The Thomas Crown Affair Fashion Point

At that place's a reason many of the smartest names in men's elegance regard The Thomas Crown Affair, the 1968 film starring Steve McQueen, as ane of the most influential moments in men's style. To this day, the film remains one of the about empowering intersections betwixt masculinity and sartorial expression e'er captured by the camera'southward lens.

Created during an era when American cinema was focused on gritty social realism, it was perhaps understandable for reviewers to dismiss a film similar The Thomas Crown Affair — replete with Faye Dunaway'due south 31 costume changes, Ferrari GT 250s, Rolls-Royces and, in detail, Steve McQueen'south British-tailored splendour — as mindless centre-processed.

Admittedly, the narrative foundation of the moving-picture show is not the strongest. Its central character is a new-world Boston brahmin — the 36-year-old, divorced, polo-playing arbitrage specialist and self-made millionaire, Thomas Crown. Because his life is so coloured with ennui, he's compelled to get his adrenaline double-tap by masterminding a daring daylight bank robbery using unwitting henchmen who don't know his truthful identity. Enter Faye Dunaway, who plays a cagey insurance investigator — the true cat to his mouse, engaging Crown in a duel of wits, emotion, and stylistic one-upmanship.

Agreed, the characters are underdeveloped and the plot is without true genius. As one reviewer put it, "If fashion could be purchased," director Norman Jewison "has turned out a glimmering, empty flick reminiscent of an haute couture model: stunning on the surface, concave and undernourished below."

However, this comment entirely misses the signal of The Thomas Crown Affair which, as a pure exercise in manner, is as significant to movie theater as Kazimir Malevich's experiments in total non-objectivity are to art — which is to say, instrumental. Way is expressed in everything from the languid cool score, to the carve up-screen technique of the credits and bank robbery (a first unveiled at the World'southward Fair of 1964 and used just one time before in commercial picture, past John Frankenheimer in McQueen's Le Mans). The bulletin is clear from the multiple images flashing in the opening credits: What's more beautiful than one paradigm of a perfectly tailored Steve McQueen? Well, multiple images of him equally the banking concern-robbing Savile Row-suited Narcissus!

"There is none higher. It is the most stylish moving picture ever created," says Mark Powell, the British sartorial impresario who invented the gangster-chic tailoring seen in the cult film, Gangster No. 1. James Sherwood, author of definitive Savile Row tome The London Cut says: "It reconnects us with the passion nosotros derived from military clothes or court uniforms. It reminds us that in the centuries before, information technology was ever the human being, and not the woman, that was the style star."

A joyous celebration of male person sartorial cocky-expressionism, the picture resonated with a wide audience because of McQueen's unique wedlock of virility and elegance. At that place is nothing fey or foppish about 'Tommy' Crown. He is every bit an Alpha male clad in bespoke armour. McQueen had to overcome a great deal of studio scepticism on whether (given his rugged persona, both on- and off-screen) he could pull off the portrayal of a dashing, urbane tycoon. Yet, in much the same style that wardrobe transformed former stonemason Sean Connery into a convincing gentleman spy, exquisite suits empowered McQueen to confound typecasting. Here, the clothes definitely fabricated the man.

Every item of his wearing apparel in the film is executed with perfect sartorial precision. There is never a misstep, though sure colour combinations (such as the outfit he wore to seduce Dunaway'southward character: a soft-pinkish striped shirt, mauve necktie and argent blackness pocket square combined with a grey three-piece suit) certainly flirt with hyperbole.

It was British tailoring legend Doug Hayward, who also created Michael Caine'south suits in The Italian Chore, that was tasked with outfitting McQueen in an assortment of attire to dazzle the senses. While there is a belief that McQueen's suits follow the lean silhouette popular in men's tailoring of the era, our test of the movie proves this inaccurate. Indeed, the suits created by Hayward are quite the contrary. They are perfectly representative of classic British tailoring, and equally such would be completely relevant and stylistically correct today.

They are all three-piece suits that create an air of brash formality in sharp contrast to the rapidly devolving tardily-'60s earth around McQueen. The shoulders are well structured and characteristic lite roping to create a powerful, almost predatorial stance. Slightly slimmer lapels serve to build the expanse of chest. The coats are two-button with well-suppressed waists to create a more Atlas-like silhouette. They feature bespoke hallmarks such as large sleeveheads and slightly more voluminous backs to assist mobility. In that location are even some downright cheeky details like the unmarried-push button, fishtail-sleeve cuffs on several suits, including the legendary grey Prince of Wales suit in the opening scene.

The waistcoats in the moving picture are generally without lapels and are directly-cut at the hem with a slightly higher line to requite greater length to McQueen's legs. The waistcoats are all buttoned at the last button, which is correct for a straight-cut hem. Though McQueen's obviously-front, high-waisted trousers are relatively full, they finish in narrower hems to marry with his slim British benchmade shoes.

Masculine elegance has never found a more than pure expression than in the motion picture's first scene. Hither, Crown checks his gold Patek Philippe pocket watch, which is hung double-Albert style with a fob driblet. He is resplendent in a glen plaid three-piece in contrasting shades of greyness. The details of his suit are farthermost, from the super-high side vents to his roped shoulders to his single-button cuffs. His calorie-free blueish shirt with big mother-of-pearl cufflinks is counterpointed past a royal blueish silk tie knotted with a dimpled half Windsor. The lenses of his Persol shades match the shocking blueish lining of his suit. A pigeon-grayness pocket square, staged 'Astaire Puff-fashion' fills his breast pocket.

Other than the Patek Philippe pocket scout, McQueen'southward wrist sports two other noteworthy timepieces in the picture. The first is a Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox and the second, that many consider to the definitive gentleman'south sentry, and in this instance, the perfect match to McQueen's on screen ensemble, the Cartier Tank Cintrée. Quick fact: You'll see in many places this watch listed as the Tank Américaine. But this just isn't possible because the Américaine wasn't released by Cartier until 1989. Thomas Crown, the film, was of class released 21 years before, in 1968.

Full of devil-may-care cool, it's a crazy ensemble, an about totally over-the-meridian piece of sartorial bravado… but it works. Cinematic costumier Timothy Everest says, "Information technology's this outfit that made me desire to become a tailor."

McQueen'due south wearing apparel go along to shape-shift in each scene, from the charcoal-greyness three-piece in the Swiss drome, to the oddly centre-vented blue/grey pinstripe iii-piece in his banker's function, to what is mayhap the most stylish of the suits in the motion-picture show: a midnight-blue outfit with a gorgeous double-breasted waistcoat worn with a subtly striped shirt with a collar pin and a four-in-manus-knotted, double-pleated tie.

Faye Dunaway's character is asked, "Do you find him handsome?" "Yes," she gushes — and we can't help just hold. Today, as men go reconnected with classic elegance, the moving-picture show is more relevant than e'er. Because encoded in its every frame is the message that information technology is your correct to look magnificent.