North by Northwest: the grey suit that survived a crop duster

The man in the most admired suit in film is called Thornhill. We did not plan that, but we are not going to pretend we did not notice.

Roger Thornhill, played by Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959), is a Madison Avenue advertising man mistaken for a spy. He spends most of the film being chased across America in one suit: through the Plaza Hotel, onto a train, across a dusty field under a crop duster, with a stop in a Chicago hotel room to have it pressed. Only for the finale on Mount Rushmore does he change. By then the suit has been through more than most suits see in a decade, and it still looks right. GQ named it the best suit in film history, and it makes the strongest case there is for the question men ask before their first good suit: if I can only own one, what should it be?

What is the North by Northwest suit?

The Bond Suits site has pieced it together in detail. Kilgour, French & Stanbury of Savile Row made the main suits, and Grant’s Beverly Hills tailor, Quintino, is also credited, probably for some of the copies. Accounts of how many were made range from six to sixteen, including a version with slightly wider lapels used in the crop-duster scene.

• The cloth is a lightweight worsted glen check, probably around 10 oz, in a plain weave. Its exact colour is still argued over, because it looks grey in some scenes and blue-grey in others; the likeliest answer is a charcoal and light grey check that shifts with the light.
• The jacket is single-breasted with three buttons, the lapel rolling softly to the middle button, which is the only one he fastens. The shoulders are straight and padded, the waist gently shaped, and the back has no vents.
• The trousers are high-rise with double forward pleats, turn-ups and side adjusters instead of belt loops.
• With it: a cream poplin shirt with double cuffs, a dark grey pindot tie, and oxblood cap-toe oxfords.

Why does a quiet grey check make the best one-suit wardrobe?

The usual advice for a first suit is navy or charcoal, and it is sound. Grant’s suit makes the case for a third option.

It hides wear. A fine check breaks up dust, creases and the odd cornfield. A plain dark worsted shows every mark and every shine at the elbow. For a suit you will wear hard, that matters.

It works at any hour. Mid-grey is formal enough for an interview or a meeting, relaxed enough for dinner, and the small check reads as plain grey from across the room.

It takes either colour of shoe. This is the question men ask most about grey suits: can I wear brown shoes? Grant wore oxblood with his in 1959, so the answer has been settled for a while. The useful rule is to keep the shoes at least as dark as the trousers. Dark brown and oxblood work with mid-grey; pale tan against charcoal is the jump that looks wrong. Black shoes or brown goes further.

It is not the suit for a funeral, where plain charcoal or navy is safer, and it is not black tie. Almost everywhere else, it fits in.

Which details should you copy, and which belong to 1959?

Copy the cloth. A small glen check, a birdseye or a sharkskin in mid-grey will be worn far more often than anything bold.

Copy the three-roll-two front. Three buttons, with the top one rolled into the lapel, and only the middle one fastened. It gives a long, soft lapel and a relaxed front, and it suits a man who finds a standard two-button too sharp.

Copy the high rise. Trousers that sit at the natural waist keep the shirt tucked in through a chase across a cornfield, and through a long dinner.

Update the back. A ventless jacket looks clean standing, but it creases across the seat when you sit, and a car seat is the worst of it. For a man who drives to work and sits in meetings, ask for double vents.

Trim, slightly. Grant’s trousers are full in the leg and his shoulders are more built up than most men want now. Keep the pleats if you like them, and ask for a little taper below the knee and a softer shoulder.

How should it fit?

Clean and easy, with no strain anywhere. Grant runs and throws himself into the dirt in this suit, and it never pulls across his back or rides up at the collar. That comes from a jacket with room where the body moves, across the back and through the upper arm, and close where it does not, at the collar and the waist. A suit that looks sharp only while you stand still is cut too tight.

What weight of cloth for Toronto?

Grant’s was a lightweight worsted, which is part of why he could run in it. For Toronto the same idea in a year-round weight of about 10 to 11 oz covers most of the calendar, from a cool spring to an air-conditioned August office. Cloth for Toronto’s seasons sets out the weights, and grey suit combinations covers what to wear with it.

How do you get it made?

Sam makes custom suits in this kind of cloth, measured at the studio in Vaughan, just north of Steeles on the Thornhill line, or at your office or home on request. A suit takes three to four weeks, with one fitting on the finished suit. The Drawing Board will sketch the idea in slate grey glen check with a three-button front: draw the North by Northwest suit. Bring the sketch, or a still from the film, to your appointment and book a time.

Where the details come from: Bond Suits, BAMF Style and Today on the GQ ranking.