Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: Dick Van Dyke’s Smart Grey Suit in ‘Toot Sweets’

Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car is a children’s story written by James Bond creator Ian Fleming, first published in 1964 shortly after Fleming’s death. In 1968, James Bond series film producer Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli brought Fleming’s story to screen in a musical film called Chitty Chitty Bang Bang starring Dick Van Dyke and used much of the same crew from the Bond films. The film’s screenplay was co-written by Roald Dahl, who also wrote the screenplay for You Only Live Twice, and additional dialogue was written by regular Bond series screenwriter Richard Maibaum. The film employed Bond production designer Ken Adam. John Stears did the special effects. Editor and director on the Bond films Peter Hunt was the Production Associate. The film also features Bond-series actors Desmond Llewelyn and Gert Fröbe and stunt performers George Leech and Vic Armstrong. The film was shot at Pinewood Studios in the summer of 1967, immediately following the You Only Live Twice premiere, which Dick Van Dyke attended.

Dick Van Dyke, who turns 99 years old later this week, played the film’s lead character Caractacus Potts—he was called Commander Caractacus Pott in Fleming’s novel. Potts is not much like James Bond, and he does not dress much like James Bond. Van Dyke dressed more like Bond in The Dick Van Dyke Show, wearing stylish suits with cocktail-cuff shirts. Read more about his tailored style in The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Joan Bridge and Elizabeth Haffenden designed the film’s costumes (credited for ‘Colour Costume Design’), which given the strong fantasy elements of the story are far more colourful and creative than most costumes in the Bond films. The film’s setting of 1910s England and in the fantastical land of Vulgaria also meant that the costumes couldn’t look like they were from the contemporary 1960s. However, they hardly had to look historically accurate—they simply had to look like costumes. There was historical inspiration behind the costumes, but the inspiration spanned a multitude of eras and styles, including tapping into contemporary fashion trends.

For the musical number ‘Toot Sweets’, Potts wears his most Bondian and sharpest suit of the film—perhaps his Sunday best—to pitch his invention of a whistling confection to sweets mogul Lord Scrumptious. This suit has more in common with James Bond’s style than any of his other outfits in the film, but he has his personal style. It’s a mid grey semi-solid suit with a subtle check, possible a glen check in a hopsack weave like Sean Connery’s famous Goldfinger suit. The pattern isn’t defined in close-up shots, even in the Blu-ray, but the check can be noticed in the form of thick stripes, both lengthwise and crosswise. The cloth is too lightweight for the era the film is set in, and is a medium-weight cloth for the 1960s, but it is a comfortable and flexible choice for a dance number.

This suit has a fashionable mid-1960s style that was inspired by Edwardian fashions. Edwardian fashions returned in the 1960s, and while this suit is supposed to look like it is from around 1910 it’s following the contemporary 1960s way of making this style with stronger shoulders and more chest fullness. Despite its trendiness for the 1960s, it looks more like a piece of costume than a piece of world-class tailoring.

The suit has a trim cut, but it’s cut in a way to allow Van Dyke complete range of motion for the musical dance number. The shoulders are padded and straight with slightly roped sleeve heads. The fit has issues, mainly in the jacket standing away from the neck at the collar. A poor fit is appropriate for a character of limited means who wouldn’t be able to afford the best tailoring, or perhaps even be able to afford a new suit. In Fleming’s book, the Pott family had just enough money for clothes. While there are some mentions of clothes in Fleming’s story, there are no details about how Pott dressed. One of Pott’s many inventions in the book is a collapsible coat hanger, so clothes were something on his mind.

While the imperfect fit is suitable for the character, on screen it distracts from the character in a way that a costume shouldn’t, and the fit issue was likely unintentional. The jacket is also a bit short, which was fashionable in the 1960s. Here the short length has two advantages for the dance number: it shows off the legs better and is less cumbersome when moving about. While the suit could have been purchased from a ready-to-wear shop in London, it was more likely made for him but without the benefit of fittings. It’s far from the standards of the Beverly Hills suits he wore on The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Costumier M. Berman Ltd. likely made the suit, and possibly the shirt too. The firm was headed by Monty Berman (distinct from the producer Monty Berman) and was founded by his father Morris Berman. They provided costumes for many British films, notably the James Bond films. It later became Berman’s and Nathan’s. M. Berman Ltd. made Gert Frobe’s tailoring for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and a jacket they made for Van Dyke from a deleted scene from the film was sold at Prop Store.

The suit jacket has four buttons on the front in a very high stance. Van Dyke leaves the top button open so the character doesn’t look too uptight. He fastens the rest of the buttons, including the bottom button. At the time the film is set, jackets were cut with the bottom button higher and with the front shaped so the bottom button and buttonhole lined up. Though the fashion for leaving the bottom button open had already started in the Edwardian era, a lounge coat’s cut had not yet been adjusted to make fastening the bottom button impossible without disturbing the lines of the suit. On this suit the bottom button can be fastened without distorting the jacket.

There are darts on the front of the jacket. The jacket is detailed with narrow notched lapels, double vents of approximately 8 inches long, straight hip pockets with flaps, and two buttons on each cuff. The buttons are made of dark grey horn.

The suit trousers have a flat front and narrow straight legs, with the leg shape marking it as a 1960s suit rather than an early 20th century suit. The legs have a plain hem with no break.

Potts wears a white shirt with a stiff, detachable, high, rounded point collar. The collar is extremely high, both to flatter Van Dyke’s long neck and to give the outfit a more vintage look. Such a collar would have normally been worn with a necktie in period, but the lack of a tie suits Potts’ quirky manner. He wasn’t one for following convention, even less than James Bond was. The collar stud that secures the stiff collar to the shirt’s band collar takes the place of a tie as the focal point near the face. The shirt has a front placket and rounded one-button cuffs.

He wears a pair of black leather chelsea boots on his feet. The style originally dates to the Victorian era, but they saw a strong resurgence in the 1960s, which is likely why they’re part of this outfit. Potts’ chelsea boots have a very 1960s last with a slim toe. The soles are leather for a traditional look and for dancing.

When Potts arrives at the sweets factory he is wearing a black-and-white shepherd’s check tweed trilby from legendary London hatter Herbert Johnson. Their label is visible on screen, and their website also mentions that they made the hat. The hat coordinates with the colour of his suit but in a bolder check, and it contributes to the outfit’s period look.