You Are the Suit You Wear

Sartorial exemplarity is a matter of importance to Gekko. “Don’t come in here again dressed like that,” Gekko reprimands Bud at their first lunch meeting. No Wall Street broker who reports to and keeps company with Gordon Gekko would deign to wear prêt-à-porter. To rectify matters sartorial, Gekko gives Bud the name of his tailor. Gekko does not explicitly warn Bud against his penchant for Brooks Brothers button downs and rep ties, but the sartorial injunction is clear. “Get thee to my tailor:” learn to dress as I do.

Meanwhile, Gekko is quietly locked into his own sartorial standoff, one that is international in its reverberations and not at all local.

If Bud Fox is a young man of ambition caught between two worlds, Carl’s and Gekko’s, if Bud is trying to negotiate between two sets of opposing values (the union man in his overalls and the corporate raider), if Bud is in the process of ditching his $400 prêt-à-porter attire for Gekko-like bespoke suits, then Gekko is not only matching his financial muscle with but also pitting his sartorial wits against his English corporate raider counterpart: Sir Lawrence Wildman (Terence Stamp), who here represents that most famous of English corporate raiders, Sir James Goldsmith. “Sir Larry” is a study in Saville Row understatement. Tasteful, sober, Prince of Wales checks, cutaway collars, Windsor knotted ties.

This is the ultimate sartorial transatlantic showdown. American flash versus the timeless and enduring elegance of the Olde World. Like his clothing, Gekko is front and center, the camera attending to his attire in concentrated wide shots, as if to capture the full impact of its allure. Sir Larry appears almost always in profile. As if we are only meant to catch a glimpse of the richness of the fabric of his suit, as if that is enough to settle the sartorial matter in the Englishman’s favor. Turns out that a bold blue woolen chalk stripe suit may be able to hide a multitude of moral failings, but it can’t swing the sartorial battle in the American’s favor. Less, as they say, is more. Score one for the Olde World. “Greed” may be “good,” and Sir Larry may find himself outsmarted by his hungrier and more unscrupulous (it’s a matter of degree, not a difference in type) American corporate raider counterpart, but his understatement wins the day, at least sartorially.