Words: Simon Crompton
Translation: Agnes G.
男人的衣橱看似单调,但内里的门道和讲究实则较女装更深,对面料,材质,比例,缝线和搭配无一不是值得反复推敲、欣赏。
伦敦,作为世界高级男装的中心和定制西装的发源地,对于美国,意大利,法国等地的正装文化都有很深远的影响。今天我找来一篇生活在伦敦的知名男装博主 Simon Crompton 为 The Rake杂志撰写的评论【天才雷普利】中着装风格的文章,独家汉化后与各位风格爱好者分享。
CELLULOID STYLE: THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY 电影中的风格:天才雷普利
Few films have encapsulated the intoxicating romance of the Riviera quite like The Talented Mr Ripley, a movie that boasts one of the finest wardrobes in cinematic history.
很少有电影能像【天才雷普利】这样浓缩出如此迷人的海滩度假风情(Riviera),同时这部电影也有着影史上最绝伦的着装和审美。

这一切都要从三件西装外套说起。电影开始时,我们的同名主角汤姆雷普利(Tom Ripley)在纽约中心的屋顶聚会上演奏着钢琴,他穿着一件胸前兜袋上绣着普林斯顿大学标志的藏蓝色布雷泽夹克。在参加聚会的一众上流社会人士眼中,这件绣着校徽的夹克已然是他们世界的入场券。但随后我们知道,这件夹克不是Ripley所有,连带着不属于他的还有这个金光闪闪的上流社会。
物归原主后,汤姆随即进入了一家豪华酒店内,套上酒店员工的白色西装外套——红领子金纽扣——在男客的盥洗室中当起服务生。他趁着穿深蓝色燕尾服的上流社会客人们洗手时迅速为他们刷去礼服上的细灰,希求能得到一些小费。第二天,他套上了他的灯芯绒西装外套——这家夹克后来成为了他的拘泥和呆板的象征;也只在雷普利完全转变成一个纨绔公子时,那件灯芯绒西装外套才被彻底的取代了。
服装,服装在这部1999年由安东尼·明格拉(Anthony Minghella)导演,汇聚了马特·达蒙和裘德·洛两位男主的【天才雷普利】中展现了难以估量的作用。电影中有的是隆重的盛装,交换行头,和美国风格与意式风格的激烈对比。但服装在这部电影里有着更为基础性的作用: 人物的着装不可避免的关联着并衬托着剧情的发展,这部电影中服装的风头比过去20年所有电影中所呈现的都要更高,这也是为什么本片得到了众多的服装赏评。
如此高的成就都归功于安·鲁斯(Ann Roth)——为舞台和荧幕设计戏服的著名戏服设计师。鲁斯当时刚刚为明格拉导演的另一部【英国病人】设计戏服并获得著名的学院奖(Academy Awards),随后加入到【天才雷普利】的戏服设计当中。不过,雷普利却更加吸引着鲁斯,因为1930年代出生的鲁斯对于雷普利的故事发生的年代(1950年代)十分记忆犹新。“总的来说50年代从视觉上是非常无趣的,”鲁斯在2000年与Live Design的一次采访中说到,“在40年代,美国人受到战争和面料供应的限制。而当战争结束后,Dior率先发表了著名的New Look,那是很有意思的一刻,那时开始流行起服装宽裕的用料,宽大的结构,像是双排扣的西装外套(双排扣的外套用料要多于单排扣)。而当我们进入50年代,这种体面的美国公民形象越来越流行····随后那种坐着私人飞机的超级富豪形象大行其道——诸如意式风情,里维耶拉度假海滩,碧姬芭铎还有电影曼波王···· 都市中弥漫着一种气氛,受到马龙白兰度和安娜马格纳尼(意大利女演员,凭1955年电影【玫瑰纹身】获得奥斯卡最佳女主角)的影响,人们彻夜欢歌。而我也参与了这一切”。


汤姆·雷普利的身世就是富豪名流的对立面。他那方形的眼镜,针织领带,斜纹布裤的装扮也许在今天回看有几分常春藤风格(Ivy League style),但在当时,以这一身打扮出现在意大利南部则显得非常不搭调,甚至有些搞笑。电影中有好些镜头表现了雷普利这种尴尬处境,但最经典的一幕还是当他精心策划了在度假海滩上和迪奇·格林利夫(Dickie Greenleaf, 电影中裘德洛饰演的角色)的那场“偶遇”。当汤姆光脚穿着厚重的布洛克皮鞋走近迪奇(Dickie),他身上唯一一件衣服就是一条荧光绿的泳裤······

对于鲁斯(Ruth)来说,“汤姆就是那种典型的美国东岸男孩,不过他是只能消费得起Sears的那种”,我通过不合身的服装凸显出雷普利窘迫的经济条件。而那件灯芯绒西装外套尤其松松垮垮,用鲁斯的合作者,设计师盖里琼斯(Gary Jones)的话说:“简直了”。而相反的,迪奇(Dickies)穿着做工精致的服装,只在衣角处有一些小破旧的痕迹。就如他对汤姆雷普利说的:“你就穿我的那些衣服好了。随便哪件。它们多数都有年头了”。
迪奇的服装是由纽约的John Tudor所制——一位经常为大银幕提供服装定做的非著名裁缝。鲁斯解释道:“我的工作就是塑造一个出身富裕的迪奇,用剧组非常有限的经费,打造他在欧洲奢靡的生活”。“我设计迪奇穿着西装外套搭配短裤,或者西装外套配麻质裤子,那件西装外套需要反映出迪奇显赫的家世背景。正如剧中迪奇的一些西装外套是在罗马定做的,那穿起来就必须有这种效果”。
另一方面,汤姆的衣服以古着(vintage)为主。为了配合人物设定,造型师甚至专门找了纽约和意大利的裁缝去修改这些衣服——以确保它们穿在马特达蒙身上看起来很不合身,这对任何一个裁缝来说都是很纠结的活儿。而当汤姆顶替了迪奇的身份以后,他穿的都是定制的衣服,虽然不确定是否来自意大利的定制裁缝,不过迪奇在从那不勒斯去罗马的途中的确推荐汤姆去找一家Battistoni裁缝铺,这家裁缝铺成立于1946年,如今仍在Condotti路61A的内廷生意兴隆着。Rake的读者对于那种找裁缝朝圣的兴奋心情一定非常理解,他承诺汤姆要带他找这家非常厉害的裁缝铺做一件新衣服,他唱着:“Roma, we’re taking Tom to Roma!”随即模仿浓郁的意大利口音重复着:“Battistoni”。




模仿汤姆和迪奇在电影中的风格是比较直观的:他们的风格贯穿始终,并且因为他们的戏服都是以有限的经费获得的,所以较为昂贵的西装外套整部剧下来就是几套。迪奇总穿尖领的短袖衬衫,卷起裤腿的亚麻裤子和胶底帆布鞋(plimsolls)。汤姆则以古板的格纹衬衫为主,斜纹布裤是典型的美式风格——宽大,双褶。
谈及西服,迪奇对于花纹和质地的喜爱明显高于汤姆。在那场在那不勒斯爵士吧的场景中,汤姆穿黑灰色夹克,白衬衫,系一条领带,而迪奇则以米色布雷泽夹克搭配粗条纹领带和一顶平顶绅士帽(Porkpie hat)。确实,饰品是迪奇张扬风格的关键——无论是帽子,戒指还是腕表——汤姆多数时候则毫无修饰。而这种对比最被着重描绘的一次是在汤姆和迪奇驾驶小船离开Sanremo去找公寓的一幕:二人都穿着黑色短袖衬衫,不过迪奇选择了一件薄纱质地而汤姆穿着密实的polo衫。迪奇选择了白色亚麻长裤;汤姆则倾向于棕色精纺毛料。汤姆在外面套了一件哈林顿夹克(Harrington Jacket);迪奇则以一件装饰铆钉的白色衣服。
这件白色夹克可能和汤姆那件荧光色泳裤是一个系列的,都是我们强烈不推荐的。但比风格更重要的是这件白色外套的象征意义:当汤姆(在误杀了迪奇之后)离开那艘小船返回位于Sanremo的酒店,他裹着的是迪奇的外套,他将自己裹进了他梦寐以求的那个纸醉金迷之境——鲁斯敏锐的戏服设计将我们推入故事更阴暗的下章。
翻译:Agnes GE
英文原文:
It starts with a story of three jackets. As the film opens, our eponymous protagonist, Tom Ripley, is playing the piano at a rooftop party in New York, wearing a navy blazer with the Princeton crest on its outbreast pocket. The blazer is meant to signify ready acceptance among high-society audience. But, as we quickly learn, the prestige does not belong to Ripley — this is not his world.
Once the blazer is returned to the pianist he briefly replaced, Tom enters the bowels of the hotel, slipping into the white jacket — red collar and gold buttons — of a bathroom attendant. He brushes down the midnight-blue tuxedos of hotel guests as they wash their hands, hoping for tips. Finally, the next day, he dons his corduroy jacket — the jacket that will come to symbolise his straitlaced conservatism; the jacket that will only be replaced once he has completed his transformation into a jet-set brat, which is to say, into another man entirely.
It’s hard to overestimate the role of apparel in The Talented Mr Ripley, the 1999 film by Anthony Minghella and starring Matt Damon and Jude Law as the two male leads. There is the dressing up, the swapping of rings, the sharp contrast of Italian and American style. But it is more fundamental than that: the clothes displayed throughout the movie are inextricably linked to the narrative, more so than in any other film of the past 20 years — and it is for this reason that it commands so much sartorial analysis.
The one who had put it all together was Ann Roth, a celebrated costume designer for both stage and screen. Roth came to Ripley following her win at the Academy Awards for her work on Minghella’s previous film, The English Patient. Ripley, however, had a particular appeal for her, because it was a period she remembers very well. “The ’50s were, for the most part, very dull visually,” Roth told Live Design in 2000. “In the ’40s, we had the restrictions of the war and limited fabric. After the war, Dior came with the New Look and that was very interesting, with the use of more fabric, the bigness of men’s clothes, the double-breasted jackets. When we went into the ’50s, there was this aspiration to look like a solid citizen… Then, the jet-set thing started to happen — Italians, the Riviera, Brigitte Bardot and the Mambo Kings… There was a certain air about town, which had to do with Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani, and dancing all night. And I was right there.”
Tom Ripley was the antithesis of the jet-set. His square glasses, knitted ties, and chinos may pack a Ivy League stylistic punch in retrospect, but at the time, they would have appeared a little awkward and hilariously inappropriate in southern Italy, where he travels to track down Dickie Greenleaf at the behest of the latter’s father. There are many scenes that illustrate that awkwardness, but none better than the chance meeting with Dickie on the beach, which Tom had carefully orchestrated. We feel the sandy discomfort as Tom laces up his brown brogues over bare feet, his only other clothing being a pair of neon-green swimming shorts. For Roth, Tom is “very American East Coast, but from [American department store] Sears”, pointing to the low budget reflected in the poor fit of his clothes. The corduroy jacket — “such a piece”, in the words of Roth’s co-designer Gary Jones — is rather baggy, as are his chinos. Dickie, by contrast, wears beautifully made clothes that are just a little bit ratty around the edges. “Just wear some of my things. Wear anything you want. Most of it’s ancient,” he tells Tom.
Dickie’s clothes were all made by John Tudor in New York — a lesser-known bespoke tailor who contributes regularly to the silver screen. “My job was to show this very well-off boy, Dickie, in Europe, on a very strict allowance, but with a sensational lifestyle,” Roth explained. “I had him in a jacket and some shorts, or a jacket and some linen trousers, and that jacket had to reflect a very rich background. And if he had one or two made in Rome, it had to look that way.”
Tom’s clothes, on the other hand, were vintage pieces. They were remade by tailors in Italy and New York to ensure the fit was never quite right, to match the character — a grating commission, surely, for any tailor. Suits that Tom wears later on, when he has made his transformation into Dickie, were bespoke pieces. It’s not clear whether any bespoke Italian tailors were used, but Dickie does recommend that Tom visit Battistoni, a tailor founded in 1946 and still going strong in the inner-court of 61A Via Condotti, when they’re on their way to Rome from Naples. It’s a fair bet that readers of this magazine will share Dickie’s excitement, as he offers to have Tom fitted for a new jacket at this enchanting outfitters: “Roma, we’re taking Tom to Roma!” he sings, before affecting a strong Italian accent to repeat the word “Battistoni”.
Emulating the style of Tom or Dickie in the film is fairly straightforward: the styles are consistent and, because both are operating on small budgets, the number of outfits is restricted to a few. Dickie seems most comfortable in short-sleeved shirts with pointed collars, rolled-up linen trousers and plimsolls. Tom’s short-sleeved shirts are square and gingham-checked; his chinos come with typical American sack — big and double-pleated.
When it comes to suiting, Dickie shows a lot more fondness for pattern and texture than Tom. In the Naples jazz club scene, Tom wears a sombre black jacket, white shirt and tie, while Dickie pairs his beige blazer with a boldly striped tie and a porkpie hat. Indeed, accessories are key to Dickie’s flamboyance — whether it’s a hat, a ring or a watch — while Tom is largely unadorned. This contrast is most emphatic in the scene where the pair board a boat off Sanremo to scout for apartments: both wear black short-sleeved shirts, but Dickie’s is gauzy and Tom’s a solid polo. Dickie embraces white linen trousers; Tom prefers brown worsted ones. Tom tops it off with a Harrington jacket; Dickie shows off in a white, press-studded affair.
The white jacket probably belongs with Tom’s neon swimming shorts as something we would strongly discourage against. But more important than the style is the symbolism: as Tom leaves the boat and returns to their Sanremo hotel, it is Dickie’s jacket that he wraps around his shoulders, enfolding himself in the decadent, glamorous life he so craves — it is Roth’s astute costume that nudges us towards the next, darker act in the story.