An Ode To Michael Corleone’s Summer Suits, 50 Years On

Not that it would be anyone’s (let alone an infamous glower gangster’s) priority during an assassination attempt, but it’s pretty hard to come out of the experience without looking a bit dishevelled. Especially if you’re the target. So it’s surprising that after Michael Corleone – or rather the Don – nearly gets pulverised by a round of bullets in the first hour of The Godfather: Part II, he and his suit come out unscathed.

Decompressing from the evening’s events happens in the boathouse of his Lake Tahoe home, wearing a grey silk dupioni silk suit finished with black and white flecks, a shirt and tie and blue suede loafers – the same look he wore while celebrating his son’s communion a few hours earlier. Circumstances considered; he looks fantastic, somehow exuding debonair and nonchalance despite simultaneously anguishing about his near murder.

“One thing I learned from Pop,” – he says to family lawyer Tom Hagen, while sipping on a much-needed drink after the near bloodbath – “was to try to think as people around you think. On that basis, anything is possible.”

Those quick to pin him as a character with sartorial influence may do so with a moral dilemma. For those unbeknown to his personality, he’s not a particularly nice man that’s done not particularly nice things.

But this is good advice when it comes to sartorial matters. While I wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) recommend following in the footsteps of a mafia man, thinking as he does when it comes to dressing will inevitably create some banging summer looks. Because he may be a wretched, power-hungry human being, but the guy has spectacular taste in summer suiting, and this sequel proves so.

After the aforementioned scene, Corleone is seen later in the film sporting a cream linen suit while visiting fellow bad-guy Hyman Roth in Miami. Despite being set in the fifties, the silhouette is something that wouldn’t go amiss on the mannequins of Drake’s today.

The blazer is ever so slightly oversized while the trousers are high-waisted and pleated. A white shirt and brown tie accompany it, the latter punctuated with a tie clip, and sleek brown loafers are slipped onto his feet. It gives an air of the Giorgio Armani louche tailoring that dominated the eighties, without any of the Miami Vice baggage – bang on-trend for today, and a relaxed look for a sizzling whodunit conversation.

It’s the little details, like the tie-clip and the monochrome flecks, that are what sets his ’fits apart. When the Don is in Havana, later in the film, he styles his most casual ensemble of the three – a shirt swapped out for a polo top for this suit occasion – with a boldly-printed cravat, an accessory worthy of having a comeback. It screams confidence, which Corleone has an abundance of; in style as well as his own mortality.

50 years on from the film’s original release, there’s plenty of outfits to be used as inspiration from this classic. But leave any thoughts of conniving gangster behaviour to the man himself, you wouldn’t want to end up with the same fate.