light travel coat with white collar

Name: No Brand light travel coat with white collar
Brand: No Brand
Availability: OutOfStock

Ilsa Lund in Casablanca, 1942 — as worn by Ingrid Bergman

Plate I — Casablanca, 1942movie-screencaps.com · Image may be subject to copyright

The scene

Near the end of Casablanca, Ilsa Lund appears on the airport tarmac in the light travel coat with the sharp white collar as Rick Blaine brings her, Victor Laszlo, Captain Renault, and a police officer to the waiting Lockheed Electra for the escape to Lisbon. This is the climax after Rick has forced Renault to cooperate and revealed that Ilsa will not leave with him after all, but with her husband. On the fog-smothered runway, she stands between the two men who define the choice being made for her, listening as Rick insists that Laszlo’s work needs her.

The coat belongs to this outdoor departure alone: it is the garment she wears while the plane warms in the background and Rick’s private farewell gives way to the larger political sacrifice the film chooses over romance. The coat’s pale body and bright collar make Ilsa read immediately as composed, visible, and emotionally exposed at the instant when Rick asks her to accept a future she did not expect.

Orry-Kelly’s work on Casablanca supports character legibility in black and white, and this look does that with unusual economy. In this moment, the travel coat suggests readiness for departure while preserving Ilsa’s poise as the story shifts her from romantic possibility back into wartime duty beside Laszlo. In the mist, the coat catches the light before Ilsa disappears toward the plane.

The object

A bespoke studio-made women’s travel coat worn by Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund in the final airport farewell sequence of Casablanca, designed under the film’s costume designer Orry-Kelly. No publicly documented retail brand, manufacturer, style number, or surviving commercial label has been established for this garment, making 'No Brand' the most accurate attribution; as with many 1942 Warner Bros. costumes, it was likely created or adapted within the studio costume department rather than sourced as a consumer product.

On screen, the coat appears as a light-toned tailored outerwear piece with a contrasting crisp white collar, broad lapels, structured 1940s shoulders, and a shaped or belted waist consistent with wartime-era women’s travel fashion. Because the film is black and white and no wardrobe record publicly verifies the textile, exact material and fastening details cannot be confirmed, though the surface reads as smooth and substantial, in line with period travel coats often made from gabardine, wool blends, or similar sturdy fabrics. The white collar is especially important visually, helping the garment register clearly in monochrome photography.

In the airport sequence, the coat functions as practical departure wear for night air, transit, and wartime uncertainty while also contributing to Ilsa’s composed, luminous screen presence against the dark, foggy runway. The garment’s restrained elegance supports Bergman’s performance and has become part of the iconic visual memory of the farewell scene.

Provenance

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