Leonardo DiCaprio wears a Chopard Classic

In 1969, on Cielo Drive, a fading television actor lives next door to Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski. His name is Rick Dalton, and Leonardo DiCaprio plays him in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino's ninth film. Tarantino has said the real stars of the picture are not the famous faces on the poster. They are the place, Hollywood, and the year, 1969. An obsession like that lands hardest on the wardrobe department, because period accuracy lives in the small things a man puts on without thinking. Including the watch.

The watch is a Chopard Classic in 18-karat yellow gold, manual-winding, with a white dial and gilded hour markers. It is a dress watch in the plainest sense, round and gold and uncomplicated, the kind of refined piece a leading man of the 1960s would wear. Dalton had been exactly that, the star of a TV Western called Bounty Law. By 1969 the work has changed: he takes guest spots as the heavy, the villain who loses to the hero before the closing credits.

There is a second wrist worth watching. Cliff Booth, Dalton's stunt double, played by Brad Pitt, wears a Citizen 8110 Bullhead on a leather cuff, a more practical, functional chronograph. Booth has the tool watch. Dalton has the gold.