The Don of a Pinkie Ring Revival

The film: “The Godfather, Part III,” directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

The setup: In the third of a series of Corleone family bloodlettings, an aged Michael Corleone (Al Pacino, pictured) passes the ring of don succession to nephew Vincent Mancini (Andy Garcia, pictured), the bastard son of Sonny.

The look: Pacino navigates the treacherous waters of legit business deals and underworld intrigue in exquisitely tailored double-breasted suits of no distinct period. Garcia, who is lusting after Corleone’s daughter, Mary (Sophia Coppola), tries to win his uncle’s respect by changing his personal style from that of flamboyant-stud-thug to sophisticated-macho-upper-management type. He makes his first entrance in a zoot suit-sized black leather jacket, but by the film’s end, he is wearing a custom-made tuxedo.

George Hamilton cuts a sartorial swath through the film as the Corleone family lawyer. His clothes are more colorful and his jewelry is a brighter shade of gold than the other men’s. He wears ascots and coats with velvet collars.

Kay Corleone (Diane Keaton), who left Michael years ago and has remarried a very upright WASP gent, is present in this film’s pivotal scenes, modestly covered from earlobes to kneecaps, wearing nondescript clothes in shades of brown and beige with high-necked white blouses. Connie Corleone (Talia Shire), the shrill, blood-thirsty matriarch of the clan, orders hits and plots revenge in larger-than-life, Martha Graham-sized jewelry and dowdy dresses.

The details: The film is set in 1979, not that you’d notice from the clothes. The styles range from ‘40s-suit styles to ‘80s evening wear and accessories. Mileana Canonero, the costume designer, explains that rigidly adhering to a time period is not the point of this film: “It’s not about frocks. It is about the essence of operatic tragedy.”

Age and hierarchy of power within the men’s ranks is suggested by the choice of their ties. The oldest generation of now-retired dons wears foulards, while Pacino and his peers wear paisley and rich, tapestry-like prints. The young guns are put in more eye-catching abstract florals.

Al Pacino is willing to do anything for the part. He let the makeup people thin his hair on top so he would look older. It was then streaked with gray and cut short in a modified military brush cut. Canonero said they chose that particular haircut for Pacino from a selection of styles composed on a computer video screen.

The good: The principal males, except for Hamilton, have gorgeous wardrobes of cashmere suits with coordinating overcoats that Canonero had made in the Verri workshops in Italy. (Verri recently opened a store on Rodeo Drive.) Her insistence on dressing the men in a single solid color with subtle differences in shading--a brown suit with a beige shirt would be topped with a dark brown overcoat--she says, was an attempt to create the “look of a Renaissance painting. It gave importance to the face. The body was more in unison with the background.”

It also sets off all the gold jewelry. The monochromatic coloring, tasteful jewelry and indistinct suit styles--wide, peak lapels from the ‘40s, contemporary jacket tailoring and easy-fitting, draped trousers--are quite appealing.

The bad: The women’s knee-length dresses are a quick reminder of why designers seem to prefer hemlines either above or below the knee. Mid-leg is not a good proportion. The biggest fashion risk, though, was Shire’s breast plate-sized necklaces with beads the size of golf balls.

The familiar: For her big scene, Sophia Coppola bares her shoulders in a ballet-length gold gown and gold flats reminiscent of those by Italian designer Romeo Gigli. So are Keaton’s garments for the same scene: an embroidered cocoon coat and high-necked velvet dress. Canonero claims Sophia’s style was developed from Victorian pictorial references to Shakespeare’s Juliet, but concedes the similarity and suggests they are not as exaggerated as Gigli’s creations.

The payoff: This movie may do more for the men’s gold jewelry business--collar bars, lapel pins and, yes, even pinkie rings--than did “Saturday Night Fever.”