Of all the films I’ve watched, the two that always pop into my head when I’m getting dressed in the fall will always be Annie Hall and Kramer vs. Kramer. I leave a little room for the works of Nora Ephron and Billy Wilder in there, but Woody Allen’s 1977 romcom and the 1979 drama starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep set the tone for how I imagine all adults in New York City dress.
While the two films don’t have much save for the decade they were made in common, I consider them part of a trilogy that also includes Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Travis Bickle doing a poor job dealing with his lonliness and PTSD is the big outlier of the trio in terms of substance, but when it comes to style, it’s the item of clothing we see Robert De Niro wearing the most that connects it with Alvy Singer’s romantic failings and the Kramers custody battle—his green M65 field jacket. All three films feature lead actors who wear similar jackets, and Ruth Morley was in charge of the wardrobe for all three of them.
I’ve read plenty of different theories as to why the army jacket became such a staple in the 1970s, each connecting back to the end of the Vietnam War somehow. Bickle wearing one makes the most sense since his time in the army plays a big part in why his character is the way he is; but for nebbishes like Alvy Singer and Ted Kramer, there was maybe some grasp for masculinity at work with the choice. I also can’t help but think that John Lennon wearing the army shirt Sergeant Peter James Reinhardt had given him in the earlier part of the decade also had some hand in getting guys more into combat gear. But as the war came to a close, the jackets were easy to find for cheap, so it was normal to see guys wearing them even if they didn’t serve. It got to be such a big thing, that there was what fashion historian Charles McFarlane called the “Boutique Surplus Invasion,” which was big enough that Saturday Night Live parodied it in 1978.
To me, the corduroy pants and Gucci loafers Dustin Hoffman’s character in Kramer Vs. Kramer pairs his army jacket with is up there with any of the looks from When Harry Met Sally, Crossing Delancey, or whatever NYC in the fall movie you put up on your moldboard. And if there’s one item of clothing I tend to wear from this part of October, well into springtime, it’s the army jacket. I find it the most versatile for when cold days warm up or I’ve got a thick enough sweater to deal with anything around 40 degrees so I’m never under- or over-dressed for the weather. I’ll usually keep the army jacket at home for anything below that, but today’s morning weather was around 44 and sunny when I went outside, and a Fair Isle vest underneath my army jacket was perfect.
Almost all of the army jackets I have I either got at thrift stores or surplus shops. I almost never see the point of buying one “new” because they’re jackets that are built to last, and, like a pair of Converse Chucks or a pair of Levis, look better when they’re broken in. That said, I have purchased one or two in my life because I appreciated the way they were cut, that whoever designed them didn’t have combat in mind, but didn’t stray too far from the original concept. I know the “stolen valor” thing is a favorite term used by style guys, and I can hear the hosts of some podcast or Instagram account making fun of me for buying an expensive take on a jacket originally created with soldiers in mind, but I’m a sucker for variety. So much so that my wife has started saying we have “a green jacket problem” in our apartment.
If I do buy new army stuff, I usually head to Bronson Mfg. Co. first. I’m always impressed with what I get from them and tend to buy more than just jackets. The prices are reasonable and the quality is decent, and I tend to get a lot of compliments on most of the stuff I wear from them. The other place I’ve started getting obsessed with is Universal Surplus. I haven’t bought an army jacket from them, but I was thinking of maybe adding a Canadian or French one to my closet.
I mentioned the green army jacket’s versatility when it comes to weather, but it also is incredibly fun to see what people pair it with. Henrik Wilberg is especially good at it, and I appreciated the way he pulled it off with a fun shirt and sandals earlier this year. I haven’t tried that yet, but I’m aiming for a late-April or early-May attempt in 2025.
Other things
It was weird timing, but the Times Magazine had an article on the writer Lore Segal turning 96 and “approaching death,” and she died the day after it was published. I love Segal’s work, and first read her when Melville House put her 1976 novella Lucinella back into print in 2009. That was Catherine Lacey’s first experience with Segal’s work, and she did a much better job memorializing the author than I could.
Over at The Believer, there’s a beautiful essay by Mychal Denzel Smith about centering himself after an emotionally taxing year by starting to play chess again.
At GQ, Harrison Ford was asked about one of the greatest fits ever.