Vitals

Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, affable insurance salesman and unsuspecting reality TV star

“Seahaven Island”, Spring 1997

Film: The Truman Show
Release Date: June 5, 1998
Director: Peter Weir
Costume Designer: Marilyn Matthews

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Four days after its Los Angeles premiere, The Truman Show was released widely on this day in 1998. A critical and commercial success, the film earned three Academy Award nominations and marked a major turning point for Jim Carrey, who until then had been known almost exclusively for comedy. Though Carrey carried over elements of his elastic comic persona, his performance as Truman Burbank signaled a shift toward more serious roles, paving the way for later dramatic turns in Man on the Moon (1999) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004).

We meet 29-year-old Truman Burbank on Wednesday, May 14, 1997—the 10,909th day of his life… and the 10,909th day of a massively successful TV show secretly documenting every moment of it, 24/7.

Blissfully unaware of the truth, Truman lives what seems to be an idyllic life on the fictional Seahaven Island. He works a humdrum insurance job and shares a sunny suburban home with his cheerful wife Meryl (Laura Linney)—not knowing, of course, that she’s actually an actress cast by the show’s producers to play his spouse. In fact, his entire life has been carefully orchestrated by the show’s creator and executive producer, Christof (Ed Harris), who manipulates events and relationships to keep Truman inside the confines of Seahaven, a massive soundstage posing as the perfect town. (In reality, most of The Truman Show was shot in Seaside, an unincorporated planned community in the Florida panhandle) To discourage his wanderlust, Christof even arranged for Truman to witness his father’s staged “death” during a fishing trip, planting a lifelong fear of the water.

Christof’s façade begins to literally crumble as Truman’s morning commute is interrupted by a falling stage lighting, which is quickly explained away via a conveniently timed radio news segment about debris falling from an airplane—not only covering the show’s tracks but also further stoking Truman’s fear of air travel. The continued series of strange occurrences—including a run-in with his supposedly deceased father—gradually erode Truman’s trust in the world around him.

At the same time, Truman carries a secret of his own: he’s never stopped thinking about a mysterious college classmate who briefly broke through the performance to warn him of the truth. Though she was swiftly removed from the show, Truman clings to her memory and dreams of escaping to join her in faraway Fiji.

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What’d He Wear?

Costume designer Marilyn Matthews paints a visual story of Truman Burbank through his clothes: often bright and colorful like his own bright and colorful personality. While Truman’s clothes often look intentionally chaotic together, the clothes themselves are often quality standalone pieces.

Truman dresses for work on this first day in a brown-and-black glen plaid sports coat made from a mid-weight wool that a Heritage Auctions listing described as tweed. The single-breasted jacket follows many typical fashion queues of the late 1990s such as its low-gorge notch lapels and subsequently low two-button stance to the padded shoulders and roomy overall cut. The single-vented jacket also has a welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, and three-button cuffs.

Truman contrasts the warm shades of his jacket with a cooler-toned shirt, made by Anto Beverly Hills in a teal-green silk with widely striped white stripes. The shirt’s point collar is pinned behind Truman’s tie knot with a straight gold clip, while the cuffs extend into a full-width tabs that thread through a narrow self-loop to fasten onto one of two buttons for an adjustable fit.

While he’s an intentional dresser, Truman doesn’t seem to be the type that would be fussy about his clothes, so I like to think there’s an in-universe explanation where his “wife” purchased shirts like this for him, making sure to feature the uniqueness of the cuff for viewers at home to admire.

Neatly knotted in a small four-in-hand pushed ahead of the collar bar, Truman’s black silk tie is patterned with a balanced arrangement of broken beige bar-width stripes in the “downhill” direction.

Truman never removes his jacket on screen, but the Heritage Auctions listing informs us that—in addition to being made from a slightly pilling cashmere—Truman’s bright-yellow V-neck sweater is a sleeveless vest.

In addition to giving little thought to color coordination, Truman also often wears his clothes in unconventional ways, such as a zip-up golf shirt over a shirt and tie, socks and sandals while mowing the lawn, a necktie with a polo shirt, and regularly tucking in his sweaters to his trousers.

His pale-beige cotton chino trousers with this outfit have a long rise to Jim Carrey’s natural waist, where Truman holds them up with his go-to narrow brown leather belt that closes through a long, slim gold-toned closed buckle. These double forward-pleated slacks have side pockets and a full fit through the thighs and legs down to the turn-ups (cuffs).

Say what you will about Truman’s two-toned shoes, but they’re definitely not boring! Thematically consistent with the rest of his offbeat outfit, these 1950s-style three-eyelet derbies are each constructed with a brown suede moc-toe box and lace panels, contrasting against a tan woven vamp and tongue. Truman maintains his sense of flashiness with bright red cotton lisle socks.

Truman wears a gold square-cased dress watch with a squared beige dial on a brown scaled pigskin leather strap, identified by the Instagram page @watchesinfilms as a vintage Hamilton Boulton. A popular watch through the 1930s and ’40s, the Boulton has been revived several times by Hamilton, including in the early 1980s and again recently as part of its “American Classic” collection.

On the left ring finger, he stacks his plain silver-toned wedding band with a dramatic Deco-styled silver statement ring with a what appears to be a black onyx rounded cabochon stone in a bullet-like mounting—speculated to be either a hidden camera or another type of tracking device that allowed the show’s producers to keep tabs on Truman’s location.

The ring is shown to be first worn by Truman’s “father”, who passes it to his son before his “death” at sea. Truman then wears it through the duration of his life, until he’s reunited with the actor who portrayed his father and he gives the ring back—in turn, giving him the freedom to evade Christof’s cameras long enough to take to the sea.

After reuniting with the father he long assumed to be dead, Truman signals that he’s back to his old, unsuspecting self by returning to work in the same clothes that he wore for his introductory scene. The jacket, shirt, and sweater were all listed for sale in 2013 by Heritage Auctions.

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How to Get the Look

Truman Burbank’s introductory outfit of a glen plaid sport jacket, striped shirt and tie, two-toned shoes, and bright cashmere sweater tucked into pleated chinos presents several degrees of incongruity but also illustrates the colorful chaos of Truman’s fabricated existence.

• Brown-and-black glen plaid woolen tweed single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with low-gorge notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
• Teal-green white-striped silk shirt with pinned point collar and full-width tab cuffs
  • Straight gold collar clip
• Black and beige “downhill”-striped silk tie
• Bright-yellow cashmere V-neck sweater vest
• Pale-beige cotton chino double forward-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Brown narrow leather belt with long, slim gold-toned closed buckle
• Brown suede-and-tan woven moc-toe three-eyelet derby-laced spectator shoes
• Red cotton lisle socks
• Silver Deco-styled ring with black onyx rounded cabochon bullet-mounted stone
• Silver wedding band
• Gold vintage Hamilton Boulton dress watch with square beige dial on brown scaled pigskin leather band

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

Good morning! Oh, and—in case I don’t see ya—good afternoon, good evening, and good night!