Gangster Costume Ideas: How to Dress Like a Real Mobster for Halloween
Quick answer
A convincing gangster costume needs five things: a fedora, a pinstripe or double-breasted suit, braces, a wide tie with a pocket square and two-tone shoes or spats. Add one prop (a cigar, a pinky ring or a toy tommy gun) and pick a real mobster to copy: Al Capone for 1920s Chicago, Bugsy Siegel for Hollywood glamour, John Gotti for the 1980s Dapper Don. For women, a fringed flapper dress, a cloche hat and long pearls make the classic gun moll.
Every Halloween, gangsters are one of the easiest costumes to get right and one of the easiest to get wrong. A cheap shiny suit and a plastic hat look like fancy dress. A few well-chosen pieces, copied from how the real mobsters dressed, look like you walked out of a 1931 police line-up. This guide covers the essentials, five real gangsters you can copy, the gun moll look, group costumes and a last-minute version from your own wardrobe.
The five essentials of a gangster costume
The real gangsters of the Prohibition era spent a fortune on tailoring, because looking rich was part of the job. Get these five pieces right and the rest is detail.
1. A proper fedora
The hat does most of the work. Go for a felt fedora with a wide band in black, charcoal, grey or chocolate brown, and wear it tilted slightly forward. Avoid the shiny satin party hats: felt, or a felt-look wool, photographs far better. Capone’s hats had wide brims and pale bands; the 1950s bosses wore narrower brims.
2. A pinstripe or double-breasted suit
Chalk-stripe or pinstripe is the cliché for a reason. A double-breasted jacket with wide lapels reads as 1930s straight away. If you are buying one cheaply for the night, choose a dark suit with a clear stripe; a plain dark suit works if the rest of the outfit is strong.
3. Braces (suspenders)
Braces let you take the jacket off at a party and still look the part. Clip-on braces in black, red or white are fine for a costume; a waistcoat does the same job.
4. A wide tie and a pocket square
Ties were wider and bolder than today: silk, patterned or a strong single colour. A white shirt with a contrasting tie (or a dark shirt with a white tie for the full Hollywood gangster) plus a folded pocket square finishes the suit.
5. Two-tone shoes or spats
Black-and-white or brown-and-white brogues are the classic. Spats (fabric covers that button over ordinary black shoes) are cheaper and just as effective.
The gangster costume essentials
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Extras that make it: a fake cigar, a chunky pinky ring, a pocket watch on a chain, a carnation in the lapel, slicked-back hair and a pencil moustache. Keep any prop gun obviously fake, and check your venue’s rules before you take one out.
The Ravenite escape room
247 Mulberry Street, December 1989. The FBI hit the building next. Walk the scene in 3D, read the real evidence and crack the padlock before the clock runs out.
Play free in your browser →No download: it plays in your browser, best on a computer. Also on iPhone and Android.Dress as a real gangster
A generic gangster is fine. A specific one is a better costume, and it gives you a story to tell at the party.
Al Capone, Chicago, 1929
Al Capone wanted to be seen. He wore expensive tailored suits in bold colours (lighter shades than the other bosses), a wide-brimmed fedora, a diamond pinky ring and usually a cigar. For the full look add the scar: Capone carried three scars down the left side of his face from a fight in a Brooklyn club, which earned him the nickname “Scarface” that he hated. A little brown eyeliner draws them on in seconds.
Play the night his men gunned down Bugs Moran’s gang in our Clark Street escape room.
Lucky Luciano, New York, 1931
Charles “Lucky” Luciano, the man who organised the modern American Mafia, dressed quieter and darker than Capone: a dark tailored suit, a dark overcoat and a hat. His signature was a drooping right eyelid and a scarred face, left after he was beaten, slashed and dumped on Staten Island in 1929 and survived, one story of how he got the name Lucky.
Bugsy Siegel, Hollywood and Las Vegas, 1946
Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel mixed with film stars, and dressed like one. Go for a sharply tailored double-breasted suit, a silk tie, a pocket square and slicked-back dark hair. Hold a dice or a casino chip: Siegel’s great project was the Flamingo hotel in Las Vegas, which opened in December 1946. He never called himself Bugsy; nobody used the nickname to his face.
Walk into the Flamingo on opening night in our Flamingo escape room.
Frank Costello, New York, 1951
Frank Costello, the “Prime Minister of the Underworld”, is a costume with a joke built in. When he testified to the Kefauver Committee on live television in 1951 he refused to have his face shown, so the cameras filmed only his hands, fidgeting with his glasses and a handkerchief. Wear a grey double-breasted suit and a homburg, and spend the night talking with your hands.
Play the Waldorf Astoria, one of Costello’s favourite haunts, in our Waldorf escape room.
John Gotti, the Dapper Don, 1985
For an 1980s gangster, copy John Gotti. The papers called him the Dapper Don for his expensive double-breasted suits, silk ties and handkerchiefs, and the silver hair swept straight back. A wide smile for the cameras completes it: Gotti grinned for photographers on the courthouse steps right up to his last trial.
Gotti ran the Gambino family from the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy. Play the Ravenite escape room free.
Gun moll and flapper costumes
The women of the Prohibition underworld give you the best costume options of all. The 1920s flapper look is a drop-waist dress with fringe or beading, a cloche hat or a feathered headband, long strings of pearls, T-bar shoes and dark lipstick. For a 1940s gun moll, take inspiration from the women connected to the mob such as Virginia Hill, Bugsy Siegel’s girlfriend: a fitted dress, a fur stole, gloves, a wide-brimmed hat and plenty of costume jewellery.
The flapper and gun moll look
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Couples and group costumes
- Bugsy and Virginia. A Hollywood suit and a fur stole, with a “Flamingo” casino chip as the prop.
- The boss and his moll. Any suit-and-flapper pairing; give the boss a cigar and the moll the pearls.
- The Five Families. A group of five, each with a sash or name card: Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Bonanno and Colombo. Each family page lists every boss, so everyone can pick one.
- The Commission. A table of bosses in grey suits: the board that ran the American Mafia from 1931.
- The cop and the gangster. One fedora and pinstripes, one trench coat and badge. The G-man is an easy second costume.
A last-minute gangster costume from your wardrobe
No time to order anything? Wear your darkest suit, or dark trousers with a waistcoat. Add a white shirt, your boldest tie, a folded handkerchief in the top pocket and black shoes. Slick your hair back with gel, and roll a sheet of paper into a cigar. A hat lifts it, but a dark suit and slicked hair already read as “mobster”. For the women, any black dress with a long necklace and a feathered or sequinned headband becomes a flapper in minutes.
Throwing a mafia Halloween party?
Give your guests something to do once they are dressed up. Our printable mafia party kit on Etsy has editable invitations, speakeasy signs, bottle labels and a mugshot height chart for photos. And for a party game, everyone can play the Five Families escape rooms on their phones: the Ravenite is free, each room takes about ten minutes, and the fastest escape wins. Need the lingo too? Brush up with our Roaring Twenties mobster slang and see who dressed best of all in the top 10 best-dressed mobsters.
Frequently asked questions
What do you need for a gangster costume?
A fedora, a pinstripe or double-breasted suit, braces, a wide tie with a pocket square and two-tone shoes or spats. A cigar, a pinky ring or a toy tommy gun finishes it.
What did 1920s gangsters wear?
Expensive tailored three-piece suits, often pinstriped, with fedoras, silk ties, pocket squares, spats or two-tone shoes, and jewellery such as pinky rings and pocket watches. Looking wealthy was a sign of success.
What is a gangster costume for a woman?
The classic is a 1920s flapper or “gun moll”: a fringed or beaded drop-waist dress, a cloche hat or feathered headband, long pearls and dark lipstick. For a 1940s look, wear a fitted dress with a fur stole and gloves.
Which real gangster is the best costume?
Al Capone is the most recognisable: a bold suit, a fedora, a cigar and three scars drawn on the left cheek. Frank Costello is the best joke costume, because in 1951 the TV cameras only showed his hands.
How do you make a gangster costume at home?
Use your darkest suit or trousers and a waistcoat, a white shirt, a bold tie, a handkerchief in the breast pocket and slicked-back hair. A hat helps but is not essential.