Clarence Gilyard Jr., Dennis Hayden, Al Leong, Hans Buhringer, Alan Rickman, Wilhelm von Homburg, Lorenzo Caccialanza, Joseph Plewa, Andreas Wisniewski, Gary Roberts, Bruno Doyon, Gérard Bonn, and Alexander Godunov in Die Hard (1988)

“Some badass perpetrators and they’re here to stay…”

Los Angeles, Christmas 1987

Film: Die Hard
Release Date: July 15, 1988
Director: John McTiernan
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

On the 35th anniversary year of this action classic, today’s post analyzes the style of the dozen bad guys led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) during their Christmas Eve takeover of Nakatomi Plaza. As I’ve done with Christmas episodes of The Office in past years, I’ll dig into my own completely arbitrary rating system to rank each by their suitability for a holiday party hijacking.

One of my favorite aspects of Die Hard is how it makes the effort to define distinctively personalities for Hans’ baddies, rather than just filling the cast with anonymous mooks as in any lesser action movie. We may not get full backstories and motivations (we only have two hours, and would we really need to know?), but they still have distinctive roles, attitudes, and aesthetics to differentiate them and make return viewings even more rewarding.

As their leader, Hans maintains an elevated look with his dark double-breasted suit, informed by his knowledge of men’s fashion (“John Phillips, London,” he acutely observes of Nakatomi CEO Joe Takagi’s silk suit), but how do his twelve henchmen rate?

Unlike Hans’ ultimate descent from Nakatomi Tower, let’s start at the bottom.

12. Tony Vreski (Andreas Wisniewski)

Tony, were you even trying? A groutfit? Sweatpants? Who are you, George Costanza?

At first, Tony looks promising as he strides with Hans Gruber’s gang into the Nakatomi loading dock with a dark olive suede chore coat (with a contrasting brown collar!) over a baggy light-gray boat-neck jumper, but he undoes the goodwill when he peels off the coat to reveal a pair of light-gray sweatpants that reminded me a little too much of the bloated Scott Calvin arriving late to a client pitch in The Santa Clause. And those Dahmer-style specs? I know it’s the ’80s, but you’re better than that, Tony. At least your comrades may have appreciated that your small shoes prevented John McClane from protecting his feet as they shot up the glass around him.

“Drop it, dickhead. It’s the fashion police.”

11. Karl Vreski (Alexander Godunov)

Karl’s baggy black athleisurewear may be on trend for 2023, but it just looks sloppy for being the dapper Hans Gruber’s second-in-command. It would be one thing if he was pulling on a half-zip to insouciantly lounge around after a shower or workout (maybe with some of that mulled wine Ellis was talking about), but it doesn’t seem practical for taking over a skyscraper on Christmas Eve. At least the zippered top and pocket add some interesting and functional complexity over the matching set his little brother wore, and the black pleated slacks—rather than sweatpants—are more functional.

Constantly on the move, Karl is clearly able to hold his own in all those layers of cotton, but in all-black? With that stringy yellow hair? Just because you are a villain in an ’80s action movie doesn’t mean you have to go all-out to look like it, Karl.

Even zipping up the shirt a bit? Closing the pocket? I know you don’t care, but you’re not doing yourself any favors, Karl.

10. Uli (Al Leong)

I respect what Uli’s going for here. It’s like he knew Karl was planning to wear a quarter-zip so he pulled one of his own from his closet, perhaps not realizing his collared gray quarter-zip with its double sets of white surface-marking stripes looked more like a substitute teacher than a terrorist… not that it’s an entirely bad thing. Unfortunately, poor Uli is no James Dean so the amount of white undershirt we see under the unzipped top just looks sloppy.

But what trousers to wear with a sweater like this? Jeans? Black slacks like Karl? Sweatpants like Tony? Uli says “none of the above” and decides that if he’s going to die in a high-profile hijacking, he’s going to do so wearing some black leather pants. It’s a gamble, and I respect his gumption—as well as his inability to resist snacking while on the job. You go right ahead and enjoy that purloined Nestlé Crunch, my man.

A frumpy gray quarter-zip and black leather pants while reloading your MP5 and your feedbag… never change, Uli.

9. Eddie (Dennis Hayden)

They say to “dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” In Eddie’s case, it’s “dress for the job you’re pretending to be for the police’s benefit after killing the guy who did that job previously.” He wears the standard Nakatomi security gray blazer, metal-buttoned vest, and tie well enough, but adding the cowboy boots to suit his all-American gambling addict cover is a touch of genius that clearly manages to fool supercop Al Powell.

8. Franco (Bruno Doyon)

Feisty Franco is a dangerous guy to have watching over the hostages, as he looks every bit the bruiser he wants to be in that black leather jacket. As the action builds, he unzips the jacket and pulls it off to continue the evening in a marled charcoal sweater and pleated slacks… until McClane shoots him in the knees and sends him headfirst through a plate-glass window, one of the more intense deaths this side of Hans Gruber.

7. Kristoff (Gérard Bonn)

Kristoff keeps to himself, quietly assisting Theo as needed but otherwise not engaging in any gunplay against cops, hostages, or McClane. For his generally nonviolent role, Kristoff is rewarded with a mere pistol-whipping from McClane, leaving his fate uncertain as perhaps one of the few Nakatomi terrorists to survive the evening. During our brief moments with Kristoff, we can see he’s seasonally dressed in a dark-green sports shirt buttoned to the neck, tucked into gray pleated slacks.

Die Hard fans… meet Kristoff.

6. Heinrich (Gary Roberts)

I can appreciate a lot of what Heinrich is doing here. He anchors his look with an oversized cream-colored crew-neck sweater, detailed with a horizontal seam across the chest and a low-slung pocket for storing the usual tools of a terrorist tasked with managing C4 detonators. The olive pleated slacks are a smart pairing with them.

Of course, Heinrich is a terrorist and that means needing some armament, carrying his Walther P5 in a heavy-duty shoulder rig. Just like his jobs, Heinrich is trying to balance too much—managing detonators vs. chasing McClane, preppy vs. tactical—and neither ultimately works out for him. A lesson to pick a lane and stick with it.

In another life, Heinrich could have made a wúnderbar third member of Modern Talking.

5. James (Wilhelm von Homburg)

James, we hardly knew ye. No seriously, James, who are you? Based on his well-worn flight jacket and black “tactile-neck”, James dresses like he thinks he’s the hero of the story… after all, I would consider an outfit like this if I were going to be the star of an action movie. (And you could argue that there would be no Die Hard without James, as it’s he who gets momentarily distracted by boobs just long enough to allow McClane to initially escape from the 30th floor.)

James’ brown leather jacket is one of the many USAAF A2-inspired civilian jackets that were popular through the ’80s, retaining the zip-up blouson-style design and shoulder epaulets but differing with snap-fastened cuffs and hand pockets inset behind the flapped hip pockets. Unfortunately, James appears to follow Tony Vreski’s sweatpants misstep, though James’ black joggers are dark enough that it’s not as immediately obvious.

We don’t see much else of James’ black underpinnings before he gets blown up by the C4 that McClane drops down the elevator shaft, but you can understand why he’s one of the few terrorists who keeps his jacket on after the takeover.

James decided to take over the Nakatomi building while wearing the leather jacket he bought a few years earlier after seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark.

4. Marco (Lorenzo Caccialanza)

The unhinged Marco follows Kristoff’s sartorial approach of a dark silky shirt and pleated slacks, but he takes it to a festively appropriate level by wearing a bright-red cardigan when he and the gang arrive. Only the MP5 in his hand as he roughly handles a scantily clad Nakatomi employee separates him from the special guest on an Andy Williams Christmas Special.

The cardigan is gone by the time Heinrich and Marco corner McClane in the board room, giving us a better look at Marco’s black shirt, open at the top to reveal the gold cross around his neck, though I don’t get the sense that Marco is overly religious. He also wears olive trousers and hardy brown leather derby-laced work boots… if only McClane had thought to try those on after peppering their wearer with 9mm rounds.

Yes, I would’ve tuned in to your Christmas special, Marco.

3. Alexander (Joseph Plewa)

“And when Alexander saw the breadth of his style game, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.” — Hans Gruber, paraphrased

In his blue raglan-sleeved guernsey sweater and tonally coordinated plaid pants, Alexander dresses smartly in case he needs to convince a Nakatomi employee—or the LAPD—that he was merely a partygoer who got caught up in the terrorist takeover. Not to mention that, especially by late ’80s standards, it all fits pretty well!

I would say Alexander, you’ll always be famous… except I don’t think anyone knows who you are. If that exploding C4 hadn’t murked you too, you could’ve gotten away with it.

2. Fritz (Hans Buhringer)

Judging Fritz’s style means not just taking into account his distinctive taste in clothes but also appreciating his long, flowing Fabio-style locks as well as his attitude: Fritz doesn’t seem to share the rest of the group’s avaricious blood-lust, and he seems to recoil in shock and sadness anytime the proceedings turn violent.

So R.I.P. Faux-bio. You deserved better than the meager 20% that Hans Gruber promised. (Sophie Goulopoulos published a well-researched tribute to Fritz for The Cut in 2020, including insights from Die Hard‘s on-set hair stylist Paul Abascal, who confirmed that Fritz’s hair “required ‘the most maintenance’ during filming.”)

But to get back to the clothes… Fritz dresses for the Nakatomi takeover in a heavy-weight houndstooth shirt semi-buttoned over an ivory turtleneck, tucked into black pleated slacks held up by a brown Western-tipped belt. If you didn’t already doubt that this king knew how to layer, look no further than the chunky black textured cardigan he wore when the evening began. Judging solely on overall panache (and with relatively muted colors!), you can’t beat Fritz’s fit.

1. Theo (Clarence Gilyard Jr.)

Theo may not have been brought along for his charming personality, but a fashion plate like Hans Gruber would have surely appreciated how well his computer-hacking expert dressed, adding a dash of yuppie trendiness to his smart seasonal layers, finished with a few unique accessories shining from his wrist and fingers.

The fact that Theo took a less “active” role in the hijacking may have allowed for some neater dress than his colleagues, so he goes admirably hard in a roomy cream fisherman’s guernsey sweater layered over a blue striped shirt. His single-breasted sports coat is grid-checked in multiple shades of blue against a charcoal ground, providing fashionable complexity with a texture that coordinates with his sweater’s raised knitting while the color calls out his shirt.

As one of only two regularly bespectacled members of Gruber’s crew, Theo opts for a more timeless set of gold-framed specs than the unfortunate Tony, and he doesn’t let his ornate bracelet and ring get in the way of his weapon of choice—a computer keyboard, rather than an MP5.

It’s a relief that Theo was also the most likely henchman to have survived the situation. After all, it’s a nice jacket and sweater… it would be a shame to ruin it.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out Die Hard. Ho-ho-ho!

Even McClane knew Tony’s outfit was in need of improvement.

The post Die Hard: Ranking the Henchmen’s Holiday Hijacking Wardrobes appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jeremy Allen White as Carmy Berzatto on The Bear (Episode 2.06: “Fishes”)

Vitals

Jeremy Allen White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, celebrated international chef

Chicago, Christmas Eve 2018

Series: The Bear
Episode: “Fishes” (Episode 2.06)
Air Date: June 22, 2023
Director: Christopher Storer
Creator: Christopher Storer
Costume Designer: Courtney Wheeler

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Merry Christmas to all BAMF Style readers who celebrate!

Among its Yoshimi-sharp depictions of service industry stress, The Bear brought its anxiety in-house for the second season’s brilliant, bonkers, and relentless sixth episode “Fishes”, flashing back several years from the show’s narrative to a chaotic Christmas Eve with the Berzatto family.

Our protagonist Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) takes a supporting role in the proceedings as we spend an increasingly stressful hour with his family and those “related through friendship” in his childhood home, decorated like an Olive Garden for the holidays. There are a few familiar faces—like his late brother Mikey (Jon Berthal), his sister Natalie (Abby Elliott) whose “Sugar” nickname is finally explained, his unrelated-cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and their “uncle” Jimmy (Oliver Platt)—as well as several all-new cast members, many of whom appear only in this episode.

“I wanted it to be distracting,” series creator Christopher Storer told Yvonne Villarreal for the Los Angeles Times. “I wanted the viewer to be like, ‘What the fuck is Bob Odenkirk doing here?’ I wanted it to really feel like when you walk into your family’s house and you are just overwhelmed by a cousin who you don’t want to talk to, an uncle you don’t want to see. You don’t even know who’s related to who, which I always feel like is the truest thing—everyone’s calling each other cousin and you don’t know what the fuck is really going on, but you do know that even through all their weirdness and how dark it gets, they do kind of love each other.”

A highlight of the holiday-infused hour is Jamie Lee Curtis’ tour-de-force performance as Carmy’s mother Donna, the Berzatto family matriarch—or martyr-arch—who busies herself with preparing the traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes that gives the episode’s title its name. With her painted inch-long nails and bottomless red wine, Donna rules the increasingly sauce-stained kitchen where she simultaneously refuses the help she’s frequently offered while bemoaning the lack of assistance. “I make things beautiful for them, and no one makes things beautiful for me,” she ultimately weeps to Carmy—about whom so much is contextualized with his mother’s every utterance.

While The Bear is arguably centered around Carmy (and Ayo Edebiri’s Syd, who understandably doesn’t appear in this flashback to before she entered his life), the beauty of “Fishes” is how nearly anyone from its ensemble could be argued as a “main character” in this episode, whether that’s a recognized side character like Richie, Mikey, or Natalie or even one of the first-timers like Richie’s pregnant wife Tiffany (Gillian Jacobs), laidback Berzatto cousin Michelle (Sarah Paulson), or her decidedly heterosexual boyfriend Steven (John Mulaney). Indeed, my goal this Christmas is to channel Michelle and Steven—unbothered and drama-free, endlessly entertained, and offering lifelines to family members in need whether that’s $500 for an ROI on an RBI or a place to stay when things get too crazy.

In addition to the seven fish entrees—eight, if you count Pete’s short-lived tuna casserole—The Bear‘s holiday hour digs deep into the minutiae of Christmas memories familiar to many: stealing time for cigarettes with siblings, small dining rooms made even more cramped by sliding in a kids’ table, old stories and passive-aggressive digs about them, and long-simmering family tensions rising to the surface and crashing through the wall at the worst possible time.

Naomi Waxman described the episode for Eater as “a gruesome autopsy of a clan bound by genetics, mental illness, substance abuse, and intergenerational trauma.” Happy holidays!

What’d He Wear?

Courtney Wheeler’s costume design for “Fishes” contributes to the verisimilitude of Christmas Eve in the Berzatto household as everyone dresses in their version of a half-assed holiday best: Richie in an uncharacteristic sweater that his wife likely got him to prepare for his new life as a dad, Stevie in a knitted button-up that the Faks are obsessed with (“is that a bowling shirt?”), the Faks themselves in matching green and red, and Mikey—who probably didn’t think twice about what day it was before grabbing the blue Under Armour long-sleeved performance tee that was probably at the top of a pile of clean clothes.

After spending a season and a half with Carmy in his rotation of white T-shirts and chef gear, we see a different side of our protagonist as he dresses with intention—but not to show that he cares too much—for Christmas Eve with his family.

This isn’t an Easter egg, but me and Jeremy just got a kick out of it. His jeans for “Fishes” are the A.P.C. classic jeans. We were like, of course Carmy, in his hunt to hone his style years ago, landed on the gateway to liking denim. Of course he’d be wearing that jean. I would say his whole look from that episode—he’s wearing a Palace x Polo Ralph Lauren collaboration rugby shirt, it’s just so specific to that time. He would definitely be like, “Yeah, this is what I’m wearing now,” coming back from his travels.

— Costume designer Courtney Wheeler to Trishna Rikhy for Esquire, “How The Bear Became High-Key Fashion Television”

Carmy would be discomforted to see how he echoes his mother’s mannerisms while stressed in the kitchen.

The Palace x Polo Ralph Lauren “Classic Fit” long-sleeved rugby shirt consists of a dark-navy 100% cotton body, paneled in an inconsistently patchy manner that echoes Carmy’s signature wool NN.07 jacket. The long-sleeved shirt has a white collar and white covered-fly placket, with the requisite three white rubber buttons—traditionally made of rubber to ease being able to unfasten when the shirt is tugged during a rugby match.

The yellow-embroidered logo over the left breast features Polo Ralph Lauren’s traditional horseback polo player, positioned over “PALACE” to indicate their collaboration with the skate-and-streetwear brand. As reported by Hypebeast, the shirt was launched with the Palace x Polo collection on November 9, 2018, perfectly timed to have dropped into Carmy’s closet in time for Christmas Eve a month and a half later.

The panel detail of Carmy’s Palace x Polo Ralph Lauren shirt can be more clearly seen in this production photo as he confers with Cicero at the dinner table.
Photo credit: Chuck Hodes/FX.

Wheeler confirmed that Carmy wears jeans made by the French brand A.P.C., likely the “Original” variety designed with a long rise, button-fly, and loose straight-leg cut. These dark indigo jeans are made of 100% raw Japanese selvedge denim, featuring caramel-colored topstitching and engraved nickel-toned rivets. The style follows the general five-pocket configuration with two patch-style back pockets, two curved front pockets, and an inset coin/watch pocket on the right side, though the latter is lower-positioned than on traditional jeans from the classic “big three” American denim outfitters.

Carmy’s work boots with their brown leather uppers and thick beige rubber outsoles aren’t prominently featured on screen nor has Wheeler publicly identified them, but the character seems like he would appreciate the workwear heritage (and fashionability) of a brand like Red Wing.

Carmy successfully recruits Mikey to return inside and “be you” around their family and friends.

What to Imbibe

If you’re not the type to enjoy multiple bottles of red wine from your sauce-stained stemware, you could try Carmy’s homemade Sprite this festive season. “You know how he knows how to make Sprite? Because he’s a big-time chef, that’s how,” Donna explains, with her own signature recipe of half-pride, half-passive aggression.

“Yeah, I’m a fuckin’ pop machine.”

The Bear doesn’t diverge Carmy’s secrets by revealing the exact combination, but it seems to involve charged water—in this case San Pellegrino—and a lemon, eventually served with both a lemon and lime slice. This is consistent with the AllRecipes formula that calls for mixing three tablespoons of white sugar in a glass with two tablespoons of lemon juice, then slowly pouring in 16 ounces of lime-flavored seltzer water and stirring to combine it.

What to Listen To

“Fishes” is scored both by familiar and updated renditions of holiday classics as well as pop-rock hits from Donna’s mid-1980s heyday. Enjoy!

How to Get the Look

Jeremy Allen White as Carmy Berzatto on The Bear (Episode 2.06: “Fishes”)

Already the subject of family teasing as a “big-time chef… too fancy for us,” Carmy keeps his holiday outfit uncomplicated but quietly fashionable in a dark rugby shirt and jeans both made by designer labels.

• Navy paneled cotton long-sleeved rugby shirt with white collar/placket and yellow-embroidered chest logo
  • Palace x Polo
• Dark-indigo raw selvedge denim straight-leg jeans with belt loops and five-pocket layout
  • A.P.C. Original
• Dark-brown leather lace-up work boots with beige rubber outsoles
• Gold curb-link chain necklace with lobster-claw closure

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, currently streaming on Hulu, and do not keep asking your mother if she’s okay. And may God bless us and keep us safe in the new year, and please give Michael the strength not to throw that fork. Amen.

The Quote

It’s seven fishes, Pete. This would make eight fishes. That would make us assholes, right?

The post The Bear: Carmy’s Rugby Shirt on Christmas Eve appeared first on BAMF Style.

Allen Baron in Blast of Silence (1961)

Vitals

Allen Baron as Frankie Bono, misanthropic Mafia hitman

New York City, Christmas 1959

Film: Blast of Silence
Release Date: March 20, 1961
Director: Allen Baron

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Time to kill. 24 hours to stay faceless in the crowd. Get yourself lost in the city. Lose yourself in the Christmas spirit with the rest of the suckers.

I love Christmas movies—whether bona fide holiday classics like It’s a Wonderful Life, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, or White Christmas, schlocky made-for-Hallmark holiday romances, or among of the many great movies set at yuletide even when the holiday isn’t central to the plot (looking at you, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Thin Man, Three Days of the Condor.)

When the Criterion Channel announced their Holiday Noir lineup this month, I was understandably thrilled. A few, like Lady in the Lake and They Drive By Night, I was already familiar with, but I had long wanted to see Blast of Silence, the stark neo-noir filmed guerilla-style on location in New York City during the 1959 holiday season, following Frankie Bono, a lonely killer working for the Cleveland mob who has returned to the Big Apple for a hit. Blast of Silence was written and directed by Allen Baron, who also starred as Frankie after his first choice—Peter Falk(!)—was hired instead for the similarly themed film Murder, Inc.

Days before Christmas, Frankie Bono steps off the train onto the platform in Manhattan, taking in his hometown through a cloud of cigarette smoke while a choir sings “Silent Night”. “The railroad company makes sure you don’t forget you’re coming to town on Christmas,” Frankie narrates. “It gives you the creeps, but that’s alright! Everyone on the goodwill kit, maybe they’ll leave you alone?”

Similar to this year’s The Killer, Frankie’s ongoing voiceover—voiced by an uncredited Lionel Stander—chronicles his on-screen experiences in the context of a primer to contract-killing while illustrating that he’s not immune to breaking his own rules, similar to Michael Fassbender’s narration in David Fincher’s latest film, The Killer. “The sisters at the orphanage used to say God moves in mysterious ways,” he recalls. “Sometimes you wonder if he moved you in to rid the world of men like Troiano.”

His cab drops him off at the Hotel Valencia, a polite enough dump for transients like him, who checks in as “Fred Moore of Albany, in town for a week or less… on business,” and from there it’s the Staten Island Ferry to make contact with his client and begin tailing his target, a sleazy gangster named Troiano:

You don’t have to know a man to live with him. But you have to know a man like a brother to kill him.

As the “danger signals” compound and it looks like Frankie could be growing some inconveniently timed remorse, our born loner is given until New Year’s Eve to complete the hit. Or else.

You have a job to do and you’re an expert. A killer who doesn’t kill gets killed!

What’d He Wear?

Frankie’s Outerwear

Frankie Bono builds his distinctive silhouette by regularly wearing a pork pie hat, the distinctive flat-crowned headgear, associated with figures like jazz saxophonist Lester Young, NYPD detective Eddie Egan, and Egan’s fictional counterpart “Popeye” Doyle (as portrayed by Gene Hackman in The French Connection.)

Though it can share some similarities with other snap-brim business hats like the fedora and trilby, the pork pie hat is characterized by its round, flat “telescope”-style crown that earned the hat its moniker in the late 19th century for its similarities to an English meat pie. By the late 1950s, pork pie hats had generally fallen out of fashionability among all but the hippest hipsters like Young, its cultural image at the time more associated with wearers like Art Carney’s pitiful Ed Norton on The Honeymooners. Given some of the trendier aspects of Frankie’s wardrobe, he seems to see himself as more of the former than the latter.

Frankie’s medium-to-dark pork pie hat features a wide black grosgrain band. Unlike many famous pork pie wearers, Frankie typically keeps the front of his brim snapped down rather than turned up.

Frankie wears a light-colored topcoat over his suit through the entirety of his mission to New York. Made from a medium-weight wool likely colored a light shade of brown or gray, the knee-length overcoat is styled with narrow notch lapels and a large three-button single-breasted front. The set-in sleeves are roped at the shoulders and finished with “turnback” cuffs, decorated with a single button in the upper corner. The coat also has a long single vent and straight flapped hip pockets.

Frankie typically wears dark-brown leather three-point gloves.

Frankie’s Suit and Extras

Frankie appears to wear the same dark woolen flannel two-piece suit, cut and styled conventionally for the era. The single-breasted jacket has a 3/2-roll with the narrow notch lapels rolling over the top button to the center buttoning point positioned at Allen Baron’s natural waist-line. The jacket has a single vent, three-button cuffs, welted breast pocket, and straight flapped hip pockets.

The suit’s matching trousers proportionally rise to Baron’s waist, where they’re held up by a dark leather belt that closes through a single-prong buckle. The trousers have double reverse pleats, turn-ups (cuffs), side pockets, and jetted back pockets.

Frankie wears dark pebbled leather plain-toe two-eyelet derby shoes. His socks are typically black (or a very dark color), though several continuity errors include lighter-colored hosiery seen in some exterior shots, such as his arrival to visit Lorrie (Molly McCarthy) on Christmas Eve or when escaping the Troiano hit several days later.

Frankie’s dress watch features a flat, round white dial attached to an elegant mesh bracelet. Though I haven’t seen any contemporary color photography or footage to confirm, I suspect the watch case and bracelet are yellow-gold.

Shirts and Ties

Frankie rotates through three different shirts during the week or so that we follow him in New York. He arrives on December 23rd wearing a dark drapey sport shirt with large white plastic buttons that fasten up through horizontal buttonholes on the plain front. The neck button is placed farther back on the right side, a convertible spread collar that can be left open or closed by the self-threaded loop extending from the left side. He buttons overt the neck when sporting a tie, a narrow, dark tonal-patterned silk tie worn with a Windsor knot.

As seen when dressed down in his room with the top button undone to show his white cotton crew-neck undershirt, the shirt also has a breast pocket on the left side and squared barrel cuffs that fasten through one of two buttons.

With a day until he intends to carry out the hit, Frankie hopes to spend an anonymous Christmas Eve in the city until he’s spotted by his loquacious orphanage pal Pete (Danny Meehan), who insists on inviting him to a party that evening. He wears a medium-colored shirt that otherwise follows the same design as his darker shirt, complete with the loop-fastened convertible spread collar, white-buttoned plain front, breast pocket, and adjustable button cuffs. His silk twill tie is a similar shade as his shirt.

Christmas… December 25th. You have all of Christmas day to kill. You hate Christmas so much you can’t stand the thought of sweating it out alone in a crummy hotel room.

To relieve himself of this loneliness, Frankie drops in for an intimate holiday dinner with Lorrie, Pete’s sister and his own former flame. Apropos the formality of the situation, he wears a white shirt for the first and only time in Blast of Silence. Unlike the sportier dark shirts he wears through the rest of his mission, this is clearly a dress shirt with its full button-up front, spread collar, and double (French) cuffs.

Tied in a Windsor knot like his others, Frankie’s Macclesfield tie for this scene consists of small medium-colored silk diamonds arranged within a dark mini-grid check.

The Gun

Knowing he’ll need a gun for the job, Frankie is forced to visit the underworld arms dealer “Big Ralph” (Larry Tucker), whose messy lifestyle and laidback attitude turns Frankie’s stomach. “I need a piece… .38 with a silencer,” Frankie orders. The two settle on a price of $350, which Ralph tries to raise a few days later in an attempted blackmail that leaves him brutally beaten to death on the floor of his apartment.

Luckily for Frankie, Ralph had already made the connection with fellow gun merchant Joe Boniface (Bill DePrato) to hook Frankie up with his silenced revolver, though—like Ralph—Joe makes sure to assure Frankie of the trouble it takes to get a silencer. (If this was real life, Frankie would have even more trouble using it, as very few revolvers are able to have their sound suppressed as seen in the movies, due to the gap between the cylinder and the barrel where the gas escapes, unlike a semi-automatic pistol.)

As with many productions that aren’t devoted to firearm verisimilitude, Frankie merely slips the “silencer” over the revolver’s muzzle, securing it over the front of the barrel with electrical tape.

The gun in question is a Smith & Wesson Model 10, though based on the condition and grips, it’s more likely the older model that was named the “Military & Police” before Smith & Wesson standardized their nomenclature with numbered models in the late 1950s. Frankie had specified to Joe that he wanted “a .38 Special”, which had been introduced alongside the first Military & Police model just before the turn of the 20th century.

While preparing the gun, he dry-fires on an empty cartridge from the .38 Special shells he procured for the hit. (Although the box says Remington, the test round that he “blanks” is imprinted “W.R.A.”, for Winchester Repeating Arms.)

After the hit, he disposes of the silenced Smith & Wesson by slipping it into a paper bag and tossing it into the river from the open window of his rented Chevrolet coupe.

What to Imbibe

Frankie is eager to leave Big Ralph’s squalid digs, but Ralphie insists on a drink “for the New Year,” pouring each of them a shot of Kentucky Gentleman bourbon whiskey. This long-established, budget-priced spirit is distilled at the Barton Distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky—one of the oldest distilleries in the state, having been established by Tom Moore in 1889. Like many others, it temporarily suspended operations for the 13 years of Prohibition, but it reopened after repeal and was renamed the Barton Distillery after it was purchased by Oscar Getz in 1944.

Three days later while spending part of his Boxing Day in a Greenwich Village bar, Frankie orders himself a shot of Cutty Sark blended Scotch whisky. This whisky celebrated its 100th anniversary this year as it was introduced by Berry Bros. & Rudd on March 23, 1923. The whisky was named for the venerated clipper ship that continues to adorn its yellow label.

How to Get the Look

Allen Baron in Blast of Silence (1961)

With his penchant for dark sport shirts rather than conventional white shirts, Frankie Bono adds a mobbed-up mystique to his otherwise standard mid-century business uniform of dark flannel suit, derby shoes, topcoat, and pork pie hat.

• Dark woolen flannel suit:
  • Single-breasted 3/2-roll jacket with narrow notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Dark sport shirt with convertible spread collar (with loop), plain front (with horizontal buttonholes and white buttons), breast pocket, and squared barrel cuffs
• Tonal silk tie
• Light-colored medium-weight wool single-breasted 3-button knee-length topcoat with narrow notch lapels, straight flapped hip pockets, 1-button “turnback” cuffs, and long single vent
• Brown pebbled leather plain-toe 2-eyelet derby shoes
• Black socks
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeved undershirt
• Medium-colored felt pork pie with black grosgrain band
• Yellow-gold dress watch with round white dial on gold mesh bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

You’re alone, but you don’t mind that. You’re a loner, and that’s the way it should be. You’ve always been a loner—by now it’s your trademark. You like it that way!

The post Blast of Silence: Allen Baron’s Killer Style appeared first on BAMF Style.

John Cazale as Fredo Corleone in The Godfather Part II (1974)

Vitals

John Cazale as Fredo Corleone, insecure mob family sibling

Havana, New Year’s Eve 1958

Film: The Godfather Part II
Release Date: December 12, 1974
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy New Year! Ringing in 2024 also celebrates the 50th anniversary of The Godfather, Part II, Francis Ford Coppola’s mob epic that many consider equal or even superior to its masterpiece predecessor.

In the spirit of this weekend’s celebration, let’s travel back to New Year’s Eve 1958 as the weak-willed Fredo Corleone (John Cazale) joins his powerful younger brother Michael (Al Pacino) in Havana to negotiate their family’s casino interests—unaware that all their work will be undone by Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries within 24 hours.

Of course, both Corleones are also tragically unaware that the events of the evening will reveal to Michael that he’s been betrayed by his own brother, whom Michael would bestow with a now-iconic kiss of death at midnight:

What’d He Wear?

Many revelers often dress for New Year celebrations in their winter whites, perhaps symbolizing their bright optimism or blank slates for the coming year. Spending the holiday in tropical Cuba makes wearing white even more appropriate as bleached wardrobes are typically associated with warmer weather. Among the Corleone party ringing in 1959, we see this exemplified with Senator Pat Geary (G.D. Spradlin), who wears an off-white dinner jacket with his black tie ensemble while the Corleones escort him through Havana. As one may expect of the neglected Corleone sibling, Fredo adopts a less tasteful approach for New Year’s Eve.

Costume designer Theadora Van Runkle dressed Fredo in the quintessential screen gangster outfit of a white two-piece suit with a black shirt and a high-contrasting tie. Unlike his younger but wiser brother Michael—dressed with sober smartness in his black mohair suit and tie—Fredo wants to assert his gangland associations; he wants to be seen as mobbed-up man about town, the kind of guy who knows exactly where to find the weirdest sex show this side of Obispo.

While Senator Geary and Michael Corleone dress with contrasting formality but equally appropriate dignity for the evening, one look at Fredo makes it very clear that it’ll be a mob-flavored new year for this party.

Fredo’s off-white suit appears to be a light cream-colored gabardine, a tightly woven twill often favored for warm-weather tailoring. Much like the rest of his family and friends, Fredo’s tailor doesn’t seem to show much interest in him, suggested by the jacket’s rather poor fit that results in overly long sleeves and a combination of fashionably padded shoulders and a narrow chest that looks especially awkward on John Cazale’s lean frame. This is hardly a criticism of the costume design or tailoring—quite the opposite, in fact, as it serves to illustrate how out of his depth Fredo is in this environment, particularly when he attempts to participate in any degree of intrigue.

The single-breasted jacket has notch lapels that roll to two clear plastic buttons on the front, which match the two smaller buttons positioned close to the edge of each cuff. The jacket also has a single rear vent, straight hip pockets with wide rectangular flaps, and a welted breast pocket that he generally wears empty—save for the two Cuban cigars sticking out when we first see him.

Perhaps most significantly, Fredo’s white suit, black shirt, and white tie is a sartorial inversion of Michael’s black suit, white shirt, and black tie—illustrating how the two are opposing forces.

We see little of the suit’s matching flat-front trousers aside from the slanted front pockets and the belt loops, through which Fredo wears a black leather belt that presumably coordinates to the black leather shoes we only see in an extremely long-distance shot.

Fredo may have been able to salvage the dignity of his outfit by following Michael’s example of a white shirt and black tie, but he instead inverts this safe formula to present the full cartoon gangster image in his black shirt and white-dominant tie.

The shirt’s silky finish and the shape of his long semi-spread collar suggests he may be wearing a rayon sports shirt with its plain front buttoned up to the neck. As I don’t believe we ever see anything but Fredo’s bare wrists under the overly long sleeves of his jacket, it may even be a short-sleeved shirt.

Knotted in a classic four-in-hand, Fredo’s silk Macclesfield tie consists of a black nailhead pattern woven against a white cross-checked ground.

Fredo tonally and seasonally completes the look with his short-brimmed white straw Panama hat, fashioned with a low, round crown (almost like a pork pie hat) and a black triple-pleated puggaree band.

Though we can’t tell from under the long sleeves of his jacket whether he’s wearing a wristwatch, his usual gold rings flash from each hand—an etched pinky ring with a small ruby stone on his right hand and a larger ring with a black-filled square face on his left ring finger.

What to Imbibe

Okay, gentlemen, it’s refill time here. You might try some of those local drinks, you know, Cuba Libre, Piña Colada…

Based on his tall glass filled with cola, lime, and likely a liberal dash of white rum from the bottle of Bacardi Superior, Fredo appears to have selected a Cuba Libre for himself.

“Oh, a Cuba Libre… isn’t that just a fancy name for a rum and Coke?” you ask, and no—you couldn’t be more wrong! Although, technically yes, the hypothetical you is correct in that it’s a rum and Coke… but with added emphasis on the addition of lime.

Too focused on pouring rum for one of their female companions, Fredo reveals a fatal truth that he would later wish his dear brother—standing only a few feet away—would not have overheard.

In his 2005 volume Rum: The Epic Story of the Drink That Conquered the World, Charles A. Coulombe asserts that the Cuba Libre “seems to reflect perfectly the historical elements of the modern world” as “a potent symbol of a changing world order—the marriage of rum, lubricant of the old colonial empires, and Coca-Cola, icon of modern American global capitalism”.

The drink emerged shortly after the Cuban War of Independence, when “Cuba libre!” was a rallying cry for independence. Two years after the United States intervened during the final year of the war in 1898—a period known as the Spanish-American War—bottled Coca-Cola was first imported into Cuba. Bacardi advertising exec Fausto Rodriguez claimed that he observed the combination of rum and Coke being poured out for U.S. soldiers still stationed in the nation in August 1900, while others claim it was invented two years later at the historic El Floridita restaurant in Havana to commemorate the anniversary of Cuban independence.

Regardless of its exact origins (and one imagines it wouldn’t have taken too much brain power to “invent”), the combination remains popular in both its rum-and-Coke and Cuba Libre forms, with many purists citing that the latter is differentiated by the necessity of lime.

While some recipes merely call for two shots of rum and a significant squeeze of fresh lime juice poured into a glass and topped with cola, the IBA stipulates 50mL of white rum, 10mL of lime juice, and 120mL of cola, mixed together in a highball glass and garnished with a lime wedge.

How to Get the Look

John Cazale as Fredo Corleone in The Godfather Part II (1974)

After a year that included his black-and-red checked silk dinner jacket for his nephew’s communion and a pink sports coat for his arrival in Havana, it’s only appropriate that Fredo Corleone end 1958 on a bold sartorial note in a white two-piece suit, black sport shirt, and white-dominant tie that—especially with his Panama hat and pair of gold rings—is dripping with gangster steez.

• White gabardine suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Flat-front trousers with belt loops and slanted side pockets
• Black rayon short-sleeved sports shirt with large semi-spread collar and plain front
• White silk Macclesfield tie with mini black woven nailhead pattern
• Black leather belt
• Black leather shoes
• White straw Panama hat with round, flat crown and black puggaree band
• Gold pinky ring with ruby stone
• Gold ring with large black-filled square surface

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, including the masterpiece sequel The Godfather Part II. There will plenty more posts celebrating this great film’s style over the year!

The Quote

Feliz Año Nuevo!

The post The Godfather, Part II: Fredo’s White Suit on New Year’s Eve appeared first on BAMF Style.

Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers (2023)

Vitals

Paul Giamatti as Paul Hunham, cantankerous boarding school professor

Massachusetts, Winter 1970/1971

Film: The Holdovers
Release Date: October 27, 2023
Director: Alexander Payne
Costume Designer: Wendy Chuck

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

One of my favorite new releases in 2023 is The Holdovers, Alexander Payne’s comedy-drama centered around the skeleton staff chaperoning a group of boarding school students who aren’t going home for the holidays.

Set through the 1970 winter break, The Holdovers centers around the cranky classics professor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), an odorous, lazy-eyed loner whose few friends among the Barton Academy staff include cafeteria manager Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and administrator Lydia Crane (Carrie Preston). After four of the five students are given the opportunity to leave Barton days before Christmas, Paul and the remaining student—the bright but troubled Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa)—transform their mutual dislike into a surprising bond.

As many are returning to work and school this week after the holidays, let’s take a deeper look at Paul’s classic Ivy fashions that he wears to bookend the Barton Academy holiday break.

What’d He Wear?

Despite his grumpy attitude, Paul Hunham takes pride in being a professor and dresses exactly as you’d expect of a long-time instructor at a New England prep school. “While I didn’t want to go completely into that stereotypical look, how could I not a little? Besides, the yearbooks demonstrated that was exactly the right look for the period,” costume designer Wendy Chuck explained to Focus Features of the professorial corduroy suits, knitwear, and bow ties that she chose for Paul.

On the two days where we see Paul teaching—the last day before the holiday break (December 17, 1970) and the first day back to class in January 1971—he wears the same wheat-colored corduroy suit and green sweater vest.

The sweater vest provides textural harmony in addition to another vertical layer to help elongate and flatter Paul’s frame.

Chuck’s team worked to make this two-piece suit look considerably lived-in, appropriate for a regularly worn part of Paul’s wardrobe. The medium-waled corduroy cotton sacrifices some of the neater structure of a thinner-waled corduroy for something that would wear comfortably soft while still affording its wearer an air of professorial authority.

The single-breasted jacket has lapels of a narrower width that suggests an early ’60s provenance, as Paul is arguably the type to not care about updating his wardrobe. These lapels roll over the top of three flat black buttons on the front of the jacket, creating a classic 3/2-roll configuration that Ivy outfitters like Brooks Brothers and J. Press had been popularized in the United States since the early 20th century. The jacket is lined in a burgundy-and-green-on-beige tattersall check.

The jacket is characterized by sporty details like patch pockets, a half-belted back, and elbow patches. All three patch pockets have rounded bottom corners, though the breast pocket is left open while the two larger hip pockets are covered with rectangular flaps. The back is half-belted with double side vents (as opposed to the conventional back with a single vent on the brown corduroy three-piece suit he would wear to Miss Crane’s Christmas Eve party.) The dark brown suede elbow patches are a particularly professorial detail, originally designed for outdoorsmen’s sport jackets to reinforce the elbows from regular wear.

Often worn orphaned with other shirts and sweaters over the course of The Holdovers, Paul’s flat-front suit trousers have belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets (with a button through the back-right pocket), and plain-hemmed bottoms.

Paul holds them up with a dark-brown leather belt, which coordinates to the uppers of his dark-brown leather apron-toe derby shoes. Rather than traditional dress shoes, these everyman work shoes are built more for function than for form, designed to withstand years of everyday wear, including in the harsh New England winters.

For an additional layer of warmth during this snowy season in Massachusetts, Paul wears an olive-colored V-neck sweater vest made from a thin, soft wool like merino.

Summoned by a scuffle, Paul pulls back his shirt sleeves to time how long it will take for one of the holdovers to tell him who instigated a fight with Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa).

The oxford cotton button-down (OCBD) shirt emerged as an Ivy style staple shortly after Brooks Brothers president John E. Brooks brought the button-down “Polo collar” to the U.S. after observing English polo players fastening their collars down during play. Paul wears almost exclusively button-down collars, saving his dressiest white OCBD shirts for work. These softly worn-in shirts have front plackets and barrel cuffs that close through one of two buttons, adjustable suit how snugly Paul wants them to fit around each wrist.

When we meet Paul on the last day of Barton’s 1970 term, he wears a burgundy silk bow tie with a foulard horizontal-elongated diamond print alternating between beige-bordered, black-filled diamonds and larger all-beige gradient diamonds.

When classes resume in early January 1971, Paul wears exactly what he had been wearing on the last day of classes several weeks earlier, but he swapped out his neckwear for another dark-red printed silk bow tie, this time with a series of gold-trimmed medallion circles against a maroon ground.

“For Paul, there were two things that were important to get right—his hat and his jacket,” costume designer Wendy Chuck shared with Focus Features. Indeed, his checked tweed trilby and duffel coat coordinate with the rest of his costume. The short-brimmed tweed trilby is patterned in a gun club check, consisting of a rust-and-black houndstooth check against a beige ground.

Characterized by their integrated hoods and a loop-and-toggle front closure that could be easily operated by gloved hands, duffel coats were named for the coarse and heavy woolen cloth that originated in the Belgian town of Duffel during the 15th century. Though they may have emerged from earlier Polish military outerwear, the duffel coat was popularized by British outfitter John Partridge’s design during the 1850s. The Brits adopted the coat for its own military service, most widely in the Royal Navy though it adopted its “Monty coat” moniker for its association with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery of the British Army.

Like many other military fashions, the duffle coat was widely adopted by civilians after the war thanks to firms like Gloverall, and it was firmly established as a campus staple in northern colleges on both sides of the Atlantic. As Paul was a lifelong Barton man, he likely picked up his duffel coat sometime between his tenure as a student and his early years as a faculty member.

Paul trudges through the snow in his tweed trilby and duffel coat for a meeting with the school headmaster.

Paul’s dark-gray melton wool duffel coat follows the traditional design, with its integrated black-lined hood and four black leather toggle-fastened loops up the front. The thigh-length coat also has a shoulder and back yoke, set-in sleeves with plain cuffs, flapped patch-style hip pockets, and single vent.

Paul confers with Mary at the end of a stressful first day with his holdovers.

Paul regularly wears a yellow-gold wristwatch with a round black dial, secured to his left wrist on a black leather strap. He also frequently pulls on a pair of tortoise square-framed reading glasses, with the right arm scotch-taped at the temple—an inelegant repair that adds to his rumpled appearance.

What to Imbibe

Paul Hunham’s preferred spirit is Jim Beam bourbon whiskey, enjoyed straight or in his coffee.

Having been known as “Old Tub” for decades, this Kentucky bourbon was rebranded “Jim Beam” in 1943 in tribute to then-president James Beauregard Beam, great-great grandson of German immigrant Johannes “Jacob” Beam, who had started the operation in the late 18th century. As of 2020, Jim Beam’s standard 80-proof “White Label” variety was deemed the world’s most popular bourbon in Brad Japhe’s reporting for Forbes, citing the IWSR Drinks Market Analysis.

In the 1970s, Jim Beam was heavily advertised as a bourbon that could bridge the “Generation Gap”, featuring John Huston and Dennis Hopper, Bette Davis and Robert Wagner, and Orson Welles and his daughter Rebecca in various ads that depicted older and younger generations (respectively) enjoying it, simultaneously declaring that its popular formula had remained generally unchanged since 1795—an appropriate spirit for a tradition-minded instructor like Paul.

Paul gets interrupted while on a Jim Beam-fueled evisceration of his students’ exams.

Though he may be finicky, Paul isn’t choosy about his liquors and eagerly asks Mary for a nip of her Canadian Club after spotting a bottle of this venerated Canadian whiskey at her workstation.

“You know this is a necessity?” Mary asks Paul before pouring him a mug of Canadian Club.

When called to meet with headmaster Hardy Woodrip (Andrew Garmin) at the start of the winter break, Paul spies a bottle of the exclusive Rémy Martin Louis XIII cognac on his desk, which Dr. Woodrip explains as “a Christmas gift from the board of trustees.”

Paul-Emile Rémy Martin introduced this expression in 1874, the 150th anniversary of Rémy Martin’s operations, when he began selling a blend of his best 100% Grande Champagne cognacs. This blend of up to 1,200 different eaux-de-vie—aged for up to 100 yeass— is exclusively sourced from the Grande Champagne region of France, contributing to its rich and complex flavor profile. The cognac is presented in a distinctive and handcrafted crystal decanter, which Paul-Emile Rémy Martin replicated from a metal flask that had been recovered from the 1859 Battle of Jarnac.

How to Get the Look

Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers (2023)

Paul Hunham dresses to suit the image of the beleaguered New England professor, rotating through a well-worn closet of Ivy staples like his broken-in light brown corduroy suit, sweater vest, OCBD shirt, bow ties, and hardy leather derbies, layering against the cold in his checked tweed trilby and duffel coat.

• Wheat-colored corduroy cotton two-piece suit:
  • Single-breasted 3/2-roll jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, flapped patch hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and half-belted back with double side vents
  • Flat-front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets (with button-through right pocket), and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White oxford cotton shirt with button-down collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Dark-red printed bow tie
• Olive-green merino wool V-neck sweater vest
• Dark-brown leather belt
• Dark-brown leather apron-toe derby shoes
• Beige gun club check tweed trilby
• Dark-gray melton wool duffel coat with integrated hood, four black leather loop-and-toggles, flapped patch hip pockets, and single vent
• Tortoise square-framed reading glasses
• Yellow-gold wristwatch with round black dial and black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, currently streaming on Peacock.

The Quote

Hardy, I have known you since you were a boy, so I think I have the requisite experience and insight to aver that you are and always have been penis cancer in human form.

The post The Holdovers: Paul Giamatti’s Tan Corduroy Suit and Sweater Vest appeared first on BAMF Style.

Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen in The Godfather, Part II (1974)

Vitals

Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen, levelheaded Mafia lawyer

Nevada and Washington, D.C., Winter 1958 through Spring 1959

Film: The Godfather Part II
Release Date: December 12, 1974
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today is the 93rd birthday of Robert Duvall, the prolific actor born January 5, 1931 whose extensive filmography includes the first two films of The Godfather saga as Tom Hagen, the orphan informally adopted by the Corleone family—and whose cool head and legal savvy resulted in his position as the family’s trusted consigliere.

As this is the 50th anniversary year of The Godfather Part II, today’s post will explore Tom’s character and costume in this masterful second installment, set across the late 1950s as Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) continues consolidating his power and seeks to legitimatize the family’s interest as Tom had long advised him to do.

Although he’s been transitioned from consigliere to being the family’s lawyer in Las Vegas, Tom still serving as Michael’s right-hand man, with duties beyond legal counsel including everything from buying Christmas presents for the don’s children to blackmailing a senator whom they’ve framed for the murder for a prostitute.

What’d He Wear?

As the Corleone family lawyer, Tom Hagen maintains a dignified, lawful image that eschews flashier gangster fashions, considerably more subdued than Michael’s conservative-hued but shiny mohair and silk suits and certainly more subdued than Fredo’s pastel pink and yellow sport jackets. Continuing his sartorial example from the first Godfather film, Tom keeps his style current and consistent with contemporary trends; by the late ’50s, this means smart Ivy tailoring—seersucker in the summer, flannel in the winter—aligned with his remaining the most businesslike of the Corleone siblings.

Tom’s primary suit through the latter half of The Godfather Part II is a sober dark gray self-striped woolen flannel three-piece suit. Its color and cut could recall the “nice Ivy League suit” that Michael wore when bada bing! he blew McClusky and Sollozzo’s brains all of it a decade earlier, though Tom never handles such dirty business directly; as Willie Cicci would testify, there’s always plenty of buffers.

A set photo of Al Pacino and Robert Duvall while filming the scene where Michael returns to the U.S. after he’s forced out of revolutionary Cuba. Note how somber Tom’s gray striped flannel looks compared to the shine of Michael’s black mohair-blend three-piece suit.

The single-breasted jacket has a 3/2-roll, with the notch lapels rolling clear over the top button—an Ivy tradition dating back to the Brooks Brothers and J. Press sack suits introduced in early 20th century America. The jacket has straight shoulders, single rear vent, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, and two vestigial cuff-buttons spaced at the end of each sleeve.

The matching single-breasted waistcoat (vest) has four welted pockets—two on each side—and six buttons that Tom wears fully fastened. Fashioned with side pockets and turn-ups (cuffs), the trousers have belt loops, through which Tom wears a black leather belt that closes through a silver-toned squared single-prong buckle, which occasionally flashes from under the waistcoat’s notched bottom.

Tom maintains an Ivy consistency by exclusively wearing oxford cotton button-down (OCBD) shirts and trad ties with this suit. These shirts are styled with a front placket, button cuffs, and the requisite button-down collar that John E. Brooks had standardized in the United States as the “Polo collar” in the early 20th century after he was inspired by English polo players fastening their collars to their shirt bodies.

The first time that Tom wears this suit on screen is during the last week of December 1958, when Tom flies to Carson City, where the family has framed Senator Pat Geary (J.D. Spradlin) for the violent death of a prostitute in one of Fredo’s cathouses. He wears a white OCBD with a dark tie, which appears to be predominantly dark olive with dark navy “downhill”-direction bar stripes.

“You don’t have to remember—just do as I say. We’re putting a call into your office. Explain that you’ll be there tomorrow afternoon, you decided to spend the night at Michael Corleone’s house in Tahoe… as his guest.”
Tom takes control of the situation in the Carson City cathouse, ensuring that Senator Geary will be indebted to the Corleone family for life.

Several days later, Tom is in Las Vegas to greet Michael at the Desert Inn, following Michael’s hasty retreat from Havana after the Cuban revolution on New Year’s Eve 1958. This time, he wears a light-blue OCBD—similar to what he had worn with his seersucker suit in the opening sequence—and a burgundy-and-navy downhill-direction block-striped repp tie.

Tom is somewhat less in control when he has to break the news to Michael that Kay’s unborn son was lost in a miscarriage.

Later in 1959, Tom travels with Michael to provide him with legal counsel during the Senate committee hearings into organized crime. Again he wears a white OCBD shirt, this time paired with a navy silk tie patterned with burgundy-filled medallions.

Back in command: Tom argues for Michael’s statement to be read aloud during the Senate hearings.

Finally, Tom returns with Michael, Kay (Diane Keaton), and a surprise guest—Vincenzo Pentangeli (Salvatore Po)—to provide intimidation support for the government’s mob informant witness, Frankie Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo). We don’t get close enough to Tom here to see if his tie is a solid navy silk or if it has a subtle tonal pattern, but a solid silk would be consistent with Ivy fashions and Tom’s own subdued sense of style.

Sure, Michael and Tom look nice in their well-tailored dark three-piece business suits, but no courtroom style can beat Vincenzo Pentangeli’s red pom-pom string tie.

Tom always wears professional black leather cap-toe oxford shoes, typically with black socks when we can see between the bottoms of his trousers and the tops of his shoes.

Michael, Tom, and Al Neri (Richard Bright) stride through the Desert Inn veranda after Michael returns stateside from a now-revolutionary Cuba.

Tom doesn’t appear to wear a wristwatch or any other jewelry aside from the plain yellow-gold wedding band on the ring finger of his left hand.

During the Senate hearing, Tom pulls on a pair of black browline-framed reading glasses. This style was introduced by American eyewear company Shuron with their metal/zyl-framed “Ronsir” model in 1947, which the company describes as having “famously defined the look of the 1950s.” Indeed, browline frames were popular among authority figures through the 1950s and ’60s, ranging from real-life leaders like Lyndon B. Johnson, Vince Lombardi, and Malcolm X to fictional figures like the domineering J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) in the 1957 noir Sweet Smell of Success. Based on the popularity, competing eyewear companies developed their own browline models like the Art-Craft “Clubman” and the Ray-Ban “Clubmaster” frames.

There’s a very brief moment while Michael is reading his statement to the Senate committee when Robert Duvall seems to lock eyes with the camera—and you truly understand the stakes for anyone who will testify against the Corleones.

A Different Suit

For Tom’s final appearance during the late 1950s portion of The Godfather Part II, he wears a similar three-piece suit made of solid charcoal wool when visiting Frankie in federal custody, using lessons from the Roman Empire to suggest that Frankie take his own life.

“When the plot against the emperor failed, the plotters were always given a chance… to let the families keep their fortune.”
One could argue that guys like Tom Hagen and Frankie Pentangeli think about the Roman Empire several times a day.

How to Get the Look

Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen in The Godfather, Part II (1974)

In his gray self-striped flannel three-piece suit, OCBD shirts, Ivy ties, and black oxfords, Tom Hagen maintains a smart businesslike look for his role as the family lawyer, without any flash to suggest his client is actually an organized crime family.

• Dark gray self-striped woolen flannel three-piece Ivy business suit:
  • Single-breasted 3/2-roll jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, spaced 2-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Single-breasted 6-button waistcoat/vest with four welted pockets and notched bottom
  • Flat-front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White or light-blue oxford-cloth cotton shirt with button-down collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Striped repp ties or solid or patterned navy silk ties
• Black leather belt with silver-toned squared single-prong buckle
• Black leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Black socks
• Black browline-framed reading glasses
• Gold wedding ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series.

The Quote

This girl has no family, nobody knows that she worked here—it’ll be as if she never existed. All that’s left is our friendship.

The post The Godfather, Part II: Tom Hagen’s Gray Striped Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jack Nicholson in Carnal Knowledge (1971)

Vitals

Jack Nicholson as Jonathan Fuerst, arrogant Amherst College student

Hampshire County, Massachusetts, Winter 1946

Film: Carnal Knowledge
Release Date: June 30, 1971
Director: Mike Nichols
Costume Designer: Anthea Sylbert

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

As we continue facing snow and below-freezing temps here in the northeast U.S., I’m finding comfort in the layered winter style from movies like Carnal Knowledge, Mike Nichols’ cold (in every sense of the word) depiction of sexuality through the mid-20th century.

Even though the “New Hollywood” movement led by directors like Nichols, Robert Altman, and Arthur Penn had been breaking cinematic barriers since the late ’60s when the strict Production Code crumbled and the ratings system was introduced, the content and presentation of Carnal Knowledge was still considered too obscene and offensive for some audiences, to the point that a Georgia theater owner was convicted of obscenity charges (later overhauled by the U.S. Supreme Court) for showing it in his theater.

Carnal Knowledge centers around the swaggering Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and his mild-mannered friend Sandy (Art Garfunkel), whom we first meet as students at Amherst College in the years following World War II.

Though Sandy’s girlfriend Susan (Candice Bergen) had been reluctant to explore a physical relationship with Sandy, she eventually gives in to Jonathan’s more aggressive seduction. Referring to his new mystery woman as “Myrtle”, Jonathan continues dating Susan behind Sandy’s back, talking about their respective childhoods and their burgeoning political beliefs—Susan, whose favorite book is said to be Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, declares that “we’re Republicans… sometimes I think I’m a Communist, though.” Though Jonathan gains “carnal knowledge” of Susan before Sandy even comes close, Jonathan quickly grows jealous of the emotional connection between Sandy and Susan.

What’d He Wear?

Having originated as European military outerwear in the 19th century, distinctive duffel coats emerged as a cold-weather campus staple in New England by the mid-20th century, as depicted in Carnal Knowledge and as recently as The Holdovers.

The design was standardized by British outfitter John Partridge in the 1850s, likely inspired by older Polish frock coats characterized by their wide bucket hoods and toggle-front closure that remain hallmarks of the duffel coat. Alternately spelled “duffel coat” or “duffle coat”, the name reportedly originated from the thick woolen cloth produced in the northern Belgian town of Duffel. (Which is why I prefer the “duffel” spelling.)

The coat was initially adopted by British Royal Navy service members who appreciated what they called the “convoy coat” for its warm and water-resistant cloth, the roomy fit over their uniforms, large hoods that could accommodate issued headgear, and the front toggles that could still be handled with gloves. Duffel coats would soon be adopted across all branches of the British military, solidifying such a strong association with British Army Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery that his own nickname was applied to the coat’s latest moniker. “Monty coats” thus maintained their momentum after World War II, when they were reconfigured for civilians by companies like the newly formed British outerwear brand Gloverall, eventually attracting male and female customers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Jonathan and Sandy would have been relatively early adopters of their civilian duffel coats when sporting them on Amherst’s campus through the winter of 1946. Sandy’s lighter-colored coat reflects his bright-eyed, optimistic outlook, while Jonathan’s dark-navy duffel coat coordinates with his darker personality. (That said, Jonathan couldn’t be more different than his fellow blue duffel coat-wearing contemporary: Paddington Bear.)

The prominence of duffel coats in Carnal Knowledge may be anachronistic, as Jonathan and Sandy sport theirs through the winter of 1946. True, the coats had existed for nearly a century by this point, but they realistically wouldn’t have reached American campuses until a decade later. The British Ministry of Defence was still working with M. & F. Morris Industrial Clothing to offload its many surplus stocks of duffel coats at this point, and it wouldn’t be until 1951 when company head Harold Morris formed the Gloverall brand to market these surplus coats to the public.

“Demand for Gloverall coats—affordable, durable, and very warm—was such that, when the surplus supplied ran out, the company began to manufacture them, albeit in a more streamlined, fashion-friendly version styled by Morris’ father, a master tailor,” writes Josh Sims in Icons of Men’s Style. “The bucket hood was scaled down, flap pockets were added, a new double-faced woolen cloth in navy and tan was used (rather than the Royal Navy’s undyed dun color), the wooden toggles were replaced with horn ones and the rope loops with leather. The benchmark style was called the 512 and by 1955 it was being exported.”

Made from a rich dark navy wool, Jonathan’s thigh-length duffel coat has a four-toggle front closure, each consisting of light wooden toggles attached to natural-colored rope loops that are reinforced to each side of the jacket with black triangular patches. Behind the substantial edge-stitched shirt-style collar, the large hood is lined in a burgundy, purple, green, and navy stripe, tightened with woven navy drawstrings. The coat also has flapped set-in hip pockets and set-in sleeves finished with a single-button semi-strap around each cuff.

After his first night with Susan to bragging about “Myrtle” to the boys the next day, Jonathan layers against the cold in a black wool crew-neck sweater over a red tartan plaid flannel work shirt. Consistent with the “lumberjack shirt” aesthetic that became a prevailing sportswear favorite among American men through the 1940s into the ’50s thanks to brands like Pendleton and Woolrich, Jonathan’s long-sleeved shirt has a long-pointed collar, plain button-up front, single-button cuffs, and two chest pockets—each covered with a round-cornered flap.

Blue jeans weren’t quite as widely accepted at this point just after World War II, but it still makes sense that a cheeky collegian like Jonathan would wear a pair on weekends or when not in class, especially as they’re tonally harmonious with the plaid work shirt under his sweater. The dark-blue denim jeans that he wears for his triumphant dive into the swimming pool appear to be Lee, based on the styling of the five-pocket configuration and the fact that Jack Nicholson wore Lee 101 Riders off- and on-screen around this time, as seen in films like Five Easy Pieces.

As he leaps into the pool, Jonathan has the presence of mind to not test the duffel coat’s resistance to water that had contributed to its popularity among Royal Navy sailors.

As the secret love triangle between Jonathan, Susan, and Sandy continues through the winter, we follow the trio for an evening at a local juke joint. Here, Jonathan wears another red checked shirt under a crew-neck sweater, though the shirt appears to be a lighter-weight cotton fabric and patterned with a white graph-check. His crew-neck sweater is made from a mid-gray wool.

Jonathan briefly takes over from Sandy while dancing with Susan to Glenn Miller’s 1941 big band standard “A String of Pearls”.

When dressed up in more than his jeans, Jonathan wears gray wool trousers with turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms. His winter layers—specifically the duffel coat—cover many other details of the trousers, but the full fit, his other wardrobe pieces, and late ’40s trends suggest that these slacks are likely pleated.

Jonathan’s black leather oxford-laced boots are heavy duty enough to protect his feet as he sludges through the snowy sidewalks of Amherst’s campus. He also wears brown leather gloves, likely lined for added warmth.

How to Get the Look

Jack Nicholson in Carnal Knowledge (1971)

Jack Nicholson’s cold-weather collegiate look in Carnal Knowledge blends the practical sartorial philosophies of European military staples and workwear classics as he strides through campus in a warm navy duffel coat, its toggles fastened over a plaid shirt layered under a sweater and worn either dressed up with slacks or dressed down with blue jeans.

• Dark-navy wool duffel coat with tan rope-looped four-toggle closure, multistripe-lined hood, and straight flapped hip pockets
• Red checked long-sleeved button-up shirt
• Black or gray wool crew-neck sweater
• Dark-blue denim jeans or gray wool pleated trousers with turn-ups/cuffs
• Black leather heavy-duty oxford-laced winter boots
• Brown leather lined gloves

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

You can do it with him, now do it with me! Tell me my thoughts! Tell me my goddamn thoughts!

The post Carnal Knowledge: Jack Nicholson’s Duffel Coat appeared first on BAMF Style.

Peter Sellers with Claudia Cardinale in The Pink Panther (1963)

Vitals

Peter Sellers as Jacques Clouseau, bumbling Sûreté investigator

Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Winter 1963

Film: The Pink Panther
Release Date: December 18, 1963
Director: Blake Edwards
Wardrobe Supervisor: Annalisa Nasalli-Rocca

Background

Four months after it premiered in Italy on December 18, 1963 (the same day that Brad Pitt was born, for what it’s worth), The Pink Panther was released in the United States sixty years ago this March, introducing audiences to the inept Inspector Clouseau portrayed by Peter Sellers.

Though future installments would focus more intentionally on Sellers’ pratfall-laden performance as Clouseau, The Pink Panther was initially more of a stylish, star-studded caper, set in the favorite winter destination for Camelot-era jet-setters: Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Italian Alps.

Clouseau is in the midst of his investigation into a prolific jewel thief known only as “the Phantom” when joining his wife Simone (Capucine) in Cortina, where we learn Simone had been planning to meet her lover, the dashing Sir Charles Lytton (David Niven)—who happens to be the mysterious Phantom that Clouseau had been chasing. Adding to the complication is the unexpected arrival of Sir Charles’ mischievous nephew and protege George (Robert Wagner) and the target of Charles and Simone’s next heist: the glamorous Princess Dala (Claudia Cardinale) and her princess gem called “The Pink Panther”.

Of course, Clouseau never suspects any of the intrigue happening right under his nose as he joins the buttoned-up insurance investigator Tucker (Colin Gordon) and the elegant après-ski set in the hotel lounge during a random but Fran-tastic performance of Henry Mancini’s samba “It Had Better Be Tonight (Meglio stasera)”.

What’d He Wear?

Inspector Clouseau’s clothing often conjures either one of his elaborate disguises or his familiar trench coat and trilby. While these hallmarks were still present in this first installment, Clouseau also deftly dresses for the luxurious ski resort setting, whether in a fashionable three-piece dinner suit while dancing with his wife or socializing fireside in a cozy sweater and corduroys.

Unlike the stoic Tucker in his tweed suit and bow-tie, Clouseau doesn’t look comically out of place as all the gents sport comfortable sweaters while relaxing in the resort’s Tyrolean-themed lounge.

Clouseau layers the sweater over an open-neck shirt, a white cotton long-sleeved button-up with a small brick-red graph check. The shirt has a semi-spread collar, front placket, and button cuffs.

Clouseau wears an ivory wool sweater with a deep V-shaped neckline framed by a wide brown napped trim that matches the short strips decorating the tops of the two patch-style hip pockets. The set-in sleeves are widely ribbed, beginning about an inch out from the shoulder seams, echoing the tapered vertical ribbing down the front, following the neckline.

The sweater’s oversized fit may be intentional as a loose outer layer to be worn over ski clothes, or it may have been selected for Clouseau’s wardrobe before Peter Sellers’ extensive weight loss (said to be partially triggered by Sellers’ insecurity when sharing the screen with the strapping young Robert Wagner.)

Clouseau tonally and texturally coordinates his trousers with the rest of his look, wearing olive-brown wide-waled corduroy trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms. The voluminous fit of his sweater covers the trousers’ waistband area, but they appear to be flat-fronted and likely styled with at least hand pockets.

Clouseau continues wearing the snuff-brown suede two-eyelet plain-toe chukka boots that he had also worn with his brown flannel sack suit upon arriving in Cortina. These ankle-high boots were a relatively recent phenomenon, purportedly originated by British Army officers playing polo in India (a “chukker” is a 7½-minute period of play in polo), brought west by the Prince of Wales (who else?), and increasingly popular from the late 1940s onward. “More of a high shoe than a boot,” sartorial expert Sir Hardy Amies described in his 1964 volume ABC of Men’s Fashion, “and very smart in suede for the weekend wear.”

Less smart are Clouseau’s chocolate-brown ribbed socks, which nicely continue the leg-line between his similarly tinted trousers and shoes but are unfortunately in need of mending with a substantial hole on the back of the right heel… much to a hidden Sir Charles’ amusement.

When Clouseau receives George’s decoy call that summons him to Brunico, he pulls on his tweed hat and trench coat to complete the enduring “Inspector Clouseau” image for the first time in The Pink Panther‘s canon. (He had previously worn the coat with a less characteristic black leather cap upon checking into the hotel, so I wouldn’t count that.)

Described by Clouseau as “my Surété Scotland-Yard-type mackintosh,” the beige gabardine trench coat features all the major design elements that have characterized trench coats since Thomas Burberry submitted his initial British Army officer’s raincoat to the War Office around the turn of the 20th century. (Despite Burberry’s long association with the coat, Sellers’ screen-worn coats were reportedly made by their competitor Aquascutum, as the brand Tweeted in 2016, though this may refer to coats he wore in later movies; a glimpse at the large-scaled red-and-green windowpane check on the beige full-length lining may help identify the maker of Clouseau’s coat in The Pink Panther.)

The broad lapels over the front can be fastened up via the 8×4-button double-breasted front, extending up from the waist to neck. The self-belt around the waist closes through a tall tan leather-covered single-prong buckle and has the array of brass D-rings that had been added during World War I to attach equipment. The shoulder straps (epaulets) were another WWI-era addition to the design, and a storm flap drapes over the right shoulder onto the chest. The cuffs are fastened with the usual belted straps, and the hand pockets have button-down flaps to protect the contents from rain.

Esquire‘s The Handbook of Style cites Inspector Clouseau as one of the most famous trench coat wearers, explaining that he “wore his trench coat buttoned and belted, an attempt to preserve a semblance of suave control as Clouseau bumbled through crime scenes.”

Prior to the brown trilbies he would wear in later films, The Pink Panther dresses Clouseau in a dark-gray tufted tweed trilby, styled with a narrow self-band and a short brim. In A Shot in the Dark, he would wear a brown soft felt trilby before switching to the less structured mixed brown tweed Lock & Co. hats for the trio of 1970s-made films.

Dressing against the cold for his aborted journey from Cortina to Brunico, Clouseau also wraps a plain white scarf around his neck and pulls on two-toned leather three-point driving gloves with cream roughout tops and smooth taupe leather bottoms and trim. These are true driving gloves, with cutout holes over the knuckles and two carpal ventilation holes.

Signifying his marriage to the duplicitous Simone, Clouseau wears a gold wedding band on the ring finger of his left hand.

The Gun

Upon realizing that Sir Charles must be the notorious Phantom, Clouseau draws his gold-plated Beretta Model 70 and accidentally fires a .32-caliber round into the ceiling. This would be the only time we see Sellers’ Clouseau armed in the line of duty.

A precursor to Beretta’s compact “Cheetah” series, the Model 70—also known as the “Puma”—was developed as an improvement on the aging Model 1934 and 1935 service pistols that were wielded by the Italian military during World War II. Beretta launched the Model 70 in 1958, so it still would have been relatively new to the world firearms market by the time Clouseau armed himself with a gold-plated Model 70 in The Pink Panther, released at the end of 1963.

“Careful, you fool! Don’t you realize this gun is loaded?” a pajama-clad Clouseau admonishes poor Tucker after Tucker redirects the muzzle away from pointing at himself!

The standard Model 70 weighed 660 grams—just shy of a pound and a half—with a 3.5-inch barrel on an overall 6.5-long frame. Though future evolutions would be chambered for .22 LR (and even a limited run in .380 ACP, introduced in the late ’70s), the base Model 70 fired the .32 ACP cartridge, fed from eight-round magazines.

While this common and easily concealed semi-automatic pistol makes sense as the sidearm for a Sûreté inspector, the gold plating and ivory grips are far too flashy for a detective to have the good sense to carry… but who would ever accuse Inspector Clouseau of having good sense?

How to Get the Look

Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther (1963)

Before donning his signature trench coat and trilby, Inspector Clouseau actually fits in quite well among the mid-century “jet set” in his comfortably oversized sweater, open-neck shirt, corduroys, and suede chukka boots.

• White with red graph-check cotton long-sleeved shirt with semi-spread collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Ivory wool V-neck sweater with brown napped trim on neck and tops of both patch-style hip pockets
• Olive-brown wide-waled corduroy flat-front trousers with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Snuff-brown suede two-eyelet plain-toe derby shoes
• Brown ribbed socks
• Dark-gray tufted tweed trilby
• White scarf
• Beige gabardine trench coat with 8×4-button double-breasted front, self-belt with leather-covered single-prong buckle, epaulets (shoulder straps), right-side storm flap, slanted hand pockets (with button-down flaps), and belted cuffs
• Cream roughout-and-taupe leather three-point open-knuckle driving gloves
• Gold wedding ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

At times like this, I wish I was but a simple peasant.

The post The Pink Panther: Clouseau’s Après-ski Sweater appeared first on BAMF Style.

Richard Roundtree as John Shaft in Shaft (1971)

Vitals

Richard Roundtree as John Shaft, tough private detective

New York City, January 1971

Film: Shaft
Release Date: June 25, 1971
Director: Gordon Parks
Costume Designer: Joseph G. Aulisi

Background

Through his life and after his death in October 2023, Richard Roundtree was often considered the “first Black action hero” for his groundbreaking performance as the smooth private detective John Shaft across a trio of thrillers released across the early 1970s. The fact that Shaft had been Roundtree’s first major movie after starting his career as a model makes his dynamic screen presence all the more impressive.

Initially followed by two sequels and a short-lived TV series, the original 1971 movie Shaft—adapted from Ernest Tidyman’s novel of the same name—contained all the elements for success: the gritty New York location, Isaac Hayes’ iconic Oscar-winning theme song and funky score, and the smooth-talking, ass-kicking, leather-clad Roundtree as the lead character.

The start of Black History Month feels like the ideal time to celebrate Roundtree’s legacy as the the cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about… right on.

What’d He Wear?

Shaft was one of the first credited jobs for costume designer Joseph G. Aulisi, who would specialize in dressing characters for the tough world of ’70s New York as illustrated by his work in movies like The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight (1971), The Seven-Ups (1973), Death Wish (1974), and Three Days of the Condor (1975).

Aulisi dresses Shaft in a rotation of leather outerwear, from the long brown leather trench coat during the opening sequence to the black leather motorcycle jacket and matching pants when he’s in assault mode. Aulisi would again dress Richard Roundtree in those pieces for the sequel Shaft’s Big Score! (1972), but Shaft’s screen closet also includes a moto-inspired brown leather jacket that appears only in the first Shaft movie.

Made from a dark brown leather shell which may be horsehide, the jacket’s design takes some inspiration from traditional motorcycle jackets with its asymmetrical front zip. broad lapels, and belted waist, but it extends longer than Perfecto-style moto jackets with a thigh-length cut similar to some car coats.

The brass front zipper has a circular zip-pull and can be fastened up from the waist to the neck, pulling the left lapel closed the higher it goes. The lapels are broad with squared ends, finished with an edge-stitching present throughout the rest of the jacket. A full self-belt around the waist closes through a leather-covered single-prong buckle, fastened through one of five brass grommets. The jacket also has a single vent and slanted-entry hand pockets. The set-in sleeves are finished with belted cuffs.

Unlike the trench coat which he typically layers over suits, Shaft wears this jacket more casually over one of his many turtlenecks. This rust-orange mid-weight ribbed-knit sweater has a full roll-neck and set-in sleeves.

Shaft tucks the turtleneck into his tight dark-brown polyester flat-front slacks, styled like his other trousers with belt loops, slanted front pockets (and no back pockets), and plain-hemmed bottoms with some fashionable flare. He holds the trousers up with a dark-brown leather belt that closes through a squared brass-toned single-prong buckle.

Befitting his dangerous occupation, Shaft carries his snub-nosed revolver in a black leather shoulder holster, positioned under his right armpit for a left-handed draw. The rig has a loop that hooks around the right side of his belt and a black vinyl adjustable support strap that loops around Shaft’s left shoulder.

Briefly spied at the bottom of the frame, Shaft’s brown leather boots are likely the same square-toed ankle boots that his regular shiner Cul (Arnold Johnson) observed seeing a scuff on the left boot.

Shaft wears a stainless steel wristwatch with a round silver dial that BAMF Style reader Aldous has helpfully identified as likely a late 1960s-vintage Rado. The unique rally-style bracelet has three large holes on each side of the case, connected by a series of smaller holes as the band extends around the wrist. While rally watch straps are often made of leather, metal bracelets with large round perforations like Shaft’s also emerged during the 1960s as a stylish alternative to the breathable straps popularized by race car drivers.

The Gun

Carried in a shoulder holster under his right arm, John Shaft metes out justice with a Colt Detective Special, the venerated “belly gun” perfectly named for an investigator like Shaft. Colt introduced the Detective Special in 1927, balancing concealment and power with its six rounds of .38 Special mated to a two-inch barrel. As its name—and usage by fictional detectives like John Shaft—implies, the Detective Special was a quick favorite among plainclothes police, though its practicality and reliability also attracted crooks and civilians alike.

Colt shared the snub-nosed revolver market with competitors like Smith & Wesson, who also offered short-barreled .38s like their six-shot Model 10 Military & Police and smaller-framed five-shot Model 36 Chiefs Special. While all of these revolvers may appear similar to a layperson, the Detective Special—like most early 20th century Colt revolvers—can be quickly differentiated by its unshrouded ejector rod under the barrel.

Shaft actually owns two Detective Specials: a blued steel model with wooden grips that he carries for most of the film and a nickel-plated backup that he keeps in his refrigerator. The blued Detective Special in this sequence can be identified as an early first-generation Detective Special, differentiated by the full “half-moon” front sight without the ramped back that was introduced for the “Second Series” in 1947.

How to Get the Look

Richard Roundtree as John Shaft in Shaft (1971)

John Shaft’s sweet ’70 leather collection includes a brown motorcycle-inspired car coat, worn over one of his usual turtlenecks and shoulder holster.

• Dark-brown leather thigh-length jacket with square-ended lapels, asymmetrical brass front zip, self-belt with leather-covered single-prong buckle and brass grommets, slanted-entry hand pockets, set-in sleeves with belted cuffs, and rear vent
• Rust-orange ribbed-knit turtleneck sweater
• Dark-brown polyester flat-front trousers with belt loops, slanted front pockets, and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark-brown leather belt with squared gold single-prong buckle
• Brown leather square-toe ankle boots
• Black leather shoulder holster with black vinyl support strap and belt-connector strap
• Steel wristwatch with round silver dial on metal rally-style bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Don’t let your mouth get your ass in trouble.

The post Shaft: Richard Roundtree’s Brown Leather Asymmetrical-Zip Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

I’m pleased to again present a guest post contributed by my friend Ken Stauffer, who has written several pieces for BAMF Style previously and chronicles the style of the Ocean’s film series (and beyond!) on his excellent Instagram account, @oceansographer.

George Clooney as Jack Foley in Out of Sight (1998). Photo credit: Merrick Morton.

Vitals

George Clooney as Jack Foley, charismatic bank robber and prison escapee

Detroit, February 3-5, 1999

Film: Out of Sight
Release Date: June 26, 1998
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Costume Designer: Betsy Heimann

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

When people lament that Hollywood studios should go back to making more high quality, mid-budget movies, Out of Sight is exactly what they’re referring to, even if they don’t realize it. Looking back on it today, the film is not only perfectly cast and beautifully shot, but it manages to strike the perfect balance of character and plot, humor and drama, while telling a unique story.

Based on a then-just-published novel by Elmore Leonard, the movie stars George Clooney as lifelong bank robber Jack Foley who breaks out of prison in Florida, getting away by hiding himself in a car trunk with U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez). With the law hot on his tail, Foley and his best friend Buddy (Ving Rhames) hoof it to Detroit to pull off one last score at the home of two-faced businessman Richard Ripley (Albert Brooks), whom they did time with years earlier. They’re forced to form an uneasy alliance with a far more violent crew led by the murderous “Snoopy” Miller (Don Cheadle).

Watching the finished product, it’s hard to believe how troubled the production was at the outset. The story goes that the late, great Sydney Pollack left the project when he learned George Clooney was attached, feeling he wasn’t a movie star in the immediate wake of Batman & Robin. As he told TCM presenter Ben Mankiewicz on a recent podcast, Steven Soderbergh “desperately tried” to get into the director’s chair of this film, but coming off a series of flops he was ultimately forced to “wait for most of the town to pass.”

Once hired, Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Frank (who had adapted Leonard’s Get Shorty a couple years earlier) restructured the story with a series of flashbacks, intending to reveal information when it would have the most weight. With a reworked ending and a few other additions to better tie characters together, the general consensus is that the pair actually improved upon the plot of an already engrossing and witty novel.

With a director and star who were far from anyone’s first choice, the studio set a budget that necessitated the cast be filled with more affordable, up-and-coming actors, namely Don Cheadle, Steve Zahn, Viola Davis, Catherine Keener, Isaiah Washington, and Luis Guzman. Accomplished comedian Albert Brooks joined wanting a venue to try something different and play against type. Clooney personally recommended Ving Rhames for the role of Jack’s best friend, “Buddy” Bragg, as the two had spent the mid-’90s co-starring on ER (though to my recollection, they never share a single scene). At the time of production, the most bankable stars in the movie were Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Keaton, both of whom went uncredited!

A virtual unknown at the time, Jennifer Lopez was cast because of her immediate chemistry with George in auditions. Soderbergh recognized that Clooney was simply giving a better performance when acting opposite Lopez. That spark between the two stars is why the film regularly appears on lists of the “sexiest movies of all time.”

Now while it’s seldom celebrated outside of my household, in universe, the day that Jack, Buddy, and Snoopy’s crew illegally entered Ripley’s mansion in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, was Friday, February 5, 1999—exactly 25 years ago today.

What’d He Wear?

Having helped define the distinct look of ’90s criminals in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Get Shorty, Betsy Heimann was the natural choice to costume the rogues gallery of Out of Sight. As she told the From Tailors With Love podcast back in 2020, “a lot of my work, still to this day, combines vintage and modern, current to the time.” She then recounted that in her first collaboration with Quentin Tarantino she developed a theory that “if you’re a criminal who is in and out of jail, you probably don’t have a lot of money so you might shop at the thrift store,” which she carried over to her work here.

After spending the first half of the movie between the Florida Everglades, Miami Beach, and Lompoc, California, the film’s look takes a sharp turn when the story heads into the icy cold of wintertime Detroit. As he would famously do in Traffic two years later, Soderbergh pulled the 85 filter when shooting these scenes, eliminating all warm tones from the image, and giving everything a cold, blue tint.

Shot on location, Jack and Buddy’s first stop in Detroit is the original Kronk gym on McGraw Ave. Foley wears most of his cold-weather wardrobe in this scene, and the centerpiece of it is easily his retro-styled gray car coat. It’s made in a heavyweight wool in heathered charcoal, and has a distinctive ulster collar made from faux fur. Soderbergh has specifically mentioned that he wanted the film to feel like 1973, and indeed this coat wouldn’t look out of place in The Friends of Eddie Coyle or The Last Detail.

Though the faux fur collar takes on a navy hue on screen, it’s most likely a black nylon or polyester pile with a blue undertone that gets accentuated by Soderbergh’s filtering. As shown in a deleted scene, the coat has a matching pile lining, as is typical on coats of this style. You can find similar examples, mostly from the ’60s and ’70s, from brands like London Fog and Botany 500.

The author’s own Botany 500 fur-collared car coat, similar to the style worn by George Clooney on screen.

The coat’s roped shoulders are a bit too large on Clooney’s frame, hanging off on each side, and the body of it is likewise cut a bit fuller. The hem of the coat extends just beyond Clooney’s fingertips. It closes with three shank buttons wrapped in a weathered dark leather, with two smaller matching buttons at the end of each of its plain sleeves. There is a center vent in the back and a slanted outer pocket on each hip.

I had the pleasure last month to ask Ms. Heimann a few questions about her work on the film, and she relayed the following insight into what inspired this selection:

I grew up in Chicago. There is a photo I have of two of my friends standing on the Addison Rocks wearing coats very similar to Jack Foley’s winter coat. That was the image I had in my mind when I thought about his costume for Detroit. So you are right, it had to have a vintage feel. I found it in an old fashioned workwear store in South Gate, CA while searching for something else.

That sounds a lot like Greenspan’s on Tweedy Blvd in South Gate that’s been selling new men’s workwear since 1928. So while the coat has a distinctly vintage look, it was most likely manufactured in the ’90s closer to the film’s production.

Betsy Heimann’s production sketch of Foley in the full costume including his brown velour polo.

Beneath the coat, Foley wears a dark collared shirt, with the top two buttons undone, and a plain wool scarf with plain edges. Neither is that easy to make out on screen, so I’ll let Betsy take the lead here:

The shirt in question also came from there. It was more of a Pendleton… ombre shirt jacket. Same with the black scarf.

Most likely Jack wears one of Pendleton’s hardy wool CPO-style overshirts, characteristically finished with an extra layer of quilted lining and two chest pockets with buttoning flaps. We can’t discern much of the shirt’s true color due to the scene’s blue filter, but judging from a production still, it looks like an ombre plaid pattern in shades of brown and gray. It has a large-scale gold overcheck that bisects its row of gray buttons.

Beneath the Pendleton, Jack wears a basic black waffle-knit thermal cotton crew-neck long-sleeved T-shirt. Not expecting to see Karen, he recycles this shirt on its own two days later, wearing it directly beneath his coat. We can see that it has ribbed cuffs and a plain bottom, as the character wears it untucked here.

This production still of George Clooney and Ving Rhames shows the color and pattern of Jack’s Pendleton shirt more clearly than seen in the film itself.

Jack begins his second day in Detroit on the phone with Buddy from his motel room, before casually stalking Karen by asking for her at every area hotel. Here, he’s opted for a slightly oversized, grayish-brown velour long-sleeve polo with a placket of three gray mother-of-pearl buttons. The sleeves are finished plainly with a simple T-shirt style hem, rather than a ribbed cuff.

Even a fugitive on the lam deserves to feel cozy.

Throughout his short stay in Michigan, the character only wears a single pair of dark brown flat front pants with slanted side and button through rear pockets. As these pants have no crease, they appear more casual, maybe cotton work pants offered by brands like Dickies, or something thicker like moleskin for the cold. They have straight legs that are cuffed at the bottom. As less dressy pants are rarely finished with cuffs, I’m guessing fugitive Foley hasn’t bothered to have them properly hemmed and just rolled them up to better suit his inseam.

During the scene at the gym, Jack’s black leather belt can be briefly glimpsed. We get a better look at it when Jack meets up with Karen Sisco later in the film, while wearing a navy silk-and-mohair suit (I promise to cover that outfit here soon). It has edge stitching and a small rectangular silver buckle that’s slightly taller than it is long. Based on how thin the belt is, it’s definitely better suited for a more formal outfit, but as Jack is traveling light, it makes sense that he would reuse it here. The character forgoes the belt on the day of the robbery, perhaps because Buddy lectures him as he’s getting dressed.

Even though Jack asks Buddy to drop him off at the city’s landmark Renaissance Center so he can buy some better shoes, the character actually relies on a simple pair of black calf leather derbies throughout the majority of the film. They have a plain toe, five lace eyelets, a tan leather lining, and rubber soles by Vibram, as revealed by the brand’s distinctive yellow logo (seen in the last act when Foley and Snoopy wrestle on the floor). Their rather plain appearance and hard-wearing bottoms create a very versatile shoe, wearable with a suit or more relaxed workwear. Beneath them, Jack always seems to wear simple black dress socks with vertical ribs.

Thanks to a deleted scene, we can see that Foley is wearing a pair white cotton boxers on the day of the robbery, just as he had the night before when visiting Karen’s hotel room. Let’s just hope that he owns more than one pair!

This is my 9th article on BAMF Style in the last 3 years, and I’ve finally been able to work in a pic of Clooney in his underwear!

Jack’s limited wardrobe and recycling of pieces makes practical sense in the plot of the film as the character carries all of his belongings in a single Burdine’s paper shopping bag. As Ms. Heimann related to me, “it has always been my habit to build the closet and then put the items together in the same or different ways. Jack wasn’t planning on going to Detroit for very long. It was supposed to be an easy in and out job. It was always my idea that he really didn’t need a lot of clothes.”

Just before entering Ripley’s mansion, Foley dons a pair of black leather gloves, with exposed stitching on the edges of the fingers and palms, and a black acrylic three-hole ski mask. Once inside, he stuffs the gloves into his right coat pocket and shifts the mask back, cuffing the lower edge over his hairline, making it resemble an oversized knit cap.

Jack: “You ever wear one of these?”
Buddy: “I don’t ski.”

The Guns

Smith & Wesson .32 Double Action 4th Model

On the cusp of making a clean getaway with Ripley’s diamonds, Foley has an attack of conscience and decides to go back to rescue the hapless couple inside. Buddy hands him his revolver (and silver cross necklace) for protection and briefly watches his friend run inside before driving away.

Buddy’s revolver is a blued Smith & Wesson .32 Double Action 4th Model, one of the many top-break models that Smith & Wesson produced through the last decades of the 19th century, which ranged from the massive .44- and .45-caliber Model 3, New Model No. 3, and Schofield revolvers to the more compact “Lemon Squeezer” Safety Hammerless variety. This top-break design differs from the familiar (and more modern) swing-out cylinder.

The .32 Double Action typically featured a three-inch barrel, with steel frames finished in either standard blue or nickel-plating and the round-butt grips either checkered or floral-embossed hard rubber. Smith & Wesson produced nearly identical runs of these double-action revolvers in both .32 S&W and .38 S&W, with Buddy handing Jack the smaller-caliber .32 model.

Evolved from prior versions of the .32 Double Action (I’ll let you guess how many), the 4th Model was visually distinguished from its predecessors by an oval-shaped trigger guard. Nearly 240,000 4th Models were manufactured between 1883 and 1909—which would have made Buddy’s revolver likely over 90 years old by the time Jack wielded it in Ripley’s mansion.

After taking care of business in Ripley’s bedroom, Jack is forced into a shootout with Snoopy. After his assailant runs out of ammo, Jack believes he has the upper hand. However, having never used a gun before this day (and perhaps unaware that Buddy’s pistol only holds five rounds), he’s shocked to discover that he’s also out of bullets.

After a brief hand-to-hand fight that quickly devolves into a clumsy wrestling match on the floor, Snoop slides down the grand staircase to grab another loaded weapon, while Jack retreats to the bedroom to arm himself with Kenneth’s revolver….

Smith & Wesson Model 38 “Bodyguard”

Desperate not to spend the rest of his life in prison but with no intention of hurting Karen, Jack privately empties the bullets from Kenneth’s revolver onto the floor, but keeps clutching the gun as he walks out of the bedroom into her line of sight.

Compared to the antique 4th Model Double Action, Kenneth’s Smith & Wesson Model 38 is a more “modern” design from the same manufacturer, though it still dates to the 1950s when it was launched as the “Airweight Bodyguard” in ’55, designated the Model 38 two years later when Smith & Wesson began numbering their models.

The Bodyguard revolver modifies the design of the traditional double-action Smith & Wesson Model 36 “Chiefs Special” for concealed carry, with a frame made of lighter-weight alloy that includes a rounded shroud to cover the hammer and prevent it from snagging on clothing while still allowing the user to manually cock it. Like the Model 36, the Model 38 typically featured a two-inch “snub-nosed” barrel (though the rare three-inch barrel can still be found) and was finished in blue or nickel-plating.

How to Get the Look

George Clooney as Jack Foley in Out of Sight (1998)

Largely functional with some unique vintage style, Jack Foley’s cold-weather wardrobe reflects his practicality, his charm, and even his knack for improvisation. Like the film itself, his costume is made of seemingly disparate elements that combine to make something greater than the sum of its parts:

• Heather charcoal wool car coat with black faux-fur ulster collar and lining, 3-button front with leather wrapped shank buttons, center vent, slanted hip pockets, and 2-button cuffs
• Gray-and-brown ombre plaid wool overshirt with a large-scale gold overcheck, and gray buttons
• Black waffle-knit thermal cotton long-sleeve crew-neck T-shirt with banded cuffs
• Brown velour long-sleeve polo shirt with 3-button placket and hemmed cuffs
• Dark-brown casual flat-front trousers with off-seam side pockets and button-through back pockets, worn cuffed
• Slim black leather dress belt with small rectangular silver buckle
• Black calf leather plain-toe 5-eyelet derby shoes with tan leather lining and black rubber Vibram soles
• Black cotton ribbed dress socks
• White cotton boxer shorts
• Black acrylic ski mask with three holes
• Black wool scarf finished with plain edges
• Black leather gloves with exposed edge-stitching

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Avoid Detroit in the winter and check out the movie.

The Quote

The good life? Buddy, do you know anybody that’s done one last big score and then gone on to live the good life?

The post George Clooney’s Charcoal Car Coat in Out of Sight appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jack McBrayer as Kenneth Parcell, dressed as Leap Day William, on 30 Rock, Episode 6.09: “Leap Day”

Vitals

Leap Day William, as portrayed by Kenneth Parcell (Jack McBrayer), Jim Carrey, and John Cullum

New York City, February 29, 2012

Series: 30 Rock
Episode: “Leap Day” (Episode 6.09)
Air Date: February 23, 2012
Director: Steve Buscemi
Creator: Tina Fey
Costume Designer: Tom Broecker

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy Leap Day! Though the concept of a 366th day in the year dates back for millennia, the quadrennial observance of February 29 had long been ignored by movies and TV shows. Enter the alternate universe of 30 Rock, where Leap Day is a beloved holiday with its own traditions that include eating rhubarb and wearing blue and yellow… lest you be greeted with “poke your eye, pull your hair, you forgot what clothes to wear!”

The concept was developed after the 30 Rock writing team realized that the January 2012 start of the series’ sixth and penultimate season meant bypassing the usual holiday-themed episodes set around Halloween and Christmas.

“When you’re that deep into a show, especially a show that just devours narratives, holidays are a huge relief because they give you an easy starting place,” writer Luke Del Tredici explained to Devon Ivie for Vulture. Luckily, the writers soon recognized the opportunities of leap year being a significant holiday in the 30 Rock universe, retconning that lead character Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) was ignorant of the observance in 2008 as she evidently spent that leap day on a Michael’s crafting cruise.

Recognizing the need for a mascot sharing the generally benevolent but somewhat sinister undertones of his spiritual cousins Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, 30 Rock introduced Leap Day William, a mustache-twirling, begilled dandy who emerges from the Mariana Trench every four years to trade children’s tears for candy.

What’d He Wear?

As seen across its three major incarnations, the canonical Leap Day William look consists of a bold blue single-breasted suit, yellow shirt, blue-and-yellow striped bow tie, yellow-banded blue straw boater, and an odd waistcoat along the yellow-to-brown spectrum.

Kenneth Parcell

As one would expect of NBC’s most enthusiastic page, Kenneth Parcell fully embraces the opportunity to don his Leap Day William costume, outfitted from head to toe in the in-universe traditional garb of blue and yellow, complete with white dress gloves and spats.

Kenneth’s blue suit matches his exuberance, made from a bright shade of blue polyester somewhere between blueberry and sapphire. The suit follows a typical design with its single-breasted, two-button jacket and flat-front trousers. He wears a light yellow cotton shirt with a front placket and button cuffs, and his gold waistcoat fastens high on his chest with blazer-style buttons of crested gilt. His yellow silk bow-tie has blue-on-blue stripe sets, alternating between a wide light-blue stripe with four narrow navy stripes and a wide navy stripe with four narrow light-blue stripes. He completes the look with white dress gloves, white spats over his black shoes, and Leap Day William’s signature blue boater with a yellow ribbon band.

Even Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) embraces Leap Day tradition with his gold-and-blue striped tie. Of course, it’s just the allotted limit for Jack as he explains in an earlier episode that, “where I come from, if you have more than two colors on a tie, it means you’re looking for a certain kind of bar.”

Even after dressing for work in his page uniform and putting on his wig taking off his bald cap, Kenneth still shows his Leap Day cheer by dressing his jacket’s breast pocket with yellow and blue silk pocket squares.

Jim Carrey

Like any holiday worth celebrating, Leap Day has its own movie: Leap Dave Williams, starring Jim Carrey and Andie MacDowell. Seemingly a pastiche of both The Santa Clause and Carrey’s own Liar Liar, Carrey “stars” as uptight lawyer Dave Williams, who involuntarily transforms into the real Leap Day William after an ice fishing accident.

Of course, this means Dave dresses like William in a navy suit, yellow shirt, striped bow tie, and boater, though his costume slightly differs from what Kenneth had worn, most significantly as Dave wears a bright yellow cable-knit five-button cardigan as his intermediate layer. His suit is a darker navy with jetted—rather than flapped—hip pockets, the shirt has more of a spread collar, and his silk bow tie has balanced yellow and blue stripes, separated by narrower navy stripes.

While in his home, Dave cycles through a series of canonically correct blue boaters with yellow ribbons, though the brief shot of him by the seaside has a pale-blue ribbon instead.

Even being limited to filming all of his scenes for the episode in one day, Carrey was reportedly an enthusiastic and creative collaborator on building out his characterization for the fictional movie-within-a-show, including insisting that Dave Williams rip off all but the trousers of his blue-and-yellow clothing as he cathartically runs home during the final act of Leap Dave Williams.

The Real Leap Day William?

After a disappointingly inexpensive (relatively speaking) experience at Benihana, Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) encounters a mysterious yet familiarly dressed old man (John Cullum), suggested to be the real Leap Day William.

Naturally, he wears the requisite blue suit and yellow-ribboned straw boater, though the rest of his layers are more subdued than what Kenneth and Jim Carrey had worn, with a pale-yellow striped shirt, a yellow silk bow tie with rust stripes, periwinkle stripes, and periwinkle paisley drops, and a brown wool six-button waistcoat.

How to Get the Look

Jack McBrayer as Kenneth Parcell, dressed as Leap Day William, on 30 Rock

As Dot Com’s track jacket and Liz’s Hawaiian shirt illustrate, any blue and yellow is appropriate for Leap Day, but celebrants hoping to channel today’s favorite Mariana Trench-dwelling candy distributor should dress to the, uh, gills.

• Blue suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Flat-front trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms
• Yellow shirt with front placket and button cuffs
• Yellow-and-blue striped silk bow tie
• Yellow or brown single-breasted waistcoat/vest
• Black leather shoes with white spats
• Blue straw (or straw-textured) boater with yellow ribbon
• White dress gloves

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series… and do something crazy! Real life is for March.

And make sure to catch Leap Dave Williams during its daylong marathon on USA!

The Quote

I saved Leap Day and connected with my son and I solved a big case from earlier!

The post 30 Rock: Leap Day William appeared first on BAMF Style.

Al Pacino in Serpico (1973)

Vitals

Al Pacino as Frank Serpico, plainclothes New York Police Department office

New York, Winter 1967

Film: Serpico
Release Date: December 5, 1973
Director: Sidney Lumet
Costume Designer: Anna Hill Johnstone

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

My eyes see… 84 birthday candles for Al Pacino, born April 25, 1940! Sandwiched between his acclaimed performances as Michael Corleone in the first two installments of The Godfather, the New York-born actor returned to the scrappy persona that signified many of his early screen roles as an easygoing drifter in Scarecrow and the police drama Serpico.

Pacino’s performance as real-life NYPD officer Frank Serpico in the latter resulted in his second Oscar nomination, though Pacino has since shared the story of why he was relieved not to have won during the 46th Academy Award ceremony held 50 years ago this month in April 1974. As the actor shared with Lawrence Grobel for a 1979 Playboy interview:

I was at the Oscars once, for Serpico. That was the second time I was nominated. I was sitting in the third or fourth row with Diane Keaton. Jeff Bridges was there with his girl. No one expected me to come. I was a little high. Somebody had done something to my hair, blew it or something, and I looked like I had a bird’s nest on my head, a real mess. I sat there and tried to look indifferent because I was so nervous. Any time I’m nervous, I try to put on an indifferent or a cold look. At one point, I turned to Jeff Bridges and said, “Hey, looks like there won’t be time to get to the Best Actor awards.” He gave me a strange look. He said, “Oh, really?” I said, “It’s over, the hour is up.” He said, “It’s three hours long.” I thought it was an hour TV show, can you imagine that? And I had to pee—bad. So I popped a valium. Actually, I was eating valium like they were candy. Chewed on them. Finally came the Best Actor. Can you imagine the shape I was in? I couldn’t have made it to the stage. I was praying, “Please don’t let it be me. Please.” And I hear…”Jack Lemmon.” I was just so happy I didn’t have to get up, because I never would have made it.

What’d He Wear?

A brief but memorable segment of Serpico follows chronicles Frank’s icy reception upon a new assignment to the Bronx, where he’s eventually relieved to meet another honest officer, Inspector Lombardo (Edward Grover), the film’s stand-in for his real-life colleague Paul Delise. Over the past seven years of his career with the NYPD, his appearance evolved from the relatively clean-cut officer who joined the department in 1960 to a long-haired hippie with a full beard and unkempt clothing, instantly differentiating his appearance from his fellow officers but also providing a valuable verisimilitude to effectively blend in while conducting his plainclothes duties.

The real Serpico had spent two years serving in the U.S. Army during the 1950s prior to joining the NYPD, perhaps informing much of the military-style clothing that costume designer Anna Hill Johnstone blended with Pacino’s on-screen hippie attire, such as the OG-107 fatigue shirt he wears under a corduroy sports coat and the M-1951 field jacket he would be wearing when shot and wounded on the job in February 1971.

Serpico layers against the winter chill for his first day at Delise’s Bronx precinct in a dark navy-blue pea coat made of heavy 32-oz. melton wool blended with nylon for a weather-resistant shell. Given the Schott-style cut and anchor-detailed buttons, the coat is likely military surplus, aligned with the guidelines for the kersey wool Type A “Coat (peacoat), blue” stipulated in the U.S. Navy’s uniform regulations.

Serpico’s pea coat follows the traditional design with its hip-length skirt and double-breasted front, arranged in two columns of four black 50-line “foul anchor” plastic buttons, with an additional row under the top of the broad ulster-style collar to close the jacket over the chest. The set-in sleeves are left plain at each cuff, the back is split with a single vent to aid movement without sacrificing insulation, and there are two hand-warmer pockets with vertical welted openings.

Serpico maintains the naval themes with his work shirt, made from a blue chambray cotton like the long-sleeved shirts adopted as part of the U.S. Navy’s “working uniform” in 1913. Woven in a blue warp and white weft that presents a mottled denim-like mid-blue finish, his shirt has a point collar, six-button placket, single-button cuffs, and two chest pockets—each covered with a single-button flap, mitred in each corner. (Since we see the unfastened shirt cuffs coming through the ends of his jacket sleeves, we can tell this isn’t the similar chambray shirt he wore earlier with the sleeves cut off at mid-bicep for a makeshift short-sleeved shirt.)

Unlike the pea coat, Serpico’s chambray shirt is likely a civilian-marketed garment as informed by its white plastic buttons (never used on USN-issued shirts) and the pocket flaps (which had been removed from USN-issued shirts early during World War II.)

Serpico’s light-gray jeans may be a pinwale corduroy cotton, also known as “needlecord”, as suggested by the soft-napped sheen seen in the folds of the cloth. The small black branded patch along the back right seam and the “lazy S” stitching across the two back patch pockets informs us that these were made by Lee, the North Carolina-based outfitter that competed with Levi’s and Wrangler for American denim supremacy throughout the latter half of the 20th century.

Fashioned with the requisite belt loops and five-pocket configuration—two back pockets, two curved front pockets, and a small coin/watch pocket inset on the right—the frayed bottoms are dramatically flared in the style of “bell-bottoms” that were becoming increasingly trendy among the hippie subculture through the late 1960s.

Serpico draws his Hi-Power on an officer who dares threaten him. Note the IWB holster worn clipped onto his waistband (sans belt) and the Lee branding and stitch, visible albeit blurred due to his rapid movement.

Serpico carries his personally purchased Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic pistol in a simple tan suede leather IWB holster clipped onto the back-right side of his waistband for a right-handed draw. Inside-the-waistband (IWB) holsters grew increasingly common through the 1960s and ’70s with the rise of more concealable handguns being carried by private citizens.

His black leather boots have a squared plain-toe and raised heels, with the shafts likely rising to mid-calf under the ample flared bottoms of his gray jeans.

Serpico’s arrangement of jewelry typically includes a silver box-chain necklace with a pendant depicting the Muslim symbol of a star inside a crescent moon, a gold cable-link necklace with a gold Winnie-the-Pooh bear dangling with movable arms and legs (given to him by a Swedish girlfriend), and a rotating assortment of rings; when arriving for his new assignment in the Bronx, he appears to only be wearing a silver-toned overlap ring on his right index finger, detailed with a square gem shining from each end.

Consistent with the winter weather, Serpico also cycles through a few knit caps, most prominently the slightly elongated and self-cuffed navy-blue cable-knit woolen beanie that he wears to the precinct. (He was earlier seen wearing a more loosely knit magenta beanie with a purple top and cuff.)

The Gun

Considering himself a “marked man” after his grand jury testimony against the officers who accept bribes, Pacino’s Serpico increases his firepower by purchasing a blued steel-framed Browning Hi-Power at the legendary John Jovino Gun Shop on Grand Street in Little Italy, just as he had in real life.

“I went into a gun store behind headquarters. Jovino’s, I think it was called, and I bought a fourteen-round Browning 9mm semi-automatic pistol,” Serpico recalled in a 2017 interview with Doug Poppa for the Baltimore Post-Examiner. “I was the first cop in the New York City Police Department to carry a Browning 9mm. You couldn’t carry 9mms back then. They weren’t what you would call an authorized firearm. All we had was the .38 Special.”

“That takes a 14-shot clip,” the on-screen salesman tells him, likely conflating the total capacity with carrying a round in the chamber in addition to the 13-round magazine, adding “you expecting an army?” Serpico responds, “No, just a division.”

Serpico completes the paperwork for his new Hi-Power. Note that he’s wearing the magenta-and-purple knit cap referred to earlier, with the same pea coat and chambray shirt he would wear for his first day in the new division.

Serpico’s prediction for his reception at the precinct becomes prescient when he feels forced to draw it almost instantly upon being greeted by an angry fellow officer at his new division who threatens him with a knife. In Serpico: The Cop Who Defied the System, author Peter Maas recounts the incident that would also be depicted on screen:

Serpico was over him at once. He whipped out his Browning automatic, cocked it, and pressed it against the base of the plainclothesman’s skull. “Move, you motherfucker,” Serpico said, “and I’ll blow your brains out.”

The man’s body went limp, his face was jammed too tightly against the floor and he could not speak. Serpico kept the gun on him, looking around the room. Everyone was frozen in place, and no one was smirking anymore.

Perhaps 30 seconds passed before one of the other cops in the room coughed nervously and said, “Jesus Christ, is that a forty-five?”

“No, nine-millimeter,” said Serpico.

“Oh, so that’s the new Browning, huh? How many rounds does it hold?”

“Fourteen.”

“Fourteen? What do you need fourteen rounds for?

“How many guys you got in this office?”

“Hey look, we were just joking.”

“Yea, so was I,” Serpico said.

— Peter Maas, Serpico: The Cop Who Defied the System

The officer refers to the “new Browning,” though the design had existed for decades. Famous firearms designer John Browning started conceptualizing this firearm during the early 1920s, drawing from aspects of his venerable M1911 like the single-action trigger and short-recoil operation, though Colt’s ownership of the 1911 patent pushed Browning’s new design in a different direction. Brought to completion by the late Browning’s protégé Dieudonne Saive, the Hi-Power changed the firearms landscape upon its launch by the Belgian manufacturer Fabrique Nationale (FN) Herstal in 1935, ushering in a new era of reliable pistols that offered both a high capacity and the relatively potent 9x19mm Parabellum ammunition, presaging the double-action “Wonder Nines” that would be innovated by the likes of Beretta, Glock, SIG-Sauer, Smith & Wesson, and Walther through the 1970s and ’80s. At the time that Serpico was set and made, the single-action Hi-Power still offered perhaps the greatest balance of power and capacity in a generally portable package.

Pacino’s screen-used Hi-Power was sold by Heritage Auctions in 2018, with the listing and photos showing a serial number as 72C67613, informing a production date of 1972 that would have been produced about four or five years after this scene was set, though the overall Hi-Power design changed little in this time. The screen-used Hi-Power is configured with target sights—a raised front ramp sight and adjustable rear sight—that visually differentiate it from the standard model.

The screen-used Browning Hi-Power from Serpico, serial #72C67613, as pictured in its 2018 auction listing. (Source: Heritage Auctions)

How to Get the Look

Al Pacino in Serpico (1973)

Serpico’s regular wearing of military surplus gear aligns with its embrace by ’60s counterculture as well as providing practical and hardy layers for his work on the streets of New York, relying on the warm and versatile comfort of a classic navy pea coat like generations before and after him.

• Dark navy-blue 32-oz. melton wool pea coat with broad ulster-style collar, anchor-detailed 8×4-button double-breasted front, vertical welted-entry side pockets, and single vent
• Blue chambray cotton work shirt with point collar, six-button front placket, two chest pockets (with mitred-corner single-button flaps)
• Light-gray pinwale corduroy/needlecord cotton flat-front Lee jeans with belt loops, five-pocket layout, and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Tan suede IWB holster (for Browning Hi-Power pistol)
• Black leather mid-calf boots with squared plain-toe and raised heels
• Navy-blue cable-knit wool elongated self-cuffed beanie hat
• Gold cable-link necklace with animal-shaped pendant
• Silver box-chain necklace with star-inside-crescent moon pendant
• Silver overlapping ring with gem-set ends, right index finger

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

It’s not who I wanna work with, it’s who wants to work with me?

The post Al Pacino’s Pea Coat as Serpico appeared first on BAMF Style.

Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition (2002)

Vitals

Tom Hanks as Michael Sullivan, recently widowed Irish mob enforcer and dedicated father

The Midwest, Winter 1931

Film: Road to Perdition
Release Date: July 12, 2002
Director: Sam Mendes
Costume Designer: Albert Wolsky
Tailor: John David Ridge

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

“Natural law… sons were put on this earth to trouble their fathers,” avuncular mob boss John Rooney (Paul Newman) advises his top enforcer Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) at a time that both men are facing crises with their respective sons.

Father’s Day feels like the appropriate time to celebrate the style from this unorthodox role for America’s Dad. Tom Hanks pivoted from a career built on playing affable heroes and everymen to a dangerous Depression-era mob hitman in Road to Perdition, Sam Mendes’ 2002 drama adapted by screenwriter David Self from a graphic novel series of the same name by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner.

“In every one of my dad’s films, I can see him; he’s being himself,” said Tom’s son Chet Hanks, according to IMDB. “But that role is the farthest from his normal self of the movies he’s done.”

Road to Perdition centers around Sullivan’s 12-year-old son, Michael Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin), whose narration opens the story:

There are many stories about Michael Sullivan. Some say he was a decent man. Some say there was no good in him at all. But I once spent 6 weeks on the road with him, in the winter of 1931. This is our story.

At the start, Michael Sullivan is the loyal enforcer to gangster Rooney—loosely inspired by the real-life crime boss John Looney—who shows a clear preference for the level-headed Michael over his own irresponsible son Connor (Daniel Craig). Seeking to learn more about his mysterious father, Michael Jr. hides out in the backseat of the family Buick one night and witnesses Michael accompanying Connor as the latter impulsively executes an associate.

Fearing the consequences of Michael Jr. revealing what he saw and already motivated by personal jealousy, Connor engineers the liquidation of the Sullivan family. His nerves steeled but judgment clouded by booze, Connor personally kills Michael’s wife Annie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and their younger son Peter (Liam Aiken), whom he mistakenly believed to be the witness as Michael Jr. was unexpectedly delayed at school. Michael Sr. also managed to evade Connor’s trap, returning home just in time to the gruesome sight of his murdered wife and son.

Sullivan hastily packs his surviving son Michael Jr. into the family Buick and sets out from Rock Island, Illinois on a journey that’s equal parts revenge and survival, hoping to safely deliver Michael Jr. to live with an aunt at their beach home in the fictional Lake Michigan village of Perdition. While robbing the mob, killing gangsters along their path, and dodging the deranged photographer-cum-hitman Harlen Maguire (Jude Law), the father and son finally develop their long-overdue bond.

Of its six Academy Award nominations, Road to Perdition was awarded Best Cinematography for the late Conrad L. Hall, who died six months after the film was released. Paul Newman also received his ninth and final Oscar nomination for his performance as John Rooney, his final screen role (aside from voicing Doc Hudson in Cars.) According to IMDB, Hall began crying while lensing the 76-year-old Newman in his viewfinder on set, explaining that “He was so beautiful… he was so beautiful.”

Road to Perdition was released just over a week before my 13th birthday, so—as someone who already had a fledgling interest in 1930s crime thanks to Bonnie & Clyde and Dillinger—I was especially intrigued by seeing a fellow 12-year-old boy as the Depression-era bank robber I had always dreamed of being… but then watching such a poignant story about a father and son with my own wonderful dad made it an even more special film for me.

What’d He Wear?

Road to Perdition was also a watershed moment for my attention to costume design, as I recalled a contemporary interview about the efforts that costume designer Albert Wolsky took to accurately replicate the fashions of 1931, sourcing era-correct wool suiting from Susan “Rabbit” Goody, owner of Thistle Hill Weavers in upstate New York, and then dying and aging the garments to look lived-in. “We tested the current fabrics and there was just no way to fake it,” Wolsky explained. “The weight dramatically affects the way the clothes move.”

Wolsky elaborated for a making-of featurette that he was informed by the season and era: “There was color in those days, but there wasn’t also. It’s winter, it’s cold, so the only thing I can do is pull back as much color as I can. I guess my inspiration was a black-and-white movie,” supported by Conrad Hall’s vision of keeping the cinematography as monochromatic as possible.

Michael’s gray-heavy wardrobe illuminated by the sunlight and shadows of the blinds in this banker’s office illustrate the inspiration that costume designer Albert Wolsky and cinematographer Conrad Hall found in old black-and-white cinema.

“Road to Perdition is a period movie in which there are no double-breasted, pin-striped suits and no spats,” Mendes explained to Ray Zone for the August 2002 issue of American Cinematographer. “I was trying to get away from all the clichés of the gangster genre.” Indeed, Wolsky keeps most of our gangster characters realistically restrained in their wardrobes, with only the brash Connor approaching bolder gangster styles with his chalk-striped tailoring and polka-dot shirts.

The reserved Michael Sullivan dresses more to blend in, no flashier than the average businessman of 1931 in tasteful but common suits for the era, tailored by stage and screen costumer John David Ridge to follow a then-fashionably full cut. He cycles through several somber gray solid and subtly striped suits during the first act of the film, dressing in a gray-and-black wool three-piece suit patterned with alternating black and red stripes and irregular flecks of blue and white.

Apologies for the potential spoiler alert (if you haven’t seen the movie yet, uh, Michael spills some ketchup on himself in one of the many diners he and his son frequent), but this sunny close-up shot provides the best look at Sullivan’s complex suiting.

Sullivan’s single-breasted jacket has notch lapels that taper to high on the front, above the top of the full three-button front that balances Tom Hanks’ 6’0″ height. The jacket also features a welted breast pocket and straight jetted hip pockets, a minimalist alternative to flapped pockets that was en vogue as tailors restricted their use of excessive fabric during the Depression.

Framed by the straight shoulders and ventless back, the jacket has a squared and boxy—but not unflattering—cut consistent with the classic American “sack suit” silhouette. The sleeves are finished with three buttons on each cuff.

Sullivan’s suit has a matching single-breasted waistcoat (vest) with five buttons up the front above the notched bottom and four welted pockets. An adjustable strap cinches the fit around the waist against the charcoal-gray back that matches the lining.

The flat-front trousers have belt loops that go unused as Sullivan prefers to hold up his trousers with suspenders (braces) instead of a belt, following the common sartorial practice of eschewing a belt with a waistcoat to avoid the unsightly bunch of a buckle. The suspenders are black with five narrow gray stripes, silver hardware, and black leather hooks. The trousers have side pockets, jetted back pockets (with a button through the left one), and a full fit straight through the legs to the plain-hemmed bottoms.

Apropos the rigors of a Midwest winter, Sullivan wears heavy-duty black leather combat boots that are only revealed as such when not covered by the full break of his trouser bottoms. The cap-toe boots are laced up derby-style through at least eight sets of nickel-finished eyelets.

Sullivan rotates through a series of similarly styled cotton shirts in plain white, pale-ecru, and ice-gray. All have a front placket, breast pocket, button cuffs, and a point collar that slightly flares out toward the tip of each collar leaf.

With his small mustache against a five o’clock shadow, open-neck white shirt, and unbuttoned dark waistcoat, Michael Sullivan’s appearance at the end of the movie recalls the famous images of contemporary bank robber John Dillinger in police custody in early 1934.

The first tie that Sullivan wears with the suit is a narrow swath of silk printed in a swirling Deco-style black and gold paisley.

During his and Michael Jr.’s six weeks on the road, Sullivan also occasionally wears a burgundy tie covered with a field of beige pin-dots arranged in double sets of downhill stripes, overlaid by the same dots creating irregular squares in three-dot rows. Calling out the red stripes in his suit, the burgundy ground makes this a slightly more colorful tie than the more monochromatic black-and-gold tie.

Sullivan had previously worn it with a different (but similar) suit during the opening scenes at a funeral wake and pulls it out again as his and Michael Jr.’s bond grows closer during their larcenous road trip across the Midwest, suggesting that the warmth echoes Sullivan’s attempts to be more in touch with humanity. I suspect this is intentional, as Sam Mendes explained in a making-of featurette that “there is a color shift in the film, everything is in some way linked into telling that story, the way they all dress—wear clothes—everything is designed to tell the story of the gradual humanizing of the central character.”

Sullivan’s fedora was crafted by the late Dave Brown from a muted olive felt, self-edged and styled with a dark-gray grosgrain silk band.

Apropos the winter setting, he wears an overcoat of heavy charcoal-gray wool, also sourced from Rabbit Goody. “The fabric Goody produced had the look and heft of period material—but when the coat got wet it weighed a full 32 pounds, and Hanks couldn’t walk while wearing it,” Rachel Dickinson reported for an issue of Smithsonian Magazine earlier this year. “‘We had to weave more fabric that looked exactly the same,’ Goody says, ‘but used much lighter materials for the coat used in the rain scenes.'”

The coat has a 6×3-button double-breasted front, set-in sleeves finished with cuffs, and a long single vent. The swelled edges are reinforced with stitching approximately 3/8-inch from the edge, a detail that Matt Spaiser writes for Bond Suits helps “balance the heavier cloth and a coat’s larger proportions” on outerwear. The wide ulster collar and parallel button arrangement follows the design of a naval-inspired bridge coat, which is essentially a pea coat extended to the length of an overcoat, though Sullivan’s coat features patch pockets over the hips covered with flaps rather than the slash pockets traditionally associated with bridge coats.

The full-fitting coat extends well below Sullivan’s knees, presumably providing him with the room to conceal a Thompson submachine gun in a pinch.

Sullivan wears a cream-colored cotton long-sleeved undershirt that provides an extra layer of insulation against the Midwestern winter. The henley-style shirt has a three-button top with horizontal buttonholes.

Consistent with his reserved personality, Sullivan’s sole affectations are a plain gold wedding band on his left ring finger and a gold rectangular-cased dress watch with a white rectangular dial on a black leather strap.

Several pieces from Tom Hanks’s screen-worn costume as Michael Sullivan have been auctioned (in various states of bloody distress) and can still be seen at The Golden Closet, iCollector, Invaluable, and The Prop Store.

The Guns

“They go on missions for Mr. Rooney. They’re very dangerous, that’s why he brings his gun,” Michael Jr. rationalizes to Peter after spying his father unloading his blued M1911A1 after returning home from work one evening.

Designed by the legendary John Browning, the groundbreaking “Model of 1911” series had already been the officially adopted sidearm of the United States military for 20 years by the time the Sullivans hit the road in the winter of 1931. Within that time, the weapon had already gone a subtle update in the mid-1920s with a shorter trigger, longer grip safety spur, arched mainspring housing that resulted in the M1911A1 which was otherwise operationally the same as its predecessor.

Colt and Springfield Armory were the primary manufacturers of mil-spec 1911 pistols for most of the 20th century, though the needs of World War II outsourced production to even non-firearms manufacturers like typewriter company Remington Rand (not to be confused with Remington Arms), rail equipment manufacturer Union Switch & Signal, and even a few hundred by Singer Corporation—famous for its sewing machines. Indeed, it may have been one of these M1911A1 pistols that Hanks’ character Captain John Miller famously fired at an advancing tank during his last stand in Saving Private Ryan.

Though details like calibers, capacity, and size have evolved into countless variants over the decades, the standard mil-spec M1911A1 is a substantial 8.5 inches long with a five-inch barrel, weighing in at a hefty 39 ounces when unloaded and firing potent .45 ACP ammunition fed from seven-round box magazines, though some of the fictional Michael Sullivan’s real-life underworld contemporaries of the early 1930s like John Dillinger and “Baby Face” Nelson were known to carry M1911A1s that Colt produced to fire the .38 Super cartridge.

All 1911 pistols follow Browning’s original design principles of a short recoil operation and a single-action trigger, which means the trigger performs only the single action of releasing the hammer; unlike modern double-action pistols like the Beretta 92FS (M9) that superseded it as the standard American service pistol, operators must chamber a round and keep the hammer down for the trigger to be pulled and actually fire a round. The classic 1911 design also incorporates both a grip safety (preventing the pistol from firing without pressure from the user’s purlicue under the hammer) and a manual safety lever on the left side of the frame. Thus, most who regularly carry 1911 pistols keep them on “condition one” with a round in the chamber and hammer down but the manual safety on, only requiring the latter to be clicked off to be ready to fire.

Michael’s blank-adapted M1911A1 has been replaced with a theatrical “non-gun” for this sequence, evident by the fact that he fires it with the hammer up and it doesn’t actually cycle when firing. Non-guns provide a safe alternative on stage and screen when an actor is required to fire at another actor in close range, as they still create a dramatic muzzle flash without the danger of cycling and firing blank ammunition so close to another actor.

On the first night of their getaway, Sullivan stops to lean on one of Rooney’s associates. As he has to leave Michael Jr. alone in the car, he pulls out his backup Colt Detective Special and hands it to him with the added instruction that “if I’m not back in half an hour, you go see Reverend Lynch at First Methodist and you tell him what’s happened. Do not go to Father Callaway!”

Something of a Chekhov’s gun in this gangster story, the Detective Special found quick preference among cops and crooks alike after Colt introduced it in 1927 as an easily concealed “belly gun” for plainclothes policemen—hence its nomenclature. This double-action revolver with its six potent .38 Special rounds in the cylinder and two-inch “snub-nose” barrel was a quick success and remained in production, albeit with subtle design changes, for nearly seventy years.

Michael Jr. considers the Colt Detective Special that his father thrust into his hands, hoping he’ll won’t have to use it.

For the climactic sequence as Michael prepares to take on a small army of Rooney’s gangsters, he unpacks the Thompson M1921AC submachine gun made infamous as the “Chicago typewriter” and “the gun that made the twenties roar,” hence the later being used as the title for William J. Helmer’s book chronicling the weapon’s history. (Sullivan assembling his Thompson on screen nicely builds tension, though the way the foregrip simply slides on is not 100% accurate with how this part would be attached.))

Before it became a symbol of Prohibition-era violence, the Thompson submachine gun had been developed by General John T. Thompson as a handheld “trench sweeper” intended for combat, though the first prototype wasn’t delivered until after the hostilities of World War I had ended. Despite the Armistice, Thompson founded the Auto-Ordnance Company to bring his vision to fruition and the Thompson submachine gun was formally launched in 1921.

This original iteration of the Thompson offered a dramatic profile with its angular foregrip and sweeping stock, made even moreso with the addition of the Cutts compensator muzzle brake option in 1926 (designated the M1921AC, as opposed to the standard now named M1921A) and large round drum magazines that made made up to 50 rounds of .45 ACP ammunition available to the operator.

“There’s a lot of shots of… this Thompson submachine gun being put together, because it’s not a trivial thing,” Tom Hanks explained in a making-of featurette. “I think we’re trying to do something here in which the psychological aspect of what they’re doing has the grander attention on it as opposed to how cool it looks to fire these weapons.”

After Prohibition was repealed and the Depression-era crime wave ended, the “Tommy gun” cultural image shifted to a growing association with its military usage during World War II, when American troops were deployed in combat with the simplified M1928A1, M1, and M1A1 models. (As with the M1911A1, Hanks’ character in Saving Private Ryan was armed with the latter.)

The Car

Michael Sullivan’s car follows the same understated reliability of his wardrobe and weapons, driving a dark-green 1931 Buick Series 50 sedan (Model 57) that Michael Jr. helps him repaint a deep burgundy after they begin their bank-robbing spree across the Midwest.

Michael Jr. eventually becomes more comfortable driving his father in the family’s repainted 1931 Buick sedan.

Buick launched the Series 50 models in 1930, powered by a straight-six engine for the first model year only before debuting the OHV “Fireball Eight” that was installed in all 1931 models. This 220 cubic-inch eight-cylinder engine produced 77 brake horsepower and 156 lb·ft of torque, though the entry-level Series 50 had yet to receive the innovative synchromesh transmission so Michael Jr. is forced to learn how to drive on the older three-speed manual transmission that needed the clutch to be engaged between each gear. (Testing his son during their first lesson, Sullivan asks “so what does the clutch do?” to which Michael Jr. drolly responds “it clutches.”)

Designed by GM’s prolific Harley Earl, the Series 50 was produced in a range of two- and four-door styles provided by Fisher Body, all on a 114-inch wheelbase. Weighing in at around 3,200 pounds, the four-door Model 57 sedan was the top of the line but also the most common, accounting for more than 33,000 of the 50,000 Series 50 vehicles produced in 1931. According to Curbside Classic, MSRP for a new 1931 Model 57 sedan was $1,095, matched only by the Model 56C convertible coupe.

Of course, the Buick was still its original factory green through the first act of the movie.

How to Get the Look

Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition (2002)

Michael Sullivan Sr. intentionally dresses with a low profile, his nearly monochromatic palette of staid gray three-piece suits, muted coat and hat, and white or off-white shirts virtually indistinguishable from how wardrobes were presented in black-and-white movies of the era, with only subtle color in his suiting and ties.

• Dark-gray (with alternating rust and black striped) wool suit:
  • Single-breasted 3-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Single-breasted 5-button waistcoat with notched bottom, four welted pockets, and adjustable back strap
  • Flat-front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets (with button-through left pocket), and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton shirt with point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Black-and-gold paisley or burgundy mini-dot patterned silk ties
• Black (and white-striped) suspenders with silver-toned hardware and black leather hooks
• Black leather cap-toe combat boots with 8-eyelet derby lacing
• Black socks
• Cream-colored cotton long-sleeved henley undershirt with three-button top
• Olive felt fedora with dark-gray grosgrain band
• Charcoal heavy wool double-breasted overcoat with ulster collar, 6×3-button double-breasted front, flapped patch-style hip pockets, set-in sleeves with cuffs, and single vent
• Gold wedding ring
• Gold rectangular-cased watch with white rectangular dial on black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

That’s for you. Call it a handling charge. Tell Chicago I took it, but if read about this in the papers—if I read about the savings of some innocent farmers being wiped out by a heartless bank robber—I won’t be happy.

The post Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition appeared first on BAMF Style.

Donald Sutherland as Captain “Hawkeye” Pierce in M*A*S*H (1970)

Vitals

Donald Sutherland as Capt. Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, U.S. Army surgeon

Korea, Summer 1951 through Winter 1952

Film: M*A*S*H
Release Date: January 25, 1970
Director: Robert Altman

Background

Today would have been the 89th birthday of Donald Sutherland, the prolific and versatile Canadian actor who died last month at the age of 88. Born July 17, 1935 in New Brunswick, Sutherland rose to prominence as a steady supporting player through the ’60s—perhaps most notably in The Dirty Dozen (1967)—before his first major starring role in yet another war film, M*A*S*H (1970), adapted by screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. from Richard Hooker’s novel MASH: A Novel of Three Army Doctors. (The popularity of the film resulted in the eventual development of a TV show—starring Alan Alda as Hawkeye—that ran for nearly four times as long as Korean War hostilities.)

Set during the Korean War, M*A*S*H centered around around the irreverent Army doctor Captain Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce during his tenure at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. He’s assisted in his hard-drinking hijinks by fellow surgeons “Trapper John” McIntyre (Elliott Gould), Duke Forrest (Tom Skeritt), dentist “The Painless Pole” Waldowski (John Schuck), and former football star “Spearchucker” Jones (Fred Williamson), all while battling the uptight majors Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) and “Hot Lips” Houlihan (Sally Kellerman).

At one point, Major Houlihan asks the compound chaplain Father “Dago Red” Mulcahy (René Auberjonois) how “a degenerated person like [Hawkeye] could have reached a position of responsibility in the Army Medical Corps!” to which Mulcahy simply responds, “He was drafted.”

Sutherland’s Golden Globe-nominated performance established him as a star as his career ascended through the ’70s with starring roles in Klute (1971), Don’t Look Now (1973), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), and Ordinary People (1980) while also continuing to provide memorable supporting appearances in movies like Little Murders (1971), 1900 (1976), and Animal House (1978).

What’d He Wear?

Apropos his rebellious attitude, Donald Sutherland’s Hawkeye never presents himself in a perfect example of a U.S. Army uniform, instead mixing regulation gear with personal accoutrements that craft a distinctively irreverent look.

Hawkeye’s Essentials

A staple across Hawkeye’s style is his camouflage bucket hat. Despite the association between camo and military gear, this headgear was unlike anything authorized by the U.S. Army before, during, or after the Korean War. “Frog skin” camouflage uniforms had ben fielded in limited numbers by Marines serving in the Pacific theater during World War II, but it wasn’t until the late 1960s when the familiar leaf pattern was adopted by the U.S. armed forces, beginning with the Marine Corps; the Army’s Engineer Research and Development Laboratory (ERDL) had actually developed the pattern as early as 1948, but it took nearly twenty years to enter service.

Hawkeye’s six-panel hat is likely an original or copycat “Jones Cap”, a water-repellent cotton canvas hunting hat with a foldable brim that can be fully or partially turned up or completely folded down like a bucket hat—as Hawkeye wears his. This style was pioneered for outdoorsmen and sportsmen by the Jones Hat Company of St. Louis, Missouri, which was established in 1881. Hawkeye’s green, tan, and brown-on-khaki color scheme recalls the aforementioned “frog skin” camouflage, with straps extending across the two front panels to provide rudimentary storage.

The classic Jones Cap (as sold by Mollyjogger) did not feature these two loops, but they were added on for the Papa Nui “Hawkeye Hat” (sold by Iron Heart) that was specifically designed to resemble Donald Sutherland’s screen-worn headgear.

One of Hawkeye’s few costume pieces stipulated by the script are his glasses, which he claims put him at a disadvantage when Major Burns attacks him in response to Hawkeye provoking him about Hot Lips (“Get him off me, I’ve got glasses! Get him off me!”) The semi-rimmed glasses have octagonal amber-tinted lenses and gold arms.

Hawkeye’s plain steel wristwatch resembles the simple yet rugged black-dialed 32mm field watches that were commonly issued to U.S. service members through the mid-20th century, though the luminous hour indices appear to be entirely non-numeric while most officially issued military field watches of the period also featured Arabic numeral hour markers. He wears his on the usual 16mm dark-khaki canvas strap.

OG-107 Utility Uniform

Hawkeye arrives at the 4077th in mid-1951 wearing the first pattern OG-107 utility uniform, slightly anachronistic as the U.S. Army wouldn’t begin producing these fatigues until 1952 nor issuing them until the end of 1953, by which time all combat in the Korean War had ceased. (This is at least not as significant of an anachronism as the later Vietnam-era OG-107s that Alan Alda and many of his co-stars would be dressed in for the eventual M*A*S*H TV series!)

Though it replaced the M1943 combat uniform, the OG-107 uniform more closely resembled the style of the earlier herringbone-twill (HBT) utility uniform of a matching shirt-jacket and trousers. It was named for the shade of olive-green #107 that the 8.5-ounce cotton sateen cloth was originally dyed.

Essentially unchanged for a decade until the “Type II” update in April 1963, the “Type I” OG-107 shirt features five brown plastic “dished” buttons evenly spaced up the plain front, with a sixth button spaced father apart to close the top over the chest, though the shirt was designed to be primarily worn open-neck with this top button undone and the collar laying flat above the revers. The long sleeves are finished with plain hems, rather than the button-strap cuffs or traditional buttoned barrel cuffs of the Type II and Type III OG-107 shirts, respectively. All three versions of the OG-107 shirt have two flapped chest pockets, though the Type I distinctively features rectangular flaps that have squared corners.

Hawkeye keeps the silver bar insignia (indicating his rank of captain) pinned to the right collar of his OG-107 shirt.

Only when he arrives does Hawkeye wear the OG-107 shirt tucked into their matching trousers. These flat-front trousers have patch-style front pockets with curved side entries and patch-style back pockets that, like the shirt, close with single-button rectangular flaps. The trousers’ plain-hemmed bottoms were designed to be bloused into the tops of wearers’ boots, and it appears that Hawkeye does follow this rule for his initial appearance.

Type I-era OG-107 trousers featured button-tab side adjusters in addition to belt loops, where Hawkeye wears a standard-issue olive-drab cotton web belt that closes through a silver-toned box-style buckle that has a matching metal tip.

Hawkeye’s slightly anachronistic OG-107 fatigues—even with his non-reg hunting cap—is the most his wardrobe aligns with actually Army regulations at any point int he movie.

You can read more about the history and three iterations of the OG-107 uniform at Standard & Strange and Moore Militaria.

Summer Style: The Pros from Dover

Rather than the white undershirts that I believe were expected to be worn with OG-107 uniforms, Hawkeye always wears a drab khaki cotton T-shirt—another uniform detail that would be carried over to Alda’s TV characterization. The shirt follows a simple design with a crew-neck and very short sleeves.

While our “pros from Dover” Hawkeye and Trapper John are practicing their swing in anticipation of playing golf in Tokyo, Hawkeye wears his usual drab duds modified for warm weather. He tucks the T-shirt into a pair of light sage-green (now “OD8”) trousers from the WWII-era HBT utility uniform, converted to shorts by being torn away at mid-thigh just above each knee, leaving the cargo pockets intact. Hawkeye’s HBT shorts are from a later pattern of the uniform introduced in April 1944 with the pockets dropped to allow for better access when wearing a field jacket. These bellows pockets over the thighs are each covered with a rectangular flap that closes through a single button.

HBT trousers are also rigged with belt loops, though Hawkeye holds his shorts up with a tan, brown, olive, and black camouflage sash tied through the belt loops rather than a conventional belt. (You can read more about HBT uniforms from At the Front and usww2uniforms.com.)

Hawkeye always wears M-1943 Combat Service Boots, distinguished by the integrated high-top leather cuffs that fasten around the shins. Intended to replace earlier systems of roughout boots and separate gaiters, these were introduced with the M-1943 combat uniform and are considered the first true modern combat boots fielded by the U.S. Army.

M43 boots were modified from the design of earlier Army footwear, with brown leather uppers that are derby-laced through seven sets of eyelets up to the ankles, where they transition to brown grain leather cuffs with two seven-grommet belted straps that each close around the shins through a single-prong buckle. The plain-toe boots were attached to one-piece black rubber soles.

Depending on the manufacturer and date of issue, the uppers were varying shades and grains of brown leather, though the mid-brown roughout on Hawkeye’s boots were a typical configuration. Even though a replacement was designed in 1948, M43 boots remained widely worn by Army personnel through the Korean War.

Cold-Weather Layers

Though the Army would introduce the M-1951 field jacket with its updated snap-and-zip front during the Korean War, Hawkeye continues wearing the previously issued field jacket that anchored the M-1943 combat uniform.

The immensely popular M-1943 field jacket was made from a light-wearing olive drab no. 7 (OD#7) cotton sateen cloth, with a thigh-length cut and four outer pockets that would set an Army outerwear template for decades to follow. Six OD#7 four-hole plastic buttons fasten up a covered-fly front, plus an additional button at the top that could close the ulster-style lapels over the chest. An internal drawstring cinches the waist to allow a closer but not confining fit. The two bellows pockets over the chest and two larger pockets over the hips are all covered with pointed flaps that each close through a single button covered by the flap’s cloth. The jacket also has shoulder straps (epaulets), and the set-in sleeves are finished with squared cuffs that can be closed through one of two buttons.

As the weather cools, Hawkeye wears the dark-brown knitted wool/nylon Type II glove inserts issued by the Army during this era. Ever the maverick, not only does Hawkeye wear them on their own (rather than inserted into actual gloves) but he also has the fingers cut off.

Hawkeye’s brown tubular-knit woolen scarf matches the gloves and was also a style commonly issued by the Army at the time.

Hawkeye frequently layers on a black pullover sweater with a smooth-knit shawl collar, textured body, and wide-ribbed set-in sleeves. Though it differs in its execution, the garment may be meant to represent knitwear issued to U.S. Army and Army Air Forces mechanics during World War II that followed a similar design.

Hawkeye’s light sage-green cotton boxer shorts resembles the high-rise underwear issued by the Army through the World War II era, detailed with a three-button fly and string-ties on each side of the waist.

What to Imbibe

“Are you a beer drinker, sir, or would you like to share a martini with me?” Hawkeye asks when initiating Trapper John into the Swamp, only for Hawkeye and Duke to be wowed by Trapper producing his own jar of olives to enhance their martinis.

When not swilling gin, the men of the Swamp—aside from the teetotaling Frank Burns—also drink plenty of beer, alternating between the all-American lagers Budweiser and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

How to Get the Look

Donald Sutherland as Capt. “Hawkeye” Pierce in M*A*S*H (1970), clad in his OG-107 shirt-jacket and cutoff HBT shorts.

Despite being a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, Captain “Hawkeye” Pierce’s regular wardrobe hardly concedes to Army regs of the early 1950s, instead blending World War II-era uniform pieces with some yet to be issued among a smattering of personal items to maintain his characteristic degree of insouciance.

• Olive-drab (OD-107) cotton sateen U.S. Army utility uniform:
  • Long-sleeved shirt-jacket with convertible collar, plain 6-button front, two chest pockets with single-button rectangular flaps, and plain cuffs
  • Flat-front trousers with belt loops and button-tab side adjusters, patch-style front pockets with curved entries, patch-style back pockets with single-button rectangular flaps, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Olive drab (OD#7) cotton M-1943 field jacket with 6-button covered-fly front, four bellows pockets with covered-button pointed flaps, cinched waist with inside drawcord, and adjustable button cuffs
• Khaki cotton crew-neck short-sleeved T-shirt
• Light sage-green herringbone twill (HBT) U.S. Army uniform cargo pants, cut-off to mid-thigh shorts
• Olive-drab cotton web belt with silver-toned box-style buckle
• Olive, tan, brown, and black camouflage sash belt
• Light-brown roughout leather M-1943 combat service boots with plain toe, 7-eyelet derby lacing, double-strapped brown leather cuffs, and black rubber soles
• Light sage-green cotton high-rise boxer shorts
• Olive, tan, and brown-on-khaki water-repellent cotton canvas “Jones Cap” six-panel bucket hat with two cross-panel storage loops
• Semi-rimmed glasses with amber-tinted octagonal lenses and thin gold arms
• Brown knitted wool/nylon Type II glove liners
• Stainless steel military-style 32mm-cased field watch with round black dial (with luminous non-numeric hour indices) on dark-khaki canvas strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, read Richard Hooker’s source novel, and catch up with the continued antics of the 4077th on the long-running series of the same name.

The Quote

Oh come off it, Major! You put me right off my fresh fried lobster, do you realize that? I’m now going to go back to my bed, I’m going to put away the best part of a bottle of scotch… and under normal circumstances—you being normally what I would call a very attractive woman—I would have invited you back to share my little bed with me, you might possibly have come. But you really put me off. I mean you… you’re what we call a regular army clown.

The post MASH: Donald Sutherland as Hawkeye appeared first on BAMF Style.

Elliott Gould in California Split (1974)

Vitals

Elliott Gould as Charlie Waters, garrulous gambler

Los Angeles to Reno, Winter 1973

Film: California Split
Release Date: August 7, 1974
Director: Robert Altman
Costumer: Hugh McFarland

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

If I had a nickel for every great 1974 movie where the male lead had a bandaged nose for a significant portion of its runtime… well, California Split and Chinatown would yield me only 10 cents, but it would be well worth it for their shared existence.

Robert Altman’s excellently chaotic meditation on gambling, California Split, was released 50 years ago today on August 7, 1974, starring Elliott Gould and George Segal as a pair of two-time losers who meet over an L.A. card game. Initially more of a recreational gambler, Segal’s Bill Denny grows increasingly addicted through his friendship with Gould’s Charlie Waters, a charismatic hustler constantly on the make between card games and the horse track for his next big score.

What’d He Wear?

Consistent with his itinerant nature, Charlie Waters maintains a limited wardrobe seemingly restricted to whatever he’s wearing at the moment and a rotation of shirts. He makes up for this lack of variety by keeping everything interesting, from his distinctively detailed single-breasted sport jacket and two-toned loafers to the handful of bold shirts that led to Pete Anderson describing Charlie as his “print shirt spirit animal” for a 2017 Put This On post.

Charlie’s two-button sports coat is a rich tan, likely a blend of wool and synthetic polyester as was increasingly popular in the 1970s and would have fit his budget while also withstanding the rigors of his scrappy existence. The jacket features a darker brown contrast stitch along many of the edges, including the lapels, pockets and pocket flaps, and the curved seams that extend from behind each armhole straight down to the hem.

The full-bellied and fashionably wide notch lapels are supplemented with an extended trapezoidal throat latch tab that Charlie keeps buttoned to the stone-felted underside of the left collar. The set-in breast pocket and bellows hip pockets are all covered by flaps which present the same contrast-stitched welted edges as the lapels. The straight, padded shoulders have roped sleeveheads, and each sleeve is finished with two vestigial cuff buttons. The long single vent resembles an arrow with a triangular patch reinforced at the top and the unique addition of a short, pointed tab with a single button to close the vent.

When Bill and the audience meet Charlie over an L.A. poker table, he’s wearing a slate-colored rayon shirt with a tropical print of white clouds, green palm trees, and colorful flowers. The short-sleeved shirt follows the typical aloha shirt design with a loop collar, plain button-up front (with clear plastic buttons) and a breast pocket. Layered under his jacket over the shirt, Charlie wears an unbuttoned maroon velour vest styled with pockets and matte satin lining.

Charlie’s next shirt also features a Hawaiian-style tropical print but is styled more like a mid-century sports shirt with its long-pointed convertible collar, twin flapped chest pockets, and long sleeves that each fasten with a single button—dark-brown to match the buttons fastened up the plain front. The red, purple, yellow, and green all-over print evidently depicts a series of jungle birds against the pale-lilac ground.

Another of Charlie’s shirts that he wears on several occasions has a dark-gray tribal-printed ground, overlaid with coral and yellow flowers. Likely also short-sleeved, this shirt has a narrower camp collar and faux pearl buttons up the plain front.

“Don’t mean a fuckin’ thing, does it?” Charlie quips after he and Bill tally up their $82,000 payday in Reno. For the trip, he wears a brown aloha shirt covered in a purple, yellow, and white floral print, styled as expected with a camp collar, plain front, and straight hem.

During the brief sequence back in L.A. when Charlie joins a basketball game, we see his sport jacket folded next to his loafers as he hoops in a stone-colored aloha shirt worn open over one of his regular white undershirts. The all-over print features maroon-plumed white birds in flight. The shirt also has a loop collar, plain front, and breast pocket.

Charlie evidently takes the pickup game seriously enough to change out of his regular loafers to pull on a pair of Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star basketball sneakers with dirty white canvas high-top uppers each emblazoned with the Chuck Taylor-autographed star logo over the ankles. His white crew socks are striped with black and orange bands around the tops.

When not on the basketball court, Charlie’s usual shoes are his heavily worn two-tone loafers. These low slip-on shoes are crafted entirely of dark-brown leather, save for the contrasting white vamps framed by the wingtips, full-brogue quarters, and the strap over each respective instep.

Charlie exclusively wears white cotton crew-neck short-sleeved T-shirts as undershirts. He also keeps a simple silver disc pendant on a gold chain-link necklace.

Charlie’s dark-brown trousers are self-suspended and lack pleats, likely styled with a flat-front or front darts. The full-top “frogmouth”-style pockets were most fashionable through the late 1960s into the ’70s, and the bottoms are plain-hemmed.

Lounging at home, Charlie often wears a lilac terrycloth bathrobe patterned with large salmon-colored squares, styled with a shawl collar, waist sash, cuffs, and patch pockets over the breast and hips.

For the 2015 spiritual update Mississippi Grind, costume designer Abby O’Sullivan followed a similar template when dressing the Charlie-like gambling addict Curtis Vonn (Ryan Reynolds) in a hardy throat-latched sports coat with his rotation of shirts.

What to Imbibe

Plenty of beer flows through California Split, starting with Charlie’s order of “cold beer… keg draft,” after the first poker game where he meets Bill, establishing the duo’s tradition of buying the other a beer. From there out, it’s a parade of classic American 5% ABV lagers like Budweiser and Coors Banquet, both seen in the basket of beers that they bestow to Charlie’s prostitute roommates, Barbara (Ann Prentiss) and Susan (Gwen Welles), after a successful day at the track.

Of those two, Budweiser may be Charlie’s favorite, and he even enjoys it with breakfast after Barbara tastes it for him and serves it up with “your favorite, Lucky Charms.”

Charlie finally opts for something stronger during their trip to Reno, ordering “a J&B Scotch straight, with some soda water on the side.”

Go Big or Go Home

In one of the character’s defining moments, Charlie can’t believe he’s being robbed for the second night in a row and refuses to give in to the gun-toting robber’s demands, instead making a counter-offer that the thief only takes half of his and Bill’s money—totaling $780—so that our heroes wouldn’t be emptied out again. It’s just so bold that… it actually works.

Don’t try this at home—or at the casino.

How to Get the Look

George Segal and Elliott Gould in California Split (1974)

Charlie’s idiosyncratic wardrobe fits his vibe, with a rotation of tropical printed shirts only contributing to the chaos within his template of a uniquely detailed tan sports coat and two-tone loafers.

• Tan polyester single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with wide notch lapels (with throat latch), flapped set-in breast pocket, flapped bellows hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, curved back seams, and long back vent (with single-button pointed tab)
• Tropical-printed aloha shirts with loop collar, plain button-up front, and breast pocket
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeved undershirt
• Maroon velour button-up vest with pockets
• Dark-brown flat-front trousers with beltless waistband, full-top “frogmouth”-style front pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Brown-and-white leather wingtip strap loafers
• Gold chain-link necklace with perforated silver disc pendant

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Listen, you let a man rub some hot shaving cream on your ribs, you can take a shot with him at the track.

The post California Split: Elliott Gould’s Tan Sport Jacket and Printed Shirts appeared first on BAMF Style.

I’m pleased to again present a guest post contributed by my friend Ken Stauffer, who has written several pieces for BAMF Style previously and chronicles the style of the Ocean’s film series (and beyond!) on his excellent Instagram account, @oceansographer. Ken visited the set of Wolfs for three weeks of filming in early 2023 and attended its premiere at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month.

Brad Pitt and George Clooney in Wolfs (2024)

Vitals

George Clooney as Jack, a.k.a. Margaret’s Man, professional underworld fixer

Brad Pitt as Nick a.k.a. Pam’s Man, professional underworld fixer

New York, December 2024

Film: Wolfs
Release Date: September 20, 2024
Director: Jon Watts
Costume Designer: Amy Westcott

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

It’s been 16 years since the dynamic duo of George Clooney and Brad Pitt made a film together, but the wait is finally over! The pair star in Wolfs, written and directed by Jon Watts (Cop Car, Spider-Man: No Way Home), which is now streaming on Apple TV+ worldwide.

For over a year, the only description of the film was that it concerned “two lone wolf fixers who are unexpectedly assigned to the same job.” Unlike their Ocean’s characters who had years of history together, the aging duo of criminal cleaners played by Clooney and Pitt here have never met before the events of the movie. As Watts wrote in his Director’s Statement for the Venice Film Festival, “Le Samouraï, Blast of Silence, Ghost Dog, Collateral—I love films about solitary professionals dedicated to their craft and always wanted to see what would happen if two of those guys were forced to work together.”

Set entirely in New York City over the course of one long winter night, the film feels like a true throwback to crime films of the ’70s. The plot cleverly plays with well-trodden crime film tropes, while the dialogue recalls the buddy comedy rhythm of Midnight Run, 48 Hours, and Lethal Weapon. The difference here is that rather than being opposites who must find common ground, these characters are so alike that they can’t help but resent and insult one another. To quote Watts again, “It can be hard to make new friends as an adult, even if you have a lot in common.”

One quick note–while Clooney and Pitt are referred to as “Margaret’s Man” and “Pam’s Man” respectively in the film’s closing credits, the characters are referred to as Jack and Nick by production company Apple TV, just as they were on set. To keep things simple, those names will be used throughout this article.

What’d He Wear?

Yeah, you got, like, basically the same clothes, kinda talk the same, you know. You’re, like, basically the same guy.

Black Leather Jackets

As their characters share a shady occupation, Jack and Nick dress in outfits that have a common aesthetic but differ in the details to reflect their individual personalities. A prerequisite for an underworld fixer in their world appears to be a black leather jacket, and here we’re treated to a couple of standouts.

Jack and Nick each demonstrate their respective techniques for questioning their subject in the Safari Room, a critter-infested cheap motel room where Nick feels like “I’m getting syphilis just standing here.”

Clooney’s character Jack opts for an unstructured blouson from Emporio Armani made of a very smooth and supple black nappa lambskin. It has a funnel neck that closes with a two-way gunmetal zipper, with twin pulls that are shaped like empty rectangular frames. Leaving the jacket open, the character folds down the back of the collar, allowing the front points to splay out across his collarbone.

The jacket has horizontal yokes across the front of the chest and the back, achieved with a simple seam, and 1″-wide elasticized bottom hem and cuffs. There’s a gently slanted, welted pocket on each side that closes with a hidden metal snap button, as does an interior pocket on the left side. Normally, this jacket has an external locker loop on the back with a gunmetal brand tag, but the film’s wardrobe department removed that from the jackets used during production.

Jack beams with pride after completing the final act of his luggage cart trick.

Meanwhile, Pitt’s character Nick wears the slim-fitting “Lark” model from All Saints, made from a slightly glossy black goat leather with all matte black hardware. The waist-length piece shares the general profile of a trucker jacket with a relatively small shirt-style collar that’s 2½” tall with stitching a quarter inch from the outer edge. The front closes with a symmetrical two-way zipper, and there’s a 2”-wide waistband and cuffs, each of which close with a single snap button. The cuff openings have tongues stitched in, each made of a single piece of leather, with the sueded texture facing the wrist, and an unfinished edge facing out to the wrist.

There’s a zippered pocket on each side of the chest, aligning with the front yoke, and the rectangular outer edges of these pockets are framed in two rows of stitching for some added detail. Further down, there are a pair of slanted handwarmer side pockets, with thin welts, that are left open. To ensure the garment’s longevity, there are flat-fell seams used for the rear yoke, the back of the sleeves, and down the length of the jacket’s chest (an inch on either side of the center zipper).

The Lark was a popular style for the brand—at least on screen—that has also been seen on Pierce Brosnan in The Out-Laws, Donnie Yen in John Wick 4, and Brett Goldstein as Roy Kent in Ted Lasso. Though discontinued for over a year now, it has been replaced with the similarly named “Luck” model. Also made of black goatskin, it’s nearly identical to the Lark, only missing the stitched outline of the chest pockets and making the side pockets completely vertical.

Intermediate Layers

As the film is set on a snowy December night, both characters layer up for the elements. Just below his light jacket, Jack wears the Reiss “William” gilet in navy. It’s made of all synthetic fibers and has a quilted front, consisting of twelve horizontally stiched 2″ padded sections, vertical pockets with thin welts set forward on the side seams, and a knit back and waistband. It looks like the wardrobe department switched out the bright silver-toned zipper for a less obvious gunmetal one that better blends in with the dark aesthetic of the elder Wolf’s wardrobe.

Beneath the vest, the fixer keeps warm with a simple black cashmere turtleneck (or rollneck) sweater with a ribbed collar, cuffs, and waistband. Based on the texture of the material and the height of the neck, it appears to be the Mayfair model from N.Peal. Given its high quality and cost, it makes sense why there’s so much concern about Jack getting blood on it.

Nick also chooses cashmere to stay insulated, wearing the N.Peal “Hyde Fine Gauge Full-Zip Sweater” in a dark charcoal-gray blend of 70% cashmere and 30% silk. It has a two-way zip-in front with pentagon-shaped pulls made from brown leather, plus elbow patches made out of the same fabric.

Beneath the sweater, the blonde Wolf wears a simple white poplin shirt with white mother of pearl buttons and no placket. It has a point collar with 3 ¼” points and a very tall collar band, with round corners. The sleeves end with long, rounded barrel cuffs that each close with a single button. Despite the low temps, the fixer maintains his cool by perpetually keeping the top two buttons undone.

The Trousers

Moving down, Jack wears a simple pair of dark-gray medium-rise trousers, which may be a wool and cashmere blend. They have a flat front, tapered legs, belt loops, angled side pockets, and welted back pockets lacking a button closure. The waistband closes with an exposed center button made of shiny gray plastic. Given those last two features–which aren’t common on dressier trousers–and the placement of the belt loops, it’s a safe bet that they were made by Clooney’s personal go-to brand, Giorgio Armani, which commonly uses this layout.

At the start of the film, Jack wears these trousers with a black belt with a simple rounded gunmetal buckle and an undyed suede interior, but that accessory quickly gets repurposed.

By the end of the night, Jack has lost his belt and his vest. I mean, could this day get any worse?

Nick’s trousers are made from a heavier weight mid-gray flannel. The pants were cut classically in the legs and have a high rise, but with Pitt often letting them sag lower on the waist, they can appear oversized in the hips, thighs, and crotch. The pants have a pointed extended waistband that closes with a single button, off-seam side pockets, and button-through rear pockets on each side. They don’t appear to have any belt loops, so there likely side adjusters that we simply can’t see since the character never removes his jacket and sweater.

“So you’re just gonna sit there and slurp your soda,” Jack asks of Nick, who responds that he’s going “to… supervise.”

The Boots

While the general motif of the duo’s outfits is that they’re variations on the same theme, the characters do coincidentally share some identical items. In addition to always carrying the same standard blue latex surgical gloves, they both wear the exact same model of boot–specifically the “Lincoln Center” model from a small brand called Marc Joseph New York.

Jack slams the brakes in his BMW.

These rubber-soled, cap-toed boots are made from black pebbled leather with six derby-laced sets of brass eyelets and a single pair of brass hooks at the top. As a trademark of the brand, small red fabric tabs are usually sewn between the quarter and the vamp on the outer side of each piece of their footwear, but—in this case—those were once again removed by the wardrobe department to make them look more generic. While they both start out tying their laces in the standard fashion, just to be different, Nick later circles the top of his boots with his laces just above his ankle, tying them into a smaller knot on the front.

Watches and Jewelry

As a lot of “fixing” requires exact timing, both characters rock some luxury timepieces, each with a different secondary function. It should come as no surprise that Jack’s choice is the current Omega Speedmaster Professional (ref. 310.30.42.50.01.001) with Hesalite crystal on the recently introduced fully brushed five-link “bullet” bracelet.

Known as the “Moonwatch” for its ongoing use by NASA, the 42mm chronograph houses the brand’s Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 3861, accurate from 0 to +5 seconds per day, behind a solid caseback. This is the fourth time Clooney has sported a Speedie in a major film, previously wearing them in The American, Gravity, and Money Monster.

Nick opts for the Breitling Chronomat Automatic GMT 40  (ref. A32398101B1A1) in stainless steel with a black dial, another watch that recalls the history of its brand. Featuring the signature “onion” shaped crown and a distinctive polished steel, rotating diving bezel, the watch boasts 200 meters of water resistance. Mounted on a polished steel rouleaux bracelet with thin but solid cylinder-shaped links, there’s a red 24 hour hand for tracking a second timezone, and a date window at 6 o’clock.

Introduced in late 2022, right around the time the costume and prop decisions would have been made for the film’s January 2023 production start date, this choice aligned with Pitt’s then-status as an ambassador for the brand.

In addition to the Breitling, Pitt appears to be wearing several pieces of his personal jewelry throughout the film. On his right wrist, he has two bracelets, one made up of gold links, and the other what looks like a thin bit of black leather. Hanging from Brad’s neck are (at least) three thin gold chains–one short, ball bead chain with a small emerald, another longer and thinner chain with a circular coin-like medallion with an engraved design, and a box chain with a large, light blue gemstone hanging from it. The actor also wears his usual gold signet ring with an engraved design on his right ring finger.

The Car

With more screen time than most of the supporting cast, Jack’s BMW 550i is practically another character in the story. Designed by Chris Bangle and known by the production code E60, this iteration of the venerable 5 series was produced from 2004 to 2010. The 550i was equipped with a 360-horsepower 4.8 liter V8, capable of taking the car from 0 to 60 in 4.8 seconds or finishing the quarter mile in 13.3 at 105.1 mph.

The car’s New York state license plate of 3AB M582 is a subtle reference to Pulp Fiction, in which cleaner Winston Wolf drove a silver 1992 Nissan NSX with California tags of 3ABM581.

Jack’s 550i is finished in Carbon Black, which despite the name, is actually a shade of Midnight Blue, with a black leather interior. The staggered 19-inch “Spider” wheels on the car were available from BMW with the optional M Sport Package, but they came from the factory in a satiny silver color, and have been refinished here in black. The (fake) New York registration sticker on the car’s windshield denotes it as a 2009 model, and the car’s exterior has all the hallmarks of the LCI (post “Life Cycle Impulse” revisions) model, available in the U.S. from 2008 to 2010. That said, on closer inspection, the car’s exact vintage is a little harder to determine.

In insert shots, the BMW’s electronic gear shifter and i-Drive controls match those of the 2008 model year, while the distinctive front-seat headrests were only used on the pre-LCI 550i from 2004-2007. Even odder, the rearview mirror is inexplicably off a 2000s Chevy (as revealed by the OnStar buttons). Bottomline, several cars were used for different shots during the course of production, all of which were modified in some way, so the final vehicle seen on screen is a bit of a hodgepodge.

The Guns

To hide their allegiance from the Croatian gangster Dimitri (Zlatko Burić), Nick and Jack each draw their respective sidearm and aim at each other, revealing that not only do both men wear generally the same clothes, they each carry a Glock 26.

“Guns are only for the wedding party,” Dimitri jokes after disarming Nick and Jack of their respective Glocks.

The subcompact Glock 26 was introduced in 1995, intended for the concealed carry market and as a backup pistol for law enforcement. Though considerably smaller than the full-size Glock 17 and the compact Glock 19 with its 6.5-inch length, it can interchangably feed 9x19mm Parabellum rounds from the same factory double-stack magazines, though both wolfs load their pistols with the standard ten-round magazines that maintain the Glock 26’s signature small profile that weighs just under 26 ounces when fully loaded.

“You are not wolves! You’re buddies!”

Having left their Glocks with Dimitri, our wolfs are initially unarmed when cornered by Dimitri’s henchmen until they dash to the BMW’s trunk, where Jack keeps a small arsenal stashed under the wheel well. Nick initially uses the suppressed Kel-Tec R50 Defender semi-automatic carbine before switching to a standard 9mm Beretta 92FS service pistol for the duration of the movie, while Jack arms himself with a Glock 19 that has been customized by Taran Tactical Innovations.

The distinctive R50 is a relatively new series of personal defense weapons that debuted in 2021, mechanically similar to the FN P90 to the degree that it feeds from the same 5.7x28mm fifty-round magazines. “This side-folding tack driver gives you maximum speed, accuracy and power downrange with its 16 inch, threaded barrel and optic mounting option,” describes the Kel-Tec website of the stock R50. The Defender model is distinguished with the addition of a stock.

How to Get the Look

While both Wolfs were trained to maneuver the same shadowy corners of New York’s underworld, living in isolation have left them with similar, but divergent approaches. When one decides to drive, the other chooses to run. These differences subtly extend to their wardrobe choices–while Jack prefers lighter, less structured pieces for comfort, Nick values the resilient properties of thicker materials and hardier construction.

Jack a.k.a. Margaret’s Man

George Clooney in Wolfs (2024). Photo by T. Jackson/Backgrid.

• Black lambskin blouson with funnel neck, elasticised hem and cuffs, front and rear horizontal yokes, welted side pockets with hidden button closure, and two-way gunmetal zipper
  • Emporio Armani
• Navy polyurethane/PVC/polyester gilet with horizontally quilted front, welted, on-seam vertical side pockets, and knit back and waistband
  • Reiss “William”
• Black cashmere turtleneck with ribbed collar, cuffs, and waistband
  • N.Peal “Mayfair”
• Gray wool-and-cashmere flat-front, slim-fitting trousers with plain hems, off seam side pockets, welted back pockets, belt loops, and center button closure on the waistband
• Black calf leather belt with undyed suede interior and a rounded gunmetal buckle
• Black pebbled leather cap-toe derby boots with rubber soles, 6 pairs of brass eyelets, and 1 pair of brass lace hooks
  • Marc Joseph NY “Lincoln Center”
• Omega Speedmaster Professional chronograph in stainless steel with black dial,hesalite crystal, solid caseback, and 5 link brushed bracelet (ref 310.30.42.50.01.001)
• Blue latex surgical gloves

Shop the jacket:

Emporio Armani Semi-aniline Nappa Lambskin Blouson with Full-length Zip (Emporio Armani, $1,025)

Prices and availability current as of Sept. 30, 2024.

Shop the gilet:

Reiss William Hybrid Quilt and Knit Zip-Through Gilet (Reiss, $225)

Prices and availability current as of Sept. 30, 2024.

Shop the turtleneck:

N.Peal Mayfair (N.Peal, $465)

Prices and availability current as of Sept. 30, 2024.

Shop the boots:

Marc Joseph New York Lincoln Center (Zappos, $225 $200.25)

Prices and availability current as of Sept. 30, 2024.

Nick a.k.a. Pam’s Man

Brad Pitt in Wolfs (2024)

• Black goat leather jacket with welted side pockets, zippered chest pockets, two-way zipper, and extended tab snap-button cuffs and waistband (all in matte black metal)
  • All Saints “Lark”
• Charcoal-gray 70% cashmere/30% silk sweater with full two-way zipper and self-fabric elbow patches
  • N.Peal “Hyde”
• White poplin shirt with tall, point collar, tall, rounded collar band, no placket, and rounded button cuffs
• Mid-gray flannel flat front trousers with high-rise, extended buttoning tab waist closure, side adjusters, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black pebbled leather cap-toe derby boots with rubber soles, 6 pairs of brass eyelets, and 1 pair of brass lace hooks
  • Marc Joseph NY “Lincoln Center”
• Breitling Chronomat Automatic GMT 40 in stainless steel with black dial, polished steel rotating bezel, red 24 hour GMT hand, “onion” crown, and date window at 6 o’clock, on a stainless steel rouleaux bracelet
• Gold link bracelet
• Thin black leather bracelet
• Gold signet ring with engraved design
• Emerald pendant on gold ball bead chain
• Gold medallion pendant with engraved design on a thin gold chain
• Light blue gemstone pendant on a gold box chain
• Blue latex surgical gloves

Shop the jacket:

The now-discontinued screen-worn All Saints "Lark" can still be found from secondhand outlets like eBay and Zappos.

All Saints "Lark" (Zappos, $629)

The Lark was replaced by the nearly identical "Luck", which only lacks the stitched outline of the chest pockets and has completely vertical side pockets.

All Saints "Luck" (All Saints, $599)

Prices and availability current as of Sept. 30, 2024.

Shop the sweater:

N.Peal Hyde Fine Gauge Cashmere Full Zip Sweater (N.Peal, $550)

Prices and availability current as of Sept. 30, 2024.

Shop the boots:

Marc Joseph New York Lincoln Center (Zappos, $225 $200.25)

Prices and availability current as of Sept. 30, 2024.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Always check for a pulse, then check out the movie.

The Quote

You take a job, you give your word, and that word’s the measure of a man.

The post George Clooney and Brad Pitt as Wolfs in Leather and Cashmere appeared first on BAMF Style.

Enzo Vogrincic as Numa Turcatti in Society of the Snow (2023)
Photo by Quim Vives

Vitals

Enzo Vogrincic as Numa Turcatti, Uruguayan law student and college soccer player

Andes Mountains, Fall 1972

Film: Society of the Snow
(Spanish title: La sociedad de la nieve)
Release Date: December 13, 2023
Director: J.A. Bayona
Costume Designer: Julio Suárez

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

On October 13th, 1972, an Uruguayan plane crashed in the Andean mountain range. Forty of us passengers and five crew members were on board the plane. Some say it was a tragedy, others call it a miracle. What really happened? What happens when the world abandons you? When you have no clothes and you’re freezing? When you have no food and you’re dying? The answer is in the mountain. We have to go back to the past to understand that the past is what changes the most…

Society of the Snow begins with the narration of Numa Turcatti (Enzo Vogrincic), a 24-year-old law student and footballer encouraged by friends to buy a cheap plane ticket to Chile on Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, joining his friend Gastón Costemalle (LOUTA) who was traveling with the Old Christians Rugby Club to play a match in Santiago. The flight departed from Montevideo 52 years ago today, followed by an overnight stop in Mendoza, Argentina.

The following day—Friday the 13th of October, 1972—Numa became one of 33 initial survivors when this FH-227D crashed into the Andes just inside the Argentinian side of the Chilean border. Numa’s narration describes this inhospitable pocket of nature where the temperature plunges to −22 °F at night as “a place where life is impossible.”

While official search efforts were called off after the first eight days, the young men endured a total of 72 days through an inspiring mix of fierce determination, resourcefulness, and teamwork, all while continually facing hardships like injury, disease, extreme weather, and avalanches that reduced them to less than half of their number. With an already dwindling food supply exhausted, the small group of remaining survivors resorted to cannibalism of their dead companions to stay alive—an unimaginable decision yet one that almost certainly saved the lives of the sixteen who were ultimately rescued in December 1972.

Skillfully directed by J.A. Bayona, Society of the Snow doesn’t shy away from these more disturbing facts of the incident while remaining a tasteful retelling that celebrates the survival of these sixteen while simultaneously honoring the memory of the dead. Wendy Ide of ScreenDaily cited the latter as one of the film’s greatest strengths, applauding that “Bayona is at pains to ensure that the voices that are foregrounded are not necessarily those of the crash victims who eventually make it home.”

Photos of the real Numa Turcatti (1947-1972) accompany Enzo Vogrincic’s credit during Society of the Snow‘s end titles.

Society of the Snow wasn’t the first dramatization of the “Miracle of the Andes,” depicted on screen 20 years earlier in Frank Marshall’s 1993 American film Alive. After the release of Society of the Snow, Bayona and Marshall praised each other’s work, with Bayona asserting that “both films complement each other somehow.”

Premiering as the final presentation of the 80th Venice International Film Festival in September 2023, Society of the Snow went on to receive widespread acclaim after its wider release in December. The film earned 12 awards at the 38th Goya Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and was also nominated for Best International Feature Film and Best Makeup and Hairstyling at the 96th Academy Awards.

What’d He Wear?

Costume designer Julio Suárez explained to Peris Costumes Group that he “paid special attention to Numa, who was a young man who didn’t play rugby but played in a football club, and I decided to use as the main garment his lamb jacket, which was very popular at the time and allowed me to have lapels of different colors and textures to enrich the shots; sport trainers with trousers to show the footballer he dreamed of being or really was, and to achieve the slight shift from the clothing of the others.”

Indeed, Numa’s overall appearance is generally sportier than his fellow travelers, many of whom are more formally dressed in suits and sport jackets with knitwear or ties. Director J.A. Bayona elaborated in a Tweet that “…all clothes were handmade. Not only that: they needed to show some level of deterioration. So they were ‘aged.’ For instance, Enzo Vogrincic wore nine different ‘aged’ versions of the costume designed for Numa, his character in the movie.”

Numa stands second from left among most of his fellow travelers aboard Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 for a group photograph before departing Montevideo.

Numa arrives at Carrasco International Airport wearing a trucker jacket made from a warm shade of light-brown medium-wale corduroy, contrasted with a collar faced in a soft beige felt. (Suárez referred to a “lamb jacket”, though lambskin seems absent in this particular jacket’s construction; he may have been merely using a shorthand for the jacket having a lighter collar, similar to some lambskin or sheepskin bomber jackets.)

The waist-length jacket follows the silhouette and styling of contemporary trucker jackets, with seven copper rivet buttons up the front, matching those on the cuffs, side adjusters, and pocket flaps. The tops of both pockets align with the horizontal yoke across the chest, with a rectangular flap closing with a single button over each pocket. Like contemporary Lee trucker jackets, a wide pleat extends straight down from under the pocket flap to the waistband.

Numa’s yellow shirt is patterned with an all-over golden-mustard tonal print resembling small sprigs of leaves. The shirt has a long-pointed collar, consistent with trending fashions of the 1970s. The front placket and barrel cuffs are fastened with yellow plastic buttons. A horizontal seam extends straight across the front, positioned between the second and third buttons and parallel to the straight opening over the top of the breast pocket.

Numa tucks the shirt into dark-blue flat-front trousers, casually styled with slanted front pockets and patch-style back pockets, He holds them up with a cream canvas surcingle belt that closes with a curved silver-toned single-prong buckle through the dark-brown leather ends. After going nearly a week without food following the crash, Numa is unable to tighten his belt through the pre-drilled holes and is forced to create his own holes in the cream-colored cloth to continue wearing the belt on his increasingly underfed frame.

Numa’s cream-colored belt strap presents a sporty and interesting contrast against his darker blue trouser cloth.

Rather than the dark and dressier lace-up shoes that the real Numa reportedly wore during the fateful flight, costume designer Julio Suárez explained his intention to place him in “sport trainers with trousers to show the footballer he dreamed of being or really was,” represented by white leather Adidas Samba sneakers, with the brand’s trademark triple stripes in black leather along each side of each shoe.

Described as “the longest running Adidas shoe in existence” by Abdul Rashid Zakari for Urban Pitch, the Samba was introduced ahead of the 1950 FIFA World Cup. Zakari suggests that Adidas named its new athletic footwear in tribute to the Brazilian dance and music genre to capitalize on Brazil hosting that year’s tournament, though Adidas explained that the name originated at German soccer matches. With its innovative rubber gum outsoles, the Samba was intentionally designed to provide footballers with better traction on icy pitches—a fortuitous choice for the movie’s version of Numa to be wearing in the heavy snow of the Andes.

Between the plain-hemmed trouser bottoms and his increasingly abused Adidas Sambas, Numa wears white ribbed cotton-blend crew socks with black bands around the top.

After the crash, Numa pulls on a heavy wool crew-neck sweater before joining some of his fellow survivors in trekking outside the plane’s fuselage into the snow. Suárez dressed many of the characters in handmade sweaters intended to look like they were hand-knitted by loved ones, and this color-blocked sweater is no exception. The navy-blue top and beige bottom portions of the sweater are separated by a wide burgundy bar stripe across mid-chest and around each bicep.

Roberto Canessa (Matías Recalt) and Numa talk to the mortally wounded first officer in the cockpit.

Likely discovered among his fellow passengers’ luggage, Numa eventually dons a second pair of trousers as an additional layer against the cold. These olive-brown reverse-pleated trousers have side pockets and button-through back pockets (with the right-back pocket closing through a loop), and plain-hemmed bottoms that Numa wears self-cuffed.

Numa continues to improvise methods to battle the cold without appropriate snow gear, including wrapping pieces of the plane’s gray wool blankets around his wrists as makeshift handwarmers, leaving only his fingers exposed.

Even when wearing two pairs of trousers, Numa discovers that he has grown too skinny to pull his belt any tighter without boring new holes into it.

Numa keeps his neck warm with a royal-blue wool scarf detailed with a foulard print, arranged into a burgundy medallion grid.

Once they learn that searches for them have been postponed for months until the snow thaws, the group becomes more determined to realize their survival. Numa joins expeditions in search of the plane’s broken tail section, now wearing gold-framed aviator-style sunglasses against the harsh glare of the white snow. These frames follow the squared lens shape of the HGU-4/P design authorized for U.S. Air Force pilots in the late 1950s, though with a ridged-top “fireplace”-shaped bridge and blackened arms.

As Numa joins Nando, Roberto, and Tintin to head out for an attempted expedition on the 36th day of their ordeal, he adds a dark checked sports coat over his jacket and crafts a gray scarf from one of the same airplane blankets he used to create his makeshift gloves.

Numa attempts to stuff his swollen and stockinged feet into a pair of taupe suede three-eyelet chukka boots, but it isn’t long into the walk until the infected cut on his ankle causes Numa to pass out and he is sent back to camp—sadly marking the beginning of the end for poor Numa.

How to Get the Look

Enzo Vogrincic as Numa Turcatti during production of Society of the Snow (2023)

Numa’s corduroy jacket and Adidas trainers bookend a sporty ’70s outfit that also proves to be hardy and versatile when striving to survive against the unsurmountable conditions of spending weeks stranded in the snowy Andes Mountains.

• Light-brown corduroy trucker jacket with beige felt collar, seven copper rivet buttons, straight chest pockets with single-buttton flaps, button cuffs, and button-tab side adjusters
• Yellow tonal leaf-printed long-sleeved shirt with long-pointed collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Navy, burgundy, and beige color-blocked wool crew-neck sweater
• Dark-blue flat-front trousers with belt loops, front pockets, patch back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Cream canvas surcingle belt with silver-toned curved single-prong buckle and dark-brown leather ends
• White leather Adidas Samba sneakers with black triple side stripes and rubber gum outsoles
• White ribbed cotton crew socks with black-banded tops
• Blue foulard-print wool scarf
• Gold square-framed aviator sunglasses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie (streaming on Netflix) and the 2009 source book written by Pablo Vierci.

The Quote

The more we try to get out, the more the mountain resists.

The post Society of the Snow: Numa Turcatti’s Corduroy Trucker Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins in The Third Man (1949)

Vitals

Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins, moderately successful writer

Vienna, Fall/Winter 1948

Film: The Third Man
Release Date: September 1, 1949
Director: Carol Reed
Wardrobe Credit: Ivy Baker

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

I’m lurking in the shadows of moody, war-torn Vienna today to kick off #Noirvember with The Third Man, one of my favorite films noir. Celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, The Third Man was directed by Carol Reed from a screenplay by Graham Greene.

American pulp novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) travels to the British sector of Allied-occupied Vienna to accept a job working for his old pal Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to learn upon his arrival that “the best friend he ever had” is reported dead and buried after an automobile accident on his street. (“Is that what you say to people after death? ‘Goodness, that’s awkward’,” Holly responds to a new acquaintance’s platitudinous condolences.)

As a mostly penniless writer of “cheap novelettes”, Holly has little else to do but remain in Vienna and try to discover what happened to Harry, whom he soon learns from Royal Military Police officer Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) was “about the worst racketeer to ever make a living in this city.” Despite a contentious relationship with the major, Holly discovers he has a fan in his assistant, Sergeant Paine (Bernard Lee), who apologizes for having to subdue the writer and assures him that he’s read a few of his Western novels after helping him back to his feet. His personal investigation plunges him into the duplicitous underworld of the Austrian black market with characters ranging from Harry’s shady colleagues to his refugee girlfriend Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli).

With its iconic score by zither player Anton Karas, Welles’ memorable performance with his “cuckoo clock” monologue, and Academy Award-winning black-and-white cinematography by Robert Krasker, The Third Man remains not just one of the most acclaimed examples of classic film noir but also considered one of the greatest movies of all time.

What’d He Wear?

Lacking the resources to buy or change clothes, Holly Martins spends the entirety of The Third Man dressed in the same wardrobe of a tweed suit, tweed coat, sweater vest, and tie. The rustic charm of Holly’s lived-in tweeds contrasts his more sensitive nature against the smooth shades of black worn by his villainous friend Harry Lime.

While both men dress in hats and coats over suits and ties, Holly looks more homespun and humble in his tweeds and knitwear than Harry in his darker layers.

Despite suggestions that he’s a man of limited means, Holly’s mid-colored tweed suit is handsomely tailored and well-maintained. Tweed has sporting origins and often lends itself to sporty tailoring, but Holly’s suit is styled like a conventional lounge suit.

The single-breasted jacket has fashionably large notch lapels that taper cleanly to the center button of his 3/2-roll front. The shoulders are padded but hardly to the extended of the dramatic “Bold Look” associated with late 1940s American menswear. The ventless jacket has four-button cuffs, a welted breast pocket, and straight flapped hip pockets. As Holly wears his suit jacket and sweater in every scene, we see little of these reverse-pleated trousers aside from their side pockets and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms.

Under his suit, Holly wears a light-colored pullover sweater made from a soft wool, possibly cashmere. The sweater’s shallow V-neck frames the spread collar of his white cotton shirt and his woolen tie, woven from alternating light and dark threads. The sweater and tie especially create a textured harmony with the coarse tweed of his suit and overcoat.

Holly’s dark herringbone tweed overcoat has notch lapels with swelled edges, gently rolling over the top of his three buttons for a 3/2.5-roll, though he occasionally wears all three buttons fastened and turns up his lapels, revealing the dark felt under-collar and an additional throat-latch button on the right side which connects to the buttonhole at the edge of his left lapel. The knee-length coat has a long single vent, side pockets with gently slanted welt entries, and raglan sleeves finished with turnback cuffs.

Following the conventions of the era, Holly often wears a dark felt fedora, self-edged and detailed with a dark, wide grosgrain band.

Continuity errors reflect both monk shoes and cap-toe oxfords on Joseph Cotten’s feet, though the single-strap monks seem to intended as Holly’s canonical footwear. In addition to being more prominently seen in shots that capture Holly’s feet, monk shoes nicely align with the dressed-down informality of his knitwear and tweeds. Despite the film’s black-and-white photography, it’s evident that Holly’s monk shoes have brown leather uppers.

Holly’s socks are dark silk. On his left wrist, he wears a wristwatch on a brown leather strap.

The Gun

Holly’s fan, Sergeant Paine, carries a Webley .38 Mk IV Pocket Model revolver, which Holly takes during the climactic search for Harry Lime in the sewers beneath Vienna. Nearly a quarter century after British arms manufacturer Webley & Scott introduced the .455 Mk IV before the turn of the century, the company evolved the design in the 1920s for a smaller caliber, specifically the .38 S&W cartridge—designated “.38/200″ in British service.

The .38-caliber model retained the same break-top operation and double-action trigger as the .455 design, albeit scaled down in size and mass. The standard service revolver was fitted with a five-inch barrel, though Webley & Scott also manufactured a 4″-barreled model (as carried by Harry) and a 3”-barreled “Pocket Model” which finds its way from Paine to Holly Martins. The .38 Mk IV remained in British military and police service through World War II and well into the 1960s.

Holly pulls the Webley revolver from Sergeant Paine’s hand.

What to Imbibe

After Harry’s funeral, Major Calloway drinks with Holly at a local tavern, pouring him shots of Hennessy cognac. One of the best-known and best-selling cognac houses in the world, the Hennessy cognac distillery was founded in 1865 by Irish Jacobite military officer Richard Hennessy, who had retired to the Cognac region of France after serving in Louis XV’s army. Hennessy began exporting his brandies to England, his native Ireland, and the United States, and his distillery became the world’s leading brandy exporter by the 1840s. In addition to this sales prominence, Hennessy has also innovated cognac designations as the first house to use star ratings as the V.S.O.P. and XO gradings.

Major Calloway—not Callahan; he’s British, not Irish—pours another Hennessy for an increasingly inebriated Holly.

Later at the Casanova Club with Anna, Holly orders whiskey, followed by another round of “double whiskies” with Harry’s old forger friend Popescu (Siegfried Breuer). We’re not made privy to the label poured out in the club, though Anna reveals a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label blended Scotch that she keeps in her room.

How to Get the Look

Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins in The Third Man (1949)

• Mid-to-dark tweed lounge suit:
  • Single-breasted 3/2-roll jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Reverse-pleated trousers with side pockets and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with spread collar
• Light-and-dark woven wool tie
• Light-colored cashmere woolen V-neck pullover sweater
• Dark-brown leather single-strap monk shoes
• Dark silk socks
• Dark herringbone tweed single-breasted 3/2.5-roll overcoat with swelled-edge notch lapels, raglan sleeves with turnback cuffs, slanted side pockets, and long single vent
• Dark felt self-edged fedora with dark grosgrain band
• Wristwatch on brown leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I’m just a hack writer who drinks too much and falls in love with girls.

The post Joseph Cotten in The Third Man appeared first on BAMF Style.

Pierce Brosnan as James Bond in The World is Not Enough (1999).
Photo by Keith Hamshere/Sygma via Getty Images.

Vitals

Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, sophisticated English spy

Baku and Istanbul, December 1999

Film: The World Is Not Enough
Release Date: November 8, 1999
Director: Michael Apted
Costume Designer: Lindy Hemming
Tailored by: Brioni

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

On the 00-7th of November, today’s post celebrates Pierce Brosnan’s third and penultimate movie as James Bond—The World Is Not Enough—which premiered 25 years ago tomorrow on November 8, 1999 at the Fox Bruin Theater in Los Angeles.

With most of Ian Fleming’s original material already adapted by the end of Timothy Dalton’s tenure, Brosnan’s Bond films relied on original storylines with nods to earlier works in the franchise. In the case of The World Is Not Enough, this applies to the title itself—the English translation of the Bond family coat of arms (“Orbis non sufficit”) mentioned in the novel and film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Bruce Feirstein crafted the original screenplay for The World Is Not Enough, centered around Bond’s assignment to protect heiress Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) from Renard (Robert Carlyle), an international terrorist who had kidnapped her years earlier. As the stakes of his mission grow, he recruits the help of an old enemy-turned-friend Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) and the improbably named—and improbably cast—nuclear physicist Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards).

A hallmark of the Bond franchise are its aspirational sequences that highlight both the danger and elevated lifestyle of James Bond’s missions, exemplified in The World Is Not Enough as he strides into a swanky casino in an exotic locale, clad as usual in an impeccable tuxedo with a Walther holstered under his arm and a dry martini in his hand. After a Bollinger-soaked romantic interlude with an impossibly beautiful woman, Bond’s back on the trail of his dangerous foe, who only narrowly escapes as Bond saves the life of yet another impossibly beautiful woman following a gunfight.

What’d He Wear?

Whether you’re planning your style “to have Christmas in Turkey” or simply looking to elevate your black tie game, The World Is Not Enough demonstrates a timeless examples of sophisticated black tie that remains as fashionable today as it was a quarter-century ago.

Bond dresses to have Christmas in Turkey.

Lindy Hemming designed the costumes for all four of Brosnan’s Bond films, establishing a continuity that, according to Pete Brooker and Matt Spaiser in From Tailors With Love, gave “a James Bond actor a consistent sartorial identity throughout all his films” for the first time since Sean Connery. Hemming’s costumes for Brosnan prioritized style and sophistication, focusing on tailored suits—less likely to look dated than casual wear—and enlisting the services of renowned Italian fashion house Brioni.

In his excellent analysis for Bond Suits, Spaiser observes that the midnight-blue cloth on 007’s tuxedo was a cool-wearing blend of wool and mohair provided by William Halstead. The cut follows Brioni’s Roman silhouette with straight, padded shoulders, roped sleeveheads, clean chest, and suppressed waist.

“When I think of an evening suit, I think of a peak lapel,” Hemming explained to Brooker and Spaiser for From Tailors With Love. Following this direction, Hemming would equip Brosnan’s Bond exclusively in dinner jackets with peak lapels, making him the only Bond actor to wear the same style of dinner jacket lapel across multiple films. All of these jackets have silk-faced peak lapels that roll to a single cloth-covered button, as well as a welted breast pocket and straight jetted hip pockets. Brosnan’s ventless jacket in The World Is Not Enough features midnight grosgrain facings on the lapels that matches the silk covering the single front button and the four buttons decorating each cuff.

The matching midnight mohair-and-wool evening trousers are styled with a darted front, on-seam side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms as well as the requisite grosgrain side galon extending from the fitted waistband to the bottoms.

The black tie dress code requires dressy shoes, with black leather oxfords considered the most traditional footwear. Bond’s polished cap-toe Church’s oxfords from are most prominently—if not exactly clearly—seen as he kicks Elektra’s security chief Sasha Davidov (Ulrich Thomsen) in the face. Naturally, Bond also wears black dress socks that maintain the dark leg-lines of his trousers into his shoes.

Bond’s white dress shirt from Turnbull & Asser has a poplin body for comfort, but the parts that show when he wears his jacket buttoned—the spread collar, double (French) cuffs, and bib-style front—are all woven in a stiffer marcella (piqué). His round cuff links are gold with mother-of-pearl settings, matching the four studs he initially wears up the front. When Bond gets dressed again after his tryst with Elektra, he foregoes the studs and merely uses the shirt’s built-in mother-of-pearl buttons, leaving the top few undone.

Note the small hole next to the second button on Bond’s shirt. This would accommodate the studs he was wearing earlier, which would be pushed through the buttonholes on both sides of the shirt. Since he was merely getting dressed (and not dressing up) after his romp with Elektra, there was no need for the showy formality of studs and he used the shirt’s built-in buttons instead.

Bond wears a butterfly-shaped bow tie made from a midnight horizontal-ribbed silk, neatly mirroring the grosgrain silk facing his lapels.

Upon stepping into Zukovsky’s casino, Bond dons a pair of x-ray glasses that allow him to determine which of his fellow patrons are armed and/or clad in provocative lingerie under their evening gowns. Bond Lifestyle reports that a member of the costume team had purchased the screen-worn specs off the shelf at a Scrivens Opticians location in High Street, identifying the model as the Blue MOD No.9048 ANT BLU 50×19. Despite the coincidentally cyanic company name, the light-blue tinted lenses were actually added by the film’s production team.

Pierce Brosnan was the first Bond actor to prominently wear Omega watches for his characterization, specifically sporting an array of blue-dialed Omega Seamaster dive watches through his run. Unlike his successor Daniel Craig, who often cycled between several different Omega models within a single film, Brosnan would wear essentially the same model across his tenure. This tradition began in GoldenEye with the quartz-powered 2541.80.00 until he switched in Tomorrow Never Dies to the automatic Omega Seamaster Professional 2531.80.00 chronometer that he would continue to wear in The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day.

Both the automatic 2531.80.00 and quartz 2541.80.00 Seamaster Professional models were introduced in 1993 and share similar aesthetics and functionality, including the 300-meter water resistance, though the self-winding 2531.80.00 chronometer is powered by the Omega 1120 calibre movement with a power reserve up to 44 hours.

The stainless steel 41mm case is rhodium-plated with a helium release valve pointing out from the 10 o’clock position. The stainless link bracelet matches the case and closes with a deployable clasp. A 12-sided unidirectional rotating bezel with a polished blue ring encircles the blue “wave”-printed dial. Protected by a lightly domed sapphire crystal, this blue dial features luminous non-numeric hour indices, except for a date window at the 3 o’clock position.

You can also read more about Brosnan’s automatic Seamaster at Bond Lifestyle and Omega.

As usual, Q Branch equipped Bond’s Omega with a few gadgets beyond merely telling the time, including bright LED lights emanating from the dial and a grappling hook that he uses to engineer his escape from an ICBM base by firing a small piton with a 50-foot microfilament from behind the screw-down crown.

While infiltrating the aforementioned ICBM base in Kazakhstan, Bond changes out of his dinner suit into a blue cotton uniform issued by the Russian Atomic Energy Agency—supporting his cover identity of nuclear scientist Mikhail Arkov, the same name on the badge he swiftly manufactures in the airplane bathroom en route to the base and clips onto the right side of the uniform jacket. You can read more about this uniform at Bond Suits.

Though Bond swaps out his dressy black oxfords for black patent leather lug-soled boots, he continues wearing the white evening suit from his tuxedo. (A more discerning sentry may have questioned why a nuclear scientist was wearing such a formal shirt with his work uniform, but this was before we had resources like @dieworkwear to keep people on the lookout for these sartorial queues!)

The Guns

The World Is Not Enough was the first movie where Bond’s sidearm was exclusively the Walther P99, which replaced his Walther PPK mid-mission in Brosnan’s previous outing, Tomorrow Never Dies, coinciding with the weapon’s 1997 debut.

Walther designer Horst Wesp conceptualized the P99 to replace the aging 9mm P5 and P88 semi-automatics for German law enforcement. The initial P99 featured a double-action/single-action (DA/SA) trigger with an “Anti-Stress” decocker and an internal striker rather than an external hammer.

Following the P99’s introduction in the 9x19mm cartridge, a .40 S&W model with a slightly longer barrel was added to appeal to American law enforcement—each with double-stack magazines that could carry up to 16 rounds (9mm) and 12 rounds (.40 S&W), though these capacities would be reduced by one round each as the pistol would continue to be refined over its production timeline.

The P99 was overhauled in 2004, with these “second generation” models including the double-action-only P99DAO, a Glock-style P99QA (“Quick Action”), a P99AS reflecting the first-generation’s “Anti-Stress” DA/SA trigger, and the compact P99C. In addition to the all-black P99 models used by Bond, the P99 would eventually be available with a titanium-coated slide, an olive-drab frame, or a desert tan frame.

At the time that The World Is Not Enough was produced and set, Bond would have used a first-generation P99 with 16-round magazines of 9x19mm Parabellum. The P99 continued to be Bond’s standard sidearm through Daniel Craig’s debut film, Casino Royale.

Bond keeps his Walther P99 drawn on Renard.

Given his covert assignments (and the occasional need for an assassination), Bond occasionally equips his P99 with a suppressor, which he attaches when he anticipates killing Renard in the ICBM base. During the subsequent gunfight, he picks up a Makarov pistol from a downed Russian military guard and dual-wields it alongside his suppressed P99.

It makes sense that Bond would have had access to the Makarov in this context, as the “Pistolet Makarova” (PM) had served as the Russian standard sidearm since it replaced the Tokarev pistol in 1951. Nikolay Makarov took inspiration from the Germans’ popular Walther PP and PPK series of pistols, using a similar blowback action and dimensions to craft his design. The pistol fired Boris V. Semin’s new proprietary 9x18mm Makarov ammunition, fed from eight-round box magazines.

Bond supplements the firepower of his suppressed Walther P99 in his right hand with a picked-up Makarov pistol fired with his left.

As the gunfight continues, Bond ups his firepower by picking up a discarded FN P90 to return fire. This distinctive-looking submachine gun—technically classified as a “personal defense weapon” (PDW)—was introduced by the Belgian firearms manufacturer Fabrique Herstal in 1990 to respond to NATO requests for a powerful compact firearm that fired an alternative to 9mm ammunition. Thus, the P90 was developed in tandem with the proprietary 5.7x28mm ammunition, a high-velocity centerfire round ballistically similar to the rimfire .22 WMR cartridge.

The P90’s ergonomic bullpup design includes a futuristic polymer frame that unusually feeds from top-mounted magazines that lay flush with the top of the P90’s frame. These transplant polymer magazines can carry up to 50 rounds of 5.7x28mm, fed through a unique system that rotates each round 90° before chambering it.

BOND

What to Imbibe

Bond begins the evening at the casino with his signature order of a “Vodka Martini… shaken, not stirred,” taking it from the bartender while handing him a stainless Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver taken from a thug he disarms at the bar. Perhaps distracted by the disruption, the barman neglects to garnish Bond’s martini with either the traditional olive or lemon twist, though 007 doesn’t seem to mind.

BOND

After storming into Zukovsky’s office, Zukovsky pours them glasses of Smirnoff Black Label vodka from his personal bar. According to The Whisky Exchange, “This premium variant of Smirnoff is pot-distilled and filtered through seven tons of charcoal in a painstaking production process designed to produce a vodka of rare purity.”

Smirnoff maintains a long association with the Bond franchise, dating back to 1962 when Sean Connery drank it straight and as a martini ingredient in the first-ever Bond movie, Dr. No.

Photo by Keith Hamshere

Bond treats Elektra to another of his favorite alcohol brands when the pair drink Bollinger La Grande Année 1990 champagne in her bed. Every Bond actor since Roger Moore in his debut have enjoyed Champagne Bollinger in a variety of vintages, though the Bond association dates back even further to the 1956 novel Diamonds are Forever, in which Tiffany Case sent Bond a quarter-bottle to drink with the Sauce Béarnaise she prepared for him.

BOND

How to Get the Look

Pierce Brosnan as James Bond in The World is Not Enough (1999)

During a sequence that demonstrates the franchise’s signatures from girls and guns to cocktails and casinos, it makes sense that James Bond exemplifies black tie perfection in his sharply tailored Brioni tuxedo.

• Midnight-blue wool-and-mohair Brioni tuxedo:
  • Single-button dinner jacket with grosgrain-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Darted-front trousers with fitted waistband, on-seam side pockets, grosgrain-faced side galon, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White poplin evening shirt with marcella/piqué spread collar, button-up bib, and double/French cuffs
  • Gold-framed mother-of-pearl studs and cufflinks
• Midnight-blue horizontal-ribbed silk butterfly-shaped bow tie
• Black polished leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Black dress socks
• Black-framed rectangular sunglasses with blue tinted lenses
• Omega Seamaster Professional 300M 2531.80.00 Chronometer rhodium-plated stainless steel watch with 41mm case (with helium escape valve), blue-ringed unidirectional rotating bezel, blue “wave”-motif dial (with luminous hour indices and 3:00 date window), and stainless steel link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

This is a game I can’t afford to play.

The post The World Is Not Enough: Pierce Brosnan’s Midnight Brioni Tuxedo as Bond appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jon Voight as Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Vitals

Jon Voight as Joe Buck, naïve Texan wannabe gigolo and Army veteran

New York City, Summer through Winter 1968

Film: Midnight Cowboy
Release Date: May 25, 1969
Director: John Schlesinger
Costume Designer: Ann Roth

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Harry Nilsson recorded his cover of Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin'” 57 years ago this week on November 13, 1967. This Grammy-winning folk hit has since become inextricably linked with the 1969 drama Midnight Cowboy—which celebrated its 55th anniversary in May—after director John Schlesinger chose it as the film’s theme song.

Adapted by Waldo Salt from James Leo Herlihy’s 1965 novel of the same name, Midnight Cowboy received a controversial if critically acclaimed response upon its release. Six months earlier, the MPAA implemented its voluntary rating system to classify age suitability for major releases, replacing the increasingly outdated “Hays Code” that had been enforced since the early 1930s. Midnight Cowboy was one of the first mainstream movies to be rated “X”, which forbade any audience members under age 17 to be admitted and was reserved for movies demonstrating the most extreme sexual themes, graphic violence or language. Despite the stigma of this dramatically restrictive rating, Midnight Cowboy was the third highest-grossing American movie released in 1969 and won three of the seven Oscars for which it was nominated—Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay—and it remains the only movie with an X (or equivalent NC-17) rating to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The movie begins in the small town of Big Spring, Texas, where the strapping Joe Buck (Jon Voight) quits his job as a dishwasher and brings his garish cowhide-wrapped suitcase aboard an overnight bus to New York City. His attitude and attire reflect the happy-go-lucky cowboy persona he has assumed to conceal the sexual trauma of his past—a trauma that has clearly informed his chosen vocation as “a kind of hustler” catering to older women similar in age to the grandmother who raised him in a manner presented as uncomfortably close (if not explicitly incestuous.)

Joe is initially disheartened upon his arrival in the urban jungle, where he realizes everybody’s ignorin’ rather than talkin’ at him—at least until he finds a willing lover in middle-aged Park Avenue socialite Cass (Sylvia Miles), whose age, wealth, and libido perfectly suit the type of woman he was hoping to find… though he ends up paying her a few of his scant dollars to account for the perceived insult of asking her for money after their tryst. Joe takes his few remaining dollars to a nearby bar to wash down his sorrows in a beer, where he meets the crippled and consumptive con man Enrico “Rico” Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman)—or “Ratso”, to his enemies.

Following a rocky start that leaves Joe twenty dollars poorer and essentially homeless with nothing but his trusty Zenith transistor radio and the increasingly dirty clothes on his back, an unexpected partnership grows between the two hustlers—”united against the cold loneliness of the city,” as The Maltese Falconer writes. As their financial situation worsens with Rico’s health, the pair’s desperate goal for making money by any means possible grows more urgent to escape the Big Rotten Apple’s cold winter and go where the sun keeps shinin’, realizing Rico’s lifelong dream of moving to Florida.

What’d He Wear?

The opening credits detail Joe Buck donning his new cowboy garb. When he strolls into the restaurant where he used to wash dishes, his boss asks “what the hell are you doin’ in that getup?”—informing the audience that this is clearly out of character for who Joe used to be, but it aligns with how he imagines his horny New Yorker clientele picture Texan studs—an exaggeration inspired by the likes of Paul Newman’s western-wear in Hud. Though while Newman’s Hud dressed functionally for his ranch duties, Joe embraces the more flamboyant aspects of cowboy apparel.

Bro thought he was cooking.

“Heavily donned in Western wear, his style is an unwavering signifier of the nation’s prosperous ethos,” writes Faye Fearon for GQ around the film’s 50th anniversary in 2019. “Voight’s uniform is one of the few factors that keeps you rooting for the movie’s anti-hero drifter against that backdrop of darkness.”

Harrison Hill added more complex context for the same publication just two years later:

The result is a man who seems overwhelmingly adrift — and decidedly gay: If Joe’s cowboy duds looked tough and “manly” back in Texas, in Times Square they read as comically homoerotic. That Joe fails to understand this — that he thinks his brand of studliness is pure hetero gold — is part of what makes him so endearing. At one point, Ratso tries to set him straight, as it were: “That great big dumb cowboy crap of yours don’t appeal to nobody except every jockey on 42nd Street,” he yells. “That’s faggot stuff.”

The Black Cowboy Hat

Fresh out of the shower, Joe first puts on his cowboy hat—the linchpin of his new persona. This black felt hat is shaped with a low, round telescope-style crown and a dramatically curved brim. “Miller’s” is printed in gold along the black leather sweatband, suggesting its maker.

A silver-corded band around the base of the crown is secured to the body of the hat through spiraling black threads, with the excess cord knotted and left hanging on the back left side.

The Fringed Buckskin Jacket

Joe complements his cowboy hat with another distinctive icon of western apparel: a fringed buckskin jacket. This was made specifically for Jon Voight by costume designer Ann Roth who later explained to author Glenn Frankel: “I didn’t want it to be cute… I wanted it to look real and unhip.”

A buckskin jacket becomes Joe Buck‘s outer skin.

Buckskin outerwear originated among Native Americans, who would work the raw hide of a recently killed deer with its brain tissue, then expose it to wood smoke for hours to craft a golden honey-tinted leather that was both pliable and durable. Like many other Native American innovations, buckskin gear was soon appropriated by cowboys and western settlers—twisting the sartorial irony as Joe, a Texan dishwasher and hardly a cowboy—is appropriating a western look that was itself appropriated from an indigenous culture.

Fringe is also a centuries-old indigenous tradition, aligned with the philosophy to minimize any unused animal parts by cutting excess hide into strips that would be strategically sewn along a garment to guide water runoff. Joe’s thigh-length buckskin jacket has continuous fringe that follows across the arced chest yokes, around the set-in shoulder seams, and across the straight back yoke. The fringe also hangs from below the welted entry at the top of each hip pocket and curtaining the cuffs at the end of each sleeve.

Looking beyond the fringe, the three-button jacket is cut like a classic barn coat, with a flat collar and an extra button to close the neck—all the buttons are tan two-hole sew-through buttons.

Joe knots a dark neckerchief around his neck, reinforcing the costume-like nature of his outfit as he strides through the mean streets of the Big Apple. Though it appears black, the linen kerchief actually appears to be a dark shade of green.

The Fancy Western Shirts

Joe rotates through four colorful snap-front shirts that Harrison Hill observed in 2021 for GQ were all “embroidered with classic symbols of the American west: stars, birds, hearts, roses.”

For his fateful journey from Texas to New York, Joe pulls on a kelly-green shirt with western-themed embroidery on the shoulder yokes—which were themselves detailed in thick silver embroidery to resemble ropes. Each shoulder is detailed with a yellow-and-white horseshoe encircling a black-bordered, yellow-embroidered five-pointed star. The narrow spread collar also has a white five-pointed star embroidered on each leaf. The shirt has mother-of-pearl snaps up the front placket, two chest pockets that close with double-snap “sawtooth” flaps, and triple-snap squared cuffs—each with an additional snap to close the gauntlet.

Upon getting to New York, Joe changes into a cornflower-blue shirt as he sets out to find his first “client”. The narrow spread collar, snap-front placket, sawtooth-flapped chest pockets, and triple-snap cuffs echo the first shirt, though the design now consists of stars, birds, and a large red mini-beaded heart positioned over the left pocket (and, presumably, over Joe’s heart.)

The designs are all crafted with mini beads, with a swooping light-blue bird flying down from the left chest yoke above the left pocket, echoed by a slightly larger bird seemingly carrying a small red heart in its beak and perched above the right yoke. Both birds are flanked by two small silver stars. This motif continues onto the back, with an identical bird positioned at the center where the western yoke reaches its downward-facing point.

“Terrific shirt… I was just admiring that colossal shirt—I mean that’s one hell of a shirt,” Ratso comments during their first interaction. “Birds… I like birds.”

After Joe is locked out of his hotel, he seemingly only has access to one shirt for several months. This bright-red shirt is decorated around the shoulders with an embroidered floral motif of large red roses and smaller white flowers on green stems with navy-blue stars.

The cut, the narrow spread collar, and the triple-snap cuffs are similar to his earlier shirts, though the chest pockets have dramatically pointed single-snap flaps rather than the double-snap sawtooth flaps of his previous shirts.

After Joe finally lands his first paying client, the vivacious “alley cat” partygoer Shirley (Brenda Vaccaro), he uses part of her $20 payment to finally treat himself to a new shirt. It may be significant that he chooses a purple shirt, which visually unifies him with Rico in his shabby purple suit.

The purple base is complicated with a low-contrasting burgundy diagonal check and a fancy silver-trimmed double yoke that takes several hairpin turns and twists on its journey across the chest from the shoulders to the center, mimicked across the back. Two yellow-embroidered roses with green leaves are contained within each side of the yoke—one near the shoulder and another next to the placket.

This shirt also has a narrow collar and mother-of-pearl snaps up the front placket. The two chest pockets have dramatically pointed single-snap flaps, though these flaps are wider than on the red shirt.

Below the Belt

Joe cycles through two identical sets of western-styled trousers, detailed with pointed belt loops, slightly curved “full top” front pockets, and set-in back pockets covered with single-button pointed flaps. The tight fit “advertise precisely what he’s selling,” as Harrison Hill wrote for GQ, with a medium-high rise and a narrowly tapered cut through the legs down to the plain-hemmed bottoms that break high to show off his flashy boots.

When Joe spills ketchup on his trousers during an emotional and financial low point, the visual effect resembles a grotesque groin injury—suggesting that his failure has violently emasculated him.

Joe arrives in New York wearing these trousers in a light stone-colored polyester, only to unpack and swiftly don a pair of identical slacks in a slightly warmer shade of beige.

Joe holds the trousers up with a black tooled leather belt that closes through a decorative scalloped buckle with a gilt longhorn emerging from a burnished silver ground. (This remains a popular configuration for western belt buckles, with even inexpensive versions available from Amazon.)

Cass mulitasks.

“In his new boots, Joe Buck was six-foot-one and life was different,” begins James Leo Herlihy’s source novel, immediately establishing how crucial Joe’s colorful cowboy clothing would be in crafting his sense of self.

Voight’s Joe dons his boots with considerable ceremony, opening the box from HYER—a bootmaker that touts itself as the originator of the classic American cowboy boot when a customer entered cobbler C.H. Hyer’s Olathe, Kansas shop in 1875 and requested boots specifically for cattle-driving. Once America’s largest handmade boot manufacturer and even a military contractor, the HYER brand shuttered in the 1970s until it was revived in the early ’90s by C.H.’s great-great-grandson Zach Lawless.

Joe’s pointed-toe cowboy boots have all-black leather uppers with gold stitching, from the bug-and-wrinkle toes and seams to the leafy shaft stitching, all echoing the flashy gold starlike bursts positioned along the ankles on the bottom of each shaft. The hard leather soles are dyed black around the edges and have raised heels.

From Midnight Cowboy to Miami Tourist

As the bus gets closer to Miami, Joe steps off to spend about $10 on new clothes for Rico and himself, changing into the pale-yellow checked short-sleeved sport shirt, dark trousers, and black loafers and tossing all of his cowboy duds into the trash before rejoining Rico on the bus. “These shirts are comfortable, ain’t they? Yours was the only one left with a palm tree on it,” Joe comments to Rico.

♪ Love left me like this and I don’t want to exist / So take me to Florida ♪

Midnight Cowboy was one of the first major screen credits for prolific costume designer Ann Roth. A five-time Academy Award nominee and two-time winner (for The English Patient and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Ms. Roth may be most celebrated in the menswear community for her Oscar-nominated collaboration with Gary Jones on The Talented Mr. Ripley.

How to Get the Look

Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy (1969)

“I like the way I look… it makes me feel good—it does!”

• Tan fringed buckskin hip-length jacket with four-button front, fringed welted hip pockets, and set-in sleeves with fringed cuffs
• Colorful western shirts with narrow spread collar, decorative beaded shoulder embroidery, western-pointed yokes, two chest pockets with one- or two-snap pointed flaps, and triple-snap cuffs
• Dark-green linen neckerchief
• Light stone-colored polyester flat-front western trousers with pointed belt loops, curved full-top front pockets, set-in back pockets (with single-button pointed flaps), and short-break plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black tooled leather belt with gold longhorn-on-silver scalloped belt buckle
• Black leather pointed-toe cowboy boots with gold-stitched shafts/toes and gold starburst decorations
• Black felt telescope-crowned cowboy hat with silver-corded band and upturned brim

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I ain’t a for-real cowboy, but I am one hell of a stud!

The post Midnight Cowboy: Jon Voight as Joe Buck appeared first on BAMF Style.