This is a blog post that goes along with the most recent bonus pod! You can listen to the first 15 minutes of the bonus pod below, but you’ll have to subscribe on Patreon to get the RSS feed of the full episode (as well as access to our Discord). 

I’ve watched a fair bit of movies over the course of my life, and one of my favorite framings is the thing where “a person works on a story (or a retelling of it) and their life starts to match it over the course of the movie. You know, The Red Shoes, Contempt, and Scrooged.  

Unlike Spencer and MJ, I never watched Scrooged before; no surprise there when it comes to Ethan and “old” movies. It wasn’t until the New Beverly Cinema had a showing one year later, and as a fan of seeing 35 prints, Spencer suggested that we see it (after drinks at El Coyote, of course). As expected, I had a great time– and certainly found myself charmed by the trope-filled 80s/90s menswear.

And so, when the guys and I were figuring out what to watch for our last film of 2025, Spencer included this film on the list. I was intrigued by revisiting this flick, mainly because 80s/90s tailoring isn’t something that we tend to discuss too often. I also felt a bit burned out from just talking about classic films, which is always a no-brainer when we are in want of good menswear. Since we’ve only done one “modern” 80s/90s movie (The Player), I thought that Scrooged would be an interesting choice to cover on the blog. 

This is also the first time we’ve covered a movie in December that’s actually relevant to the holidays! 

What makes the menswear in Scrooged so enjoyable is the fact that so much of it is quite stereotypical and over-the-top. Nearly all of the characters’ styles draw on storied menswear tropes: sleazy corporate execs wear striped power suits, a nerd wears a sweater and bow tie, a rich guy is in vibrant golf attire, and a club blazer.  And despite this reliance on coded clothing, Scrooged isn’t even a period film! It’s set in the “modern day”, where those meanings were still relevant, and serve to make the characters distinct and easy to “get”. 

After all, this movie is a comedy, and being a caricature or a cartoon is all a part of the fun. I personally think it’s a cool move when costume designers lean into the semiotics of clothing and leverage them to differentiate characters’ personalities, as well as their roles in the story. I feel like this is a bit rare today, at least when it comes to suiting; most people in jackets and ties end up looking the same. Not for Scrooge. Many characters wear jackets and ties, and there is a difference between what they wear, even if it’s a bit “much”. Seeing as this is a comedy, that’s likely the entire point. And it still looks good! 

Bill Murray’s Frank Cross is the epitome of the entertainment exec, especially when he’s first introduced. It is not surprising in the slightest that Cross is wearing a striped Armani-esque DB suit, complete with wide shoulders and a low fastening 4×1 closure. However, the styling makes it all better.  To further emphasize just how ruthless and evil he is, Cross goes dark and tonal with an abstract print shirt and tie, which the latter, as noted by our good friend BAMFStyle, has Christmas-esque colors, likely as a nod to the film’s setting. It is chic and a bit Going-Out coded, but it’s certainly not a traditional business combination. But Cross doesn’t care. If anything, the combination is quite in your face, much like Cross’s vulgar approach to TV. He’s a corporate asshole and dresses like one. 

Once the main story starts and our dick protagonist starts to be visited by a zombie and three Ghosts hell-belt on teaching him a lesson, Cross wears something a bit softer. It’s hard to tell unless you have an HD copy of the film, but it seems that Cross sheds his dark suit and tonal-abstract combo for something simpler: a navy DB jacket, grey trousers, a white shirt, and a burgundy geometric tie. It’s still very “80s businessman”, but it’s understated and quite humble compared to his first outfit or his rather immaculate black tie rig (complete with a DB overcoat and cream scarf). 

Cross’s trad combo, which he wears for the rest of the film (as it only spans a day or so), also serves to separate him from his rival Brice Cummings, played by John Glover. Cummings, another ambitious TV exec, also wears separates, but it’s styled similarly to Cross’s initial attire:  a black DB jacket, light grey slacks, and an abstract print shirt-tie in a green/grey color way. Again, that 80s corporate sleeze coding is being used to great effect! 

You know what? I like it. With all the love for vintage Armani and Cerruti and general 80s/90s designer-but-still-tailored styling among the menswear heads, I bet you could find someone sending up Cross and Cummings’s attire. I also enjoy it, but as you know, my tonal-tailoring inspiration tends to lean a bit more on brown tones (a la Frasier) instead of blacks and blues. But who knows, maybe I’ll get a bit more 80s sleaze for a fit someday.

The caricature-but-still-great menswear styling continues with Cross’s boss (lol), Preston Rhinelander, played by Robert Mitchum. Despite being the owner of IBC Television, he doesn’t dress as sleazily as Cross. Instead, Rhinelander is as trad as his name sounds. He certainly makes use of a broad-shouldered, low-slung DB pinstripe suit, but it’s in a mid grey and worn with a pale blue shirt and a sensible burgundy striped tie. It’s a classic business look, similarly echoed by some of the cronies in Cross’s meeting, but Rhinelander wears it with aplomb, exuding an austerity that serves to corral Cross’s erratic energy. 

It goes without saying that Rhinelander is our favorite and most inspirational dresser in the film. It’s not because of his conservative look, but because he’s the only one who has a decidedly Christmas look. For a Christmas Eve lunch meeting, he rocks a red doeskin waistcoat complete with brass buttons. It’s such a great move that turns a trad outfit (grey with a foulard tie) into something festive. There’s a reason why my first ever purchase from Drake’s was a red sleeveless cardigan!

Like Cross, Rhinelander also gets to wear evening wear in the film, but he maintains that festive attitude he had at lunch. Or rather, he doubles down on it! During the broadcast, Rhinelander has on a green velvet dinner jacket (which seems to have some sort of crest) on top of a U-closure, lapeled waistcoat in ared tartan. As you’ll soon read in the next blog post, Fall/Winter is all about going Full Send— and the holidays are a great excuse to do it without being too out of place. 

Overall, even if Rhinelander looks like a cartoon rich man, it’s still so good.  Film characters just don’t look like this anymore, and if an absurd caricature of a network owner who wants to make sure he’s getting ratings from animal viewers is how we get it, then I’m all for it. It is nice to get a source of inspo that isn’t just Apparel Arts or Ralph Lauren.

I can’t finish this blog post without talking about a few more outfits!

I do like Eliot Loudermilk, played pathetically (positive) by Bobcat Goldthwait. He only has one outfit the entire movie but it does communicate a lot about him, namely that he is the nerd. In the IBC meeting, he’s the only one in glasses and a bowtie, which instantly gives him dweeb status as well as makes him look a bit “outdated”. After all, he’s the only one who thinks that TV is too sexual and violent, which obviously makes him but heads with Cross’s more modern, “anything for ratings” attitude. Being dressed like a 50s nerd, but through the 80s versions of those garments, certainly helps emphasize that personality. 

There’s also Lew Hayward (John Forsythe), who is Cross’s old boss. We first see him as a sad, unloved zombie who wears a pretty iconic take on golf attire, emphasizing his character as a selfish corporate head: a green and purple argyle sweater vest, a salmon polo, a TaylorMade cap (no duh), and amazingly, purple chinos. Outside of ALD, GOLF le FLEUR, and maybe Rowing Blazers, we do not see these types of outfits anymore, despite the rig being largely classic, if not a little bold. Current golf looks are technical polos and quarter zips– not inherently bad, but just uninteresting. 

Hayward’s colorful take on stereotypical corporate/rich guy menswear continues when we see him through Cross’s flashbacks to the late 60s and early 70s. For New Year’s Eve, Hayward dons a pink turtleneck and green chinos, which are reeled in by the use of a navy blazer, which, like Rhinelander’s dinner jacket, also has an embroidered crest on the breast pocket. We later see him wear a similar look during a show taping, where he keeps the blazer, but has a pale-yellow turtleneck and olive (or grey) pleated trousers with white bucks. This vibrant color palette is delightfully appropriate to the era (it reminds me of later seasons of Mad Men) and also helps differentiate him from Rhinelander’s stoic sartorial attitude. And again, we just don’t see this type of look in movies anymore– unless it’s a Wes Anderson film (who thankfully, has indeed been doing period films a lot more). 

I’ll finish off with a shout-out to the regular characters in this movie, namely the production guys and the broadcast control room staff. This could be because we’re firmly in a fetishization of 80s/90s attire, but even the bit parts and extras have great style. You can see gaffers and set dudes wearing sweatshirts, trucker hats, nylon bombers, and western shirts, all with blue jeans and chunky dad sneakers. It’s all normcore, whose resurgence was made famous by Edgy Albert and many other menswear TikTokers of his generation.  You can even see one guy in a jeans and bomber combo rocking a diver watch, a typical look for those types of guys. And despite these looks being of the current moment (I can see these as fodder for some influencer’s moodboard), I still think these outfits are good, even if I don’t necessarily dress like it myself. I do prefer the guys in the control room, who are a bit more festive, if not preppier, with their use of vibrant knit sweaters over button-up shirts. 

Overall, I didn’t expect a Christmas comedy about a guy who gets, well, Scrooged to have decent or even inspirational menswear, but here we are. I guess good menswear can be found anywhere!

Happy Holidays, everyone! 

– end of blog post – 

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The Podcast is produced by MJ.

Always a pleasure,

Ethan 

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