Vitals

Robin Williams as Armand Goldman, South Beach nightclub manager

Miami Beach, Winter 1996

Film: The Birdcage
Release Date: March 8, 1996
Director: Mike Nichols
Costume Designer: Ann Roth

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

I’m honored to share my birthday with Robin Williams, who was born 75 years ago today on July 21, 1951. One of my favorite of the late comedian’s movies is The Birdcage, crafted by the iconic married team of director Mike Nichols and writer Elaine May as an adaptation of the French play and subsequent film La Cage aux Folles.

Williams stars as Armand Goldman, owner of the titular Birdcage, a South Beach drag club starring his more flamboyant partner Albert (Nathan Lane). When Armand’s son Val (Dan Futterman) reveals he’s marrying the daughter of the ultraconservative Virginia senator Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman) who insists on meeting his future in-laws, Armand and Val conceive a plan to host the senator’s family by luring Albert away from the couple’s ostentatious apartment—allowing time for Armand to renovate himself and his home to support Val’s untruth that his father is actually Armand Coleman: a heterosexual cultural attaché to Greece… “whatever the hell that is.”

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What’d He Wear?

Prolific costume designer Ann Roth developed the looks of The Birdcage, contrasting the Keeley family’s conservative-coded clothing with the flashier fashions of Armand and Albert’s South Beach orbit.

summer hits and everyone in ny starts dressing like robin williams in the birdcage pic.twitter.com/fmLiIx6wfW

— angeline rodriguez (@gelrdrgz) July 5, 2023

Armand wears his success with silk shirts from Italian designers like Dolce & Gabbana and Gianni Versace. One of Armand’s most popular costumes—and indeed something that feels like a slightly more extravagant version of something from my own summer wardrobe—is the black-on-white floral Dolce & Gabbana shirt he wears when Val interrupts Albert’s rehearsal to let him know of the senator’s plan to visit. (We know this one is D&G from a 2004 Christie’s auction listing.)

This shirt features a variation of a pareu print with a black floral design against the plain white ground, as the black increases toward the bottom of the shirt. It has a vintage-informed long-pointed loop collar, a breast pocket, and a plain button-up front that he wears fully open over his sweat-stained white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt. The oversized cut and featherweight silk voile provides a breezy quality as Armand moves through his club and apartment on a sweltering afternoon in South Beach.

Armand contrasts the monochromatic black-and-white of his shirt with rich dark-green trousers, pinstriped in a muted gold. These trousers have narrow single reverse pleats, belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs). He holds them up with his typical narrow cream-colored leather belt, detailed along the front edges with gold-finished studs, grommeted around the sides in gold, silver, and bronze, and fastened through a wide single-prong buckle duo-toned in matte gold and silver—echoed by the matte silver and gold keepers and silver-tipped end.

As he’s dressed for a day at home—and his workplace directly below it—he wears only black velvet evening slippers in the classic style appropriately known as “Prince Albert” in reference to Queen Victoria’s husband. Worn barefoot, these slippers have busy gold embroidery across the vamps.

Armand’s rotation of jewelry changes depending on his outfit for the day. With this outfit, he wears a pair of gold necklaces; the shorter necklace has a gold Star of David framed inside a circle while the longer rope-chain holds a heart, a round disc, and a thicker shape that I initially thought was some sort of dragonfly until a Facebook post selling the screen-worn necklace identified it as a winged phallus.

All three bracelets on his right wrist appear to be mixed-metal bracelets with links of differeing widths. His left hand reflects the most consistency, with a silver-and-gold interlocking wedding ring on his ring finger and a much chunkier and busier diamond-studded round-faced ring shining from his left pinky.

Armand’s yellow-gold wristwatch has a minimalist champagne dial that has non-numeric hour indices against a hammered “gold nugget” link bracelet that hangs loosely over his left wrist. The design resembles the 1980s trend of women’s quartz watches from American brands like Elgin and Waltham, paired with these nugget-style bracelets to mimic the hefty aftermarket 14-karat bracelets that were snapped or soldered onto gold Rolex watches in the ’80s.

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How to Get the Look

While Armand Goldman’s style often looks subdued when compared to Albert’s more dramatic duds, he still typically favors a flamboyance best reserved for the right mix of confidence—and a warm climate—to pull it off. His open floral shirt with high-waisted pinstripe slacks and an assortment of gold jewelry would be a more accessible way to ease in before attempting brasher Versace silk shirts or striped beach pajamas.

• White and black floral-print silk voile short-sleeved shirt with long loop collar, plain button-up front, and breast pocket
  • Dolce & Gabbana
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
• Dark-green pinstripe single reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Cream leather belt with gold studs and matte mixed-metal single-prong buckle and keepers
• Black velvet Prince Albert evening slippers with gold-embroidered vamps
• Gold thin necklace with circle-framed Star of David
• Gold rope-chain necklace with pendant trio
• Mixed-metal interlocking ring
• Diamond-studded gold round-faced pinky ring
• Mixed-metal box-link bracelet trio
• Yellow-gold wristwatch with champagne dial and “gold nugget”-style link bracelet

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

Yes, I wear foundation. Yes, I live with a man. Yes, I’m a middle-aged f*g. But I know who I am, Val. Took me twenty years to get here, and I’m not gonna let some idiot senator destroy that.