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John Travolta in Blow Out: Red Shirt for Liberty Day
John Travolta as Jack Terry in Blow Out (1981)
Vitals
John Travolta as Jack Terry, horror movie sound technician
Philadelphia, Fall 1980
Film: Blow Out
Release Date: July 24, 1981
Director: Brian De Palma
Costume Designer: Vicki Sánchez
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
My favorite Brian De Palma movie, Blow Out, culminates with a thrilling chase through the director’s hometown of Philadelphia during Liberty Day, a fictional jubilee celebrating 100 years since the last ring of the Liberty Bell.
Commissioned in 1752, the 2,000-pound bell made of copper and tin rang from the Pennsylvania State House for more than two decades before its perhaps most famous pronouncement, said to be among the many bells that rang through the City of Brotherly Love to announce the signing of the Declaration of Independence… four days later, on July 8, 1776—247 years ago today. Continue reading
The Clothing of I Think You Should Leave
I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson
Vitals
Series: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson
Created by: Tim Robinson & Zach Kanin
Season 1 Costume Designer: Emily Ting
Season 2 Costume Designer: Monica Chamberlain
Background
We all know that triples is best, so the third season of I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson will premiere on Corncob TV Netflix just under a week from now on Tuesday, May 30.
I Think You Should Leave often steps beyond the line into absurdity, though its costume designers Emily Ting and Monica Chamberlain have always dressed its characters to realistic perfection, adding a familiar verisimilitude that communicates so much about them in the few minutes we spend with each, whether that’s representing the hoodie culture of millennial-run agencies, a drivers’ ed teacher whose baggy polo probably even predates his instructional videos, and the insufferably pedantic jazz fan Howie (Tim Heidecker) poorly layering an open button-up shirt over a black T-shirt with slightly longer sleeves.
I could go on about the understated brilliance of I Think You Should Leave‘s costume design, but I’ll instead limit my focus to the handful of sketches that have centered around clothing, from ridiculous inventions like a T-shirt designed to be tugged or trousers designed to look pissed-in to men who invest in ludicrously patterned shirts and ill-conceived fedoras. Continue reading
Seinfeld: 40 Significant Style Moments
Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Jerry Seinfeld in a promotional photo for Seinfeld
Vitals
Series: Seinfeld
Air Dates: July 5, 1989 — May 14, 1998
Created by: Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld
Costume Designers:
* Charmaine Nash Simmons (seasons 4-9)
* Ruth E. Carter (episode 1 only)
* Jane Ruhm (rest of season 1)
* Llandys Williams (season 2)
* Marie H. Burk (season 3)
Costume Supervisor/Key Costumer: Stephanie Kennedy (seasons 5-9)
Background
This Sunday will be the 25th anniversary of the finale of Seinfeld, the NBC sitcom that remains a pop culture touchstone more than a quarter-century later with phrases like “double-dipping”, “re-gifting”, “shrinkage”, and “yada yada yada” an enduring part of our lexicon… even if those saying them don’t know they originated from Seinfeld.
Centered around the neuroses and misadventures of four everyday New Yorkers, Seinfeld was hardly a fashion-oriented show, yet its focus on the minutiae of life means plenty of focus on the kind of comedy that can be derived from clothing, whether it’s as broad as a ridiculous jacket or as nitpicky as two buttons placed too closely together. Continue reading
10 Years of BAMF Style!
Hi, BAMF Style readers! Today is the 10th anniversary of my first-ever post, analyzing the iconic suit worn by Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller North by Northwest. In the ten years since that post went live on September 26, 2012, I’ve been honored to connect with so many great people as I’ve felt welcomed into the online menswear community.
It’s been a lifelong journey for yours truly, from being a 7th grader hobbling together a rusty pinstriped suit with my grandfather’s flat cap in the hopes of emulating Robert Redford in The Sting to taking countless screenshots from my James Bond and Mad Men DVDs in my college dorm to try to crack the secrets of sartorial success to ultimately—and quite nervously—clicking “Publish” on that first post detailing my observations of Mr. Grant’s attire as the wrongly accused Roger Thornhill.
While I could never look quite as stylish as the erstwhile Archie Leach, this was certainly how my anxiety felt when I decided to begin a ridiculously titled blog about men’s style in my favorite movies.
To tell the truth, I almost never hit “Publish” on that first post… after all, we all know the internet can be a vicious forum that brings out the worst in people. I even considered just making this a private site, accessible only to me, where I could curate my growing knowledge about the style in movies that I admired without fear of criticism, either for my lack of knowledge or the topic itself. Slowly but surely, I realized that there was not only an audience for this type of blog but an actual community of people who cared about the same things! I would have never guessed that, within 10 years, I would have nearly 10 million views from people around the world reading my humble scribblings about the intersection of my interests. (And, if I had known, I surely would have put more thought into what I called it!)
The last decade has been filled with plenty of exploring, connecting, learning, and—most importantly—getting to know so many of you through your comments and emails, and I remain grateful each day for the empowering impact of those with whom I share this digital space. I was a green 23 years old when I started the blog and now, somewhat grayer at 33, I’m lucky that this little hobby has remained fun and fruitful to a rewarding degree. While I’m not 100% sure what the future may hold for BAMF Style, I hope to continue writing for as long as it stays fun… and we’ll see if my anxiety can continue stubbornly resisting the current trends in content sharing, be it TikTok, starting a podcast, or the next great thing.
With much gratitude, I thank you all!
— Nick
Should any of you be curious, I delved into my web insights and metrics to deliver a few morsels of BAMF Style trivia…
Total number of BAMF Style posts: 1,365
Total number of views: 9,486,372
Total number of visitors: 4,041,718
Top 10 most-visited posts:
- John Wick’s Suit
- John F. Kennedy’s Ivy League Style
- Daniel Craig in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Brad Pitt’s Aloha Shirt and Champion Tee
- Bond Style — Bolivian Combat in Quantum of Solace
- Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in Tombstone
- Collateral — Vincent’s Suit
- Aaron Cross’ Biker Jacket in The Bourne Legacy
- Dexter’s Kill Outfit
- Aaron Cross’ Winter Attire in The Bourne Legacy
A downside of this decade-long longevity? So many of these popular posts are many years old and, in my opinion, require substantial overhauls!
Top 5 decades most represented in BAMF Style posts:
Top 5 actors most represented in BAMF Style posts:
- Sean Connery (44 posts)
- Daniel Craig (41 posts)
- Jon Hamm (40 posts)
- Robert Redford (39 posts)
- Robert De Niro (35 posts)
Scott Fraser Collection’s Icon Series: The Goodfellas Shirts
Ray Liotta as Henry Hill in Goodfellas (1990), wearing a blue striped knit short-sleeved shirt that Scott Fraser Collection recently recreated as the “Salerno” Knit Shirt.
London-based brand Scott Fraser Collection has been on my radar for several years with its increasing lineup of beautiful clothes consistent with its maxim of “retrospective modernism”. With a collection tailored to men and women, Scott Fraser Collection offers knitwear, trousers, suits, and more that take inspiration from the golden age of leisure-wear across the mid-20th century.
In 2020, SFC introduced the first of its “Icon Series”, recreating two famous and distinctive shirts worn by Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Less than two years later, SFC has expanded its Icon Series by turning its creative abilities toward what may be my favorite movie of all time: Goodfellas. Continue reading
The Office: Season 2’s Christmas Party – Ranking Holiday Looks
Christmas is awesome. First of all, you get to spend time with people you love. Secondly, you can get drunk and no one can say anything. Third, you give presents. What’s better than giving presents? And fourth, getting presents. So, four things. Not bad for one day. It’s really the greatest day of all time.
With some offices reinstating the traditional holiday parties this year, I also want to return to my own December tradition of reviewing how the off-the-peg office drones of Dunder Mifflin Scranton dress for their annual Christmas extravaganza.
The Office first approached the festive season with the simply titled “Christmas Party”, midway through the series’ masterful second season. This has always been one of my favorite episodes of The Office, and “Christmas Party” was actually the first-ever iTunes Store purchase I had made after Christmas 2005 found a video iPod in my stocking… appropriately enough, as fans of the episode would realize.
At this point, The Office was still a more restrained satire of American workplaces—rather than the zanier character-driven comedy it would become—and the first Christmas party reflects that mundanity, with cheap decorations, cheap vodka, and cheap grab bag gifts, and seemingly none of the staff happy to be part of this forced corporate fun, save for the oblivious manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell).
The main cast of The Office—Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer, Steve Carell, B.J. Novak, and John Krasinski—in a promotional photo for the second season’s “Christmas Party”.
Dressing for Summer Travel: Road Trips and Airplanes
Sidney Poitier’s tropical shirt in Lilies of the Field (1963) takes his style to the next level behind the wheel of his road-ready station wagon.
With this summer looking like more of a realistic travel season than last year for those looking to safely get away, I wanted to round up some of what I’ve learned in nearly a decade of paying attention to and writing about style and apply it realistically to how I dress for summer travel!
These guidelines may not work for everyone’s sense of taste, style, or comfort—and I’d always advocate for individuality over blindly adhering to what some non-expert on the internet (yours truly) has to say—but I thought it could be helpful to develop a guide based on what has worked for me, particularly in the wake of takes reporting that some are having trouble rediscovering the purpose of their clothing after spending much of the pandemic locked down in leisure-wear.
Of course, leisure-wear might be all you need to pack for summer vacations this year, but it still helps to have something a little practical for the journey, whether by air or on the road… Continue reading
An Interview with Costume Designer Janie Bryant
Janie Bryant, photographed by Inherent Clothier.
I recently had the pleasure to speak to Janie Bryant, the talented and prolific costume designer whose credits include Mad Men, Deadwood, The Last Tycoon, and most recently Why Women Kill… in other words, some of the most stylish and entertaining shows in recent decades. Ms. Bryant recently teamed with Taylor Draper of Inherent Clothier to launch her new menswear label, Bryant/Draper, a classically inspired line of luxurious yet versatile items from jackets to jodhpur boots that would deliver more than a touch of elegance to any modern gent’s wardrobe. Continue reading
The Office: Classy Christmas – Ranking Holiday Looks
If you’ve been following BAMF Style for a few years, you know I like to take a break from the enviable style of Grant, McQueen, Poitier, and their ilk to tackle a problem many of us have faced: how to dress for the office Christmas party. Given that corporate America’s closets tend to have more in common with Michael Scott than with Steve McQueen, the American version of The Office rose to the occasion to address the phenomenon of ill-fitting sweaters and ill-advised ties that seems to plague my fellow cubicle-dwellers as they don their gay apparel for the holiday season.
2020 being the year that it’s been, many staff parties have been relegated to holiday happy hours via Zoom or Teams where there will likely be a better chance of catching glimpse of a co-worker’s sweatpants than Christmas ties. For this year’s ranking of Dunder Mifflin duds, it thus feels more appropriate to settle in for Michael Scott’s vision of a more intimate holiday gathering… which also hosts its fair share of snowball scenes that would no doubt result in severe HR violations.
“Classy Christmas” aired ten years ago, the second of three episodes to be directed by Rainn Wilson. It also marked Michael Scott’s final Christmas celebration at Dunder Mifflin Scranton before Steve Carell left the series at the end of the seventh season.
Jenna Fischer, Ed Helms, John Krasinski, Leslie David Baker, and Steve Carell in “Classy Christmas”, the seventh season holiday episode of The Office.
Introducing… the Don Draper lookbook!
Jon Hamm as Don Draper in a promotional photo for season 6 of Mad Men
BAMF Style readers are well aware of my fandom for Mad Men and—in particular—the series’ magnificent 1960s style by costume designer Janie Bryant (who, if I’m not mistaken, is celebrating her birthday today!)
While I’ll still plan on covering individual outfits from the show’s central characters, I thought a helpful resource for readers and fans of the series could be a comprehensive portfolio detailing all the suits, sport jackets, and casual attire worn by Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the enigmatic ad man at the show’s center. (Yes, GQ already did something like this… however, I wanted to take my own approach!)
One goal of the project: to discern just how many different suits Mr. Draper cycled through during the series’ run. My current documentation suggests around 90 suits, but time—and the completion of this project—will tell!
To keep this project particularly useful, I’ve chosen to forego including Draper’s pajamas and I’m not considering adding a raincoat, removing a tie, or any other outfit modifications to be a separate look. If you’re curious about what else Don wore with the outfit, feel free to comment, reach out, or look for a separate BAMF Style post exploring the outfit in more detail!
So far, the page is complete through the end of the first season as I want to make sure the chosen format is agreeable to BAMF Style users. Depending on the feedback I receive, I may retool a bit (to the best of my rather limited abilities!) before continuing on, but the goal is to have all seven seasons of Don’s Mad menswear chronicled by the end of 2020.
Happy reading, and please let me know what you think—I’m open to any feedback!
Introducing… The Don Draper Lookbook