Vitals

Josh Hartnett as Cooper Abbott, firefighter, family man, and fugitive killer

Philadelphia, Fall 2023

Film: Trap
Release Date: August 2, 2024
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Costume Designer: Caroline Duncan

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

I’ve been eager to see Josh Hartnett’s career renaissance after a fascinating arc, from late-’90s heartthrob turned prestige TV lead on Penny Dreadful to his triumphant reemergence on the silver screen with a supporting role in Oppenheimer and his crispy leading role in Trap, M. Night Shyamalan’s darkly comic psychological thriller Trap that was released last summer.

Hartnett stars in the latter as Cooper Abbott, a Philadelphia firefighter who takes his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a sold-out pop concert headlined by superstar Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan)… only for the entire show to be the titular trap designed by law enforcement to ensnare him, as it turns out the minivan-driving family man has a dark, deadly secret under his affable persona.

Trap was inspired in part by the real-life Operation Flagship in 1985, when a joint task force of U.S. Marshals and the MPDC arrested more than a hundred wanted fugitives lured to the Washington Convention Center under the pretense of a Super Bowl ticket giveaway event.  Pitching his concept as The Silence of the Lambs-meets-the-Eras Tour, Shyamalan completed his screenplay in just under six months. Trap was filmed on 35mm stock through the fall of 2023 in Toronto, with both the Rogers Centre and the FirstOntario Centre (now TD Coliseum) doubling as the fictional Tanaka Arena where the cops have set their trap for “the Butcher” who has been terrorizing the City of Brotherly Love for seven years.

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What’d He Wear?

“Normie dadcore serial killer” is how Daisy Jones described Josh Hartnett’s stylish Cooper Abbott in her GQ interview with Trap costume designer Caroline Duncan, who cited the influence of another fictional killer dad: “We were looking at Jack Nicholson’s wardrobe in The Shining—the corduroy jacket and flannel shirt. We obviously didn’t want to mimic that, but that was the inspiration.”

Cooper dresses for the fall day in a hardy hip-length chore coat identified as the Todd Snyder Woodland Jacket, made from a tightly woven Italian cotton canvas from the Tessuti di Sondrio mill, garment-dyed a deep shade of tan that the brand describes as “dark wheat”. Duncan shared with Jones that the choice was a playful twist on Cooper’s alter ego, as “a chore coat is a style that a butcher, a barber, somebody who works with their hands, tends to wear. It’s usually made out of twill so you can wash it really easily,” perhaps carrying the scent of some of those hospital-strength cleaning chemicals that Cooper’s wife Rachel (Alison Pill) recalled smelling on him.

Four black four-hole buttons are spaced up the front to the neck, where a throat latch is buttoned back under the left side of the shirt-style collar. The set-in sleeves are finished with cuffs that close through one of two buttons for an adjustable fit over each wrist. The two patch pockets over the hips have rear-slanting asymmetrical flaps covering the zippered entry, supplemented by two vertical welted-entry chest pockets. The soft olive brushed cotton lining is broken up with an internal pocket positioned low on each side, where Cooper tucks his stolen police radio during the concert.

A poacher’s pocket (also known as a “game pocket”) extends across the lower back, accessed by a long vertical zippered slot on each side. Often lined in an easily washable material, this pocket was designed to discreetly store away hunted game like pheasants, its presence here also hinting at Cooper’s predatory second life as the Butcher.

Duncan followed M. Night Shyamalan’s direction to include some boldness in Cooper’s wardrobe, underscoring his narcissistic arrogance that “he believes he can’t get caught… he’s untrappable.” Under the jacket, he wears the multi-striped Pendleton “Park” men’s sweater in a ribbed merino wool that follows Hartnett’s physique.

The body of the sweater is primarily olive, with the wider ribbed crew-neck, cuffs, and hem all a low-contrasting taupe-brown. The chest is horizontally striped in a narrow black, wide brick-red, narrow mustard-gold, deep blue, black, deep blue, and narrow mustard-gold, bordered across the bottom in a medium-width taupe-brown stripe—all mirrored in the opposing direction below a wide olive stripe across mid-chest. The stripes are unbroken around the torso onto the upper sleeves.

The only element of Cooper’s costume that has yet defied identification are his dark indigo-dyed denim jeans, styled with a tapered cut through the legs and the typical five-pocket configuration. The two back patch pockets are detailed with a double-stitched seam straight across each pocket. He holds these jeans up with a dark-brown leather belt that closes through a heavy gunmetal single-prong buckle.

Cooper’s Red Wing work boots appear to be the classic Iron Ranger model, first developed for iron miners in the 1930s, aligning with his sense of style and his rugged profession. “The boots do feel a bit like what a ‘cool dad’ would wear,” Duncan explained to GQ, also referencing his “dad joke” bit of pretending to need to stop and lace up his boots while Riley is rushing them in line for the show.

The full-grain leather uppers are Red Wing’s pre-distressed russet-brown “Copper Rough & Tough” colorway, left free of finishing pigments to highlight the leather’s natural character. Along with the model’s signature straight toe-cap, the 6-inch Iron Rangers are derby-laced through four pairs of nickel-toned eyelets, topped by three steel speed hooks.

Cooper’s Panerai Luminor 1950 3 Days Black Ceramica GMT (ref. PAM00441) wristwatch features a black PVD-coated 44mm case boasting the Luminor’s signature semi-circular crown guard, strapped to a black rubber strap. The black “sandwich” dial above the luminous beige layer features a cut-out for each hour, represented by an Arabic numeral except for the 3 o’clock position—which is replaced by a blackened date window, opposite a black-on-black second-counting sub-register at 9 o’clock. The hour and minute hands and triangle-tipped 24-hour hand are all luminescent as well.

Powered by Panerai’s then-new 29-jewel P.9001 automatic movement, the PAM00441 was produced exclusively through the 2010s. This may even be Hartnett’s own watch, as the actor has been photographed wearing Panerai watches in real life and sported a Luminor Marina on screen as far back as Hollywood Homicide in 2003.

The watch is flanked by colorful woven bracelets and a beaded friendship bracelet—a style known All Too Well to fans of a certain real-life pop star who partially inspired Lady Raven. Cooper also wears a polished gold wedding band on his left ring finger.

After overhearing on the radio that the police know to look for the rabbit tattooed on the inside of his right arm, he nicks a black Lady Raven-branded slap bracelet from the concertgoer in front of him and thwacks it over his wrist to cover it. (Once it’s clear that he’s, uh, no longer a fan of hers, he passive-aggressively pulls it off his wrist and slips it over his bathroom towel rack.)

Cooper changes out of these clothes for the final act, first into a Philadelphia SWAT uniform and then some conveniently placed Lady Raven gear to make his escape through a crowd of concerned fans, before sneaking back into his home and pulling on a fresh tartan plaid flannel button-down shirt.

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The Car

Lady Raven: They even know he drives a dark-colored car.
Cooper: They have photos of his car?
Lady Raven: No, they know from the precision of the crime scenes and fake houses. He’s what’s called an “organized offender”. Probably OCD. Those individuals always drive dark cars because they appear cleaner.

“You were right about my car, it’s Aurora Black,” Cooper later confirms, referencing the Aurora Black Pearl exterior paint of the 2022 Kia Carnival minivan he parks at the concert. This model year was the first to use the Carnival model name, as Kia had previously marketed it as the Sedona in North America. Only the Hyundai Smartstream G3.5 GDi V6 engine was available for this model year, generating 290 horsepower.

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How to Get the Look

You can channel Cooper Abbott’s devil-in-dad’s-clothing look this fall with a chore coat, striped wool sweater, dark denim, and work boots—grounded in elevated workwear brands, sharpened with a prestigious watch, and finished with a smug smile that transforms his look from suburban to sinister.

• Wheat tan cotton canvas four-button chore jacket with shirt-style collar (and throat latch), vertical welted chest pockets, zip-entry patch hip pockets (with asymmetrical flaps), double vertical zip-entry rear game pocket, and adjustable button cuffs
  • Todd Snyder “Woodland Jacket”
• Olive ribbed merino wool crew-neck sweater with taupe-brown ribbed crew-neck, cuffs, and hem and colorful multi-striped chest
  • Pendleton “Park”
• Dark indigo-dyed denim tapered-leg jeans
• Dark-brown leather belt with gunmetal single-prong buckle
• Copper-brown distressed full-grain leather cap-toe derby-laced work boots
  • Red Wing 6-inch “Iron Ranger”
• Gold wedding band
• Black PVD-coated 44mm-cased automatic GMT watch with black “sandwich”-style dial (with 3:00 date window and 9:00 second-counting sub-register), semi-circular crown guard, and black rubber strap
  • Panerai Luminor 1950 3 Days Black Ceramica GMT ref. PAM00441
• Friendship bracelet and colorful woven bracelets

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

By the way, it was a great show.