Vitals

Gary Cole as Mike Brady, architect and family man

Los Angeles, Summer 1996

Film: A Very Brady Sequel
Release Date: August 23, 1996
Director: Arlene Sanford
Costume Designer: Rosanna Norton

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Earlier this summer, my corner of Twitter was briefly ablaze with people celebrating the adaptations of The Brady Bunch that hit big screens back to back in the ’90s, specifically the breakfast scene in A Very Brady Sequel where the insecure middle-child Jan (Jennifer Elise Cox) conceptualizes her made-up boyfriend over blueberry pancakes, only for her older sister Marcia (Christine Taylor) to shut it down with “that’s funny, I’ve never heard of a George Glass at our schœl,” as parents Mike (Gary Cole) and Carol (Shelley Long) look on—the latter pouring an approximate gallon of sugar into her coffee.

The conceit of both The Brady Bunch Movie and the subsequent A Very Brady Sequel maintains the family’s groovy ’70s style, but transplants them—and their MCM home with its astroturfed lawn—directly into the ’90s, where they couldn’t be more obliviously out of place. Released thirty years ago this week on August 23, 1996, A Very Brady Sequel revived a few second-season subplots—including George Glass, the home’s horse statue, and a trip to Hawaii—while also lampshading the fact that the series never addressed the fate of Carol’s first husband by introducing him as the conniving Roy Martin (Tim Matheson).

Even without their knowing his more sinister intentions, Roy’s presence threatens the potato sack-racing peace of the Brady family, as the neglected middle kids like Jan and Peter (Paul Sutera) are particularly entranced by the newcomer’s adventures, distracting Bobby during a summer intended to be spent shadowing his father’s architectural firm. Gary Cole particularly nails a deadpan sincerity when delivering Mike’s excessively wordy lessons and lectures to his family.

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What’d He Wear?

Costume designer Rosanna Norton returned from The Brady Bunch Movie to continue the Brady clan’s groovy style in the sequel. For patriarch Mike, this typically pairs brashly patterned sports shirts with then-trendy tailoring, perhaps most notably his dark-brown leisure suit with green accents. (I don’t have a comprehensive knowledge of the original series to know if Robert Reed ever wore a similar leisure suit on the show.)

Before they descended into disco-era kitsch, leisure suits originated during the interwar years as resort-ready tailoring, a warm-weather derivation from sportswear like Norfolk jackets. By the 1970s, leisure suits had evolved (or some may say devolved) into inexpensive and ill-regarded “fast fashion”; typically kept affordable by synthetic fibers like polyester, these leisure suits often exaggerated their sporty origins in accordance with the decade’s penchant for excessive detail.

This meant leisure suit designs varied across every detail from collars and cuffs to pockets and pleats, with some going heavier on safari- or military-informed styling like shoulder epaulets, box pleats, and full belts. Mike’s leisure suit jacket follows a simpler design with its tall, shirt-style point collar and a simple four-button front. The wide shoulders are padded and roped at the sleeveheads, and the sleeves are finished with single-button squared cuffs. The symmetrical quartet of patch pockets are all a deep teal-green, with the two chest pockets kept open at the top while the two mitred hip pockets have rear-slanted entries covered with a single-button brown pointed tab. This detail is inverted by the single-button pointed tabs in the same shade of green as the pockets, extending back from each pocket at the waist hem, presumably closing the side vents.

Mike’s matching dark-brown flat-front trousers echo the duo-toned jacket with a deep teal-green waistband, tailored to be worn beltless with only a dark-brown single-button pointed tab over the front to tighten the fit. The two full-top front pockets are also trimmed in the same shade of teal-green along the top. As a relic of ’70s fashion, Mike’s trousers are narrow through the hips and thighs before dramatically flaring out below the knees like disco-era bell-bottoms, with the plain-hemmed bottoms breaking over the tops of his cocoa-brown suede cap-toe oxford shoes with their raised black platform heels.

After Roy falls into a fountain during a reluctant day out with the six Brady kids, they take him to Shanana Vintage Clothing and outfit him in a “new” leisure suit identical to Mike’s—albeit in a blue-and-burgundy colorway—as well as platform shoes and a bund-strapped watch that briefly replaces Roy’s compass-bezel chronograph. In addition to Mike remarking that he has “that same suit in brown and green” while wearing the suit in question, Mike also may have the blue-and-burgundy suit as he wears similarly designed trousers during the earlier scene when Roy first meets the Brady family.

Mike calls out his suit’s green accents with a sporty, green-forward shirt printed with teal, charcoal, and white petal-like leaves against a green-and-white thatched ground. Apropos Mike’s profession, the result is almost architectural rather than conventionally floral. The shirt has a long ’70s-style point collar, cream plastic two-hole buttons up the plain front, and single-button cuffs.

Mike counters the simplicity of his gold wedding ring with a chunky watch presentation as was common during the ’70s, sporting his steel square-cased quartz watch on a wide black leather cuff band detailed with small, round silver studs along the edges. This cuff is heftier than the conventional Bund strap popularized by German aviators as it fully encircles Mike’s left wrist; the narrower black leather strap woven through it is the only piece actually connected to Mike’s watch lugs and has a single-prong buckle to close. Detailed with silver dot hour markers and a white day-date complication presented at 3 o’clock against its black dial, this is likely the same wristwatch Gary Cole had worn a year earlier in The Brady Bunch Movie.

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How to Get the Look

Mike Brady wears his leisure suits with unironic pride. Whether it’s been 20 or 50 years since they were fashionable, I don’t know that many others could.

• Dark-brown polyester leisure suit:
  • Four-button jacket with long shirt-style point collar, two teal-green chest patch pockets, two teal-green hip pockets with rear-slanted entry (with brown single-button pointed tabs), side vents (with teal single-button pointed tabs), and single-button cuffs
  • Flat-front trousers with teal beltless waistband, teal-trimmed full-top front pockets, and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Green, charcoal, and white leaf-printed long-sleeved sport shirt with point collar, plain button-up front, and button cuffs
• Cocoa-brown suede cap-toe oxford-laced platform shoes
• Stainless steel square-cased quartz watch with black dial, 3 o’clock day-date complication, and silver-studded black leather cuff band

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

A gift is only a good thing when the giver has given thought to that gift. But when the gift the giver gives gives grief, then that gift should give the givee regrets.