Original article published 28 October 2010.
I am in the process of rewriting and republishing old articles about James Bond’s outfits that need a refresh and expansion. All former comments are preserved below.
Sean Connery’s ivory dinner jacket in Goldfinger remains one of James Bond’s most iconic looks of the series, especially because of its memorable and unexpected introduction. After Bond goes on a sneaky mission that begins with him swimming in a diving suit, he unzips the diving suit to reveal this ivory dinner jacket hidden underneath.
At no point does Sean Connery actually wear his dinner jacket under the zipped diving suit, and there is no shot showing Bond unzipping the diving suit to reveal the dinner suit. There is a cut to a shot of him with his back to the camera, and he turns to reveal an already unzipped diving suit as he reveals the dinner jacket—Bond’s first ivory dinner jacket of the series.
Wearing a dry suit over a dinner jacket sounds rather ridiculous, but it fits in with the absurd film that Goldfinger proves to be. However, according to an article in The Telegraph, a Dutch spy in World War II successfully wore evening clothes under his diving suit. Because he also pretended to be drunk, a wrinkle-free suit was not a requirement. Mythbusters tested wearing a dry suit over a dinner jacket in 2010 and successfully kept the clothes not only dry but also fairly wrinkle-free after the ordeal. In Bond’s case, English wool, especially from the 1960s, is fairly wrinkle-free.
The ivory dinner jacket, along with dinner jackets in other similarly pale colours, is intended to be worn in warm weather and in resort-like surroundings. Traditionally, the ivory dinner jacket is worn in the tropics (particularly the British colonies), in the Mediterranean, in the United States during the summer, and on cruises. More recently, the rules can be stretched to wear them during summertime in Europe and in the south of England, especially considering how hot the weather has been in recent summers. Like black and midnight blue dinner jackets, the ivory dinner jacket is for the evening, not the daytime.
In Goldfinger, Bond wears his dinner jacket to a nightclub in Latin America. The tropical climate and nightclub setting after midnight make the ivory dinner jacket an appropriate choice. Bond is the club’s only patron wearing black tie, while other men are wearing pale-coloured, lightweight suits or white military uniforms. Bond stands out, as he should on screen, but he does not look out of place.
This ivory dinner jacket is typically not a true white but rather a shade of off-white. Most examples of the ivory dinner jacket are made of wool, which can never be a true white. Even in an off-white shade, wool will yellow further over time. Usually, a dinner jacket is only pure white if made of linen, and even then, off-white linen can look more elegant. The slight contrast of an ivory dinner jacket with a pure white shirt has a nonchalant charm, while a pure white-on-white can look more like a uniform. The waiters at the nightclub in Goldfinger are wearing black bow ties with pure-white jackets, giving their looks a subtle but notable distinction from Bond’s ivory dinner jacket.
The classic ivory dinner jacket is made of wool barathea, but ivory dinner jackets may also be made of tropical wool, mohair, silk, linen or blends of these fibres. Tropical wool and mohair provide the best balance of comfort and wrinkle resistance in tropical climates. The dinner jacket in Goldfinger is made of a lightweight wool hopsack that helps it wear cool in hot weather while also resisting wrinkles. It has a little sheen that suggests it might be made of a mohair and wool cloth. While dark dinner suits should be made of dressier, smoother cloths, like wool barathea, mohair or superfine worsteds, the ivory dinner jacket is less formal and has more flexibility in the kinds of cloths it can be made of.
Connery’s dinner jacket is most likely made by his usual tailor, Anthony Sinclair. Like most of Connery’s tailoring in Goldfinger, it was originally made for his 1964 film Woman of Straw, which was filmed the year before Goldfinger. The jacket is cut with soft but wide shoulders and roped sleeve heads. It has a full cut with a draped chest. All of Connery’s tailoring in Goldfinger has a full cut, but in this case it helps the warm-weather dinner jacket feel cooler.
While the quintessential ivory dinner jacket has a shawl collar, Bond’s dinner jacket has peaked lapels. There’s a long tradition of ivory dinner jackets with peaked lapels going back to the garment’s origins in the 1930s, but it has always been a secondary style to the shawl collar. The peaked lapels give Bond an edgier look, especially with their slightly narrow width for the 1960s. This dinner jacket has influenced five out of Bond’s six subsequent ivory dinner jackets to be cut with peaked lapels. The outlier in A View to a Kill has notched lapels, and none of Bond’s ivory dinner jackets have a shawl collar. Following tradition, the lapels are self-faced, not silk-faced. This reflects the ivory dinner jacket’s lower formality compared to a black or midnight blue dinner jacket, while it also simplifies the outfit so there are no competing black silk bow tie and white silk lapel facings. The ivory dinner jacket does not need silk facings to distinguish it from a suit jacket like a dark dinner jacket does.
The jacket closes at the front with a single button in a low stance and has four buttons on each cuff. In the tradition of the ivory dinner jacket, all the buttons are shiny white mother of pearl, not cloth-covered. The lower pockets are jetted without flaps, and the back is without vents. The jacket has an off-white lining.
An ivory dinner jacket should be worn with the same type of trousers that are part of a dinner suit, which have a silk braid or stripe down the outseams, but Bond’s black trousers are ordinary black tailored trousers that lack this special detail. While non-black-tie trousers may have been selected to dress down the outfit, it would be an odd choice. It comes across as a mistake, especially considering that Bond is wearing a very fancy evening shirt. Connery wears proper black-tie trousers with the obligatory braid with the dinner jacket in Woman of Straw, so perhaps they went missing or were damaged. They may have been part of the black dinner suit that Connery wears in Woman of Straw, which is not present in Goldfinger.
The trousers are made of lightweight worsted wool and cut with double forward pleats, slanted side pockets, trim, tapered legs, and an extended waistband with a hidden hook closure. The trousers are held up with ‘Daks’-style side-adjusters with three smoke mother-of-pearl buttons on each side that attach to tabs with elastic tunnelled through the back of the waistband. Like in all of the 1960s Bond films, Bond foregoes the cummerbund.
The dress shirt, made by Frank Foster, is one of the standout parts of this outfit. The shirting is a fancy white-on-white satin stripe, with a pattern of five narrow satin stripes followed by a wide satin stripe, in a full repeat of about 1/2 inch. The shirt has a spread collar with points of a little under 3 inches, mitred double cuffs, and a front placket with three 1/2-inch pleats on either side. The shirt has white mother-of-pearl buttons down the front—studs are not a necessity, especially not with an ivory dinner jacket. Unlike Connery’s shirts in his other Bond films, this shirt has a close fit, which gives him a neat look during the fight scene. Bond later wears the same shirt again with his black dinner suit.
Connery’s cuffinks are large, round and gold in a mid-century modern style, possibly with a flat disc face or concave domed face. They likely have a folding whale back. The round front nicely complements the cuff’s severely mitred shape.
The black satin silk bow tie has a batwing shape in a moderately narrow width without being overly slim like many bow ties of the era. It has a lightweight construction, resulting in a small knot. The red carnation boutonnière in the lapel is the most striking part of this outfit, adding a powerfully effective pop of colour near the face. It stands out against the ivory jacket and black bow tie, adding to the outfit without competing with it. The carnation’s stem sits in the buttonhole in the lapel and is held in place by a loop sewn behind the lapel.
Bond’s shoes are black calf with elastic gussets on the sides. They’re like chelsea boots but in a shoe height, but they also have an oxford-like seam over the vamp. The shoes’ soles are black leather. Like the trousers, these shoes are not for black tie, but the simplicity of the shoe’s style and the elegance of its last means its not out of place.
Now Pay Attention
| DINNER JACKET | |
| Tailor | Anthony Sinclair |
| Fabric | Ivory wool or mohair-wool hopsack |
| Front buttons | 1, low stance, white mother-of-pearl |
| Lapels | Narrow peak, self-faced |
| Shoulder | Soft with roped sleeve heads |
| Breast pocket | Welt |
| Hip pockets | Straight, jetted |
| Vents | 0 |
| Cuff buttons | 4 |
| TROUSERS | |
| Tailor | Anthony Sinclair |
| Fabric | Black lightweight worsted |
| Front | Double forward pleats |
| Support | ‘DAKS Tops’ 3-button side-adjusters |
| Front/side pockets | Slanted |
| Rise | High |
| Leg | Narrow, tapered |
| Hem | Plain |
| SHIRT | |
| Shirtmaker | Frank Foster |
| Fabric | White satin stripe |
| Collar | Spread |
| Cuff | Mitred double |
| Front | Placket with three pleats on each side |
| BOW TIE | |
| Brand | Unknown |
| Fabric | Black silk satin |
| SHOES | |
| Shoemaker | Unknown |
| Style | Black slip-ons with side gores |
Will there be any discussion of Mr. Bond's footwear? Besides the aforementioned brown suede chukkas, of course.
Shoes will mostly be mentioned in passing, but I'll try to write a few features on the important ones.
You mentioned midnight blue trousers… with side silk strip? or without?
Anon 2, I can't be certain if there is a stripe down the side, which is why I didn't write it. The shots of the trousers aren't very clear, but I would guess that there is a stripe. So I can't tell you for sure.
Hi — To be sure, midnight blue tuxedo trousers can be worn with a white dinner jacket?
Sure, that’s fine.
Interesting, the white dinner jacket. Connery wears one again for some Las Vegas night scenes in Diamonds are Forever and Roger Moore follows on with a double breasted version in Man With the Golden Gun (in keeping with a numbwer of other double breasted suits and blazer he wears in this movie). It returns again and back to the single breasted number in Octopussy (with peak lapels) and A View to A Kill (with notch lapels). Since then it has never been seen.
I am surprised Brosnan didn't manage it but maybe it's just seen as a bit unfashionable now?? I wore one on my honeymoon last year and got some favourable comments.
Would be interested to hear other fan's opinions on this one.
Brosnan in off white ……sounds like “Days of Our Lives” to me.
I'll be posting more white dinner jackets by the time summer comes around. So far, whenever Brosnan or Craig has worn a dinner jacket it has been in a temperate climate so they never had the occasion to wear a white dinner jacket. Brosnan might have been able to pull it off in Monte Carlo in GoldenEye, but I don't know how the British feel about wearing white dinner jackets there. Perhaps later on I'll post some of Brosnan's white dinner jackets from Remington Steele, he looked great in them. Mexico in LTK might count as a missed opportunity, but the whole movie was a missed opportunity.
Matt I believe the British rule on white dinner jackets is that you are only supposed to wear them ‘East of Suez’ but I would guess that South America would also be acceptable.
I don’t think many take those rules so seriously anymore. And even in the 1960s, when it probably would have been unthinkable to wear one in the British Isles, Roger Moore usually wore a white dinner jacket in the (Western) Mediterranean.
I think it is important to uphold the traditions around these things, but not to the point of being obsessive about it. Britain has also been having some heat waves over the summer the last few years, so I don’t think it’s the end of the world that some have taken to wearing white dinner jackets in Britain over the summer.
I don’t think there were ever strict rules about where to wear the ivory dinner jacket. Does the weather feel like summer? If so, you can probably wear it. This summer was very unusual for Britain’s weather, but traditionally they rarely had proper summer weather, hence why it was not traditionally worn in Britain.
Is it acceptable to wear a low cut waistcoat with a White dinner jacket?
No, a white tropical dinner jacket is designed for tropical weather, therefore, wearing a low cut waistcoat would not be acceptable; however, wearing a proper low cut waistcoat would be very dapper with a proper tuxedo.
A low-cut waistcoat is indeed acceptable with a white dinner jacket. The backless waistcoat is an especially good choice in warm weather.
A black low-cut waistcoat is great with a white dinner jacket. Pierce Brosnan did it occasionally on Remington Steele. The cummerbund is the other alternative.
Is a white dinner jacket with a white (pique) waistcoat acceptable/proper?
I don’t believe so. A white waistcoat (and the stiff collar that accompanies it) is too formal for a white dinner jacket. You can wear a black low-cut waistcoat or a cummerbund. And the shirt should have a soft turn-down collar.
Talking about shoes, is it acceptable to wear, either Oxford or Wing Tipped laced black shoes with Ivory One button Dinner Jacket and Black slacks with a satin strip running down the sides?
Wing-tip shoes should never be worn with black tie. Black patent leather plain-toe oxfords or pumps are ideal, but regular black cap-toe oxfords can work as well.
How would you compare this to the Indiana Jones look in the opening scenes of Temple of Doom? Indy’s outfit is strongly influenced by this (down to the red carnation), but the dinner jacket seems whiter.
It might be a little whiter. Indiana Jones’ dinner jacket has the peak lapels and red carnation in common, but everything else is much different. The carnation is a nice tribute, but the similarities end there. The outfit overall is more inspired by the 1930s than it is by James Bond. It’s true to it’s time, with the more formal shirt borrowed from white tie, a waistcoat and wide lapels.
Man this jacket is a true beauty and a staple for every man! how much do these jackets cost? and midnight navy trousers, i always thought they were black. i guess you could go either way. would a white dinner jacket like this be appropriate for a wedding and its reception?
Is it not a faux pas to wear a wristwatch with formalwear?
I guess I’ll never know.
A sports watch like Bond wears? Yes. A thin, dressy watch? Depends on who you ask.
If your credit card has the power, might I suggest the rolex celini; Always a good decision.
Isn’t the button stance even lower as Connery’s two-button jackets’ ones ? Or is it just the high gorge that create this impression ?
It looks about the same. You’re right about the lapels, though it’s the peak lapel that really extends the line. When you compare the button stance to Roger Moore’s white dinner jackets in Octopussy and A View to a Kill, Connery’s is noticeably higher.
Thank you for this website. I do enjoy it.
With Goldfinger, though, I would be interested in your advice on the correct way to wear a duck on one’s head, as Connery does in the pretitle sequence.
Regards
Matt, you didn’t precise, but I guess natural shoulders as usual ? Their width looks certainly impressive !…
I’ve always been skeptical about white dinner jackets and when I read of wearing waistcoats with them I’m left wondering about practicality given that the premise for the white is (apparently) tropical heat.
Outstanding website and wonderful enthusiastic posters
Matt, since you once posted an article about the first (TV) adaptation of Casino Royale, in the 1950’s, I presume you have the dvd.
Isn’t Peter Lorre wearing a white double-breasted jacket with silk facings (!) on the lapels in this movie ? Have you any idea why ? It’s quite strange, since in the 1950’s people were taking clothing a little more seriously than today.
I can also post a link if you don’t have the dvd, of course.
Here is a link :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8pZtEAN7U
What do you think ?
It’s lighter than Bond’s dinner jacket, though I think it’s probably a light buff and not cream like the typical tropical dinner jacket is. Still, it traditionally wouldn’t have silk facings. The wardrobe department could have chosen a dinner jacket with silk facings to make him look flashier and more like a bad guy.
Thank you Matt.
And I guess that Bond’s dinner jacket’s color shade is the famous “Burma” ?
It very well could be!
Interesting site – thank you. On ‘white’ dinner jackets. There is a scene early on in ‘The World of Suzy Wong’ when several gentlemen in Hong Kong are wearing more of a beige color. Are these still worn today? Are they only for the sub-tropics?
Few enough people wear white dinner jackets that you’ll hardly find anyone who wears a beige dinner jacket. Beige dinner jackets are treated the same way as white.
I’d love to buy a close-as-possible replica of this beautiful suit for my wedding, but I’m having a hard time finding anything really even close. I should keep the whole outfit under $1,00o. Actually I should keep a lot under that since although I’d like to THINK of myself as the kind of man who would have occasion to ever wear it again, in reality it’s sadly unlikely. Still I don’t want to rent because that seems so phony somehow. My budget may be unrealistic.
Can you suggest sources?
To get something close to this outfit the clothes will need to be custom-made. You might find a similar dinner jacket (the lapels will probably be wider), but few shops sell the black dinner suit trousers without the dinner jacket. And you’ll have an even harder time just finding trousers in this style, with a proper rise and forward pleats. The rise is important because Connery doesn’t wear a cummerbund. If you wear modern low-rise trousers your shirt will show below your jacket button, and that looks very sloppy. You’ll also never find a shirt in this kind of pattern ready-to-wear. A rental shop wouldn’t have clothes just like these anyway. To get this same look and do it right will cost well over $1,000 because the clothes need to be made for you. You can search eBay for a similar jacket and trousers.
Thanks for the quick, thorough reply. I was afraid it might be more expensive, and I’d want to do it right. I don’t even know how to go about finding someone who could do this. I can just google it, but what’s a good search phrase? Custom clothing? I really should just forget about it because of the cost, but maybe I’ll press on and at least find out just what the cost would be.
It has to be someone who can measure you in person. Online made-to-measure almost never comes out well. Mytailor.com travels and has a good reputation, though I’ve only used them for shirts. They can surely make you the shirt if they have a satin stripe material, but I suspect it will be expensive, around $200.
You say the trousers are midnight blue. Do you have any evidence of this, or are you guessing? I mean no offense in that perhaps poorly worded question. They appear black to me, both in your photos and in an HD copy of Goldfinger. What makes you say they’re midnight blue? I’m really just curious as to your evidence. I actually have an appointment with mytailer.com tomorrow to have this outfit made. Turns out it’ll cost between $1,100 and $1,700 for the jacket, shirt, and trousers, which, while it’s probably worth it given the generally favorable reviews I’ve read of mytailor, is a ridiculous sum for a poor working stiff like myself. ;-) Still, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing for my wedding, and if you compare it to what some women pay for wedding dresses, it hardly seems excessive (got to rationalize it somehow). I’ve thought about doing the Temple of Doom Indiana Jones white tuxedo instead because the rest of the outfit aside from the jacket could be reasonably duplicated off-the-rack. I really love the Goldfinger tuxedo, though. Love your site, by the way.
The trousers look blue in close-ups on the Blu-ray.
Hmm. Maybe that’s just the Blu? ;-) Okay, your Blu-ray trumps my iTunes Store HD, at least I think it does.
Since midnight blue is effectively a blue-tinted black it can be difficult to tell unless the lighting is bright. So when you chose a midnight blue cloth, it should look black.
Thanks to your excellent information and advice, I had the Goldfinger white dinner suit recreated quite faithfully for my summer beach wedding by mMyTailor.com. I was extremely pleased with the knowledge and customer service provided by Divij Hemrajani of MyTailor.com. He took the time necessary to listen to me describe the details I wanted, and he delivered extremely faithful reproductions of the jacket, pants, and shirt. They fit beautifully and looked great.
Here are a couple photos. Feel free to post them on your site however you wish or just leave them as links. Again, thanks for your help, Matt.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/34630699@N03/15830714105/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/34630699@N03/15210757274/in/photostream/
That looks fantastic, Stephen!
Excellent jacket!
Matt, excuse my ignorance but would this be described as a notch collar, also is it likely to be ventless?
The dinner jacket has peaked lapels and no vents, as I wrote in the article. Notched lapels are what most single-breasted suits have.
Hello, Matt
I noticed that Mason and Sons has started making a very similar dinner jacket. Is it closer to this or the Diamonds Are Forever one? They’ve also started making the Thunderball and Tomorrow Never Dies one aswell.
Best Regards,
Andrew
Their ecru dinner jacket is overall closer to the Diamonds Are Forever version, but it has the traditional jetted pockets of the Goldfinger model. The peaked lapel dinner suit is actually much closer to the GoldenEye dinner suit than the Tomorrow Never Dies dinner suit.
Hi Matt- would this mean that Anthony Sinclair made the ecru/off-white dinner jacket in Goldfinger? Also, would you think this jacket would work with the midnight blue trouser from the Dr. No tuxedo?
Yes, this is an Anthony Sinclair dinner jacket. The midnight blue dinner suit trousers would go perfectly with this.
Hi Matt – what type of button is used on this jacket in the movie? In the picture, it looks like a domed brass button. Also, seems like there is only one button in the front of the jacket. Very Huntsman style? Please clarify. Thanks.
As I wrote in the article, “The jacket closes at the front with a single button and has four buttons on each cuff, all in shiny white mother of pearl.”
This is the standard for an ivory dinner jacket. A single-breasted dinner jacket (whether black, midnight blue or ivory) should never have more than one button on the front, and that’s not a Huntsman thing. Huntsman’s house style is for only one button on suit jackets and sports coats too, which is more unique outside of 1960s fashions.
Hi Matt,
Great article on one of the two most iconic white dinner jackets ever worn. Speaking of which…Would you consider writing an article contrasting this dinner jacket (or just how Bond wears white dinner jackets in general) with Humphrey Bogarts white dinner jacket in Casablanca? I know it would fall outside of the normal pervue of this blog but I think it would be fascinating to see the two contrasted both from a contrasting eras view point and from an American versus British view point.
Regards,
Elias
Hi Elias,
The jackets are so different, so I don’t know if there would be much comparison.
Yes, that is true. It would seem though that whenever white dinner jackets are mentioned they are said to be recalling or modeled/styled after either the Casablanca jacket or James Bond’s Goldfinger jacket (I’m ignoring references to Indiana Jones).
This article from the New York Times as an example
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/24/fashion/weddings/breaking-the-monkey-suit-mold.html?_r=2
Could the trousers from a black dinner suit be used with an ivory dinner jacket or is that totally unacceptable (considering they have an appropriate rise etc.)?
Moreover, could that be the case in the film (from the notch lapel dinner suit)?
Thanks.
The same trousers can be used since they would be exactly the same. The trousers could be the same.
It depends on how you wear a White Blazer, for me I don’t clash the color and space them evenly so the Blazer and the Shirt Color can’t match (Other wise you look cut in 2), but the Blazer & Pants can Match or the Shirt & Blazer can match.
I meant Shirt & Pants or Blazer & Pants can match. If the Shirts sleeves are longer than the Blazer it allows 1 Color to be in 3-4 places.
It is not a blazer, it is a dinner jacket.
Hey Matt, I was wondering an can’t really tell do the trousers have cuffs or straight hem on them? I have a Gala coming up an am trying to copy the look. I found some midnight blue vintage trousers on Ebay with side strips found a dinner jacket at mensusa so I just need the final on if the trousers are cuffed or straight. Thanks for you help.
Hi Larry, these trousers have a plain hem (on a slant, not straight), just as black tie trousers should always be, even when they have pleats. These trousers atypically do not have the side stripes. They are just plain black trousers.
I have a very slightly off white, linen, peaked lapel dinner jacket. Can you recommend a style of pants to suit for more formal occasions?
You’ll need black or midnight blue trousers, ideally with a silk stripe down the outseams.
Is the red carnation to pretentious? Wannabe? Cosplayer? Or is it fine?
Maybe a different color?
Red carnation is the best choice.
First of all, I want to say that I’m a big fan of your site. I’ve been reading it for years. I’ve always liked this particular ensemble of Bond’s. I recognize the classic “rule” that white or off-white dinner jackets are supposed to be self-faced. Nevertheless, one of my prized possessions is a Hugo Boss off-white peak-lapel jacket with silk facings. I wear it to weddings (depending on time of year) with midnight blue trousers with side stripes. It gets a lot of complements as my middle-class circles don’t tend to be too familiar with the intricacies of sartorial rules on jacket design.
Would these vintage shoes be appropriate to wear with this outfit ?
https://www.americanduchess.com/cdn/shop/products/noble-vintage-boots-dandy-wellington-black.jpg?v=1671580752&width=1000
No, these are meant for daytime outfits.
Thank you.
The better quality of the “Woman of Straw” frame seems to confirm my comment a few years back that the jacket lacked a buttonhole and that one had to be cut (or butchered there) to accomodate the boutonnière in Goldfinger (which means buttonhole in French).
Good observation! It’s odd the dinner jacket originally lacked the buttonhole.
Only odd in that Sinclair wouldn’t put one there, but not terribly odd for a decade that leaned towards minimalism in menswear.
I’d assume that the black dinner suit worn later in the film will have the correct trousers so it seems obvious that these could have been paired with the ivory jacket…..
I was thinking about that, but I there are no shots of Connery from that side of table. Maybe there are no proper trousers there either.
There are a lot of possibilities as to why he does not have the correct trousers. If I recall, we do not get a really good shot of him from the waist down until he is in the dancer’s room. So perhaps these plain black ones were meant only for the fight scene or perhaps the correct ones were damaged during g filming and these were subbed in. Much later productions would have lots of suits made for action scenes, but I do not believe that was as much the case for the early films.
Interestingly, I have seen a promotional photograph of Connery in the white dinner jacket standing in front of a wall of gold bars. In this photo he is wearing a different shirt. Likely this was taken after shooting wrapped and the striped shirt was unavailable and I imagine the attitude was “no one will notice the difference.” I would not be surprised if that same reasoning lies behind the trousers. Whatever the reason for the plain black ones (damage, unavailability, etc.) a good director can keep our focus where he wants it and the audience won’t notice little things in the moment.
The shirt he wears in the publicity stills looks like the shirt he wears with the dinner jacket in Woman of Straw. It’s possible the publicity stills were taken before the film was made.
Interesting, then that would mean they added the lapel buttonhole early on to accommodate the carnation. So production seemed pretty clear on the costume they wanted him in, making the trousers all the more odd.