For decades, fans and followers of The Prisoners have dedicated themselves to unlocking the show’s mystery and meanings, including an exploration of the “true” order in which the episodes should be watched. (Check out the U.S. home page for The Prisoner, which made fantastic companion reading as I watched the series for the first time this year. I also enjoy the episode studies at Prisoner Pop Apostle.)
Co-created by McGoohan with George Markstein, The Prisoner wastes no time in establishing its unique espionage-meets-sci fi premise through an exciting opening credits sequence that was praised at the time and through the decades since. We follow McGoohan through the streets of London in his distinctive Lotus Seven following his contentious retirement from a shadowy secret service bureau, returning to his flat to hastily pack for what looks to be a tropical getaway… until he falls victim to an incapacitating agent gassed through the keyhole. The man awakens in what appears to be the same set of rooms, though transported to a seemingly idyllic seaside village where the title card tells us he has made his “Arrival”. Is it paradise or is it prison?
His questions pile on until he’s finally brought to the series’ first Number 2 (Guy Doleman, recognizable to James Bond fans as Count Lippe from Thunderball), who slyly confirms the latter when he asks “have you not yet realized there’s no way out?”
There have been several attempts to write about The Prisoner, including the rowing blazer and rollneck that would make up his everyday “uniform” in every following episode of the series, though several readers were also interested to read about Number 6’s own outfit that he wears in London and for his arrival in the village. As BAMF Style reader “Swordfish” suggested of this outfit, “his suit is really his own style and represents the individualism that his captors gradually try to strip away from him throughout the show.”
Mason & Sons has confirmed on their site that Patrick McGoohan was a personal client of Anthony Sinclair, the legendary Savile Row tailor who famously crafted Sean Connery’s suits as James Bond, though Sinclair likely had no hand in the clothing worn on The Prisoner, including the braided-edge blazer worn in every episode; a glimpse at the tag in a later episode instead suggests that Number 6’s everyday blazer was created by the British fashion house John Michael, confirmed by a Bonhams auction listing.
A separate Bonhams listing for this suit mentions a “Major, Hayward Ltd.” label that indicates it was crafted at the Fulham shop run by Dimi Major and Douglas Hayward, both of whom would go on to dress Bond actors George Lazenby and Roger Moore, respectively. (You can read more about the brief Major and Hayward partnership at Bond Suits.)
The charcoal lounge suit has a distinctive shine, suggestive of silk or perhaps mohair tonic, a then-fashionable blend of wool and mohair that was developed by textile company Dormeuil in the early 1960's and was embraced in England as the suiting of choice by mods throughout the decade. I’m more inclined to theorize that silk is the shining agent of choice on McGoohan’s suit as it lacks the subtlety of mohair.
The single-breasted suit jacket has notch lapels that roll to a lower two-button stance, detailed with welted breast pocket, straight hip pockets with narrow flaps, and double vents. The natural shoulders have slight roping at the sleeveheads and each sleeve is finished with three buttons at the cuff. Like McGoohan’s nailhead Danger Man suit that Bond Suits detailed, the jacket has a gently suppressed waist and front darts that extend to the bottom of the jacket, adding fullness to the chest.
Though it’s suggested that he’s a British agent, Number 6 has a less formal approach to daily dress than James Bond or even John Drake, though his choice to wear an untucked knit polo rather than a traditional shirt and tie may also be his way of showing disdain for the secret organization from which he’s resigning.
We never see Number 6’s shirt worn without the jacket, but the cloth is likely a soft, comfortable wool like merino or cashmere, worn over a white undershirt glimpsed as he attempts his desperate run from Rover on the beach. The shirt has three mother-of-pearl two-hole buttons, all worn fastened on a plain “French placket”, additionally detailed with an extra loop-fastened button at the top. Unlike many loop collars on traditional camp shirts, this additional button isn’t concealed by the collar so this exposed fourth button positioned just to the right of the top of the placket provides a distinctive, slightly askew look.
Appropriate for the less formal way Number 6 wears his suit, McGoohan wears black leather Chelsea boots with black elastic side gussets. Though this footwear style was at least a century old—developed during the Victorian era, reportedly for Queen Victoria herself—these elastic-sided paddock boots enjoyed a resurgence from the mod culture in mid-century England, specifically among the fashionable King’s Road set that led to their being dubbed “Chelsea boots.”
In future episodes, we would notably see a stainless Camerer Cuss. & Co automatic watch on on a black leather strap and, on one occasion, a steel Tissot that he would dangle by its steel link bracelet to induce hypnosis in “A Change of Mind”.
Number 6 is told that his stylish suit is burnt during his overnight stay in the village infirmary in “Arrival”, leading to his being issued the now-famous everyday attire of a black piped rowing blazer by John Michael, navy rollneck, khakis, and boating shoes.
After the departure of co-creator George Markstein, The Prisoner grew increasingly surreal with episodes like “Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling” which starred Nigel Stock as Number 6, ostensibly as part of a body swap plot (in fact made to keep the show going while Patrick McGoohan was busy filming Ice Station Zebra.)
Stock was dressed in a manner likely meant to reflect Number 6’s suit from the opening credits, though even a cursory review makes it clear that the actor is wearing different clothes; the suit is a lighter slate-gray, made from a coarser flannel cloth and cut with a full three-button front, and the dark gray (rather than black) knit shirt has a plain three-button top of gray buttons rather than the unique 3+1 button configuration on McGoohan’s shirt.
Another of The Prisoner‘s latter-produced episodes, “The Girl Who Was Death”, brings the suit out of the closet for Number 6, albeit as part of his garb for a nighttime story he’s reading to the children of the Village. This time, he wears the suit with a French blue shirt with gold cuff links and a gold silk tie. He also dons a beige flat cap (with triple-snap brim) and raglan-sleeve raincoat, curiously wearing a pair of sand-colored suede chukka boots that coordinate more with this outerwear than the rest of the outfit.
“Sir, you’ll make yourself sick!” the barmaid warns once he’s finished them all off, but that’s exactly what he intended. Similar to an action Daniel Craig’s 007 would take forty years later in Casino Royale, Number 6 lets the unwisely mixed liquors rebel in his stomach so that he can puke up the poisoned ale and live to spy another day.
Number 6 doesn’t typically have the opportunity to carry or use firearms until the chaotic finale “Fall Out” when he leads fellow prisoners in an armed revolt against the Village guards, mowing them down with his Thompson submachine gun against the juxtaposed reprise of the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love”.
While booze and guns may not be the standard trappings of Number 6’s preferred lifestyle, we do know that he has an affinity for automobiles, particularly his custom Lotus Seven that Patrick McGoohan drives around London during the famous opening credits.
The 1.6 L engine would be used in the final two iterations of the Seven, the Series III and Series IV. The latter was the largest, built on a squared fiberglass shell with a slightly longer wheelbase. After Colin Chapman planned to restructure his marque’s image away from the “kit car” styling, Lotus sold the rights to the Seven design to the newly formed specialized auto manufacturer Caterham Cars after the final Lotus Seven rolled off the production line in August 1973.
The Prisoner lore tells that the original choice for Number 6’s car was a Lotus Elan. However, when Lotus marketing director Graham Arnold provided both an Elan and a Seven, McGoohan’s preference for the Seven made it his character’s signature set of wheels, painted in British racing green with a bright yellow nose and registered “KAR 120C”. McGoohan’s character proves to be just as invested in the car as the actor himself, explaining to Mrs. Butterworth in “Many Happy Returns” that he had assembled his Lotus himself from a kit and reciting the engine serial number: 461043TZ. (Curiously, McGoohan does drive an Elan in the episode “The Girl Who Was Death”.)
During the production gap before the finale was filmed, the screen-used Lotus had already been sold so Caterham reportedly converted an earlier Lotus to resemble Number Six’s green-and-yellow Seven for its appearance at the end of “Fall Out”, where it was driven by Caterham founder Graham Nearn
A half-decade after The Prisoner concluded, Caterham Cars was officially founded and took over the reigns from Lotus as official producers of the Seven, continuing to offer both kits and fully assembled versions of the design. Among the thousands of the Caterham 7 cars manufactured in the nearly 50 years since production began, Caterham Cars did introduce a Prisoner-branded trim package in 1989 painted in Number 6’s preferred green-and-yellow livery.
Patrick McGoohan’s Number Six on The Prisoner provides a fashionably informal alternative to more traditionally tailored English secret agents of the ’60's, dressing for what would prove to be a transformative day in a charcoal silk suit paired with a tonally coordinated black polo buttoned to the neck with Chelsea boots.
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