Without looking like you’re wearing a costume.
It works for the same reason that the best celebrity style usually works.
It doesn’t look stylized.
Or rather, obviously, this is a movie. But it looks like the kind of costume that could They have been made by a real person with particular tastes and a long habit of dressing in a certain way. That’s why it seems believable in a way that many on-screen wardrobes don’t.
And I suspect that’s where some of the magic comes from, because the line between costume design and Gosling’s own taste seems blurredto say the least. The fox cardigan, the science joke t-shirts, the combination of traditional knitwear, unconventional workwear basics and very particular glasses feel at least adjacent to your instincts. No entirely yours, I’m sure.
Ryland Grace doesn’t dress like a generic scruffy genius, nor does he dress like a posh Hollywood version of An awkward academic. He dresses like someone who has discovered some specific things he likes and continues to wear them. A man with an unusual cardigan to which he has a strange attachment (and which others never recognize), a few T-shirts that amuse him, decent glasses and useful outerwear.
The fox cardigan is the item everyone has latched onto, and fair enough. This style of sweater was made famous by Mary Maxim, Canada’s largest mail-order knitting supply company still in business since 1956. It draws inspiration from that ancient tradition of curly sweaters: all nostalgia for the outdoors, sporting associations and slightly eccentric animal motifs.
For the film, the costume department started with a Mary Maxim pattern, changed the original wolves to foxes (apparently at Gosling’s request), and knit five sweaters for the production. Which is about as far from a standard movie as you can get.
Mary Maxim product photos for her knitting patterns: Left, the original wolf pattern; correct, the modified fox pattern for the movie
That detail tells you almost everything you need to know. The sweater is thick, specific, a little old-fashioned, a little strange, and unflattering in the chic style of a contemporary space movie. It seems like something a real person would love for reasons that are only partly rational.
But I think it’s also worth saying that the fox sweater is probably Drive’s scorpion jacket of this decade. In the movie, it’s perfect. We all wanted him. But if you go out and buy exactly what you made, everyone will know what you made. It’s very specific, you dress like the character in the character’s costume.
Which, you do, if what you want is the object itself. But if what you really like is the feel of the closet, so chasing exactly the fox sweater is probably the wrong lesson.
The best lesson is to find a piece of the real world that gives you the same charge without falling into disguise. And here the obvious answer is classic Pendleton Westerly sweater.
Unfortunately, it is not covered in foxes. But effects-wise, it’s surprisingly close to the same territory: chunky knit, traditional feel, bold retro print. He was used by The Dude in The Big Lebowski, yes, but it existed before that movie and also after it.
If the fox cardigan had been on Amazon for the last decade like the Pendleton has, then yes, people could probably wear it looser.
The Pendleton doesn’t have that problem. Combine it with a chambray shirt and denim, or throw it on over a faded band t-shirt and you’ll be in the world of the movie without looking like you dressed up as Ryland Grace.
Of course, if you’re even remotely anything like this one, it’s probably safer to avoid this sweater.
And the useful part of the wardrobe is not really the foxes. It’s the mix.
Really, the overall aesthetic presented here isn’t all that mysterious. Like Gosling’s own style, it relies on two silos: about 70% premium American workwear and 30% premium indie darkness.
The first thing is the foundation, denim, chambray, outerwear along with work clothes, sturdy sweaters, suitable boots and common useful things.
The second part is where the character comes from, the weird graphic t-shirt, the yellow cape, the retro wire frame glasses… the vintage sweater with two giant fox heads.
This is how men develop their personal style, building on a foundation and letting some specific preferences continue to recur.
The t-shirts make more sense in that light. He science t-shirts They were reportedly based on the science joke t-shirts the director’s son wears, which is much better than if the wardrobe had just gone out and bought anything that looked generically nerdy. And the band t-shirts do the same kind of job. A t-shirt with a graphic like that gives the wardrobe a bit of biography. When done well, it communicates personal tastes, habits, and a person who has accumulated things over time rather than coordinating them all at once.
Grace wearing a Hermanos Gutiérrez band t-shirt, which I was excited about because it’s kind of a random draw and I love it. his dramatic and instrumental music
Then there are the glasses, which appear to be vintage Savile Row T48 Rimway frames, medium rimmed, slightly tapered at the bridge and are interesting without being gimmicky.
If you want a similar shape without having to search for vintage objects, the Shuron Ronwinne either Moscow Plot are probably the closest obvious alternatives.
A surprisingly detailed Q&A about his Converse in the movie and the Scorpion Drive jacket:
It also helps that the film repeats pieces. Royal wardrobes are repeated. Sometimes that means you end up with an alternate sweater layer as a jacket and hoodie that you throw on when you need something extra, even if it’s a little specific and has two giant foxes on it. That’s what makes the costume look human.
And perhaps that is why it has landed among the people. Not because it’s aspirational in the usual James Bond-style movie sense, but because it shows that you can wear graphic t-shirts, bright yellow, weird vintage sweaters with animal heads, and retro wire-frame glasses, and still look modern, stylish, and not like you’re acting fashionable.
None of that is fantasy. It’s just a very particular kind of normality.
Which is usually the most interesting thing anyway.
