Tagged: New Year Celebrations
Nucky Thompson’s Black Tie for the New Year
Vitals
Steve Buscemi as Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, crooked city politician and influential mob bootlegger
Atlantic City, New Year’s Eve 1922
Series: Boardwalk Empire
Episode: “Resolution” (Episode 3.01)
Air Date: September 16, 2012
Director: Tim Van Patten
Creator: Terence Winter
Costume Designer: John A. Dunn
Tailor: Martin Greenfield
Background
Tomorrow night is New Year’s Eve, an evening that sees many flocking to friends’ houses, bar parties, or an overcrowded section of New York without realizing that even the country’s most populous city can’t handle the lavatory needs of one million intoxicated visitors.
But I digress. For the lovable gang of murderous bootleggers on Boardwalk Empire, New Year’s Eve is an opportunity to party at the home of the town’s gregarious and graft-loving treasurer, Nucky Thompson. To ring in 1923, Nucky has a full evening planned with a literal treasure chest of gifts as well as live entertainment from Eddie Cantor and Billie Kent, his latest mistress an up-and-coming showgirl.
Guests include old favorites like Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Arnold Rothstein, but Nucky also welcomes a relative newcomer, the volatile Italian gangster Gyp Rosetti who doesn’t set a good example for America’s youth about treating a host with kindness.
What’d He Wear?
And then there’s you. Fucking breadstick in a bow tie. You pasty-faced, cocksucking-
Poor Nucky goes to all this work to look sharp for his New Year’s bash, and then he goes and gets insulted for his bow tie and complexion. Although I can’t guarantee that your party’s Gyp Rosetti won’t level a few unnecessary insults in your direction, I can endorse Nucky Thompson’s dinner suit as a fine way for a gentleman to stand out at any upcoming New Year celebrations. Continue reading
Don Draper’s New Year’s Eve Plaid Sportcoat
Vitals
Jon Hamm as Don Draper, Madison Avenue ad man
New York City, New Year’s Eve 1967
Series: Mad Men
Episode: “The Doorway, Part 2” (Episode 6.02)
Air Date: April 7, 2013
Director: Scott Hornbacher
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant
Background
Mad Men‘s penultimate (or pen-penultimate, depending on how you look at it) season begins in Hawaii during the Drapers’ tropical vacation but soon shifts back to the cold harsh reality of Manhattan in December. While this sort of setting would have been idyllic a few years earlier during the Rat Pack era, it is now dominated by unwashed squatters living with teenage runaways and their violins. Continue reading
Dino’s New Year’s Eve Tuxedo in Ocean’s 11
Vitals
Dean Martin as Sam Harmon, lounge singer and part-time casino heister
Las Vegas, New Year’s Eve 1959
Film: Ocean’s Eleven
Release Date: August 10, 1960
Director: Lewis Milestone
Costume Designer: Howard Shoup
Tailor: Sy Devore
Background
Much as Dean Martin was seen as Frank Sinatra’s second-in-command in the Rat Pack, Martin’s character Sam Harmon was the right-hand man to Sinatra’s Danny Ocean in the original Ocean’s Eleven. When the film was remade forty years later, Dean Martin’s Sam Harmon became Brad Pitt’s Rusty Ryan, who matched Martin’s sharp-dressed style with classy suits and sport jackets.
However, Pitt knew to stay away from the territory Dean Martin was known for: his tuxedos. Continue reading