Necktie

Name: Unknown Necktie
Brand: Unknown
Availability: OutOfStock

Jay Gatsby (Robert Redford) in The Great Gatsby, 1974 — as worn by Robert Redford

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Unknown — Plate I — The Great Gatsby, 1974BAMF Style · Image may be subject to copyright

The scene

In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby (Robert Redford) waits at Nick Carraway's West Egg cottage for a meeting Nick has arranged with Daisy Buchanan (Mia Farrow). Gatsby has sent flowers and tea things, but fears she will not come. Their first exchange is awkward. Nick leaves them alone, and the rain stops before Gatsby invites them to his mansion. Still wearing his broad mustard-gold tie, Gatsby shows Daisy his rooms and clothes, then tosses shirts from his wardrobe toward her and Nick below.

Daisy is moved to tears. The tie belongs to an outfit assembled for this encounter, not for one of Gatsby's crowded parties. Against his pale suit and blue-toned shirt, its strong colour makes his effort to impress Daisy visible even as he struggles to speak to her. Theoni V. Aldredge designed the film's costumes and won the Academy Award for them; Ralph Lauren supplied clothing for the men, and Turnbull & Asser made shirts and neckwear for Gatsby. Director Jack Clayton favoured pale pastels for the principal costumes but wanted the film's overall look to feel golden.

The production built Nick's cottage on the lawn beside Rosecliff in Newport, Rhode Island, which stood in for Gatsby's estate. Beside Nick, Gatsby's open jacket and its mirror reflection keep the low-cut waistcoat, shirt and knotted tie visible. Later, the dressing-room staging shifts attention from that point of gold to the shirts descending toward Daisy and Nick.

In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby (Robert Redford) waits at Nick Carraway's West Egg cottage for a meeting Nick has arranged with Daisy Buchanan (Mia Farrow).

The object

Necktie

The full The Great Gatsby file →

. The broad, mustard-gold silk tie Jay Gatsby (Robert Redford) wears for his reunion with Daisy answers a line in Fitzgerald's novel, where Gatsby arrives "in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-colored tie." Who made the screen tie is less settled than many accounts suggest. Fashion coverage of the 1974 film routinely credits its menswear to Ralph Lauren, who had launched Polo in 1967 as a line of wide neckties and supplied clothing for the production.

Turnbull & Asser, the Jermyn Street shirtmaker, states that it designed a shirt and tie for Gatsby in the film and has since produced replicas of both. That documented tie, however, is a different design: a repeat floral and spot pattern in green, pink and orange on a pastel blue ground, sold alongside a blue micro-check shirt with a white collar. It is not the plain mustard-gold tie of the reunion scene.

No published source located so far names the maker of the gold tie itself, and no stock number, label photograph or sale record ties it to either house. Costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge, who won the Academy Award for the film's costumes, oversaw the wardrobe as a whole, so a tie made to her specification is also possible. Until a primary record surfaces, the tie is best described by what the screen shows: wide, silk, a deep mustard gold, worn thickly knotted against a slate-blue shirt.

Production Notes

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