Inspired by 1950s design, costumes seen in Twin Peaks’ first two seasons were from several notable companies such as Pendleton or Italian-based United Colors of Benetton. Lara Flynn Boyle’s Donna Hayward sported a Benetton cardigan sweater in the pilot episode, which found its way onto Moira Kelly in David Lynch’s 1992 feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Now, I’ve identified another Benetton cardigan sweater worn by Nadine Butler Hurley in episode 2.007 at the Double R Diner.
BIG ED AND NADINE HURLEY VISIT THE DOUBLE R DINER
Episode 2.007 (number 14 of the second season) was written by Mark Frost on Sept. 5, 1990 which a second draft completed a week later on Sept. 12 (presented on blue pages). The next day, more revisions were done on pink pages.
The scene with Big Ed and Nadine appears as described in the script.
BIG ED and NADINE enter. Nadine’s wearing a girlish outfit. Ed’s got a pained expression to match.
The couple sits down at the counter and dialogue continues as scripted – Nadine’s parents are in Europe, she doesn’t recognize Shelly, etc. and eventually smashes a chocolate milk shake glass (though the scripted action stated she smashed a coffee cup before the milk shake arrived).
Nadine turns on the swivel seat in the Double R Diner which provided a great back image of her sweater. I used this image of the geometric pattern to find a match.
NADINE’S CARDIGAN SWEATER BY BENETTON
After learning Donna’s sweater was from Benetton, I had a gut feeling Nadine’s was also from the Italian company. The jewel-tone colors and cut seemed reminiscent of late 1980s or early 1990s design. Google Image Search confirmed my suspicions seconds after I uploaded the image.
A top hit was this sold-out sweater on Etsy with a similar geometric pattern to Nadine’s on-screen cardigan. Most likely, it was part of the same fall collection that contained a cardigan version.
It didn’t take long to find the cardigan version but it didn’t pattern colors didn’t match to the on-screen version.
But this was definitely a United Colors of Benetton sweater based on the label.
The buttons also seemed to match the buttons from Nadine’s sweater.
The layout of the geometric pattern was also similar to the other full sweater and Nadine’s sweater.
I assume this rainbow-colored geometric pattern was released as part of a fall collection, which would have been made available at some point between 1988-1990. I found a Los Angeles Times article from Sept. 30, 1988 which mentioned both “colorful patterned” sweaters and an “apres-ski look” with “snowflake-patterned sweaters.” I’m still looking for product images from the late 1980s to confirm my thinking.
Eventually, I found a cardigan which had the pattern colors match the on-screen version. The buttons, however, were different than the previous sweater I located. But this does confirm the sweater had more than one color pattern.
NADINE SMASHES THE MILKSHAKE
Watching the scene frame-by-frame, I noticed one small detail just before Nadine smashed the milkshake glass.
If you look at the counter in one frame, there appears to be blood already present. Most likely, it was already on Nadine’s hands before she squeezed the glass and some of the blood dropped onto the countertop.
BOOM! This is such a cool shot of the glass being smashed. This breakaway glass was similar to the whisky bottle Leland Palmer uses to hit Jacques Renault in Lynch’s feature film.
Blood and chocolate cover the counter as a shocked Nadine looks on. One assumes that David Lynch changed the action from destroying a coffee cup to smashing the chocolate shake while on set.
It’s great to add another costume piece identified to the ever-growing list of identified things.
After reading this post, I started looking for a Benetton catalog on Ebay and stumbled across some argyle cardigans. I’m thinking that Donna’s picnic cardigan is also from Benetton. The overall look & button pattern matched a couple that I saw though none had the same colors.