Honorable Style in Dishonorable Times: American Gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s

"You don't need to be ordering fancy duds," Frankie Rio advised his boss as a tailor took measurements of Capone's swollen physique at the Lexington Hotel. "You're going to prison. Why don't you have a suit made with stripes on it?" "The hell I am," Al shot back. "I'm going back to Florida for a nice long rest, and I need some new clothes before I go." In this irrationally jaunty mood, he ordered two new lightweight suits and made plans for an extended stay at his Palm Island hacienda. (Bergreen 485) This excerpt from Laurence Bergreen's biography of Al Capone informs the reader of the gangster's criminality and potential jail time, but it also says much about the lifestyle of this infamous crook. Planning a tranquil retreat in Florida while being fitted for a made-to-measure suit in a highend hotel, Capone appeared to be a man who lived a life of wealth and leisure and who chose to flaunt his affluence through an expensive wardrobe. However, that he preferred stylish clothing as a means to indicate his financial success was not an unusual practice among mobsters. Rather, "stylish consumption defined the public enemy" (Ruth 63), and the image of the Prohibition-era gangster, rising through the criminal ranks in his three-piece suit, fedora, tie, overcoat, and polished shoes, has become ingrained in the collective American conscious. These hip fashions not only reflected the mood of urban America in the 1920s and early 1930s but also expressed gangsters' anxieties and ambitions as they staked out their place in the country's newly formed metropolitan society. Similar to the flappers' short and unshapely dress, which signaled the newfound liberation of many women in the 1920s, the gangsters' fashions echoed the historical forces at play in the early twentieth century. Their attire spoke to the rampant growth of organized crime in major American cities during the Jazz Age. Much of this crime hinged on the passing of Prohibition in 1920, and many gangsters made good money from bootlegging and racketeering for over a decade, as Prohibition was not repealed until 1933. The gangsters' business-like garb reflected their aim to legitimize their status as businessmen, marked their rise from destitute pasts to wealth, and positioned them as a model of the new American ideal for the urban working class. At the same time, other elements of gangster dress, combined with the mobsters' extreme materialistic consumption and penchant for ostentation, unveiled their illicit activities and exposed them as imposters and corrupters of the American dream. Al Capone, who became one of the most notorious crime lords of the 1920s and 1930s, epitomized the Prohibition-era gangster figure. Typically dressed in pinstripe suits, fedoras, and fancy neckties, he served as a model of underworld fashion. Like Capone, many well known criminals of the time wore sharp suits, hats, and accessories. Other signature items of gangster fashion included overcoats, spectator shoes, watch fobs, and jewelry. The multitude of photographs and historical documents that depict gangsters sporting these styles supports the notion that fashionable, yet flashy, business-like apparel served as typical gangster garb. While these sartorial elements portrayed gangsters as formally, though sometimes ostentatiously, dressed, gangsters' style carries greater significance when examined within its historical context. The 1920s witnessed a major shift in American urban life and culture. This era saw optimism and the possibility of a better American society transform into deflated hopes and disillusionment, and gangster attire simultaneously represented both ends of this spectrum. Widespread feelings of idealism had materialized before the turn of the century with the rapid industrialization and urbanization of America (Dumenil 16). Opinions on how to improve society varied, but citizens with optimistic attitudes were united in their general belief that society could and would progress (Goldberg 1). …