Is That A Banana In His Pocket, Or Is He Just Happy To See Me?

I have a good friend, someone I’ve known since I was five years old, named Jeremy. He has one of those “real” jobs, and partially because of that, and partially because he just likes it, he dresses well and has lots of nice clothes, especially the sorts of formal stuff that real adults wear to work. I’m sort of the opposite in that I tend to dress like a slob or essentially the same way I dressed when I was 14, when I was a younger slob.

The good news is that Jeremy is roughly the same size as me, so many of my nicest clothes are hand-me-downs from him. When I have to go to the Concurs d’Elegance at Pebble Beach and put off thinking what I’m going to wear until I’m about to leave for the trip, it’s Jeremy I go to. I bring all this up because Jeremy was the person who showed me how to use a pocket square in a jacket for a little burst of color, and how you don’t need to neatly fold it; you can just kind of stuff it in there.

I bring this up because the bright yellow pocket square featured so prominently in this ad for the Ford Escort looks so much like a peeled banana that I can’t decide whether or not it may have been intentional. And if it is intentional, why?

The 1974 ad – which was also a poster – is quite well-known in the British car world, or at least it was, back in the 1970s. The gentleman in the ad is Allan Wilkinson, who raced Ford Escort Mexicos and actually won the car’s first trophy in 1972, and was part of the engineering team when Ford won the 1979 World Rally Championship in an Escort Mexico.

The Escort Mexico was the production version of Ford’s purpose-built rally car, the RS1600, but with a less maintenance-intensive engine and other mechanicals so you could actually, you know, drive it normally. Even before the Escort Mexico (named for Ford’s victory in the 1970 London to Mexico World Cup Rally), Ford had always emphasized the Escort’s sporting character in their ads. Look at this one:

They also advertised it to, let’s see, doctors:

Okay, but let’s get back to what’s really important here: that poster with the possibly-intentional banana handkerchief. Wilkinson has stated that he believes he was chosen for the photo shoot because of his resemblance to a then-popular British TV character, Jason King. I looked it up, and, damn, he’s right, even if that mustache is doing most of the heavy lifting:

Hm, yes, terribly groovy indeed. Wilkinson actually re-created the famous poster in 2011, this time with a new Escort RS500:

Okay, that’s all great but let’s get back to what matters: that banana handkerchief.

Is this just a remarkable visual homonym, or is it somehow possible the banana look was intended? My wife insists this had to be intentional, citing not just the undeniable banananess of the handkerchief but also the presence of such bananas in pop culture, such as the famous Velvet Underground & Nico album cover by Andy Warhol, from 1967.

And, sure, that was certainly A Thing, but I’m not convinced this was intentionally banana. The black Escort Mexico has a yellow pinstripe, and I think Wilkinson just picked a yellow pocket square to match that. I think he stuffed it in the pocket with the sort of suave abandon only a race car driver can muster, and somehow chance just allowed the folds and wads of that handkerchief to flop into a remarkably banana-like configuration, and our brains do the rest.

I just can’t think of why they would want this to resemble a banana? It’s not particularly associated with Mexico. It’s not especially relevant to racing cars or driving, outside of a Mario Kart context that would not exist for decades after this photo was shot.

Is this a chance banana? A deliberate one? Help me decide, because I’m at a loss here, and it’s going to weigh on me all day.

Top graphic image: Ford UK