The Godfather Part II
[0:00:00] In today’s video, gentlemen, I’m gonna
be making you an offer that you can’t refuse. [Video Playing]. Seriously, gents, I don’t
mean you no harm. We’re just gonna have fun here. I’m gonna break out the best style
moments from The Godfather. [Video Playing]. Let’s start things off by looking at Michael
Corleone's Havana suit. So, the setting here is 1958, but what I love about this, just
look at this outfit. Look at the way it's put together. He could step out of that time
period and walk into a place today and easily be the best dressed man. [Video Playing].
So, I wanna mention in The Godfather II all the costumes were designed by Theodora Van
Runkle. She did a great job going with classic designs, classic looks. And when you see the
suit combination, what do we notice? First up, it's a very muted combination of colors.
So, what I love about this muted clothing combination is it keeps us focused in on the
face. Michael Corleone played by Al Pacino, he's a medium contrast individual. What this
means is his hair color is dark, his skin is medium color similar to mine, and he can
wear a wide range of clothing. But this clothing combination, it actually works really well
with drawing our attention to his eyes, to his face. He's there for negotiation. He's
trying to figure out what Mr. Hyman Roth is up to even though Hyman's walk around without
a shirt on the show. Hey, I've got nothing to hide, but we know he does. Point being
is he is shown up there and his clothing isn’t gonna do the talking. He did go in with dark
colors. Now, where we do see color is around the neck. So, we see that Ascot or maybe it's
a cravat. Correct me if you know the answer down in the comments. But we see the gold.
We see the brown. We see maybe a little bit of orange. What I love about this, again,
is it's drawing attention to the face. The only other place that we see color is when
we get down to the shoes. We see that he's wearing dark socks. He's got brown penny loafers.
Again, keeping it very casual. But the eyes are gonna go up and down very quickly. Maybe
we’ll notice his shoes, but we’re again gonna be drawn to the face. Now, in case you're
wondering, the suit has a lot of interesting details about it. The most interesting one,
which most people don't know, is it's been sold twice at auction. But what if you just
wanted to recreate that suit? You wanted to go to your custom clothier and say, “Hey,
I want this suit here.” First up, you got to make sure you get the right fabric. You
wanna be looking for a tan with a cream Glen check. Let me go ahead and bring up the pattern
right here. This is a Glen check. It's a classic pattern, but what's really cool about this
combination right here is that from a distance it looks like a solid. Now, when it comes
to the cut of the suit, this is neither an Italian or an American cut. It is not slim
fitting like an Italian suit, yet it's not a full sack suit. So, what we see is something
that's a hybrid of the two. So, again, when we look at the details, what do we notice?
First up, the padding on the shoulders. It's relatively slight. It's not heavy padding.
It's not like no padding like we would see on some Italian suits. Also, it's a 2-button
suit. Now on the sleeves, we see that they're fitting actually relatively well, not super
loose. And at the sleeve head, which is right up here, we noticed that there is a roped
design. Also, when we go and we look at the lapels, we see a notched lapel, but what's
interesting is there's no vents. That's an Italian feature. Most Americans suits are
gonna have a single vent in the back, but this jacket had no vents. As for the jacket
cuffs, we only saw 3 buttons on this jacket. And when you look at the pockets, they're
gonna be straight flap normal pockets as we would see on almost any jacket out there.
Now, his trousers are made from the same fabric as the jacket. A suit, remember, is always
a jacket and trousers made from the same exact material. We notice he has a flat front, no
pleats on these trousers. They’re a little bit higher wasted. So, when you wear higher
waisted trousers, these are made perfectly for suspenders. But with these trousers, we
also know that they have loops for a belt. But in any case, you wouldn't wanna wear the
belt or the suspenders at the same time. You would wanna wear either one or the other.
Now, let's look at the shirt. You'll notice he didn't go with a white dress shirt. He
went with a white polo shirt. A white polo shirt that's gonna be a sport design, very
informal. But again, he's wearing a jacket over it and it works because of the environment.
Now, let’s have a little bit of fun. Let’s talk about what not to wear, how not to dress
and let’s look at poor Fredo. [Video Playing]. So, we all know how this ends. But man, when
we see him at the first communion wearing what appears to be black tie tuxedo, whatever
he wanted to call this combination, a number of things are striking. First up, the fit
is totally off. And I think that they definitely did this on purpose. They wanted to show that
this guy is basically a clown. Now, first up, let's talk about that Madras jacket. Actually,
if it had fit him and if he had worn it with more confidence, could he have pulled it off?
Would it have worked for black tie? The answer is actually yes. Now, Madras is a classic
pattern. It comes out of India. It has a lot of history, but the thing is with black tie,
you're allowed to break one rule. There are rules to how you should dress for black tie.
But if you understand the rules and then you rock that one rule you're breaking with confidence,
I think you can pull it off.
[0:05:02] You can change up the color of the tie if
everything else is spot on. You can change up the shoes. You could have a little bit
of fun with, you know, maybe even the shirt you're wearing, but I do think, yeah, a man
with confidence who knew what he was doing here. The thing is Fredo didn't know what
he was doing. And when we look at this combination with the poor fit, with the oversized jacket,
yeah, it just did not look like a good combination even though I like the pattern and I think
the right person could pull it off. Now, looking at the rest of his black tie combination,
you know, again, he's following the rules here. He just is off on the fit. When we look
at the black tie itself, it probably could have been a little bit better tied and it
shouldn’t have been a jar like it was. But again, they're going for I think a little
bit more of the clownish look. We look at the shirt, perfectly fine. Maybe a little
bit large. The trousers, they're black. He's following the rules there. He even has a cummberbund.
If you're not familiar, cummerbund, again, it comes out of India. A lot of these actually
clothing styles come out of whenever the English were there and they adopted a number of Indian
styles. So, shout out to my friends over in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. I know you guys
are out there. So now, let's jump back over to Michael Corleone and let's talk about his
first communion suit. [Video Playing]. Now, it's not his first communion. It's his son,
Anthony. Great name by the way. So, Anthony thinks that this is about him. No, it’s
not about him. It’s about his dad wanting to be able to do business and that's what
the suit is all about. [Video Playing]. This is about business. This is about “Hey, I
am here to get work done.” Let's get into the details on this silk suit that is absolutely
beautiful. So, the first thing you'll notice about the suit is the fabric. It's great.
It's made from silk. It has specks of white, specks of black. It is a very unique fabric.
And here's the thing with suits, the price can go up astronomically depending on the
suit and the rarity of it. I used to own a custom clothier. I understand it, okay, sometimes
fabric can cost $30 a yard. Other times, it is $30,000 a yard for fabric. This is a suit
that simply is able— It oozes money and you're able to send the message to people
in the know. This is my suit. I am the man. Let's get to business. Now, the subtle details,
he doesn't need to really do anything here and he doesn't. Two button. We've got single
breasted. We have 3 buttons right here on the sleeve. Pockets are all what we would
expect. And again, no vent. This is gonna be a very similar style. I think they used
the same costume designer throughout, but she probably went to the same clothier and
the same place to go all the clothing. And they decided to go with no vents. Basically,
it allows the clothing to fit closer and to hold everything closer to the body. Single
vents in the back, that was kind of the American version of doing it the cheap way and to be
able to mass manufacture. The most expensive vents to manufacture are the double vents.
We see this on English suits. And what's great about the double event is actually you could
jump on a horse or when you're walking it just simply looks better, but it's by far
the most expensive way to build the vents of a suit. Now, the trousers here of course
made from the same material. A little bit higher rise, similar. These are again made
to be worn with suspenders or even a belt. And when we look at these right here, just
a very clean— They actually have no back pockets and I like that look right there because
it just gives a cleaner silhouette. And let's talk about the dress shirt. Nothing fancy
here. A white, simple, clean dress shirt with point collar, simple placket on the front,
no pockets. And what I love about dress shirts like this is you can dress ‘em. You can
dress ‘em down. Incredibly versatile. I think in every man's wardrobe you should at
least have a few go-to white dress shirts that you can wear to any occasion. Now, speaking
of the belt and the shoe combination, let's look at that black belt with gray tassel loafers.
You don't need to wear a gray belt. A lot of people think they got to match the belt
exactly with the shoes. It's nice if you can. But as long as you get close and whenever
you have kind of an odd combination, you have shoes that are gray or shoes maybe that are
light brown, yes, you could wear a dark brown with those medium brown. You could go with
gray. You can wear black and that's gonna be the right combination there. So, yeah,
he pulls it off. Now, let’s talk about the white suit of Don Fanucci AKA the Black Hand.
[Video Playing]. When you wear a white suit, you are gonna stand out from the crowd. Another
guy that pulled off a white suit in real life and made it the signature card? Tom Wolfe.
An amazing writer. Again, understanding the power of color. Now, why do most guys avoid
white when it comes to trousers, when it comes to shoes? I'll tell you why. We don't wanna
get it dirty. We are very practical. It's all about confidence. It’s all about being
able to pull it off. And I tell you the Black Hand had confidence. He walked the streets
of New York and he owned it. He knew that everyone had to pay respect. And when we look
at the combination, it just wasn't the suit. He brought the hat, yes, the white hat. I
mean, the only thing that wasn't white was that outer protective coat. Now, the time
is 1917-1920, New York City. What's going on? World War I.
[0:10:00] That's just wrapping up. We're about to go
into the roaring `20s and we have a lot of Italian immigrants coming over. Italians,
Irish. A lot of these immigrants coming over at this time period. We’re actually not
viewed as true Americans. Yeah. People didn’t like ‘em. A lot of people, they tried to
put them into certain burrows in areas. So, this was prime for this man to be able to
come in and like a peacock be able to walk the streets and to intimidate. It wasn't so
much that he was physically strong. We never see him throwing people around, but we see
the way he walks, the way he struts, the way he shows off his color. You know, that white
right there is what sets this guy apart and sends the signal of high status. Now, let's
talk about the style details of his clothing. So, do we see anything that really stands
out? The answer is no. It's the color, again, that does all the talking. So, we see the
jacket. It's got a notch lapel. It's got a 3-button, single-breasted jacket. What’s
a 3-button jacket? So, it's a little bit more formal because you have the option of buttoning
that top button. Middle is always buttoned. When you're standing, the bottom button never.
But this jacket right here, there's really nothing that stands out except for the color.
Trousers, very simple. We actually don't even see a cuff. We see just a pair of straight
well-fitted trousers. He's a little bit larger of a man. So, I do think he would have gone
with something higher waisted. Maybe even wore suspenders. That would have worked for
that time period. When we look at the shirt, it’s simple white shirt, but it's the vest
that I really like. He didn’t decide to go for any contrast here. He went all white.
Now, when we look at his shoes, what do we see? These off-white leather slippers. Now,
slippers. And they’re some of the most formal shoes out there. Yes. Believe it or not, slippers.
Not the kind you war at home, but slippers that you could slip on and off are gonna be
very simple design. They’re actually made to go with black tie. Now, I’ve talked about
his white fedora, but let's talk about jewelry. So, he had a ring on his pinky, which was,
you know, you came and kissed it. You showed respect. And let's talk about that gold tooth.
Now, it wasn't so much about grills at that time period. It was just simply gold was viewed
as something that’s very valuable, very expensive. And most people, they just simply
didn't get anything in their teeth. They just got ‘em out. They were toothless. This guy
had the money and he showed the world. Yeah, I'm a little bit older. I’ve lost some of
my teeth. I like my sweet foods. And I can afford to actually get them replaced. Now,
let's talk about the revenge suit. We've got Robert De Niro playing a young Vito Corleone
as he goes back to his childhood home and let's just say that, yeah, he's got some scores
to settle. [Video Playing]. So, first up, we noticed the color, that rust brown with
a pinstripe here. It’s a color we rarely see. So, this was obviously custom made. It's
supposed to represent I think that time period and we notice it with the lapels. Not only
are they white, but we've got peak lapels on a 3-button jacket. What does that do to
the lapels? It forces them high and right here. What does this do? It builds up the
chest. Could you pull this off nowadays? This definitely wouldn’t be your first, second,
or even third suit. But if you are wearing a suit on a daily basis, you could have something
like this made and it is gonna stand out. It's gonna look amazing. We also have a very
buttoned up look thanks to not only the 3 buttons on the jacket, but that high vest—
Notice we only see the shirt peeking out here. This is very much with the time period. Shirts,
it was very expensive to get white shirts cleaned and it was much easier to simply layer
things especially with darker suits that could get a little bit dirty. No one's gonna notice.
You just hang it up. You brush your suit off and you wear it multiple times and then go
get it cleaned. So, again, we're looking at the fit and design of the suit. This is something
actually that’s gonna fit his body closer. This is a young Vito Corleone. He wants to
show that he has wealth, that he has strength. He's put together. He's got that nice necktie
right there. Overall, the combination that we see here is a man that has money, a man
that is in power, and a man that's there to settle a few deaths. [Video Playing]. Now,
a few other style details to note, that brown fedora. Why would you ever wanna start wearing
a hat? ‘Cause it’s gonna make you look taller. It really brings the whole outfit
together. And when we look at the necktie, it’s got that black necktie with small dots
on it. Notice the tiepin. Details like that, it just keeps the whole outfit together right
there. And let's look down at his feet. Notice he’s wearing dress boots. Really great looking
derbies right there. Dark brown, cap toe, amazing looking boots. And whatever I told
you about boots, guys? When you wear boots, you stand taller. You feel taller. And in
this case, Robert De Niro was taller because of the heel. And by the way, this suit was
recently sold at auction for $30,000. So, what video to watch next? How about this one
right here where I break out the Kingsman style? Absolutely love this movie. And yeah,
the style is a lot of fun. So, go check it out, guys. I will link to it down in the description.
[0:14:50] End of Audio