Gary Cooper photographed by William Richard Walling Jr. in 1937, dressed in the same costume he would wear in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938).
Vitals
Gary Cooper as Michael Brandon, millionaire industrialist
French Riviera, Summer 1937
Film: Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife
Release Date: March 23, 1938
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Costume Designer: Travis Banton
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Born 125 years ago today on May 7, 1901, Gary Cooper established a screen legacy through Oscar-winning performances in Sergeant York (1941) and High Noon (1952) in addition to being a well-regarded style icon throughout his career. The modern #menswear community frequently looks to Coop for inspiration, including the frequently shared portraits taken by William Richard Walling Jr., in 1937, dressed in the same uniquely patterned sport jacket, deco swirl tie, and rakish belt holding up pleated trousers that he wore as a costume in Ernst Lubitsch’s 1938 screwball comedy Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife.
Based on a 1921 play that was first adapted into a silent film starring Gloria Swanson, Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife was the first of sixteen collaborations between screenwriter Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. Cooper stars as Michael Brandon, an aloof American businessman in the French Riviera, where he meets the charming Nicole de Loiselle (Claudette Colbert) while attempting to buy only the top halves of matching pajama sets.
What’d He Wear?
Michael Brandon’s business back home would call for more serious worsted tailoring, but his jaunty yet refined resort style is appropriately fashionable for the 1930s French Riviera—especially a corner adjacent to Lubitschland.
The look is built around a handsomely tailored and distinctively patterned sport jacket, almost certainly sourced from Gary Cooper’s own wardrobe. Made from a soft, lightly napped wool that presents a subtle halo effect, Coop’s unique jacket is woven in alternating groupings of a light-colored three-over-three “mock-leno” pattern against a darker ground, creating a richly textured basket-like appearance.
“The horizontal formation of checks, overplaids, and boxlike designs has always been of benefit in the beam department,” states Alan Flusser in his 2002 volume Dressing the Man, specifically and succinctly citing the 6’3″ actor himself when he adds that, “high-profile Gary Cooper enlists the patterned sport coat and contrast trouser to chip away and his elongated plumb line.”
The sports coat in question featured in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife has notch lapels fashionably hedging a moderate-to-broad width, rolling just over the top of a three-button front that balances Coop’s long, lean frame. The ventless jacket follows the relaxed yet elegant line of late 1930s tailoring, cut long and softly structured with an easy drape through the body. The shoulders are broad but natural rather than aggressively padded, extending into clean, straight sleeves finished with three-button cuffs. The appropriately informal patch pockets harmonize with the jacket’s playful pattern and relaxed cut, with one over each hip and a breast pocket that Michael dresses with a white linen pocket square.
The shading of Michael’s poplin shirt indicates that the light color is clearly not white, styled with a sharp point collar, front placket, and button cuffs, and cut with a soft fluidity that echoes his jacket and trousers. Patterned with a duo-toned deco-style swirl across its surface, the tie follows contemporary trends with its somewhat swollen blade that falls short of the raised trouser line, revealing an inch of the narrower tail hanging behind it.
Given how much he touts Cooper as a harbinger of fine sartorial taste, I again cite Dressing the Man as Flusser explains that “one trouser fabric that gave both the white and gray flannel a run for its money back in the thirties was wool gabardine. The silky, smooth gabardine offered a textural change of pace to the rough, woolly flannel.”
Coop’s pale gabardine slacks are likely a lighter shade of a color found in the rest of his outfit, cut appropriately high to the actor’s natural waist line—where he holds them up with a checked cloth belt. Consisting of a simple dark graph-check against a white ground, the belt closes through two D-rings rather than a conventional buckle, with the long-hanging end tucked down through the belt itself, echoing the rakish Fred Astaire with his scarf belts.
Double reverse-facing pleats maintain the trousers’ flattering fullness through the legs that continues the silhouette set by the jacket, down to the bottoms finished with turn-ups (cuffs). The front closes through an extended square-ended waist tab, and straight pockets are positioned along the side seams.
Michael perfectly completes his sporty Riviera ensemble with white bucks, so named for their white buckskin or nubuck leather uppers which contrasted against characteristic brick-red rubber soles. Again to illustrate the point, I cite for a third and final time Mr. Flusser, who wrote in Dressing the Man that “no article of footwear better typified the postwar trend toward relaxed style than American white bucks. Their slightly scuffed appearance lent them that lived-in character so characteristic of the country’s natural-shoulder fashion,” adding of particular interest to this context that they “first served as comfortable summer accompaniment to resort clothes worn in the early 1930s.”
Worn with plain white narrow-ribbed cotton socks, Michael’s white cap-toe bucks are derby-laced through three sets of eyelets.
Briefly seen on Cooper’s left wrist is an elegant dress watch with a white dial on a smooth leather strap. Walling’s contemporary photography gives a better angle of this timepiece, identified in a 2021 Instagram post by @niccoloy as a Cartier by its deployment buckle. The slightly rounded top and bottom and the visible crown at 3 o’clock distinguishes it from the actor’s recognizable square-faced Cartier Tank Basculante with its inset 12 o’clock crown, though Michael Brandon’s tank watch may still be a Cabriolet-style model that—like the Basculante and its Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso competition—can flip the dial around to protect it.
Coop also often wore a Trinity de Cartier ring during this time, though Michael’s sole ring in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife is a signet ring flashing from his left ring finger.
While outside, Michael wears a light-colored felt fedora, beautifully shaped with a dramatically pinched crown and self-edged brim and contrasted with a broad, dark grosgrain silk band.
How to Get the Look
Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938)
It’s not surprising to see a style icon like Gary Cooper modeling the cutting edge of refined inter-war era resort style, from his boldly patterned sport jacket and contrasting gab trousers to a rakishly checked belt and white bucks.
- Two-toned alternating three-by-three mock-leno-weave soft wool single-breasted 3-button sport jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
- Light-colored poplin shirt with point collar, front placket, and button cuffs
- Two-toned deco-style swirl all-over printed tie
- Light-colored gabardine double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, square-ended extended waist tab, straight/on-seam side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
- Dark-on-white graph-checked cloth belt with double D-ring buckle
- White buckskin leather cap-toe three-eyelet derby shoes with red rubber soles
- White narrow-ribbed cotton socks
- Light-colored felt fedora with pinched crown, dark grosgrain silk band, and self-edged brim
- Signet ring
- Cartier dress watch with reversible white dial on smooth dark leather strap with deployment clasp
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
I only have to look at your pants and I know everything.