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In Django Unchained (2012) when Schultz takes Django to a clothes shop and asks him to choose his own clothes, at first Django is surprised, but after that he choses this typical dress for him. His appearance not only surprises the audience of the movie but also the characters in the movie. I remember a scene soon after when Django and Schultz walk into Big Daddy's farm and Django is talking to Bettina Sugar.

Bettina: Are you a free man?
Django: Yes.
Bettina: You mean you chose to dress like that?

So why did Django chose that typical dress? enter image description here

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    To ..surprise people? <disclaimer>I haven't seen it.</disclaimer> Commented Aug 11, 2014 at 7:49
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    Um... "typical"? For what? Commented Aug 12, 2014 at 14:49
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    "typical" = "eye-catching". It's an Indianism. Commented Aug 13, 2014 at 0:35
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    The book: "The Life of Olaudah Equiano: Or Gustavus Vassa, the African"; is the autobiography of a slave who managed to buy his own freedom. It is set in the eighteenth century and the author tells you that he bought a blue dress that he to wear at the party organized to celebrate is liberation ... an 18th-century blue dress ... exactly what Django wears in the film. Maybe it might be inspired by Vassa's story? Commented Jul 14, 2017 at 16:25

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In addition to KeyBrdBasher's excellent out-of-universe answer I'd like to concentrate a bit more on Django's motivation, even if it's really just plain speculation on my part.

You have to consider that Django has been a slave for all his life, wearing nothing else than mere rags, if so much at all. It certainly makes sense for him to dress as extraordinarily as possible once he finally has the chance to. Seeing that his blue suit looks extremely fancy and is probably only worn to parties or by little rich boys, he has simply overdone it with his dress choice, maybe partly due to overcompensation and maybe partly due to a lack of knowledge what you would usually wear as an ordinary citizen (you could even connect both answers and assume Django has once seen that Gainsborough painting, dreaming to dress as fancily one time in the future).

Another factor might also be exactly this surprise that you mention in your question. Django maybe also wanted to show everybody that he was a free man, and this as expressively as possible. Thus it might also have been in order to shock all those slave owners with the unusual view of a black man in so fancy a suit.

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  • Now that's a great in-movie analysis! You my man, delved into the psychology of a recently freed eccentric Django... Commented Aug 11, 2014 at 9:25
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    @KeyBrdBasher Well, it's really just vest-pocket psychology, but thank you. Commented Aug 11, 2014 at 9:37
  • This answer seems to be about 50% right. Certainly the goal is to draw attention to him, but the outfit choice wasn't Django's, it was Schultz's, at least according to the screenplay. And the goal wasn't shock value, it was concealment by misdirection. Commented Dec 20, 2024 at 9:08
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Nice question! There's a very solid piece of trivia behind it that will perhaps make you appreciate Quentin Tarantino and his style even more. A Django trivia article on Badass Digest explains it like this:

When Django gets his first outfit it turns out to be quite similar to a Thomas Gainsborough painting, The Blue Boy. This 1770 painting was created when slavery was rampant in the Americas, but that isn't the connection to Django Unchained. The painting inspired FW Murnau's debut film, Knabe in Blau, a 1919 silent movie that is now lost. This means Quentin Tarantino never saw it, so the film itself couldn't have really impacted Django. But Murnau was one of the great pioneers of cinematic language, and one of his great breakthroughs was a technique that allowed filmmakers to move the cameras, which until then, has been largely stationary. That technique's name?

"Unchained camera technique."

In my opinion, it's a very clever way to pay homage to a filmmaker Tarantino felt inspired by. This scene seems like his hat tip to the person as well as the technique.

The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough:

The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough

In addition to that, the connection with the Gainsborough painting becomes even more apparent in the scene where Django opposes John Brittle. There is a blink-and-you-miss-it shot where the girl Brittle was about to whip looks into a framed mirror and sees a faint reflection of Django (interestingly, very much devoid of any identifying skin parts) which seems to resemble the painting to a large degree.

Screencap of scene described above

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    I even remember to have heard a connection made to Austin Powers once, but this might have been an external source and not necesssarily from Tarantino. Commented Aug 11, 2014 at 9:17
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The screenplay is useful in understanding what's going on. They're planning to travel deep into the Southern slaveholdings. Schultz is worried that this makes Django the potential target for any passing authority figure that takes it into his head to re-enslave him. He comes up with a brilliant solution. If they can't hide him, they can actively draw attention to him instead.

Dr.SCHULTZ: Still, seventy-five dollars in your back pocket is a pretty nice grub steak, but it's not going to get you very far in Greenville. Not to mention a slave auction town in Mississippi isn't the safest place you could visit. Free or not.

DJANGO: I'll have my freedom papers.

Dr.SCHULTZ: Yes you will. But say you show them to some rascals, and they take them from you and tear them up?

Schultz chooses the clothes for Django and he reluctantly wears them.

Muddy and wet big city Chattanooga. We're in the back of a STORE that .sells SERVANT/HOUSE NIGGER UNIFORMS. Django comes bursting out of the stores back door. He's very distressed. One glance at the outfit he's wearing explains the distress.

DJANGO is dressed in a powder blue satin Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit, that wouldn't be out of place in the court of Marie Antoinette at Versailles. Dr.Schultz comes trailing after him.

Dr.SCHULTZ: Django, you have to, it's part of "The Act". You're playing a character. Your character is The Valet. This is what The Valet wears. Remember what I told you. During the act, you can never break character.

This ruse is successful. His outfit is so garish and eye-catching that it essentially defies belief that anyone other than a free man (albeit one that wants to keep his job around an eccentric wealthy employer) would choose to wear clothes like that. Anyone who sees him, their first question won't be "is that an escaped slave?" it'll be "what the hell is that man wearing!?" which gives Django (and Schultz) more scope to respond.

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  • Does this actually happen in the film? It might be that my memory betrays me, but I've seen it a few times and don't have any recollection of the costume being specifically discussed in such a way. I mean, it's still an interesting resource for answering (provided the screenplay is authentic), but it might be worth mentioning if this ultimately didn't make it into the film. Commented Dec 20, 2024 at 15:18
  • @NapoleonWilson - In the film the character seems to have more agency. The implication is that he chose the outfit and is proud to be wearing it; youtube.com/…, but the conversation above presumably happened, then got trimmed out. Commented Dec 20, 2024 at 15:28

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