Summer is here! The UK has been drenched in sunshine for the last few days. I think most of the nation has been crossing their fingers; hoping that this is not just a freak weather event and that the sunshine will endure.
Over at Unique Menswear they’ve got a good summer deal on that caught my eye: Decent Vans Sunglasses for only £15! Check out the frames below - looks like all have UV Protection too. Check them out here or click on the pics. Enjoy the sun!
Black/Yellow Wingman Aviator Sunglasses - Matt Black SAHADES Sunglasses
Sunglasses SPICOLI Black - Sunglasses SPICOLI Brown
Sunglasses DAMONE Clear plastic - Sunglasses AVIATOR Black
Sunglasses AVIATOR Bronze - Sunglasses DAMONE Black
It’s now less that a month until the hugely anticipated release of Ridley Scott’s PROMETHEUS. This is a big deal for me because I’d have no doubt in placing Alien as one of my favorite films of all time. I’m a little nervous about this release as it’s stepping on some hallowed movie ground. Nonetheless, from what we’ve seen, it looks pretty amazing.
Prometheus is set in 2112 (I think*) which is one hundred years from now. According to the costume and production designers of the movie, what will men be wearing in a hundred years? Let’s take a look…
Here’s Logan Marshall-Green, who plays Charlie Holloway one of the (suspiciously young and good looking) research scientists alongside Noomi Rapace (Elizabeth Shaw).
Check out the scarf he’s wearing here. Not quite big enough to be a shemagh, I had a look around to see if this pattern has a name, but couldn’t find anything. Maybe it’s bespoke. The t-shirt or light sweatshirt that he’s wearing looks to be ribbed cotton with an overlock stitch around the crew neck. There is in fact something very similar to this top on sale at Uniqlo right now, maybe this is where the costume department got it from? Nice bit of geeky-detail on the seatbelt too - good attention to detail.
At first, I thought the zipped top that holloway is wearing was a microfleece, but on closer inspection it looks to be another cotton sweater. Check out the Weyland embroidery on the breast and shoulder. I can’t quite make out what the shoulder patches say, but I imagine they include the ship’s insignia, they look really genuine, like authentic Nasa patches.
Here’s Sean Harris a great British character actor how is playing Fifield. I don’t know a great deal about the character but he looks to be a seasoned space-faring veteran: In the trailer he seems quite blasé about the mission and has a grizzled look about him, Let’s take a look at his costume…
Fifiled wears this strange sky-blue and white Hawaiian smock-type thing. I guess this matches is rather outlandish hair styling and tattoos. You can see on the close up of his arm here that the top is made from several different pieces of material and is well worn.
Present again are several embodied mission patches, which have had some ware and tear, making me think he’s been trough a few sorties in his career. Maybe this jacket is some sort of record of his space-faring service. The costume department have really done a good job here; remember that when these costumes are produced they are ‘new’ this looks to be genuinely distressed and frayed - very convincing.
Here’s Rafe Spall, another British actor, who plays ‘Milburn’. I’m not sure what his role is in the plot but he looks to be technical or maybe a science officer, like ‘Ash’ in Alien.
Milburn is wearing another cotton-weave or microfleece top, with raglan sleeves. That’s not a hood on this sweater-top-thing, it’s a tubular or funnel neck, much like a modern day snood.
On closer inspection of the inside this fabric looks to be microfleece, rather than cotton. The lumpy-bumpy texture on the reverse makes me think this. There’s also a three-stitch hem on the neck and there looks to be a drawstring inside here to pull the neck closed.
A couple of years ago I bought a hooded sweater from Muji that looked very much like this top. Just like the Uniqlo reference above it seems that some of the garments featured in Prometheus aren’t actually that futuristic, just advanced adaptations of what we have now.
And how about those glasses?! These must be bespoke. I’m not sure where they came from, but I dig them! Someone on a Prometheus forum raises a very good point; In a future that includes almost unbelievable technology and the ability and knowledge to produce artificial eyes for androids (or ‘synthetics’) why would Milburn need to resort to ocular correction devices? Let’s hope they address this in the movie.
Finally, let’s take a look at Idris Elba’s character (he’s also British) Captain Janek. He looks to be wearing some sort of military garb in this shot which could be double or three-quarter breasted. I say military, as it’s olive-drab - a colour widely used in military clothing and hardware, maybe Janek is a veteran too, although I can’t imagine what use olive-drab would be as camouflage in space-faring.
Interestingly, there’s a couple of imitation bone/horn/antler toggles on his right shoulder. Not sure what these adhere to, maybe they’re just there for show. Maybe he’s a hunter or something and these are hewn from some vanquished prey! Probably not.
Take a look at the distressed insignia on Janek’s left breast. This looks to be the same as that on Milburn and Holloway’s shoulders - this time I can make out the words ‘Weyland Corp’ and there looks to be some sort of winged creature and a planet with rings above. Maybe this logo isn’t specific to the Prometheus ship but only to Weyland Corp.
So there it is, the Menswear in Prometheus… If the movie is supposed to be set one hundred years in the future, the clothing used doesn’t look too futuristic: Garments like this are available from some retailers and it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to wear them now. I suppose this is accurate. Compared to what men were wearing a hundred years ago from today, clothes haven’t drastically changed. We’ve got new materials and manufacturing processes, but we’re still wearing classic shirts, suits and boots.
Researching this piece has produced some captivating intrigues into the movie and maybe I’ve correctly identified some of the character traits by taking a deeper look at their costumes. Only time will tell - it’s less that a month unit we can all see it at the cinema. If you haven’t already seen it, here’s the Prometheus trailer.
Prometheus is released on June 1st in the UK and June 8th in the USA.
Liked this edition of Movie Monday? Why not check out a few other of Good Clobber’s Movie Monday posts here:
Thanks to 20th Century Fox for the Prometheus images.
*I was lucky enough to see a 13 minute preview of the film and a Q&A with Ridley Scott and cast in London. I think Ridley Scott said that Prometheus was set 10 years before Alien. Alien is set in 2122. I could be wrong.
Some months ago I was made aware by the site Mod Culture that the Japanese retailer MUJI (who mostly specialist in minimalist home furnishings) have a Harrington Jacket - or at least a ‘Harrington-style’ jacket in their menswear range. Harrington Jackets are a staple piece of Mod clothing that’s endured since the 1930s.
I sort-of wrote it off straight away; MUJI aren’t a big name menswear brand and they don’t really have a heritage in British fashion - so surely the jacket won’t be that good, right? Wrong. I was wrong. I tried on their Harrington-style jacket, which they call a ‘Cotton Twill Jacket’ and it’s much better than I expected.
Made from a very good quality cotton and finished with superb stitching (the stitching is excellent - very small and accurate), this really is a nice jacket. I’m not too keen on the lack of some important Harrington Jacket features, such as elasticated cuffs and waist-band however MUJI have done it their own way and succeeded.
I was most impressed by the fit: Although the garment looks a bit square and baggy in these pictures, it’s actually very well shaped and fits around your torso snugly. The waist band isn’t too low and the collar is nice and high - higher than most Harringtons that I’ve owned / tried on.
Both the cuffs and the waist include fastenings that allow you to tighten or loosen the fit. This also means that pleats have been added to the cuffs. The zip is a bit basic - just your standard YKK job but there’s a nice red check pattern on the lining - and there’s an inside breast pocket also.
Check out the classic Raglan Sleeves and separate yoke and the back - important Harrington features that have been included.
And what about the price? It’s reasonable for a garment of this quality, but it’s not cheap. This jacket retails for £69.00 and is available in-store at MUJI, or head on over to their website to by it on line right here.
Want to see more Harrington Jackets? Check out our little history here.
