is the first in this trio of Sundays, beginning with Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) joining her ultra-Catholic family for church services in Brooklyn. Forty miles north in Ossining, Don (Jon Hamm) and Betty (January Jones) are engaging in their own sort of religious experience when they’re interrupted mid-coitus by their hungry children. No word on whether or not the Draper kids get their desired Raisin Bran, but the parents enjoy liquid breakfasts via bottomless Bloody Marys mixed and served by eight-year-old Sally (Kiernan Shipka) while the younger Bobby (Aaron Hart) mischievously plays DJ when he defies his mother’s orders by interfering with Mr. C crooning from the hi-fi. (Don may not mind the interruption as he scoffs that Perry Como “makes everything sound like Christmas.”)

Despite Don’s recent foray back into the world of infidelity and Betty letting her mind wander to the young man who recommended she read F. Scott Fitzgerald (hence the copy of Babylon Revisited and Other Stories in her hands), she insists Don join her in dancing to “Blue Room”, one of her favorite songs from her high school dances. (This timing checks out as Como recorded this Rodgers and Hart-penned hit twice in 1948, the same year Betty celebrated her sweet sixteen.)

“Betty and Don’s story frays one more strand in their marital bond, but this time the culprit is different parenting values rather than Don’s insensitivity and secrecy,” writes Matt Zoller Seitz in his biblical volume Mad Men Carousel: The Complete Critical Companion. Seitz describes Bobby as “a one-boy wrecking crew” whose various misbehaviors threaten the “household détente” between Betty’s preference for corporal punishment and Don’s more hands-off approach. That’s not an endorsement of Don the Dad, as his oft-dismissive attitude toward the children he undoubtedly loves will mess them up in other ways, but—when he finds the patience—he chooses to talk and listen, having learned from his own childhood that all being beaten by his father did “was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him.”

What’d He Wear?

From my style writer’s eyes, “Three Sundays” is always a delight to watch as it’s one of the first episodes where we see a few of Don Draper’s off-duty looks when he’s not dressing for work as the quintessential man in the gray flannel suit. We got our first casual looks in “Marriage of Figaro” (Episode 1.03) where Don dressed for manual labor and then hosting a party, but “Three Sundays” meets in the middle as he’s dressed solely for intimate comfort with Betty and the kids, not even bothering to slip into some shoes as he rests his stockinged feet on Betty’s lap.

Don’s dark brown cotton lisle socks are similar to those he typically wears to work, detailed with repeating beige chevrons down the sides that enclose a tonal diagonal striping over the bridge of each foot. The toes are finished with the gold Irish linen thread that Great American Knitting Mills of Berks County, Pennsylvania introduced during the Great Depression to differentiate its durable “Gold Toe” brand.

A terse moment in the Draper household before Perry Como livens things up.

Don’s brown sports shirt and khaki slacks recall the long-sleeved linen shirt and trousers he wore when building Sally’s dollhouse in “Marriage of Figaro”, though this outfit is a little more presentable with the shirt a softer, heavier-weight cloth, more resistant to wrinkling. Don wears the loop collar open at the neck, the placket detailed with tonal brown braided thread along each edge.

Excepting the top button placed under the right collar leaf, there are five brown plastic two-hole buttons through contrasting blue-threaded buttonholes on the placket. Stitched just below the second button down from the neck is a trio of unique, colorful embroidery: a blue spiny leaf at the top above two overlapping diamonds, the center diamond embroidered in a rust-colored thread while the lower diamond is embroidered in two alternating blue threads. The shirt also has two patch chest pockets, finished across the top with a straight, horizontal welt. Don keeps the ends of the long sleeves unbuttoned and rolled up his forearms.

The colorful embroidery on Don’s placket sets his brown Sunday sports shirt apart.

Like many American servicemen who returned with home with a greater appreciation for their light-wearing khaki chino trousers, Don frequently presses his various pairs of beige-hued cotton chinos into service around the house.

The trousers worn for Don’s lazy Sunday with Betty may be the same ones seen later in the episode when prepping pancakes for the kids. These flat front trousers have slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, with a button-through closure, and plain hems at the bottom of each straight leg. Don’s untucked shirt covers the trouser waistband, but he may be wearing the same slim dark brown leather belt that would be tonally appropriate with his brown shirt.

The khaki trousers that had looked so nicely pressed the previous Sunday appear considerably more worn-in a week later when it’s time to make the pancakes.

The previous episode, “The Benefactor” (Episode 2.03), depicts Don getting his watch back from Betty after she had it engraved… and just after he cheats on her with the domineering Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw) for the first time. He would wear this yellow gold Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Classique dress watch throughout the second and third seasons, no longer wearing it after divorcing Betty as its sentimental inscription no longer applied.

JLC pioneered the Reverso Classique in 1931, specifically targeting its reversible hard steel case toward polo players who would want to protect their watch faces during play without having to remove the timepieces. According to an AMC interview with Mad Men‘s property master Gay Perello, Jon Hamm was initially reluctant to switch from the watch he wore during the first season:

Showing it to Jon on the first day… he said, “I’m kind of a round watch face guy.” And I said, “Well, we talked about that, but let’s look at this cool little feature that you can play with.” Then he said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, this will work,” and he started to really like it… And then [Matthew Weiner] had wrote in an episode that Betty takes his watch to have it engraved, so it got to have a little more play than we thought it would.

Ever notice how days spent doing nothing can tucker you out more than usual? (Then again, days welcomed by vodka in the morning tend to be tiring for their own reasons.)

What to Imbibe

Mad Men is famous for its characters’ penchant frequent—and often irresponsible—drinking, among other vices, so there should be little surprise that Don and Betty are lubricating their lazy Sunday with Bloody Mary cocktails… and not much more of a surprise that it’s their precocious eight-year-old daughter Sally who’s ultimately tasked with mixing the concoctions. (After all, it was just two episodes earlier that Sally had proven her mastery of both the Old Fashioned and Tom Collins.)

Don and Betty’s first Bloody Marys may have had more of the signature fixins like lemon or lime, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, or celery, but round two calls for nothing less fancier than the vodka and tomato juice.

“Here’s number two, thsir,” Sally serves her father, having mixed the simple drink by pouring a few splashes of Libby’s tomato juice over a highball glass full of Wolfschmidt vodka and ice. Though it’s now a bottom-shelf vodka often packaged in plastic and sold by the handle, Wolfschmidt was a more prestigious marque in the ’50s and ’60s, cited as the preference of MI6 chief “M” in the third James Bond novel, Moonraker, and an in-universe favorite of Mad Men‘s Roger Sterling (John Slattery), who stipulates it for his Gibson martini six episodes later in “Six-Month Leave” (Episode 2.09).

Jon Hamm and January Jones on Mad Men (Episode 2.04: “Three Sundays”)

How to Get the Look

Don Draper illustrates how dressing for a lazy day around the house doesn’t have to mean that old sweatshirt and pajama pants, balancing presentable and practical in his uniquely detailed brown sports shirt, untucked over his broken-in khakis and accessorized with that classic JLC Reverso: the perfect attire for a laidback Sunday of vegging, vodka, and very slow dancing.

• Brown sports shirt with embroidered placket (with braided edges), loop collar, two chest pockets, and button cuffs
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• Khaki chino cotton flat front trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark brown slim leather belt with gold-toned square single-prong buckle
• Dark brown cotton lisle “gold-toe” socks with beige mini-chevron side stripes
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Classique wristwatch with a gold case, square white dial, and brown alligator leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the whole series.

Also, keep an eye on upcoming posts as a special treat will be coming for Mad Men fans soon!

The Quote

I thought we weren’t doing anything today.

The post Mad Men: Don’s Embroidered Brown Shirt for the First of “Three Sundays” appeared first on BAMF Style.

Michael Goodliffe as Thomas Andrews in A Night to Remember (1958)

Vitals

Michael Goodliffe as Thomas Andrews, shipbuilder

North Atlantic Ocean, April 1912

Film: A Night to Remember
Release Date: July 3, 1958
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Costume Designer: Yvonne Caffin

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

109 years ago, around 11:40 p.m. on the night of Sunday, April 14, 1912, the celebrated luxury liner RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean, sinking within three hours, resulting in the deaths of more than 1,500 of the 2,200 on board.

Among the dead were many instrumental in the ship’s operations including its captain Edward J. Smith, three of his officers, and Irish-born shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, who oversaw the design of the Titanic and her two sister ships from the time they were conceptualized for the White Star Line five years earlier. As was his practice as a managing director for Harland and Wolff, Andrews and his “guarantee group” would travel on their new ships during their maiden voyages to observe any issues or improvements that would be needed.

The real Thomas Andrews, photographed in 1911, the year before he died during the Titanic disaster.

Andrews spent the first four days of the Titanic‘s voyage noting primarily cosmetic changes needed to the “ship of dreams”, until Smith summoned him from his cabin shortly after the ship struck the iceberg. Following a brief tour, Andrews gloomily surmised that the extent of Titanic‘s damage made it a “mathematical certainty” that she would sink, likely within the hour and certainly with only enough room in the lifeboats for little more than half the passengers and crew on board.

Fans of James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster may recognize Andrews as the character so affably played by Victor Garber, apologizing to Kate Winslet’s “young Rose” that he didn’t build her a stronger ship. As with many aspects of Cameron’s drama, several scenes featuring Thomas Andrews—such as his “mathematical certainty” assurance, advising a young couple on their escape, and being asked if he wasn’t even “going to make a try for it?”—were, er, inspired by A Night to Remember, Roy Ward Baker’s 1958 docudrama adapted from Walter Lord’s definitive book about the sinking.

Just as the 1997 Titanic benefitted from the kind, avuncular presence of Garber’s Andrews, A Night to Remember featured the smart casting of reliable character actor Michael Goodliffe to play Andrews, bringing to life the hardworking shipbuilder’s reputation for honesty and humility.

Born in Cheshire in 1914, Goodliffe was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the British Army soon after World War II. He was captured—and mistakenly reported as killed—during the Battle of Dunkirk, serving out the rest of the war in a German prison camp, where he produced, acted in, and often wrote plays to entertain his fellow prisoners.

Goodliffe resumed his acting career following the war, lending an authoritative but affable presence to playing military figures and professionals in films like The 39 Steps (1959) and Sink the Bismarck! (1960), both starring his A Night to Remember co-star Kenneth More, and even an uncredited appearance as MI6 chief of staff Bill Tanner in Roger Moore’s second James Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).

The last we see of Thomas Andrews, he’s seated in the first-class smoking lounge during Titanic‘s final moments. I’ve always loved Goodliffe’s expression as he steals a look at his watch, allowing Andrews one silent moment perhaps marveling at how long his ship actually lasted, surpassing even his most generous estimates by about an hour.

What’d He Wear?

Thomas Andrews dresses for what begins as a quiet Sunday evening aboard Titanic in a subdued three-piece suit, likely made from a conservative dark gray or navy woolen cloth with a subtle self-stripe effect.

The ventless single-breasteed lounge jacket is tailored in the typical fashion of the later Edwardian era, following the trends of shorter sack suits. The notch lapels end above a four-button front that Andrews typically wears with only the top button done. The shoulders are gently padded, and the sleeves are finished with four-button cuffs. The jacket has a welted breast pocket and straight flapped hip pockets.

As the Titanic settles into the ocean around them, Andrews walks past W.T. Stead (Henry Campbell, in his uncredited sole film appearance) reading in the first-class smoking room. The 62-year-old Stead had indeed been observed, quietly reserved to his fate, sitting with a book in the smoking room. Eerily, he had published a short story in 1886 titled “How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic by a Survivor” about the consequences of a fictional unnamed ocean liner that sank in the Atlantic Ocean without enough lifeboats for everyone aboard.

The suit’s matching single-breasted waistcoat (vest) has a high-fastening six-button front, which he wears fully fastened down to the notched bottom. The short notch lapels are an old-fashioned detail that become less common in the decades to follow. The satin-finished back has an adjustable strap, and the front is detailed with four welted pockets.

Andrews wears his pocket watch in his lower right waistcoat pocket, the chain looped “double Albert”-style across the waistcoat with a squared diamond-shaped fob hanging near the fifth button.

More attuned to Titanic‘s operations than almost anyone else aboard, Andrews awakens from sleep to instantly notice that the ship’s engines have stopped.

The flat front suit trousers appropriately rise to conceal the waist line under the waistcoat, and it’s only when Andrews has his jacket off while poring over the ship’s blueprints in his stateroom that we glimpse the white suspenders (braces) he wears to hold them up. These trousers have on-seam side pockets and back pockets with a button to close the right one, and the bottoms appear to be finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

Andrews’ white shirt is the most dated part of his outfit, due to the detachable stiff standing collar he secures in place with gold studs through the front and back of his neck. Fastened with a set of light metal rectangular cuff links, his single cuffs function like the double (French) cuffs more commonly seen today, though without the extra fold of fabric. He also wears sleeve garters just above each elbow, another now-dated element that was common during this era to allow gents to either adjust the length of their sleeves or to keep their cuffs out of the way while working.

While the texture of knitted ties may pair well with coarser fabrics like tweed or slubbier silks and linens, an understated knitted silk tie can also add an interesting dimension to some business suits.

I’ve read that the knitted tie’s origins date back to at least the roaring ’20s, though I’m certain I’ve seen some photographic evidence of gents knotting on knitted neckwear during the decade previous, which would align with when Titanic sailed in the spring of 1912. Nearly a half-century later, knitted ties were being revived in response to the post-World War II “Bold Look” fashions, the subtle yin to the wide and wild “kipper tie” yang. By the early ’60s, the slim and solid-colored knitted tie would reach its greatest heights, embraced by pop cultural heroes from the Beatles to Bond.

Michael Goodliffe’s Andrews wears a very dark silk knit tie with a tie pin positioned just below the knot, securing the tie centimeters above the top of the high-fastening waistcoat.

At this point in time, dark leather lace-ups were the most acceptable footwear with business suits and Andrews is no exception with his cap-toe oxfords, likely constructed with black leather uppers.

“You said you were going to drink the whole bottle!” Andrews walks past passengers taunting each other as they raid the first-class smoking room’s liquor stash during the Titanic‘s final moments. The gent taking the bottle of Gordon’s gin to the mouth is almost certainly based on the observations of 17-year-old Jack Thayer, who saw a man doing just that as the Titanic was sinking and later recognized him as a prominent Philadelphia banker (suggested to be Robert W. Daniel, who survived the sinking.)

Four years before Titanic sank, Thomas Andrews married his wife Helen Reilly Barbour, with whom he had a daughter, Elizabeth. Though the more widespread practice of men wearing wedding rings was still decades away, Andrews is depicted wearing a wedding band, consistent with his legacy as a devoted family man.

Andrews briefly wears an engineering coat when touring the ship before the disaster, though he unfortunately never get to see him wear the black wool coat with astrakhan fur collar that we see hanging on the back of his stateroom door.

Andrews leaves his warm (and stylish) coat behind when he leaves his cabin for the final time… perhaps all too tragically aware that he won’t be in a position to live to need warmth as the night would go on.

Only briefly seen but certainly worthy of discussion would be Andrews’ outfit when joining White Star Line leaders on the bridge as Titanic departed Southampton four days earlier. The Irish shipbuilder’s attire is considerably more festive, if less dressy, with a thin-striped wool suit layered over an odd waistcoat, topped by a Shepherd’s check tweed flat cap.

Andrews wears another standing collar with his shirt, this time with a foulard silk tie consisting of a neat arrangement of small squares against a dark ground. The odd waistcoat is made from a light-colored and soft napped flannel with five mother-of-pearl buttons and a dark contrasting “tape” piping along the edges, including the jetting along the two hip pockets.

Andrews wears a considerably jauntier outfit for Titanic‘s departure from Southampton on April 10, consistent with the celebratory nature of the ship departing on its maiden voyage.

What to Imbibe

Believing the hardworking Andrews to need a break, the ship’s surgeon Dr. William Francis O’Laughlin (Joseph Tomelty), arrives at his stateroom with “sound medical advice” in the form of a bottle of Black & White Scotch whisky and charged water so that the two Irishmen may indulge in highballs that distract Andrews from the number of screws on the stateroom coat hooks.

Bottoms up!

How to Get the Look

Michael Goodliffe as Thomas Andrews in A Night to Remember (1958)

A Night to Remember strove to represent historical accuracy to the extent that it was known at the time, so it’s no surprise that Titanic‘s builder Thomas Andrews dresses almost identically to how he was photographed in real life. Additionally impressive is the fact that a slight adjustment in fit and swapping in a modern shirt with an attached turndown collar is all that would be needed for Andrews’ sober three-piece suit to be fashionable in a gent’s closet more than a century later.

• Dark self-striped wool business suit:
  • Single-breasted 4-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Single-breasted 6-button waistcoat with short notch lapels, four welted pockets, satin-finished back with adjustable strap, and notched bottom
  • Flat front trousers with on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with detachable standing collar and single cuffs
  • Light metal rectangular cuff links
• Black knitted silk tie
• Tie pin
• Black leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Pocket watch with “double Albert”-style chain

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie as well as Walter Lord’s exhaustively researched book that provided much of the source material.

The Quote

She’s going to sink, Captain.

The post A Night to Remember: Michael Goodliffe as Thomas Andrews appeared first on BAMF Style.

Walter Matthau as Henry Graham in A New Leaf (1971)

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Walter Matthau as Henry Graham, self-serving profligate

New York City, Summer 1969

Film: A New Leaf
Release Date: March 11, 1971
Director: Elaine May
Costume Designer: Anthea Sylbert
Tailor: Roland Meledandri

Background

I’d long been intrigued by Elaine May’s directorial debut A New Leaf, released 50 years ago this spring, but it was an Instagram story posted by my friend Jonathan (@berkeley_breathes) showcasing Walter Matthau’s dapper wardrobe that finally prompted me to watch this offbeat classic.

Matthau brings his characteristically cantankerous charisma to to role of Henry Graham, a wasteful heir gradually blowing his family fortune on capricious spending from his immaculately tailored wardrobe to weekly maintenance for his Ferrari. The wry family lawyer Beckett (William Redfield) is tasked with managing the unmanageable Graham, who ducks Beckett’s calls of cautions as long as he can… until his last check bounces.

Despite his extravagant lifestyle, Graham is shocked by the dishonored check, prompting Beckett to patiently explain the basic principles of finance: “Your expenses have exceeded your income to such a point that you have exhausted your capital. Now, you have no capital, no income, and therefore no funds for the check, you see.” Beckett even reverts to plain English (“you have no money”) to explain his “financial downfall”, though Graham chooses to remain ignorant of the decisions leading to his current indigence, concluding their business relationship by gifting the layer a gold cigarette case, ostensibly to cover the $550 overdraft that Beckett has personally covered for him. “You may have these, too,” Graham declares as he spills the remaining cigarettes out onto Beckett’s desk.

“They’re non-filtered. Smoke them in good health.”

Graham parts ways with his lavish lifestyle as he makes the rounds of Manhattan in his abused Ferrari, including visits to Lutèce, the polo stables, and the tailor who has so attentively cut him for his rotation of stylish suits. Arriving home, he admits his situation to his butler, Harold (George Rose), who quickly puts the idea in Graham’s mind that he could find money in marriage… “the only way to acquire property without labor.” Confirmed bachelor Graham hates the idea but Harold—acting from a sense of self-preservation as he’s all too aware of the scant demand for a “gentleman’s gentleman”—reminds him: “If you do not commit suicide, sir, you will be poor… poor in the only real sense of the word, sir, in that you will not be rich. You will have a little after you’ve sold everything, but in a country where every man is what he has, he who has very little is nobody very much. There’s no such thing as genteel poverty here.”

Graham increasingly adjusts to the idea of marrying for money, securing a loan from his despotic uncle Harry (James Coco) and choosing a bride in the awkward form of wealthy botanist Henrietta Lowell (Elaine May). On the eve of their wedding, Henrietta’s larcenous and suspiciously lovestruck lawyer Andrew McPherson (Jack Weston) brings the couple together at Graham’s apartment to confront them with the terms of the loan, which stipulated that he had six weeks to marry or he’d forfeit all of his remaining property to his uncle. Just when McPherson thinks he has Henry trapped with his signature on the loan, Graham saves his hide—and his butler’s job—by claiming that he was going to use the $50,000 to tide up his affairs before ending his life, deciding only to continue living after he met Henrietta.

What’d He Wear?

Henry Graham takes particular pride in his wardrobe—and for good reason—with one of his sentimental stops during his nostalgic tour of New York being to visit his tailor. Matthau’s on-screen wardrobe was tailored by Roland Meledandri, the esteemed cutter whose East 56th Street shop catered to celebrities like Paul Newman and Robert Redford. The shop door names Graham’s on-screen tailor as “Silvestri”, played by an uncredited actor who I read was portrayed by Meledandri himself, though the photos I’ve seen of Meledandri don’t match the actor we see on screen.

Graham cycles through more than a dozen suits and sport jackets on screen, though this dark gray pinstripe wool suit appears in some of A New Leaf‘s most pivotal scenes, cut and detailed in Meledandri’s signature manner as described in Bernardine Morris’ profile of the tailor that appeared in The New York Times in November 1971, seven months after the release of A New Leaf:

When [Meledandri] opened his men’s shop in 1961, the fashion‐conscious males were all clad in “New Haven Ivy League Brooks Brothers clothes,” he recalled. “Even the custom tailors were doing the Brooks Brothers look.” As a partner in another men’s clothing store, where the customers were overwhelmingly conservative, he decided to play his hunch and do a different type of suit in a shop of his own. “I always admired old‐fashioned British tailored clothing,” said Mr. Meledandri, whose heritage is Italian. He consequently introduced the shaped suit with wide lapels, and to emphasize its bravado added wide ties and dark patterned shirts. It served as a prototype for the men’s fashion revolution that came a few years later.

Dressed in one of the cutter’s sharp wares, Graham can’t bring himself to end his association with his tailor.

The silhouette of Graham’s suit recalls “golden era” tailoring of the interwar era, the ventless double-breasted jacket rigged with broad, full-bellied peak lapels and configured in the traditional 6×2-button arrangement. The shoulders are padded and roped at the sleeveheads, the end of each sleeve finished with four buttons at the cuff. Jetted pockets are positioned straight along each hip, and Graham dresses the welted breast pocket with a scarlet red silk pocket square folded to show three points.

While not yet dressed the part, Graham comes to terms with the fact that… “I’m poor.”

Graham’s desperation reaches new heights when his mirror reflects his image no longer clad in his well-cut pinstripe suit but a poorly fitting version of the same. “You can’t top Hart Schaffner and Marx!” he hears a tacky salesman pitch him, offering “the best suit you can find in ready-to-wear!” Those last three words are anathema to Graham, who can’t stand the sight of himself dressed in anything that wasn’t crafted by his tailor.

Henry Graham gets a horrific preview of life without a tailor.

Graham’s tie is patterned in a small-scaled black-and-white houndstooth check, often colloquialized as “puppytooth”.

Graham considers if his lawyer would really go to the length of having one of his checks bounce in order to prompt him to call him back.

As part of Graham’s old-fashioned approach to dressing, he favors the contrast-collar dress shirts often marketed as “Winchester shirts” in commemoration of Oliver Fisher Winchester, the 19th century haberdasher-turned-rifle producer, according to Gentleman’s Gazette.

Graham takes this formal shirt a step further with a white point collar that not only contrasts against the body of the shirt but can be attached to the collarless shirt neckband via gold stud-buttons. Detached collars had been falling from popularity ever since the advent of shirts with attached collars during the roaring ’20s, with all but the most formal classes adopting this more convenient style by mid-century. Even though they were practically passe by the time he was born, Graham maintains a persistent preference for detachable collars as their fastidious appearance and upper-class associations befit his haughty personality.

The fussy detached collar is best maintained with the help of a loyal “gentleman’s gentleman” like Harold.

The first shirt Graham wears with this suit is patterned in thin gray and white stripes, detailed with a front placket and double (French) cuffs that fasten through rounded metal links.

The suit’s matching flat front trousers have straight side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs), as well as loops for the black leather belt with its polished silver rectangular single-prong buckle.

Stripped down to neckband shirt and trousers, Graham prepares to advance from the suit-and-tie portion of his day into the dressing gown-and-scarf portion of his evening.

Part of Graham’s nightly routine includes Harold helping his master into his more leisure-oriented evening-wear, including replacing his shoes with more comfortable velvet slippers. With this suit, he wears black calf derby shoes and black socks.

Despite learning of his employer’s financial situation, Harold dutifully pulls off Henry’s black leather lace-ups and replaces them with black velvet slippers.

Once Graham’s comfortably in his slippers, Harold helps him off with his jacket, tie, and collar, replacing all with a dark shawl-collar belted dressing gown in green, burgundy, and navy paisley, completing the look with a bright scarlet red scarf and a white pocket square before “respectfully” giving Graham his two weeks notice.

Harold finishes dressing Graham for the evening by folding a white display kerchief into the breast pocket of his dressing gown.

When McPherson confronts Graham and Henrietta with Uncle Harry’s loan, Graham wears the same suit and tie, though he’s wearing a different Winchester shirt with a solid light blue cotton body.

As a fastidious dresser, Henry Graham was likely more offended by Andy McPherson’s garish suit and tie than he was by his attempts to prevent his marriage to Henrietta.

Given how rigorously Graham drives his Ferrari, he was well-advised to equip himself with the appropriate racing gear from his black perforated leather driving gloves to that plain white racing helmet with black leather padding and chinstrap.

The closing credits cite all jewelry was “courtesy of Cartier, Inc.,” which likely also extends to Graham’s gold tank watch with its white rectangular dial, secured to his left wrist on a black leather strap.

What to Imbibe

As Henry Graham admits his new financial situation to his straight-talking butler, Harold, Harold pours him a carefully measured highball of whiskey and water, evidently another part of Graham’s beloved evening routine.

Harold pours Graham a much-needed drink.

Despite A Night to Remember being one of my favorite movies, I hardly recognized actor George Rose as Harold, a little more cautiously measuring the components for his master’s highball than he was when swilling Johnnie Walker as Charles Joughin, Titanic‘s chief baker whose inebriated state may have fortified him against hours in the freezing Atlantic Ocean, possibly saving his life.

More than a decade before he played Henry Graham’s butler, George Rose showed he knew a thing or two about tippling as Titanic‘s chief baker, Charles Joughin, resigning himself to a fate full of whisky and water in A Night to Remember.

Harold serves Graham’s spirits from a glass decanter, so it’s not certain what he’s drinking, but—assuming it’s whisky—we know Graham approves of the Ballantine’s 21-Year-Old variety of blended Scotch as we see him funneling into his flasks to prepare for a canoe trip with Henrietta in the Adirondacks.

How to Get the Look

Walter Matthau as Henry Graham in A New Leaf (1971)

Turn over “a new leaf” in your style this spring, embracing a re-opening world by dressing up a classic gray pinstripe double-breasted business suit with a contrast collar shirt and colorful pocket square.

• Gray pinstripe wool tailored suit:
  • Double-breasted 6×2-button jacket with wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, ventless back
  • Flat front trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Gray-and-white striped cotton shirt with neckband, front placket, and double/French cuffs
  • White detachable point collar with gold stud fastening
  • Round metal cuff links
• Black-and-white houndstooth silk tie
• Black leather belt with polished silver rectangular single-prong buckle
• Black calf leather cap-toe derby shoes
• Black socks
• Cartier Tank gold dress watch with white rectangular dial on black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I have no skill, no resources, no ambition. All I am—or was—is rich, and that’s all I ever wanted to be.

The post A New Leaf: Walter Matthau’s Gray Pinstripe Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

James Stewart as agent John “Chip” Hardesty in The FBI Story (1959)

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James Stewart as John “Chip” Hardesty, earnest FBI agent

Oklahoma, June 1930

Film: The FBI Story
Release Date: October 1959
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Costume Designer: Adele Palmer

Background

One of the greatest stars of the 20th century, James Stewart—known to friends and fans as “Jimmy”—was born on this day in 1908 in Indiana, Pennsylvania, just about an hour west of Pittsburgh.

Among the less celebrated titles in the actor’s extensive filmography is The FBI Story, a J. Edgar Hoover-influenced epic exploring the early successes of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Jimmy plays our fictional all-American agent John “Chip” Hardesty, whose Forrest Gump-like decades-long career with the Bureau includes a role in nearly every major investigation from tracking down the bank-robbing “Public Enemies” of the Depression and World War II spies to the bombing of United Flight 629 in 1955.

An interesting chapter of The FBI Story sends Chip to Oklahoma in the summer of 1930 to investigate the “Reign of Terror” in Osage County, Oklahoma, represented on screen as the obsoletely named “Wade County”. These murders of dozens of Osage Native Americans throughout the ’20s were recently explored by David Grann in his fascinating book, Killers of the Flower Moon, which provided the basis for a Martin Scorsese film of the same name currently in production starring Jesse Plemons, Robert De Niro, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Last month, production began in Oklahoma with cities like Pawhuska, the seat of Osage County, transformed to look as they did a century ago, and an official production photo has already been publicized featuring Lily Gladstone and DiCaprio as Mollie and Ernest Burkhart, two of the central figures in the real-life case.

What’d He Wear?

Posing as a cattle dealer, Chip keeps his seersucker and serge suits hung up as he ambles through the town clad in hard-wearing denim and khaki as he smokes his Cubanola cigars.

Chip’s undercover denim jacket shares some style details with the then-contemporary Levi’s 506XX, particularly the single breast pocket with its button-down flap and the double forward-facing “knife”-pleated front, though the rest of the jacket differs from the Levi design now known as the “Type I” trucker jacket.

The body of the jacket is constructed from a rich indigo blue denim, though the collar is a lighter slate-shaded blue. When Stewart cuffs back the end of each sleeve, this too reveals a similar lighter blue on the reverse side.

Rather than the metal rivet buttons associated with this style of jacket, Stewart’s screen-worn coat has dark blue 4-hole plastic buttons. The front and back are detailed with horizontal yokes, and there’s no additional waist fastening—neither cinch-back nor side-tabs—at the hem.

Chip wears a khaki gabardine work shirt, a quasi-military style with two chest pockets, each closing with a single-button flap detailed with mitred corners. The shirt also has a wide front placket, single-button barrel cuffs, and a point collar that Stewart wears in an open-neck style.

Chip’s two-pocket khaki shirt reflects the shirt being adopted across the U.S. armed forces during the interwar period.

Chip’s beige trousers also suit his cover, styled with pointed belt loops, Western-style slanted front pockets, and back pockets covered with Western-pointed single-button flaps. Likely made from the same “chino” cotton popularized in the U.S. following the warm-weather uniforms appropriated for the Spanish-American War, these lightweight yet durable trousers would help establish Chip as an expert as his investigation stretched from the spring into summer.

Through the wide, pointed loops, Chip wears a tan tooled leather belt in the Western tradition, rigged to a large engraved silver belt buckle with a gold-inlaid center.

The straight legs of Chip’s beige trousers are finished with plain-hemmed bottoms that nearly cover the decoratively stitched shafts of his light brown cowboy boots.

Chip consults with his wife Lucy Ann (Vera Miles).

Chip wisely appoints his “cattle dealer” look with the appropriate cowboy hat, in this case made from a light stone-gray felt with a narrow stone-colored band, echoed by the same fabric edging the brim. Rather than the classic cattleman’s shape with three parallel creases across the top of the crown, Chip wears a pinch-front style that shares its shape with the more urban-friendly fedora.

How to Get the Look

James Stewart as agent John “Chip” Hardesty in The FBI Story (1959)

Agent Hardesty’s dressed-down undercover outfit of a denim trucker jacket, work shirt, and chinos takes a generally timeless approach, contemporary to both the ’20s setting and the ’50s production as well as something that could be translated to a modern wardrobe, with or without his Western touches of hat, belt buckle, and boots.

• Indigo blue denim Type I-style trucker jacket with light-colored collar, dark blue plastic buttons, flapped breast pocket, and double “knife”-pleated front
• Khaki gabardine work shirt with point collar, front placket, two flapped chest pockets, and single-button cuffs
• Beige chino cotton flat front trousers with pointed belt loops, slanted Western-style front pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Light brown leather cowboy boots with tan-stitched shafts
• Light stone-gray felt pinch-front cowboy hat with narrow stone-colored band and edges

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, though it’s a heavily sanitized dramatization that perpetuates widely disproven mythologies of American history, such as the rationalization of Japanese-American internment camps and “Ma” Barker supposedly being a criminal mastermind.

To really learn more about the story that inspired this chapter of The FBI Story, I highly recommend David Grann’s 2017 book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. Osage writer John Joseph Matthews also fictionalized the story for his novel Sundown, published in 1934, just a few years after the sentencing of many of the ruthless figures behind the murders.

The Quote

Oh, by the way, Mr. McCutcheon, you owe me a dollar on that bet we made… the FBI did come to Wade County.

The post Jimmy Stewart’s Undercover Denim Jacket in The FBI Story appeared first on BAMF Style.

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos (Episode 3.02: “Proshai, Livushka”)

Vitals

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, New Jersey mob boss

New Jersey, Fall 2000 and Spring 2002

Series: The Sopranos
Episodes:
– “Proshai, Livushka” (Episode 3.02, dir. Tim Van Patten, aired 3/4/2001)
– “Whitecaps” (Episode 4.13, dir. John Patterson, aired 12/8/2002)
Creator: David Chase
Costume Designer: Juliet Polcsa

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

As spring gets warmer during the march toward summer, I wanted to revisit some of the festive fashions worn by TV’s favorite mob boss on #MafiaMonday with the help of my friend Gabe, who curates the must-follow Instagram account @tonysopranostyle.

Thanks in part to Gabe’s tenacious work tracking down the specific brands and patterns that constitute much of Tony Soprano’s closet, there’s been a revived wave of interest in the Skip’s shirts—as cited by Drew Schwartz for Vice—particularly those bold printed button-ups that costume designer Juliet Polcsa explained to Christopher Hooton that she progressively chose James Gandolfini in as the actor’s size increased over the series (source: The Independent.)

Gabe of @TonySopranoStyle sports his own version of the Burma Bibas shirt featured in two episodes of The Sopranos.

Given the variety of these eye-catching shirts, as well as the depth of Tony’s wardrobe given his wealth as don of New Jersey, Gandolfini was rarely seen wearing the same print in more than one scene, let alone more than one episode. Thus, this Burma Bibas shirt that appears in both “Proshai, Livushka” and the fourth season finale “Whitecaps” became a particularly holy grail for Gabe.

What’d He Wear?

Not only is the shirt notable for featuring across two different episodes, but Tony also wears it as two significant eras in his personal life come to an end, first with his mother’s unexpected—but not unwelcome—death in “Proshai, Livushka” (Episode 3.02) and again when his marriage comes to an abrupt end in “Whitecaps” (Episode 4.13).

Tony Soprano isn’t one to be demonstrative of any emotion aside from anger, but in this case the shirt cries tears for him, each rounded rhombus not unlike a field of teardrops reflecting the dissolution of his family as he knows it. After all, the pilot episode had established an early breakthrough in Tony’s therapy as he tearfully realized that he’s constantly “full of dread” about losing his family.

Constructed of 100% silk with a subtle broken twill weave, this shirt was made by Burma Bibas, the luxury outfitter based in New York City that made more than a dozen of the jauntily printed shirts that Gandolfini wore throughout the series. The taupe ground is patterned with an all-over print of large rhombi that alternate in color between shades of beige, sage, and mint. These rhombus shapes have softly rounded corners, presenting more like teardrops than diamonds, and are detailed with “atomic” retro-inspired black embroidery over each that range from a single, straight vertical line or two interwoven vertical lines with a colored circle at each end to a single horizontal line crossing the vertical line perpendicularly or a series of irregular horizontal lines against the single vertical line for a “grated” effect.

Christopher (Michael Imperioli) reclines in the sun behind him as Tony negotiates to fast-track the purchase of the eponymous beach house in “Whitecaps” (Episode 4.13).

The shirt is styled like a classic warm-weather casual shirt with its elbow-length sleeves, straight hem meant to be worn untucked, and the camp collar rigged with a loop for the smaller button under the right collar leaf. In addition to this smaller button that goes unused, there are six white recessed two-hole buttons up the plain “French placket” front, matched by the button that closes the matching patch pocket positioned over the left breast.

Tony argues through one last confrontation with his mother in “Proshai, Livushka” (Episode 3.02).

In both episodes, Tony wears the shirt with black pleated trousers—probably his favorite style of triple-pleated chinos by Zanella—styled with slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, turn-ups (cuffs), and belt loops to be used with the black leather belt that goes mostly unseen under the untucked shirt hem.

He continues the funereal black into his shoes and socks, wearing a pair of leather apron-toe derbies that are likely Allen-Edmonds.

Just because Tony and his crew master the art of leisure in their tracksuits doesn’t mean that the Skip’s always in velour and elastic in front of the tube. When he sits down to watch The Public Enemy in “Proshai, Livushka”, Tony not only keeps his pleated slacks on, he also wears his leather lace-ups.

Tony wears his usual assortment of gold jewelry, including the thin gold open-link necklace with a gold St. Jerome pendant. A gold ring sparkles from his right pinky with its diamond and ruby bypass stones, and he wears a gold bracelet that @tonysopranostyle describes as resembling “a Cuban curbed link chain and an Italian Figaro link chain with a twist” on his right wrist.

Rolex had introduced its unique “President” bracelet in tandem with the self-winding Day-Date chronometer in the 1950s, quickly living up to its moniker as the favored watch of national leaders like JFK and LBJ over the decades to follow.

From the second episode of The Sopranos onward, Tony asserted his leadership with his timepiece, an 18-karat yellow gold Rolex Day-Date “President” with the signature three-piece semi-rounded link bracelet. BAMF Style readers have pinpointed the Skip’s exact model to ref. 18238, its champagne gold dial bedecked with the day of the week in a curved window across the top, the date under a window at 3:00, and non-numeric hour markers inside the fixed fluted bezel.

“From the moment that Tony reenters the kitchen after readjusting the backyard sprinkler (the water droplets on his face and shirt standing in for the tears he can’t cry yet), ‘Proshai, Livushka’ captures the awkwardness of publicly processing the death of a loved one you wanted to die,” write Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall in The Soprano Sessions. Indeed, the rhombi themselves could be argued to stand in for these delayed teardrops as Tony processes the news from his kitchen table.

After learning of Livia’s death in “Proshai, Livushka”, Tony and Carmela (Edie Falco) drive a few minutes south to Livia’s home in Verona. Tony layers for the trip in a black leather jacket, one of several similar zip-up blouson jackets he would wear during the series. I believe this is the first appearance of this particular jacket, characterized by its double rows of edge stitching along the collar and zipper.

Assuming he was dressing for the day when his confrontation with Meadow’s “friend” Noah Tannenbaum (Patrick Tully) led to another food-induced panic attack in “Proshai, Livushka”, Tony’s underwear consisted of his usual white ribbed cotton sleeveless A-shirt and light blue cotton boxer shorts.

Earlier that day, Carmela nurses Tony, clad in his underwear after his panic attack that resulted in a broken glass and a trail of blood from the kitchen to the breakfast nook.

What to Imbibe

Livia’s one-legged nurse, Svetlana Kirilenko (Alla Kliouka Schaffer), makes her second appearance in “Proshai, Livushka” as she pours some Stolichnaya for Tony and Carmela to join her in the eponymous toast.

Having been born in Russia like her cousin—Tony’s one-time comare Irina—Svetlana would undoubtedly be familiar with Stoli as the state vodka produced by the erstwhile USSR, where it was first manufactured during the years following World War II. Stoli was one of the first Russian products available in the West during the Cold War following a much-publicized 1972 trade deal with PepsiCo, and its popularity only expanded after the dissolution of the Soviet Union with the expansion of its offerings to more than a dozen different flavors as well as the stalwart 80-proof “Red Label” and 100-proof “Blue Label”.

Interestingly enough, it would be Tony’s eventual one-time dalliance with Svetlana that leads to the end of his marriage to Carmela… as seen in the next episode where he wears this shirt!

What to Watch

“Proshai, Livushka” is framed by interludes to William A. Wellman’s classic The Public Enemy, first watched by Meadow and Noah and then revisited four times by Tony throughout the hour as he handles the impact of Livia’s unexpected passing.

“Public Enemy… this is a great movie” Tony comments on the movie Meadow and Noah have been assigned for class.

A cornerstone in establishing the subgenre of the American gangster film, this pre-Code crime drama from Warner Brothers catapulted James Cagney to stardom as the violent hoodlum who spills plenty of blood and beer during his ruthless quest to the top of the underworld in Prohibition-era Chicago. Despite his countless crimes and indiscretions, he never loses the love of his adoring mother… stirring tears from Tony as he mourns the mother he never had.

“It’s never clear whether Tony is obsessively rewatching the entire film while dealing with his mother’s death, or if it just takes him forever to get through it,” write Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall in the definitive The Sopranos Sessions. “Either way, it gains a talismanic power as this hour unreels, until by the end it transcends its plot function, illustrating a truth about how movies can explain us to ourseelves even when we weren’t looking for insight.”

How to Get the Look

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos (Episode 4.13: “Whitecaps”)

When not in his elegant tailored suits or sport jackets or lounging at home in a velvet tracksuit, Tony Soprano’s daily attire frequently consists of a retro-inspired printed camp shirt with understated trousers—pleated to comfortably accommodate his size—and his gold jewelry and accessories including his luxury Rolex watch and that gangland style staple, a sparkling pinky ring.

• Taupe silk (with beige, mint, and sage rounded rhombus all-over print with black “atomic”-overlaid embroidery) short-sleeve camp shirt with loop collar, plain front, and button-through breast pocket
• Black pleated trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black leather belt
• Black leather apron-toe derby shoes
• Black cotton lisle socks
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
• Light blue cotton boxer shorts
• Rolex Day-Date “President” ref. 18238 self-winding chronometer watch in 18-karat yellow gold with champagne-colored dial and Presidential link bracelet
• Gold open-link chain bracelet
• Gold pinky ring with ruby and diamond bypass stones
• Gold open-link chain necklace with round St. Jerome pendant

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series and follow my friend Gabe’s Instagram accounts: @TonySopranoStyle and @Don_Gabe_Marfisi.

You should also watch The Public Enemy!

The Quote

What are you gonna do?

The post The Sopranos: Tony’s Taupe Rhombus-Print Shirt appeared first on BAMF Style.

Bob Hope as Harold Gridley in Road to Bali (1952)

Vitals

Bob Hope as Harold Gridley, traveling comedian, “sportsman, raconteur, polo player, and all-around good egg”

South Pacific, Spring 1952

Film: Road to Bali
Release Date: November 19, 1952
Director: Hal Walker
Costume Designer: Edith Head

Background

I always associate summer with Tiki culture, spending sunny days wearing aloha shirts while enjoying tropical cocktails at Polynesian-themed watering holes. To combat a case of the winter blues earlier this year, I hoped to watch a Tiki-themed movie and was given the recommendation of Road to Bali, the only full-color entry of the seven “Road to…” comedies starring Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, and Bob Hope, the prolific entertainer born on this day in 1903.

Like the rest of the “Road to…” movies, Road to Bali never takes itself too seriously, its loose central plot primarily a rod for draping the constant gags, puns, and breaking the fourth wall such as when Bob warns us of his partner: “He’s gonna sing, folks… now’s the time to go out and get the popcorn.”

Bing and Bob play a pair of entertainers who need to find work that gets them out of Australia—and their myriad romantic entanglements—so they take on jobs as deep sea divers in a tropical paradise. Having evidently not learned their lesson, the two tomcats ask about local women and are answered with: “Could it be a paradise without girls?”

This Road to Bali promotional photo suggests that it follows the same plot of the other “Road to…” comedies, with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby competing for the affections of Dorothy Lamour.

Their toothbrushes packed in their breast pockets, the boys arrive at the promised South Seas paradise, where a bevy of native women give them the star treatment and give Road to Bali a swift kick into the territory of male fantasy as one of the young beauties comments “too bad there’s only two of them!” Despite taking an oath to avoid involvements with women, the sight of a saronged Dorothy Lamour has both eating their words as they begin competing for her affections.

Dorothy: Do you always fight over girls?
Bob: Well, what else can we fight over? We never had any money… (looks at the camera) That’s for Washington.

What’d He Wear?

“Well, these threads are a little beat! If we’re shoving off to paradise, we better slip into our linens, eh?” declares Bing, and the next we see, the boys are decked out in their crisp island-wear: Bing in his trademark captain’s hat and a plain blue camp shirt, and Bob a little wilder in an purple printed sport shirt with his own mariner’s cap that matches his powder blue slacks… presumably dressed by prolific costume designer Edith Head.

Bob and Bing each embark on their journey with a borrowed jacket that they never wear and appear to be abandoned after arriving at the princess’ palace. Bing hoists an English-detailed navy blazer, possibly one of the actor’s own, while Bob slings a pale blue gabardine zip-up windbreaker over his arm.

Bing and Bob, dressed for adventures in the South Seas.

The rosy mulberry-hued shirt’s complex all-over medallion-like print consists of purple stenciled “X” shapes, each with a small beige dot at the center and arranged to create a quasi-grid. Filling the “grid” space between the corners of each “X” is a busy purple square, itself split into four smaller quadrants by a tonal “X” at the center with small yellow clusters at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions, echoing larger yellow clusters at each corner.

Bob pitches woo to Dot.

Bob’s long-sleeved shirt has a soft, long-pointed collar, shaped more like Billy Eckstine’s signature “Mr. B” collar than Bing’s sporty camp collar. The shirt’s straight hem allows Bob to more freely wear it untucked, and it has five buttons up the plain “French placket” front, with an additional button to close each squared cuff.

Bob’s shirt takes some damage after an incident with a bear, revealing that his low-slung white cotton undershirt is sleeveless.

Bob and Bing wear nearly identical pale blue slacks, possibly made from gabardine or a linen blend, given the proneness to wrinkling after their rough adventures. Bob’s reverse-facing pleats contribute to the fashionably full fit, loose through the legs down to the bottoms finished with turn-ups (cuffs). He holds the trousers up with a stone-colored cotton belt with a polished silver D-shaped buckle.

The pale blue uppers of Bob’s derby-laced cap-toe shoes match his trousers, with the substantial crepe soles giving the 5’10” Hope even more of a lift over his 5’7″ co-star Crosby.

This surprising combination is still available nearly 70 years later, thanks to Clarks offering its classic crepe-soled desert boots in light blue leather, though Sperry CVO deck sneakers like the affordable oxford cotton-upper Striper II could provide a similar effect.

Bob takes more than a few tumbles on the road to Bali.

“Get your shoes off, you’re in a palace!” Bing instructs Bob as he makes himself at home in their assigned bedroom in the princess’ palace. Bob slips off his shoes, revealing a big hole in his black sock that prompts him to quip, “I better get some black polish, this may be formal tonight.” (Indeed it is, and the boys are outfitted in Scottish kilts patterned in the princess’ family tartan!)

cc: wikifeet.com

By the time they’re back at sea, Bob has replaced his holy black socks with tan socks, though this is far less a glaring continuity error as with Bing’s hosiery, as the crooner’s socks alternate between red and yellow within the same scene!

Bob tops his look with a mariner’s peaked cap, detailed with a black band, a short black patent leather brim, and a powder blue cloth cover.

The final detail is Bob’s gold pinky ring, shining from the little finger of his left hand and likely the actor’s own affectation as he was frequently photographed in real life wearing such a ring.

The Gun

“Hey, I found a gun!” Harold reports on the desert island, to which Princess Lala delights that now one of the men can hunt for their dinner. “Say here, Annie Oakley,” Harold hands off the rifle to George, adding, “run out and shoot us a filet mignon, medium rare.”

In addition to the decades-old rifle Bob finds, the trio’s exploration of the island would also yield a bear, Humphrey Bogart, and Bing’s own brother Bob Crosby, armed with a rifle of his own as Bing had offered him “a shot in the picture.”

The breech-loading rifle with its two-pin receiver and fore-end barrel band appears to be a sporterized variant of the Remington Rolling Block, a single-shot American battle rifle that saw extensive military use around the world following its development after the Civil War. Princess Lala was keen to observe that the Rolling Block would have been a favorable hunting weapon, as it was favored by Scandinavian moose hunters and was reportedly second only to the Sharps among American buffalo hunters in the late 19th century.

How to Get the Look

Bob Hope as Harold Gridley in Road to Bali (1952)

Once they change out of their grimy performance suits, Bob and Bing appear in more appropriate gear for traveling through the tropics in their nautical caps, untucked sport shirts, and loose gabardine slacks, with Bob’s complex-patterned purple shirt and matching powder blue slacks and shoes consistent with trends in ’50s casual wear.

• Purple complex medallion-patterned long-sleeve sport shirt with long-pointed collar, two flapped chest pockets, plain front, and 1-button squared cuffs
• Pale-blue gabardine reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Stone cotton belt with silver D-shaped buckle
• Pale-blue cap-toe derby shoes with crepe soles
• Black socks
• White cotton sleeveless undershirt
• Mariner’s peaked cap with pale-blue cloth cover and black patent leather brim
• Gold pinky ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, available on Blu-ray and free to stream from Prime and many other places due to its copyright expiry landing it in the public domain.

The Quote

What happened, is the picture over?!

The post Bob Hope in Road to Bali appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 2.06: “Maidenform”)

Vitals

Jon Hamm as Don Draper, mysterious ad man and Korean War veteran

Ossining, New York, Spring 1962

Series: Mad Men
Episode: “Maidenform” (Episode 2.06)
Air Date: August 31, 2008
Director: Phil Abraham
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

It’s Memorial Day weekend on Mad Men, and the Drapers and their Ossining neighbors gather at the Willow Oaks Golf Club’s annual Ribs and Fashion Show to bemoan their self-described “high-class problems” ranging from the sticky summer from when the Rosenbergs were murdered to taking the fall for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Among the elite in their tennis whites and the veterans in their aging uniforms, Don’s simple and timeless knit shirt and trousers has been frequently requested as a popular look from the fashion series, despite only appearing in this one episode.

Typically the more incorrigible of the couple, Don finds himself on the other end of the Draper marriage’s jealous wagon as he spies Betty (January Jones) deflecting an awkward apology from the young equestrian Arthur Case (Gabriel Mann). He hardly has time to absorb the baffling situation, instead deep in conversation with the curiously named “Crab” Colson (Matt McKenzie), a one-time PR flack for Lem Jones Associates. This now-defunct firm had been hired by the CIA in real life to represent the Cuban Revolutionary Council and, as Crab puts it, “inspire the Cuban people to a coordinated wave of sabotage and rebellion.

In his excellent critical volume Mad Men Carousel, Matt Zoller Seitz analyzes the layers of fear and loathing at the fashion show, “one of the Waspiest places in a very waspy show… a place where the clothes are white and the servants are black, and where the country’s fate is decided, often in cavalier language that makes it sound like a bigger, graver ad campaign.”

The black ops adman tells Don, with evident sadness, that John F. Kennedy’s “vigor disappeared when he realized he couldn’t get anything done” (such is the case with most presidents, it seems.) “Jackie’s smiling all over the world; he’s chasing starlets,” he says. “Everybody’s happy,” Don says, even though nobody is really…

Before the “ribs and fashion show” starts, a ruddy-faced, well-fed man (practically a Thomas Nast caricature of a fat cat) asks all the veterans in the room to stand up and be applauded, starting with one of the last living members of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders (part of the first wave of Yankee imperialists tear-assing through Cuba). Don stands up, but is understandably uncomfortable because he’s not actually Don, and because he killed his commanding officer by accident. He gets even more upset when he sees Sally gazing up at him, beaming.

In character with his sense of guilt and self-destruction, Don impulsively gets up to leave during the fashion show portion of the event… much to Betty’s surprise, as she likely assumes (by the nature of her passive-aggressive response) that her womanizing husband wouldn’t want to miss the club wives modeling the latest swimwear. Of course, she couldn’t possibly yet that the man she’s been sitting with is the erstwhile Private Dick Whitman, who unknowingly but inarguably engineered the death of Lieutenant Donald Draper more than a decade earlier.

Indeed, Don seems to be one of the few in attendance who understands that Memorial Day wasn’t established to celebrate by gorging on barbecued meats but rather to remember those Americans killed in the performance of their military duties. As someone directly responsible for one of those deaths, Don—er, Dick—must feel overwhelming guilt and shame at the applause he receives not only from fellow veterans in attendance, but particularly his own daughter as it’s the authentically adoring eyes of eight-year-old Sally (Kiernan Shipka) that affect him the most.

Don’s discomfort aside, the luncheon is one of the last moments of relative happiness for the Draper family, as Don unknowingly moves the pieces into place that would lead to the end of his marriage: first, arranging the business relationship with Crab Colson that would result in Betty’s straw-breaking humiliation over dinner in “A Night to Remember” and—most significantly—continuing his affair with Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw) that would be thrown in Betty’s face at the end of the following episode, “The Gold Violin”.

What’d He Wear?

Among the field of cricket sweaters and undersized service uniforms, Don stands fashionably tall in his blue knitted polo shirt and glen plaid trousers, a simple and briefly seen outfit that has stood out as a favorite for fans of Mad Men style.

Don’s short-sleeved shirt is finely knitted in a slate blue yarn, its steely shade suggesting the gray “suits of armor” that costume designer Janie Bryant chose for Don’s office-wear. (Read my full interview with Ms. Bryant here!) The raglan sleeves are banded at the ends, just over an inch above where the forearm meets the elbow, echoed by the banded waist hem. The ribbed placket has three smoke-gray plastic four-hole sew-through buttons, the top button worn undone to allow the soft collar to lay elegantly on Don’s shoulders.

As is the case for most Draper family social occasions, Don’s still on the clock, using the Ribs and Fashion Show cocktail hour as an opportunity to make inroads with the well-connected Crab Colson.

After Mad Men wrapped in 2015, a blue knitted polyester short-sleeved polo with a three-button placket was auctioned as one of Jon Hamm’s screen-worn shirts, but the bright turquoise shade, white buttons (including one through the back of the collar), and short side vents indicated that this vintage shirt by Mr. John Sportswear was not the same item worn in “Maidenform”.

Crab: Glad to be in shorts. (spotting Don’s trousers) You don’t play?
Don: I don’t mind watching.

Crab is clearly dressed for tennis in his layered whites and shorts, but Don’s weekend-ready rig doesn’t limit him specifically to athletic endeavors at the club, even though his two-tone cleats suggest golf. This makes Don’s choice of words even more curious, as there’s nothing to say he wasn’t freshly off the green.

Jon Hamm’s screen-worn black-and-white leather Brooks Brothers golf shoes were auctioned by ScreenBid following the series finale.

“Spectator shoes” are a long-time colloquial shorthand for duo-toned footwear, appropriate here not only for the man who “[doesn’t] mind watching” but also in reference to the style’s other nickname as “correspondent shoes”. In early 20th century England, these sporty shoes were considered too loud for tasteful gentlemen to wear and thus often associated with the cads named as third party correspondents in divorce cases; Don would certainly fit that description, given his doubly adulterous role cheating on Betty and cuckolding Jimmy Barrett.

In the more liberally minded world of 1960s America, few would think twice of seeing a gent in two-toned shoes—particularly when dressed for golf—but the footwear’s history remains significant given the history of the scene.

According to the post-production ScreenBid auction, Brooks Brothers made Don’s black-and-white leather tasseled brogues. The white uppers are overlaid with black medallion perforated wingtips, black oxford-style lace panels layered under a black tassel, and black collars around the backs of the foot openings. These Goodyear-welted shoes are finished with hard leather soles that have eleven green cleats: four on each heel and seven in a “V” formation toward the toes.

Don’s worsted wool flat front trousers are a fine-woven Prince of Wales check in black-and-white with a subtle pink overcheck that presents as a gray semi-solid from a distance. These are detailed with straight vertical pockets along the side seams, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

Through the second and third seasons of Mad Men, Don wears a yellow gold Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Classique dress watch with a sentimental inscription from Betty. JLC pioneered the Reverso Classique in 1931, specifically targeting its reversible hard steel case toward polo players who would want to protect their watch faces during play without having to remove their timepieces.

According to an AMC interview with Mad Men‘s property master Gay Perello, Jon Hamm was initially reluctant to switch from the watch he wore during the first season:

Showing it to Jon on the first day… he said, “I’m kind of a round watch face guy.” And I said, “Well, we talked about that, but let’s look at this cool little feature that you can play with.” Then he said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, this will work,” and he started to really like it… And then [Matthew Weiner] had wrote in an episode that Betty takes his watch to have it engraved, so it got to have a little more play than we thought it would.

Don’s Reverso Classique has a rectangular white dial and secures to his left wrist on a brown leather strap.

Don returns home wearing a tan gabardine golf jacket, thematically appropriate following his day on the green. The waist-length windbreaker has a two-button standing collar that he wears flat, set-in sleeves with a button-fastened pointed tab at each cuff, and slanted hand pockets. The hem is semi-elasticized around the back only, and the plain back (devoid of yoke or shirring) indicates that this is not the same jacket—in a similar style and collar—that we briefly saw when the Draper family returned from their Mother’s Day outing in “Babylon” (Episode 1.06).

Though Baracuta pioneered this type of windbreaker with the G4 (“G” for “golf”), Don’s jacket has a horizontal chest seam not present on the Baracuta while also lacking that British brand’s signature tartan lining. By mid-century, the Baracuta had inspired scores of imitations on both sides of the pond from brands like London Fog, Van Heusen, and McGregor, the latter responsible for James Dean’s famous red jacket in Rebel Without a Cause.

Don also carries his go-to summer hat, a dark gray paper straw Pinzano short-brimmed trilby with a lavender-on-black multi-striped band.

What to Imbibe

Don departs from his usual tippling tendencies during the Memorial Day barbecue, foregoing his trademark whiskey drink in favor of something clear and served with lime, possibly a Gin & Tonic or a Vodka Tonic, the former being a more likely possibility given the bottle of Hiram Walker’s gin spied on the bar between he and Crab.

Arriving home, Don breaks another of his “rules” by drinking milk, despite declaring among his oyster-and-martini confessions in “Red in the Face” (Episode 1.07) a season earlier that:

Drinking milk… I never liked it. I hate cows.

Of course, this being Mad Men, nothing is unintentional, and Redditors have even dissected the show’s symbolism of milk as representative of childhood and specifically the mother’s love that Don never had. Exploring this in context of “Maidenform”, Don had just learned the curiously significant fact that Bobbie has an 18-year-old son and must forego a rendezvous to spend time with him. In the wake of this, Don’s first action upon arriving to an empty home is to pull the glass milk bottle from the Draper family fridge, drinking to replenish himself after yet another mother’s rejection of him.

How to Get the Look

Jon Hamm and January Jones on Mad Men (Episode 2.06: “Maidenform”)

Don Draper dresses smartly for Memorial Day at the country club, affecting a casual dignity in his blue knitted shirt, Prince of Wales check trousers, and golf shoes.

• Blue-slate knitted short-sleeve polo shirt with 3-button placket, banded raglan sleeves, and banded hem
• Tan gabardine golf windbreaker with 2-button standing collar, slanted hand pockets, button-fastened pointed-tab cuffs, and elasticized back hem
• Black-and-white Prince of Wales check worsted wool flat front trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black-and-white leather wingtip tasseled oxford golf brogues
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• Dark gray paper straw short-brimmed trilby with lavender-on-black multi-striped band
• Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Classique wristwatch with a gold case, square white dial, and brown alligator leather strap

Knitwear like this found its heyday during the Mad Men era of the early ’60s (think Goodfellas), though the style has recently been enjoying a retro-inspired renaissance with most menswear outfitters including knitted polos and button-ups among its lineups for summer 2021. If you’re looking to channel that Draper-approved look this year, the closest examples I’ve seen include:

• H&M — Fine-knit Polo Shirt in “Pale blue” cotton
• Mango Man — Knit Cotton Polo Shirt in “Sky blue”
• Paul Fredrick — Silk Cotton and Cashmere Three Button Polo in “Medium blue”
• Sunspel — Sea Island Cotton Knit Polo in “Washed denim”

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the whole series.

The Quote

Everybody’s happy.

The post Mad Men: Don’s Blue Knit Golf Shirt for Memorial Day appeared first on BAMF Style.

Carole Bouquet and Jack Hedley, as Melina Havelock and Sir Timothy Havelock, in For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Vitals

Jack Hedley as Sir Timothy Havelock, marine archaeologist contracted by the British Secret Service

Ionian Sea off the Albanian coast, Spring 1981

Film: For Your Eyes Only
Release Date: June 24, 1981
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller
Wardrobe Master: Tiny Nicholls

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

For Your Eyes Only, my favorite James Bond movie of the Roger Moore era, was released 40 years ago today! To celebrate, I wanted to shift focus from 007 to the stylish and significant—but only briefly seen—character of Sir Timothy Havelock.

As with Steve Zissou, Sir Timothy was reportedly based to some degree on iconic French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau (who died 24 years ago tomorrow), though the connection is even more personal as Cousteau was reportedly a real-life pal of Bond author Ian Fleming.

Sir Timothy never actually interacts with our hero, though it’s his death that propels the plot once Moore’s 007 crosses bows—er, paths—with the Havelocks’ now-orphaned daughter, Melina (Carole Bouquet), hell-bent on taking revenge for the murder of her parents.

What’d He Wear?

Sir Timothy spends a quiet morning aboard ship with his wife Iona (Toby Robins) and their parrot Max, all eagerly awaiting Melina’s arrival (or, in Max’s case, a kiss.) Timothy’s light-colored, lightweight clothes are consistent with his breezily affable attitude as well as his profession; few who don’t work on research vessels in the Mediterranean can expect to spend their days barefoot in half-buttoned shirts.

Melina’s parrot Max joins Sir Timothy as he attempts to track down the ATAC, the MacGuffin driving the plot of For Your Eyes Only.

This light woven cotton shirt is patterned with blue and white hairline-width stripes so fine that the shirt looks pale blue when not seen in close-up. The shirt has a point collar, breast pocket with horizontal yoke and mitred corners, and a plain “French placket” worn with the top three buttons rakishly—but not unflatteringly—undone. In the same spirit, Timothy also keeps his cuffs unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled halfway up each forearm.

Timothy’s flat front trousers are a pale blue cotton that presents to nearly match the shirt, though the semi-solid trouser cloth differs from the striped shirting. Indeed, Havelock’s real-life inspiration Cousteau was frequently photographed in blue shirts and trousers as well, albeit a more hard-wearing chambray work shirt with darker trousers.

The trousers have slanted side pockets and a back right pocket that closes through a single button. The bottoms appear to be finished with turn-ups (cuffs), with an appropriately high enough break that Timothy doesn’t trip over them as he walks the decks of his boat barefoot.

Timothy holds his trousers up with a tan leather belt imprinted with an interlocking meander or “Greek key” design, a significant motif given his wife’s heritage that Melina cites as contributing the passion behind her eventual drive for revenge.

Over the corpses of her parents (spoiler alert? I guess?), Melina swears revenge. Note the textured tooling of Sir Timothy’s belt, shining in the sunlight behind her.

Admittedly, Sir Timothy’s wardrobe may have escaped my attention if not for his watch. By this point in the series, SEIKO had been firmly established as the official watch of the James Bond franchise with Sir Roger sporting a variety digital, analog, and hybrid timepieces in five of his seven movies as 007, including two in For Your Eyes Only.

Bond may have felt a horological kinship with the departed Sir Timothy, who dressed his wrist with a stainless steel SEIKO 7546-6040 “Sports 100” quartz diver—appropriately enough, given his aquatic profession—with the familiar red and blue “Pepsi” bezel. On the dark blue dial, the hours are marked with non-numeric luminous shapes, oblong at 6 and 9 o’clock, triangular at 12 o’clock, and absent at 3 o’clock in favor of a white day/date window. The stainless steel 39mm case is secured to a steel three-piece link bracelet, similar to the Oyster-style bands branded by Rolex.

Our first look of Sir Timothy features his SEIKO sports dive watch prominently in frame, instantly communicating that he’s just the sort of expertly equipped professional should any diving be required to recover the ATAC.

These classic SEIKO sports divers occasionally show up for sale on sites like eBay and Mornington Watches. Alternatively, you could pick up a new SEIKO diver like the automatic SKX009K2 as owned by yours truly. (See my SEIKO here!)

Jack Hedley and Toby Robins as the affable but ill-fated Havelocks in For Your Eyes Only (1981)

How to Get the Look

Sir Timothy Havelock dresses simply but stylishly for a day of working on the water, illustrating that there can be a happy medium between form and function as demonstrated by the handsome and hardworking “Pepsi”-bezel SEIKO dive watch that accompanies his sea-shaded shirt and slacks.

• Blue-and-white hairline-striped light cotton shirt with point collar, plain front, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Pale blue semi-solid cotton flat front trousers with belt loops, slanted side pockets, button-through back-right pocket, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Tan “Greek key”-printed leather belt with silver-toned square single-prong buckle
• SEIKO 7546-6040 “Sports 100” quartz dive watch with stainless steel case, rotating red-and-blue “Pepsi” bezel, black dial (with 3:00 day/date window), and steel three-piece link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I’ll give you a nut.

The post Sir Timothy Havelock in For Your Eyes Only appeared first on BAMF Style.

Tom Cruise as Brian Flanagan in Cocktail (1988)

Vitals

Tom Cruise as Brian Flanagan, ambitious tropical bartender

Ocho RIos, Jamaica, Spring 1988

Film: Cocktail
Release Date: July 29, 1988
Director: Roger Donaldson
Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick

Background

I will admit that I’m not the biggest fan of Cocktail, but I’ve been in a tropical mood lately so this colorful, super-’80s yarn of bartending and bonking felt like a perfect summertime post in advance of Tom Cruise’s birthday tomorrow.

By all accounts, this winner of two Razzies should have been better, and author Heywood Gould has voiced considerable disappointment that his more serious source novel underwent such commercialization that the end product was primarily a vapid celebration of Tom Cruise using the daiquiri recipe he learned at TGI Friday’s to try to get laid as much as he could.

And yet, Cocktail has remained a part of pop culture more than 30 years after its ignominious release, whether you consider all the times you’ve heard the Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” or if you’ve patronized bars like Coughlin’s Law, a local Pittsburgh tavern that clearly took inspiration from the philosophy espoused by Bryan Brown’s character.

Cruise stars as Brian Flanagan, a swaggering Army veteran with dreams of becoming a millionaire despite little to get him there aside from some business classes and an overwhelmingly toothy grin. He supports himself by slinging cocktails a TGI Friday’s under the tutelage of Doug Coughlin (Brown), a hubristic cocksman from Down Under. After the incorrigible Coughlin proves a little too reckless with his swizzle stick, Brian abandons his mentor and flees to the warm comfort behind a beachside bar in Jamaica.

More than a year later, Coughlin stumbles into Dragon Beach with his new beautiful bride in tow, convincing Brian that any future girlfriends of his would be safe from his former mentor’s muddler… just in time for him to meet Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue), a charming tourist who doesn’t rely on her family’s money to fuel her own artistic ambitions. After she writes off their first encounter as a one night stand, he continues the relationship over a series of dates that range from sketching each other in the sand to pondering the genius who cornered “the flugelbinder market.”

What’d He Wear?

Cocktail features the costume design of Ellen Mirojnick, a prolific designer who dressed some of the most iconic characters of the ’80s—e.g. Michael Douglas as the slick-haired and slick-suited Gordon Gekko in Wall Street—and Cocktail proved that Mirjonick could design just as effectively for the beach as for the board room.

Brian’s Jamaican wardrobe consists almost exclusively of bright, colorful printed shirts that undoubtedly contributed to the atmosphere of levity that his beachside patrons are looking for behind their parade of piña coladas. When Brian steps out from behind the bar for fun in the sun with Jordan, he wears a chaotically patterned camp shirt, designed in an abstract all-over print of pink, yellow, and lilac streaks, all overlaid by the occasional black spatter. Brian buttons most of the mother-of-pearl buttons up the plain “French placket” front, leaving a few open at the top that work with the fashionably oversized fit to create a roomy appearance as illustrated by the elbow-length sleeves enveloping his arms.

The shirt’s long, untucked hem and the fact that Brian remains seated covers the top of his white cotton trousers, but we can assume they’re identical to the white flat front pants we see elsewhere, which have a self-suspended waistband with wide belt loops that go unused, slanted side pockets, and button-through back pockets. Brian rolls up the plain-hemmed bottoms to create a louche self-cuffed effect.

Talking about the makers of ashtrays and cocktail umbrellas prompts Brian to wonder who makes the plastic ends of his shoelaces, which Jordan offers may be called “flugelbinders”. He kicks up his left foot to allow himself a visual aid, examining his deck sneaker with its white canvas uppers and the white laces fed through four oxford-style lace eyelets. Apropos the tropical climate and casual context, Brian foregoes socks (or wears very low “no-show” hosiery.)

At first, I had thought Cruise was wearing the famous Sperry CVO model that had included wearers ranging from Paul Newman to Mr. Rogers since its development as the first nonslip deck shoe in 1935, but the addition of an apron-toe seam and the flat, non-siped sole suggests that even an ’80s materialist like Brian isn’t sporting the wares of a brand that had been so prominently touted in Lisa Birnbach’s The Official Preppy Handbook published at the start of the decade.

Jordan hides her disappointment that Brian’s deck sneakers don’t have Sperry’s signature siped soles.

In the nearly two years since he left New York, Brian must be doing well enough for himself tending bar at this tropical paradise that he was able to update his watch to a Rolex Air-King. Introduced in 1958 to honor the RAF pilots who flew during the Battle of Britain, the Air-King was Rolex’s entry Oyster Perpetual for decades, a downsized alternative to the Explorer model that had been introduced five years earlier. Brian’s stainless steel Air-King boasts a silver dial and is worn on a steel “Oyster”-style three-piece link bracelet.

Cruise may have flown to fame peering through Ray-Bans in Risky Business and Top Gun, but he switches eyewear loyalties in Cocktail as he takes in the sights of Jamaica through a pair of tortoise Persol  PO3225S sunglasses. With a straight top bar, these Persols echo the Ray-Ban Wayfarers from Top Gun but with the addition of Persol’s brand signatures from the silver sword-shaped arrows over the temples to the keyhole-cut bridge. As of June 2021, Persol has rereleased the PO3225SS model, available via Amazon and Persol.com.

A brief vignette of Brian and Jordan walking through Ocho Rios indicates that the duo have swimming on the agenda, as Brian has swapped out his trousers for a pair of black polyester Speedo swimming trunks… though neither of their swimwear lasts long during the pair’s famous romp in Dunn’s River Falls.

While the Speedo name may bring to mind briefs with inseams shorter than some men may be comfortable with, the English brand continues offering swim trunks of a more conventional length as worn by Cruise in Cocktail, such as the black polyester Speedo Redondo still available from Amazon as of June 2021.

How to Get the Look

Elisabeth Shue and Tom Cruise in Cocktail (1988)

As tropical-printed camp shirts continue their revival this summer, Tom Cruise’s swaggering bartender in Cocktail provides a straightforward template for how to dress (but not how to behave!) for a summer fling in the sun, accessorizing his spattered shirt, white trousers, and deck shoes with Persol shades and a Rolex.

• Pink, yellow, and lilac-streak (and black-spatter) printed short-sleeve camp shirt
• White cotton flat front trousers with self-suspended waistband, slanted side pockets, button-through back pockets, and self-cuffed plain-hem bottoms
• White canvas four-eyelet deck sneakers with white outsoles
• Persol PO3225S “Havana” tortoise rectangular-framed sunglasses with green lenses
• Rolex Air-King stainless steel watch with silver dial and steel Oyster-style link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and try to track down Heywood Gould’s source novel.

The Quote

Before you know it, your life is just one long night with a few comatose daylight hours.

The post Cocktail: Tom Cruise’s Spattered Pink Tropical Shirt appeared first on BAMF Style.

Roger Moore as James Bond, flanked by Lizzie Warville, Alison Worth, Viva, Vanya, Kim Mills, and Laila Dean, in For Your Eyes Only (1981).
Photo sourced from Thunderballs.org.

Vitals

Roger Moore as James Bond, British government agent

Spain, Spring 1981

Film: For Your Eyes Only
Release Date: June 24, 1981
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller

Background

During the 40th anniversary year of For Your Eyes Only, the 00-7th of July feels like the appropriate time to examine the clothes and cars of Mr. Bond himself, after previously exploring the fits of one of his allies and one of his enemies. (This may be a little late for #CarWeek, but isn’t it always a good day for a drive in the country?)

Expanded from several Ian Fleming short stories, this grounded espionage tale may be my favorite of Sir Roger Moore’s celebrated twelve-year tenure as the sophisticated secret agent, bringing James Bond back to Earth after his star-hopping adventure in Moonraker.

In fact, the premise of For Your Eyes Only nearly matches up exactly with the narrative of Fleming’s story of the same name: Bond is tasked with following a lead on a Cuban hitman named Gonzales who engineered the murder of the Havelocks, whose vivacious daughter also sets out for revenge with her bow and arrow. The daughter’s arrow finds her target just as he’s taking a dive, and she escapes with Bond following a gunfight… but not without escaping his advice repeating the Chinese adage that “before you set out on revenge, dig two graves.”

Just as in Ian Fleming’s short story, Bond nearly meets his own demise at the business end of Miss Havelock’s crossbow.

The details vary between the story and the film, which adds layers of complexity and also ties the killing into the smuggling plot of a different story titled “Risico”, but it’s a welcome return to Fleming’s source material. The story’s setting of Vermont is shifted to a rural region of Spain, reportedly near Madrid but filmed at the Villa Sylva in Corfu, and the Havelocks’ vengeful daughter Judy is renamed Melina (Carole Bouquet) in accordance with her newly assigned half-Greek lineage.

What’d He Wear?

Ian Fleming frequently added extensive detail to his novels and stories so that readers could picture the clothes worn by James Bond as well as his friends and foe. In the story “For Your Eyes Only”, 007’s Canadian contact Colonel Johns suggests that Bond dress for his mission in “nothing fancy, nothing conspicuous—khaki shirt, dark brown jeans, good climbing boots or shoes,” that could be purchased from a secondhand clothing store in Ottawa; Bond indeed takes Johns’ advice, even picking up a pair of “soft ripple rubber climbing boots… [with] spring, cushioned soles,” which he opines should be used in military boots.

Whether by coincidence or design, Roger Moore’s costume for the cinematic representation of this adventure indeed reflects the tones, if not the exact spirit, of Colonel Johns’ dictated clothing suggestions, dressing in an ecru open-neck shirt and trousers in a darker shade of brown. While Colonel Johns’ suggestion was more tactical, the cinematic Bond opts for a more fashionable—but still casual—ensemble that wouldn’t mark him too immediately as a man on a mission should he get captured… which he does. As with all of Bond’s screen-worn clothing, this outfit has been extensively written about in fine detail by Matt Spaiser for Bond Suits.

“There’s always something formal about the point of a pistol,” George Lazenby’s Bond had quipped in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. If that’s the case, Bond’s practically in white tie and tails here.

Bond adds the layer of a zip-up blouson jacket made from a lightweight sage-green suede, an earthy shade that serves as a restrained quasi-camouflage, similar to the olive-drab fatigues then in use by many armed forces around the world. Rather than a traditional collar, the jacket just has a reinforced band around the round neckline which easily slips under the collar points of Bond’s shirt; 007 would again wear a collarless jacket like this when Daniel Craig slipped into that midnight blue goat suede John Varvatos “racer jacket” for the action-packed climax in Spectre (2015).

The zipper is a low-contrasting olive-colored plastic, running straight up the front from the bottom of the elasticized waist hem. There is a hand-level pocket with a straight vertical opening on each side of the jacket. The jacket has a straight horizontal yoke across the chest and back, echoed by seams that extend over the shoulders from the neck to the top of each set-in sleeve. Each sleeve closes at the cuff through a single olive two-hole plastic button.

The baggier fit and the top of each set-in sleeve falling a few inches off the shoulder suggest that the jacket may be a size larger than Moore would normally wear. While this could be in accordance with the oversized fashions of the ’80s, this may have also been a tactical choice to add roominess for Bond to more effectively hide his Walther PPK, which he keeps holstered in a tan leather shoulder rig under his left armpit.

Too bad Q didn’t think to equip 007 with that nifty finger-trap holster that Sean Connery had carried a decade earlier in Diamonds Are Forever!

Bond wears an ecru short-sleeved shirt by Frank Foster, the legendary London shirtmaker who made shirts for Roger Moore to wear on- and off-screen as well as for the two previous Bond actors and many other luminaries. In his Bond Suits post, Matt Spaiser identifies the shirting as jersey, a stretchy single- or double-knit cotton fabric that had been increasingly popular for sports clothes throughout the ’70s and ’80s.

The shirt has a fashionably broad spread collar, front placket, and a breast pocket, the latter a relative anomaly on all but the most casual of Bond’s shirts. The cuffed short sleeves recall the short-sleeved shirts that the literary Bond often wore with suits and ties, though the casual context of this scene makes Moore’s short-sleeved shirt considerably more appropriate here.

Bond tucks the shirt into a pair of tan flat front trousers which rise to Moore’s natural waist, where they’re held up by a brown leather belt with a thick polished gold square single-prong buckle. Bond Suits explains that the trousers are a heavy linen and, despite my first thought that they had no pockets, indeed have coin pockets slit just below the waistband on each side of the front in addition to a back-right pocket. The trousers are cut straight through the legs and plain-hemmed at the bottoms.

Who needs a Walther PPK (or a “convenient pocket”) when you’ve got an umbrella?
Photo sourced from Thunderballs.org.

Roger Moore frequently wore slip-on shoes as James Bond, occasionally even with his evening black tie, so it’s no surprise to see he’s wearing loafers with this casual outfit. The uppers are dark brown leather to  tonally coordinate with the earthy tones of his outfit, and detailed with apron-toe seams, gold bit detailing, and raised heels. He wears them with tan ribbed socks that effectively continue the leg line from his trousers.

The shoes—and belt, for that matter—are likely Salvatore Ferragamo, as Roger Moore relayed how he brought the Italian designer’s wares to the world of Bond in his 2012 book Bond on Bond: Reflections on 50 Years of James Bond Movies:

I introduced Ferragamo to the Bond films. A neighbor of mine in Italy was married to Salvatore Ferragamo’s eldest son, and I took her to a premiere of Live and Let Die, where she was horrified to see I was wearing Gucci shoes and belt. From then on Ferragamo supplied shoes, belts, and luggage for the films.

Not that I’m too eager to “correct” Mr. Bond himself, but Moore continued prominently wearing Gucci in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) and again in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), so it likely wasn’t until the premiere of one of these latter films—which would also align with when he moved to Italy under tax exile—that he was so influentially admonished by Signora Ferragamo. Either way, Ferragamo was decidedly the leatherware provider of choice for 007 by the early ’80s when he was working the pedals of Melina Havelock’s dilapidated Citroën.

Under the terms of the franchise’s ongoing product placement deal with SEIKO, Bond strapped on a stainless steel SEIKO H357-5040 Duo Display quartz-powered alarm chronograph throughout For Your Eyes Only. Strapped to a tapered steel bracelet, the unique four-pinned square face consists primarily of a black rectangular analog dial, partitioned at the top for a single-row digital LED display intended to function alternately as a calendar, digital clock, alarm, and stopwatch… though Q evidently tinkered with the watch for it to receive messages in red from Bond’s superiors.

For Your Eyes Only may not have many gadgets aside from that practical SEIKO, but at least Roger Moore still uses that magic eyebrow muscle.

You can read more about Bond’s SEIKO H357-5040 at James Bond Lifestyle, which identified the exact screen-used model as #WHV005.

The Cars

I love a drive in the country, don’t you?

After the Lotus Esprit in The Spy Who Loved Me rivaled Sean Connery’s Aston Martin DB5 for the position of most memorable Bond car, EON Productions—er, Q Branch—again equipped 007 with a sporty ride from the Norfolk-based manufacturer.

Bond speeds toward his mission in a “Monaco white” 1980 Lotus Esprit Turbo, branded with red accents that indicate a turbocharged dry sump Lotus Type 910 four-cylinder engine, offering a power output of 210 horsepower and top speed of 150 mph. This Lotus may be just as gadget-laden as the submersible Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me, but the only “optional extra” we see at work is the enthusiastic anti-burglary system… which results in a pyrrhic victory for Bond who witnesses both the destruction of the intended invaders as well as the Lotus itself.

Never fear, 007, the MI6 budget surely allows for another Lotus in your immediate future. In the meantime…

Don’t get too attached to this one…

I’m afraid we’re being out-horsepowered.

Much to the agent’s chagrin, Bond is forced to make his getaway in Melina Havelock’s bright yellow 1980 Citroën 2CV 6 Club, the “2CV” literally translated to suggest that the car runs on the power of “two steam horses”.  In the spirit of For Your Eyes Only‘s generally grounded creative approach, Bond is forced to make due with only his wits, intuition, and skills, with no Q-issued gadgets to help him as he makes his getaway from Gonzales’ henchmen.

Forget ejector seats or machine guns, these Citroëns aren’t even meant to outrun a tortoise.

Though Sir Roger’s judgmental eyebrow renders it the subject of some unspoken mockery in For Your Eyes Only, the Citroën 2CV was never intended to be a performance car. Citroën Vice President Pierre Boulanger conceptualized the “Deux Chevaux” prior to World War II, following the example of the Ford Model T and Volkswagen Beetle as a mass-produced economy car that could provide an affordable means for transportation to the general public, expected to perform reliably and be maintained simply and inexpensively without providing additional stress for those who would need them the most.

Production was delayed by the German invasion of France during World War II, during which Boulanger was labeled an enemy of the Reich for his refusal to collaborate with the Nazis… perhaps with a touch of irony, as it was under the Reich that the Volkswagen Type 1 had first been developed. After the war, Boulanger’s team dusted off the plans for its simple “people’s car” and the 2CV debuted at the Paris Salon in October 1948.

Originally powered by an air-cooled 375 cc flat-twin engine that delivered a whopping nine horsepower, the 2CV drivetrain was improved over the years to the extent that this power was nearly tripled by 1979 when the engine displacement was increased to 602 cc for what would be the final decade of the car’s production. Even with this increased engine, the top speed was still just over 70 mph, and that’s after the more than 30 seconds it would take to accelerate from 0 to 60.

The “6 Club” was one of four available trim options for the 1980 2CV, offering only a slight performance advantage over the base model. To ensure the performance that would allow the car to effectively “compete” on screen against the gangsters in their pursuing Peugeots, the four screen-used 2CV sedans were fitted with four-cylinder engines from the Citroën GS that nearly doubled the power up to 55 horsepower, but, for all intents and purposes, we’ll treat Melina’s as a stock 2CV 6 Club with its stock two-cylinder engine.

1980 Citroën 2CV 6 Club

Body Style: 4-door fastback sedan

Layout: front-engine, front-wheel-drive (FWD)

Engine: 602 cc (0.6 L) Citroën flat-twin (H2) air-cooled engine

Power: 29 hp (21.5 kW; 29 PS) @ 5750 RPM

Torque: 29 lb·ft (39 N·m) @ 3500 RPM

Transmission: 4-speed manual

Wheelbase: 94.5 inches (2400 mm)

Length: 150.8 inches (3830 mm)

Width: 58.3 inches (1480 mm)

Height: 63 inches (1600 mm)

1980 was the lowest sales year in a decade for the Citroën 2CV and, despite the popularity and exposure from For Your Eyes Only, sales continued to decline until production ended in 1990. Though demand was all but extinguished by a consumer base that had come to expect increased speed and safety, the Citroën 2CV remains well-regarded despite (or, in some cases, due to) its offbeat and antiquated appearance that concealed its advanced mechanics and reliability.

With more than five million produced and sold over its 42-year timeline, the 2CV remains a success story celebrated by L.J.K. Setright in Drive On!: A Social History of the Motor Car as “the most intelligent application of minimalism ever to succeed as a car.”

Bond’s high-flying Citroën… sans slide whistle, as the franchise evidently learned its lesson after The Man with the Golden Gun.
Photo sourced from Thunderballs.org.

The Gun

“Walther PPK… standard issue, British Secret Service,” describes the Cuban killer Hector Gonzales (Stefan Kalipha) as he inspects his prisoner’s weapon. “License to kill… or be killed.”

Following the advice of literary fan and firearms expert Geoffrey Boothroyd, Ian Fleming elected to arm his fictional secret agent with a Walther PPK beginning with the novel Doctor No, which features an extended scene of 007 trading in his underpowered .25-caliber Beretta in exchange for a newly issued Walther, which fires the 7.65mm (.32 ACP) cartridge that’s perhaps generously described as a “delivery like a brick through a plate glass window.”

Hyperboles aside, the Walther PPK was indeed a fine choice for a mid-century man of mystery, combining concealment, firepower, and a sleek profile that served both form and function. Firearms technology has come a long way in the decades since Fleming sat at his golden typewriter, but the PPK’s connection to one of the most iconic characters fo the silver screen will ensure its lasting recognition.

Gonzales unloads Bond’s Walther PPK.

Bond is assigned with merely capturing Gonzales in For Your Eyes Only, but Fleming’s short story had actually tasked 007 with assassinating the killer, a job that calls for a heavier-duty weapon than his sidearm.

“One of the new Savage 99Fs, Weatherby 6 x 62 ‘scope, five-shot repeater with twenty rounds of high-velocity .250-3.000. Lightest big game lever action on the market. Only six and a half pounds,” Colonel Johns briefs Bond on the rifle that he had already placed in the trunk of Bond’s rented Plymouth, adding a gentle request that the rifle be returned as it was borrowed from a friend.

Johns then asks about Bond’s personal gun, which 007 describes as a “Walther PPK in a Burns[sic] Martin holster.” Fleming’s use of the Berns-Martin Triple Draw holster had resulted from a misunderstanding during his initial correspondence with Boothroyd. Boothroyd’s first recommendation to replace Bond’s anemic Beretta was a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson, carried in a Berns-Martin on the belt or under the armpit. Fleming was reluctant to diverge from arming his hero with a semi-automatic pistol, leading to Boothroyd’s suggestion of the PPK.

Unfortunately, Fleming failed to realize that the Berns-Martin holster could only be equipped with a revolver, but the incongruity made it to print in Doctor No and—despite Boothroyd’s clarifications—Fleming would keep the literary Bond’s PPK holstered in a black saddle-stitched Berns-Martin rig throughout the next several written adventures.

You can read more about the Fleming/Boothroyd Berns-Martin mixup and see photos of an example holster at Fleming’s Bond. If you’re interested in learning more about the incorporation of firearms into Bond lifestyle, check out the blog Commando Bond, written by my friend Caleb who also runs the Instagram account @CommandoBond.

How to Get the Look

Roger Moore as James Bond in For Your Eyes Only (1981).
Photo sourced from Thunderballs.org.

James Bond dresses casually yet tactically for his warm-weather mission—and subsequent “drive in the country”—in For Your Eyes Only, blending Roger Moore’s penchant for suede blousons and horsebit loafers with Ian Fleming’s earth-toned literary direction… as well as the franchise’s ongoing product placement deal with SEIKO.

• Sage-green suede zip-up blouson jacket with round collarless neckline, side pockets, and set-in sleeves with single-button cuffs
• Ecru cotton jersey short-sleeve shirt with spread collar, front placket, breast pocket, and cuffed sleeves
• Tan linen flat front trousers with belt loops, front coin pockets, back-right pocket, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Brown leather belt with squared gold single-prong buckle
• Brown leather apron-toe gold-bit loafers
• Tan ribbed socks
• Tan leather shoulder holster (for Walther PPK)
• SEIKO H357-5040/WHV-005 duo-display alarm chronograph with black square face and stainless bracelet

As of June 2021, New York-based fashion house Theory offers the curiously named “Moore Suede Jacket” in dark fennel napped leather (Saks Fifth Avenue, $597) that may the closest approximation I’ve seen to Sir Roger’s For Your Eyes Only blouson.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read Ian Fleming’s first short story collection, also titled For Your Eyes Only, published in 1960.

The Quote

The Chinese have a saying: before setting out on revenge, you first dig two graves.

The post For Your Eyes Only: Bond’s Green Jacket and Melina’s Citroën appeared first on BAMF Style.

Alexander Skarsgård as Gadi Becker in The Little Drummer Girl (2018).
Photo by Jonathan Olley.

Vitals

Alexander Skarsgård as Gadi Becker, aka “Peter”, mysterious Mossad agent

Naxos, Greece, Spring 1979

Series: The Little Drummer Girl (Episode 1)
Air Date: October 28, 2018
Director: Park Chan-wook
Costume Design: Sheena Napier & Steven Noble

Background

Today marks the start of my beach vacation, an annual getaway that finds me clad almost exclusively in tropical-printed or terry cloth shirts as I laze about in the sun and sand with tequila in hand, trying not to think about the hundreds of emails amassing to greet me when I open my inbox exactly one week from now.

And then there are those lucky enough who actually get to do this for a living, particularly the globe-trotting super-spies penned by the likes of Ian Fleming and John le Carré, whose 1983 novel The Little Drummer Girl was recently re-adapted for the screen via a stylish six-part miniseries starring Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgård.

The eponymous “drummer girl” is twentysomething radical Charmian “Charlie” Ross (Pugh), a struggling London actress who we follow as she joins her friends and fellow thespians for a spring holiday in the Greek islands.

“He’s back… Action Man!” Charlie’s friend Sophie (Bethany Muir) teases—not without some admiration—of the mysteriously scarred man who seems to go everywhere their coterie goes without ever acknowledging or even looking at them. Sophie attempts to engage him in conversation, while Charlie’s obnoxious boyfriend Al (Max Irons) suggests they invite the stranger for a drink. Only Charlie remains unimpressed: “Can you not see his schtick? International man of mystery?”

The man indeed seems to quietly revel in the rumors that have circulated around him, sitting quietly as the actors attempt to guess his vocation, anything from fireman and actor to, well, spy. “He’s Joseph… can’t you see? With his coat of many colors,” concludes Charlie, pinpointing the chameleon-like charisma of the Israeli intelligence officer sitting before them. He corrects his name as Peter, then responds to her own suspicious—but arguably intrigued—aggression by quipping “So you’re Charlie? I thought that was a boy’s name.” Growing impatient with the swaggering stranger, Charlie abandons the conversation and warns her friends: “Don’t come crying to me when he cleans out your traveler’s cheques.”

Of course, it’s Charlie and not her friends that Gadi Becker has his eye on, having been tasked by his superiors to seduce and ultimately recruit the impressionable young idealist into their service.

What’d They Wear?

John le Carré describes the mysterious Gadi’s entry onto the Mykonos beach as observed by Charlie in the third chapter of his 1983 novel:

Wearing a pair of prim monk’s bathing trunks, black, and carrying a tin water-bottle from which he occasionally took frugal sips, as if the next oasis were a day’s march off. Never watching, never paying the slightest heed, reading his Debray from under the shade of his baggy white golf hat. Yet following every move she made—she knew it, if only by the pitch and stillness of his handsome head.

For the 2018 adaptation, the production team—perhaps thankfully—did away with the oft-referenced golf hat while keeping the Debray paperback as Gadi’s selected beach read. The black bathing trunks were lightened to a brighter shade of royal blue, likely a blend of nylon and spandex. The tight shorts have almost no inseam, fitted around the waist and detailed with white contrast stitching around each thigh hem and along the non-functional fly. The front pockets are piped in white along the slanted tops.

Gadi strips down to his swim trunks for another day in the sun with Debray.

Gadi wears browline-style sunglasses with dark tortoise frames and gold rims along the bottoms of the brown lenses.

The browline frame was launched by Shuron Ltd. in 1947, defining a look for the ’50s through ’60s as popularized by the likes of Lyndon B. Johnson, Vince Lombardi, and Malcolm X. The look had generally fallen from vogue by the time The Little Drummer Girl was set in the late 1970s, but browlines would be revived as hot eyewear for the ’80s, thanks to their appearance in movies like Rain Man, Reservoir Dogs, and Top Gun as well as the introduction of Ray-Ban Clubmaster sunglasses.

Through the darkened lenses of his browline sunglasses, Gadi settles in for some, uh, “light” beach reading in the form of Conversations with Allende, Régis Debray’s account of his discussions with the then-newly elected Chilean president regarding his history and goals for cementing socialism in Chile.

Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgård, promoting The Little Drummer Girl during the Summer TCAs. Photo by Robby Klein.

After accepting the invitation to join Charlie’s friends, Gadi buttons up the goldenrod camp shirt that he had initially been wearing as a beach cover-up, illustrating the wisdom of choosing a versatile wardrobe that can transfer effectively from beach towel to bar stool.

Skarsgård may have kept the shirt following the production (as Bustle‘s Megan C. Hills suspects he did with the green suede jacket) as he wore it for the press event and photo call introducing the series during the TCA summer press tour in Beverly Hills in July 2018, months after filming wrapped.

Although the series was set in 1979, Gadi eschews fashion trends like excessively wide collars, as seen with this shirt’s more moderate camp collar (also known as a “revere collar”, among other names.) The short-sleeved shirt has five flat bronze-colored plastic two-hole sew-through buttons, buttoning up the plain “French placket” front to the chest and falling short of the neck, meant to be worn open.

The shirt has a uniquely crimped texture, the result of the lightweight cotton woven into a series of neat rows of mini-triangles. A patch pocket is positioned against each hip, just above the seam that runs along the straight bottom hem that has a short vent on each side.

Charlie’s friends seem more offended by her criticisms of Gadi than he is.

Once the “family” (as le Carré calls them) welcomes “Joseph” to their table at a beachside taverna, Gadi changes out of his swim trunks and into a pair of light beige cotton flat front chino trousers. The bottoms are cuffed, though we don’t see them closely enough to tell if they have permanent turn-ups or if Gadi cuffed the bottoms himself to keep them out of the sand.

As with the rest of his wardrobe, Gadi wisely wears a pair of shoes appropriate for each situation he finds himself in. These tan leather slip-on shoes have open-woven uppers, similar to the traditional huarache but structured like a penny loafer for extra support, detailed with a braided strap across the vamp. The quarters and side panels are smooth leather, though the sides are perforated with open-weave braiding that extends back from the toes up to the solid heel quarter pieces. (To see the shoes in more detail, zoom in on the photo used at the bottom of this post.)

Gadi swaps out his trunks for trousers to make his beach look appropriate for an intimate evening of revelry.

It was Gadi’s gold watch that we saw first catching Charlie’s attention at the beachside taverna a few days earlier, a distinctive Omega that we the audience would have recognized as the same model worn by the Palestinian bomber Salim Al-Khadar, aka “Michel” (Amir Khoury), during the opening scenes.

Though he hasn’t yet started wearing Michel’s other affectations like necklace and ring, Gadi indeed wears the same 18-karat yellow gold Omega Constellation ref. BA 368.0847 watch, which Omega had introduced in 1969 as the latest addition to the Constellation line. Powered by a 20-jewel automatic movement, this wristwatch has a light gold squared dial with rounded edges, gold non-numeric hour markers, and a 3:00 date window.

Gadi flashes Michel’s Omega Constellation as Charlie serenades him with a song specifically written for her performance of Saint Joan… a proprietary song that she suspiciously recognized him humming earlier in their trip.

What to Imbibe

In her attempt to make Gadi’s acquaintance, Sophia approaches him with a bottle of white wine labeled “Peteina Retsina”, from which he cautiously accepts a cup. (He later shares that his preference is for Boutari, which Terlato Wines currently touts as the world’s best-selling Greek wine.)

Lazing under the sun with a bottle of retsina, Sophie and Charlie consider the laconic stranger who spends his days reclining on the cliffs above them. Photo by Jonathan Olley.

While I couldn’t find any parallels to real-life brands—indeed, all the liquor labels in The Little Drummer Girl seem to be fictional—my brief research did shine a light on what exactly retsina is. Mark Squires penned a brief article for Wine Journal, “Retsina: Can We Never Mention It Again?”, criticizing the process entirely and suggesting that the word “retsina” not even be used in the same sentence as “wine” (sorry, Mark!) given the damage it has already done to the reputation of the Greek wine industry. Squires informs that retsina refers more to the process than the libation itself, a white wine with pine resin added to mimic ancient Greek wine tradition.

Given its disregard from an expert like Squires and the reluctance with which the well-traveled Gadi accepts his cup, the inclusion of retsina seems fitting for a group of penniless thespians looking to stretch their bucks while experiencing local “flavor”.

Sophie gets close enough to Gadi to present him with a glass of retsina… and to observe his mysterious scars.

How to Get the Look

Alexander Skarsgård as Gadi Becker in The Little Drummer Girl (2018).
Photo by Jonathan Olley.

Gadi Becker’s head-turning beach garb blends comfort and classically inspired aesthetics for a versatile cabana-to-cafe ensemble that avoids the excesses of the era’s fashions. His short blue trunks provide eye-catching contrast on the beach, easily transferred into a more understated boardwalk-ready look by buttoning back on his textured camp shirt and pulling on khaki chinos (possibly over the tight trunks!)

• Goldenrod textured cotton short-sleeved 5-button camp shirt with hip pockets
• Beige cotton chino flat front trousers with side pockets and turn-ups/cuffs
• Royal blue nylon/spandex short-inseam swim trunks with white-piped front pockets
• Tan open-woven leather loafers
• Tortoise-framed browline sunglasses with gold-rimmed brown lenses
• Omega Constellation BA 368.0847 yellow gold square-cased automatic watch with squared gold dial (with non-numeric hour markers and 3:00 date window) on integrated five-piece link bracelet

Even before I had watched The Little Drummer Girl for the first time, I already had many similar pieces from Gadi’s beach-going wardrobe, thanks in part to my regard for the leisure-inspired offerings of the California-based outfitter Dandy Del Mar, from which you can build almost all of Gadi’s outfit yourself:

• Tropez Terry Cloth Shirt in Burnt Sienna
• Brisa Linen Pant in Vintage Ivory
• Riviera Trunks in Seagrass
• Huaraches in Natural Leather

For le Carré purists, Dandy Del Mar even offers a white terry bucket hat, perhaps similar to the white golf hat that the author suggests as Gadi’s go-to headgear.

If you’re looking for a more conventional take on the camp shirt, check out these selections from Abercrombie & Fitch and Brooklyn Tailors, available as of July 2021.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, described by Troy Patterson for The New Yorker as “a chic, surreal adaptation… that approaches spy craft as a form of experimental art”, and read John le Carré’s 1983 novel.

The post The Little Drummer Girl: Gadi’s Gold Beach Shirt appeared first on BAMF Style.

Marlon Brando as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls (1955)

Vitals

Marlon Brando as Sky Masterson, smooth gambler

New York, Spring 1955

Film: Guys and Dolls
Release Date: November 3, 1955
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Costume Designer: Irene Sharaff

Background

I always found it interesting to watch a method—ahem, that’s Method—actor like Marlon Brando navigating the artificially staged Broadway of Guys and Dolls, the gangland-adjacent musical by Frank Loesser, which had been based on a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows… which had itself been based on several stories by Damon Runyon.

One of the top-grossing movies of its time, Guys and Dolls has maintained its reputation as one of the great movie musicals of all time, despite the two top-billed of its four leads not being professional singers; of the third and fourth-billed leads, Frank Sinatra need no introduction and Vivian Blaine memorably reprised her role from the original play.

Sinatra reportedly resented the non-singer Brando being cast in the lead role of slick gambler Sky Masterson so much that he refused to engage with Brando during production, referring to him as “Mumbles” and only communicating via intermediaries by the end of filming. (In turn, Mumbles intentionally flubbed repeated takes of a scene where Sinatra had to eat cheesecake, knowing his co-star detested the rich dessert.)

Ol’ Blue Eyes may have had a point about his superior singing voice, not that Brando would disagree, having likened his own singing voice to “the mating call of a yak”, but you’d be hard-pressed to disregard the power of Brando’s presence, then at the height of his early fame fresh off of iconic performances in A Streetcar Named Desire, The Wild One, and On the Waterfront… the latter being yet another role coveted by Sinatra.

Brando also shares a charming chemistry with Jean Simmons as the pretty yet prim Sergeant Sarah Brown of the Save-a-Soul Mission. Like Brando, Simmons wasn’t a professional singer before the production but managed to impress many with her vocals. (Not to be confused with Gene Simmons, who indeed is famously known for being a musician.)

It’s their romantic tension that drives the primary plot, including a delightful jaunt to Havana where the movie reaches—in my opinion—its high point as first-time drunk Sister Sarah instigates a barfight. Of course, there would likely be no romance to begin with if not for the terms of a $1,000 bet made with fellow gambler Nathan Detroit (Sinatra), who desperately needs the stack to pay for a garage to host his high-stakes crap game.

What’d He Wear?

In a sartorially snappy world where every guy is a gambler, there’s little room for the traditional worsted suit, white shirt, and straight dark tie (aside from said guy’s wedding day, of course.) A marvelous Girls Do Film post exploring the costumes of Guys and Dolls sets the scene: “These Guy gangsters wear their success with ease and swagger; compare their attire to the sober and more conventional suits worn by Lieutenant Brannigan (Robert Keith)… It’s a stylistic cliché that has its roots in cinema – the brash mobster uniform was created and reinforced by costume designers in films including The Public Enemy (1931) and Little Caesar (1931) and then picked up by real-timers, who wanted to live up to the legend their on-screen idols had set – dressing the part was just one aspect of this.”

Sky Masterson generally cycles through two different suits in Guys and Dolls, a sharp navy suit for nights spent anywhere between New York City crap games and Havana nightclubs and a lighter stone-gray gabardine suit that he wears by day, always with a fedora to match.

The stone-gray suit has a single-breasted jacket with peak lapels, a configuration that prominently emerged among tonier dressers during the roaring ’20s. Due to the cyclical nature of menswear, peak lapels on a single-breasted jacket would have been less commonly seen by the ’50s; combined with the breadth of these sharp lapels, this detail would have more subtly communicated Sky’s status than some of the bolder prints and colors favored by his brothers-in-craps.

Sky’s jacket has a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, and four-button cuffs. The wide, padded shoulders reflect the fashions of the era while also building Sky’s silhouette to suggest a power that, combined with understated charm, translates into confidence. Detailed with short double side vents, the full-skirted jacket’s short length (for the decade) is emphasized even more by the single front button, placed relatively low but still nearly aligned with the trouser waistband.

The double reverse-pleated trousers have side pockets, which he often places his hands in by hiking the jacket behind them.

Sky represents a more contemporary style of dress than the more old-school Nathan Detroit, clad in his dark striped suit, detachable collar, and polka-dot bow tie.

Sky appears to have had his pocket square made from the same metallic dark gray silk as his shirt. Though Sky is hardly a traditional dresser, the evolution from classic white pocket squares was already in effect by mid-century and—less than a decade after Guys and Dolls was released—sartorial ostiary Sir Hardy Amies wrote that “the use of colored silk handkerchiefs has increased as colored shirts have become more popular,” even going so far as to dictate that “if [shirts or collars] are colored, the handkerchief should be colored.”

Granted, Sir Hardy doesn’t address the practice of specifically matching one’s non-white shirts to display kerchiefs of the same fabric, but Sky’s appearance is still considerably less gauche than many of his cohorts and a vast improvement over the mated ties-and-pocket square combinations often found among the racks of discount clothiers and drugstores.

The shirt has a razor-sharp point collar, plain “French placket” front, breast pocket, and double (French) cuffs.

Despite (or perhaps in part due to) his natty sense of dress from the Royal Stetson fedora to his matching silk shirt and pocket square, Sky’s charm is initially lost on the repressed Sister Sarah.

Brando in costume as Sky Masterson on the cover of a 1955 issue of Picture Post magazine.

Sky tops his look with a pearl-gray felt Royal Stetson, styled with an appropriately wide, self-edged brim and a dark gray grosgrain ribbon. (The “Royal Stetson” branding can be clearly seen on the inner lining as Sky gestures, hat in hand, inside the Save-Our-Souls Mission precinct.)

Under his buttoned jacket, Sky holds up his trousers with a set of tonally coordinated suspenders (braces), constructed from a light stone fabric with silver-toned hardware. We briefly get glimpses of these braces when Sky unbuttons the jacket of his navy suit during the climactic craps game, but a promotional photo used for the December 3, 1955 cover of the British Picture Post magazine illustrates that he also wore them with his “daytime” gray suit.

The next time Sky wears this light stone-colored suit, he has swapped out his shirt for the darker indigo-blue shirt of the same cut and style, likely the same that he wore with his dark navy suit when escorting Sister Sarah to Havana and participating in the famous crap game. His indigo pocket square reinforces the theory that Sky has his shirts and pocket squares cut from the same cloth.

With both shirts, Sky wears the same ivory silk straight tie with its unique pattern that consists of a field of “falling” mini arrowheads, broken up every few inches by a horizontal helix-like shape before the field repeats again.

Sky wears black shoes and socks, though the matte finish of his lace-ups suggest suede uppers rather than a smooth calf leather.

Like many men of the era, Sky wears a pinky ring, in this case a substantial gold ring with a large smooth oval sapphire blue stone shining from the face.

Do we think Ol’ Blue Eyes also resented Brando wearing a ring that may have distracted from his own famous cerulean peepers?

Sky also dresses his left wrist with a gold watch, a subtle but unique timepiece with a recessed black round dial against the squared gold case, secured on a black leather strap.

Curiously, a few alternating shots swap it out for a more traditional round-cased gold watch with a plain white dial, likely Brando’s own. (Might it be the similar-looking Vacheron Constantin that Zsa Zsa Gabor gifted him the previous summer to celebrate his Oscar win for On the Waterfront? See this watch and others at Revolution.)

How to Get the Look

Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons in Guys and Dolls (1955)

While many of his craps-shooting cronies dress beyond caricature in their boldly colored shirts and socks, oversized suits, and pastel hosiery, Sky bridges the worlds of contemporary ’50s tailoring and old-school gambler flash with his sleek stone-shaded “day” suit, unorthodox colored silk shirt and pocket square, and coordinated fedora.

• Stone-gray gabardine suit:
  • Single-breasted, single-button jacket with wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and double side vents
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark gray silk shirt with point collar, plain front, breast pocket, and double/French cuffs
• Ivory patterned silk straight tie
• Stone fabric suspenders/braces with silver adjusters
• Black suede lace-up shoes
• Black socks
• Pearl-gray felt Royal Stetson fedora with dark gray grosgrain band
• Gold pinky ring with blue oval stone
• Gold square-cased wristwatch with round black recessed dial and black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you’re going to wind up with an ear full of cider.

The post Brando’s Gray Gambler Suit in Guys and Dolls appeared first on BAMF Style.

Griffin Dunne as Paul Hackett in After Hours (1985)

Vitals

Griffin Dunne as Paul Hackett, mild-mannered data processor

New York City, Spring 1985

Film: After Hours
Release Date: September 13, 1985
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Rita Ryack

Background

Friday the 13th is traditionally a day for bad luck, so it’s appropriate that Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, centered around one New Yorker’s evening of arguably bad luck, was released on Friday the 13th in September 1985.

A surreal black comedy with elements of neo-noir, After Hours begins just before 5:00 for Paul Hackett, a data processor ostensibly living the yuppie dream with his secure job and Manhattan apartment… but the job sucks, his apartment’s cramped despite no one to share it with, and he has no social life outside of training new employees. In search of any human connectivity into his life, Paul takes his dog-eared copy of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer to an all-night diner. (Miller’s controversial tome would again appear in Scorsese’s 1991 remake of Cape Fear, yet another less characteristic entry in the director’s canon.)

“Different rules apply when it gets this late, you know what I mean? It’s like… after hours,” advises the cashier (Dick Miller) at another all-night diner.

Paul catches the eye of the mysterious Marcy (Patricia Arquette), who leaves him with her phone number before dashing into the night. Under the pretense of buying a paperweight from Marcy’s sculptor roommate Kiki (Linda Fiorentino), an increasingly lonely Paul calls the number and arranges to visit their studio apartment in SoHo just before midnight. Paul’s only cash, a $20 bill, glides out the window of his taxi as he rides to SoHo… portending a series of escalating events, surreal scenarios, and mysterious women as Paul attempts to make his way back to bed—either a woman’s bed or his own—and survive the chaotic night!

What’d He Wear?

Paul Hackett wears the same suit throughout After Hours, a beige business suit made from a cotton gabardine, a tightly woven fabric prone to wrinkling—even more-so after being repeatedly waterlogged—that only adds to Paul’s distressed look as the night grows more tumultuous.

His beige suit drenched from the rain, Paul finds temporary refuge in the seedy Terminal Bar.

Gabardine suits in shades of light brown were popular alternatives to traditional American business dress by the early 1980s. Even across the pond, vaunted style icon James Bond was tailored in tan gabardine—both wool and cotton—for his travels in four of the five 007 movies produced throughout the decade, stretching across the end of Roger Moore’s tenure into Timothy Dalton’s first of two films.

The beige gabardine suit’s versatility is put to the test by the events of After Hours, as it was the same that Paul had worn to work earlier in the day. He had already been home twice by the time he dressed it back up to make his fateful venture to Marcy and Kiki’s SoHo apartment, but he still sought to wear this light suit well into the night, likely hoping to make a good impression on the woman he had met earlier… naturally unaware that he would spend the next several hours subjecting it to hard rain and layers of plaster.

Paul leaves his Madison Avenue office one evening… only to return in the same suit but a different shirt and tie—oh, and covered in plaster residue—the next morning.

The single-breasted suit jacket is cut and detailed in the prevailing style of American business suits from the mid-20th century onward, with notch lapels ending clear above a two-button front. The shoulders are padded, though not to the extremes of some “power suits” tailored for men and women during the ’80s, and the sleeves are roped at the shoulders and finished at the cuffs with four “kissing” buttons. The back is split with a long single vent, and the jacket also boasts a welted breast pocket and straight flapped hip pockets.

Paul finds a new accomplice in Gail (Catherine O’Hara), though her alliance would be one of his shortest of the evening once she suspects he’s a wanted neighborhood burglar.

Paul’s flat front suit trousers have belt loops as well as an extended tab on the waistband, which likely buttons in place under his belt. The plain-hemmed bottoms have a subtle flare, though not nearly as dramatic as was trendy during the previous decade.

Straight pockets are positioned vertically along each side seam, and there are two back pockets: an open jetted right pocket and a left pocket that closes with a single button through a gently pointed flap.

Rather than a traditional leather or even surcingle belt, Paul wears a khaki woven cotton military-style web belt with a gunmetal box-frame buckle and matching metal tip.

Complete with a Hockney print, Paul’s apartment offers the trappings of yuppie loneliness.

When we meet Paul training Lloyd (Bronson Pinchot) at the office, he’s dressed for work in a cotton twill shirt checked in a navy, magenta, and yellow tattersall against a white ground, detailed with a button-down collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs. His crimson red repp tie has narrow beige “downhill”-directional stripes, each bordered along the top with an even thinner black shadow stripe.

After meeting Marcy and making plans to meet her, he changes into a fresh shirt, constructed of plain white cotton but detailed like his earlier shirt with its button-down collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs. He also pulls on a new tie, a plain red knitted tie with a squared bottom.

Arriving at the apartment, he finds only her roommate Kiki, clad only in her bra and a black leather skirt as she works on a papier-mâché sculpture that Paul would grow all-too-familiar with later in the night.

Splashed by papier-mâché, Paul begins unknotting his tie… sartorially signifying the transition of his evening into chaos.

An artistic error splashes papier-mâché paste onto Paul’s white shirt before Marcy even arrives, so Kiki outfits him in a black striped shirt that, in turn, looks considerably more appropriate for his nocturnal adventures to follow. Patterned with evenly spaced white pinstripes, the black shirt essentially follows the structure of his earlier two shirts with its button-down collar, barrel cuffs, placket, and button-through pocket, all fastened with black plastic buttons.

As the desperate barmaid Julie (Teri Garr) waits at a table behind him, Paul chats with the bartender Tom (John Heard), with whom he already has more in common than either man realizes.

Interestingly, re-donning his tie—and thus reclaiming his connection to his boring, but safe, life—essentially ensures Paul’s return to freedom, as he ties it on to make a good impression on June (Verna Bloom), the eccentric sculptor dwelling in the basement of Club Berlin who ultimately proves to be his unknowing guardian back to safety.

Putting his tie back on leads Paul into the arms of June, his unlikely savior… even despite her own best efforts to entrap him.

Paul wears brown leather derby shoes, a tonally appropriate choice of footwear with his beige suit, against which black shoes would likely too harshly contrast. His dark socks appear to be black and, as we see during the brief vignette with a lonely Paul parked in front of the tube at home, are finished with the characteristic yellow toe threading that remains a signature of the Gold Toe brand.

Paul desperately tracks the passing hours of his unending night on his wristwatch, a G.I.-approved Hamilton Khaki automatic field watch that remains one of the few objects of value he miraculously doesn’t lose by the end of the night. The Khaki was the Hamilton Watch Company’s successful foray into extending the reliable field watches it manufactured for the U.S. military during World War II into the civilian market.

Paul wears a brushed steel Hamilton Khaki with a black dial detailed with luminous hands and hour markers, the latter further detailed with white Arabic numerals at each hour and an inner 24-hour index to ease the user’s ability to denote military time. (You can see the watch, as well as the gabardine suiting of Paul’s left jacket sleeve, in this screenshot.) The watch is secured to Paul’s wrist on a black ribbed nylon strap.

The prominent shots of Paul’s trusty Hamilton Khaki allow us to track the passing hours of his seemingly endless night in dystopian SoHo.

How to Get the Look

Griffin Dunne as Paul Hackett in After Hours (1985)

Paul Hackett may have low expectations when he leaves his home to meet a mysterious woman one night, dressed as he would have been at work twelve hours earlier in his beige gabardine suit with a white shirt and red tie. As he’s thrust into a never-ending nocturnal adventure, he’s re-dressed in the “uniform” of a black open-neck shirt that instantly transforms his suit from banal business attire into a more exciting evening-ready ensemble.

• Beige cotton gabardine business suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 4-button “kissing” cuffs, and long single vent
  • Flat front trousers with belt loops, extended waist tab, on-seam side pockets, jetted back-right pocket, button-flapped back-left pocket, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black white-pinstriped shirt with button-down collar, front placket, button-through breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Khaki cotton web belt with gunmetal box-frame buckle and tip
• Brown leather derby shoes
• Black dress socks
• Hamilton Khaki brushed steel automatic field watch with black dial (with double-hour index) on black ribbed nylon strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. To follow Paul’s footsteps, read this extensively researched project at NYC in Film.

The Quote

I just wanted to leave my apartment, maybe meet a nice girl… and now I’ve gotta die for it?!

The post After Hours: Paul’s Day-to-Night Beige Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

Chaim Topol as Milos Colombo in For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Vitals

Chaim Topol as Milos Colombo, gregarious smuggler and pistachio addict

St. Cyril’s, Greece, Spring 1981

Film: For Your Eyes Only
Release Date: June 24, 1981
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller
Wardrobe Master: Tiny Nicholls

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Continuing my commemoration of my favorite of Roger Moore’s James Bond adventures, For Your Eyes Only, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, today also marks the 86th birthday of Chaim Topol. Born September 9, 1935, the Israeli actor may be best known for his memorable performance as Tevye the Dairyman in the stage and screen versions of Fiddler on the Roof, though he also has a significance for Bond fans as 007’s charismatic ally Milos Colombo in For Your Eyes Only.

Penned by Bond regulars Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson, For Your Eyes Only brought Bond back to Earth after his outer space adventures in Moonraker and his deep-sea Lotus-diving in The Spy Who Loved Me. Maibaum and Wilson turned to Ian Fleming’s source material, specifically the short stories “For Your Eyes Only” and “Risico”, the latter originating the characters of Colombo and his smuggling rival, Aristotle Kristatos.

As usual, For Your Eyes Only finds Bond and his allies preparing to infiltrate the villain’s lair, only 007’s team is a small crew of six—including Colombo and the vengeance-seeking Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet)—and Kristatos (Julian Glover) is holed up not with an identically dressed army in a hollowed-out volcano but instead biding his time in a mountaintop monastery with a few select henchmen and a bratty figure-skater.

What’d He Wear?

Bond, Melina, and Colombo’s team are certainly dressed for the action-packed task ahead, but Colombo himself looks a little more prepared for a nightclub than daytime combat. Indeed, if someone were watching the scene without the context of who Roger Moore or James Bond are, they may mistake Colombo as the central protagonist as he’s dressed like the quintessential cinematic action hero in a less-than-practical all black, anchored by his cool leather jacket.

The attire is consistent with Colombo’s image of himself, an individualistic renegade whose entire, decades-long criminal career has been building up to this climax with his erstwhile partner-turned-rival Kristatos. For Bond, this is just another job; for Colombo, it’s personal.

Colombo’s black leather jacket takes some styling cues from the classic “café racer” that emerged in England, following the development of the Schott Perfecto motorcycle jacket in the late 1920s. His hip-length jacket shares the short standing mandarin-style collar of the sleek racer-style jacket, fastening up the front with a black plastic-toothed zipper that Colombo leaves open throughout the scene.

Horizontal seams split the center of the body and the raglan sleeves, which each end in a short pointed tab that closes through a single button—though Colombo leaves those open as well. A short buckle-tab adjusts the fit around the waist on each side of the hem, and the back has an inverted box-pleat through the center to allow for greater range of motion. The pocket on the right side has a slanted welt opening, and the set-in pocket on the left is covered by a pointed pocket flap extending down from the seam.

The protagonist of his own personal vengeance story, Colombo dresses more like the quintessential cinematic action hero than the more practically attired Bond and Melina.

As stated, Colombo layers the jacket over black underpinnings. The black long-sleeved shirt has a silky finish, though it may be made from rayon or a rayon blend, consistent with trending fabrics at the dawn of the ’80s. The shirt has black buttons up the narrow front placket and on the cuffs. There are two chest pockets, each detailed with a horizontal yoke and mitred lower corners.

Colombo wears his shirt tucked into black flat front trousers which have prominently swelled side seams and plain-hemmed bottoms. The trousers are held up by a black leather belt that has an intricate gold-plated buckle that suggests a top designer, similar to the leatherwear from Salvatore Ferragamo and Gucci that Roger Moore had worn as Bond over the previous decade. Colombo evidently carries his pistol in his waistband or pocket, though he keeps his combat knife holstered in a brown leather sheath attached to the back-right of his belt.

Perhaps the most practical part of Colombo’s wardrobe are his black leather sneakers. All black aside from the gum rubber soles, these apron-toe, derby-laced trainer shoes are subdued enough to not provide a jarring contrast against the all-black nature of his smart casual outfit while also serving the practical purpose of providing him with more traction while running and fighting on the rougher terrain of St. Cyril’s.

Colombo and Kristatos brawl as the latter tries to deliver the MacGuffin—er, ATAC—to the Soviets.

By the early 1980s, SEIKO had been well-established as the official watch brand of the James Bond franchise, with 007 himself and even minor characters like Sir Timothy Havelock wearing these trusty Japanese timepieces on their wrists. Colombo’s stainless steel dive watch is best seen during these climactic scenes, detailed with a black dial that has luminous hour markers. The tapered steel bracelet with its squared, three-piece links resembles neither the coffin-link nor H-link styles of watch bracelets that SEIKO used during this era… though that doesn’t mean Colombo isn’t wearing a SEIKO.

Colombo wears two gold rings on the third finger of his left hand. The chunkier ring, worn toward the front of his finger, has a squared surface engraved with what appears to be a snake. He stacks this in front of a slimmer ring that has the smaller, rounded surface of a signet ring.

The Gun

Colombo arms himself for the assault with a FÉG Tokagypt 58, a Hungarian-made copy of the Tokarev service pistol that had been developed by Soviet Russia during the years leading up to World War II. Even 40 years after For Your Eyes Only, the Tokagypt’s screen appearances have been limited, according to IMFDB, which explains that Colombo’s pistol can be cosmetically differentiated from the Tokarev by the added manual safety on the left side in addition to bulkier but more ergonomic brown Bakelite plastic grips.

Colombo draws his Tokagypt 58, though perhaps his excitement at finally confronting his nemesis has overcome his concern for trigger discipline.

The Russians introduced the Tokarev during the 1930s, when it was designated the TT-30 and TT-33 service pistol. It had been initially chambered in the proprietary 7.62x25mm Tokarev cartridge, though eventual export to other Soviet bloc countries led to its adaptation for a more universal cartridge, specifically the 9x19mm Parabellum that had been originally developed for the German Luger pistol in 1908.

The Hungarian firearms firm Fegyver és Gépgyár (FÉG) began producing its own TT-33 copy, re-barreled to fire 9mm and known as the Pisztoly 48.M. A decade later, the Egyptian Army contracted FÉG to deliver 30,000 pistols. FÉG had already started fulfilling the order when the Egyptian Army canceled the contract, and the remaining TT-9P pistols were sold commercially, marketed as the Tokagypt 58 (a portmanteau of “Tokarev” and “Egypt” with 1958 denoting the year of production.)

How to Get the Look

Chaim Topol as Milos Colombo in For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Wearing all black may look like you’re trying too hard to be an action hero, but that’s precisely what Milos Colombo has in mind when he and his commando team bring his decades-long association-turned-feud with Kristatos to a crescendo on a quiet Greek mountaintop. Whether he survives or dies during the mission, Colombo knows this will be the defining moment of his personal and professional lives and dresses the part of the archetypal movie badass.

• Black leather racer-style jacket with short standing collar, raglan sleeves with button cuffs, slanted right-side pocket, flapped set-in left-side pocket, and waist hem adjuster tabs
• Black silky rayon long-sleeved shirt with front placket, two chest pockets, and button cuffs
• Black flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather designer belt with unique gold-plated buckle
• Black leather apron-toe derby-laced sneakers with gum rubber soles
• Black socks
• Gold chunky ring with square, snake-engraved face
• Gold signet ring
• Stainless steel dive watch with round black dial and tapered steel three-piece link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post For Your Eyes Only: Topol’s Black Leather Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Philip Michael Thomas and Sonny Crockett filming “Brother’s Keeper”, the pilot episode of Miami Vice

Vitals

Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs, vengeful undercover detective

Miami, Spring 1984

Series: Miami Vice
Episode: “Brother’s Keeper” (Episode 1.01)
Air Date: September 16, 1984
Director: Thomas Carter
Creator: Anthony Yerkovich
Costume Designer: Jodie Lynn Tillen

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

This week in 1984, Miami Vice debuted on NBC, introducing us to the cooler-than-ice cops Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas). Per the detectives’ duties for the Metro-Dade Police Department’s vice division, the episodes frequently included thrilling gunfights and car chases against drug-peddling foes amidst a stylish backdrop of sleek cars, sleeker clothes, pop music, and a parade of guest stars ranging from Liam Neeson, Willie Nelson, and a young Julia Roberts to… G. Gordon Liddy.

The title of the Emmy-winning pilot episode, “Brother’s Keeper”, refers most specifically to Tubbs, a New York transplant who arrived in Miami seeking vengeance on the wily drug kingpin Calderone, who killed his brother Rafael. Despite their head-butting personalities, Tubbs joins forces with Crockett, hoping to soften the tension between them by bringing coffee and donuts onto his boat as well as the results of his own surveillance on Calderone, but Crockett informs him that “down here, you’re just another amateur.”

Sipping cocktails at a beachside bar to the tune of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, Tubbs spots a “girl” having a little too much fun when she pulls a silenced pistol and kills Leon (Mykelti Williamson), one of his and Crockett’s most promising leads in their case against Calderone.

“You know, buddy, you got a leak in your department the size of the East River,” Tubbs tells his new partner, now convinced that he needs Tubbs’ help to bring down Calderone.

What’d He Wear?

Philip Michael Thomas and Sonny Crockett promoting Miami Vice, each wearing a suit that would be featured in the pilot episode, albeit not at the same time; Crockett wore this white linen suit and light blue T-shirt for his introduction at the start of the episode.

Don Johnson’s layered pastel linens as the slick Sonny Crockett would become the breakout fashions from the series, though Tubbs would have been the standout on almost any other show. As a New York cop fresh in Miami, Tubbs isn’t as rooted in the colorful schematics as Crockett but he quickly gets a hang for how to dress down in the subtropical “Magic City”, adapting his more conventional style to keep up with his partner.

Midway through “Brother’s Keeper”, Tubbs shows up for his first official day partnered with Crockett in a double-breasted dove-gray suit jacket made from a softly napped cloth with a silky finish, possibly a blend of silk and wool serge. Philip Michael Thomas wore the jacket as part of a matching two-piece suit for a series of promotional portraits taken with Johnson, though the jacket was orphaned with non-matching trousers for its appearance in the pilot episode.

Whether worn with a tie or T-shirt, double-breasted jackets would quickly become a style trademark for Rico Tubbs, redefining what had once been a more old-fashioned style to illustrate that you don’t have to be Chance the gardener to wear double-breasted jackets.

The pick-stitched peak lapels roll to a full 6×2-button front, which Tubbs wears both open and fully fastened. Shaped with darts, the jacket has a welted breast pocket, jetted hip pockets, three-button cuffs.

Double-breasted jackets are traditionally tailored sans vents, and Tubbs’ jacket is no exception though the lack of vents creates a rather obvious bulge over where he carries his revolver in the back.

Tubbs would be considerably more predisposed to wearing neckties than Crockett, though he goes open-neck this morning, unbuttoning the top few buttons of his ice-blue silky long-sleeved camp shirt. The shirt has a loop collar, covered fly, and single-button rounded barrel cuffs. The two chest pockets are covered by rounded-corner flaps, neither of which close through a button.

Like his double-breasted jacket, Tubbs’ two-pocket, long-sleeved camp shirt could be considered a relic of mid-century sportswear but worn with a renewed energy that reestablishes both pieces are contemporary fashions for the ’80s.

Tubbs doesn’t wear the jacket’s matching suit trousers in “Brother’s Keeper”, instead sporting pleated taupe trousers that are a shade warmer than the jacket, though the lack of obvious contrast may create the effect that Tubbs was trying to “match” two non-matching pieces. The proneness to wrinkling suggests linen—a smart choice of fabric when expecting action in the hot Miami climate—or a linen and silk blend.

The trousers are held up by a narrow russet-brown leather belt that has a gold-toned single-prong buckle and gold keeper (not a “brother’s keeper”.) Dropped below the mid-rise belt line are a set of two closely spaced reverse-facing pleats on each side of the trousers.

“Call him off, man, I don’t even like alligator shoes!” Tubbs exclaims upon meeting Crockett’s gator pal Elvis on his boat. Indeed, his apron-toe lace-up shoes—while unconventional with their light gray uppers—are made from a more traditional leather than gator-skin. He wears them with a pair of black socks that show under the shorter break of his trouser bottoms, which are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

Tubbs and Crockett’s dressed-down ensembles are beach-ready at all times.

Tubbs finishes his look with a substantial amount of gold jewelry, from a subtle small hoop earring to a chain-link bracelet and watch that collide on his left wrist. Tubbs’ wristwatches never received the same attention and scrutiny as Crockett’s parade of timepieces, but we see in the pilot episode that he wears a gold watch with a blue square dial flush against the gold bracelet.

Often swinging out from the unbuttoned top of his shirt, Tubbs wears a large gold pendant that has been identified on the Miami Vice Online forums as a religious medallion with a relief of St. Christopher (“Christ Bearer”) carrying Jesus. A St. Christopher pendant had also been famously worn by Steve McQueen.

Good morning, Tubbs!

As part of his undercover image, Tubbs would also weigh down his fingers with a chunky gold ring on each hand, but we don’t see either of those with this particular outfit.

The Gun

As with the rest of his style, Rico Tubbs rarely carried flashy new firearms like his partner, instead veering toward tried-and-true practicality. His Smith & Wesson Model 38 “Bodyguard” reflects the snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 revolvers authorized for plainclothes policemen across the country for decades while providing the added benefit of a shrouded hammer for an easy draw from within the folds of his designer clothes.

Tubbs and Crockett draw their sidearms upon entering Leon’s apartment.

Smith & Wesson introduced the “Bodyguard” model in 1955, a half-decade after launching the five-shot .38 Special “Chiefs Special”—later to be re-designated Model 36—on the same J-frame. This original alloy-framed Bodyguard would be renamed the Model 38 Airweight Bodyguard, differentiated with the all carbon steel-framed Model 49 Bodyguard introduced by decade’s end. Both “Bodyguard” models featured a “Camel Hump” shroud to conceal the hammer and prevent it from snagging on clothing, making it a particularly practical weapon for concealed carry.

In fact, firearms expert Geoffrey Boothroyd had even insisted to Ian Fleming that the Smith & Wesson Airweight Bodyguard would make an ideal sidearm to replace James Bond’s relatively anemic .25-caliber Beretta, though Fleming relegated it to a backup weapon in the novel Doctor No, preferring to keep 007 armed with a semi-automatic pistol like the Walther PPK.

Tubbs carried his Smith & Wesson Model 38 Bodyguard, with black Pachmayr grips, throughout the entire duration of Miami Vice, while his partner rotated between the SIG-Sauer P220, Bren Ten, and .45-caliber Smith & Wesson semi-automatics over the course of the series.

For heavier-duty battles, Tubbs again tends to arm himself with time-tested weapons like the sawed-off double-breasted shotgun that makes several appearances throughout Miami Vice‘s first season, including “Brother’s Keeper”. While not necessarily a weapon still widely in police usage by the 1980s—especially for more urban departments like NYPD or MDPD—the infallible design that dates back more than a century is consistent with Tubbs’ preference for older-inspired technology and fashions.

What to Imbibe

While keeping an eye on Leon from a beachside bar, Tubbs sips from a coral-tinted goblet with the unique garnish of what appears to be a suspended fishing bob.

Any thoughts on what drinks may traditionally be served with garnishment like that?

We unfortunately aren’t privy to exactly what Tubbs is meant to be drinking, unless series creator Anthony Yerkovich detailed it in his script, but the color and context could inspire you to mix the aptly named cocktail Miami Vice.

Liquor.com informs us that “the tropical drink—part Strawberry Daiquiri, part Piña Colada, separated in the glass—precedes the popular ’80s television drama by some years,” so it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility for either of our heroes to order one… though it would perhaps be irresponsible for Crockett or Tubbs to be drinking on the job.

A picture-perfect Miami Vice cocktail, via Liquor.com.

Despite decades of existence, this particular cocktail has eluded inclusion in my latest version of the Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s Guide, so I’ve relied on online sources to get a sense of what goes into mixing a Miami Vice:

• Two 1-ounce portions of white rum
• 1-2 cups of strawberries
• 1/2 ounce of simple syrup
• 1.5-2 ounces of cream of coconut
• 1.5-2 ounces of pineapple juice

Both the strawberry daiquiri and the piña colada portions should be mixed separately, with Liquor.com advising that the daiquiri be prepared first, blending an ounce of the rum with the strawberries, simple syrup, and—if you prefer—an ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice, all with a cup of fresh ice. Once the strawberry daiquiri is smoothly blended, it should be poured into the hurricane glass and stored in the freezer.

With the blender cleaned out and ready for the next step, blend the remaining ounce of rum with the cream of coconut and pineapple juice (Tipsy Bartender suggests slightly less of the juices than Liquor.com does) with ice until you’ve got a smooth piña colada as well.

Pour the piña colada into the hurricane glass over the strawberry daiquiri, ostensibly providing a layered red-and-white effect that you can garnish with a strawberry, a pineapple slice, or—if you have it at your disposal—a paper fishing bob.

(Feeling patriotic? Baking Beauty suggests dying half the piña colada portion blue for a red, white, and blue cocktail ideal for your fourth of July celebrations.)

How to Get the Look

Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs in the Miami Vice pilot episode “Brother’s Keeper”

A more conventional dresser than his partner, Ricardo Tubbs still embraces the warm, fashionable setting of 1980s Miami as he updates mid-century styles like double-breasted jackets, two-pocket camp shirts, and pleated trousers.

• Dove-gray wool-and-silk serge double-breasted 6×2-button suit jacket with pick-stitched peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Ice-blue silk long-sleeved sports shirt with camp collar (with loop), covered-fly front, two flapped chest pockets, and single-button rounded cuffs
• Taupe linen double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, on-seam side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Russet-brown leather belt with small gold-toned single-prong buckle and keeper
• Light gray leather lace-up shoes
• Black socks
• Small gold hoop earring
• Gold St. Christopher medallion on gold necklace
• Thin gold chain-link bracelet
• Gold wristwatch with flush blue squared dial

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series.

The Quote

Couldn’t let you handle all that bad karma by yourself.

The post Miami Vice: Tubbs in Double-Breasted Dove Gray for the Pilot Episode appeared first on BAMF Style.

Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (1987)

Vitals

Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, smug and successful corporate raider

New York City, Spring 1985

Film: Wall Street
Release Date: December 11, 1987
Director: Oliver Stone
Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick
Tailor: Alan Flusser

Background

Happy birthday to Michael Douglas, the actor, producer, and activist born September 25, 1944, who may be most famous for his iconic Academy Award-winning performance as ruthless financier Gordon Gekko in Wall Street.

Named by AFI as one of the top 50 movie villains of all time, Gekko was based in part on real-life contemporaries like Asher Edelman, Michael Milken, and Ivan Boesky, the latter significantly influencing the “Greed… is good” speech. We meet the famed financier on his in-universe birthday, May 6… and astrologists may note Gekko’s Taurean tendencies from his appreciation for finer things to a strong self-will (which some may call stubbornness!)

Unlike me, who enjoys a leisurely lunch and who takes my birthday—nay, birthweek—off from work, Gekko never stops hustling. It must be an exhausting life… and Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) entering it is not going to make it any easier:

So what’s on your mind, kimosabe? Why am I listening to you?

What’d He Wear?

Hard at work when Bud Fox comes calling, Gordon Gekko’s suit jacket is nowhere to be seen as he works the phone in his shirt sleeves and tie, the deconstructed nature of his outfit making the abundant accessories all the more noticeable.

Gekko—via Ellen Mirjonick’s iconic costume design—established the contrast-collar shirt as the “uniform” of the ’80s power player. Michael Douglas’ shirts for Wall Street had been made by Alex Kabbaz, who had also made shirts for author Tom Wolf, including the horizontal-striped shirt that formed the basis of one of his shirts for Gordon Gekko. Such frivolities are yet unseen for our introduction to Gekko, as the horizontal striping may have been just too much for the viewer to take in during the first few minutes we spend with the fast-paced financier.

The body of Gekko’s shirt is a sky-blue cotton, sharply contrasted by the white collar with its wide, cutaway-style spread. His sleeves are roughly cuffed up his forearms throughout the scene, so the nature of his cuffs can’t be easily discerned; Gekko does have a propensity for double (French) cuffs, so it’s likely he’s just wearing them undone and rolled up here.

Gekko wears a rich burgundy-grounded tie with a balanced field of patterns alternating between blue floral medallions and cream dots. He holds the tie in place with a straight gold tie clip, smooth in the center where it may be monogrammed, and worn askew in an intentionally rakish manner suggesting he’s far too busy to fix it.

Gekko wears dark gray worsted wool trousers with a sky-blue windowpane that coordinates with his blue shirt. We can assume the trousers match to a suit jacket, likely hung up in a closet somewhere to avoid getting in the way of rapid-fire phone calls. These trousers have silver-finished buckle-tab adjusters positioned on each side of the waistband, but—as the kind of guy who writes off lunch as “for wimps”—he likely doesn’t want to take the chance that his trousers will fall off in mid-meeting, so he doubles down with a set of suspenders (braces).

The absence of his jacket showcases Gekko’s suspenders, consisting of navy blue fabric with a single sky-blue bar stripe through the center. Gold adjusters shine over the chest, and they fasten to buttons along the inside of the trouser waistband through white leather “rabbit ear” ends. The Y-back configuration means both striped straps converge over a white patch in the center of the back, connected by a short solid navy strap to the single white leather rabbit-ear end on the back.

Bud Fox: conventional in his dark suit, white shirt, and red power tie. Gordon Gekko: anything but conventional.

Styled with double forward-facing pleats, Gekko’s trousers have straight pockets along the side seams, jetted back pockets (with a button through the left), and plain-hemmed bottoms.

Gekko wears black leather oxfords, considered to be the most traditionally acceptable footwear for dressing in the business world. His dark gray socks continue the leg line of his trousers into the shoes.

The guy who would proclaim “greed—for lack of a better word—is good” would settle for nothing less than an 18-karat yellow gold Cartier Santos de Cartier Galbée tank watch. Not only is his watch a Cartier, already a prestigious marque, but 1987 was also the first year of the relaunched Santos Galbée, a more elegantly ergonomic evolution of the prior Santos model. Gekko’s Cartier retains the Santos’ quartz crystal movement, the eight bezel screws, and the double screws on each link of the bracelet secured around his left wrist. The white square dial has black Roman-numeral hour markers.

Gekko adorns his opposing hand with a thin gold chain-link bracelet and a gold pinky ring with an elongated surface.

In lieu of lunch, light up a Winston.

How to Get the Look

Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (1987)

The ultimate power player on ’80s Wall Street, Gordon Gekko dresses to catch the eye and show off his abundance of riches, from his fashionable tailoring to the gold jewelry, including his luxurious Cartier watch.

Details like the contrast collar and trouser side-adjusters show off that he has enough in his clothing budget to dive headfirst into sartorial territory where other men may be anxious to explore, and the fact that he pulls off such a dizzying combination of colors and patterns show that he dresses with earned confidence.

• Sky-blue cotton shirt with white spread contrast collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
• Burgundy medallion-printed silk tie
• Dark gray (with sky-blue windowpane) worsted wool double forward-pleated trousers with buckle-tab side adjusters, straight/on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Navy single-striped cloth suspenders with gold adjusters and white leather “rabbit-ear” connector ends
• Black leather oxford shoes
• Dark gray dress socks
• Gold wide-faced pinky ring
• Cartier Santos de Cartier Galbée gold wristwatch
• Gold chain-link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Lunch? Ah, you gotta be kidding. Lunch is for wimps.

The post Wall Street: Meeting Gordon Gekko in Shirt Sleeves and Suspenders appeared first on BAMF Style.

Peter Fonda as “Captain America” in Easy Rider (1969)

Vitals

Peter Fonda as Wyatt, aka “Captain America”, freedom-loving biker

Across the southern United States from Los Angeles through Louisiana, February 1968

Film: Easy Rider
Release Date: July 14, 1969
Director: Dennis Hopper

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

When I learned the second Saturday of October is commemorated as National Motorcycle Ride Day, I realized I’d gone far too long without shining a sartorial lens on Dennis Hopper’s iconic cult classic, Easy Rider.

Conceptualized by Hopper, Fonda, and screenwriter Terry Southern, Easy Rider‘s chaotic production and controversial themes have been the product of considerable discussion since its release during that seminal summer of ’69. To some, it explores the death of the American dream through the concept of freedom, asking what it really means to be a free American.

Set to classic rock like The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, Roger McGuinn, and Steppenwolf, we follow two bikers in their journey across the United States, from the open desert of the southwest into the close-knit conservative communities of the deep South. Hopper co-stars as the the mustached hippie rider Billy, but the arguable leader of the duo is the flag-bedecked Wyatt (Peter Fonda), celebrated by his pal as “Captain America”. After all, if a red, white, and blue-blooded Captain America can’t safely and freely ride across the nation, who can?

What’d He Wear?

Easy Rider has no credited costume designer, as it’s been chronicled that Peter Fonda himself had a significant hand in developing Wyatt’s “Captain America” look. Both of our protagonists take their cues from legends of the old west, with Hopper’s Billy—as in “Billy the Kid”—the more blatant outlaw in his fringed hippie buckskins, bushman’s hat, and drooping mustache. In accordance with the more lawful reputation of his namesake, Wyatt Earp, Fonda’s character can more easily “pass” with his shorter hair, clean-shaven countenance, and patriotic badging.

Wyatt and Billy embark on their epic ride.

Wyatt’s “Captain America” leather jacket was designed and made for Fonda by Clarice Amberg of the South Gate, California-based ABC Leathers, an outfitter “known for its innovative use of colored leather” (according to The Dedicated Follower of Fashion) that was purchased in 1971 by the company known today as Bates Custom Leathers. “She was praised as one of the first female owners of a racing jacket company (appropriate considering the progressive nature of the film), and it was she who made some of the first colourful biker jackets in an era where they were mostly black and riders were near impossible to tell apart,” Anna Prendergast described Amberg for The Rake.

Although Wyatt’s black cowhide jacket has been colorfully badged consistently with his patriotic pride, the foundation is a classic racer jacket, a simplified alternative to the asymmetric-zipped Schott Perfecto-style motorcycle jackets that had been developed in the 1920s. These zip-up jackets are characterized by a standing collar—often with a throat latch like the single-snap strap on Wyatt’s jacket—pleats behind each shoulder to allow greater freedom of movement, and zip-back gauntlets at the end of each sleeve. Pocket configurations vary, though Wyatt’s jacket seems to lack any external pockets in favor of red, white, and blue stripe detailing banded around his left arm and in a strip down the right side of his chest.

Wyatt introduces a reluctant George to the wonders of marijuana.

Affixed to the left side of the jacket over his chest, Wyatt wears a mixed-metal identification badge from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). According to Medals of America, the badge was developed in 1949 and “is to be worn permanently for the remainder of an individual’s military career, provided that a service member served at least one year (two years for Reserve personnel not on active duty) in or in support of OSD.”

The badge has a two-inch circumference with a brass-toned round base of 33 spokes with two columns of raised squares between each. Against this base is a circular gold ring with 13 raised stars reflecting the original colonies across the top and a green dexter-and-olive laurel wreath relief across the bottom. Spread across the center is a gold right-facing American Eagle, with three right-facing crossed arrows gripped in its talons and a breast shield in red, white, and blue—or gules, argent, and azure, to use the proper heraldic terminology—though the colors appear to have mostly faded from the shield.

The screen-worn badge was also auctioned by Heritage Auctions, whose listing included detailed photos of the front and back, where three gold pins fastened it to Wyatt’s jacket leather.

Wyatt’s OSD badge shines from the left side of his jacket. (Note that this image had been reversed in the finished film, but I re-reversed it to correctly depict where the badge was actually pinned.)

The Dedicated Follower of Fashion published a thoughtful analysis on clothing in Easy Rider, in which the writer observed that “the flag on his back plays with ideals of patriotism and irony, as if to say that he, too, can love his country while also opposing the government and its involvement in the Vietnam War. It’s a concept that aligned with the protest movement who adopted military gear and combat fatigues while demonstrating on the streets.”

While it may conflict with the image one would expect of a countercultural hero, Wyatt’s earnest expression of American motifs illustrates the divide between patriotism and nationalism. Freewheeling in his red, white, and blue, Wyatt patriotically celebrates the country that grants his constitutional right to freedom, right up through the tragic reveal of how widely this right is misinterpreted by his fellow countrymen. (Indeed, art imitated life in the weeks leading up to production when Peter Fonda was breaking in his costume and bike on the streets of Los Angeles, and he found himself frequently being pulled over by police.)

Fonda continued wearing the jacket after production wrapped on Easy Rider, keeping the large flag patch from the back even after the rest of the jacket wore out. In October 2007, Fonda’s screen-worn stars and stripes was auctioned by Heritage Auctions, yielding more than $90,000.

A hitchhiking highway hippie (Luke Askew) fills Wyatt’s tank with gasoline… triggering Billy’s paranoia regarding their cash stashed in the tank.

For most of their multi-day ride up through the beatings they encounter in a small Louisiana parish, Wyatt wears a creamy off-white cotton popover shirt with distinctive embroidery flanking the front bib and encircling each barrel cuff. The shirt has a standing collar and a long placket to mid-torso with two bone-like toggles fastening the shirt over the chest in lieu of traditional buttons. Two embroidered strips are arranged vertically, one on each side of this bib-like front extending down to the waist line a few inches below the bottom of the placket, where a shorter embroidery strip is overlaid the connect them.

Echoing traditional Mexican embroidery, the design consists of a repeating pattern of squares that contain an eight-pointed shape; the pattern alternates between rust-toned squares with a white shape (and a slate-blue square center) and white squares with a slate-colored shape that has a larger taupe center. The squares are arranged like a film strip with a slate-shaded border, itself bordered on each side by a rust-hued squiggle line.

Knotted around his neck, Wyatt wears a navy cotton bandana, patterned with a traditional white paisley print. The neckerchief serves the practical purpose of catching sweat during long days on the road, though it also reinforces his outlaw image as these paisley bandanas have long been associated with cowboys, bandits, and other long riders of the wild west.

Lisa (Luana Anders) shares a meal with Wyatt at the New Mexico commune.

As the duo rides into New Orleans, Wyatt has changed into a considerably more colorful shirt covered in an all-over psychedelic floral print with shades of hot pink, electric blue, and lime green against its golden yellow ground. This shirt is totally collarless, instead cut with a henley-like rounded crew-neck that snaps to close at the top.

The placket is embroidered in yellow, with a red-embroidered yoke straight across the back with yellow and red fringe triumphantly waving from each side as Wyatt rides. The full-fitting shirt allows considerable air to pass through while riding, though the banded cuffs prevent the baggy, blousoned set-in sleeves from interfering with his controlling the bike.

The natural majesty of the southwest has been largely replaced by rundown attempts at development as Wyatt and Billy’s journey takes them farther east.

Though both of his shirts are consistent with late ’60s hippie styles, this vividly printed shirt departs from its relatively subdued predecessor by instantly marking Wyatt as a countercultural “enemy” in the land of crew-cuts, white short-sleeved shirts, and shotguns.

Wyatt swaps out the outlaw-like blue paisley bandana for a sage-green neck scarf with a blue and violet floral print that he ties in a short four-in-hand knot.

In addition to the two jackets they made for Easy Rider, ABC Leathers also made Wyatt’s tight black leather pants that he wears throughout his journey with Billy. Finished with narrow cuffs on the bottoms, these flat front trousers have no visible external pockets, though there may be a hidden change pocket as featured on some classic moto trousers like the “Touring Pants” currently offered in the Bates Leathers catalog; whether there are pockets or not, Wyatt opts instead to just tuck his black leather gloves into his waistband, though this may also just be easier for him than managing the traction of pulling leather gloves in and out of tight leather pockets.

As observed by The Dedicated Follower of Fashion, “when Wyatt covers Billy with his jacket after he is shot off his motorcycle, it echoes the draping the flag over a fallen soldier’s coffin.”

Through the pointed Western-style trouser belt loops, Wyatt wears a silver-toned motorcycle chain belt. As its name implies, this consists of a double-layered length of the primary roller chain that makes up part of a motorcycle’s drive train, transmitting power to the rear wheel.

His large belt buckle hearkens to “easy riders” of a century earlier, featuring the gilt relief of a horseback rider against a curlicue-etched silver base. The rider is flanked by gilt scrolls above and below, and the oval buckle is entirely bordered in gold.

Wyatt’s belt buckle shines as he sits down with Billy and George for an aborted attempt at ordering dinner in a rural Louisiana parish.

Wyatt’s brown napped leather motorcycle boots appropriately present the worn patina of frequent travel on open roads. The plain-toed, pull-on boots have tall, cowboy-style shafts worn under the legs of his leather pants, providing full coverage that protect his feet and ankles from weather, exhaust, and road debris. The boot is styled with the dark brown buckled straps associated with traditional engineer boots, favored by motorcyclists to adjust the fit around the ankles and ensure that the boots fit snugly.

Wyatt doesn’t always wear a helmet when he’s on the road, but when he does, he wears a black leather-lined, 3/4-shell open-face helmet that fully reinforces his Captain America image with a field of white five-pointed stars against a blue crown and the sides covered in red and white vertical awning stripes, all reflecting the iconography of the American flag.

“You got a helmet?” George (Jack Nicholson) does the best he can to protect his dome while riding with Wyatt, though at least he’s better-protected than Billy who takes to the road in no more than his bushman hat.

As one would expect of cool countercultural heroes, Wyatt and Billy hit the road wearing instantly memorable sunglasses that protect their eyes both from the sun as well as any debris kicked up on the road. Wyatt’s gold-framed shades were designed by American Optical (AO Eyewear), distinguished by the top bar’s subtle curve as it wraps around each lens into the arms. The tint of the brown lenses are light enough that they can also be effectively worn at night or indoors, with the elongated shape of each lens providing a touch of added protection.

AO Eyewear no longer manufactures what has been described as the original “Captain America” frame, but the classic Ray-Ban Olympian makes for an almost identical substitute. Introduced in 1965, the Olympian also boasts what Ray-Ban describes as “sophisticated, distinct top bar lines” and was recently featured as Don Draper’s preferred frame on later seasons of Mad Men. Ray-Ban continues to sell the Olympian, designated the RB3119, available for sale via Amazon or Ray-Ban.

Steppenwolf’s “The Pusher” formally introduces us to Captain America as Wyatt hides the proceedings from his cocaine deal in the red, white, and blue fuel tank of his bike. Though its only briefly flashed during this vignette, horological enthusiasts can clearly spy a gold Rolex GMT Master on Wyatt’s left wrist.

According to the Heritage Auctions listing for the screen-worn watch, this was Peter Fonda’s own Rolex, a prototype GMT Master that he had purchased in 1968 to reward himself for finishing the first draft of Easy Rider‘s screenplay in less than three hours after inspiration struck while sitting on a French beach.

The 18-karat yellow gold Rolex boasts the GMT Master’s signature 24-hour rotating bezel, with a brown insert to match the brown dial. The dial features luminous hands and gold non-numeric hour markers, save for the 3 o’clock position where the hour marker has been replaced by an off-white date window. The 40mm case is affixed to a yellow gold three-piece Oyster-style link bracelet with a folding clasp.

Wyatt’s Rolex flashes as he stores the cash in his fuel tank. (Inset photo of Fonda’s screen-worn watch sourced from Heritage Auctions.)

Rather than risk damaging his new watch, the Rolex has been clearly swapped out for a different watch that he pulls from his wrist and drops in the California desert a the start of their trip, representing his abandonment of time in favor of freedom.

This almost entirely different watch shares almost no visual characteristics with the GMT Master, save for the fact that its bracelet is finished in gold. The case is stainless steel with a large, plain off-white dial that has the 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock hours marked numerically and the others with a simple line. The bracelet is a gold-finished expanding band as was common on inexpensive wristwatches of the era.

To be fair to Fonda, I wouldn’t toss a brand-new Rolex (or any Rolex) into the desert, either.

Wyatt is dressed with considerably less panache at the start of Easy Rider, still sporting his embroidered shirt, navy bandana, and black leather pants but with a considerably distressed and otherwise non-notable zip-up windbreaker made from sage-green cotton.

The waist-length jacket has a short, rounded standing collar, horizontal yokes across the chest and back, welted vertical-entry hand pockets, and set-in sleeves that end with short single-button squared semi-tab cuffs.

The Bike

Wyatt and Billy make their famous ride across the country in Harley-Davidson Hydra-Glide motorcycles, customized to fit each rider’s respective image. As Harley-Davidson opted not to provide bikes for Easy Rider given that “the protagonists were outlaws” according to a June 2005 issue of History Channel Magazine, the four 1200cc bikes used during the production were ironically purchased from the Los Angeles Police Department, auctioned for $500.

Each rider had one primary bike and one backup, designed and built by Cliff Vaughs and Ben Hardy, whom Fonda had worked with after Hardy built his screen-ridden bike for The Wild Angels (1966). Given that Peter Fonda was a more experienced rider than Dennis Hopper, Captain America’s 1952 Harley was more dramatically stretched and raked into the chopper we see on screen with its tall “apehanger”-style handlebars and the “stars and stripes” fuel tank custom-built by Dan Haggerty, who also appeared uncredited during the commune sequence.

Born to be wild.

Of the four bikes purchased for Easy Rider, one of Captain America’s bikes was demolished and burnt for the finale while the other three were stolen. Fonda restored the burnt-out crash bike, which Haggerty restored and displayed at museums and state fairs until it went through a series of sales and auctions. Boasting a 74 cubic-inch panhead 45-degree V-twin engine generating 52 horsepower and mated to a four-speed manual transmission, the bike was auctioned again in June 2021 by Cord and Kruse, selling for $255,000.

Sources:

• Cord and Kruse: 1952 Harley-Davidson Captain America Crash Bike Motorcycle
• IMDB: Easy Rider (1969) – Trivia
• Motorious: “Motorcycle Monday: 1952 Harley-Davidson Captain America Crash Bike” by Steven Symes
• Robb Report: “Peter Fonda’s Legendary Harley Chopper From ‘Easy Rider’ Is Going Up for Auction” by Bryan Hood
• Wikipedia: Easy Rider

How to Get the Look

Peter Fonda as Wyatt in Easy Rider (1969)

Peter Fonda’s enduring look as the freedom-loving biker built on the foundation of traditional motorcycle garb—leather racer jacket and matching pants, sweat-catching neckerchief, helmet, gloves, and engineer boots—and infused Captain America’s persona with enough red, white, and blue that you’d think he would have been celebrated rather than scorned as he rode through the country.

• Black cowhide leather racer jacket with standing collar (with throat latch), zip-up front, zip-back gauntlet cuffs, red-and-blue-on-white striped chest strip and left sleeve band, and large American flag back patch
• Off-white cotton pullover shirt with standing collar, Mexican embroidery-bordered front bib, two-toggle placket, and embroidery-banded cuffs
• Navy (with white paisley print) cotton bandana/neckerchief
• Black leather flat front pants with belt loops and narrowly cuffed bottoms
• Silver-toned double-layer motorcycle primary-chain belt with large oval gold-on-silver horse-rider buckle
• Brown napped leather plain-toe engineer-style motorcycle boots
• Stars-and-stripes-emblazoned 3/4-shell open-face helmet with black leather lining
• Gold-framed Olympian-style sunglasses with curved wraparound top bar and brown-tinted elongated lenses
• Rolex GMT Master 18-karat yellow gold wristwatch with brown 24-hour rotating bezel, brown dial (with non-numeric hour markers, luminous hands, and 3 o’clock date window), and gold Oyster-style link bracelet
• Black leather elastic-backed gloves

Fonda’s screen-worn look has become, perhaps ironically, one of the most replicated movie jackets in the more than half-century since its release, with recreations offered from outfitters of varying degrees of reputation. While the most recommended route would be to find your own worn-in leather racer jacket that suits your own personality, comfort, and sense of patriotism, I tried to mine through the abundant field of Easy Rider replica jackets to find a range of best-reviewed, highest-quality (e.g., real leather), or most affordable fits for those looking to directly crib from Captain America himself:

• Hawk & Bull Peter Fonda Easy Rider Jacket (Hawk & Bull, $179)
• Leather Madness Captain America Easy Rider Genuine Leather Jacket (Leather Madness, $199)
• Outfit Craze Black Biker Easy Rider Lambskin Jacket (Walmart, $119.99)
• UG Fashions Easy Rider Jacket (Amazon, $123)

All prices and availability as of October 8, 2021.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and the classic rock soundtrack.

The Quote

You know, Billy… we blew it.

The post Easy Rider: Peter Fonda as “Captain America” appeared first on BAMF Style.

John Saxon as Lt. Don Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Vitals

John Saxon as Donald Thompson, police lieutenant

Suburban Ohio, Spring 1981

Film: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Release Date: November 9, 1984
Director: Wes Craven
Costume Designer: Dana Lyman

Background

A decade after he investigated a series of grisly sorority murders at Christmastime, John Saxon again portrayed a police lieutenant chasing down a serial killer in Wes Craven’s horror classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street.

We meet Lieutenant Thompson when he’s called to the station late at night in response to the murder of his daughter’s friend Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss). Thompson’s police colleagues initially suspect Tina’s meathead boyfriend, the “lunatic delinquent” Rod Lane (Nick Corri). Rod doesn’t help his case by fleeing the scene, but a tearful Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) explains to her father that it couldn’t have been Rod.

Thompson has little reason to believe his daughter’s protestations, but we the audience know that Tina’s brutal slashing was the work of the disfigured spirit of the long-dead child murderer Freddy Kreuger.

What’d He Wear?

Thompson’s first appearance begins with his arrival at the police station, his light stone-colored cotton sport jacket illuminating him against the darkness of the night. We don’t know where Thompson was before this, as he could have been out for a night on the town in bustling Springwood or roused from sleep and grabbing the first items he found in his closet. His energy suggests the former, as does his wardrobe for the rest of the movie where he tends to rely on a baggy windbreaker.

This single-breasted jacket has a 3/2-roll, meaning that the lapels of his jacket roll over the top button to show only the center and bottom buttons. This configuration can trace its origins to tailoring on both sides of the Atlantic, though Thompson’s undarted sports coat with its single vent shares considerably more DNA with American Ivy style traditions than British or Italian tailoring. The jacket has two spaced-apart buttons on each sleeve cuff, a welted breast pocket, and patch-style hip pockets with flaps with sporty “edge-swelling” echoing the notch lapels.

Thompson’s cotton sport shirt is checked in a yellow double-lined tartan plaid and thin white overcheck against a dark royal blue ground. Worn open at the neck, the shirt has a point collar, front placket, and button cuffs.

Anyone who has spent years immersed in #menswear forums and comment sections would be certainly familiar with the modern iGent’s repulsion at wearing light jackets with dark trousers. While this guidance may have some well-intended basis in taste-informed tradition, it—like so many “rules” of its ilk—would be more productively addressed on a subjective, rather than objective, basis.

What is an iGent? The generic term could refer to anyone who writes about men’s style online—including yours truly—though the more pejorative connotation suggests those who are more judgmental in their preference for sartorial conventions. While there’s certainly a place for this mindset, I feel it goes too far when appreciation for tradition extends into excessive judgment or snobbery. For a great exploration of the relationship between James Bond’s clothes and “iGent culture”, I recommend a great two-part article by Matt Spaier for Bond Suits.

The day-and-night contrast of Don Thompson’s almost-white jacket and dark charcoal flat front trousers does wade into tricky sartorial area. For instance, wearing the same jacket and trousers with a white shirt and tie could look like a slapdash attempt at summer formalwear that lands its wearer looking more like a waiter. Thompson wisely harmonizes what could be challenging outfit by wearing a darker, patterned shirt that dresses it down and eases the stark contrast between these two pieces.

The more judgmental iGent’s heart rate may just be settling back into a reasonable zone until he spies Thompson’s black belt… and brown shoes!

One of the more frequently cited “rules” of menswear dictates that a gent should try to coordinate the leather of his belt and shoes, though Thompson may be able to make a practical case for his mismatch. The black leather belt with its dulled gold-toned buckle blends better against the almost-black trousers. Black oxfords or derbies may have dressed the outfit up too much for his liking, so he instead wears a pair of scruffy brown leather shoes with heavy tan laces and outsoles, which may in fact be ankle boots.

Evidently, the Springwood police just rounded up James Dean’s character from Rebel Without a Cause.

This brief scene at the station would be Saxon’s most fashionable moment in A Nightmare on Elm Street, as he spends the rest of the film clad in either his police uniform or the aforementioned beige windbreaker. Strapped to his left wrist, Thompson wears a stainless steel watch with a round silver dial on a steel link bracelet.

The Gun

Lieutenant Thompson doesn’t appear to be carrying his service revolver when he arrives at the station, but for his next appearance—having followed Nancy’s tracks directly to Rod—he’s in uniform with his Colt Python drawn.

“Just move away from her, son… real easy, like your ass depended on it.”

Colt introduced their top-of-the-line Python in 1955, built on the large I-frame and chambered for the .357 Magnum cartridge, a powerful alternative to the then-universal .38 Special round used in most American police revolvers. As intended, law enforcement agencies across the nation quickly embraced the smooth and precise Python, with many adopting it for decades until the general switch to semi-automatic pistols through the ’90s.

Visually distinguished by the vented upper rib along the top of the barrel, the Python was available in royal blue and stainless steel finishes, the latter a replacement for the original bright nickel option. Barrel lengths ranged from the shorter 2.5″ and 3″ through standard service lengths of 4″ and 6″ up to an unwieldy 8″, which could increase the total mass to a whopping three pounds. Colt discontinued the Python in 2005 after fifty years, though production was revived in January 2020. Though options are limited to 4.25″ and 6″ barrels, the new generation of Pythons—offered for $1,499—are modernized improvements of an already great revolver.

How to Get the Look

John Saxon as Lt. Don Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Even if you’re not interested in directly copying Don Thompson’s late-night look, you can at least find inspiration in the no-nonsense detective’s disregard for some of the more arbitrary “rules” of menswear, pulling on a light sport jacket with dark trousers and mismatching his belt and shoe leather, allowing an instinctive sense of self-expression and taste to take precedence over tired maxims.

• Light stone cotton single-breasted 3/2-roll sport jacket with “swelled-edge” notch lapels, welted breast pocket, flapped patch hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and single vent
• Dark royal blue yellow-and-white checked cotton long-sleeve sport shirt with point collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Dark charcoal flat front trousers with belt loops
• Black leather belt with gold-finished square single-prong belt buckle
• Brown ankle boots with tan laces and outsoles
• Stainless steel wristwatch with round silver dial on steel link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie… or all seven movies in the official canon!

The Quote

Look, I don’t want to get into this now—God knows you need time—but I sure would like to know what the hell you were doing shacking up with three other kids in the middle of the night!

The post A Nightmare on Elm Street: John Saxon’s Off-Duty Sports Coat appeared first on BAMF Style.

Burt Lancaster as Ole “Swede” Anderson in The Killers (1946)

Vitals

Burt Lancaster as Ole “Swede” Anderson, ex-boxer

Philadelphia, Spring 1938

Film: The Killers
Release Date: August 30, 1946
Director: Robert Siodmak

Background

Let’s kick off #NoirVember with a memorable scene featuring birthday boy Burt Lancaster. Born November 2, 1913 in Manhattan, Lancaster remains an icon of American film noir, having made his debut in The Killers, which also marked most of the screen-going world’s introduction to the alluring Ava Gardner.

The Killers‘ straight-outta-Hemingway opening introduces us in finem res to Lancaster as “The Swede”, an ex-boxer with a sketchy past who has been tracked down by the two eponymous killers to a small town in New Jersey. Despite having spent the last six years in hiding, the Swede makes no attempt to flee his assassins, who efficiently complete their gruesome task and leave insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmond O’Brien) to reconstruct the decade of mistakes that led from Anderson’s career as a boxer to that of a marked man by the mob.

As with all great film noir, the Swede’s undoing begins with a dame… and not the sweet Lilly (Virginia Christine) that accompanies him to that fateful Philadelphia party in March 1938.

It’s easy to understand the Swede’s immediate limerence with the seductive Kitty Collins, who captivates him from her seat at the piano as soon as he and Lilly enter the party. From that point forward, the entranced Swede is oblivious to all, from poor Lilly to the fact that Kitty harbors an obvious distaste for his occupation:

I hate brutality, Mr. Anderson. The idea of two men beating each other to a pulp makes me ill.

And yet, the Swede seems drawn to Kitty by a magnetic force, only acknowledging his date long enough to describe Kitty’s beauty to her before following Kitty around with the complete lack of subtlety one would expect of an ex-boxer who’s probably absorbed one too many blows to the head.

What’d He Wear?

The Swede arrives at the party in a flannel suit, tailored with the bolder profile and details more consistent with the mid-’40s production period than the late ’30s setting. The suiting is a light shade of flannel, colorized in contemporary lobby art to a taupe brown.

Colorized lobby art designed to promote The Killers (1946). Source: MovieStillsDB.com.

The double-breasted suit jacket has four buttons arranged in a “keystone”-style tapered configuration, with only a single button on the bottom row fastening. As explained by Bond Suits, this 4×1-button “Kent” style had been popularized in the early 1930s by Prince George, the Duke of Kent, who would only fasten the bottom row of his 4×2-button jackets; eventually, George and his older brother, the Duke of Windsor, had jackets specifically made to accommodate this preference by refitting the top row as solely vestigial.

The layout of the Swede’s four buttons, positioned around the waist line with the bottom row spaced apart, still offers a wide wrap. Per prevailing trends of the era, the pick-stitched peak lapels are broad and sharply pointed, each detailed with a buttonhole. The wide, padded shoulders echo the dramatic width of the lapels. The ventless jacket has four-button cuffs, straight jetted hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket with the hint of a white kerchief poking from the top.

The Swede’s light-colored shirt is likely white, detailed with a collar with a spread so wide that I considered that it might be a sports shirt with the loop collar fastened at the top. However, while later scenes depict the Swede occasionally wearing sport shirts under his suits, this shirt with its more structured collar and placket was likely meant to be worn with a suit and tie, and is probably the same one rigged with a breast pocket that we see with his dark single-breasted suit after a rough fight.

Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster during production of The Killers, the noir classic that launched both to stardom.

Colorized to a complimentary shade of crimson in the lobby art featured above, the Swede’s dark tie boasts a light-shaded sunburst all-over pattern consistent with the “Bold Look” ties of the ’40s, characterized by bright colors, loud patterns, wide blades, and short lengths. He ties it in a Windsor knot that more voluminously fills the tie space allowed by the shirt’s widely spread collar.

The buttoned jacket keeps his waistband covered on screen, but behind-the-scenes photography shows Lancaster’s tie falling to just about an inch above the high-rise waistband of his suit’s trousers.

The fashionably full fit is emphasized by double reverse pleats that add roominess through the trousers’ long rise over the hips, and the Swede holds up the trousers with a very slim dark leather belt that closes through a small buckle, mitred on the two outward-facing corners. The trouser bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs), which break over the tops of his dark calf leather cap-toe oxford shoes.

Consistent with early 20th century decorum, the Swede tends to wear a hat outside, in this case a medium-toned felt fedora with a tonally coordinated grosgrain band.

We can assume the Swede wears one of the same type of white sleeveless undershirts we see when he’s introduced just before his murder in the opening sequence. Jockey had developed the “A-shirt” (for “athletic shirt”) tank top during the mid-1930s, though it would be a decade before it would be bestowed the unfortunate nickname of “wife beater” following the 1947 mugshot of an undershirt-clad man who had been arrested for doing just that.

Similar to those often issued to GIs during World War II, the Swede’s sleeveless undershirts have an irregular ribbing pattern throughout the body of the shirt with the armhole bands and neckhole band meeting to form fused-looking shoulder straps.

A flash of metal from the Swede’s left wrist suggests that he’s also wearing his usual wristwatch, which we see elsewhere fastened to a dark leather strap but never prominently featured enough to determine its make.

What to Imbibe

The Swede orders a “rye and water” highball at Jake’s party, though he’s never able to drink in much more than Ava Gardner’s sublime beauty.

How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Kitty?

Occasionally used to refer to American and Canadian varieties of whiskey, “rye” typically means a specific American whiskey that the law stipulates must be distilled from a mash of at least 51% rye grain, while Canadian whisky has no legal requirements to include rye grain.

For centuries, rye had been a prevailing spirit in American culture, from the colonial era through Prohibition. Indeed, it was my home region of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and the greater Pittsburgh area that led most of the nation’s rye production well into the 1800s, even after we famously rebelled against the unpopular “whiskey tax” during the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.

The Volstead Act curtailed most legal production of alcohol in the United States, dealing a significant blow to the rye industry as bootleggers began importing spirits to meet the needs of a thirsty American public, who developed a taste for Canadian whisky and Scotch during this period. American whiskey production began its post-Prohibition recovery in the 1930s, with just a few surviving rye distilleries like Old Overholt fueling drinkers like the fictional Nick and Nora Charles in 1934’s The Thin Man:

Nora: Is that my drink over there?
Nick: What are you drinking?
Nora: Rye.
Nick: (finishes her drink) Yes, that’s yours.

However, the continued popularity of imported whiskies eclipsed the once dominant foothold that American spirits held on the market. Bourbon remained popular, but rye quietly faded into the domain of old-timers and hard-livers with hard livers.

Luckily for today’s drinkers, the 21st century has seen a rye-naissance as many American bourbon distilleries like Bulleit, Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, and Woodford Reserve have introduced their own rye varieties in addition to the venerated Old Overholt continuing production and a new breed of distillers like Pittsburgh’s own innovative craft distillery Wigle, named for a central figure during the Whiskey Rebellion.

How to Get the Look

Burt Lancaster as Ole “Swede” Anderson in The Killers (1946)

Burt Lancaster was appropriately dressed for his burst to stardom in The Killers, striding into an elegant party clad in fashions portending what Esquire would deem the “Bold Look” later in the decade: a double-breasted suit jacket with double-wide shoulders and lapels and a super-spread shirt collar with plenty of space to be filled by his fat and frivolous tie.

• Light taupe flannel suit:
  • Double-breasted 4×1-button jacket with wide, sharp pick-stitched peak lapels (with buttonholes), welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with widely spread collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Crimson “sunburst”-patterned tie
• Dark calf leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt/A-shirt
• Medium felt fedora with grosgrain band
• Wristwatch on dark leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, which Criterion Collection released in a two-pack with the 1964 remake also titled The Killers (as well as the little-seen short adapted in Russia during the 1950s.)

The Astro Zone

Burt Lancaster’s November 2nd birthday may make him a Scorpio—the same as his Scorpio co-star Alain Delon—but the Swede’s birthday of June 24, 1908 establishes him as born under the star sign of Cancer… the same as yours truly.

Cancers have a reputation for moodiness and romantic vulnerability, both ideal for the makings of a doomed noir protagonist who wouldn’t be able or willing to unravel themselves from a toxic relationship with a femme fatale until it’s much too late. At their least evolved, the Cancerian protective instinct can manifest as possessiveness, occasionally to a destructive degree (as perhaps most famously exemplified by the Swede’s fellow Cancer, O.J. Simpson, born July 9, 1947.)

The post The Killers: Burt Lancaster’s Light Flannel Double-Breasted Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.