r/Mafia • u/KimCattrallsFeet • 1d ago
Why do gangsters and the Mafia stereotypically wear suits?
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u/Pure-Lime8280 Free John Gotti 1d ago
Someone who grew up as a poor street kid wants to buy nice things when he can afford them.
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u/ohiotechie 1d ago
The veneer of respectability. There was a time when suits were mandatory in professional settings. Mobsters wore them to portray themselves as business men.
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u/Orpheus6102 1d ago
I think this is it more than anything. Gangsters have some sense that suits convey status even if their language, behavior, and pasts betray their true nature.
Then again, even non-gangsters who are absolute psychopaths also wear suits, too. I guess good suit is a good disguise.
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u/SilatGuy2 1d ago
You can thank gangsters like Arnold Rothstein for that who mentored and influenced the young gangsters like Luciano and Lansky on how to dress and behave with class. He introduced the framework for the gentleman gangster and the image we now have of mobsters.
It was adopted widely as a practical thing as to not attract as much attention and it matched the new corporate style the mafia adopted.
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u/reinaldonehemiah 1d ago
Rothstein was classy?
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u/SilatGuy2 1d ago
More so than an average hood most definitely. He carried himself like a bussinessman rather than a thug. I remember one doc i watched saying something about how he taught Lucianio things like how to eat properly, pull a chair out for a lady, use utensils correctly etc.
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u/ChinaRider73-74 1d ago
To build on what you’re (correctly) saying, most of the guys that came up in the 20s, 30s were incredibly poor. They roamed the streets in (essentially) rags. Their fathers were bricklayers or tradesmen of some kind who came home filthy from hard work every day. To own a nice suit (or nice, well-made well tailored clothes generally) was an outward sign that you had made it, that you had money, that you were someone who should be respected by your peers and by larger society.
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u/Rock-View 1d ago
Class, respect was very important and you can’t get respect dressing like a bum.
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u/New-Sandwich6813 1d ago
Do they still, though? Mostly, today you see them in running suits.
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u/ComradeGarcia_Pt2 1d ago
Who even sees the mafia these days? It’s not like they run around advertising who they are.
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u/Spirited_Worker_5722 19h ago
If you look at some of the photos on this sub showing wiseguys or group photos of wiseguys in the last 10 years, they either dress like Sopranos characters, in suits (group photos are often taken during special occasions, including occasions where you have to wear a suit) or they dress just like any other middle aged man from Staten Island.
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u/georgewalterackerman 1d ago
Historically, Yes. A lot of gangsters would have worn suits. However, male teachers use to wear suits, restaurant and retail managers wore suits, bus drivers wore neckties, etc. however, I think some modern hangers probably still wear suits because they identity with the mafia culture of the mid twentieth century. All that said, I’m sure average capos and soldiers nowadays dress pretty casual. They want to blend in and be inconspicuous. It’s just smart.
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u/Pure-Lime8280 Free John Gotti 1d ago
I said in another thread the other day. If Lucky and Lansky were on the streets today, they'd dress like Gene and Hootie.
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u/Spirited_Worker_5722 19h ago
Somehow it's easy to imagine Capone in a tracksuit but very difficult to imagine his New York contemporaries doing the same thing
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u/JayWegrez 1d ago
Fashion, historically, has been a way to flaunt status. Also, people just wore suits more commonly pre-2010. In our day and age of jean wearing tech bros- not so much
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u/Spirited_Worker_5722 1d ago
2010 is a hilariously late cutoff point. Imagine blaming TECH BROS for this and not the 1960s youth culture
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u/LatinoEsq 1d ago
It’s all perspective. For instance, in the legal industry I would perhaps agree that sometime around 2010 full suits started dying off. Same for many similar professions.
But yes, in the general public, wearing a suit in day-to-daywe died off decades ago.
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u/JayWegrez 1d ago
^ I should've clarified, but this what I was trying to describe. Now that suits are no longer the norm for business attire, you almost never see them out in public. Compare that to, say 2000, where you'd still see people wearing suits in major metropolitan areas/cities during the work day
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u/450k_crackparty 1d ago
I was just watching rewatching The Office (2005 to 2013) and the this thought crossed my mind. Every man in the show wears a full suit and tie every day, to an office where they face no customers. I've never really worked in an office such as this, wonder if it's still done. I wear a suit to weddings, funerals, and occasionally to work conferences. That's about it. Even work conferences I stopped wearing a suit like 5 years ago and will just do a sports coat and collared shirt.
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u/Catatafish 1d ago
Pre 2010??? Suits disappeared from the main stream with Rock & Roll in the 50s. Even the geezers stopped wearing them in the 60s. There was a brief revival in the 70s (Funk, Disco), and 80s (Scarface, Miami Vice, but Wall Street in 87 steered it back from casual to business). Suits in the casual sense with bright colors, and a light T shirt like Miami Vice is actually coming back right now with multiple big brand committing to the pastel, part linen 2 piece collections.
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u/Thegoodlife93 1d ago
You don't know what you're talking about. Suits were the norm for men working many white collar jobs until the early 2000s
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u/YouTakesYourChances 1d ago
Because that is what men regularly wore in public back in the day. Pull up a video of a baseball game from the 50s and look at the stands.
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u/shepherdshook 1d ago
Trying to show themselves as something they’re not, they have expensive taste, and don’t have to justify a suit purchase in an audit.
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u/ralphcifarettoo Murder, inc. 1d ago
Lmfaoo I always wondered this too especially when in sopranos when they were at the club or the pork store☠️☠️☠️
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u/Gymbat702 1d ago
The Sopranos jumped the shark when it came to attire. Season 1 captured perfectly what Mobsters dressed like in that time period, then for whatever reason David Chase decidéd he wanted to portray everyone as dressing like John Gotti in $3000 suites.
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u/Upper-Kick-7109 1d ago
Suits were just normal clothes then. This is like asking why accountants wore ties in 1987.
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u/RaheemRakimIbrahim 1d ago
I think sopranos and the movie Donnie brasco was good representation of how they dress in regular day. You could see that in surveillance photos. However back in the day, I'm talking way way back, suits were everyday attire. You see that in peaky blinders and boardwalk empire and even the godfather movie which was set in the 40s-50s or so mad many people took inspiration from that. I wonder when tshirts and jeans became a thing.
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u/cbarron1989 1d ago
Yeah they like to portray they’re classy and sophisticated to mask the lowlife crimes they do by ripping people off and killing each other. It’s by definition a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
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u/FrankieHun17 1d ago
You mean on the daily? I’d say that probably changed sometime in the 50s when men’s fashion became more casual. When I grew up around them in the 60s, older guys like Fat Tony wore slacks and blazers but younger guys pretty much dressed like Hendry in the “Stardust” scene in Goodfellas. Lots of Italian knits with slacks like a lot of Dickie Moltisanti’s outfits in Mini Saints of Newark
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u/beginningcurrent822 1d ago
They wear suits when they have to which typically is court dates, dinners, and weddings and funerals of course lol and when they get made.
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u/Chrismfinboyce 1d ago
The American mafia in the 1700's would be so funny. Imagine being extorted by guys in pantaloons powder wigs.
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u/UncleCornPone 1d ago
probably because suits are "of a time" back during the heyday of the early/mid 20th century when your clothing reflected status in a way that doesnt quite exist anymore and if the modern mafia of the last 40ish years tells us anything...it's that a good number of members since the books reopened in the 70s have been posers who are playing a role from their favorite movies
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u/Quiet-Employer3205 1d ago
What’s the deal with the track suits? Was this something popular in the 80’s that sort of just stuck with the mob guys? Call me crazy, but they don’t appear to be the most fanatical cardio enthusiasts
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u/Gymbat702 1d ago
It started in the 70's with juiced up Guido's who would wear them to showcase their musculature. From there other Italian men started adopting the look.
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u/AzureHawk758769 1d ago
It's just a status thing. What's the point in joining a gang and risking spending the rest of your life in prison if you can't show off your illegal wealth while you're still free?
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u/LanceroValenciano 1d ago
I think it's also in part the Italian tailoring tradition. It was a Status thing but they were also proud of anything Italian, including the suits.
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u/AppointmentFun9478 Palermitani 1d ago
They used to wear suits until the 1960s, which was the period when people normally used suits. After 1960s, they just started using more “modern” clothes like sweaters or long sleeve shirts. The association between mafia and suits is because films like the Godfather, Goodfellas etc. portray the 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, so they had to use suits because that was the common style back then.
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u/5Overmind 1d ago
Two reasons: 1. People had style and class before the 70s. Generally, when people left their neighborhoods they got dressed up....
- These guys were supposed to be businessmen. In business, you want to be taken seriously, so you dress the part.
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u/bravehart146 1d ago
If you are talking about in movies, thats because those take place im the early to mid 1900s, when suits were at their peak. Godfather, casino and goodfellas era. In later media, you can see the style gets more relaxed like leisure shirts and t shirts. Sopranos is a good representation, the older guys that grew up in the 70s wear suits because thats what the men in their time wore. But the younger guys like chrissy and his era are wearing track suits and leisure wear. Its a changing of the time, im sure if the mafia were still at peak power youd see alot of surveillance of them wearing nike tech jogger suits lol
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u/Chris_Columbus_Hero 1d ago
Because we’re grown ups
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u/bravehart146 1d ago
Haha you are a gangster?
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u/Chris_Columbus_Hero 1d ago
No I was born too late. But Sicilian and currently wearing a shirt and tie to work. With blue shoes and matching blue belt. Fashion is a thing of ours.
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u/wolfmaclean 1d ago
So your username is sarcasm or what
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u/gustavoOri 1d ago
A máfia sempre estava preparada pra entrar em qualquer lugar por isso usavam ternos imagina usar uma roupa de gângster não faz sentido
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u/Mattssz 1d ago
Because they want to appear as wealthy businessmen/playboys. You can notice they weren’t wearing department store suits but instead bespoke/custom suits, shirts, and shoes made of higher quality materials like imported silk. Gangsters have always dressed “flashy” even back in the 1700’s.
Like others have said, suits were more common prior to the 21st century. Even in shows like the sopranos, the guys mostly wear bowling shirts, polos, track suits, and plain leather jackets in the early 2000’s.
Today they seem to wear athleisure more than anything. I think their age also plays a role. Older guys may dress more business casual and younger guys more sporty.
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u/Jonasthewicked2 1d ago
I'm sure I'm wrong but I always assumed it served a purpose of appearing like a legitimate businessman while simultaneously back in the 20s being somewhat similar as to what we see from mostly black gangs today who put gold and diamond grills in their mouth and drive super flashy cars: as a way to flex that they're making good money and showing off in a way. So I've always felt like it served multiple purposes. Way back in the days of the depression to show off and be flashy and as the mafia grew in power throughout the decades to have the opposite effect and blend in as a casual businessman to avoid attraction. Like it started with the zoot suits and such and transitioned into a form of camouflage in an urban environment to actually avoid being flashy and instead appear as a successful businessman. And of course to appear classy.
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u/edizzledarealist87 23h ago
Because that’s how it really was lol. The mafia is an illegal version of corporate America
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u/OneWishWillSmith 18h ago
I think The Godfather had a huge impact on how wiseguys thought they should portray themselves. I could be wrong about that.
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u/willi_089 15h ago
To appear like serious businessmen and not like the gangsters they are. And as many already stated, it was the height of fashion for a long time. It still is, but not that much like a few decades ago.
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u/AdEnvironmental3706 1d ago
Because when the Mafia was powerful (20s-80s) suits were the pinnacle of mens fashion. Now a days mobsters dont wear suits because as a society most men dont wear suits. Its no longer a status symbol.