by 
The other day I was re watching the Bedford Incident with Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier. It’s a fine movie in its own right but always fun to watch movies with some clothes spotting potential.
Poitier plays a photo journalist in the Life Magazine mould who’s airlifted onto Widmark’s warship. He’s wearing a great Grenfell golf jacket – a kind of Baracuta G4 with patch pockets and single button throat latch and no umbrella back.
Bastard G4
It made me think about picking up some more of the old Baracuta G4s whilst there are still some around. Looking online I found the truly bastardised WP version everywhere. I read somewhere recently someone describing those hideous buttons a tiddlywinks counters. What the hell were WP thinking?
Modernise the business, introduce fashion versions for the mindless, trade on the revisionist mod hipster for sure, but why mess with a jacket that has seen little need for change for nigh on 80 years?
Anyway I’m glad I have a couple in my classic Baracuta collection.
Time to look elsewhere like the JSA soon to be launched version of the Grenfell in a great crushable fabric to get that Poitier effect.
PostScript. I popped into John Simons this afternoon and Paul confirmed their own Grenfell style jacket will be in navy as well as natural tan. Definitely going to add the navy to my collection. ETA approximately one month.
It’s also worth noting that Richard Widmark is sporting a particularly good cotton zipped crew neck bomber in this movie. Simple and effective.
I got a Made in England G4 just before the sale of the brand to WP. There were quite a few available for cheap prices around the web. It’s marred by the ugly big plastic puller on the zipper, so I’ve hardly worn it.
Nice to see you back and better than ever
Hi Michael thanks for the comment. I too picked up a few Baracutas during that dead time before the takeover by WP. Having been a staple of Italian classic mens stores for decades I thought Italians might be a safer pair of hands than the Manchester mod brigade, but boy was I wrong!
You guys know of any other online retailers that may still carry the original G4s? O’Connell’s has sold out all of their 42s and I absolutely abhor the new ones. Would be great to add one to my collection.
Hey Erick, Ebay UK used to be full of them, but they seem to have dried up over the last six months or so. I think there wasa big sell off of inventory by the old owners in the year before the handover to the Italians.
Green …. with envy