Jake Gittes: Style Icon

[Tomasso]

Well Done!

How long are the points?

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Measuring from the inside, 3 3/4".

Kind regards,
Magnoli

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Here's a vintage 1930s cotton dress shirt, Indy.


Note that the breast pocket and the collar look VERY much like yours. And yes, the collar points are 3 3/4 inches long!

.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

But there's never been good pictures until now...

Wrong. A quick search yielded these posts:


http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showpost.php?p=149011&postcount=17

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showpost.php?p=149019&postcount=18

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showpost.php?p=149134&postcount=25


.

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Thanks for posting that one, Marc!

And yes, the collar points are 3 3/4 inches long!

Phew! It's nice to get something right before getting the additional info.

Kind regards,
Indy

 

[cookie]

That's it for now. It's a time consuming project, but I'll be back with the next suit in a few days.

If this is a pointless exercise, please let me know.

Wonderful - thanks for making my day! I particualrly like the kind of fold or undulation where the back piece hits the belt back and kind of folds with a great drape. Lots of the guys talk about drape on FL and claim it is a product of the material. They say that don't make that stuff any more.

My question is where did the costumier get the material?

Just guessing that the cream suit material would be Palm Beach cloth as it would not roll like that if it were pure linen - it has too nice a drape for the stiffness of pure linen even worn or washed linen. It does not even looked crushed enough for linen unless it would be a lin cien Cuban weight eg 8 oz linen. Am I right - am I wrong?

 

[cookie]

I recently learned how to get screen shots from my dvds, and I've taken on a little project.

Marc and others have been busy supplying images, and I want to contribute more than pics of my ugly mug and the things I wear above it, so I'm contributing images of clothing form period films taht I like. Which is to say, I like the clothing and I like the film.

I'm starting with my favourite film of all time, and one of my favourite characters in film history, Chinatown and Jake Gittes. I know a lot of people here got into wearing period attire via Indiana Jones, but he never really did much for me, I was laways all about the smarts, the street cred, the toughness, the tenderness and the sheer elan of one Jake Gittes, private detective, assayed in two films by the inimitable Jack Nicholson. Now here was a fully rounded and fascinating character, a believable, naturalistic rendering (if not all absolutely accurate) of the 1930s, and here too was a vain little cockscomb of a man who knew how to dress, and loved doing it. There would be no rumpled trench coat or "farted up" suit in J.J.'s closet, only the gladdest glad rags this side of L. O. Fellowes illustrations for Esquire.

So, here without further ado, are the duds of Jake Gittes.

I like the half windsor tie knot in the main frames but he also does a four in hand in another where the knot is too small and unimpressive.

 

[cookie]

cookie

Pardon my ignorance - what was the other Jake Gittes film with Jack the Lad?

 

[cookie]

I like the detail on the lapel.

It's worn with a long point collar again.

This one is monogrammed JJG. That's the kind of attention to detail that makes a movie feel natural. And look at the pocket of the shirt.

Finally, a view of the pattern. Looks like a styleized diamond or greek key motif.

The tie design is a type of paisley not what you think.

 

[Flitcraft]

Pardon my ignorance - what was the other Jake Gittes film with Jack the Lad?

The Two Jakes.

 

[Solid Citizen]

Geeat Closeup Pics

As a "Chinatown" fan I to have often wondered about the vintage clothes claim made for the movie. Based on these pics I'm a believer. That closeup of Jakes sportcoat which I thought for years was lite tweed herringbone looks like the real thing!

SC

PS Thanks fpr posting cookie :eusa_clap

 

[Fletch]

Best part about stylin' Jake is that if anybody asks you why you look like that, you can say: "It's my m?©tier."

 

[Fletch]

I think the lapels look too '70s. They're top-to-bottom broad, with that greeeat big notch.

Jake's color palette also has to fit into the limited, desert-tans-and-browns look of Chinatown's production design.

 

[cookie]

This is why Chinatown gets my vote for the most authentic '30s costuming film made in the '70s. Although Chinatown had a costume designer, he outfitted the male stars almost exclusively in '30s vintage clothing. In other words, the real stuff.


.

That tie is wonderful. It is like looking at an Art Deco era painting - sort of aspects of Mondrian. No wonder it was popular. Does anyone do repros of this. It makles modern stuff look plain. Then this era, of course, was one of the most artistically creative of the 20th century.

sorry the post got placed elsewhere I was talking about the other tie that one of the guys had from the 30s - I must have missed the page to insert.

 

[Indy Magnoli]

If there is enough interest, I could add this tie to my collection of vintage tie reproductions. The price for my silk ties is $40 (shipped). Here is an image of my Casablanca repro, so you have an idea of what my ties look like:

Kind regards,
Indy

 

[cookie]

Sorry

Marc Chevaliers posting of 080406 is the one I meant Indy

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Ah... you mean the Sunray tie!

Well... if there was enough interest in this one, I could do it as well.

Marc's tie is a woven one, though I can do silk jacquard... but I think I'd prefer to do Jake's tie above as a printed silk.

Kind regards,
Indy

 

[cookie]

Okay while you were all asleep (Nth Hemisphere types) I decided to watch the Two Jakes which (for some unknown reason) I have never seen before. The high points?

Jake wears one of the best Donegal tweed jkts I have ever seen. In one scene he gets blown up in it for having a careless dorrie outside a house built under an oil well. Kaboom! That was not the sound of the ground exploding but my eyes which love Donegal tweed ( I bought a blue one today on eBay). It was very rough hewn textured and a beautiful colour mix.

The other stuff is pretty good too! Ther are a few jackets that the FL crowd would sell their left and right for. Of course the piece de resistance was his car. Sorry I am an amateur - was it a Packard convertible? - I am an Aussie and we never saw this stuff outside movies. Please advise.

 

[cookie]

I sat dowm and watched (with various child interruptions) the whole of Chinatown and this time in the daytime rather than when half asleep late at night.

The clothes - okay are sensational - and you sometimes forget just how beautiful Faye Dunaway is - breathtaking in the 30s glamourpuss style. Veronica Parra is right here that you see the effect of wearing real vintage and not fakes.

Considering all the fab belt backs - for mine the plaid one is a gas - the other suit I liked was the one he wears in the denouement part which is so much the trad 2x breaster with the big 40s lapels. Awesome!

As for the tweed jacket belt back: I agree with the guys that is such an interesting and unusul design in the fabric - again I see the Art Deco effect kicking in there. Am I wrong? Almost an Egyptian theme.

It is a funny era, that, because it mirrors the noughties a lot with the mix of single and continuing double breaster popularity and now the three piece suit is back.

Interestingly I went into the Oxford shop which is a good quality (made in China principally) chain and what did I see. The suits were all like the 30s style but less rampant about it than JJ Gittes.

It just goes to show that we vintageistas are not in the past but on the cutting edge of fashion - but do we care?

 

[Barry]

Skipping a few ensembles until later, I'm going to my favourite.

Here it is:

I liked this jacket so much I ordered a reproduction from Magnoli about five weeks ago. I should have it by the middle of next week.

Mine will be in the Pure Wool Tweed 11 oz - Marsh Brown.

Barry