This article is taken from the June 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £25.
Hitchcock’s masterly thriller North By Northwest, in which Cary Grant is pursued across America by agents of a mysterious organisation, is packed full of momentous scenes, memorable lines and magnificent outfits.
Grant spends three nights in the same suit, during which time he is doused in Bourbon, thrown from a moving Mercedes, locked in a cell, bundled into a foldaway sleeper compartment, machine-gunned from a crop duster, arrested by the Chicago Police and shot at Mount Rushmore. Yet still Grant’s character, Roger Thornhill, maintains his poise. From his Glen check suit and 21 Club cufflinks to his oxblood Oxford shoes, Grant exudes such suavity that even his enemy has to admit that he is “well-tailored”.
Throughout his career, Cary Grant was well tailored by Kilgour, French & Stanbury of London and by Quintino of Los Angeles. The latter has been lost to the ages and the vagaries of what in Hollywood these days passes for style, but the Savile Row cutter snips on still.
Kilgour’s traditional atmosphere has given way to the modernist interpretations of Carlo Brandelli, the Le Corbusier of clothing. Though attractive to acolytes of the avant-garde, it is hard to believe that Cary Grant would still be a customer. Probably he would have decamped down the street to Dege & Skinner, where cutting is still done conscientiously but without the edge.
Grant was also well provided with stylish accessories. In the scene at Grand Central Station, his character’s attempt to camouflage himself with elegant sunglasses in teak-toned tortoiseshell is met with suspicion by the ticket clerk. When asked if he has a problem with his eyes, Grant replies loftily, “They’re sensitive to questions.” Oliver Peoples of Los Angeles has recreated the look with its own eyewear range, perfect for putting uppity jobsworths on notice.
Dark glasses tinge glamour with a touch of mystery, guarding the owner’s emotions against betrayal to others’ eyes. There were few eyes more glamorous than those of the late Prince Aly Khan, sometime husband to Rita Hayworth and social linchpin of the French Riviera.
Aly Khan left this life headfirst through the windscreen of his Lancia sports car whilst speeding through a Paris suburb. A playboy as well as a prince, Aly Khan had “It”. In the words of Cole Porter, Khan made absolutely sure that he did “it” too.
There is hardly a snap of this much-photographed man where he is not perfectly presented, be that alongside Margaret Sweeney, Rita Hayworth, Gene Tierney or whatever other star he happened to be in love with at the time. An admirer of the Italian look, he was advised by his English tailor to “hitch up his trousers” so as not to appear too casual.
He cut a dash through fashion whilst carving his way into the hearts of women
An early adopter of co-respondent shoes, Khan may well be responsible for their racy name.
In 1935 he was cited as co-respondent in the divorce of Joan Guinness, soon to become his first wife. From then on, he cut a particular dash through fashion whilst carving his way into the hearts of women the world over.
His 1951 filial visit to Arusha with Hayworth had them both sporting eye-catching Mazzucchelli shades. Like the fictional Roger Thornhill, Khan ended up at the United Nations, where from 1958 he served as Pakistan’s ambassador when Cary Grant was shooting his scenes outside the building. Life really did mirror art.
Alongside JFK, Gianni Agnelli, Porfirio Rubirosa and Alain Delon, Cary Grant and Aly Khan were polished princes in their time. In ours, sadly, the style savants seem to rely heavily on the likes of Tom Hardy, David Beckham and other tattooed types.
Beckham particularly has a lot to answer for. There is a world of difference between fashion, which one takes off the moment the red carpet is rolled up, and style, which one wears all the time.
Some, such as Pierce Brosnan, still are stylish; others just wear tattoos. Unlike Cary Grant’s Holland & Sherry cloth in North By Northwest, tattoos do not wear well.
