Withnail's Coat and I

Withnail's Coat & I

He may have boasted tailoring from Hawkes of Savile Row, but Withnail’s coat has a much more complicated history.

It’s easy for depictions of 1960s Britain to be enamoured with an idealised, cartoonish vision of swinging decadence. While no doubt a great swath of British pop culture from the period indulged in colourful happenings – understandably considering how fresh it must have seemed after the first decade or so of the Post-War years and their austerity – the same excuse cannot be given for retrospective dramas set in the decade.

Cultural depictions of the 1960s seemed to split by the end of the 1980s, with some still buying into the groovy colour defined by everything from flower power to Granny Takes a Trip. The other half, in stark contrast, focussed on a faded, bricks-and-mortar version (I think the truth of the decade is likely housed somewhere between the two), and there are few better examples of this than Bruce Robinson’s Withnail & I (1987).

Set in 1969, the decade has taken on its toll on the two out-of-work actors at the centre of the story: the upper-class drunk, Withnail (Richard E. Grant), and his paranoid, timid acquaintance, Marwood (Paul McGann). In almost any other film, their world would have been splashed with psychedelic colour; their flat a kaleidoscopic funfair, their lives carefree, and their trips variously sunny and swinging. Instead, the decade has brought them into Dickensian poverty, a decrepit gentility even, while housed in a Camden flat collapsing under the weight of rubbish. Only an accidental holiday to the rain-sodden Lake District offers a glimmer of (false) hope.

No doubt much of the film’s bite comes from Robinson’s own experiences of the decade, but the one aspect where this distinctive and refreshing characteristic is present most in the film is in its costumes. Withnail and Marwood are the most unswinging pair imaginable, in spite of getting smashed and high throughout. Marwood favours a leather coat and some general jumpers and jeans. The really interesting clothing choices are, however, in the more obviously aristocratic Withnail. As Withnail proudly proclaims to the drug dealer Danny (Ralph Brown) when the ominous man notices that Withnail is wearing a suit, “This suit was cut by Hawkes of Savile Row!”

Withnail is one of the great exponents of sprezzatura, the philosophy defined by Italian courtesan Baldassare Castiglione in his The Book of the Courtier (1528). As he wrote, his philosophy was “to avoid affectation to the uttermost and as it were a very sharp and dangerous rock; and, to use possibly a new word, to practise in everything a certain ‘nonchalance’ that shall conceal design and show that what is done and said is done without effort”. The point of Withnail’s outfit is that it looks great yet effortless; unsurprising and natural for such a chaotic character. Each individual item may be in itself (supposedly) high-end, aristocratic and good quality, but the way each part is worn adds to a successful, nonchalant whole.

Withnail doesn’t wear the suit from Hawkes throughout the entirety of the film. When on holiday, and in several segments in London, Withnail actually wears a pair of green corduroy trousers which work perfectly with this philosophy. In fact, the only part of the film where he’s fully dressed up is to visit Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths) with the intention of impressing (or perhaps pimping) his way to a few days at the rich man’s holiday cottage in Penrith. One obvious item of clothing, however, accompanies Withnail on all of his travels, even when not wearing much else such as when he covers himself in Deep Heat to keep warm, or when he’s fishing with a shotgun: his coat.

The coat is one of the most famous items of men’s clothing to grace British screens; so distinctive and utterly attached to the character who wears it. If the film really is the ultimate of cult films (a description I’ve always found frustrating and undermining of its real qualities), then Withnail’s coat is the item that ultimately defines it. Withnail’s coat has had an appropriately convoluted and strange life, one far beyond the story of the film itself.

Creating the Coat

Withnail’s coat owes its creation to the film’s costume designer, Andrea Galer. Galer was immersed in the cultural world that Withnail & I sat within as she told me in a lengthy interview. “My journey to that point followed a childhood in Cambridge,” she recounts, “growing up with David Gilmour, Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and Storm Thorguson. I met Julie Christie when I was twenty years old in Cambridge when she visited her brother, Clive, who was at that time doing a degree at St. John’s College. I moved to London when I was twenty-one, and I built my skills in making and cutting theatrical costumes in Derek West’s workshop in Charlotte Street. I lived in Holland Park which led me to a certain social milieu and to my relationship with Alan Aldridge. His work with The Beatles, Ink Studios and with George [Harrison] setting up HandMade Films were all relevant to being asked to be costume designer on Withnail.”

There’s a lot to explore here, but the first question after this took me on a slight filmic tangent. Galer’s earliest work actually came out of this same social scene, namely working in wardrobe on Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973). Though she is credited online as working chiefly on Christie’s costume, I did want to briefly ask about Donald Sutherland’s distinctly tweedy outfit for that film, especially as some of the styling of Sutherland’s heavy coat seem echoed in Withnail’s costume. “Donald’s coat was also of Harris Tweed but that was reflecting his character as an academic man.” As Withnail was far from being academic, I left the point there.

The coat’s real purpose is to give Withnail his dramatic silhouette. It’s imposing, dramatic to the point of Shakespearean, and moves in a way that is highly stylised and arresting. In some ways, the coat expresses Withnail’s own view of himself; elevated beyond his lowly position as a struggling actor. The coat’s most famous scene exemplifies this. As he and Marwood walk back to Crow Crag after being threatened with a dead fish by Jake the Poacher (Michael Elphick) at The Crow & Crown, Withnail rails against the world, mostly in silhouette. “Bastards!” he cries to the heavy Cumbrian skies. “You’ll all suffer! I’ll show the lot of you! I’m going to be a star!” The scene is heightened by the beautiful swaying drape of the coat as it swirls around him like a coterie of dark spirits.

Galer explains how this scene influenced the coat’s development. “The idea behind the Withnail coat evolved from a combination of discussions with Bruce Robinson,” she suggests. “We wanted to create something which was intentionally designed to move like it does in the iconic ‘I want to be as star’ scene. It should almost have a life of its own – as if it’s Withnail’s best friend.” Galer absolutely achieved this, but where exactly did the coat come from? It’s certainly not of the kind that was popular generally in 1960s London.

In fact, Withnail’s outfit as a whole feels a hang-up of the Pre-War gentry, a subtle implication that it may perhaps be the character’s father’s. For reference, here’s a jacket that Hawkes & Co of Savile Row, who Withnail claims made his suit at least, made in the era of the film’s setting. The suit was exhibited under the title of “Rude Boy UK 1960s” at an exhibition in 1994 which further compounds the difference to Withnail’s style. If Withnail’s suit feels contrary to the slimmer proportions, then the coat – beyond the obvious Peacock-ish turn for older, military paraphernalia in a somewhat Post-Modern hat-tip to the past – feels positively taken out of time. What was the thinking behind it?

“It was when I was researching ideas for Withnail’s coat,” Galer continues, “that a friend showed me the Nineteenth-Century frock coat which..."