How to Dress Like Robert De Niro

Actor Robert De Niro is famous for his tough-guy roles throughout his film career. He is known for bucking the system and setting new standards with directors like Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola. He earned two Academy Awards and nine nominations.

De Niro has also helped shape new fashion styles. He's often seen in perfectly tailored suits and crisp dress shirts, leaving a lasting impact on fashion for years.

Robert De Niro's Signature Style

Robert De Niro's signature style blends classic sophistication with a laid-back, effortless edge. Known for his sharp tailoring and understated elegance, he often pairs well-fitted suits with simple accessories, like sleek watches or minimalistic bracelets, which add personality without overwhelming the look. 

De Niro frequently wears ties and bowties paired with cufflinks and pocket squares, each accessory adding a refined touch to his outfits. His timeless style favours clean lines and muted colours and balances formal and casual elements.

How to Dress Like Robert De Niro in the Movies

Robert De Niro's movie wardrobe perfectly blends timeless style with rugged charisma. His outfits reflect the characters and eras while maintaining his signature understated elegance. Here's how to emulate the iconic style from some of his most famous roles.

1. The Godfather Part II (1974)

De Niro plays a younger Vito Corleone, the father of Al Pacino's character, Michael Corleone, in The Godfather Part II. This is one of the best suits in movies. The narrative often switches between Michael and Vito's points of view, and we see Vito rising to power and the style in which he does so. In his humble beginnings, he wears blue-collar fare, but as he grows within the social circles of his community as an influential member, so too does his style and choice of clothes.

Here, we can see one example when he tries to "convince" a landlord to evict a widow who asks Vito for help. He wears a brown wool Chesterfield overcoat with a black-and-white pinstripe waistcoat underneath, buttoned high over a contrasting blue pointed collar and placket shirt. He also wears a light grey silk cravat tie with a square-printed pattern, which is the outfit's focus—a relatively understated look that holds its own against the landlord speaking with him.

 

2. Taxi Driver (1976)

Scorsese made this visceral film about Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle and his descent into madness. Bickle's wardrobe style changes throughout the movie, reflecting how unhinged he becomes.

However, when he wants to step it up a notch, like on a date with Betsy, he relies on a red maroon blazer with notch lapels, which is somewhat in keeping with the era's style.

When interacting with unsavoury individuals, he doffs his work jacket and unbuttons his flannels, foreshadowing the tipping point for his following stylistic change.

When he decides to go all out and cuts his hair into a mohawk, he switches his work jacket for an even more aggressive M-65 olive drab field jacket, indicating he is going past the point of no return, spiralling into madness and has nothing to lose from taking names as he careens haphazardly toward the end of the film. This look laid the foundations of the punk style that many others have since tried to emulate, with the same nihilistic attitude that De Niro brought to the look.

3. Casino (1995)

De Niro portrays casino mogul Sam "Ace" Rothstein in this Martin Scorsese crime epic set in the 1970s. Tasked by the Chicago mob with running the Tangiers casino in Las Vegas, De Niro looks the part of a casino mogul. Wearing more than 70 different outfits throughout the film, De Niro's character, Ace, ranges in style from flat-out flamboyant to deceivingly subtle.

Another example is a finely checked Glen plaid blue, light grey, and gold suit with a coral windowpane overcheck. Note the ludicrously notched wide lapels to offset their width. Such an elaborate and densely patterned suit would be versatile with his loud but monochrome dress shirts and ties, like the sky blue shirt, matching blue tie, and pocket square he wears.

One of the best looks is the first suit we see Ace wear in the film: an apricot-coloured linen suit jacket with the same broad, notched lapels he favours with his other suits. The outfit features light-coloured slacks, a matching pastel pink silk dress shirt and tie, and a champagne-yellow pocket square.

4. The Irishman (2019)

In this extraordinary three-and-a-half-hour-long gangster epic, De Niro plays Frank Sheeran. The film chronicles his rise from a World War 2 veteran working as a truck driver to a trusted mob enforcer. Director Scorsese wanted De Niro's wardrobe direction to move from the striking style he used in his previous crime films to a more understated style. The costume department researched the wardrobe of the real-life personalities in Sheeran's biography, I Heard You Paint Houses, by Charles Brandt.

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Initially, Sheeran wears a fleece-lined leather bomber jacket with a cloth peak cap as his de facto "uniform," alongside flannel shirts in various checker patterns and grey flannel slacks. This look sometimes changes as the story progresses, from featuring a scarf to a woollen beanie hat to a fedora while he's on jobs.

After Sheeran rises in the ranks, he switches from his usual work clothes to suits, which are more befitting of his status in the film.

 

In one instance, Sheeran wears a brown-flecked suit when he receives a fateful call, and then he wears it again throughout the rest of the film. The suit jacket has narrow, notched lapels, welted breasts, and low hip pockets with the flaps tucked in to show the jetting. The sleeves are roped at the shoulders and finished with three buttons on each cuff. For pants, he wears double reverse-pleated trousers. He pairs this suit with various skinny ties, such as a gold and red tie.

 

In another scene, De Niro wears a purple and gold paisley skinny tie with a gold tie bar and a gold lapel pin.