Tagged: Fair Isle

Catch Me If You Can: Frank’s Fair Isle-Style Christmas Sweater

Leonardo DiCaprio and Nathalie Baye in Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Vitals

Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale, Jr., suburban high-schooler

New Rochelle, New York, Christmas 1963

Film: Catch Me If You Can
Release Date: December 25, 2002
Director: Steven Spielberg
Costume Designer: Mary Zophres

Background

Merry Christmas!

Based on the now mostly debunked claims of fraudster Frank Abagnale Jr., Catch Me If You Can was released 20 years ago today on Christmas 2002, an appropriate opening date for a movie that benchmarks its protagonist’s status by how he spends each yuletide.

When we first meet Frank in late 1963, he’s a relatively well-adjusted teen with plenty of charisma if perhaps a bit precociously streetwise for a 15-year-old in the suburbs of New Rochelle, no doubt a byproduct of his artful father Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken), depicted passing on several lessons in minor larceny to his son. Before Frank Jr.’s first Pan Am uniform fitting or check forgery, we spend one last idyllic holiday with the Abagnale family in their New Rochelle home during Christmas 1963, as both Frank and his father take turns dancing with his Algerian-born mother Paula (Nathalie Baye), reminiscing about Frank Sr.’s courtship of the “blonde bombshell” Paula while he was serving in France during World War II. Continue reading

Robert Redford’s Colorful Fair Isle Sweater in The Way We Were

Robert Redford as Hubbell Gardner in The Way We Were (1973)

Robert Redford as Hubbell Gardiner in The Way We Were (1973)

Vitals

Robert Redford as Hubbell Gardiner, privileged college student

Upstate New York, Spring 1937

Film: The Way We Were
Release Date: October 19, 1973
Director: Sydney Pollack
Costume Design: Dorothy Jeakins & Moss Mabry

Background

Happy birthday, Robert Redford! As the actor celebrates his 84th birthday today, and college students prepare to go back to school under surreal conditions, it feels right to take another look at Redford’s style as Hubbell Gardiner, a popular and privileged scholar athlete at “Wentworth College” (filmed at Union College in Schenectady, New York.)

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The Aviator: Leo’s Fair Isle Vest for Golf

Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett in The Aviator (2004). Photo by Andrew Cooper.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett in The Aviator (2004)

Vitals

Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, eccentric and ambitious aviation and movie mogul

Los Angeles, Summer 1935

Film: The Aviator
Release Date: December 25, 2004
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Sandy Powell

Background

Tomorrow is the final day of the TOUR Championship, the final event of the 2019 PGA Tour season with a purse of $9,250,000 awarded to the first place golfer. Golf and wealth culminated for a brief but stylish scene in The Aviator (2004), Martin Scorsese’s biopic of twenty momentous years in the life of aviation and movie mogul Howard Hughes.

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Sidney Reilly’s Fair Isle Sweater Vest in 1918 London

Vitals

Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly in "After Moscow", episode 9 of Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983).

Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly in “After Moscow”, episode 9 of Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983).

Sam Neill as Captain Sidney Reilly, MC, jaded British Secret Service agent

London, November 1918

Series: Reilly: Ace of Spies
Episode: “After Moscow” (Episode 9)
Air Date: October 26, 1983
Director: Martin Campbell
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller

Background

You’re probably still reading the title. “Sweater vest?” you ask yourself. “Has he gone barmy?”

First off, you’re probably British if you’re using the word “barmy”; secondly, it’s true – there are few men who can both pull off a sweater vest and look badass in it. One of these men is obviously Clint Eastwood as Harry Callahan, who even sported two during the first Dirty Harry film. To be fair, Eastwood probably could’ve played Dirty Harry wearing a pink tutu and a purple silk shoulder holster and he still would’ve looked badass. Probably.

The other man is Sam Neill as satanically suave British agent Sidney Reilly in the 1983 mini-series Reilly: Ace of Spies. Continue reading