Breaking the Pastel Barrier: How ‘Miami Vice’ Changed Menswear Forever
On Sept. 16, 1984, the Anthony Yerkovich-created series Miami Vice premiered on NBC and went on to revolutionize television with its ultra-stylized visuals, cutting-edge MTV-era music and unconventional fashion highlighting the riveting weekly adventures of hard-bitten undercover detectives. “The ambition of the show was to break the form of everything that had come before,” the series’ executive producer Michael Mann tells THR.
In the Casablanca of ’80s Miami, boat-dwelling Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and suave New Yorker Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) drove luxury cars, averted explosions and busted drug lords in bold and unexpected designer outfits. Crockett’s jacket-over-T-shirt signature triggered a paradigm shift in the traditional concept of menswear, which endures 40 years later. “It changed the way men dressed in the world,” says Emmy-nominated season one costume designer Jodie Tillen. “It gave men permission to wear pastels.”
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Today, its slouchy silhouettes and soft colors are heavily influencing men on the red carpet. “Miami Vice has definitely been on my mood board,” says stylist Michael Fisher. “It’s been referenced 10,000 times for every photo shoot I have.” In recent months, Fisher has dressed clients Sebastian Stan, John Mulaney and Jake Gyllenhaal in art deco-hued suits and oversize jackets with slouchy tanks, looks that immediately bring the show to mind.
The original palette for the show was the upshot of a color theory lesson from Mann’s wife, Summer, an artist, which occurred as the two were perusing Easter egg-toned paint chips. That resulted in a strict three-color modus operandi for the show’s first two seasons. “That’s where the sense of vibrating pastels came from,” says Mann, who also directed a Miami Vice movie adaptation in 2006.
Mann and the series’ costume designers recall how the aesthetic all came together and the impact it had.
JODIE TILLEN We had a color palette: no earth tones, no primary, all pastel. Every car color, every wall that the actors walked in front of, was by design — nothing was by mistake. There was a major coordination between the art department, locations and costume.
MICHAEL MANN You had to be very careful with [the color palette] because if you let it get too loud, then it was just … kind of gross.
Mann’s interest in ‘80s Miami Italian design, including Memphis Group and Arquitectonica, influenced the show’s high-end wardrobe. Each season costume designers traveled to style capitals, from New York to Milan, to shop the latest collections — common practice today, but not the mid-1980s.
TILLEN I just couldn’t get enough clothes in Miami, so I had to go to Europe. Every episode needed, like, 75 costumes, including multiples for stuntmen, the action, weather and the perspiration. A lot of the T-shirts came from Italy.
MANN I particularly liked Armani: the notion of T-shirts underneath unstructured jackets. Not necessarily wearing socks. Things that evoke that sense of this unique city.
BAMBI BREAKSTONE (SEASON TWO COSTUME DESIGNER) I went to the Première Vision trade show in Paris. I remember Spanish designer Adolfo Domínguez. I loved their clothes, which were really oversized and loose. In the second season episode “Definitely Miami,” [guest star] Ted Nugent is wearing their suit. I also went to Milan because I knew Cerruti.
TILLEN People always say [the cast wore] Armani. [But] there was not a piece of Armani in the entire [first season] ever. It’s too conservative. It had to be very Mondo Uomo [the experimental Italian men’s fashion magazine], Versace — all the bolder looks — and Armani was not bold. It was lovely and gorgeous, but not for our guys.
The designer wardrobes were, however, rooted in the gritty reality of RICO statutes and undercover law enforcement essentially borrowing from the closets (and garages) of seized goods. Plus, Ferrari-driving Crockett’s recognizable aesthetic — jackets, with cuffed sleeves, tees or henleys and no socks — was actually a character cue.
MANN [Crockett and Tubbs] were posturing as imposters trapping drug traffickers, wealthy buyers or anybody with some stature. As effective practitioners in the whole drug trade, they had to have a facade. So they were able to use these cars, boats, planes and clothes. The DEA does this all the time.
BREAKSTONE The direction I got from Michael Mann was, “It’s as if he woke up in the morning and threw his clothes on.” It wasn’t supposed to be orchestrated. Usually, I would use whatever I had found that week. If I found mint green T-shirts, I put him in mint green T-shirts.
TILLEN Everybody makes the mistake that Crockett was a fashionista. He was not. He wore a uniform to infiltrate the bad guys that dress like that. Crockett would rather be shirtless and shoeless on his boat. Don’t forget that he had to conceal a gun, so he couldn’t wear a tight-fit jacket. But I want to be very clear. His sleeves were never rolled up [by me], ever. If memory serves, Don did that on the set. Not my choice.
Tubbs though was written to be precise in his rakish style. His double-breasted dark suits, often from Hugo Boss and Cerruti, countered Crockett’s jaunty, renegade ensembles, while conveying Mann’s social messaging.
TILLEN Tubbs was more of a fashionista because he came from New York. He was the conscious dresser. He wore a belt, sock, shoes — the whole deal. I always say: Crockett was an unconscious dresser. He didn’t really look in the mirror before he left the house. Tubbs would look in the mirror.
MANN It was designed to be political. That’s the most important thing about the show. Many of the casting decisions were intentional assaults on racial and gender stereotypes, and that’s really critical. It’s not by accident that Tubbs is wearing the clothes he does or that he is a Republican — he’s not a liberal — or that he’s much more sophisticated and better educated than Crockett.
In the pilot, written by Yerkovich, Tubbs quips, “I’m gonna be wearing an Armani blazer. You’re gonna be wearing a wire.” But, despite the wisecrack (and Mann’s affinity for the Italian label), Armani didn’t enter the scene until season three, when Mann hired Oscar-winning costume designer Milena Canonero (who worked in collaboration with Richard Shissler) and introduced a divisive darker palette — and storylines.
EDUARDO CASTRO (SERIES WARDROBE SUPERVISOR AND COSTUME DESIGNER) Milena had chosen several Armani pieces. I followed suit and used quite a bit of Armani, mostly for Don. [I met] both Gianni Versace and [Giorgio] Armani when I went to Milan. Armani would say, “I hope you’re not seeing Gianni,” and Gianni was like, “I hope you’re not da da da …”
Crockett was not a fashion aficionado, but Miami Vice turned Johnson into one. In 2014, the actor told Rolling Stone, “I didn’t have the money to be a clothes horse when I started the show, but I became one thereafter. It was the Eighties, man.”
BREAKSTONE I would shop at Bal Harbour Shops. I remember Don wanted to go there. I took him to Versace and he tried a bunch of clothes and he got stuff for himself and things for the show.
CASTRO [Crockett’s wardrobe] became much more designer-oriented and lavish as we moved forward and Don was much more aware of, ‘Who makes this?’ I had to make sure that he had the latest Versace jacket, and at that time, Versace was the one that really was being very, very innovative. Don also wore a lot of Adolfo Domínguez, Hugo Boss, Basile, Byblos, Giuliano Fujiwara and Piero Panchetti and a bit of Claude Montana.
Miami Vice also was a pioneer of marketing collabs between designer brands and TV shows. For season two, Breakstone used her fashion industry experience to broker a product-for-screen credit partnership with Hugo Boss. For season three’s vibe shift, Canadian New Wave label Parachute — worn by trend-making hitmakers like Madonna, David Bowie and Duran Duran — signed on. The show’s trailblazing style also makes an appearance in the 2024 Rizzoli book, Parachute: Subversive Design and Street Fashion by Alexis Walker.
BREAKSTONE It was a coup for Hugo Boss. I went to the factory in Stuttgart, sat down in front of a computer, went through the various styles and ordered what I wanted. “Can you make this for me in pink?” “Can you add a pocket here?” I remember ordering pants that had multiple pleats. I could have ordered slimmer clothes, but I didn’t. I ordered the baggier clothes because it looked fresh to me.
NICOLA PELLY (CO-FOUNDER, PARACHUTE) [The collaboration] definitely was very good for our brand and the show fit in with our look and the fact that Miami Vice was innovative, interesting, fun and fast-paced. They mostly dressed the ‘bad guys’ [in Parachute] for the first season or so. [Example: A pre-Moonlighting Bruce Willis, as an arms dealer in season one’s ‘No Exit,’ blusters in aggressively pleated and voluminous white Parachute trousers.] By season three, they started putting Don Johnson into Parachute clothing because we always had unconstructed, loose-fitting blazers and incredibly creative pants. So, people would come into our stores and ask us for something that Don Johnson wore from a certain episode.
BREAKSTONE [Miami Vice‘s clothing] became a classic look for men because it was within the confines of “men’s clothes.” It’s still a jacket and trousers, but softened in a more contemporary manner. So it didn’t have the same conservative structure that we think of when we think of a man’s suit. It was this alternative way to dress and still be dressed up.
TILLEN It reached out and touched a new comfort level [in menswear].
MANN [The style] was good. It was irreverence against authority and convention.
MICHAEL FISHER The show had two confident guys wearing pastels and scoop-neck T-shirts. The everyday guy who looks toward television and film for inspiration was like, “Oh, these guys are badass and really cool and I want to look like that.” If I do market for a client’s fitting [now], more than 20 percent of the stuff is pink. Pink is like the new gray or the new navy.
This story first appeared in the July 31 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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