Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Shopping from Mamet: State and Main (2000)

Barbour Beacon (?)


Factory Seconds (Filson?)


Filson Duckbill Hat & Aussie Oilskin Jacket (make?)


Plain Wool Jacket (Labonville?)


Truckload of Hunting World luggage


Khaki Cotton Hunting Vest (make?)


Wool Engineer's Jacket (make?)


Filson Duffle (foreground)


Woolrich Railroad Vest


Barbour Beacon (?) and Moleskin Jackets (discontinued)


Wool Shooting Jacket (make?)


Classic Knitwear

Nine years before the mainstream media caught up with the heritage brand movement, David Mamet was costuming his central characters in Barbour and Filson and providing them with Filson and Hunting World luggage and accessories. Though I prefer Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner for complex plotting and Steve Martin, State and Main (2000) contains more cameos by classic heritage brands than any film in recent memory (outside of The Queen). In the very first scene, in the very first shot, in fact, William Macy and a colleague are shown standing outside of a small town sporting goods store. Both characters are wearing Barbour coats (both discontinued models: a Barbour Beacon and a Barbour moleskin jacket). On the sidewalk, outside of the sporting goods store, is a rack of Woolrich or Filson wool jackets in a red shadow plaid. The jackets are identified as "factory seconds" by a hand lettered sign (stop, pause and shop from that rack!). Almost every scene in State and Main contains the visual punchline of a preferred archival clothing item: Skookum style collegiate knitwear, a Filson duffle bag, a full truckload of Hunting world luggage, multiple Barbour jacket models, Australian oilskins, khaki hunting vests, green plaid jackets, etc. I'm not sure how well the archival costume narrative ties back into the film's story, but for me, the clothing items constitute a kind of autonomous fashion show within the film (which even works in slow motion, or on pause, without the benefit of character dialogue or music).

For reference, here are a view images from the original Barbour catalog featuring the Barbour Beacon (a lighter weight waxed cotton spin-off of the Barbour International):






5 comments:

Charlotte said...

I'm not familiar with this movie; I'll look for it.

The Barbour Beacon looks very like the International, without the belt, in my opinion.

lottie
who loves Barbour

Theo said...

just curious, i live in Brisbane, Australia and you mentioned, "aussie oilskins". how interested are Americans/you in 'heritage' clothing from other countries?

i've always kind of disliked Australian styles and brands. probably because i went to a boarding school full of country people who i wasn't really friends with.

i've also got to say that i've only been really interested in workearish/heritage (i'm not sure what the term is) clothing since i found a huge bag of my dad's clothes with heaps of RM Williams and other workish shirts etc. also not having much money, i try to search for things that will last a long time. more of a wardrobe, if you will.



ANYWAY, my original point was, how curious are you guys about this stuff, because i could get some pretty good pics of jackets and other stuff if you wanted?

ps. living in australia, the weather doesn't really suit the heaviness of US brands and this's sparked more of an interest on my side.

Lesli Larson said...

Charlotte--

I'm actually uncertain about whether the jacket in the film IS the Beacon or a leather model. The lining is a red tartan--not blue like the Beacon. I do think the Beacon was marketed as a slightly lighterweight version of the Internationall (a Bedale to the Gamefair).

I'm not a huge fan of the look of Aussie oilskins though they definitely deserve cinematic mention in Mamet's movie. I admire oilskins from afar and remember when Barbour was selling them as part of their own range (still do?). As a short woman, I just cannot pull off that intense oilskin/ranchwear look (and my friend Tom says "no" to any duster jacket--the style in which most aussie oilskins are delivered).

Maybe it's time to reassess the range of oilskin offerings. Theo, if you have brand recommendations (even vague ones), send them along.

I'd probably wear a more Barbour oriented contemporary jacket cut from aussie oilcloth. Just no leather embellishments or double fabric cape shoulders... How COULD that look ever work outside of a working ranch?

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