COOPER X 12

lazy stitch
1920s. Born in Montana, Gary is still Frank James Cooper. He falls in love with ‘lazy stitch’, a beadwork motif and method chiefly employed by Native Americans of the Central Plains. Later, he will make clothes for his daughter and himself, cutting and stitching leather: ‘his own Indian moccasins, which he loved to wear around the house.’ To get the right fit, he wears the shoes in warm water and lets them dry around his feet. In 1936, he designs a house.

paparazzi
1936. He sells electrical signs, theatre curtains: he gets a break. Nan Collins, his agent, makes him take her hometown’s name: Gary. 6’3”, narrow waist and broad shoulder, his costumes are his clothes. In Desire, the trousers are tailored and loose, British draping on an American body.

roosevelt’s son
1948. A first Oscar six years prior for Sargeant York, Cooper is now a star. Pictured here with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s son, ample trousers, turn-ups and a high waist. Frank James has become Gary. Blazer and waistcoat match against a striped trouser. Helena, Montana becomes Los Angeles, California. He wears a tuxedo jacket with a cream waistcoat, a club tie, and morning trousers. Marshall in High Noon, he chooses a black polka dot string tie, a grey striped waistcoat, and a penny collar. He will be nominated for an Academy Award four more times.

picasso
1956. Cooper meets the artist in France. He tells him: ‘You’re a hell of a guy, but I don’t really get the pictures.’ Picasso: ‘That doesn’t matter. If you really want to do something for me, get me one of those hats you wear in the movies.’ Cooper gives him a gun too. Summer: madras shorts, soft point collar, untucked shirt, knotted at the waist.

doctor’s orders
He grows up on the ‘Seven-Bar-Nine’ ranch, hunting, fishing, and riding with his brother Arthur. After a car accident at the age of 13, Cooper undergoes physical therapy through horseback riding. The accident leaves him a bow-legged lope: it would become his signature. Cooper starts as an extra, earning ten dollars a day riding horses in cowboy films: The Thundering Herd, Wild Horse Mesa, Riders of the Purple Sage, The Lucky Horseshoe. Ralph Lauren will recall his dreams of the West beginning with Cooper’s westerns, Saturday afternoons in the Bronx.

new year’s eve
1957. When Irving Berlin rewrites the lyrics to “Puttin’ on the Ritz” he adds a line for the actor: ‘Dressed up like a million-dollar trouper/Tryin’ hard to look like Gary Cooper/Super Duper.’ He was often dressed by designer Bill Blass: ‘He was the first to buy jeans and do the stone washing thing. He’d beat them on a rock and leave them out in the sun all day. Did it himself, too.’

st mark’s square
1955. A second oscar won in 1953, his daughter remembers: ‘If my father was doing a film in Europe we would go over and join him and drive around the French or Italian countryside’. Cooper has a tailor in every major city: Brooks in New York, Brioni in Rome, Anderson & Sheppard in London. He tells a magazine: ‘I don’t know a darn thing about dressing.’

horizontal stripes
1943. What he likes about Anderson & Sheppard is the softness of its tailoring. He prefers his jackets unbuttoned, his pockets patched, and his ties unlined. Collars too are soft: open in High Noon, torn like his suit in Mr Deeds Comes to Town.

london
1959. He was often dressed by designer Bill Blass. Of his client, the designer said: ‘Gary Cooper comes the closest to being a cowboy, and I consider him to be the best-dressed American.’ The shirt collar flies outside the jacket, the pocket square too.