Michael Caine has minted at least one widely quoted and imitated character for every decade of his epic 65-year long career in the movies. Younger generations perhaps know him best as Alfred, Batman’s trusty butler and father figure in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, in which he wears a Traser H3 Black Storm Pro, a brand which has supplied the US Army and Swiss Airforce, subtly alluding to the character’s backstory as a member of the SAS. In the Eighties, he dazzled us as the suave conman Lawrence Jamieson in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, wearing what else but a gold Rolex Oyster Day Date. But it was in the 60s and 70s in which he made his name as the nation’s favourite, sharply dressed cockney charmer with a series of hit films which included Zulu, The Italian Job, Alfie, and Get Carter, becoming a style icon in the process.
Hard to imagine today, but in the 60s leading men tended to dress themselves with the help of a tailor, rather than a stylist. And Caine, like his contemporaries Terence Stamp and Roger Moore went to the legendary Doug Hayward of Mount Street. Hayward made the suits Caine wore in Alfie, in which he plays a sharply dressed, cold-hearted womanizer. In the film he can be seen wearing an IWC Ingenieur Ref 666 AD with a black dial. Conceived of as a robust sports watch powered by a magnetically shielded automatic caliber 8531, it would have kept the time quite happily should Alfie have found himself near any nuclear reactors, allowing him to make it on time to any dinner dates he might have had with the numerous ‘birds’ (to use the parlance of the day), he was seeing at the time. It also looks a treat when paired with the sleek lines of those Hayward suits which he wore so stylishly in the film.
Hollywood beckoned after his marvellous turn in Alfie, with Caine starring in the crime comedy Gambit and the Harry Palmer sequels, Deadfall, and Magus. It’s around this time that Caine can be seen in publicity shots wearing a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Day-Date with a fluted bezel on a dark brown strap. This rather tasty kettle also makes an appearance in “Get Carter’ in which he plays the eponymous gangster dressed in a beautiful blue mohair Hayward three-piece suit accessorised with a pump-action shotgun, oversized cufflinks, and the watch worn slung low on his wrist. This was Caine’s personal watch which he could be seen wearing on and off-screen for well over a decade. Caine has often talked about his working-class origins and how he rewarded himself with luxuries like bespoke clothes and shoes, and, of course, a nice watch, as soon as he hit the big time. A gold Rolex watch remains for movie stars and civilians alike, a symbol of success.
