From Beatniks to Bullitt: The (almost) Accidental Invention of the Smart Casual Look

 

Our chap here is displaying style cues of the post-war Beatniks at that point when the style had been so thoroughly integrated into the mainstream that elements of it morphed into Mod style and the menswear revolution that we now know as ‘smart casual’. This opens up the chance for me to discuss one of the favourite subjects of Knitters of Yore: how fashion spreads from the streets and is assimilated into the mainstream. This process was memorably termed by George Melly ‘Revolt into Style’, with the opposite process, from the drawing boards of elite designers to everyday life, probably best termed by Tom Wolfe as ‘From Bauhaus to Our House’ (the latter was about architecture, but seems appropriate in this context).

Anyway, I digress. The Beakniks might seem a mild and harmless development now, but they were look upon with a mixture of scorn and horror by large elements of Britain's ever-conservative press when their influence began to be felt in the UK. Check out this review of Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums from the London Daily News, Wednesday September 16th 1959:

The men affect jeans and beards the girls pony-tails and the sort of tight black garments that only French girls can wear with any grace. But this again is only relative, as they seem to strip naked whenever possible during the courses of their several-daylong parties. The beatniks express themselves in abstract art and distracted poetry and, through their chief spokesman, Jack Kerouac, in novels. The second of his novels to appear in this country is The Dharma Rums. I recommend it only to those who can take a beating. Mixed in with the beat philosophy of “I'm all right. Jack” is a strong dose of Zen-Buddhism, which has been taken up by some beatniks as an alternative to marijuana.

Original fifties hep cats doing their thing.

The British version of the Beat Generation was a heart a photocopy of the American original, as was so much of Britain’s nascent youth culture in that post-war, pre-Beatles era. While the original American Beats were a post-WW2 phenomenon springing from an understandable existential angst after two world wars in 20 years, the British version mixed this with a desire among British youth to have something of their own, more interesting and vital than anything the native culture had to offer at the time.

Thus Tommy Steel became a big star, despite it being a truth universally acknowledged that he was merely a poundshop Elvis. He did have the distinct advantage that, unlike the real thing, he would turn up to play at your local Palais. Musically, the US and British versions of the Beatnik era diverged quite a lot. A love of American blues artists and the lack of funds for real musical instruments produced the peculiarly British phenomenon of Skiffle, while the country also saw a revival of interest in old-time Dixieland Jazz, or Trad Jazz as it was termed.

Roddy McDowell was Hollywood's idea of a Beatnik

Style-wise, the Beatniks proved very influential, and as the scene in the London coffee bars moved on from the Beats to the Modernists, an early version of what would later be the Mods, the unisex Beat uniform of a sloppy black turtleneck jumper and sunglasses was repurposed and smartened up as essential parts of the new scene’s wardrobe. Before then it would have been unthinkable for this sort of knitwear to be worn by any man who aspired to style, unless he was doing the gardening. What we now term Smart Casual was being invented, and in some ways was popularised by sheer chance.

Enter Hollywood, who had made a couple of ham-fisted attempts at portraying the Beatnik phenomenon on film (most notable a big-budget 1960 adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s The Subterraneans) which had proved nothing except that fifties Hollywood was utterly divorced from youth culture. The style, however went on to manifest itself in the most unlikely places. In 1965 David McCallum quickly became the standout character as Ilya Kuryakin in Spy-Fi TV series The Man from UNCLE. Kuryakin developed a style involving tailored suit jackets and roll-neck jumpers which cut a far more stylish dash than did the show’s supposed star Robert Vaughn’s Brooks Brothers suit and tie combos.

Ilya Kuryakin, Jazz superstar!

English tailoring, Hollywood cool.

Even more influential was Steve McQueen in the 1968 movie Bullitt. McQueen’s character, created the rebel-cop archetype which would inform movie and TV cops for years to come, from Serpico to Starsky and Hutch to Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys.  In terms of his wardrobe, McQueen wears standard-issue cop clothes of dark suit and tie, white shirt and unflattering raincoat for much of the film’s length. By an accident of screenwriting, however, the film’s most iconic scenes take place at the weekend, allowing McQueen to look effortlessly stylish while being chased around San Francisco by hired killers.

Frank Bullitt’s look was put together by English tailor Doug Harward and the film’s costume designer Theodora Van Runkle (who I featured in my earlier blog entry The Twenties Reborn) based around Steve McQueen’s personal style. The brown herringbone jacket is packed with details which would have delighted any Mods watching the film, such as the top button that folds over as part of the lapel, the very English detail of an extra ticket pocket, and the double vents at the back. Combined with a blue cashmere sweater, charcoal worsted trousers and McQueen’s favourite brown Chukka boots, Bullitt exudes a subtly hip vibe which makes Robert Vaughn’s creepy politician character look fussy and overdressed in comparison, with his double breasted waistcoat and pocket watch.

Best of all, it was a look which could be replicated on a budget, especially if you chose the right knitting patterns.