Vitals

John Cassavetes as Guy Woodhouse, ambitious actor

New York City, Summer 1965

Film: Rosemary’s Baby
Release Date: June 12, 1968
Director: Roman Polanski
Costume Designer: Anthea Sylbert

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy Mother’s Day! In honor of one of cinema’s most infamous pregnancies, today’s post looks at the enduring style of Rosemary’s Baby—Roman Polanski’s 1968 adaptation of Ira Levin’s best-selling horror novel, which had been published less than six months before filming began.

Though the film’s fashion legacy largely belongs to Mia Farrow’s iconic pixie cut and stylish wardrobe as the titular Rosemary Woodhouse, her on-screen husband Guy—a struggling actor played by John Cassavetes—also exhibits a sharp and understated sense of style.

Polanski and producer Robert Evans originally envisioned Robert Redford for the role of Guy, perhaps inspired by his recent turn as another Manhattan newlywed in Barefoot in the Park. The opening act of Rosemary’s Baby follows similar beats, depicting the recently married Guy and Rosemary as they settle into a new apartment and meet their eccentric neighbors, from the Bramford’s wiry building manager Mr. Nicklas (Elisha Cook, Jr.) to the nosy but seemingly harmless Roman and Minnie Castavet (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress).

The fictional Bramford was brought to life by the Dakota—the famous gothic apartment building on New York’s Upper West Side, just across from the Langham Building where Farrow would later live for many years with her family.

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What’d He Wear?

Guy dresses comfortably but presentably to make a smart impression on his prospective landlord when he and Rosemary first tour the Bramford. He wears an Ivy-style light-blue sport jacket made from a lightweight wool, cotton, or blended fabric, though the subtle sheen in certain lighting suggests tropical wool. Tailored with padded shoulders and a draped chest, the jacket has an otherwise unstructured construction for warm-weather breathability; the partial lining ends just below the rear shoulder blades, creating a visible concave ridge across the upper back.

The notch lapels are finished with sporty welted edges and roll over the top of three imitation-pearl buttons in a 3/2-roll configuration. Two matching pearloid buttons trim each sleeve cuff. Additional details include a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, and a single rear vent.

Guy’s white cotton shirt for the apartment tour dresses down the ensemble with its button-down collar and short sleeves, the latter evident as we don’t see the shirt-cuffs even when he extends his arms out to help Mr. Nicklas move the late Mrs. Gardenia’s furniture from in front of the apartment’s fifth closet.

His knitted wool tie pulls together the tones of his outfit, with a navy-blue ground patterned with two wide gray horizontal block-stripes and six much narrower yellow horizontal stripes overlaying them, spaced a balanced width apart between his small four-in-hand knot and the square-ended blade.

Guy’s cream-colored cotton trousers provide a neutral balance that highlights the color in his jacket and tie while maintaining a harmonious summer lightness. The medium rise on these flat-front slacks is still respectably higher and closer to John Cassavetes’ natural waist than most off-the-rack trousers in recent decades, while reflecting the trend toward lower-waisted men’s trousers as the ’60s progressed. The waistband is self-suspended without a belt and styled with side pockets, jetted back pockets, and legs that taper to the plain-hemmed bottoms.

Worn with gray socks, Guy’s brown leather moc-toe two-eyelet ankle boots reinforce the dressed-down harmony of his outfit. They appear to be the Sioux Grashopper, a model introduced by the German shoe company Sioux in 1964—three years before Lance Clark drew inspiration from it to create the Clarks Wallabee, produced under license at Padmore and Barnes in Kilkenny, Ireland.

Both the Grashopper and Wallabee feature crêpe rubber soles, moccasin-style construction, and derby-style lacing, but the Grashopper carries a slightly more refined, continental silhouette compared to the more relaxed profile of the Wallabee, which debuted on European streets by ’67. (Depending on the exact launch month, it’s possible a pair of Wallabees could have reached Cassavetes by the August 1967 start of production—but given the shape and the fact that Clarks didn’t officially market the Wallabee in North America until ’68, it’s far more likely that Cassavetes wore Sioux Grashoppers.)

The film’s already unsettling tone deepens when, after several weeks away, the Woodhouses return home to discover that Terry (Victoria Vetri)—a former addict taken in by the Castavets—has fallen to her death outside the Bramford. Her mysterious death becomes the catalyst for Guy and Rosemary’s fateful first meeting with their eccentric neighbors, Minnie and Roman Castavet.

Guy smartly repurposes the jacket for an evening date by pairing it with darker trousers, a pale-blue oxford-cloth button-down (OCBD) long-sleeved shirt, and another wool knit tie—albeit in solid dark-gray. His darted-front trousers are a charcoal-gray wool, likely the same ones with button-tab “DAKS top” side-adjusters, side pockets, jetted back pockets (with a button-through back-right pocket), and plain-hemmed bottoms that he would later wear with his navy blazer for the couple’s first dinner with the Castavets.

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How to Get the Look

We meet John Cassavetes as Guy Woodhouse in an Ivy-inspired summer look of a light-blue 3/2-roll sport jacket with short-sleeved button-down shirt, knitted tie, pale khakis, and Wallabee-style boots—a look appropriate for an ambitions young actor in mid-’60s New York City but also one that transcends time and would still work for a sunny spring day today.

• Light-blue tropical-weight wool single-breasted 3/2-roll sport jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and single vent
• White cotton short-sleeved shirt with button-down collar
• Dark navy-blue horizontal-striped or charcoal-gray solid wool knit tie
• Cream-colored cotton flat-front trousers with self-suspended waistband, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Brown calf suede leather 2-eyelet derby-laced moc-toe crêpe-soled ankle boots
  • Sioux Grashopper
• Gray socks

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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Footnote

In addition to today being Mother’s Day, Rosemary’s Baby feels like a timely post because, in one scene, Guy watches Pope Paul VI arriving in New York in October 1965—the first papal visit to the western hemisphere. Less than sixty years later, Leo XIV began his papacy as the first American pope just three days ago.