Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Ike Evans on Magic City.

Vitals

Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Isaac “Ike” Evans, tough and shrewd hotel owner

Miami Beach, January 1959

Series: Magic City
Episodes: “The Year of the Fin” (Episode 1.01), “Castles Made of Sand” (Episode 1.03), & “Crossroads” (Episode 2.04)
Air Dates: March 30, 2012 (Episode 1.01), April 20, 2012 (Episode 1.03), & July 12, 2013 (Episode 2.04)
Directors: Carl Franklin (Episode 1.01) & Ed Bianchi (Episode 1.03 & 2.04)
Creator: Mitch Glazer
Costume Designer: Carol Ramsey

Background

For two seasons, Magic City presented the abundantly stylish saga of the Evans family and the Miramar Playa, telling a compelling story beneath the elegant late ’50s aesthetic of long-finned cars, sharp-suited men and tightly-dressed bombshells, and ubiquitous cocktails and cigarettes.

Superficially, Magic City has been lumped in with many other shows that followed in Mad Men‘s wake with darkness underlying Jet Age glamour. However, the show was a long-time passion project for Mitch Glazer, who tapped into his early life growing up in Miami and working as a cabana boy in one of its many resorts during the ’50s and ’60s. He heard stories from his father, a hotel engineer, about the secretive drama unfolding among the guests and staff, all bathed in the dichotomous sunlight for which Miami Beach is famous. After realizing that he had far more material than a single movie would serve justly, Glazer developed his concept into a series for Starz with astounding mob tales from his journalistic background adding to the story.

Drawing upon his own family’s connection to hotels of the era, Glazer wrote Magic City as a very family-centric story with the pragmatic patriarch Isaac “Ike” Evans at the helm of the swanky Miramar Playa hotel in Miami Beach. Widowed and remarried to the glamorous ex-dancer Vera (Olga Kurylenko), Ike must manage his three kids, his ex-wife’s sophisticated sister, and the volatile mobster that serves as his silent partner.

We first meet Ike Evans on New Year’s Eve 1958, a date well-known (especially to fans of The Godfather Part II) as the day that Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba and made things very difficult for the Mafia. Ike isn’t necessarily a gangster, but he’s got “friends” like Bel Jaffe and Ben Diamond who aren’t afraid to do any dirty work… providing that there’s money in it for them. Beset by union problems that threaten the future of the Miramar Playa (as well as the possibility of Sinatra performing at that evening’s New Year’s Eve party!), Ike is forced to request a favor of Faustian proportions.

What’d He Wear?

After Magic City ended its run in 2012, many costumes, props, and other items from the show were auctioned. One lucky fan, Eric Tidd, took over as Ike Evans’ spiritual successor in charge of the Miramar Playa and now proudly owns Ike’s cream dinner jacket ensemble – arguably the show’s most iconic outfit among its male characters – among many other cool costumes, accessories, and props. Eric was generous enough to share photos and details of the outfit with me for use on this site.

Ike looks over his town from his penthouse balcony at the Miramar Playa.

Ike Evans’ cream-colored single-breasted dinner jacket was custom tailored for the production by Dennis Kim from a design by costumer Carol Ramsey, who recalled in an interview with the Los Angeles Times her hard work of dressing more than 600 people for the production every nine days:

We would look at various aspects of each suit that we liked, such as the width of the shoulder from this one, the sleeve or lapel of that one.

Eric owns some of Ramsey’s copy of episode scripts; one page confirms that this formal jacket was one of the Dennis Kim-tailored pieces. Elements of the jacket include front darts, roped sleveeheads, and a welted breast pocket that Ike wears without a display kerchief. It closes with a single button in the front and has three buttons spaced apart on each cuff.

Ike preps for NYE ’58.

Although he runs one of the flashiest hotels in one of America’s flashiest city, Ike balances his businesslike mentality with the sharp cunning required to run such a swanky, gangster-laden establishment. His dinner jacket reflects that balance, with fashionable details like super slim shawl lapels (with a slanted buttonhole on the left lapel) and padded shoulders that emphasize his power. The jacket’s long fit also evokes the era’s trend of sweeping elegance.

Ike strolls to meet Vera and Cliff for their outing.

The jacket also incorporates features more commonly seen on business suits like hip pocket flaps and a single vent. Typically, these aspects would not be welcome on formalwear, but the automatically implied informality of an off white-dinner jacket combined with Ike’s practicality (as well as the incredible research that Ramsey and her team conducted on the era’s fashions!) provide reasonable explanations in this case.

Ike’s flapped pockets and single vent are nontraditional dinner jacket elements.

An additional dose of informality is injected into the outfit with the black wool flat front trousers that Ike wears with it. Made by Theory, the trousers have side pockets, jetted back pockets that close with a button, plain-hemmed bottoms, and… belt loops. Actual formal trousers – recognizable by the satin side stripe that also isn’t present on Ike’s trousers – are almost always made with a fitted or adjustable waist meant to be worn without a belt.

Ike’s non-formal trousers are best seen in this production photo with the rest of the Magic City fellas.

According to the eBay auction page from November 2013, the trousers have a 33-inch waist and 29-inch inseam, although this seems considerably short for the 6’2″ Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Theory still offers similar pants on its page, including the slim-straight fit “Italian Wool Suit Pant” for $225. However, if you’re looking for something to wear with a dinner jacket while still sporting an Ike Evans-approved brand, Theory sells a wool twill “Marlo P Tuxedo Pant in Hamburg” for $285 that includes the same pocket structure as Ike’s trousers with the more formal waistband and side striping.

Speaking of Ike-approved brands, the formal shirt is from the appropriately-named Ike Behar. The white cotton twill shirt has a spread collar, a pleated front with ¼” pleats on each side of the placket, and rear side darts. The shirt buttons at the collar and below the waist with white plastic buttons, but the placket is reserved for the gold-filled white pearl studs that Ike wears.

Although he often waits until the last minute to tie his bow tie, Ike usually has his formal shirt covered with his dinner jacket even when lounging around the penthouse.

Not immediately evident on screen, Eric noted to me that the shirt cuffs have barrel cuffs designed to take links, more reminiscent of a rental’s “convertible cuffs” than most bespoke formal shirts which feature French cuffs. In her Times interview, Carol Ramsey mentions the issue of “how to deal with French cuffs on the slim sleeved shirts of the time.” It’s possible that the production’s solution was single cuffs, which would combat the added fabric at the cuffs in Miami’s warm climate. Ike’s cuff links are flat white pearl discs with gold links, nicely matching the studs on the front of his shirt.

NB: The Cuban-American shirtmaker Isaac “Ike” Behar launched his brand in New York in 1960, and the company is still going strong more than 50 years later under the management of Behar’s three sons while Behar concerns current work with supporting Miami Jewish Health Systems, interestingly paralleling Magic City and the plight of its similarly-named protagonist. (Although Behar has been widely recognized for his humanitarian efforts… likely not a recognition that would go to someone who partners with Ben Diamond.) Ike Behar’s site currently offers a 100% cotton “Spread Pleated Tuxedo Shirt” for $245.

Eric identified Ike’s black satin adjustable pointed-end bow tie as a vintage Brooks Brothers item. Proving that true style is timeless, Brooks Brothers still offers a pointed-end self-tie bow tie, crafted from black English silk, for $60.

Although when Ike actually does tie his bow tie, he looks sharp.

Ike covers his waist with a black polyester cummerbund that clasps in the back with an adjustable black strap through a silver-toned metal clips that Eric describes as “worn”, possibly indicating yet another true vintage item in Ike’s wardrobe. Apropos the garment’s general reputation as a “crumb catcher”, Ike correctly wears his cummerbund with the pleats opening toward the top.

All of the above items were included in the auction that Eric won. The fact that the shoes and socks – which aren’t seen very clearly in these scenes – weren’t included in the bundle tells me that:

a) The shoes are likely the same black patent leather horsebit loafers that Ike wears with all of his suits throughout the first season.
b) There is likely no major demand for screen-worn socks, and that’s probably a good thing.

Ike and his family (although that could be the whole room based on who he considers to be “family”) enjoy Vera’s show in “Crossroads” (Episode 2.04).

Ike appears to be wearing his 18-karat white gold Longines diamond-studded wristwatch which was appraised at $2,800 and auctioned in February 2014. The silver index dial rests under sapphire crystal and is surrounded by a bezel of 44 round single-cut diamonds. The black leather strap is described in the auction as “I.W. SUISSE black genuine lizard”.

Thanks to Eric, who confirmed that the preferred cigars of Ike and all of Magic City‘s smokers are Partagás from Havana.

Ike’s only accessory is the silver wedding band he wears on the third finger of his left hand, a refreshing symbol of one of the few faithfully-married male protagonists seen in recent period drama TV.

Go Big or Go Home

Compared to the most recent string of male anti-hero protagonists, Ike Evans is the best example of a focused family man. He remains faithful to his wife despite the certainty that a weaker-willed character (looking at you, Don Draper) would indulge himself in the vivacious temptations that surround him, excused by the era’s norms. Devoted to his wife, his two sons, and his young daughter, Ike’s vast ambition and business savvy are a means to an end; for him, this end is a secure life for his family. Ike’s compassion extends beyond his nuclear family to admiration for his deceased wife’s sister, Meg, and many of the staff at the Miramar Playa.

Unfortunately, Ike is forced to make a string of risky decisions to ensure that dream and his association with the brutal gangster Ben “the Butcher” Diamond signifies the Faustian consequences that even a shrewd businessman like Ike can’t foresee. Ike’s impulsively protective nature often places him and other things he values in harm’s way for the short-term protection of another; to protect Judi Silver, a loyal Miramar Playa call girl, he confronts and kills* a devious mob hitman. Judi’s life is saved for now, but Ike’s world – and thus the world of his hotel and his family – will be turned upside down.

* or, at least, “creates the perfect circumstances for the death of”

Despite his more altruistic nature, Ike would still superficially fit in well with the chain-smoking, hard-drinking boys’ club of shows like Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire. A product of his times, Ike is never seen without a smoke in his hand – whether it’s one of his filtered Kool Menthol cigarettes or a fat cigar – lit by his trusty silver Zippo lighter.

The impetus for Ike’s definitive actions in the pilot episode is Frank Sinatra’s pending performance at New Year’s Eve party that could make or break the future of the Miramar Playa. Frank would’ve been at the top of his game at the time, nearly at the end of his seven-year recording contract with Capitol that is defined by its unprecedented streak of artistic revival as Sinatra crooned hit after hit on his then-innovative notion of concept albums. New Year’s 1959 would fall right between the release of Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely and Come Dance with Me!, two of his most popular albums that included Sinatra standards like “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” and “Baubles, Bangles, and Beads”, respectively.

Indeed, Sinatra had the world on a string by 1959, making Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler’s “I’ve Got the World on a String” an apt selection for Sinatra to croon to Ike and his guests while ringing in the new year.

Unfortunately, Ike’s world is on a string too, and the string is about to get snipped.

What to Imbibe

Ike’s preferred drink of choice is Scotch on the rocks, although he brings New Year’s Eve to a crescendo by tipping back some Grand Marnier in the Atlantis Lounge with his son Stevie.

Grand Marnier – and its iconic bottle – is well-known to imbibers as a delicious and versatile digestif that can be sipped neat, used to enhance a mixed drink, or even used as part of a dessert recipe. The French are most fond of this latter practice with popular flambé dishes like Crêpes Suzette making good use of this cordial.

Created in 1880 by Alexandre Marnier-Lapostolle, Grand Marnier is an orange-flavored liqueur made from a blend of Cognac brandy and sugar with its distinctive flavor coming from the distilled essence of bitter orange. Although several variants have been developed since then, the most commonly seen is the original Cordon Rouge (“Red Ribbon”).

How to Get the Look

Ike Evans doesn’t stand on ceremony, and when he gets dressed up for a Sinatra concert, he does so on his terms… just as Ol’ Blue Eyes would appreciate it. He breaks a few rules of formalwear with the details of the jacket, the standard trousers, and his more casual loafers, but he remains comfortable and confident – two attributes far more important than being arbitrarily fashionable.

• Cream single-breasted 1-button dinner jacket with slim shawl lapels, welted breast pocket, flapped hip pockets, single rear vent, and 3-button cuffs
• Black wool flat front Theory trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton twill Ike Behar formal shirt with spread collar, slim-pleated front, rear side darts, and single cuffs
• Black satin silk Brooks Brothers pointed-end bow tie
• Black polyester pleated cummerbund with adjustable back strap and silver metal adjuster clips
• Black patent leather horsebit loafers with silver horsebit detail
• Black dress socks
• Longines white gold wristwatch with round silver dial and diamond-studded bezel on black leather strap
• Silver wedding band

For an added touch of cool, Ike wears a pair of black acetate-framed wayfarer-style sunglasses.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the series.

Ike wears this cream dinner jacket in two first season episodes: “The Year of the Fin” (Episode 1.01) during the New Year’s Eve party and in “Castles Made of Sand” (Episode 1.03) when he interrupts his night out with Vera and Cliff to show Meg around the hotel.

Ike’s cream dinner jacket shows up again during the second season, notably during Vera’s dance performance in “Crossroads” (Episode 2.04).

The Quote

I’m a lucky man.

Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolf in Pulp Fiction (1994).

Vitals

Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolf, problem solver

Los Angeles, Summer 1994

Film: Pulp Fiction
Release Date: October 14, 1994
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Costume Designer: Betsy Heimann

Background

I’m Winston Wolf. I solve problems.

Last Friday, Harvey Keitel turned 77 years old, a birthday that was almost certainly celebrated by Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino has stated that “Harvey had been my favorite actor since I was 16 years old,” so he penned the character of criminal fixer Winston Wolf – and according to the screenplay, it is Wolf and not Wolfe – specifically for Keitel. Two years earlier, the actor’s involvement in Reservoir Dogs as the pragmatic career criminal “Mr. White” helped shoot Q.T. onto the map of filmmakers to watch. The Wolf may have also been a nod to Keitel’s role as Victor, the ruthlessly efficient “cleaner” in 1993’s Point of No Return.

Keitel’s brief appearance as the enigmatic Winston Wolf has remained part of pop culture to this day. Twenty years after Pulp Fiction first appeared in theaters, Keitel again donned a dark double-breasted tux to reprise his role as Winston Wolf in a series of commercials for the British insurance company Direct Line.

What’d He Wear?

The introduction of Winston Wolf is a perfect example of using clothing to tell an audience all they need to know about a character they just met. When we meet the Wolf for the first time, he is in a fashionable hotel suite with fellow well-dressed gamblers and wearing a dinner suit at 8:30 in the morning. We don’t need to know why; all we need to know is that this is the kind of man who not only finds himself in that situation, but to whom that situation isn’t unusual.

After the Wolf takes Marsellus Wallace’s phone call, he gives himself ten minutes to make the half hour drive to Jimmie Dimmick’s abode in suburban Toluca Lake. He shows up at the door in a black double-breasted wool dinner jacket with detailing contemporary to the ’90s.

Hands down, Mr. Wolf is the sharpest-dressed guy in that junkyard.

The Wolf’s dinner jacket has a 6-on-2 button double-breasted front, which he keeps fastened throughout most of his “consultation” unless he is sitting. The wide black satin-faced peak lapels sweep across his chest and curve up toward the shoulders at the points.

The shoulders themselves are softly padded with roped sleeveheads. The sleeves have three buttons at the cuffs. The back of Mr. Wolf’s dinner jacket is ventless, and the front has a welted breast pocket and jetted hip pockets.

Inspecting a bloody ’74 Nova…

Mr. Wolf’s black pleated formal trousers have the expected black satin striping along the side seams. The pant legs slightly taper down to the cuffed bottoms.

Winston Wolf wears a white formal shirt with his tuxedo. The front bib has slim, 1/8″ pleats with round, gold-trimmed black studs down the front placket. The double cuffs are fastened by a set of gold oblong links.

Mr. Wolf takes pride in his work.

The Wolf’s butterfly-shaped bow tie is black silk.

Mr. Wolf appropriately wears formal black leather cap-toe balmorals with black dress socks.

Our fixer makes arrangements from a cozy bedroom windowseat with a cup of joe.

It’s unlike QT to include distinct product placement for luxury brands, but we get a clear shot of The Wolf’s yellow gold Gucci wristwatch. The quartz watch is a Gucci 3000.2.M in a yellow gold-plated case with a black baton dial and black Roman numerals engraved on the gold bezel. Interested buyers can always peruse eBay for a model, although they appear to usually be found with leather straps rather than the gold link bracelet on Mr. Wolf’s wrist.

“I’ll be there in ten.”

Finally, in a bit of an affectation that winks at the Wolf’s connections with gangsterdom, he wears a gold ring on his right pinky with a flush-set square diamond.

Don’t get in the way of Winston Wolf and a cup of coffee.

Go Big or Go Home

INT. HOTEL SUITE – MORNING

The CAMERA looks through the bedroom doorway of a hotel suite
into the main area. We SEE a crap game being played on a
fancy crap table by GAMBLERS in tuxedos and LUCKY LADIES in
fancy evening gowns. The CAMERA PANS to the right revealing:
Sitting on a bed, phone in hand with his back to us, the
tuxedo-clad WINSTON WOLF aka "THE WOLF". We also see The
Wolf has a small notepad that he jots details in.

Mr. Wolf is one of the most memorable of QT’s “single serving” characters. He could be a caricature in almost every way as a walking deus ex machina, but Tarantino’s writing and Keitel’s portrayal keeps him warmly human, impressed by everyday things like a good cup of coffee even in the face of non-everyday tasks like cleaning blood and brains out of a ’74 Nova. He knows what he likes and they’re important to him:

• He values his time… (“If I’m curt with you it’s because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast and I need you guys to act fast if you wanna get out of this. So, pretty please… with sugar on top. Clean the fucking car.”)
• …his car… (“If I get my car back any different than I gave it, Monster Joe’s gonna be disposing of two bodies,” he warns when handing over the keys to his gray’92 Acura NSX. Interestingly, the car as scripted was a silver Porsche.)
• …and his coffee. (“Lots of cream, lots of sugar,” while most stereotypical movie badasses feel the need to drink their coffee incredibly black.)

The Wolf offers his compliments to Jimmie Dimmick for his excellent coffee.

One of the Wolf’s greatest attributes is his confident decisiveness. He can ingest a crisis and figure out his solution within seconds; based on his reputation and ability to live through a Tarantino flick, we can assume that he’s got a hell of a track record for solving problems. He prioritizes at first, improvises as needed, and delivers effortlessly. When he earns Jules’ hard-fought praise (“Mr. Wolf… I just wanna say it was a real pleasure watching you work”), he responds in kind with a smile and the warm assurance that Jules has earned the right to engage him in a first-name basis.

Producer and director Justin Szlasa even wrote an essay for Indiewire on the importance of a manager like “Winston Wolfe – someone who’s a top-notch manager, able to respond to any crisis with focus and grace… a model of efficiency under pressure — a no-nonsense performer who got the job done with style.”

How to Get the Look

Let’s say you find yourself invited to play cards all night at a respectable hotel in a situation that may last until the morning. This is your time to shine. This is your time to channel Winston Wolf.

• Black wool double-breasted 6-on-2 button dinner jacket with wide satin-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Black wool pleated formal trousers with black satin side stripe, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffed bottoms
• White formal shirt with spread collar, slim-pleated front bib with round gold-trimmed black studs, and double/French cuffs
• Black silk butterfly-shaped bow tie
• Gold oblong cuff links
• Black leather cap-toe balmorals/oxfords
• Black dress socks
• Gucci 3000.2.M quartz wristwatch with yellow gold-plated case, black baton dial, and gold bezel on gold link bracelet
• Gold flush-set diamond pinky ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

I’m not here to say “please”, I’m here to tell you what to do, and – if self-preservation is an instinct you possess – you’d better fucking do it and do it quick.

Ray Milland as Stanford White in The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955).

Vitals

Ray Milland as Stanford White, debonair playboy architect

New York City, June 1906

Film: The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing
Release Date: October 1, 1955
Director: Richard Fleischer
Wardrobe Director: Charles Le Maire

Background

Tomorrow is the 110th anniversary of the famous Madison Square Garden shooting of architect Stanford White by the deranged Harry Kendall Thaw, one of the first of many incidents dubbed as “The Trial of the Century” by contemporary reporters due to the juicy scandal embellished by manipulative millionaires and illicit sex.

On June 25, 1906, the psychotic Thaw was escorting his wife, actress and artists’ model Evelyn Nesbit, to the premiere performance of Mam’zelle Champagne at Madison Square Garden’s rooftop theater. Nesbit, renowned for her beauty as the archetypical “Gibson Girl”, had married Thaw the previous year despite his violent and manipulative desire to control her. One of Thaw’s most tenacious provocations was the subject of Stanford White, Nesbit’s former lover and the man who had – in Thaw’s eyes – robbed her of her virtue.

The real Stanford White, in fact a heavily mustached man, sometime in the early 1900s.

Thaw, born in Pittsburgh to a coal and rail baron family, knew nothing but privilege throughout his life. This distorted and spoiled existence – combined with his obvious mental instability – led to his development into a reckless and selfish profligate who could be triggered by the most petty of slights. He began a manipulative campaign to meet and seduce Evelyn Nesbit after spying her in a show, at the time unaware of her previous liaison with his imagined rival Stanford White. Learning that the object of his latest affection had once been involved with White enraged Thaw, who responded violently and would frequently force both himself and Nesbit to recount the events of her initial seduction. His obsession built up for years until all three found themselves taking in the same summer show on the rooftop of the White-designed Madison Square Garden.

Thaw, armed with a revolver and a perverted sense of justice, approached White and fatally shot him three times before pronouncing, “You’ve ruined my wife!”

Despite the obvious selfishness of this violent act, Thaw’s lawyer is shown in the film summing up their defense tactic of “Those twelve men in the jury must be convinced that Harry K. Thaw was the defender of American womanhood,” an argument that may have led to Thaw being found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Fifty years later, Nesbit herself served as the technical adviser for a somewhat sanitized adaptation of this early chapter in her life, the 1955 film The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, borrowing the moniker that stuck to Nesbit after her and White’s activities in his apartment were made public. After Marilyn Monroe turned down the role, Joan Collins was cast as Evelyn Nesbit with Ray Milland and Farley Granger portraying White and Thaw, respectively.

The film mostly delivers a straightforward retelling of the facts, including the unfair vilification of Evelyn Nesbit in favor of examining the actions and motivations of the two possessive, hopelessly privileged, and ultimately careless men in her life. Ray Milland portrays a correctly debonair (though not-quite-caddish-enough) Stanford White who assumes control over Nesbit’s life after feeling the guilt of his manipulative seduction of her.

White expects us to respect him for resisting the advances of a 16-year-old woman three decades his junior, which he does by reciting pretentious poetry about their age difference and using it to claim superiority when making decisions about their “romance”:

That’s all I need, having you cry now. You’re going to get some food and conversation from a Dutch uncle.

Although White’s control is less violent than Thaw’s, it’s no less manipulative and perfectly illustrated by the pleasure he exudes from pushing her around in the titular swing, a reflection of both his desire to control her and his sexualization of the age difference from which he also derives so much obvious guilt.

What’d He Wear?

We first meet Stanford White in the summer of 1901, wearing a shining example of gentlemanly white tie and black tailcoat while bickering with Harry Thaw over a table at an exclusive Manhattan restaurant. Five years later, and five years deeper into the Edwardian era, White is shown returning to the restaurant wearing the increasingly popular black tie and tuxedo.

Stanford White moves through the tailcoat-clad restaurant in his slightly less formal dinner jacket.

According to the Black Tie Guide:

At the beginning of Edward’s reign evening etiquette was the same two-tier system introduced in his mother’s era. The formal tailcoat ensemble remained de rigueur for an evening out in public alongside ladies’ elaborate evening gowns while the “dinner coat” or “Tuxedo coat” was largely confined to a man’s home, club or stag parties. Warm weather also exempted men from the full-dress rule, making the alternative jacket ever more popular at upscale holiday getaways on both sides of the Atlantic.

This being a warm summer night in 1906, White’s “alternative” dinner jacket would have been more acceptable in this context than it would have at the beginning of the decade, although the presence of women both at dinner and the show would have likely meant that white tie would still be expected from a gentleman of Stanford White’s social standing.

Stanford White wears a classic midnight blue single-breasted dinner jacket with shawl lapels faced in a smooth satin silk. The shoulders are padded with roped sleeveheads, and the back is ventless.

White surveys the scene over at Madison Square Garden.

White’s dinner jacket has a welted breast pocket, where he carries a white silk handkerchief, and jetted pockets that sit straight on his hips. Both the single button in the front and the 3-button cuffs are covered in the same shiny satin as the lapel facings. His midnight blue wool formal trousers matches the dinner jacket with satin side stripes that reflect the lapel facings.

Throughout the first decade of the 20th century, the tuxedo was still finding its awkward place among the rules of a stricter society. By the end of the decade (and the Edwardian era), the black bow tie and waistcoat were standardized and would become enduring rules for the basics of men’s formal dress. White wears a single-breasted waistcoat in midnight blue satin that rises to mid-chest with a soft V-shaped opening, self-covered buttons, and no lapels.

Two diamond studs are visible above the waistcoat opening, prominently fastened to the starched plain bib of White’s formal shirt. The shirt likely has single cuffs with matching diamond links. The shirt has a stiff standing imperial (or “poke”) collar, a style that would be gradually supplanted by the detached wing collar as the era progressed. White’s black satin silk bow tie has a slim butterfly shape.

Only the somewhat outdated poke collar dates this outfit to the early 1900s. Otherwise, it would look just as fashionable and stylish today.

Although only briefly seen, White appears to be wearing a pair of black patent leather balmorals with black dress socks, certainly a fitting choice of footwear although both dress boots and pumps were still popular alternatives for both white and black tie at the turn of the century.

Black silk top hats were still the expected headgear for formally-dressed men of the Edwardian era, but White opts for the more summer-friendly straw boater with a black ribbon and a brown leather band along the inside.

White coolly sits with his hat on his table when Harry Thaw approaches him with his gold revolver drawn.

A brief earlier scene that finds White speaking to both Evelyn Nesbit and her mother features the same outfit under a black single-breasted Chesterfield coat made from milled melton cloth with three hidden buttons under a fly front, straight flapped hip pockets, and Tautz-style straight-gorge peak lapels.

White mansplains a few things about courtship to Mrs. Nesbit (Glenda Farrell).

He also briefly wears this coat when wearing white tie and escorting Evelyn up to his apartment for the titular “red velvet swing” incident.

How to Get the Look

Joan Collins and Ray Milland in a promotional photo for The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955).

As a cosmopolitan socialite, Stanford White would be knowledgable about cutting-edge fashion, just as comfortable breaking the rules of sartorial decorum as he is comfortable with breaking the rules of courtship.

• Midnight blue wool single-breasted 1-button dinner jacket with satin-faced shawl lapels, welted breast pocket, jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• White formal shirt with standing imperial/poke collar, 2 diamond studs on plain front bib, and single cuffs
• Black satin slim butterfly-style bow tie
• Midnight blue single-breasted formal waistcoat
• Midnight blue wool formal trousers with satin side striping
• Black patent leather balmorals
• Black dress socks
• Straw boater with black ribbon

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

Paula Uruburu’s 2009 book American Eve is a great, well-researched read that sheds plenty of light on the story and the era as a whole.

The Quote

You don’t have to finish that sentence, Mrs. Nesbit. I’m a man who shaves himself. No pleasure for me to look into these eyes of mine every morning.

George Clooney as Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Eleven (2001).

Vitals

George Clooney as Danny Ocean, smooth-talking casino heister and con man

Las Vegas, Summer 2001

Film: Ocean’s Eleven
Release Date: December 7, 2001
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Costume Designer: Jeffrey Kurland

Background

Although he aimed to distance himself from the original Ocean’s Eleven as much as possible with this 2001 remake, Steven Soderbergh must have realized that you don’t have George Clooney in a movie about slick Vegas con men without placing him in a tuxedo. Danny Ocean’s tux was a very welcome throwback to a time when people didn’t wear graphic t-shirts, cutoff jorts, and fanny packs to casinos. (Although, since Frank Sinatra didn’t wear a tuxedo at all in the 1960 film, it could be argued that Clooney’s dinner suit is more of a throwback to characters like Cary Grant‘s gentleman thief in To Catch a Thief.)

According to IMDB, the cast made the most of their time in the gambling capital of America by spending plenty of time at the tables. According to George Clooney, Matt Damon was the biggest winner, but Damon himself says it was Brad Pitt. No matter who won the most, it’s reported that Clooney lost at least 25 hands of blackjack in a row. No wonder Danny stuck to the slot machines.

What’d He Wear?

On the evening of the big heist, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) and his security team spot Danny hanging out at the slot machines while sporting a black wool tuxedo and a casually untied bow tie around his neck. Once he knows he’s gotten their attention, he straightens himself up and cleans up his appearance as he goes to see Tess.

Danny makes sure he looks his best when going to see the ex.

Danny’s black dinner jacket is double-breasted with wide satin-faced peak lapels and a low six-on-one button front. All buttons, including the three functional buttons on each cuff, are also covered in black satin. A buttonhole is stitched into the left lapel.

Most prisons don’t offer tuxedo-pressing services, much to Danny’s chagrin.

The double-breasted dinner jacket has a classic style with the straight padded shoulders offering a strong silhouette with a ventless back. The hip pockets are straight with satin jetting, and there is no breast pocket or any sort of lapel ornamentation.

Before and after prison. (This time, at least.)

Although he removes his jacket and shirt when carrying out the actual robbery, Danny keeps wearing his formal trousers. It’s a reasonable decision as it saves him both the time and effort of packing extra pants and changing in and out of them. Since he intends to look beaten up by Bruiser, it’s also a practical way to give the trousers some extra wear that the supposed beating would provide.

Danny’s formal trousers are flat front with a high rise to the waist and a single satin stripe down the side of each leg to the plain-hemmed bottoms. He has straight pockets which open just behind the side stripes and two jetted rear pockets.

Luckily for Danny, his formal trousers still look pretty good with his tactical t-shirt and vest.

Danny foregoes wearing a cummerbund, vest, or any other sort of waist covering. Not only would it be an extra garment to deal with during his repeated “costume changes”, but it’s also unnecessary with a double-breasted dinner jacket that entirely covers the waist.

Danny wears a white cotton shirt with a point collar and a piqué bib front designed to resemble the formal British Marcella shirt. The shirt takes four large black studs through the bib, which has a rounded bottom.

For the most part, Danny keeps his black satin bow tie untied which certainly isn’t the correct way to wear it but is more in keeping with the informality of 21st century Las Vegas. It is a refreshing indication that he is wearing a classic self-tie rather than a pre-tied or – gasp! – clip-on version. When he does tie it, it takes a large butterfly shape.

The cuff links worn through the shirt’s non-piqué square French cuffs are silver octagons with mother-of-pearl center settings.

Danny reaches into his goodie bag.

Danny’s shoes, which he wears with the trousers for both his time on the casino floor and down in the vault, are black leather 4-eyelet cap toe bluchers. Bluchers are typically considered to be too informal with a dinner suit, although patent leather bluchers would be more acceptable than the black calf that Danny wears. Balmorals or oxfords are considered to be the most formal contemporary dress shoes. Naturally, Danny wears a pair of fine black socks that extend far enough up the leg that they’re not seen when he’s flailing around during his faux beating from Bruiser.

Wouldn’t he look worse than this after a few hours of sustained beating? Benedict should’ve been suspicious… oh wait, he was.

Other than his wristwatches, Danny’s only piece of jewelry is the plain silver wedding band that he wears on the third finger of his left hand. Unlike Tess, he makes no claim to having gotten rid of it.

Sly!

Danny’s wristwatch is a Hamilton Linwood Viewmatch powered by an automatic 25-jewel movement, an elegant, reliable, and practical choice for a man who embodies all three. The round 38 mm case is polished stainless steel, worn on a 16 mm-wide black crocodile leather strap that fastens through a steel tang buckle. The textured silver dial has gold-toned hands, plain gold and black hour markers, and a small date window at 3:00.

The Hamilton is Danny’s primary watch throughout Ocean’s Eleven.

During the actual heist, Danny wears a second watch – an all-black Luminox with white numerals on the black dial and rotating black bezel. It lacks a sub-dial and is most likely a variant of the Luminox 3000 series, similar to the Luminox 3001 worn by Paul Walker in The Fast and the Furious, also released in 2001.

No bandit team is complete without matching watches…

Evidently, the Luminox is standard issue for Danny’s heist team as Linus Caldwell (Damon) wears the exact same one.

The actual heist also finds Danny sporting a black cotton crew neck short-sleeve t-shirt and a black leather vest, both of which he was supposedly wearing underneath his formal jacket and shirt. The black leather vest covers his whole torso with velcro straps over each shoulder and a short zipper under the left arm. He also dons a pair of black tactical gloves. Since Danny’s operation is mostly inside and incorporates his black formal trousers, this is a better use of black covert attire than 007 sported in Goldfinger as I featured in Wednesday’s post.

…and matching vests.

Of course, Danny’s overdressing leads to a very entertaining exchange when he leaves the pokey after a few months for violating parole and runs into his much flashier lieutenant.

Rusty: (re: Danny’s tuxedo) I hope you were the groom.
Danny: (re: Rusty’s awful shirt) Ted Nugent called. He wants his shirt back.

Although the scene is meant to evoke the opening of the film when Danny is released from prison in black tie, it should be pointed out that the two tuxedoes are different. Notably, the first dinner jacket is single-breasted with notch lapels. Danny wisely opts for the more luxurious double-breasted dinner jacket when carrying out the film’s climactic heist.

Danny’s dinner suit from the opening scene is clearly different than the one he later wears in Vegas. That’s one classy con man!

Clooney again sports a black single-breasted dinner jacket with notch lapels in Ocean’s Thirteen during that film’s casino con.

How to Get the Look

Danny Ocean is a throwback to an era of “honor among thieves” before a trip to Las Vegas meant seeing old t-shirts and ratty cargo shorts. You’d be hard-pressed to find any other man in this day and age who takes so much pride in his appearance while committing a crime.

• Black wool double-breasted dinner jacket with wide peak lapels, 6×1 satin-covered button front, jetted hip pockets, 3 satin-covered functional cuff buttons, and ventless back
• Black wool formal trousers with satin side stripe, on-seam side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton formal shirt with point collar, piqué bib front with 4 black studs, and double/French cuffs
• Black satin butterfly-shaped bow tie
• Silver octagonal cuff links with white mother-of-pearl centers
• Black calf leather 4-eyelet cap-toe bluchers
• Black dress socks
• Hamilton Linwood Viewmatch wristwatch with a polished stainless steel case and textured silver dial on a black crocodile leather strap
• Silver plain wedding band

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

There’s a ninety-five pound Chinese man with 160 million dollars behind this door.

Footnote

I thought I was so clever by putting this Ocean’s Eleven post on October Eleventh. If anything, I’m just a nerd.

Robert Redford as Johnny Hooker in The Sting (1973).

Vitals

Robert Redford as Johnny Hooker, Depression-era con artist

Chicago, September 1936

Film: The Sting
Release Date: December 25, 1973
Director: George Roy Hill
Costume Designer: Edith Head

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

To celebrate Robert Redford’s 80th birthday next week, I’m revisiting one of my favorite Redford flicks. After the incredible success of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the chemistry of Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the starring roles, both actors re-teamed four years later to play washed-up con artist Henry Gondorff (Newman) and his de facto protégé, Johnny Hooker (Redford).

The titular sting is a con that Gondorff and Hooker expertly organize to swindle crime boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) as revenge for Lonnegan’s brutal killing of a well-liked associate. The con is centered around an illegal off-track betting parlor where the two men pose as feuding gamblers. As the plot thickens, the lines are blurred to the point where even the audience is unsure of who is trying to con whom, leading to one of the most famous denouements in movie history.

For BAMF Style readers fortunate enough to live in the Pittsburgh area, Row House Cinema in Lawrenceville will be showing The Sting during its “Essential American Cinema: The 1970s” week from August 19-25. (The Godfather and Grey Gardens will also be shown during the week. Don’t miss!)

What’d He Wear?

In their guises as slick wire store bookies Shaw and Kelly, Gondorff and Hooker each don a black tuxedo. Fitting for their roles, Gondorff’s dinner jacket has more traditional shawl lapels while Hooker wears a somewhat sportier black dinner jacket with wide peak lapels. The sharp lapels have a lifted collar and satin facings. The shoulders are very wide and well-padded with roped sleeveheads. The jacket is tailored to emphasize these strong shoulders and appear lean through the torso.

Black Tie Guide reports that this style was losing popularity by 1940 when Esquire advised its readers “to stick to tradition to avoid being mistaken for bandmasters, ‘a tribe noted for wasp waistlines, barn-broad shoulders and Himalayan high rise trousers’.”

The cigarette girl working the room is another symbol of a bygone era.

The way that Hooker’s jacket shines under certain light suggests the possibility of being mohair or a mohair-wool blend. Appropriately for a dinner jacket, it has straight jetted hip pockets, a single welted breast pocket, a ventless back, and silk-covered buttons. Although the three covered buttons on each cuff is nothing out of the ordinary, the jacket very curiously has a two-button front; traditionally, a single-breasted dinner jacket should only have a single button to close the front. Recently, Daniel Craig’s ivory Tom Ford dinner jacket in Spectre received some criticism for its two-button front.

Redford.

Although Esquire would report within a year after the film’s setting that the attached turndown collar had superseded it in terms of popularity, the wing collar formal shirt is the dress shirt of choice for both Gondorff and Hooker when donning their respective black tie ensembles. Hooker’s dress shirt is white piqué with three studs on the plain front bib. Both the shirt studs and the cuff links are black squares with silver trim, although the cuff links are much larger. This shirt may have been one of the Anto shirts that the manufacturer provided to The Sting for Robert Redford to wear.

I did warn about spoilers above, right?

Hooker’s black satin silk bow tie has a large butterfly shape. It is clearly a pre-tied model with the hook visible under the bow (typically the left side), which should be especially avoided with a wing collar shirt when the clasp has nowhere to hide. By the 1930s, it was indeed customary for a man’s bow tie fabric to match the facings of his dinner jacket lapels.

Can’t unsee that bow tie hook!

Hooker wears a pair of white suspenders over his shirt. Not much is seen of these braces, which connect to his trousers somewhere under his cummerbund, but the adjusters appear to be brass.

Hooker hits the Bushmills after a rough day.

Hooker’s formal trousers match his dinner jacket in a similar black mohair-wool fabric with a single black satin stripe down each side. They have double reverse pleats, straight side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms with a short break.

Hooker tries to keep himself calm as the drama unfolds in Shaw’s betting parlor.

Hooker wears a wide black silk pleated cummerbund to cleanly transition between his shirt and trousers. However, Black Tie Guide found an example from The New Etiquette, published in 1937 a year after The Sting is set, that states that “the pleated formal sash” was only acceptable with a black tuxedo in a resort setting; more general acceptance of cummerbunds was still a decade away.

Black patent leather shoes and black socks are the most acceptable form of footwear with black tie, but Hooker takes an additional step back from formality by sporting bluchers (or derby shoes), a less dressy alternative to the more formal balmoral shoe.

Hooker struts back down into the wire store. The shoes worn by men in The Sting must have the loudest soles I’ve ever heard on screen.

Homburg hats and chesterfield coats were the preferred outerwear with black tie during this era, but Hooker opts instead to wear his everyday fedora with a trench coat when venturing outside the gambling den. His wide-brimmed fedora is dark gray felt with a wide black grosgrain ribbon.

Hooker gets the surprise of his life in a Chicago back alley.

Hooker’s tan belted trench coat has tartan plaid lining that suggests Burberry. The lapels are wide and often worn with the collar upturned over Hooker’s neck, although he leaves the small double latch open over the throat to expose his bow tie. The cuffs are fitted with thin straps that adjust through a brass buckle, and the ribbed belt fastens around the waist through a larger brass single-claw buckle. The back has a large storm flap and a long vent up to nearly the waist. All of the buttons are light tan plastic, and the epaulette straps are each secured to the shoulder with a single button at the neck.

With the collar of his trench coat turned up and hat brim pulled down over his face, Hooker looks every bit the film noir hero as he dashes around Chicago to execute his double-crossing schemes.

Throughout The Sting (and most of his movies), Robert Redford wears a plain silver ring on the third finger of his right hand, which the actor has stated was a gift from Hopi Indians in 1966. We can also assume that he’s wearing the same silver chain necklace with its large round pendant as he wears in other scenes.

As opposed to his usual sleeveless undershirts, though, a white cotton short-sleeve t-shirt appears to be Hooker’s undershirt of choice when sporting his formalwear.

How to Get the Look

Although he certainly wears a classic-inspired black tie ensemble for his days and nights in the betting parlor, Johnny Hooker is still a less polished amateur who was thrust into a world of professionals and, thus, is more prone to breaking a few sartorial rules.

• Black mohair-wool single-breasted 2-button dinner jacket with wide satin-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Black mohair-wool double reverse-pleated formal trousers with satin side stripes, straight side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White piqué formal dress shirt with detachable wing collar, plain front bib with three black square studs with silver edge trim, and double/French cuffs
• Black satin silk butterfly-shaped bow tie
• Black pleated silk cummerbund
• Black square cuff links with silver edge trim
• White suspenders with brass adjusters
• Black patent leather plain-toe bluchers
• Black dress socks
• Dark gray felt fedora with thick black ribbon
• Tan belted trench coat with large lapels, button-down epaulettes, handwarmer pockets, cuff straps, small brass double throat latch, and long single vent
• White cotton short-sleeve crew-neck undershirt
• Plain silver ring (on right ring finger)
• Silver necklace with round pendant

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

…I’d only blow it.

Christian Bale and Cara Seymour as Patrick Bateman and Christie, respectively, in American Psycho (2000).

Vitals

Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, shallow investment banker and possible serial killer

New York City, Spring 1988

Film: American Psycho
Release Date: April 14, 2000
Director: Mary Harron
Costume Designer: Isis Mussenden

Background

Halloween approaching is a fine time to address a monster in human form like Patrick Bateman who may have been a sharp dresser (for the ’80s) but was undoubtedly a terrible human being (in any era!)

You can tell Bateman is trying his best to be seen as a classy host; he plays Phil Collins, after all! Of course, Bateman is hindered by the fact that no classy evening should ever include the words “don’t just stare at it, eat it!”

What’d He Wear?

In the chapter “Thursday” of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, Patrick Bateman describes his attire:

I’m wearing a six-button double-breasted wool-crepe tuxedo with pleated trousers and a silk grosgrain bow tie, all by Valentino.

A style-hound like Bateman likely picked up his tuxedo after reading about the resurgence of 1930s formalwear, especially the double-breasted dinner jacket, in GQ’s annual formalwear roundup in December 1984. As excerpted by Black Tie Guide: “To be sure, the Thirties remain the inspiration: double-breasted dinner jackets with peaked satin or grosgrain lapels…”

The film American Psycho perfectly brings Bateman’s formalwear to life with a yuppie update of the ’30s double-breasted dinner jacket. The black dinner jacket worn by Christian Bale on screen has a 6-on-2 button double-breasted front and a long, full cut. The full-bellied peak lapels are satin-faced and sweep out wide across his chest, pointing up toward each shoulder. Each lapel has a buttonhole that runs parallel to the slanted gorge.

Bateman methodically frames his evening.

While likely not wool crepe, Bateman’s dinner jacket has a sheen that implies possibly mohair, silk, or a blend. The shoulders are padded and extend very wide. There is a welted breast pocket, jetted hip pockets, and ventless back. The buttons on the front and the three buttons on each cuff are all covered in black satin silk.

The matching formal trousers are fully cut to match the excess style of the ’80s. They have double reverse pleats, slightly slanted side pockets, and no back pockets. A satin stripe runs down each side of the trousers down to the plain-hemmed bottoms.

The trouser waistband is plain with no belt loops or adjusters. The suspenders fasten to six buttons inside his waistband: two in the back and two sets of two in the front. The braces themselves are white and wide, divided into three equal-width stripes each separated by a hairline black stripe. Two black rectangular tabs in the front separate the braces from the white fabric double runner ends that hook through the inner right and left buttons of the trouser waistband. A black leather patch in the back center meets the two front straps before they converge. The back section of the suspenders connect to his trouser waistband with a black leather double-button ear in the center.

You’ll never think of “Sussudio” the same way again.

Bateman wears a white formal shirt with a point collar and narrowly-pleated front bib. The four round yellow gold studs down the placket match the larger yellow gold cuff links that fasten each of the shirt’s double cuffs. His butterfly-shaped bow tie is black satin silk, matching his lapel facings.

A shit-eating grin… the natural result from many years of not just staring at it, ifyouknowwhatImean.

Only briefly seen, Bateman’s footwear is the formality-appropriate black patent leather balmorals with black silk dress socks.

Bateman briefly ignores his bathing “guest” to take a phone call.

When venturing outside, Bateman complements his aspired image as a dashing young chauffeured businessman with a beige cashmere scarf draped around his neck.

Patrick Bateman’s “charm” is lost on Christie, one of the few characters who sees him for who he is.

Don’t touch the watch!

In the book, the line was “Don’t touch the Rolex,” although the brand had obvious misgivings about being so blatantly included in the more accessible cinematic adaptation. Still, the line would have been an accurate one as Bale’s Bateman (not be confused with Bale’s Batman) wears a Rolex DateJust in mixed “Rolesor” yellow and white gold  with a 36mm case and gold dial, closed over his left wrist on a two-tone “Jubilee” bracelet.

How to Get the Look

The definitive Me Decade yuppie, Patrick Bateman’s black tie ensemble is accurate to the ’80s with its oversized homage to the ’30s.

• Black mohair double-breasted dinner jacket with satin-faced wide peak lapels, silk-covered 6-on-2 button front, welted breast pocket, jetted straight hip pockets, silk-covered 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Black mohair reverse-pleated formal trousers with satin side stripes, plain waistband, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White formal dress shirt with point collar, narrow pleated bib (with four gold studs), and double/French cuffs
• Black satin silk butterfly-shaped bow tie
• Gold cuff links
• White triple-striped suspenders with black leather accents
• Black leather cap-toe balmorals
• Black silk dress socks
• Beige cashmere scarf
• Rolex DateJust in stainless 36mm case with two-tone yellow gold and stainless “Jubilee” bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

Do you like Phil Collins?

Robert Redford as Nathan Muir in Spy Game (2001)

Vitals

Robert Redford as Nathan Muir, experienced CIA case officer

Berlin, Winter 1977

Film: Spy Game
Release Date: November 21, 2001
Director: Tony Scott
Costume Designer: Louise Frogley
Redford’s Costumer: David Page

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

When Nathan Muir is being questioned by the CIA about his history with Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt), one particular incident that receives attention is Operation Rodeo, best remembered by Muir as “the Cathcart affair” for the involvement of embassy mole Anne Cathcart (Charlotte Rampling).

Vivaldi’s “Spring” concerto from The Four Seasons, performed by Nigel Kennedy and the English Chamber Orchestra, cuts in as the film flashes back again to Berlin in 1977. Muir is in black tie with a glass of single malt in his hand, accompanying his “cousin” (Andrea Osvárt) to a party where the two encounter the enigmatic Ms. Cathcart.

Cathcart: That Scotch is older than she is…
Muir: Am I supposed to feel bad about that?

What’d He Wear?

While Tom Bishop is out with an East German informant speeding through the back streets of Berlin in his beaten-up Škoda, Muir is hobnobbing with the elite of the spying community at a black tie gathering that would’ve surely made 007 salivate. His black wool dinner jacket has satin-faced peak lapels that are fashionably wide for the late ’70s and roll to the single-button closure. Both the single front button and the three buttons on each cuff are covered in black silk.

Muir, his “cousin”, and Anne Cathcart.

Muir completes his tuxedo with a pair of black wool formal trousers with a satin stripe on the side of each leg and plain-hemmed bottoms. A pleated black silk cummerbund covers his waist.

An urgent call!

Robert Redford is a frequent customer of Anto Beverly Hills, so it was Anto that provided his tuxedo shirt in Spy Game. The white formal shirt is Swiss cotton with a long point collar and five 3/4″ pleats on each side of the front placket. The small, gold-trimmed black shirt studs match the larger rounded square cuff links in each of the shirt’s double (French) cuffs.

Underneath, Muir wears a white cotton crew-neck short-sleeved t-shirt as an undershirt.

Muir also wears a black satin bow tie, self-tied with a butterfly shape.

Muir ventures out onto a Berlin rooftop early that morning for a covert meeting with Bishop following the failed extraction of Schmidt and the successful unveiling of Cathcart the mole. To combat the morning chill, Muir dons a black wool car coat with styling details borrowed from a traditional pea coat like the wide Ulster collar, hand pockets, and double-breasted front (consisting of six widely-spaced buttons, with three to button). The coat has roped sleeveheads and a short fit that ends at his hips.

The rooftop scenes also reveal Muir’s footwear with his black tie ensemble. He wears black patent leather oxfords, the most formal shoe option after the opera pump, and black dress socks.

Redford on a roof.

Muir wears the same accessories on his right hand as he does throughout Spy Game. His stainless steel wristwatch is a Victorinox Swiss Army Officer’s 1884 watch with a white dial on a stainless link bracelet. The ring on his third finger is the silver ring that Robert Redford received as a gift from Hopi Indians in 1966 and wears in most of his films. He also appears to have a gold wedding ring on his left hand.

Muir isn’t used to orders not being obeyed.

The gold-framed aviator-style eyeglasses that Muir wears are consistent with his specs seen in most of the film’s 1970s-set scenes; after that, he switches to a pair of Oliver Peoples glasses.

How to Get the Look

Nathan Muir fashionably incorporates 1970s trends into an ultimately timeless tuxedo for a night of espionage and intrigue.

Andrea Osvárt and Robert Redford.

• Black wool single-breasted 1-button dinner jacket with wide satin-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, and silk-covered 3-button cuffs
• Black wool formal trousers with black satin side stripes and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White Swiss cotton formal shirt with long point collar, 3/4″-pleated front, gold-trimmed black studs down front placket, and double/French cuffs
• Black satin butterfly-shaped bow tie
• Black patent leather oxfords/balmorals
• Black dress socks
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeve t-shirt
• Black wool double-breasted 6×3-button car coat with Ulster collar and hand pockets
• Victorinox Swiss Army Officer’s 1884 wristwatch with stainless 41mm case, white dial, and stainless link bracelet, worn on right wrist
• Silver Hopi Indian ring with black imprint, worn on right ring finger
• Gold wedding band, worn on left ring finger
• Gold square-framed “aviator” eyeglasses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

It’s no kid’s game, either, but a whole other game… and it’s serious, and it’s dangerous, and it’s not one you want to lose.

Cary Grant as Nickie Ferrante in An Affair to Remember (1957)

Vitals

Cary Grant as Nicolò “Nickie” Ferrante, socialite playboy

Onboard the SS Constitution in the Mediterranean, December 1956

Film: An Affair to Remember
Release Date: July 2, 1957
Director: Leo McCarey
Executive Wardrobe Designer: Charles Le Maire

Background

Valentine’s Day being on a Tuesday this year is no excuse for not pulling out the stops to impress that special someone. The romantic holiday calls for a double dose of Cary Grant, known for his debonair demeanor both on and off screen.

Following a reader request from Gleb received last October, BAMF Style is taking a look at the distinctive and sophisticated tuxedo that Grant wears while romancing Deborah Kerr aboard the SS Constitution in 1957’s An Affair to Remember.

What’d He Wear?

Given that the film lent its title to a number of tuxedo rental shops, it’s only fitting that An Affair to Remember would feature Cary Grant in one of his most debonair black tie ensembles. Grant’s character, Nickie Ferrante, dresses for dinner in a midnight blue worsted dinner jacket with a distinctive single-link button closure. The link-front design had fallen relatively out of vogue by World War II, mostly popular during the waning years of the Edwardian era as the dinner jacket itself was eclipsing the formal tailcoat in men’s eveningwear though it remained a natty alternative through the early decades of the 20th century.

Nickie and Terry trade barbs in her stateroom.

Grant’s dinner jacket has sharply pointed peak lapels with satin facings and buttonholes. The long, wide lapels extend down to the low stance of the link-button front, working in tandem with Grant’s tall 6’2″ frame to create a luxurious V shape that follows the flattering fifties cut of the dinner jacket, widest at the padded shoulders and suppressed through the waist for a strong silhouette.

Grant wears a distinctive matching midnight waistcoat with a low V-shaped opening and a large single-button closure. The full back appears to be covered in midnight satin, glimpsed at certain angles when Grant shifts around in Kerr’s stateroom. The waistcoat nicely complements the low button stance of his dinner jacket.

Although smoking is a frequent motif in An Affair to Remember, it was while filming this movie that Cary Grant eventually dropped his sixty-a-day cigarette habit that he had developed since he was 7 years old. (Yes, 7!)

The trousers are midnight blue worsted to match the dinner jacket with a satin side stripe down each leg and side pockets – likely cut just behind those stripes – where Grant often places his hands, even when sitting. The bottoms are appropriately plain-hemmed with no cuffs.

Clever framing with Grant and Kerr in the middle, flanked by the “angel on her shoulder” (her fiance’s photo) on the left and the “devil on her shoulder” (her bed, albeit a single one) on the right.

The white formal shirt has a long-pointed semi-spread soft collar, a favorite of Grant’s, and a plain front where he wears two diamond studs visible above the waistcoat. The squared double (French) cuffs are fastened with a set of silver-trimmed mother-of-pearl chain-style links. The midnight blue satin silk bow tie is butterfly-shaped and, naturally, self-tied rather than adjustable or pre-tied.

The chain-style links are two-sided, visible on both sides of his wrist as Cary Grant here appears to be mansplaining either elevator mechanics or appropriate serving methods to Deborah Kerr.

The most appropriate shoe for black tie is the formal oxford (balmoral), and Grant here wears a pair of square-toed black leather oxfords with black silk socks.

The Cary Grant fan club awaits him as he descends the deck stairs.

Nickie’s wristwatch is likely the same gold Cartier tank watch that Grant preferred to wear in real life.

Never call him late for dinner.

For a rainy evening at the opera, Nickie Ferrante opts for practicality over formality, wearing a black waterproof raincoat with a short Prussian collar, fly front, and set-in sleeves. He leaves only the top button of his raincoat undone, revealing a white cashmere scarf tied in an ascot-style overhand knot. Once his cab pulls away, he dons a black felt homburg with a black grosgrain band.

Back in New York, a little rain must fall.

What to Imbibe

Nickie Ferrante glides into the lounge of the SS Constitution and at first orders a champagne cocktail before recalling his earlier conversation with Terry McKay.

Nickie: Don’t you think life should be gay and bright a bubbly like champagne?
Terry: I like pink champagne.
Nickie: Yes, that’s the kind I mean – pink champagne. Now is there any reason why from now on, this trip shouldn’t be pink champagne?

Although Terry had nixed his romantic advances by pointing to her fiance, Nickie’s spirits haven’t been soured and he amends his order to a glass of pink champagne before asking the bartender where he can pick up cigarettes. When he returns with his fresh pack of Chesterfields, Nickie is just as surprised as Terry to find that they have both been served glasses of pink champagne, placed inches away from each other on the bar.

So much for keeping a low profile…

The pink champagne served in the 1950s at the time of An Affair to Remember would have typically been the sweet sparkling variety that was developed in response to drinkers who wanted an alternative to dry Brut champagnes. Since then, dry variations of rosé champagne have been developed by adding a touch of still Pinot Noir to sparkling cuvée or the less common saignée method of bleeding the clear juice after limited black grape skin contact.

How to Get the Look

There are few looks as iconic as Cary Grant in a tuxedo and he looks ever bit the gentleman as Nickie Ferrante during his romantic transatlantic crossing.

• Midnight blue worsted wool single-breasted link-front dinner jacket with wide satin-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, satin-covered 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Midnight blue single-button formal waistcoat with full satin-covered back
• Midnight blue worsted pleated formal trousers with satin side stripe, straight side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White formal shirt with long-pointed semi-spread soft collar, plain front, and double/French cuffs
  • Diamond shirt studs
  • Silver-trimmed mother-of-pearl cuff links
• Midnight blue satin silk butterfly-shaped self-tied bow tie
• Black leather square-toed oxfords/balmorals
• Black silk dress socks
• Cartier Tank yellow gold wristwatch with square white dial and black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

I’ll just take my ego for a walk.

Aidan Turner as Philip Lombard in And Then There Were None (2015)

Vitals

Aidan Turner as Philip Lombard, adventurer and ex-mercenary

Devon, England, August 1939

Series Title: And Then There Were None
Air Date: December 26-28, 2015
Director: Craig Viveiros
Costume Designer: Lindsay Pugh

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

As we get closer to St. Patrick’s Day, BAMF Style is focusing on another Irishman, Aidan Turner, the Dublin-born actor who many are suggesting as a possibility for taking over the James Bond mantle as the prospects of Daniel Craig’s return seem dwindling.

Of course, an important aspect of the 007 role is how well an actor sports a dinner suit, so we’re checking out the period black tie ensemble that Turner wore as Philip Lombard in the BBC’s 2015 miniseries And Then There Were None.

Published in 1939, And Then There Were None is widely considered to be Agatha Christie’s masterpiece and, with more than 100 million copies sold around the world, tops the charts as the world’s best-selling mystery novel and the sixth best-selling book of all time. It had been adapted for the screen several times, most faithfully in 1945 (albeit with a more positive ending), until the three-part miniseries that aired after Christmas 2015 set the gold standard for adapting Christie’s work.

Turner joined an all-star cast including Charles Dance, Sam Neill, Maeve Dermody, Miranda Richardson, and Toby Stephens in the classic story of ten strangers summoned to an island mansion for a summer weekend retreat. They range from a retired judge and a judgmental spinster to an alcoholic doctor and a rakish socialite, Anthony Marston (Douglas Booth), the only one that calls out the peculiarity of their situation:

I had a letter inviting me to a house party. Pretty young things, you know? Champagne, music… and apart from Lombard, who looks like he could cut up a bit lively, the rest of you don’t really look like fun-loving house party types. No offense.

The first evening, all are dressed for dinner when they discover that none of them have ever met their supposed host, U.N. Owen (Christie’s characters weren’t above puns), and find their deepest secrets revealed as a mysterious recording accuses them each of murder. Every character refutes his or her respective charges…except the cheeky Lombard who sees no reason to deny his past:

Philip Lombard, that you did murder 21 men, members of an East African tribe…

Lombard isn’t alone in his non-denial. The reckless Marston recollects “those two kids” that he killed in a drunk driving incident that led to the “terrific nuisance” of a six-month suspended license. The guests are disgusted by Marston, but their revulsion soon turns to horror as the swaggering young socialite chokes to death before their eyes. Something is amiss…

What’d He Wear?

The seven English gentlemen invited to dinner on Soldier Island all dress for dinner the first night, sporting black tie that would have been appropriate and fashionable for a summer evening in 1939. Philip Lombard’s classic single-breasted dinner jacket with its sweeping peak lapels and his wing collar shirt would have been the epitome of fashionable English formalwear in the immediately pre-war era. Double-breasted dinner jackets had been catching on throughout the decade as a fashionable but ultimately less formal – and thus, more American – alternative.

It’s worth noting that, in the 1945 film, Louis Hayward’s Lombard wears a double-breasted dinner jacket with a turndown collar, perhaps a reflection of the character’s casual nature and the more staid context during the latter years of World War II.

Dueling Lombards: Louis Hayward (in 1945) and Aidan Turner (in 2015) attempt to out-debonair each other as Philip Lombard.

Surprisingly, given the character’s general irreverence, Aidan Turner wears a very formal dinner suit in the 2015 adaptation. His black wool single-breasted dinner jacket has full-bellied peak lapels, faced in black grosgrain. The wide lapels have long gorges with edges that even rise above the concave shoulder line, and the width is so exaggerated that the lapels even roll over the single link-button closure in the front, which he wears open anyway.

“Strong shoulders and wide lapels,” defined men’s jackets in the 1930s, according to costume designer Lindsay Pugh in a 2013 Q&A with WWD.com.

The concave shoulders with roped sleeveheads and the width of the lapels at the peaks work with the ventless back and suppressed waist to deliver an hourglass silhouette that emphasizes Lombard’s sleek, athletic physique, no doubt contributing to Marston’s conclusion that he “could cut up a bit lively.” The dinner jacket has a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, and three black plastic buttons on the end of each cuff.

A traditionally British element of Lombard’s black tie ensemble is the wing collar on his starched white formal shirt. By the late 1930s, the turndown collar had usurped the classic wing collar in popularity – particularly in the United States – but the wing collar remained the most formal option. Lombard wears his on a starched white boiled shirt with two studs visible on the front bib. The shirt’s single cuffs are worn with a set of silver-trimmed black square cuff links, essentially larger versions of the shirt studs.

Lombard wears a black grosgrain silk self-tied bow tie in a large butterfly/thistle shape.

Lombard’s black wool formal waistcoat has luxurious shawl lapels and a low, V-shaped opening. It is single-breasted with four black plastic sew-through buttons all worn fastened and a notched bottom.

Auditioning for 007?

Lombard’s black high-rise trousers have period-correct pleats and the standard silk side stripe – grosgrain here to match the lapel facings and bow tie. The bottoms are finished with plain hems, as they should be on a dinner suit.

Lombard wears black patent leather oxford shoes and black dress socks.

Lombard kicks back with a pre-dinner whiskey.

Barely seen under Lombard’s shirt sleeve is his tank watch, a simple square-cased wristwatch on a russet brown leather strap. A pocket watch would have been the most traditional option, particularly with a classic formal look like Lombard’s, but a sportsman like him would probably prefer to keep his daily timepiece without sacrificing function for form.

Aidan Turner and his co-stars joke around on set.

How to Get the Look

Despite his irreverent nature and bold suits and casual attire, Philip Lombard sports very traditional and classically British evening wear when dressing for dinner with the other doomed guests on Soldier Island.

• Black wool single-breasted 1-button dinner jacket with wide grosgrain-faced lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Black wool single-breasted 4-button formal waistcoat with shawl lapels and notched bottom
• Black wool single-pleated high-rise formal trousers with satin side stripe, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White formal shirt with starched front bib and single cuffs
  • Detachable wing collar
  • Silver-trimmed black square studs
  • Silver-trimmed black square cufflinks
• Black grosgrain butterfly-shaped self-tied bow tie
• Black patent leather oxfords/balmorals
• Black dress socks
• Steel tank watch with square tan dial on russet brown leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series and Agatha Christie’s 1939 novel, one of my favorites and certainly deserving of its best-selling status.

The Quote

It’s amazing how people get an attack of conscience when they’re safely tucked away in their beds.

Footnote

Turner is effective in the role, but it’s hard to imagine his Lombard – or any Lombard played by a modern actor – deliver the restrained insult “my good blockhead” that always stood out to me from Christie’s novel.

Michael K. Williams as Albert “Chalky” White on Boardwalk Empire (Episode 4.08: “The Old Ship of Zion”)

Vitals

Michael Kenneth Williams as Albert “Chalky” White, nightclub owner and bootlegger

Atlantic City, Spring 1924

Series: Boardwalk Empire
Episodes:
* “New York Sour” (Episode 4.01, aired September 8, 2013, dir. Tim Van Patten)
* “Resignation” (Episode 4.02, aired September 15, 2013, dir. Alik Sakharov)
* “Acres of Diamonds” (Episode 4.03, aired September 22, 2013, dir. Allen Coulter)
* “All In” (Episode 4.04, aired September 29, 2013, dir. Ed Bianchi)
* “The North Star” (Episode 4.06, aired October 13, 2013, dir. Allen Coulter)
* “William Wilson” (Episode 4.07, aired October 20, 2013, dir. Jeremy Podeswa)
* “The Old Ship of Zion” (Episode 4.08, aired October 27, 2013, dir. Tim Van Patten)
Creator: Terence Winter
Costume Designer: John A. Dunn

Background

As BAMF Style’s Boardwalk Empire week continues, the focus shifts to “Chalky” White, the shrewd, pragmatic, and popular bootlegger who rises through the hierarchy of the Atlantic City underworld to finally own his own nightclub at the outset of the fourth season.

Michael K. Williams is arguably one of the best actors of this generation, and his nuanced portrayal of Omar Little on The Wire has cemented that character as one of the greatest TV performances of all time. As a Star Wars fan, I was delighted to hear last month that he’ll be part of the star-studded cast of next year’s Han Solo-focused prequel as reported in Variety.

Boardwalk Empire‘s fourth season is a tour de force for Williams, building up to Chalky’s climactic arc gaining ground in “The Old Ship of Zion” (Episode 4.08) through the season’s tumultuous final episodes.

What’d He Wear?

Chalky presides over The Onyx Club on a nightly basis, always smartly and sharply attired in a striped dark navy tuxedo with a wing collar and fancy waistcoats.

The dinner jacket is duo-toned navy blue wool with tonal satin striping throughout. The wide, sharp peak lapels are faced in black grosgrain silk and roll to the high-stanced single-button closure, positioned a few inches above Williams’ natural waistline. The single front button and the four buttons on each cuff are all covered in the same black grosgrain as the lapel facings.

Chalky’s dinner jacket has a welted breast pocket, which he wears empty, and straight jetted pockets on the hips.

Chalky swaps out his waistcoats but maintains a similar black tie look each night for his hosting duties at The Onyx Club.

Chalky looks strong and imposing in his full cut dinner jacket, shaped by darts to flatter Michael K. Williams’ physique with padded, sloped shoulders and roped sleeveheads. The back is ventless, the most formal vent option for a dinner jacket.

In the left lapel of his jacket, Chalky wears a gold eight-pointed star pin with a large blue square-set stone.

Chalky is appropriately mesmerized by a rendition of “St. Louis Blues” as sung by Daughter Maitland (Margot Bingham) in “The North Star” (Episode 4.06).

The flat front formal trousers match the striped navy dinner jacket for a full dinner suit effect. They have a straight fly, on-seam side pockets, plain-hemmed bottoms, and – most notably – a very wide black grosgrain braid stripe down the outside of each leg.

Chalky relishes the position of power that he has long deserved.

Chalky wears two different fancy silk waistcoats with his tuxedo, each incorporating some degree of blue to call out the navy dinner suit.

His blue jacquard silk waistcoat gets the most screen time, worn in all but two of the episodes that feature him in a tuxedo. The pattern consists of lighter blue and beige abstract flurries printed on a navy silk ground. This single-breasted vest has short lapels, a high-fastening front with six self-covered buttons, and a notched bottom.

In “Resignation” (Episode 4.02), “Acres of Diamonds” (Episode 4.03), and “The North Star” (Episode 4.06), Chalky sports a dashing double-breasted waistcoat with a repeating pattern of blue-trimmed white squares printed on black silk. The squares abstractly alternate between full squares, dotted squares, round dots, and two bars – either horizontal or vertical.

This double-breasted vest has a “keystone”-style 6-on-3 button scheme with a straight-cut bottom and sweeping peak lapels. (“Keystone” means that the button rows taper in their spread from top to bottom…like the lower portion of a keystone.) All six buttons are covered in black grosgrain silk.

Chalky wears a white formal shirt with a narrow-pleated bib front and double (French) cuffs, always sporting cuff links to match his shirt studs whether they’re the silver-trimmed black set or gold mother-of-pearl set seen in “The Old Ship of Zion” (Episode 4.08). The shirt is worn with a detachable wing collar, secured to the front and back of the collar band with a gold stud.

According to a post-show auction that included this outfit, the shirt “by St. Laurie” was custom made for the production by Kozinn + Sons in New York.

Chalky trades a few playful punches in “Resignation” (Episode 4.02).

Chalky invariably wears a black faille diamond-pointed bow tie that coordinates nicely with the similarly textured black grosgrain facings of the jacket lapels.

Chalky wears black calf leather five-eyelet plain-toe oxfords with dark navy dress socks. Plain-toe oxfords (also known as bal-type or balmorals to us Americans) are the most formal practical footwear for black tie, and it makes sense that Chalky, whom Williams himself described as having “a shoe fetish,” wouldn’t sacrifice formality in this department.

Chalky prods a door open with his foot, wearing one of the well-shined black calf oxfords (inset) that were auctioned off after the show’s run.

Chalky wears his usual gold square-cased dress watch on his left wrist. It has a gold square dial and slim black leather strap.

Genevieve Valentine of The A.V. Club summed it up perfectly in her review of “Resignation” (Episode 4.02): “No one on this show, and honestly no one on many other shows, can deliver a death stare like Michael Kenneth Williams.”

Chalky’s black tie ensemble, as auctioned at ScreenBid.com in 2014.

The navy dinner suit, rather than the usual “darker than black” midnight blue is a curious choice that may reflect the retro-styling that Lisa Padovani mentioned in a 2013 article with Entertainment Weekly after the fourth season wrapped: “I’m inspired by contemporary stuff too and I’ll think, ‘That could translate into 1920s…’ We try to incorporate old pieces with new pieces and old trimmings and accessories with the new things we manufacture to give it a seamless quality.” Daniel Craig’s midnight blue dinner suit in Skyfall was color enhanced to a bolder navy on that film’s promotional material, briefly popularizing navy tuxedoes as seen on celebrities like Eddie Redmayne and Ryan Gosling.

After production wrapped on Boardwalk Empire, this entire outfit – including the dinner suit, shirt, bow tie, square-dotted waistcoat, and shoes – were auctioned at ScreenBid.com.

The outfit was described as:

This dark blue and black striped tuxedo has a black lapel and includes a black vest with a blue square pattern.  The tuxedo shirt, as worn by Chalky – as played by Michael Kenneth Williams – is a bib shirt with a detachable collar and white stripe by St. Laurie.  Also included in the lot is a black faille bowtie and silver/black square shirt studs, as well as Chalky’s shoes.

NB: The silver and black studs were not ever featured on the show, to the best of my knowledge.

How to Get the Look

Michael K. Williams as Albert “Chalky” White on Boardwalk Empire (Episode 4.03: “Acres of Diamonds”)

Chalky White incorporates a welcome dose of color into his black tie ensemble, hosting nightly at the Onyx Club in a striped navy tux and rotating cycle of fancy waistcoats.

• Dark navy satin-striped wool single-breasted 1-button dinner jacket with black grosgrain-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, black grosgrain-covered 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Gold eight-pointed star lapel pin with blue stone
• Blue-toned patterned silk 6-button waistcoat with lapels
• Dark navy satin-striped wool flat front formal trousers with black grosgrain side braid, on-seam side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White formal shirt with narrow-pleated bib and double/French cuffs
  • Detachable wing collar
  • Gold mother-of-pearl shirt studs
  • Gold cuff links
• Black faille diamond-ended bow tie
• Black calf leather 5-eyelet plain-toe balmorals/oxford shoes
• Dark navy dress socks
• Gold square-cased wristwatch with gold square dial on black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the whole series, but explore the fourth season to find these episodes of Chalky in his prime.

Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine in Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Vitals

Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine, U.S. Army OSS officer and redneck leader of the “Inglourious Basterds”

Paris, June 1944

Film: Inglourious Basterds
Release Date: August 21, 2009
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Costume Designer: Anna B. Sheppard
Brad Pitt’s Evening Attire: Giorgio Armani

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Inglourious Basterds kicks off a two-film spree in Tarantino’s filmography focused on rewriting history with violent vengeance. In this revisionist take on World War II, a band of Jewish-American military guerillas – think The Dirty Dozen meets The A-Team – is assigned the sole task of secretly but brutally fighting their way through occupied German territory, murdering any Nazi encountered in their wake. The two-year spree of these “inglourious basterds” who give the film its title ends up in a Paris movie theater on the eve of the D-Day invasion with an opportunity to take down the German high command, including Hitler himself, to end the war.

It was at this point that I thought, “ah, here it is. The war didn’t end and Hitler didn’t die until a year later when he shot himself in his bunker, so the gang will definitely fail this mission.” Wrong! Leave it to QT to beautifully surprise me with a very welcome alternative history.

Inglourious Basterds plays with the common 007-esque spy film trope of putting its dashing hero in a tuxedo for an evening event, something which Brad Pitt himself would do with less irony in last year’s Allied (which, yes, will get a BAMF Style post soon!), but it’s terribly fun to watch Pitt out of place as the Tennessee roughneck sporting a white dinner jacket and struggling his way through his new Italian cover as stuntman Enzo Gorlomi. (Of course, this being QT, the name is an homage to the birth name of Enzo G. Castellari, director of 1978’s The Inglorious Bastards.)

Following a nomenclatural battle of wits with the sinister Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), Aldo Raine almost immediately finds himself in Landa’s custody and a new battle of wits ensues. Landa’s grandoise flamboyance (“That’s a bingo!”) meets Aldo’s no-nonsense directness (“You just say ‘bingo'”) as the two men sift through their personal agendas to find a mutually beneficial plan to end the war that evening.

Of course, being a high-ranking officer in the evil SS, Landa isn’t permitted to come out totally unscathed, as he discovers when Aldo begins preparing his knife. “You’ll be shot for this!” Landa exclaims. Unaffected by the desperate cries of a Nazi, Aldo considers this for a second, then replies:

Nah, I don’t think so. More like chewed out. I’ve been chewed out before.

What’d He Wear?

Worldly villain that he is, Hans Landa instantly sees through Aldo’s weak cover and identifies to his guards “the guy in the white smoking jacket.” Of course, Aldo is actually sporting an off-white dinner jacket but the semantics of sartorialism hardly matter when the fate of the world is at stake. Either way, the guards know precisely who he means and Aldo finds himself in German custody before he even gets a chance to sip his champagne.

June is a summer month in Paris and the movie premiere is a festive occasion, so Aldo’s decision to wear an ivory dinner jacket is appropriate. Costume designer Anna B. Sheppard told Clothes on Film, “As I was using a lot of black tuxedos, uniforms, and SS black dress uniforms in the final scene, I wanted to use a more flamboyant and visible design to highlight the fact that he plays an Italian filmmaker.” As WWD reported the week before the film was released:

Giorgio Armani collaborated with Inglourious Basterds costume designer Anna B. Sheppard to create a made-to-measure dinner jacket for Brad Pitt’s character to wear in a key scene. The two-button white dinner jacket with peak lapels would normally retail for $4,375. Meanwhile, this week, Pitt has worn Tom Ford suits to the Los Angeles premiere of Inglourious Basterds and to the New York premiere of The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Aldo stands out against both friends and enemies with his resplendent off-white dinner jacket.

The unsophisticated Aldo Raine is about as far from James Bond as a spy can get, but his off-white dinner jacket with its nontraditional satin-faced peak lapels and silk-covered two-button front is very similar to the ivory Tom Ford “Windsor” dinner jacket that Daniel Craig would wear six years later as 007 in Spectre… right down to the red carnation in his lapel.

Bridget is understandably nervous when Aldo’s linguistic abilities are tested by the multilingual Hans Landa.

The wide and full-bellied peak lapels with strongly built shoulders, ventless back, and waist suppression takes inspiration from contemporary suits of the late ’30s and 1940s. Aldo’s dinner jacket also has silk-covered four-button cuffs, straight jetted hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket where he wears a folded white silk display kerchief.

Aldo’s dinner jacket is handled roughly during his arrest. Note the fallen carnation on the floor below his left lapel.

A double-breasted jacket with shawl lapels would have delivered the effect of Humphrey Bogart’s iconic dinner jacket in Casablanca, but it’s important to remember that this is hardly the outfit-of-choice for a rugged former bootlegger from the mountains of Tennessee who has unexplained rope burns around his neck. This guy is meant to look as uncomfortable as possible… and the discomfort pays off hilariously.

Aldo’s palpable discomfort and the triangle of shirt material emerging below his buttoned jacket (despite his cummerbund) would surely tip off an urbane villain like Landa.

The jacket itself isn’t without sartorial flubs (which may also be on purpose!), but actor B.J. Novak’s recollection from the production proves that the overall impact is more important than nailing the details:

Maybe the coolest night for me filming we shot in this truck, a scene where Brad Pitt and I were kidnapped, in handcuffs with bags over our heads. It was just an establishing shot. I showed up and all I had to do was be handcuffed and have this bag over my head. Brad Pitt is there in his white tuxedo jacket, and Tarantino, my all time hero is there behind the camera, and I realized there’s no way I can mess this up. I have a bag over my head, I’m handcuffed, I have no lines, there’s nothing I can do to mess this scene up. I just kinda looked around between every take and just marveled at my good luck. It was the most glamorous thing. I mean not only Brad Pitt, but like in a white tuxedo, and a mustache, and an accent, hamming it up and absolutely convincing, and taking you back to the ’40s. It was the most transformative film experience that I couldn’t mess up. I kept thinking “I can’t believe I’m here.”

PFC Utivich and Lt. Raine, captured but only hours away from ending World War II.

Aldo’s black formal trousers have forward pleats and a slouchy medium rise, unfashionable in that or any era but quite fitting for a character unused to the trappings of formalwear. The trousers appropriately have a single satin braid down each side and plain-hemmed bottoms.

The waistband of the trousers is concealed by a black grosgrain cummerbund.

Aldo’s shirt appears to have been made with vents through which he could conceal the straps of his knife’s shoulder holster.

Aldo’s white formal shirt has a marcella front bib, a British compromise dating back to the early 20th century to give wearers the appearance of a full-dress shirt combined with the comfort preferred by Americans in the areas typically covered by a dinner jacket. Aldo wears three round diamond-filled silver shirt studs down his front bib. The shirt’s single cuffs are fastened with mother-of-pearl links.

The shirt is worn with a detachable wing collar, fastened at the neck with a gold stud, calling back the early days of formal dress when it was easier for men to wash or replace a collar than an entire shirt. Inglourious Basterds makes the most of this period detail by featuring Aldo wearing his shirt collar unfastened after his arrest.

Aldo’s been chewed out before.

Aldo’s black silk bow tie is a butterfly-shaped self-tying model.

A rough night of negotiating calls for loosening the now unneeded bow tie.

Despite other faux pas that may be present in his outfit, Aldo wears the most appropriate footwear, a pair of black patent leather oxford shoes with a straight cap toe. He also wears black dress socks.

The arresting SS officers are quick to find the dynamite strapped to Aldo’s ankles.

Aldo’s trusty Bowie knife is holstered in what appears to be a custom sheath under his left arm, held into place by a series of black leather straps running over the back and shoulders and under the front of his shirt.

Aldo’s trusty Bowie knife, holstered under his left arm and taken by the Nazis during his arrest.

Premiere Props auctioned the complete formalwear worn by Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth) and Omar Ulmer (Omar Doom), the two other “basterds” who accompanied Aldo and Bridget to the Stolz der Nation premiere:

• With his formal tailcoat, Donny wears a white Angels and Bermans dress shirt.
• Omar’s double-breasted dinner jacket remains unidentified but his white wing collar shirt is La Valiere, his formal trousers are AAW-Berlin, and his black oxfords are from Siam Costumes.
• Siam Costumes also provided the formal trousers to another unidentified character’s black tie ensemble (link) with a Henk ter Horst dress shirt.

How to Get the Look

Aldo Raine’s discomfort in formalwear is hilarious, but even the nontraditional details of his off-white dinner jacket can’t keep Brad Pitt from looking as sharp as you’d expect Brad Pitt to look.

• Ivory wool single-breasted 2-button dinner jacket with wide satin-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, silk-covered 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
• White formal dress shirt with triple diamond-studded marcella bib and single cuffs
  • Detachable wing collar
  • Mother-of-pearl cuff links
• Black silk self-tied bow tie
• Black formal forward-pleated trousers with black satin side braiding and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black grosgrain cummerbund
• Black patent leather cap-toe balmorals/oxford shoes
• Black dress socks
• Black leather shoulder holster sheath, for Bowie knife, concealed under left armpit

The Gun

Other than a single shot from Landa’s own Walther P38 used to dispatch the unfortunate driver Herman, Aldo Raine sticks to his trusted and true Bowie knife as his weapon of choice during the film’s final act. (To read more about the knife, likely a Smith & Wesson “Texas Hold ‘Em”, check out my post about Aldo’s pea coat and casual attire.)

Sorry, Herman.

His team, however, is assigned the innovative .38-caliber pistol glove, designed by the U.S. Naval Intelligence Office and developed by Sedgley in Philadelphia for short-range use by the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy. Known as the OSS Pistol Glove, the weapon consists of two cylinders fitted to the back of a leather glove; one cylinder contains a plunger that is pressed into the target and the other cylinder is the barrel that fires a single .38-caliber round into said target.

Donny presents Omar with one of the two pistol gloves they will use to gain access to Hitler’s private viewing box.

In Inglourious Basterds, OSS Pistol Gloves are used by Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth) and Omar Ulmer (Omar Doom) to effectively gain entrance to Hitler’s private viewing booth. In addition to their costumes from the scene, Premiere Props also offers the bullet props from their glove guns for sale: Donny’s bullet and Omar’s bullet.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Buy the movie.

The Quote

I’ve done my share of bootlegging. Up there, if you engage in what the federal government calls “illegal activity,” but what we call “just a man tryin’ to make a livin’ for his family sellin’ moonshine liquor,” it behooves oneself to keep his wits. Long story short, we hear a story too good to be true… it ain’t.

Footnote

Right down to the carnation of the edge of the long peak lapel, both Aldo the Apache and James Bond in Spectre appear to have taken some inspiration from the same ’40s fashions when determining their warm weather formalwear ensembles. Where Aldo opts for the traditional wing collar and bib front, however, Bond wears a pleated-front shirt with a turndown collar and a diamond-pointed bow tie.

Spy vs. Spy

Dean Martin on the set of The Dean Martin Show, circa 1965

Vitals

Dean Martin, smooth and multi-talented entertainer

Burbank, California, 1965 to 1974

Series: The Dean Martin Show
Air Dates: September 16, 1965 – April 5, 1974
Director: Greg Garrison
Tailor: Sy Devore

Background

On June 7, 1917, Dino Paul Crocetti was born in Steubenville, Ohio, to Angela and Gaetano Crocetti, the latter a barber from the Abruzzo region in Italy where much of my own family hails. One hundred years later, the world remembers him as Dean Martin, the charming crooner whose legendary career spanned half a century as a major headliner from nightclubs and casinos to movies and TV shows.

Effortlessly charismatic and unflappable, Dino brought his smooth star power to his popular comedy act with Jerry Lewis and later as a leader of the Rat Pack alongside Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.

CNN contributor Bob Greene wrote in 2012: “His friend Frank Sinatra may have liked the image of being Chairman of the Board, but the core of Martin’s enduring allure is that not only did he not want to be chairman, he didn’t even want to serve on the board: It would mean that he would be cooped up in some boardroom for meetings when he’d rather be out playing golf. The sight of him in a tuxedo – he wore it as comfortably as most men wear a pair of pajamas – says to people who weren’t even born when he was at the height of his fame: Take a deep breath and let yourself grin. Your problems can wait until tomorrow.”

While the boozy, womanizing antics of the Rat Pack may have alienated younger audiences during the radical ’60s, Dean Martin’s solo star never stopped shining. In 1964, Dean’s recording of “Everybody Loves Somebody” knocked the seemingly invincible Beatles off of the number one spot on the Billboard charts. Not only was it his first hit to crack the Top 40 in six years, but it almost immediately shot to the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 list. Later to be his signature tune, “Everybody Loves Somebody” retained its top position on the “Pop-Standard Singles” chart for eight weeks.

As Dean Martin demonstrated his staying power even in the age of the British Invasion, he was approached to headline a variety show on NBC. Reluctant to scale back his bread-and-butter work in movies and nightclubs and unwilling to commit to the pressures of a weekly show, Martin laid down admittedly and deliberately outrageous terms for his acceptance: a staggering salary of $40,000 and a commitment to show up only to the show’s taping without rehearsals. Of course, NBC was delighted for any response at all and accepted, and Dean announced to his family: “They went for it, so now I have to do it.”

The Dean Martin Show debuted on NBC on September 16, 1965 and became an NBC staple, running at 10 p.m. on Thursdays (Thirsty Thursday, of course) and, later, Fridays for 264 episodes until its final show on April 5, 1974. The show was exactly what one would expect of Dean Martin, a casual, genuine, and unpretentious hour of entertainment that benefited from the natural spontaneity of Dean’s unrehearsed performances and willingness to put himself out there. My grandma still laughs when remembering Dean’s genuine shock at the celebrity guests who would knock on a closet door on the set, surprising him as the producers almost always kept guest identities from Dean in order to provoke the best response.

While his fellow Rat Packers and stars of the era were often plagued with addictions and scandal, Dean Martin was seemingly most addicted to fake-drinking rather than actually imbibing as heavily as his image demanded, often filling his on-stage rocks glass with apple juice rather than his preferred J&B scotch whisky. Dean was a dedicated father to his seven children and was forever heartbroken when his son Dean Paul Martin was killed in a crash while flying with the California Air National Guard in March 1987.

A lifelong smoker of Kent cigarettes, Dean Martin was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1993. Despondent over the loss of his son six years earlier and tired after his long, successful career, Dean refused the surgery that may have prolonged his life and died in his Beverly Hills home on December 25, 1995 at the age of 78. The lights of the Las Vegas Strip where he had entertained so many were dimmed in his honor, and Ohio Route 7 through his hometown of Steubenville was renamed Dean Martin Boulevard.

The epitaph on his crypt in Westwood Village Memorial Park reads “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime,” both the name of his signature song and the personal credo that defined his beloved persona.

What’d He Wear?

“In regular clothes, I’m a nobody,” Dean once reflected. “In a tuxedo, I’m a star.”

Thus, for his most starring role as the host of a long-running variety show, Dean dressed to the nines every night in a tailored dinner suit perfectly suited for his debonair playboy image.

Per his standards, Dean Martin was a star every week from the fall of 1965 through the spring of 1974.

The Dinner Jacket

The luxurious dupioni silk was Dino’s suiting of choice when it came to his trademark dinner jackets.

Over the course of his variety show from 1965 to 1974, Dean Martin wore at least four different styles of dinner jacket that reflected the fashions of the times. A few aspects remained consistent on each: all were black dupioni silk with a single-breasted, single-button closure and a welted breast pocket for his trademark red silk display kerchief.

Dino’s dinner suits are all made from that shiny, slubby pain weave silk fabric known as dupioni. Slightly heavier than other silks like shantung, dupioni silk may have worn warm for our hero during unrehearsed nights of singing, dancing, and prancing under the hot lights of a TV studio, but the fabric’s wrinkle-resistant properties lend well to the lounge lizard aspects of Dean’s persona, allowing him to luxuriate around the set week after week without his trademark tux looking rumpled.

His two dinner jackets with peak lapels were the most formally detailed with jetted side pockets and ventless back while his notch lapel dinner jackets incorporated other less formal details borrowed from business suits such as ticket pockets and side vents.

When Dean’s show debuted in September 1965, he appeared in a sleek ventless dinner jacket with slim peak lapels that roll to a single silk-covered button at his waist. The red silk display kerchief favored by several Rat Packers puffs out from his welted breast pocket while his straight hip pockets are jetted for clean lines through the torso. The sleeves end with three silk-covered buttons on each cuff.

Dino welcomes the audience with “Everybody Loves Somebody” during one of the first episodes in fall 1965.

As the show went on into the late ’60s, Dean’s tuxedo retained its closer cut but loosened up on its formality; by 1968, Dino was rocking slim notch lapels, flapped pockets, and long double vents on his dinner jacket… less formal elements but certainly appropriate given the “living room” nature of the production. The flapped hip pockets slant slightly backward and, like the flapped ticket pocket on the right, are positioned just below the buttoning point. He still has three cuff buttons, albeit black plastic sew-through buttons rather than the more elegant silk-covered buttons of his earlier jacket.

Dino sings “That Old Feeling” and “I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am” with guest Ann-Margret during her fifth season appearance, February 1970. (Link)

When the sixth season began in September 1970, Dean was back to a ventless dinner jacket with peak lapels, albeit wider lapels more fitting the fashions of the era. The hip pockets slant backward, and Dean’s ever-present red pocket square again puffs out from his welted breast pocket, echoing the jacket’s red faille lining. For the ’70s, Dean also started wearing jackets with single-button cuffs.

Dean Martin with guest Frank Sinatra during one of his many appearances. This particular episode is from New Year’s Eve 1970. (Link)

Finally, by the end of the show’s run in the spring of 1974, Dean’s dinner suit fell victim to some of the excess of ’70s fashion with long double vents and extremely wide satin-faced notch lapels that extend to nearly an inch away from his armpits. The ticket pocket and straight hip pockets have wide flaps. This jacket, too, has a single black plastic button on each cuff.

Gene Kelly performs with Dean Martin, circa 1973. (Link)

At least some of his dinner jackets, most probably the earliest ones, were likely tailored by the Rat Pack’s unofficial tailor, Sy Devore. By the 1970s, Dean was known to wear dinner jackets tailored by Carmen Lamola of Beverly Hills, such as this black wool tuxedo that was auctioned in June 2008 as part of Julien’s Summer Entertainment Sale.

Like his fellow Rat Pack comrade Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin was a major proponent of the red silk pocket square, albeit worn more rakishly unstructured than the Chairman’s preferred TV fold… a difference that reflects both men’s styles, sartorial and otherwise.

Dino in particular seemed to favor bright red satin kerchiefs, providing a vibrant splash of color against the duo-toned black dinner suit and white shirt.

To add the Dean Martin touch to your formal attire, a crimson red silk pocket square like this.

Everything Else

Dean’s formal trousers naturally matched his dinner jackets, suited in black dupioni silk with a shiny satin stripe down the side of each leg. He often placed his hands in his side pockets, positioned just behind the satin braid.

The flat front trousers typically rose low on his waist, coordinating well with the low button stance of his dinner jackets. The bottoms are plain-hemmed, per standard practice for formal trousers.

Befitting his casual nature and a wise concession under the hot studio lights, Dean would forego wearing a waist covering such as a cummerbund or waistcoat, instead keeping his jacket buttoned and relying on the finely tailored coordination to keep him looking cool and composed.

Dino in repose.

Dean Martin seemed to abhor traditional dress shirts, fully embracing a button-down collar to wear with every outfit from sport coats and  business suits to dinner suits. Unacceptable to menswear purists, a button-down shirt with black tie is indicative of Dino’s unpretentious attitudes that lent him a unique degree of sartorial freedom. (Sinatra, an impeccable dresser whose precision bordered on obsessive compulsion, probably took issue with some of his friend’s fashion choices.)

Dino takes his unorthodox shirt a step further by often sporting the seemingly incongruous combination of a button-down collar and double (French) cuffs on the same shirt, a unique combination that was also worn – albeit less formally – by his friends Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant. Through the nine seasons of The Dean Martin Show‘s run, Dean wore a variety of cuff links, including sets in mother-of-pearl, diamond, or plain metal.

Dean Martin chats with guest Goldie Hawn in the fifth season premiere on September 18, 1969, discussing the virtues of dumb pride. (Link)

Interestingly, the most nontraditional element of Dean’s shirt was also the most consistent as he never appeared in anything but a white button-down shirt on his show… however, the details beyond that would often vary. A plain front was usual, but Dean would also wear shirts ranging from a front placket with mother-of-pearl buttons to diamond studs (as seen in the New Year’s Eve 1970 episode with Sinatra). Dean’s non-double cuff shirts were usually of the multiple-button barrel cuff variety, as seen in Ocean’s Eleven and in the famous photo from backstage at Carnegie Hall in 1961.

Dean shares a good-hearted laugh at the expense of Melissa Stafford, one of his “Golddiggers”, who flubbed a line during a musical performance. (Link)

Like the lapels of his dinner jacket, Dean’s black satin silk bow tie would grow in size over the course of the show to reflect the trends of each show’s particular season.

Dino’s bow tie grew from a timeless butterfly-style in 1965 to a then-fashionable jumbo butterfly by the mid-’70s.

Dean’s on-air footwear with his dinner suits was always a pair of black velvet Prince Albert evening slippers, both with and without gold embroidery.

While less formal than oxfords, the elegant Prince Albert slipper has long been an acceptable black tie footwear alternative in settings like the home, club, or other intimate gatherings. Dino also correctly wears his evening slippers with black dress socks, avoiding some men’s misconceptions that evening slippers should be worn sockless like bedroom slippers!

By wearing the less formal Prince Albert slippers, Dean essentially invited himself and his viewers into guests’ living rooms every Thursday night.

Dean Martin typically wore his jewelry on his left hand. A silver (or white gold) diamond ring was a mainstay on his left pinky, dating back to his early career in the Martin and Lewis days. He would also usually wear a silver chain-link bracelet around his left wrist, a common affectation among Italian-American men.

Dino flashes his accessories and cuffs during an early episode of The Dean Martin Show.

In some early episodes, Dean could be spotted wearing a gold dress watch rather than his bracelet. This watch has a square silver dial and is worn on a gold bracelet.

Dean Martin wears a gold watch while enjoying a duet with Louis Armstrong, circa 1965 (link).

For more information about Dean Martin in a dinner jacket, check out this early BAMF Style post about his black mohair tuxedo in Ocean’s Eleven (1960).

Go Big or Go Home

Dean Martin and his daughter Claudia singing alongside Frank Sinatra and his daughter Nancy on The Dean Martin Show‘s 1967 Christmas special.

At the height of The Dean Martin Show‘s popularity, Dean hosted one of the most highly rated episodes at Christmas 1967 featuring regular guest Frank Sinatra and members of both of their families, including Martin’s wife Jeanne and all seven of his children (Craig, Claudia, Gail, Deana, Dean Paul, Ricci, and Gina) in addition to Sinatra’s three children (Tina, Nancy, and Frank Jr.)

Celebrity Christmas specials were a dime a dozen in the late ’60s, seemingly the backbone of Andy Williams’ career, but Dean’s show highlighted the warmth that set him apart as an entertainer. Dean may have loved opening his door to the surprise appearances of stars like John Wayne and Ann-Margret, but it was his family that truly gave him the most happiness.

Frank Sinatra essentially became a member of Dean’s family. As one of his first guests, Frank was often to return to The Dean Martin Show for incredible music duets and skits. It was only around the easygoing Dino that Frank could loosen up.

A loyal and unflappable friend, Dean would always step in to help Frank and it was often Dean’s cooler head that would prevail when the short-fused Frank was provoked by seemingly harmless triggers like an undercooked egg or a loud bar patron.

For all of his own faults, Frank could always depend on Dean.

How to Get the Look

Dean Martin will be forever linked to the image of a charming figure comfortably clad in a black tailored tuxedo, looking forever at ease.

• Black dupioni silk single-breasted 1-button dinner jacket with satin-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• White cotton shirt with button-down collar, plain front, and double/French cuffs
• Black satin silk bow tie
• Black dupioni silk flat front formal trousers with satin side stripe, straight side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black velvet Prince Albert slippers
• Black dress socks
• Silver chain-link ID bracelet
• Silver diamond pinky ring

Toss a red silk kerchief in your breast pocket and a glass of scotch in your hand, and that’s amore!

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the show! In addition to a number of YouTube clips, compilation DVDs are also available on Amazon.

Of course, you should also be listening to the music. This 30-song collection is branded as his “essential” volume and with classics like “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head”, “Volare”, and “You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You”, it’s a fine place to start.

I also like the mellow collection on Late at Night with Dean Martin, featuring an understated version of his signature hit “Everybody Loves Somebody” in addition to classics like “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home”, “Dream”, and “Mean to Me”.

The Quote

If you drink, don’t drive. Don’t even putt.

Footnote

There seems to be some confusion about whether or not Dean Martin’s birth date is June 7 or June 17. The earlier date seems to be the more widely accepted date. Either way, he’s a Gemini.

Somehow, his birth time has been confirmed as 11:55 p.m… which makes perfect sense.

Matt Bomer as Monroe Stahr on The Last Tycoon (Episode 9: “Oscar, Oscar, Oscar.”)

Vitals

Matt Bomer as Monroe Stahr, charming studio wunderkind

Hollywood, August 1936 through February 1937

Series: The Last Tycoon
Episodes:
– “Pilot” (Episode 1, dir. Billy Ray)
– “Eine Kleine Reichmusik” (Episode 5, dir. Gwyneth Horder-Payton)
– “A Brady-American Christmas” (Episode 6, dir. Stacie Passon)
– “Oscar, Oscar, Oscar” (Episode 9, dir. Billy Ray)
Streaming Date: July 28, 2017
Developed By: Billy Ray
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Amazon recently announced the disappointing news that they are discontinuing production of The Last Tycoon, the second of its F. Scott Fitzgerald-inspired series to meet that fate following the cancellation of Z: The Beginning of Everything days earlier.

In its brief, nine-episode life, The Last Tycoon was true to its “golden age of Hollywood” roots with an emphasis on style rather than substance… but oh what style it was, and with strong performances to booth with Matt Bomer, Kelsey Grammer, Lily Collins, Rosemarie Dewitt, and others rounding out the talented cast of characters.

The series also made the most of its dazzling period costumes, the creation of master costume designer Janie Bryant of Mad Men fame; an entire blog alone could be dedicated to the snappy menswear worn by Bomer, Grammer, and Enzo Cilenti.

Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel about wunderkind studio executive Monroe Stahr’s affairs and ambitions in 1930s Hollywood formed the basis for the series, but developer Billy Ray was clearly building a more elaborate world for his complex characters when the series was axed.

In addition to revisiting the novel, series star Matt Bomer told Vanity Fair in a June 2016 interview that he spent time researching Irving Thalberg, the MGM producer whose youth, ability, and congenital heart disease inspired Fitzgerald’s character. “The character was largely based on Mr. Thalberg, because Mr. Fitzgerald used to work for him,” explained Bomer. “He wrote underneath him at the studio system for a brief period and was really inspired by this man who had a complete understanding of the system and how that operated, and the fact that he was this young wunderkind, this genius at what he did.”

What’d He Wear?

The Last Tycoon‘s dashing titular lead, Monroe Stahr, trots out a debonair black tie ensemble in four of the series’ nine episodes, worn to a number of Hollywood parties whether to celebrate a professional achievement, the holiday season, or his own marriage engagement.

The elegant executive at his own engagement party in “Oscar, Oscar, Oscar” (episode 9).

Monroe Stahr’s classic evening kit leaves nary a detail ignored, reflecting the growing popularity of double-breasted dinner jackets during the 1930s especially among the young and stylish like Monroe and his Hollywood set.

“It’s so fun to make suits during this period, I love it,” explained Janie Bryant to Fashionista during a July 2017 interview. “It’s all about those wide shoulder, nipped waist, double-breasted jackets. Wide leg trousers. It’s about everything being wide and big. It’s very different from Mad Men minimalist and everything skinny.”

Bomer was more than enthusiastic to wear the period-perfect clothes designed by Bryant. “Oh, I think Janie Bryant is a genius. I mean, I think she changed menswear almost single-handedly with what she did on Mad Men. Everything she chose, I just trust her implicity,” he told Vanity Fair. “I liked getting to do the double-breasted… the very specific tailoring done at that time was different for me and unique and definitely informs the way you move as a character in a way that I found really helpful.”

It was the Duke of Windsor – then the Prince of Wales – who brought double-breasted dinner jackets into fashion during the 1930s. As Black Tie Guide reports, the jacket had been “previously considered too informal for evening wear due to its lack of an accompanying waistcoat,” but this soon-to-be-called “semi-formal” approach caught on with wearers who followed the Prince’s example of wearing it with “a soft-front pleated evening shirt featuring attached turndown collar and French cuffs rather than the traditional starched front shirt with detachable wing collar and single cuffs.” Monroe Stahr follows the Prince’s template to a T, though his addition of a waistcoat would have satiated the critics that remained concerned with the lack of such a garment.

Monroe Stahr’s black wool double-breasted dinner jacket has the classic six-on-two button front with the six front buttons and the three buttons on each cuff all covered in black silk. The jacket’s wide peak lapels have straight gorges and black grosgrain silk facings rather than the shinier satin lapels that “were increasingly associated with ready-to-wear apparel.” (Source: Black Tie Guide).

Left: A party in “Eine Kleine Reichmusik” (episode 5) calls for a white boutonnière.
Right: Monroe cuts a dashing figure on the evening of his engagement party in “Oscar, Oscar, Oscar” (episode 9).

For extra special occasions, Monroe wears the traditional white carnation pinned to his left lapel as a festive boutonnière, but he always wears a white pocket square – usually linen – in the jacket’s welted breast pocket. The straight hip pockets have a flap, a holdout from earlier decades that would be phased out on the best quality dinner jackets by the end of the 1930s.

The ventless jacket is tailored for a close, flattering fit with padded shoulders and roped sleeveheads.

An exhausted Monroe Stahr stands in his black tie kit, sans the actual tie, among hospital holiday decorations in “A Brady-American Christmas” (episode 6).

Even during the more formal pre-WWII era, waist coverings – especially waistcoats – were considered unnecessary with a double-breasted dinner jacket given that garment’s full wrap around the wearer’s torso. For Monroe Stahr, however, dressing to the nines means leaving no stone unturned and that means wearing a black wool single-breasted waistcoat to match his dinner jacket and formal trousers. The waistcoat (or vest, if you must) has three buttons on the front, covered in black silk, with a notched bottom and two welted pockets.

Monroe’s era-correct waistcoat gets some welcome exposure after rising from a nap in “A Brady American Christmas” (episode 6)… while his white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt gets some indecorous exposure.

The full back is also covered in black satin with a strap to adjust the fit. Traditional full-backed waistcoats were still the norm in 1936 America, though Esquire noted that the backless design sported by the Prince of Wales was now the preferred style in London and was gaining popularity in the U.S. (Source: Black Tie Guide)

Matt Bomer and co-star Dominique McElligott on set of The Last Tycoon. (Source: Janie Bryant’s Instagram)

Though Paul Muni wore a traditional white waistcoat under his black double-breasted dinner jacket in 1932’s Scarface, Esquire was reporting in its inaugural issue the following autumn that “the white waistcoat has at last been allowed to rejoin its lawful but long estranged mate, the tailcoat, and the new dinner jackets are matched with a waistcoat of the jacket material, with dull grosgrain lapel facing.” (Source: Black Tie Guide)

As Esquire‘s inaugural issue hit newsstands in the autumn of 1933, the concept of a formal waistcoat matching the color and cloth of a gentleman’s tuxedo would have been de rigeur three years later as the fictional Monroe Stahr makes the Hollywood rounds in an all-black three-piece dinner suit.

The distinctive “drooping” shawl collar of Monroe’s waistcoat would have also been quite fashionable. Introduced in 1921 according to Black Tie Guide, this unique wide-based lapel was a common sight during the ’30s. BTG also posted a portion of this Heller catalog from 1936 that includes several examples of dress waistcoats with lapels not unlike Monroe’s. Surviving vintage models also abound today such as this four-button waistcoat dated to 1938.

The black grosgrain silk facing of Monroe’s distinctive waistcoat lapel appropriately matches his dinner jacket lapel facings, his bow tie, court shoe bows, and the grosgrain side braid of his trousers for a cleanly coordinated and consistent look.

The black wool trousers rise high enough for the waistband to be correctly concealed under Monroe’s waistcoat. The full cut trousers have forward pleats, slightly slanted “quarter top” side pockets that follow the line of the grosgrain-braided side seam as it curves gently forward at the waist, and plain-hemmed bottoms (as cuffs are a no-no for formal trousers bottoms.)

Even workaholic film producers deserve some rest. No need to look so guilty, Monroe!

Monroe wears black suspenders (or braces), the most traditional option for holding up trousers when wearing black tie. The suspenders’ gold adjusters are seen poking out the sides of his waistcoat armholes at the shoulders.

When dressed in black tie, Monroe exclusively wears white cotton “semi-formal” shirts with soft-pleated fronts and double (French) cuffs, following the most fashionable trends of the mid 1930s. As the series is set over the fall of 1936 and into the spring of 1937, it’s appropriate to note that Esquire reported in November 1937 that the once traditional wing collar had been virtually replaced by the turndown collar as the “standard for informal wear.” (Source: Black Tie Guide)

For the most part, Monroe’s white dinner shirts echo the styling of his business dress shirts with a fashionably long point collar. The 1/2″-pleated front of the shirt is elegantly accented with round gold-rimmed diamond studs. His sleeves are shirred at the wrist with four closely-spaced pleats, and the squared double cuffs are fastened with plain gold cuff links.

Monroe’s white “semi-formal” shirt in various states of dress in “A Brady-American Christmas” (Episode 6).

Monroe deviates from his usual semi-formal shirts in the fifth episode only. In “Eine Kleine Reichmusik”, he again wears a white cotton dinner shirt with a turndown collar and pleated front, but both the semi-spread collar (not a point collar) and the pleats on this shirt are considerably narrower.

Left: Monroe’s standard point collar and wide-pleated dress shirt, seen here in episode 6: “A Brady-American Christmas.”
Right: A formal shirt with a semi-spread collar and narrow pleats, worn only in episode 5: “Eine Kleine Reichmusik.”

Monroe’s standard semi-formal neckwear is a black silk butterfly-shaped (or thistle-shaped) bow tie made from the same duller grosgrain silk as his lapel facings, reflecting a level of coordination that was becoming increasingly accepted and expected by the mid-1930s.

Monroe’s piercing glare is as sharp as his collar point in “Oscar, Oscar, Oscar” (episode 9).

Butterfly and semi-butterfly bow ties were most common for men during this era, but the diamond-pointed bow tie that Monroe wears in the first episode would have also been acceptable.

Monroe Stahr wears a less common, but still acceptable, pointed-end bow tie in the first episode of The Last Tycoon.

Despite the lessened formality of his double-breasted dinner jacket and soft-fronted, turndown collar shirt, Monroe Stahr appears to be wearing the most formal footwear option: black patent leather pumps.

The men’s dress pump traces its origins back to the Regency period when gentlemen would swap out their daytime boots for buckle-fastened pumps. It was naturally the influence of Beau Brummell that led to the silver steel buckle being replaced by the more genteel square grosgrain bow has distinguished the opera pump in essentially the same form for nearly 200 years.

Monroe’s pumps appear to have a slightly higher vamp, pushing them closer to the look of a wholecut oxford with flat silk ribbon laces, a mid-1930s fad that bridged the formality gap between the ceremonious dress pump and the more functional oxford. (You can read more about this short-lived shoe at Black Tie Guide.)

Monroe also sports his opera pumps when wearing his formal dress white tie and tails in the first and last episodes of the season, a context where opera pumps are more frequently seen than with the less formal black tie.

No matter what the context, Monroe always wears a gold signet ring on his right pinky. Though the etched “S.” most assuredly stands for his professional surname of Stahr, it could also designate his birth surname of Sternberg.

Monroe begins the series wearing a yellow gold wristwatch with a tonneau-shaped white dial and gold bracelet, a standard men’s dress watch of the era. By the end of the fourth episode, he’s received two brand new wristwatches as birthday gifts*; the first is a gold tank watch from Louis B. Mayer (Saul Rubinek) followed by a steel round-cased watch, a gift from Monroe’s own boss Pat Brady (Kelsey Grammer) in his attempt to “one-up” the legendary Mayer. It is this steel watch with its minimalist white dial and black leather strap that Monroe wears for the duration of the season.

* The episodes featuring Monroe’s birthday are set in early-to-mid September, making him the second consecutive Virgo character to be featured on BAMF Style after Monday’s post about Tony Soprano.

How to Get the Look

Matt Bomer as Monroe Stahr on The Last Tycoon (Episode 5: “Eine Kleine Reichmusik”).
Note the shirt’s semi-spread collar and narrow pleats as opposed to the point-collared shirt with wider pleats that he wore in other episodes.

Monroe Stahr exemplifies the perfect balance of fashion-forward formalwear and honoring black tie tradition with his tailored three-piece double-breasted dinner suit.

• Black wool double-breasted dinner jacket with grosgrain-faced peak lapels, 6-on-2 silk-covered buttons, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, silk-covered 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Black wool formal waistcoat with wide “drooped” grosgrain-faced shawl collar, three black silk-covered buttons, notched bottom, two welted pockets, and black satin-covered full back with adjustable strap
• Black wool formal pleated trousers with grosgrain side braid, “quarter top” on-seam side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton dress shirt with long point collar, wide pleated bib, front placket, and squared double/French cuffs
  • Gold-trimmed round diamond studs
  • Gold cuff links
• Black grosgrain silk thistle-shaped bow tie
• Black suspenders with gold adjusters
• Black patent leather opera pumps/court shoes with square black grosgrain bows
• Black dress socks
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt/A-shirt
• Gold monogrammed signet ring, right pinky
• Steel wristwatch with round case and white dial on black leather strap

Monroe always wears a white linen display kerchief in his jacket’s breast pocket and, for extra special events, a white boutonnière in his left lapel.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check it out on Amazon Video.

Footnotes

Series star Matt Bomer is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, located just two miles from my home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania!

If you’re interested in the history of formalwear, check out Black Tie Guide’s comprehensive history of vintage black tie. To learn more specifically about the pre-WWII Depression era depicted in The Last Tycoon, Black Tie Guide’s also got you covered.

Roger Moore as James Bond with Barbara Bach in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Vitals

Roger Moore as James Bond, suave and sophisticated British MI6 agent

Cairo, Egypt, August 1977

Film: The Spy Who Loved Me
Release Date: July 7, 1977
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Wardrobe Supervisor: Rosemary Burrows
Tailor: Angelo Vitucci

Background

A man in a sharply tailored tuxedo meets a beautiful woman over martinis in an exotic cocktail lounge. Hours later, he finds himself – Walther PPK in hand – stalking a seemingly unstoppable metal-mouthed killer through the Egyptian pyramids. This quintessential James Bond moment is one of many iconic scenes in Roger Moore’s third 007 outing, The Spy Who Loved Me, and it’s how I remember him on his first birthday since his passing last May at the age of 89.

Born October 14, 1927 in south London, Roger Moore brought charismatic warmth, self-deprecating charm, and a killer eyebrow muscle to his seven-film stint as James Bond from 1973 to 1985.

In Bond on Bond: Reflections on 50 years of James Bond Movies, Sir Roger himself recalls that his favorite of his own 007 films, The Spy Who Loved Me, was released on “Jim’s lucky number” – July 7, 1977. The film underwent a necessary plot reinvention on the instruction of the late Ian Fleming who, so uninspired by his own novel, forbade the Bond filmmakers to use any part of it but the title for their own adaptation. Given this blank slate, writers Christopher Wood and Richard Maibaum outdid themselves with a spectacular Bond adventure now considered to be among the best – if not the best – of Moore’s tenure.

Moore’s more autobiographical volume, My Word is My Bond, recounts a spaghetti dinner cooked personally by Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, the legendary producer at the helm of EON Productions and one of the men responsible for bringing Bond to the big screen in the first place. Reportedly, someone forgot to refrigerate the food that would be served to the crew one afternoon for lunch. Moore, never one to throw someone under the bus, recalled that “there was one day when something went wrong in Egypt and word reached us mid-morning that there wouldn’t be any lunch. Cubby knew he’d have a revolt on his hands, and so – somehow – gathered together huge great cooking pots, bundles of pasta and meat, and made a wonderful pasta with meatballs and sauce.”

“He served it up to the boys and girls himself too,” wrote Moore, modestly neglecting to mention that he also ladled out spaghetti for the hungry crew members even in full black tie costume as 007.

Roger Moore ditched Bond’s dinner jacket and grabbed a ladle when it came time to serve dinner for the crew.

À bientôt, Sir Roger.

What’d He Wear?

James Bond is known for his dinner jackets even by those who aren’t fans of the series, so I wanted to highlight my favorite of Roger Moore’s black tie ensembles in the series: the double-breasted dinner suit in The Spy Who Loved Me.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a double-breasted dinner jacket in Amazon’s The Last Tycoon, set in 1936 Hollywood. Men’s fashions of the 1930s underwent a revival during the ’70s so it makes sense that Moore’s fashionable take on Bond would find the agent in his signature tuxedo with a double-breasted dinner jacket in the classic pre-war style of a high-buttoning six-on-two front. Moore’s 007 would wear double-breasted dinner jacket in three consecutive Bond films throughout the ’70s – The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and Moonraker (1979) – as well as a much more ’80s-styled jacket in A View to a Kill (1985).

Roger Moore’s exquisite double-breasted dinner jacket has been exquisitely written about by Matt Spaiser on The Suits of James Bond with an in-depth exploration into the fit, the tailoring, and the tailor himself – Angelo Vitucci of Angelo Roma – who added a distinctively Roman touch to Moore’s black tie kit.

Moore’s Bond was ably accompanied by rival KGB agent Major Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach), a skilled and confident woman of action more removed from some of the franchise’s earlier “damsels in distress”.

Moore’s midnight blue dinner suit shines under the morning sun, implying a possible wool-mohair blend that would breathe well in the hot Egyptian desert. The ventless jacket’s peak lapels are faced in black satin silk, matching the bow tie and the trouser side striping. The six buttons (with two to fasten) on the front and the three buttons on each cuff are also covered in black satin.

Per traditional black tie conventions, the side pockets are appropriately jetted rather than flapped, and Moore wears no pocket square in his welted breast pocket.

Before Jaws and after Jaws… surprisingly not much worse for wear!

Moore wears a white dress shirt from his usual shirtmaker Frank Foster, with a very large point collar typical of the ’70s. Double cuffs are standard for black tie shirts, but Moore’s shirt has the distinctive pointed-tab single-button cuff invented by Ted Lapidus, the influential French fashion designer who also popularized the safari suit during the ’60s and ’70s.

The popularity of the tab cuff during the decade also extended to the fringes of organized crime as an element of the shirts created by Anto Beverly Hills for Robert De Niro to wear as Sam “Ace” Rothstein to wear in the 1970s-set scenes of Martin Scorsese’s Casino (1995).

Matt Spaiser explores the shirt further at The Suits of James Bond, suggesting cotton voile as a possible fabric based on the sheer shirting and investigating the distinctive dark shiny buttons sewn through with white thread for a distinctive pop on the shirt’s front placket and cuffs.

Bond watches Q’s presentation with interest.

Bond wears a standard black satin silk bow tie in a large butterfly (thistle) shape, coordinating with his larger shirt collar and wide peak lapels without approaching the excessively large bow ties seen in embarrassing prom photos from the ’70s.

Bond, dubious of the abilities of Egyptian builders.

In My Word is My Bond, Moore recalled a cheeky story when he and Barbara Bach were filming outside Cairo. “As wewalked across the frame in a David Leanesque shot, I’m afraid I let my trousers drop down. I had hoped they might leave it in, but it was vetoed.”

Moore’s trousers match his dinner jacket in the same shiny midnight blue wool/mohair suiting with a black satin stripe down the sides and a strip of black satin around his waistband in lieu of a cummerbund. The trousers emit minimalist elegance with their lack of pleats, pockets, waist adjusters, or cuffs.

In the last 24 hours, Bond’s been knocked around, drugged, and robbed, all under the blaring Egyptian sun. Yet, Roger Moore still exudes insouciant elegance and sophistication with his untied bow tie and dinner jacket removed and so rakishly flung over his left shoulder.

Promotional photo of Barbara Bach and Roger Moore (in double-breasted tux and loafers) leaning against that Lotus Esprit.

Moore further dresses down his black tie ensemble with squared moc-toe slip-on shoes rather than the more traditional oxfords, though his loafers are the most formal variant in glossy black patent leather that nicely coordinates with the shine of his mohair-blend dinner suit.

Each loafer has a strap across the vamp with a squared gold-toned buckle on the outside, sometimes referred to as “sidebit” detailing as opposed to the full-width “horsebit” on the more casual slip-ons that Moore wears with his suits and odd jackets.

The maker of Moore’s loafers is unconfirmed, though I speculate they’re Ferragamo. Reportedly, Moore’s neighbor – the spouse of Salvatore Ferragamo’s eldest son – was horrified to see her friend sporting the rival wares of Gucci in his first two appearances as James Bond, and Moore was subsequently converted to Ferragamo leather goods.

His black dress socks are probably silk.

Bond eulogizes the late Max Kalba.

The “quartz revolution” was in full swing by 1977, and even James Bond had turned in his trademark Swiss dive watch for a Japanese quartz-powered digital watch. Roger Moore had been the first Bond to wear a digital wristwatch on screen with his Hamilton Pulsar in Live and Let Die, but the novelty of digital timekeeping in 1973 was mainstream just a few years later when Moore strapped on the first of his many Seiko timepieces for The Spy Who Loved Me.

Throughout The Spy Who Loved Me, whether dressed in business suit, dinner suit, naval uniform, or casual attire, Moore’s 007 wears a Seiko LC Quartz DK001 digital display wristwatch, model 0674-5009, in a stainless steel case on a stainless expanding bracelet. More information about this comparatively rare watch can also be found at James Bond Lifestyle as well as Dell Deaton’s blog James Bond Watches.

Some may criticize the digital watch with a dinner jacket as a major faux pas, but I’m sure the filmmakers were more satisfied by a hefty product placement commission from Seiko rather than the approval of a blogger writing about the film four decades later. You do you, Mr. Bond.

This dinner suit was also worn by Roger Moore for the film’s opening gunbarrel sequence, the first formal wear to be featured as all previous gunbarrels – including Moore’s for Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun – featured the Bond actors (and stunt coordinator Bob Simmons* doubling for Connery) in a dark business suit.

Roger Moore’s tuxedo-clad gunbarrel sequence set a new standard for the series that would last a quarter of a century.

The Spy Who Loved Me began a tradition of a black tie gunbarrel sequence that would last through Pierce Brosnan’s final Bond film, Die Another Day (2002).

* Bob Simmons was the James Bond franchise’s legendary long-time stunt coordinator and, in fact, appeared in the Alpine-set pre-credits sequence of The Spy Who Loved Me as one of the gun-toting KGB assassins on skiis.

What to Imbibe

Buy you a drink, Major Amasaova… or may I call you XXX?

After their first encounter at the p-p-pyramids, Bond and Anya Amasaova catch up at the Mojave Club for a meeting with the club’s owner, the doomed Max Kalba (Vernon Dobtcheff), whose black market greed would eventually seal his hate.

Bond: The lady will have a Bacardi on the rocks.
Anya: For the gentleman, a vodka martini. Shaken, not stirred.
Bond: Touché.

Bond catches up with the disreputable Kalba to get his hands on the film’s MacGuffin microfilm, but Anya isn’t far behind.

Anya: Just a moment. I would like to bid for it too. You forgot your drink, Mr. Bond.
Bond: Thank you. Na zdorovje.
Kalba: It seems you have competition, Mr. Bond. And from where I sit, I fancy you will find the lady’s figure… hard to match.

Kalba himself displays some interesting eveningwear tendencies with a wide bowtie and large-collared shirt apropos to 1977 contrasting with his stark white dinner jacket with its slim shawl collar. Consistent with villainy in the Bond series, a lack of sartorial taste tends to align with a lack of moral authority. We can feel the judgment in Bond’s eye as he laconically sips his martini.

If you plan on toasting to Sir Roger’s birthday with a Saturday evening martini, keep in mind that the actor preferred gin to vodka. As he wrote in Bond on Bond:

I myself prefer a gin martini and, in all my years of traveling, believe the best is served in the bar of Maison Pic, in Valence, France. How do they prepare it?

First, the ingredients. My gin of choice is Tanqueray and vermouth has to be Noilly Prat.

Take the glass or cocktail shaker you are using and, for two sensible-sized martinis, fill 1/4 of each glass with Noilly Prat. Swill it around and then discard it. Next, top the glasses up with gin, drop in a zest of lemon, and place the glasses in a freezer or ice-cold fridge until you are – or should I say she is – ready.

Roger Moore on location in Egypt during the filming of The Spy Who Loved Me, October 1976.

How to Get the Look

Roger Moore blends a classic aesthetic with a casual approach for his elegant double-breasted black tie ensemble in The Spy Who Loved Me.

• Midnight blue wool/mohair double-breasted dinner jacket with black satin-faced peak lapels, satin-covered six-on-two button front, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, satin-covered three-button cuffs, and ventless back
• White cotton voile shirt with large point collar, front placket with smoke faux-stud buttons, and “Lapidus” pointed-tab single-button cuffs
• Black satin butterfly/thistle-shaped bow tie
• Midnight blue wool/mohair flat front formal trousers with black satin side stripe, black satin fitted waistband, no pockets, and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black patent leather sidebit moc-toe loafers
• Black silk dress socks
• Seiko LC 0674-5009 Quartz DK001 stainless steel digital wristwatch

The Gun

The Spy Who Loved Me features some firearm fluctuation as James Bond’s signature Walther PPK is swapped out in some scenes – such as the earlier Cairo rooftop fight – with a Beretta Model 70 pistol.

This sequence at the Egyptian pyramids finds 007 with his trusty Walther PPK back in his hands. Bond isn’t wearing his usual shoulder holster when he removes his dinner jacket for his long walk to Cairo, so he’s likely carrying the pistol loosely in his pocket.

Bond’s PPK vs. Major Amasova’s bracelet-laden wrist. Who would win?

A chuckling Roger Moore twirls Bond’s trademark PPK on set. Don’t try this at home!

A prop Walther PPK pistol carried by Roger Moore for non-firing scenes in The Spy Who Loved Me can be viewed at YourProps. A closer look at the markings of this PPK indicates that it’s actually a replica produced by the Spanish manufacturer Denix.

Denix still markets its replica PPK, described as “Semiautomatic pistol, Germany 1919” on its site, for 94.62€. Blued and nickel finishes are available, and the serial number – #382480 – is consistent with the one printed on the YourProps PPK listed to have been used by Moore.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

If you’re interested in hearing firsthand tales of the production from 007 himself, the two Roger Moore-penned books that I sourced in this post are:

• My Word is My Bond (2008)
• Bond on Bond: Reflections on 50 Years of James Bond Movies (2012)

Sir Roger’s final book, À Bientôt, was released in the UK in September 2017 and will hit American bookshelves in a few weeks on November 1.

Ray Milland, Robert Cummings, and John Williams in Dial M for Murder (1954)

Vitals

• Ray Milland as Tony Wendice, conniving former tennis pro
• Robert Cummings as Mark Halliday, romantic American crime writer
• Anthony Dawson as C.A. Swann, opportunistic con man
• John Williams as Chief Inspector Hubbard, clever Scotland Yard detective

London, Fall 1953 and Spring 1954

Film: Dial M for Murder
Release Date: May 29, 1954
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Wardrobe Credits: Moss Mabry & Jack Delaney

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

This year’s Halloween post is a Suits and Suspense Spook-tacular, exploring the possible meaning behind the menswear of Hitchcock’s classic Dial M for Murder as well as an appreciation of some damn fine 1950s tailoring!

Dial M for Murder, in case you haven’t seen it, is a sophisticated yet chilling thriller starring Ray Milland and Grace Kelly as married couple Tony and Margot Wendice whose secrets from each other drive the plot. Her secret is that she’s having an affair with American writer Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings); his secret is that he wants to kill her. Rounding out the cast is John Williams reprising his role from the Frederick Knott-penned stageplay as the sagacious Inspector Hubbard and Anthony Dawson as the crooked con man contracted by Tony to carry out the deed against Margot.

This exploratory feature post is going to be a little different than past pieces, serving up every outfit worn by the major male characters over the context of the entire film. That means this post will be packed with a staggering 12 outfits… not to mention a level of extrapolary detail that reveals, if nothing else, that I spend far too much time thinking about men’s style in the movies. Time for a drink!

What’d They Wear?

Oh hi, Mark

The first scene of Dial M for Murder is a quick single-shot vignette of Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings) arriving in England, optimistic and looking forward to his tryst with the married Margot Wendice (Grace Kelly). It’s likely the fall, as it’s later revealed during the trial that the following day’s murder was committed on Saturday, September 26. (However, Mark later says that it was March 26… further complicating matters.)

Mark’s gray semi-solid suit: Single-breasted, three-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets. Likely pleated trousers with turn-ups/cuffs. White shirt with spread collar and double/French cuffs. Navy silk tie. Navy wool v-neck sweater (never seen again). Brown leather cap-toe oxfords. Brown fedora. Taupe topcoat (carried, never worn) echoes both his gray suit and brown accessories and outerwear.

Setting the Stage

We next catch up with Mark and Margot in mid-affair, exchanging smooches and Scotch in the Wendice living room. They are soon joined by Margot’s debonair husband Tony (Ray Milland), who seems blissfully unaware of the true nature of his wife’s visitor.

Tony and Mark are dressed in what is essentially the same outfit: a solid-colored two-piece suit with single-breasted, low stance two-button jackets with all of the same details (white pocket square, low straight jetted hip pockets, four-button cuffs, ventless back) and even patterned ties. It’s what each man does with this “1950s uniform” that differentiates him, particularly in Margot’s eyes as she strives to settle her inner romantic conflict.

Margot and her well-suited suitors.

Tony, in his earth tones, symbolizes home and a grounded life that would be easy and familiar for Margot. Of course, familiarity breeds contempt as the saying goes, and Margot’s warnings to Mark about Tony’s behavior and attitudes indicate that there is something less than comforting beneath his earthy surface. Mark, on the other hand, is far more vibrant in his navy suit and red tie… more colorful and exciting to Margot if not quite as safe. Red will be established as Mark’s “passion color” and his whimsically patterned tie here reflects his relatively “lightweight” attitude as he isn’t yet preoccupied with murder and the potential death of his lover. His red tie also coordinates with her red dress and shoes, though she wraps herself in a brown mink that echoes the brown-wearing Tony’s hold on her.

Mark’s navy flannel suit: Single-breasted, two-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket (with white linen folded pocket square), low straight jetted hip pockets, four-button cuffs, likely ventless back. Double forward-pleated trousers with side pockets and cuffed bottoms. White shirt with point collar and French cuffs (with gold cuff links). Maroon satin silk slim tie with decorative yellow and blue motif. Black leather shoes, probably oxfords. Pearl gray fedora with wide black grosgrain band. Gold wristwatch.

Tony’s taupe worsted suit: Single-breasted, two-button jacket with notch lapels, slanted welted breast pocket (with white linen folded pocket square), low straight jetted hip pockets, four-button cuffs, no vents. Forward-pleated trousers finished with cuffs. White shirt with English spread collar and button cuffs. Brown patterned tie, wider than Mark’s ties. Brown leather cap-toe oxfords with black socks. Khaki raincoat (carried here, more important later.)

“Captain Lesgate”

C.A. Swann (Anthony Dawson), aka “Captain Lesgate” among other names, is the only character to wear the same thing throughout his multiple appearances on screen. Where the other male characters prefer tasteful and traditional suits in the spirit of mid-1950s fashion, Swann opts for a louder array of patterns and colors that differentiate him from the rest of the Dial M for Murder pack. He doesn’t “belong” in this picture, and – thus – he is the only character not to survive it.

C.A. Swann is a simple man. All that he’s got hidden up his sleeve is a strangely fastened shirt cuff and a string of swindled spinsters.

Looking closer at Swann’s attire reveals some interesting details. Swann curiously wears his white double-cuffed shirt with one side fastened over the other like a single barrel cuff. This unorthodox manner for wearing cuff links has sparked debate on online menswear forums, with the general consensus being that this is a sloppy and immature look at best… though it does have some proponents when worn under a long-sleeved jumper like Swann does.

His red-and-navy striped tie has all the look of a traditional club or regimental tie, something one would expect of the Oxford-educated “Captain Lesgate” without any of the actual pedigree of military service. The tie itself with its curiously American right shoulder-down-to-left hip striping, is almost certainly Brooks Brothers’ BB#4 rep tie. (This tie is still available for $79.50 from Brooks Brothers.)

C.A. Swann’s outfit: Tan and brown gingham-check herringbone flannel single-breasted 3-roll-2 button sport jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, two-button cuffs, and single back vent. White shirt with point collar and French cuffs, interestingly worn like a barrel cuff. Red-and-navy right-down-to-left-striped club tie. Navy wool v-neck long-sleeve sweater. Charcoal flannel double forward-pleated trousers with side pockets and cuffed bottoms. Chocolate brown nubuck leather derby-laced chukka boots with hard leather soles. Gray gabardine twill trench coat with epaulettes, 6×3-button front, belt, straight side hand pockets, and adjustable two-button cuff tabs. Cream cashmere scarf. Gold watch, left wrist (though a later close-up depicts a steel watch on a dark brown leather band) and gold signet ring, left pinky.

A Black Tie Affair

Tony invites Mark along to a Saturday night stag party at his club, for which the rules of black tie would dictate men in dinner jackets. Lucky for Mark that he brought his tux across the pond!

Both men’s dinner jackets are consistent with the postwar silhouette of built-up shoulders, sweeping peak lapels, and suppressed waists, but the details beneath that differ wildly. Mark is attired in “a turndown collar shirt and narrow batwing tie,” resulting in what Black Tie Guide calls “the quintessential fifties tuxedo.” Consider what Ian Fleming wrote for that most tuxedoed of cultural icons, James Bond, in his inaugural 007 novel published in 1953, the same year that Dial M for Murder was filmed:

As he tied his thin, double-ended black satin tie, he paused for a moment and examined himself levelly in the mirror… He looked carefully round the room to see if anything had been forgotten and slipped his single-breasted dinner-jacket coat over his heavy silk evening shirt… He… gave a final pull of his narrow tie and walked out of the door and locked it.

– Casino Royale, Chapter 8

Tony opts for a less formal approach, sporting one of his regular white shirts with buttoned barrel cuffs! This breach in formality may be surprising coming from the Brit rather than the American, but it’s worth accounting for the context of the scene. By early 20th century standards, any situation with no women present automatically downgrades the degree of formality; formality would be further relaxed during the World War II era as men were more frequently dining out in regular business suits. Thus, Tony could be given some leeway when sporting his less-than-formal shirt with a dinner suit for a stag party at his men’s club.

Mark’s Black Tie Ensemble: Midnight blue single-breasted dinner jacket with straight-gorge satin-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket (with white linen folded pocket square), straight jetted hip pockets, four-button cuffs, no vents. Midnight formal forward-pleated trousers with very high rise and likely plain-hemmed bottoms. White traditional formal shirt with long point collar, widely pleated front (with studs), and double cuffs. Black batwing bow tie. Navy raincoat with set-in sleeves and adjustable single-button tab cuffs.

Mark’s outfit may be more fashionable for the mid-1950s, but Tony’s more traditional ensemble proves to be timeless.

Tony’s Black Tie Ensemble: Black single-breasted “drape cut” dinner jacket with wide satin-faced peak lapels, slanted welted breast pocket (with white linen folded pocket square), straight jetted hip pockets, four-button cuffs, no vents. Black formal satin side-striped forward-pleated trousers with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms. White shirt with spread collar, front placket (with mother-of-pearl buttons, not studs), and single-button squared barrel cuffs. Black butterfly/thistle-shaped bow tie. Black patent leather oxfords with black socks. Black overcoat (carried).

Note Tony’s informal shirt with its front placket and button cuffs.

The Aftermath

The next day, Tony Wendice is carrying himself like a man who has gotten away with “the perfect murder”. His suit and tie are exquisitely coordinated as his navy tie echoes the blue windowpane in his beautifully textured gray flannel suit. He’s as smooth as he looks, adapting to a major wrench in his plans and still adeptly engineering things to achieve his nefarious goals. It is tailored and styled exactly the same as his previous taupe suit, but his look now channels cold calculation rather than warm groundedness.

Ice and steel. Note also the black bottle to Tony’s right, labeled “Gordon’s.” Is this the Wendice household’s preferred gin?

At this point, the only potential major obstacle could be the police, but when Chief Inspector Hubbard (John Williams) arrives at the door also sporting a gray suit and blue patterned tie, it’s clear to the viewer that these men are in the same league… at least for now.

These variations on the same theme subtly indicate a uniform of coldness as both are pressuring Margot and, in turn, indicting her.

Do you feel judged?!

The more old-fashioned Hubbard is hardly wearing the exact same thing as Tony, rather just the same colors, and he is the only major character to break from single-breasted tailoring to sport a double-breasted jacket. Hubbard’s bow tie and jumper are a clear contrast to the sleek two-piece suits of the two men who are silently vying to control Margot’s future.

The bit of fraying on the bottom right ribbing of his sweater is just enough to not outright ruin the garment, and it’s exactly the amount of wear-and-tear that one would expect to see on a man like Chief Inspector Hubbard.

Note the slight fraying on the bottom of Inspector Hubbard’s sweater.

Aside from the now-departed Swann, Hubbard’s is the most distinctly different style of menswear in the film and a clear sign that the Wendices have an “interloper” in their midst. Unlike Swann, however, Hubbard’s taste is more traditional and thus better suited (in a Hitchcock film, anyway) for a heroic role.

And speaking of heroes… Mark is the last to arrive on the scene, standing out from the gents questioning Margot by wearing a cool blue suit and a dark burgundy red silk tie. I established earlier that red appears to be Mark’s passion color, and he’s wearing it here as the only man on the scene passionately advocating on Margot’s behalf.

Mark’s navy chalkstripe suit: Single-breasted, three-button jacket with wide notch lapels, welted breast pocket (with white linen folded pocket square), straight jetted hip pockets, four-button cuffs, no vents. Forward-pleated trousers with side pockets and likely cuffed bottoms. White shirt with spread collar and French cuffs (with gold cuff links). Burgundy satin silk slim tie.

Tony’s gray flannel suit with light blue windowpane overcheck: Single-breasted, two-button jacket with notch lapels, slanted welted breast pocket (with white linen folded pocket square), low straight jetted hip pockets, four-button cuffs, no vents. Double forward-pleated trousers with belt loops and two back suspender buttons, side pockets and no back pockets, turn-ups/cuffs. White shirt with semi-spread collar, front placket, and button cuffs. Navy mini-patterned silk tie (tucked into trousers!) Red suspenders/braces with black hardware and fastenings. Black leather oxfords with black silk dress socks.

Hubbard’s gray chalkstripe flannel suit: Double-breasted jacket with low 4×2-button front, wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket (white pocket square, not neatly folded), straight jetted hip pockets, three-button cuffs, no vents. Double forward-pleated trousers with side pockets, back right pocket, and turn-ups/cuffs. White shirt with point collar, front placket, and French cuffs (with gold rectangular cuff links). Navy mini-dotted butterfly-shaped bow tie. Gray cashmere v-neck sweater (slightly frayed on bottom ribbing, right side). Black leather cap-toe oxfords. Black homburg with pinched crown. Khaki raincoat with plaid lining.

Reprieve and Retribution

Months have passed. Margot has been convicted of Swann’s pre-meditated murder and is awaiting execution. Mark channels his undying love for her into freeing her, and he’s all business when he shows up at the Wendice threshold, having set aside his red passion tie and donned a gray worsted suit, the traditional office wear of the American businessman. (It’s worth noting that this suit with its two-button jacket is not the same as the gray suit with a three-button jacket that he wore for the vignette of his arrival in the beginning of the film.)

While Mark is all business, Tony, on the other hand, is dressed in his most casual and laidback getup yet: a textured gray tweed sport jacket. His purple tie evokes the color of royalty as he’s been living the easy life in his self-imposed kingdom since Margot’s incarceration, spending her money. And yet, his tie is knotted in a small four-in-hand, almost restrictively tight as the noose grows tighter around his own neck.

Both dressed in gray, Mark and Tony look considerably less vibrant than their first meeting earlier in the film.

One interesting sartorial observation: up to this point, Mark and Tony both wore ventless jackets exclusively. Now, Tony wears a single-vented sport coat and Mark’s suit jacket has double vents. Did men’s fashion really evolve that much over the few months that Margot has been in prison?

Arriving on the scene is good old Inspector Hubbard, again blazing a trail in a dark striped flannel three-piece suit, the only three-piece suit to be worn by any character. Now, Hubbard is in all navy blue against Tony’s gray and purple; the two are no longer on the same team. Blue is the traditional color of police uniforms… law and justice has finally arrived to save the day.

Margot’s POV: an astonished Mark and rather self-satisfied Inspector Hubbard, both in navy ties, greet her upon her unexpected return home.

And, alas, this scene also offers the significance of Chekhov’s Raincoat! Hubbard had brought his raincoat for his first meeting at the Wendice home, where its sole purpose was seemingly a quick moment of comic relief as an accidental seat cushion for Mark.

Now, Hubbard uses his and Tony’s similar raincoats to conduct a series of switches to prove his theory correct. Six decades later, it seems an anachronistic device as most men rarely wear proper outerwear, let alone outerwear as standardized as the khaki gabardine raincoat was in the early 1950s.

Raincoat hijinks!

Mark’s gray worsted pick suit: Single-breasted, two-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket (with white linen folded pocket square), low straight jetted hip pockets, spaced three-button cuffs, short double vents. Forward-pleated trousers with slanted side pockets and cuffs. White shirt with spread collar and French cuffs (with gold rectangular cuff links). Dark navy silk slim tie. White suspenders (per behind-the-scenes photos). Black leather cap-toe oxfords with black socks. Pearl gray fedora with wide black grosgrain ribbon.

Tony’s gray sportcoat and slacks: Gray textured twill-striped tweed single-breasted, two-button sport jacket with notch lapels, slanted patch breast pocket (with white linen folded pockt square), straight jetted hip pockets, four-button cuffs, and short single vent. Gray flannel trousers. White shirt with spread collar and mitred button cuffs. Purple-dotted lavender silk tie, knotted in tight four-in-hand. Black patent leather oxfords. Khaki raincoat.

Hubbard’s navy chalkstripe flannel three-piece suit: Single-breasted, 3-roll-2 buttoning jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket (with white linen pocket square), straight jetted hip pockets, four-button cuffs, no vents. Single-breasted, six-button waistcoat with four welted pockets and notched bottom. Double forward-pleated trousers with side pockets and cuffed bottoms. White shirt with semi-spread collar, front placket, and French cuffs (with gold rectangular cuff links). Navy silk tie. Black leather cap-toe oxfords with perforated stitching across toe cap. Black homburg with pinched crown. Khaki raincoat with plaid lining.

What to Imbibe

Despite only four drinking characters and four days depicted on screen, the Dial M for Murder crew does quite a number on the Wendice household’s well-stocked booze collection… though they tend to limit their imbibing to only three of the most classic concoctions:

Scotch & Soda

The soon-to-be condemned man enjoys one last nip.

Who drinks it? Tony Wendice, Margot Wendice, and Mark Halliday.

What brand of booze? Johnnie Walker Red Label is the Wendice whisky of choice, and Tony even tipples a dram neat at the film’s denouement after he’s been exposed.

How do they make it? Pour some whisky straight from the bottle into a highball glass. Siphon in some carbonated water from a soda siphon bottle, and voila! You’ve got yourself a highball.

Martini

Better living through gin.

Who drinks it? Tony Wendice, Margot Wendice, and Mark Halliday.

What brand of booze? Though not seen during the actual martini-mixing process, a bottle of Gordon’s can be spotted on the Wendice bar.

How do they make it? We catch up with Tony halfway through his concocting, but he appears to be stirring gin, ice, and what is likely a small amount of dry vermouth in a glass mixing glass. (Apologies, Mr. Bond.) He then strains into three traditional martini glasses and serves them up with no garnish.

Brandy, straight

Tony’s brandy evidently meets with Swann’s satisfaction. Like he would know.

Who drinks it? Tony Wendice and C.A. Swann.

What brand of booze? “This calls for a special drink,” declares Tony upon his “reunion” with Swann. “I was planning to palm you off with an indifferent port, but let’s see what we have here,” he says before grabbing for a bottle of brandy apparently named Kennedy’s in red print on a beige square label. The brand is unfamiliar to me.

How do they make it? Tony simply pours the brandy into proper snifters for he and Swann to drink. No additions needed.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

All’s well that ends well.

The Quote

Tony Wendice: People don’t commit murder on credit.

George Lazenby as James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

Vitals

George Lazenby as James Bond, smooth British secret agent

Estoril, Portugal, September 1969

Film: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Release Date: December 18, 1969
Director: Peter R. Hunt
Tailor: Dimi Major
Costume Designer: Marjory Cornelius

Background

On the 00-7th of December, this Car Week post is focused on James Bond’s sole Christmastime adventure, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service starring George Lazenby as the suave secret agent.

The film opens with a scene straight out of the source novel as a competitive Bond engages in a playful “race” against a beautiful young woman speeding toward the beach in her convertible. From the iconic theme song to Lazenby’s clenched lips holding a cigarette as his lighter illuminates a fashionable black tie kit, the moment is classic 007 and it sets the scene for a powerful film that remains faithful to Ian Fleming’s original vision for this significant story and its place in the Bond canon while also establishing the action-oriented direction of George Lazenby’s character.

The young woman, of course, turns out to be the reckless Teresa “Tracy” di Vincenzo (Diana Rigg), the daughter of an influential organized crime figure who has been cornered into a cynical outlook on life. Bond dashes into the waves to save the woman from a suicide attempt, but ends up brawling with the two men who had been following her and looks up only to see that Tracy absconding in her Mercury Cougar. He takes in his situation and verbally winks to the camera:

This never happened to the other fella…

What’d He Wear?

You can learn much about George Lazenby’s midnight blue dinner suit from Matt Spaiser’s comprehensive post at The Suits of James Bond, the definitive source for the clothing of 007’s world. I strongly urge all readers to visit The Suits of James Bond!

The only time that James Bond had previously worn a dinner jacket with peak lapels was Sean Connery’s ivory dinner jacket in Goldfinger. Lazenby’s peak lapels are of a timeless, moderate width rather than excessively slim as was fashionable earlier in the ’60s or too wide as the following decade’s trends would dictate. The lapels have a straight gorge and are faced in midnight satin silk with a buttonhole through the left lapel.

The opulent settings of the Hotel Palácio’s dining room frame Bond’s “date” with Tracy.

The most formal option for a dinner jacket is no vents, but double vents like the long side vents on Lazenby’s jacket are a fashionably acceptable alternative. Both the single button on the front and the three buttons on each cuff are covered in midnight satin silk as well. The single-button jacket has jetted hip pockets and a welted breast pocket, though Lazenby wears no pocket square.

The Suits of James Bond astutely calls out the closely but comfortably fitted dinner suit’s tasteful concessions to late 1960s fashion trends from the short fit of the jacket to the “lower-than-traditional” rise of his darted-front formal trousers.

Like Connery before him, Lazenby wears trousers with three-button tab side adjusters and no waist covering. The trousers have straight pockets along the side seams and two jetted pockets on the back. The legs are trimmed with midnight satin stripes from the waistband down to the bottoms, which are plain-hemmed with a medium break at the top of his shoes.

Fleming’s Bond would have little regard for Lazenby’s reckless behavior upon his return to his hotel room, exercising none of the ritual precautions outlined in the first chapter of Casino Royale… and nearly to his own peril!

Bond wears two white dinner shirts from Frank Foster, the legendary London shirt-maker who also made shirts for Sean Connery and Roger Moore. Both shirts have a subtantial point collar and are made of cotton voile, a nice lightweight fabric for the summer resort-like setting.

Bond’s first dinner shirt, worn during the beach scenes, has a narrowly ruffle-pleated front and squared double (French) cuffs worn with slim gold bar cuff links.

Lazenby’s first shirt in action. What would “the other fella” have thought?

At the casino, Bond wears his second and certainly flashier dinner shirt with two large ruffle strips on each side of the front placket, which buttons up with mother-of-pearl buttons.

Lazenby lets the ruffles on his second shirt fly free after an evening of resting them unobtrusively beneath his dinner jacket where their true splendor could only be hinted at.

This shirt also has squared double cuffs, this time secured with a set of small gold recessed circle links.

Shades of Dr. No.

Bond’s traditional butterfly-shaped bow tie echoes his lapel facings in dark midnight blue satin silk.

Had Lazenby mastered his own take on the Bond smirk? You be the judge.

Bond’s black leather cap-toe oxfords are appropriate as the most traditional and formal lace-up shoes to be worn with black tie.

Silk socks are frequently chosen with formal and semi-formal wear, and Bond appears to be wearing black silk dress socks in the casino, but his shoeless scenes on the beach seem to show our hero sporting a thicker pair of hosiery, likely to protect Lazenby’s feet against the elements when filming.

Aftermath of a failed assignation.

George Lazenby had reportedly tracked down a Rolex when auditioning for the role of James Bond, and the actor fittingly wears two during his sole cinematic outing as 007. Lazenby’s first on-screen Rolex is a classic ref. 5513 Submariner with a stainless steel case, black bezel and dial, and stainless Oyster bracelet.

“Paid in full.”

Lazenby on location in Portugal, still wearing Bond’s trilby, bow tie, and shoulder holster.

Lazenby’s Bond would later wear another Rolex, a ref. 6238 pre-Daytona chronograph, when disguised as Sir Hilary Bray at Piz Gloria. After Roger Moore took over the role of James Bond, he too would wear a Submariner 5513 in his first two Bond films – Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun – before strapping on a Seiko during the quartz revolution of the late ’70s.

Lazenby’s Bond seems hardly the type to wear a traditional hat, though his first appearance of Bond features him motoring along the coast in a black short-brimmed trilby to top off his black tie ensemble. He soon ditches the hat (as well as his jacket) when he leaps off to rescue Tracy from the waves.

The shoulder holster is another traditional accessory of Bond lore dating back to Sean Connery in Dr. No, although Lazenby wears a sleeker, updated version. Lazenby’s rig consists of a wide strap over his left shoulder connected to a thinner black strap that loops around his right shoulder. The holster itself carries his trademark Walther PPK under his left armpit for a smooth right-handed draw.

Under the holster section hangs a short strap that is evidently meant to be worn fastened to Bond’s side adjuster tabs (as Sean Connery wore his), but Lazenby already has the holster unbuttoned when he easily slips it off upon returning to his hotel room.

A behind-the-scenes shot from Becoming Bond of Lazenby being fitted into his shoulder holster on set. The older little man helping him seems to be the same from the beach photo above.

Bond’s heavy black-framed sunglasses with their amber lenses are seen only in silhouette before they are discarded onto the passenger seat and never worn again. To me, they evoke the look of Michael Caine’s bespectacled spy Harry Palmer.

Lazenby may have made some poor choices in his life, but he still was wise enough to know that James Bond wouldn’t wear sunglasses at night.

Lazenby makes a brief appearance as a tuxedoed Bond later in the film during the “We Have All the Time in the World” montage of his various dates with Tracy.

Photographs and footage that has surfaced of George Lazenby screen-testing with various actresses and posing for publicity photos shows him in a more traditional, minimalist ensemble of a Connery-style shawl-collar dinner jacket and plain-fronted shirt with a herringbone woven bib and covered fly placket… with nary a ruffle or pleat to be found.

Lazenby during the audition process, twirling Bond’s trademark PPK. French actress (and author) Marie-France Boyer turns away from the gunplay.

By the time Lazenby’s Bond had made it to the big screen, he would be appropriately ruffled, courtesy of master shirt-maker Frank Foster.

Go Big or Go Home

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service reclaimed Ian Fleming’s “down-to-earth” James Bond after the cinematic spectacle of You Only Live Twice. Right from the opening scene, Bond is motoring along a beach-side road in his Aston Martin when reaches for his cigarette case and lighter, echoing the wide gunmetal case and Ronson lighter that got plenty of ink in Fleming’s novels, and lights up.

No tricks or rockets from this cigarette… just Bond enjoying a smoke from a simple unfiltered cigarette that even has the three gold rings of the Morlands that had been commissioned by Ian Fleming in real life to denote his Commander rank in the British Royal Navy. Fleming would later pass his exact smoking habits, right down to the triple-ringed cigarettes in the same Balkan and Turkish tobacco blend, on to his most famous fictional creation.

Can anyone better versed in tobacco lore than I identify the brand of cigarette Lazenby actually lights up as Bond? The blue printing at the midway point is certainly brand-suggestive.

Lazenby may have been the last cinematic Bond to make use of a cigarette case, but he was only one in a long line of Bond interpretations to show an appreciation for fine champagne. In this case, it’s a bottle of Dom Pérignon of 1957 vintage that he orders to share with Tracy.

A champagne aficionado would have known Bond’s champagne order to be the sign of someone trying to look more sophisticated than they were, as there was no 1957 vintage produced of Dom Pérignon; Bond should have instead ordered a 1955 or a 1959, particularly as the latter would have fit the literary Bond’s stated preference for ten-year-old champagne.

This German lobby card for Im Geheimdienst Ihrer Majestät features a full shot of Tracy and Bond in the dining room of the Hotel Palácio.

However, even the impressive champagne isn’t enough to hold Tracy’s interest and she cuts to the chase, sending the champagne to her room and handing Bond a key so that he may join later and see where the night takes them. (As far as background music goes, I always enjoyed “Try”, the moody and atmospheric instrumental piece composed for the film by John Barry that plays during Bond and Tracy’s brief “date” in the casino dining room.)

Mr. Bond, no stranger to this type of suggestion, takes Tracy up on her offer. Again eschewing caution, 007 strides into her hotel room and immediately finds himself engaged in fisticuffs with Che Che (Irvin Allen), one of Marc-Ange Draco’s more robust henchmen. Bond knocks the man cold after a closely choreographed fight… then feels the need to show off even more by sampling some caviar on his way out the door and noting to no one in particular: “Royal Beluga… north of the Caspian.” He then sets off to his own room for a fateful and inevitable assignation with Tracy.

As for the hotel itself? Bond himself stated earlier in the lobby that “everything seems up to the Palácio’s usual high standards,” establishing the setting as the Hotel Palácio in Estoril, Portugal. James Bond Lifestyle‘s excellent research into this storied hotel describes that Ian Fleming himself had stayed there in May 1941, likely while shadowing rival spy Dusko Popov. Built in 1930, the Palácio Estoril continues to thrive to this day, offering “hotel, golf, and wellness” in an exclusive atmosphere that retains its classic pre-WWII elegance.

How to Get the Look

George Lazenby in costume and on location as James Bond beside his Aston Martin DBS in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

George Lazenby may not have thought much of James Bond’s preference for traditional menswear, but he certainly looks the part in this well-tailored black tie kit that blends classic elegance with then-modern fashion.

• Midnight blue single-breasted 1-button dinner jacket with satin-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, covered 3-button cuffs, and long double vents
• Midnight blue darted-front formal trousers with midnight satin side braiding, 3-button side-adjuster tabs, straight side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton voile ruffled-front formal shirt with front placket, double/French cuffs, and open gauntlets
  • Gold cuff links
• Midnight blue satin silk butterfly-shaped bow tie
• Black leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Black silk dress socks
• Rolex Submariner 5513 stainless steel dive watch with black bezel, black dial, and stainless Oyster link bracelet
• Black leather shoulder holster
• Black short-brimmed trilby with narrow grosgrain band

The Car

Goldfinger and Thunderball had established the on-screen relationship between James Bond and Aston Martin, placing the quintessential British secret agent in a quintessentially British sports car.

In its quest to establish continuity with the earlier films of the series, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service gives George Lazenby’s 007 his own Aston Martin, albeit an updated 1968 Aston Martin DBS Vantage.

Bond parks his DBS at the top of the beach when observing Tracy’s erratic movements.

Aston Martin introduced the DBS in 1967 as an intended replacement for the smaller DB6, itself a successor to the DB5 that had been popularized as 007’s gadget-laden sports car. The DBS incorporated a sleek, modernized look that was William Towns’ first design for Aston Martin.

The base model of the DBS was powered by a naturally aspirated inline-six cylinder engine that produced 282 horsepower, though a Vantage performance option increased the output to 325 horsepower with Italian-made Weber carburetors. The DBS Vantage could reportedly reach a top speed of around 150 mph (241 km/h), a limit that Bond certainly would have been eager to test when racing Tracy.

1968 Aston Martin DBS Vantage

Body Style: 2-door coupe (2+2 seater)

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

Engine: 3995 cc (4.0 L) Aston Martin DOHC I6 with Weber carburetors

Power: 325 bhp (242 kW; 330 PS) @ 5750 rpm

Torque: 290 lb·ft (393 N·m) @ 4500 rpm

Transmission: 5-speed manual

Wheelbase: 102.8 inches (2611 mm)

Length: 180.5 inches (4585 mm)

Width: 72 inches (1829 mm)

Height: 52.3 inches (1328 mm)

(Above stats from Carfolio.com)

In 1969, Aston Martin introduced a V8 engine option for the DBS, and this 5340cc coupe was briefly the fastest four-seater production car in the world. The success of the V8 model signaled the end of the DBS, which ceased production after the 1972 model year, and the design was incorporated into the renamed “Aston Martin V8”.

George Lazenby wasn’t the only James Bond actor to prominently drive an Aston Martin DBS. As debonair dandy Lord Brett Sinclair on The Persuaders!, Roger Moore had a “Bahama Yellow” six-cylinder, five-speed 1970 DBS that was re-badged and re-wheeled to resemble the V8 model. Sinclair was Moore’s final major role before he took over as James Bond in Live and Let Die in 1973.

The Guns

The first of James Bond’s armament that we see in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service isn’t his iconic Walther but rather a disassembled Armalite AR-7 rifle in the glove compartment of his Aston Martin. 007 fans would recall this being the “sniper rifle” issued to Bond by Q in From Russia With Love and used to great effect when eliminating Krilencu the Bulgar terrorist.

In one of many instances of establishing continuity with the earlier films, the AR-7 appears here in Bond’s DBS. Bond even uses the rifle’s scope to observe Tracy before establishing that she’s in danger and heading into the ocean after her.

The parts of Bond’s AR-7 survival rifle in a concealed compartment in his DBS. Not the last prop that would return from From Russia With Love…

When Bond’s trademark Walther PPK does finally show up, it’s not in his hands but those of Tracy di Vicenzo, who has removed it from his discarded holster and cornered him in his hotel room.

Gunplay is evidently Tracy’s idea of foreplay.

007 disarms her with one swift movement of his arm, and the two find a more agreeable manner for getting acquainted.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

Curious to learn more about George Lazenby himself? The 2017 documentary Becoming Bond is certainly worth your time!

The Quote

Please stay alive… at least for tonight.

Gallery

Frank Sinatra as Joey Evans in Pal Joey (1957)

Vitals

Frank Sinatra as Joey Evans, womanizing nightclub singer

San Francisco, Spring 1957

Film: Pal Joey
Release Date: October 25, 1957
Director: George Sidney
Costume Designer: Jean Louis

Background

Today marks the birth of Frank Sinatra, the Chairman of the Board himself, born on December 12, 1915, in Hoboken. This son of tenement-dwelling Italian immigrants grew to be one of the most influential, best-selling music artists in history.

Sixty years ago, Sinatra was rising as one of the biggest stars in the world when he starred as the titular Pal Joey, a performance that earned him a Golden Globe award. Originally a stage musical starring Gene Kelly as the singing and dancing anti-hero, Pal Joey was reconfigured for the screen with the character more reflective of Sinatra’s own charming yet mischievous “nice guy” persona.

Though he played the title character, Frank Sinatra reportedly insisted upon co-star Rita Hayworth receiving top billing because “For years, she was Columbia Pictures,” although he’s also credited with the more laconic explanation of simply saying, “Ladies first.”

The film also starred Kim Novak as ingenue chorus girl Linda English, and Sinatra remarked of being billed between the two of them that, “That’s a sandwich I don’t mind being stuck in the middle of.”

Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak in Pal Joey.

Despite actually being three years younger than Sinatra, Rita Hayworth plays the cougar-ish Vera Prentice-Simpson, a former burlesque performer who takes on the younger Joey Evans  as her “boy toy” in return for financing his dreams of owning a nightclub. In his 2008 book Sinatra in Hollywood, author Tom Santopietro declared the scene in which Sinatra sings his own classic standard “The Lady is a Tramp” to Hayworth as the finest moment of Ol’ Blue Eyes’ film career.

I received a request from BAMF Style reader Mark earlier this year to showcase Frank Sinatra’s style in Pal Joey, so it seemed apt to start by featuring this scene on the chairman’s actual birthday. Happy birthday, Frank!

What’d He Wear?

As a professional entertainer, Frank Sinatra’s titular Joey spends much of the film in variations of formal attire from sharp dinner suits in midnight blue and black mohair (at the beginning and end, respectively) as well as a red flecked jacket when on the bandstand and a white tie and tails ensemble during a fantasy sequence in the musical finale.

After the club where Joey is performing receives a surprise visit from the glamorous and powerful ex-burlesque performer Vera Prentice-Simpson, Joey emerges from the back room to serenade her in an equally impromptu rendition of “The Lady is a Tramp,” dressed in a non-traditional black tie kit consisting of a dove gray shawl-collar dinner jacket with a lace-trim pleated front shirt and midnight formal trousers.

Joey closes out a show-stopping number for Vera’s benefit.

The gray dinner jacket has self-faced shawl lapels of a classic width that neatly roll to a single button positioned perfectly at the waist line for harmonious lines with only the shirt visible above the buttoning point and only the trousers below it.

Jetted, rather than flapped, pockets on the hips continue the clean lines of the ensemble and are considered more appropriate for formal wear and dinner jackets. Joey wears a white linen pocket square neatly folded into the welted breast pocket. There are three buttons on each cuff and, per dinner jacket tradition, there are no vents.

Joey wears a white pleated-front dinner shirt in cotton voile with a black silk butterfly-shaped bow tie. The shirt’s squared double (French) cuffs are held together with the same large silver-toned ridged disc links as he wears elsewhere.

Joey and his canine pal prepare for his evening’s performance in his dressing room.

The Rat Pack had many of their shirts made from Nat Wise of Beverly Hills, which was adapted into Anto Shirt in 1987, and this unique shirt is likely no exception, though it predates Frank’s association with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.

The subtle lace trim on the shirt’s pleated front looks like it was constructed from ripped strips of paper, delivering just the needed level of insouciant imperfection befitting the character’s swagger. The pleats are a bit affected but hardly as flashy as the ruffled front of James Bond’s tuxedo shirt in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The shirt has a standard placket with mother-of-pearl buttons.

Sinatra doing what he does best.

In accordance with this less formal ensemble, Joey doesn’t wear the traditional waist covering (cummerbund or waistcoat) that often accompanies black tie. He wears white fabric suspenders (braces) with gold adjusters with white leather hooks that connect to two double sets of buttons along in the inside of the front trouser waistband and a single set of two buttons on the outside of the back trouser waistband, split by a narrow “fishmouth” notch that adds flexibility as Joey moves or sits.

Joey catches Linda’s eye through the barred window of his dressing room.

Joey’s formal trousers are midnight blue, possibly the trousers from his dinner suit at the beginning of the movie, with double reverse pleats and a satin side stripe that extends from the plain-hemmed bottoms up to the top of the waistband. They have no back pockets but straight pockets along the side seams, behind the satin braids, where Sinatra often places his hands.

Production photo of Frank Sinatra with Barbara Nichols, yet another of the beautiful women with whom he co-starred in Pal Joey (1957). Nichols was a mainstay of late 1950s productions that called for brassy blonde bombshells from Sweet Smell of Success (1957) and Where the Boys Are (1960) to the first episode of The Untouchables in 1959.

Black oxfords are considered the most formal lace-up shoe that one can wear with black tie, although Sinatra was certainly known to wear the uber-formal opera pumps with some of his tuxedos… such as this pair of John Lobbs worn with this custom Cyril Castle dinner suit in the 1970s.

But back to Pal Joey, where Sinatra wears a more practical and accessible pair of black patent leather cap-toe oxfords with black silk dress socks.

“A hat’s not a hat till it’s tilted,” sang Sinatra with Dean Martin and Bing Crosby in “Style” for Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), and Sinatra’s ability to effectively wear a hat has become part of his lore.

Naturally, Joey thus tops of his look with his black corded-band trilby when heading out of the club with Vera on his arm.

The hat is less formal than the homburgs suggested as appropriate headgear with black tie, but his less-than-formal dinner jacket excuses it. The black felt hat has a pinched crown with a band consisting of four thin tan cords joined together on the left side.

This Pal Joey hat was undoubtedly made by Cavanagh, whose hats Sinatra wore exclusively in real life, though I can’t find more information about this hat specifically.

Joey takes in his surroundings.

Joey wears a watch on his left wrist that isn’t clearly seen anywhere on screen, though it appears to be a gold tank watch on a black leather strap, an elegantly simple style appropriate for black tie and befitting Sinatra’s own image.

Joey shares drinks and dreams with Vera while tending bar on her yacht.

One of Pal Joey‘s four nominations at that year’s Academy Awards was for Best Costume Design, appropriately recognizing the achievements of Paris-born designer Jean Louis.

How to Get the Look

Frank Sinatra’s signature look on stage was a dark tuxedo with a red silk pocket square, so it’s a treat to see the Chairman take on this non-traditional yet beautifully tailored dinner jacket in Pal Joey.

• Dove gray shawl-collar single-button dinner jacket with welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • White linen pocket square, folded in breast pocket
• White cotton voile dinner shirt with point collar, lace-trimmed pleated front, and squared double/French cuffs
  • Round silver ridged cuff links
• Black satin silk butterfly-shaped bow tie
• Midnight blue double reverse-pleated formal trousers with satin side stripes, straight/on-seam side pockets, fishmouth-notched back waistband with two suspender buttons, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White suspenders/braces with gold adjusters and white hooks
• Black patent leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Black silk socks
• Black felt short-brimmed fedora with tan quadruple-corded band
• Gold tank watch on black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, and read up on your Sinatra style. Several years ago, I was honored to receive the gift of Bill Zehme’s The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin’, a definitive bible of Ol’ Blue Eyes’ approach to sartorialism and life, from BAMF Style reader Teeritz.

I have also heard good things about a newly released book, Eliot Weisman’s The Way It Was: My Life with Frank Sinatra, which explores the last two decades of Sinatra’s life.

The Quote

I got it figured out. You treat a dame like a lady, and you treat a lady like a dame.

Sean Connery as James Bond in Diamonds are Forever (1971)

Vitals

Sean Connery as James Bond, British government agent in repose

At sea, Spring 1971

Film: Diamonds are Forever
Release Date: December 17, 1971
Director: Guy Hamilton
Wardrobe Master: Ray Beck
Tailor: Anthony Sinclair

Background

Sean Connery’s final scene as the official James Bond finds him in a quintessentially 007 scenario enjoying a romantic dinner with a beautiful woman. Having foiled the nefarious plans of Ernst Stavro Blofeld once more, Bond and Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) take to the sea for a leisurely cruise across the pond, reminiscent of the novel’s own passages set aboard the Queen Elizabeth.

If you’re curious about the ship featured in the film, the aficionados at AJB007 have suggested that it’s a P&O ship… possibly the SS Canberra.

With New Year’s Eve celebrations around the corner, I’m sure many BAMF Style readers are planning to ring in the new year with style. Consider sporting a velvet dinner jacket in a celebratory but tastefully subdued darker color like burgundy, hunter green, or navy. As the former two colors may be more associated with the Christmas holiday, let’s take a look at the latter as worn by Mr. Bond at sea.

What’d He Wear?

Diamonds are Forever features Sean Connery wearing his most varied and colorful wardrobe as James Bond, reminiscent more of the fashionable clothing worn by George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service than Connery’s own “uniform” of gray suits and navy grenadine ties that he had established in Dr. No.

Sean Connery makes his last official EON Productions appearance as James Bond in a creative black tie ensemble anchored by a navy velvet dinner jacket, appropriate for an intimate dinner at sea. You can read about this jacket, shirt, bow tie, and trousers in comprehensive detail in Matt Spaiser’s definitive 007 style blog, The Suits of James Bond.

Mr. Wint (Bruce Glover) puts quite a show into opening a claret for Bond… unaware that it is a claret, of course, and sealing his own fate.

The well-cut velvet jacket has slim, self-faced shawl lapels that roll to a single-button front that Connery wears fastened throughout the scene, including while seated.

The sleeves are roped at the shoulders and have four buttons at each cuff. Pocket flaps and double vents are generally not preferable with evening wear, but both are more acceptable for dressed-down or fashionable pieces like this jacket.

Bond wears a light blue shirt that, other than the spread collar, is consistent with the details of Connery’s Turnbull & Asser shirts that he wore with his business suits earlier in the series including a front placket and the character’s signature two-button turnback cuffs also known as “cocktail cuffs” among other epithets.

(007 first wore a cocktail cuff shirt with black tie in Thunderball when he wore a white shirt with a sleek midnight mohair dinner suit to a casino in the Bahamas.)

Bond’s black silk bow tie is a large butterfly (or “thistle”) shape, though it’s hardly to the comically large proportions that less stylish men were wearing in the ’70s.

James Bond, confident that his bow tie won’t mark him for inclusion in future Buzzfeed articles decrying 1970s fashion. (He obviously forgot about the short pink tie he had been wearing earlier…)

Bond wears dark formal trousers with the traditional single black side stripe down each leg. They may possibly be the same as the black flat front formal trousers he wears with his off-white dinner jacket in Las Vegas, but they can’t be the same as the distinctive black dinner suit with its red-accented facings and details.

His shoes are black cap-toe oxfords worn with black silk dress socks.

Poor Mr. Wint.

If you like the look of the navy velvet shawl-collar dinner jacket, you can also channel Colin Firth’s look in Kingsman: The Secret Service when Galahad sports a “dope-ass smoking jacket” with a white formal shirt, black bow tie, and Black Watch plaid trousers for a McDonald’s dinner with Samuel L. Jackson’s character.

What to Imbibe

Snobbery saves the day for James Bond and Tiffany Case when 007 traps his would-be wine steward into revealing his lack of expertise over a bottle of Château Mouton Rothschild.

Mr. Wint: Wine, sir? Mouton Rothschild ’55. A happy selection, if I may say.
Bond: I’ll be the judge of that… that’s rather potent. Not the cork, your after-shave. Strong enough to bury anything… but the wine is rather excellent. Although, for such a grand meal, I had rather expected a claret.
Mr. Wint: Of course. Unfortunately, our cellars are rather poorly stocked with clarets.
Bond: Mouton Rothschild is a claret. And I’ve smelled that aftershave before, and both times I’ve smelled a rat!

These fightin’ words send Mr. Kidd (Putter Smith) leaping into action with the dubiously effective weapon of two flaming skewers. Bond grabs the nearby bottle of Courvoisier and – as these two bozos likely neglected to remember that brandy is flammable – quickly renders the poorly coiffed Mr. Kidd aflame.

To learn more about Mouton Rothschild’s appearance across Bond canon, the wine’s iconic label, and the use of its 1955 vintage in Diamonds are Forever, check out James Bond Lifestyle.

To avoid being foiled by Mr. Bond in the future, arm yourself with the knowledge that a “claret” is a traditionally British English term for red wine produced in the Bordeaux region of France.

If cocktails are more your speed, you can follow Bond’s post-prandial example in the novel Diamonds are Forever when he and Tiffany Case are headed back to England on the Queen Elizabeth:

They got into the lift for the Promenade Deck. “And now what, James?” said Tiffany. “I’d like some more coffee, and a Stinger made with white Crème de Menthe, while we listen to the Auction Pool. I’ve heard so much about it and we might make a fortune.”

How to Get the Look

Sean Connery’s tenure as James Bond ended as it began with the actor in black tie.

Nearly a decade had passed since 007’s introduction in Dr. No, and the creative yet elegant approach to dinner dress in Diamonds are Forever show just how much fashion had evolved in those nine years.

• Navy velvet single-button dinner jacket with slim shawl lapels, welted breast pocket, slanted flapped hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and double vents
• Light blue poplin dress shirt with spread collar, front placket, and 2-button turnback/cocktail cuffs
• Black silk butterfly-shaped bow tie
• Black wool flat front formal trousers with silk side stripe, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Black dress socks

If you’re worried about evoking Hugh Hefner’s smoking jacket – don’t. There are quite a few factors that differentiate a velvet dinner jacket from a smoking jacket, including how you wear it. Plus, the item is coming back en vogue according to a December 2017 GQ article calling velvet dinner jackets “the easiest holiday party hack around”.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

…and have a happy new year!

Clifton Webb as Richard Ward Sturges in Titanic (1953)

Vitals

Clifton Webb as Richard Ward Sturges, millionaire and estranged family man

RMS Titanic, April 1912

Film: Titanic
Release Date: April 16, 1953
Director: Jean Negulesco
Costume Designer: Dorothy Jeakins

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Before there was Kate and Leo, there was Barbara and Clifton.

To know me is to know my obsession with the Titanic and other maritime disasters of the early 20th century. SS Valencia, Empress of Ireland, Lusitania, Princess Sophia, Titanic‘s hospital sister ship Britannic… chances are that if it sank in the first few decades of last century, I know a thing or two about it.

It was today in 1912 that the RMS Titanic actually struck the iceberg that sank her. The collision happened around 11:40 p.m., North Atlantic time, on the night of Sunday, April 14. Compared to most of the other disasters in the previous paragraph, it took considerable time to sink, finally settling under the waves at 2:20 a.m. on the morning of Monday, April 15, 1912, ending more than 1,500 lives of the roughly 2,200 that had been aboard.

The story of the Titanic and her passengers and crew had actually been featured several times on screen in the forty years to follow. Saved from the Titanic was released weeks after the tragedy, starring Dorothy Gibson – a bona fide film star of the era and actual Titanic survivor – as herself. Even the Nazis got their grips on the story for a 1943 propaganda film that targeted British greed to blame for the tragedy… though the drama behind the scenes of that one is far more compelling than the fictionalized narrative presented on screen.

It wasn’t until the release of this 1953 melodrama – the day after the 41st anniversary of the sinking – that Hollywood first approached the story as the central subject for a major production. Clifton Webb starred as Richard Ward Sturges – a millionaire cut from the same snobbish cloth as his Waldo Lydecker character in Laura – who was estranged from his wife Julia (the always sublime Barbara Stanwyck) and their children, Annette (Audrey Dalton) and Norman (Harper Carter).

Julia has taken it upon herself to return with her children to her family home in Michigan for a more honest, rooted upbringing than the elitist expatriate lifestyle that Richard had been cultivating. Richard gets wind of the plan at the 11th hour and arrives at the Cherbourg docks on the day of the Titanic‘s departure. Much like Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack would do in James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster, Richard finagles a ticket for himself in steerage, eventually sneaking his way up to the ship’s famously opulent first class quarters. (For narrative purposes, this film explains that Titanic‘s cabins were totally sold out for its maiden voyage; this was far from true as the ship was only half booked. Imagine the even greater loss of life had the remaining 50% of the ship’s passenger space actually been filled… but I’ll try to hold off on my commentary of the film’s dubious representation of reality!)

What’d He Wear?

Oh, yes, I forgot. “The best dressed man of his day.” That’s what they’re going to write on your tombstone.

Julia likely meant it as an insult, but the idea of eternal recognition for his sartorial excellence was no doubt music to the haughty Richard Ward Sturges’ ears. As a man of the world, Richard puts great importance in his clothing.

The relaxed protocols of the latter Edwardian era would permit that even a suave snob like Mr. Sturges could forego full evening dress in favor of the increasingly popular dinner suit… or tuxedo, as it was known to the Titanic‘s many American passengers.

Having boarded the Titanic spontaneously, our Mr. Sturges had no time to pack his finery, and he is forced to visit the ship’s tailor for his evening wear, which he wears on the evenings of April 13 and April 14 aboard ship. (For those keeping score of the historical inaccuracies… there was no tailor shop on the Titanic. There were, however, four passengers in third class who listed their occupation as “tailor”.)

During the Edwardian era, “the most popular style of dinner jacket was still single-breasted peak lapel or shawl collar in black vicuña,” reports Black Tie Guide, and it’s no surprise that the good Mr. Sturges outfits himself in the former for his evenings at sea. Nothing but the most cosmopolitan for this fashion plate, of course.

Richard Ward Sturges begrudgingly accepts the vestments of a shipboard tailor shop, but not without throwing some shade in the tailor’s direction.

Richard: It’s very nice material.
The tailor: Yes, sir, it’s a beautiful suit.
Richard: (correcting) I said it was “nice material.”

In this case, they’re both right, although it’s possible that a man born to wear black tie like the erstwhile Webb Parmelee Hollenbeck could make even the most pedestrian dinner suit look fashionable. The “nice material” in this case is a dark wool, potentially black but possibly midnight blue based on colorized stills and promotional material. Promotional material is hardly an authoritative source, but it would suit both Mr. Webb and his equally elegant dramatis personae Mr. Sturges to wear the more interesting and sartorially informed shade of “darker than black” midnight suiting.

Richard’s single-breasted dinner jacket is absolutely timeless with satin-faced peak lapels of moderate width, subtle roping on the sleeveheads, and a ventless back. This dinner jacket would have certainly been fashionable at the time of the film’s 1912 setting as well as its early 1950s production and even today, 65 years after the film’s release and more than a century after the sinking of the Titanic.

The jacket closes with a single button with a somewhat low stance considering the high lapel roll. There are also four buttons on each cuff, straight jetted hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket. Ever the gentleman, Richard completes his look always with a white linen kerchief rakishly folded in his breast pocket, occasionally augmenting his style with a white carnation pinned to his left lapel.

With this level of horror on Richard’s face, you’d think someone just told him that he needn’t bother dressing for dinner that evening.

Convention dictates that “your tie should be of the same material as the silk facings to your dinner jacket,” per Hardy Amies’ ABC of Men’s Fashion in 1964. It was true in the fifty years preceding Amies’ publication and remains true more than fifty years hence, so it can be assumed that the disciple-of-convention Richard’s butterfly-shaped black bow tie is made from the same dull grosgrain silk as his lapel facings. Naturally, it’s a self-tying model.

Richard wears a white dress shirt with a stiff wing collar, front bib, and squared single cuffs. The large round cuff links match the two smaller shirt studs visible on the front of the shirt above the low V-shaped opening of Richard’s waistcoat.

Richard takes a break from his poker game to shave.

Suspenders (or braces) are the only viable option if one wants to hold up his formal trousers while wearing black tie, unless the trousers have been perfectly tailored to fit without them. Richard wears a set of black suspenders with metal adjusters. His suspenders go mostly unseen until he removes his dinner jacket and they slightly poke out through the armholes of his waistcoat.

Daniel Craig’s James Bond was criticized for removing his dinner jacket during a high-stress poker game in Casino Royale, but if even Clifton Webb has done it, then perhaps 007 is owed a greater degree of leeway…

Richard wears a white piqué waistcoat with a slim shawl collar and a double-breasted six-on-three button arrangement of sew-through mother-of-pearl buttons that wraps to create a low V-shaped opening on top and a straight bottom. There is a welt pocket on each side, positioned between the top two rows of buttons.

The traditional black waistcoat was being supplanted by white piqué in both full dress and informal evening dress over the course of the 1910s.

“I guess long trousers are enough to prove you’re a man,” Richard tells his young son Norman during an emotional scene that carries greater weight than you may imagine from this quote. It’s not atypical of Richard Ward Sturges to draw upon sartorial insight for an impactful remark like this.

Richard’s “long trousers” with his black tie kit would match his dinner jacket, so he ostensibly wears a pair of midnight blue wool formal trousers with grosgrain silk side striping and plain-hemmed bottoms. He correctly wears a pair of black patent leather oxford shoes with black silk dress socks.

The Sturges family rushes the ready themselves during the Titanic evacuation. Note Richard’s perfectly shined patent leather shoes.

Richard wears a pinky ring on his right hand, likely a personal accessory of Clifton Webb’s that just happened to fit the character.

Julia (Barbara Stanwyck) pleads with an indifferent Richard.

At one point, Richard returns to his statement to retrieve the flannel single-breasted Chesterfield coat that he had previously worn with his three-piece lounge suit when boarding the ship. Likely gray or camel cloth, his knee-length coat has notch lapels with a dark velvet collar, a covered-fly front, flapped hip pockets, and decorative back buttons.

He’s never actually seen wearing the coat with his dinner suit, instead preferring to turn up his dinner jacket’s peak lapels against the cold deckside winds.

Richard absconds with his coat.

After the Titanic collides with the iceberg, Richard returns to his family to insist upon their donning clothing, though he naturally stays true to his character by reminding them of decorum: “Now, put on warm things, everybody: comfortable, but as becoming as possible.”

Richard, in turn, only ties on his life vest rather than that Chesterfield coat… despite the fact that his overcoat is arguably quite becoming.

Sturges and son.

If you’ve seen Cameron’s flick, then you know that the life jackets on the Titanic didn’t look like these. The actual life jackets were white canvas with six rectangular cork cells – three rows of two across – that reportedly broke a few necks of passengers and crew who dove from the ship into the water below.

…

[[[WIKI: At the last minute, a wealthy American expatriate in Europe, Richard Sturges (Clifton Webb), buys a steerage-class ticket (the lowest class) for the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic from a Basque immigrant. Once aboard he seeks out his runaway wife, Julia (Barbara Stanwyck). He discovers she is trying to take their two unsuspecting children, 18-year-old Annette (Audrey Dalton) and ten-year-old Norman (Harper Carter), to her hometown of Mackinac, Michigan, to raise as down-to-earth Americans rather than rootless elitists like Richard himself… When Annette learns her mother’s intentions, she insists on returning to Europe with her father on the next ship as soon as they reach America. Julia concedes that her daughter is old enough to make her own decisions, but she insists on keeping custody of Norman. This angers Richard, forcing Julia to reveal that Norman is not his child, but rather the result of a one-night stand after one of their many bitter arguments. Upon hearing that, he agrees to give up all claim to Norman. Richard joins Maude, Earl, and George Widener in the lounge to play auction bridge with them. The next morning, when Norman reminds Richard about a shuffleboard game they had scheduled, Richard coldly brushes him off… As the Titanic is in her final moments, Norman and Richard find each other. Richard tells a passing steward that Norman is his “son” and then tells the boy that he has been proud of him every day of his life. Then they join the rest of the doomed passengers and the crew in singing the hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee”. As the last boiler explodes, the Titanic’s bow plunges, pivoting her stern high into the air while the ship rapidly slides into the icy water. The remaining survivors are last seen waiting in the lifeboats for help to come as dawn approaches.]]]

What to Imbibe

Richard Ward Sturges fuels his marathon card game with coffee and Craven A cigarettes, a typically inadvisable combination for those invested in living a long life. However, the very nature of the film’s narrative suggests that this is hardly the greatest danger that Richard will face.

In the first-class smoking lounge, Richard does just what the room was made for during a high-stakes poker game with Maude Young (Thelma Ritter), George Widener (Guy Standing Jr.), and Earl Meeker (Allyn Joslyn). Though Maude is inspired by the real life passenger Margaret “Molly” Brown, only Mr. Widener reflects an actual passenger who traveled on the famous ship.

In more polite company, Richard consigns himself to champagne. His particular bubbly of choice isn’t mentioned, though there is a delightful scene as he waltzes through the first class dining room, notices the aged Mr. and Mrs. Straus at their table, and inspects their champagne.

“Pommery, 1892,” Richard reads. “Mrs. Straus, be careful of this old fox. He has plans.”

A few nights later, Richard is feeling considerably less jaunty despite the full coupe of champagne before him.

Whether or not Pommery ’92 would have been actually available among the Titanic‘s wine cellar of 12,000 bottles is lost to history, though corks from bottles of Moët & Chandon and Heidsieck & Co. were found among the ship’s wreckage.

I didn’t want to say anything, but…

The film should hardly be considered an encyclopedic resource on the actual circumstances of the RMS Titanic, as it was conceptualized as a vehicle for Darryl F. Zanuck to feature Clifton Webb in a more serious role alongside younger talent, making the most of Twentieth Century Fox’s new CinemaScope lens.

The real sinking of the Titanic certainly doesn’t lack for drama, as straightforward depictions like the later A Night to Remember would prove. However, Fox screenwriters Charles Brackett, Richard L. Breen, and Walter Reisch took the drama up to eleven with their Academy Award-winning original screenplay, weaving in actual events and figures like Captain Edward J. Smith with the film’s narrative and characters.

Imagine that you’re on a sinking ship in its final minutes. There may still be time to find a floatation device, swim out to a lifeboat, or don a few warm layers for the chilly weather… but no, you decide to stand with hundreds of other doomed men and sing. For obvious reasons, this did not actually happen.

The emphasis rarely strays beyond the drama of the Sturges family, but a few emotional interludes are permitted to mingle with the ship’s crew and some of her more famous passengers like John Jacob Astor and Maude Young, a Molly Brown surrogate played by the inimitable Thelma Ritter.

Zanuck made the most of his new CinemaScope during the latter half of the film as the Titanic begins its iceberg descent to the bottom of the Atlantic. The 882-foot-long ship was represented on screen with a 28-foot-long replica, marvelously detailed and eventually sank through special effects supervised by Ray Kellogg. (Read this excellent entry at Model Ships in the Cinema to learn more.)

The doomed ship’s final moments reveal a few technical errors; the ship’s lights appear to remain on through the portholes a few minutes after losing power, and the port of registry on the stern is incorrectly depicted as Southampton rather than Liverpool. While Titanic did indeed depart from Southampton on her maiden voyage, both Titanic and her sister ship Olympic were registered to White Star Line’s home port in Liverpool.

Barbara Stanwyck later recalled the impact that filming this real-life disaster had on her:

…It was bitter cold. I was 47 feet up in the air in a lifeboat swinging on the davits. The water below was agitated into a heavy rolling mass and it was thick with other lifeboats full of women and children. I looked down and thought: If one of these ropes snaps now, it’s goodbye for you. Then I looked up at the faces lined along the rail… those left behind to die with the ship. I thought of the men and women who had been through this thing in our time. We were recreating an actual tragedy and I burst into tears. I shook with great racking sobs and couldn’t stop.

How to Get the Look

Clifton Webb as Richard Ward Sturges in Titanic (1953)

Clifton Webb belongs to a proud but limited group of gentlemen who look more comfortable in a tuxedo than any man could hope to look in any degree of leisure. The fact that his dinner suit would remain just as stylish more than a century after the film’s 1912 setting stands as a testament to the timelessness of men’s formalwear.

• Midnight blue wool single-button dinner jacket with grosgrain silk-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • White linen pocket square
  • White carnation boutonnière
• White cotton formal shirt with wing collar, stiff front bib, and squared single cuffs
  • Round metal studs and cuff links
• Black grosgrain silk self-tying bow tie
• White piqué double-breasted formal waistcoat with shawl collar, 6×3-button front, welt pockets, and straight-cut bottom
• Midnight blue wool formal trousers with side pockets, grosgrain silk side striping, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black suspenders with silver-toned adjusters
• Black patent leather oxford shoes
• Black dress socks
• Pinky ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. It filled a need for Titanic-inspired drama in the early 1950s, and the revived interest in the story – as well as the recent release of Walter Lord’s incredibly researched tome – led to the masterful A Night to Remember released by the Rank Organisation in 1958.

The Quote

Sorry, Julia. You’re asking me to do something which involves character. As you have pointed out, I am not a man of character.

Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly in Reilly: Ace of Spies (Episode 6: “Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses”)

Vitals

Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly, shrewd British agent and anti-Bolshevik

St. Petersburg, Russia, October 1910, and
London, November 1918

Series: Reilly: Ace of Spies
Episodes:
– “Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses” (Episode 6), dir. Jim Goddard, aired 10/5/1983
– “After Moscow”(Episode 9), dir. Martin Campbell, aired 10/26/1983
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller

Background

Reilly: Ace of Spies fictionalizes the exploits of Russian-born spy Sidney Reilly, often cited as a real-life basis for Ian Fleming’s James Bond. While the showrunners must have been cognizant of the need to place their suave British secret agent in a tuxedo, the series’ narrative also coincided with the rise of the dinner jacket over the first quarter of the 20th century.

These waning years of the Edwardian era ushered in a relaxed dress code for men, evident through the rise of the lounge suit over the frock coat by day and the dinner jacket eclipsing full evening dress by night.

“Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses”, the’ sixth episode, concludes a two-parter highlighting Reilly’s activities in pre-revolution St. Petersburg. The year is 1910, and Reilly – ever the opportunist – seizes the moment to enrich himself while serving his country against a dangerous backdrop of battleships, mistresses, and trigger-happy Russians. The beginning of the two-parter found Reilly attending a formal ball in full white tie, but his more private evening escapades are conducted in a black notch-lapel dinner jacket.

The notch-lapel dinner jacket makes its next appearance in the aptly titled ninth episode “After Moscow”, set in November 1918 following Reilly’s return from a Russia plunged into violent revolution. The signing of the armistice to end World War I calls for a party, where comrades like the fiery Boris Savinkov join Reilly and his courtesan companion Alexandra the Plugger (Lindsay Duncan) to celebrate… and to plot the overthrow of Lenin’s Bolshevik government in Russia.

No one can say Sidney Reilly didn’t know how to throw a party.

The notch-lapel dinner jacket is a style that has sadly descended primarily into the domain of rental tuxedoes rather than continuing the tradition of its classic origins. Even modern style icons like George Clooney seem to have fallen prey to the “rental-style” dinner jacket with its standard notch lapel and two- or three-button front… essentially no more than a black suit jacket with silk accents. It’s this type of jacket that will be doling out by the dozens this weekend as American high schoolers head to prom. (I was one of said students 11 years ago this month when I wore a two-button notch-lapel rental jacket that was surely the pride of my local Tuxedo Junction.)

Despite the reasonable distaste that sartorial purists have for the notch-lapel dinner jacket, it’s worth noting that the “step-collar” has been an alternative option on dinner jackets since their genesis at the turn of the 20th century with shifting tides of popularity in the 1920s and 1960s (by no less than Sean Connery’s James Bond!) until it was standardized in the following decades as the cheap, easy-to-make, rental option with its multiple buttons and unspectacular fit.

What do you think? Do sartorial experts need to reclaim the potential elegance of a classic notch-lapel dinner jacket or should it remain in the domain of less tasteful tux-for-hire shops?

What’d He Wear?

When Sidney Reilly makes his first appearance in a dinner jacket, it is for dinner in a St. Petersburg restaurant with his friend and lawyer. In 1910, when this scene is set, the dinner jacket was making headway thanks to the loosened restrictions of Edwardian culture. The relative newness of the black tie dress code meant details like lapels, buttons, and proper accoutrements were in constant flux. The notch lapel, or “step collar,” struggled to find a place among early dinner jackets with a flash of popularity during the roaring twenties before it essentially vanished in 1930, not reappearing until the need for a less formal dinner jacket emerged during the relaxation of men’s dress codes in the ’60s.

Reilly’s black wool dinner jacket is single-breasted with a single-button closure. The notch lapels have black silk facings and a buttonhole through the left lapel, though he wears no accoutrement other than a white pocket square in his welted breast pocket.

Reilly sports a black wool notch-lapel dinner jacket for an evidently serious dinner with his friend and lawyer, Sasha Gramaticoff. The white pocket square only appears in “Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses” (Episode 6).

The size, shape, and low gorge of the notch lapels denote it as a garment more contemporary to the 1980s than its Edwardian setting. However, the dinner jacket is finished with otherwise timeless details like straight jetted hip pockets, three-button cuffs, and a ventless back. Both the single button on the front and the three buttons on the cuffs are covered in black silk to echo the lapel facings.

The sleeveheads are roped and the jacket is tailored with a shaped fit, consistent with the fitted profile that was popular throughout the 1910s.

Reilly the gentleman.

For this first appearance of black tie in “Dreadnoughts and Crosses”, Reilly wears a very straight and slim black bow tie shaped with such lack of curvature that it resembles merely a black neck band if one squints. This style of straight neckwear can be found on many photos of men sporting both black tie and white tie ensembles during this era.

Reilly’s waistcoat in 1910 Russia during “Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses” is white brocade silk with a low, V-shaped opening only slightly higher than the buttoning point of the dinner jacket. The full-bellied shawl collar rolls to the top of a single-breasted front with three self-covered buttons.

“Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses” (Episode 6). To the victor belong the spoils… and the cognac.

By 1918, World War I had so relaxed sartorial conventions that the full evening dress of white tie and tails was now relegated solely to the most formal events, promoting the dinner jacket to a gentleman’s standard eveningwear.

Though it’s now unfortunately a common practice at weddings and proms today, removing one’s dinner jacket in polite company was still a condemned practice 100 years ago. Luckily for Reilly, he’s in the less-than-polite company of his anti-Bolshevik associates (and Bolshevik assassin Adamson) when he slides out of his jacket for an impromptu conference in his kitchen.

The exposure reveals more of Reilly’s shirt and new black waistcoat in the scene. His white formal shirt has a stiff, detachable collar with short wings, two small silver-trimmed black-faced studs in the starched front bib, and squared single cuffs worn with plain, rounded-corner cuff links. Naturally, his bow tie is black but in a slightly curvier butterfly (thistle) shape. (Unfortunately, it’s a pre-tied bow tie with visible clasps.)

“After Moscow” (Episode 9). Reilly holds court in his kitchen.

Reilly’s black waistcoat is a significant departure both from his white waistcoat in the earlier Russia-set scenes as well as actual fashions of the era. According to the august Black Tie Guide, dinner jackets were more commonly worn with black waistcoats before World War I and white waistcoats became the norm after the war. The reasoning can be linked to the shifting dress codes. As black tie became the de facto formal evening wear option, the formality of the white waistcoat was borrowed from the white tie dress code to increase the tuxedo’s prestige without sacrificing its comfort.

Like its predecessor, the black formal single-breasted waistcoat has a low V-shaped opening, though a narrower shawl collar. The full back is finished in black satin with an adjustable strap to cinch the fit around his waist.

Reilly doesn’t break any new ground with his black formal trousers with side pockets positioned along the black silk side stripes. The bottoms are plain-hemmed in accordance with standard black tie style.

Reilly’s shoes are black patent leather oxford shoes, worn with black dress socks.

Savinkov and Reilly at the end of the night. Savinkov has loosened his tie but retained his jacket; Reilly’s bow tie remains in tact, though he had discarded his dinner jacket earlier in the evening.

Prior to World War I, men generally preferred traditional pocket watches while wristwatches remained within the female-oriented fashion domain. World War I changed the timekeeping game for gents, as officers and enlisted men returning from the front retained the efficiency of wearing easily synchronized timepieces on their wrists.

The Cartier Tank watch, Louis Cartier’s seminal wristwatch, sealed the pocket watch’s fate. With a design inspired by the new Renault tanks, the square-cased Cartier Tank entered full production following the war and soon became the watch of choice for men of elegance and sophistication like Rudolph Valentino, Fred Astaire, Duke Ellington, Clark Gable, and Cary Grant.

Cartier’s watch wouldn’t have been available to Sidney Reilly yet in 1918, but Sam Neill’s character certainly wears a gold tank watch with a white square dial on a dark leather strap.

Reilly’s formal outerwear is only seen with this jacket during the 1910 sequence in Russia during “Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses”, where he appears to be wearing a black wool Chesterfield coat with a single-breasted, three-button covered fly front and notch lapels with black silk facings. He completes the look with a black homburg and a white dress scarf, likely cashmere.

What to Imbibe

What else but champagne for a celebration? Especially for something as momentous as the armistice, Reilly breaks out the Moët for a party at his swank London pad.

Reilly tops off glasses for his spymaster chief Mansfield Smith-Cumming (Norman Rodway) and fellow agent R.H. Bruce Lockhart (Ian Charleson). The real Lockhart is often credited with keeping Reilly’s legend alive through the mostly fictionalized biography Reilly: Ace of Spies that formed the basis for this miniseries.

One hundred years after Reilly was popping bottles at his armistice party, Moët & Chandon remains a popular and prestigious champagne, producing approximately 28,000,000 bottles annually.

The French winery’s origins can be traced back to 1743, midway during Louis XV’s reign which saw an increased demand for sparkling wine. Wine trader Claude Moët smelled the potential and became the first vintner in the Champagne wine region to exclusively produce sparkling wine, becoming one of the few wine merchants accredited to serve the royal court. Its best-selling variety, featured here in Reilly: Ace of Spies among many other TV shows and films, is the dry and deep Moët & Chandon Brut Impérial.

How to Get the Look

Like any dashing British secret agent should, Sidney Reilly (Sam Neill) finds ample opportunities to dine, drink, and entertain while wearing impeccable black tie, including this notch-lapel dinner jacket worn with classic elements like a detachable wing collar shirt and shawl-collar waistcoat.

Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly in Reilly: Ace of Spies (Episode 9: “After Moscow”)

• Black wool single-button dinner jacket with silk-faced notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, silk-covered 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• White (or black) single-breasted formal waistcoat with shawl collar and low, V-shaped opening
• Black wool pleated formal trousers with silk side braiding, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White formal shirt with detachable short-wing collar, starched front, and single cuffs
  • Black shirt studs with silver trim
  • Plain cuff links with rounded corners
• Black bow tie
• Black patent leather oxford shoes
• Black dress socks
• Black wool single-breasted Chesterfield coat with silk-faced notch lapels and three-button covered-fly front
• Black homburg
• White cashmere dress scarf
• Gold tank watch with white square dial on dark leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series.

Cheers!

The Quote

I’ve run rings around you, Basil.