Vijay — Front on — the tonal teal check, the collar open at two buttons, the patch pocket at the left chest — Front on — the tonal teal check, the collar open at two buttons, the patch pocket at the left chest · Still from the “Vaathi Coming” video, Master (2021)

Vijay — From behind — the shirt worn loose over the taupe chinos, and the pale band on his right wrist — From behind — the shirt worn loose over the taupe chinos, and the pale band on his right wrist · Still from the “Vaathi Coming” video, Master (2021)

Vijay — Close on the collar: this is the only distance at which the check resolves at all — Close on the collar: this is the only distance at which the check resolves at all · Still from the “Vaathi Coming” video, Master (2021)

Vijay — The whole fit in motion — teal shirt, taupe chinos, and nothing else — The whole fit in motion — teal shirt, taupe chinos, and nothing else · Still from the “Vaathi Coming” video, Master (2021)

Master · 2021 2 pieces

The Vaathi Coming teal check

Teal tonal-check shirt, taupe chinos — the whole fit is two pieces

Worn byVijay
FilmMaster (2021)
DirectorLokesh Kanagaraj
SceneJD, at the college reunion in the “Vaathi Coming” number

Freeze any frame of "Vaathi Coming" and the surprise is how little there is to it. JD comes out of the crowd in a teal short-sleeved shirt and a pair of warm grey-taupe trousers, and that is the entire costume. No jacket, no chain, no watch, nothing tucked in. Two pieces.

The shirt does all the work. It is a peacock teal cotton with a tonal check — the grid is a darker shade of the same colour rather than a contrast, so from the back of the ground it reads as a plain teal shirt and only resolves into a check when the camera comes close. Short sleeves, a soft spread collar left open at the top two buttons, a patch pocket at the left chest, dark buttons, regular cut, worn loose over the trousers. In the wide shots the underside of the collar catches the light a shade paler than the body, which is the one detail that tells you how soft and unstarched the cotton is.

The trousers are plain warm grey-taupe, flat-fronted, no cargo pockets and no denim stitching — chinos, not jeans, straight through the leg. Against the teal, in the graded dust of the reunion ground, they read almost brown.

Two things are deliberately missing from the list below. His shoes never get a clean frame in the number; the choreography and the crowd cover his feet in every shot. And the slim pale band on his right wrist is never resolved enough to say whether it is steel or a strap. Guessing either would be the easiest way to get this page wrong, so neither is here.

The pieces below are lookalikes, not the originals. This costume was made for the film and was never sold; each one notes where it differs from what is on screen.

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