Uncut Gems Might Be the Greatest Fashion Film of 2019
Whether you’ve watched the trailer 783 times or just 782 times, you know that “Uncut Gems” feels like the most anticipated film since photos starting MOVING. The new thriller from Josh and Benny Safdie—New York’s foremost contemporary auteurs of gritty New York dread—stars Adam Sandler as a Diamond District dealer in deep, incredibly dangerous debt. Even Meghan McCain was begging, “Inject this in my veins!!!!!!!” (The end of the world is getting CrAzY!)
Before the trailer even dropped, Adam Sandler’s shady-mafioso-glam-zaddy look (seen in set photos) was already making waves. It’s the perfect combination of fashion trends—voluminous trousers, unexpected luxury accessories (Cartier rimless glasses!), a few pinches of Supreme Spring 2019 with the leather blazer and knit polos—with a total commitment to street-style vérité. The brief and chaotic trailer offers a tantalizing dose of more Sandler looks: the Cartier frames have transition lenses, the tailoring is so louche it’s cheesy, there’s a velour tracksuit arc, and of course he’s wearing a peach-colored linen suit. (Also: Kevin Garnett’s diamond studs will blind you.) It looks like two hours of that all-consuming, grotesque combination of vulgar and expensive that we got a peek at in Paul Manafort’s indictment.
The incredible costumes are the work of Safdie collaborator Miyako Bellizzi, who also did the costumes for 2017’s Good Time. Bellizzi worked in tandem with GQ contributor Mordechai Rubinstein, aka “the reluctant anthropologist” of New York street style. Talking earlier this year on the Failing Upwards podcast, Rubinstein described Sandler’s look as “HIGH-WAISTED, DOUBLE-PLEAT ZEGNA PANTS, WITH THE FUCKING HUGE FERRAGAMO LOGO BELT” with loafers and “THE LEATHER JACKET, AND THE FUCKING STAR OF DAVID FUCKING PINKIE RING!” (The caps are mine; Rubinstein is, rightfully, screaming--and who wouldn’t get amped about that look?)
It isn’t that everyone in Soho will start dressing like this now—and, of course, everyone in the Diamond District already does—but the film promises a level of style fanaticism focused on a new, hyper-specific part of New York, one where the brands and clothes have all the semiotics of the attendees of a Paris runway show. The Safdies are known for their almost unhinged commitment to verisimilitude, and the clothing, even the trailer suggests, continues that trend. We saw how Harmony Korine’s Beach Bum created a whole new wave in men’s style, and already, Uncut Gems is moving into similar territory by giving a contemporary answer to the ongoing obsession with the oozing sportswear of The Sopranos. “Four o’clock in the morning, [the Safdies] are on my Instagram,” Rubinstein said on Failing Upwards, adding that “they’re basing characters off the people I shoot, [and] they’re basing outfits off the people I shoot…. ‘We just saw this guy in Queens. Go find him, we want that coat.’”
It’s also the Great Adam Sandler reckoning we’ve all been waiting for—both an affirmation of his actings chops, and also of his incomparable style. If you wait around downtown New York art and fashion haunt Lucien for at least a main course and a cocktail, someone will definitely tell you that they’ve heard that Kanye West definitely called Sandler in 2017 to tell him he is West’s main style inspiration, presumably in addition to his noted appreciation of Shia Lebeouf. Are you ready for the new Tortured Zaddy revolution?
Originally Appeared on GQ
