Gangster style: Johnny Depp as John Dillinger…

There's just something about the 1930's gangster / G-men style that Hollywood finds irresistible…

First we had Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway cavorting across the Midwest in Arthur Penn's 1967 new wave inceptor "Bonnie and Clyde". while Beatty was both elegant and dashing, Dunaway went further, cementing herself amongst the screen's all time most iconic sirens in her glorious garb.

Then, in 1987, we were really in for a sartorial treat with Brian di Palma's exquisite The Untouchables. Kevin Costner's "earnest Elliott" (Ness) and Robert De Niro's dazzling Al Capone lit up the screen – not only with their wonderfully mannered performances, but with their gorgeous suits, fedoras and wingtips.

In fact, any discussion of men’s fashion during the 30s would be incomplete without recognizing the gangster influence. Gangsters, while despised as thieves, paradoxically projected an image of “businessman” because of the suits they wore.

However, they didn’t choose typical business colors and styles, but took every detail to the extreme. Their suits featured wider stripes, bolder glen plaids, more colorful ties, pronounced shoulders, narrower waists, and wider trouser bottoms. In France, mobsters actually had their initials embroidered on the breast of their shirts, towards the waist. They topped their extreme look with felt hats in a wide variety of colors: almond green, dove, lilac, petrol blue, brown and dark gray. High-fashion New York designers were mortified by demands to imitate the gangster style, but obliged by creating the “Broadway” suit.

Ironically, the G-Men (specially assigned FBI operatives) would often attempt to mimic or out dress the gangsters to steal their thunder when captured by the fizzing flashbulbs of the emerging paparazzi. Because both the gangsters and the G-men enjoyed a notoriety and celebrity that seems odd today. But remember, they knocked about in an era long before television destroyed the imagination.

And now Johnny Depp has reignited interest in the 1930s gangster look, appearing opposite G-man Christian Bale in Michael Mann's hotly anticipated "Public Enemies". Although the movie won’t be released until next summer, pictures have been surfacing of Depp playing notorious Chicago bank robber John Dillinger. The movie takes us back a few decades, but the outfits are timeless in their assured simplicity and sophisticated in the tailoring.

So, until the movie comes out, you'll have to make do with the rather exciting trailer…

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Category: Style