May 12, 2026

Bonnie and Clyde: Michael J. Pollard’s Type I Denim Jacket as C.W. Moss

Michael J. Pollard as C.W. Moss in Bonnie & Clyde (1967)

Vitals

Michael J. Pollard as C.W. Moss, slow-witted mechanic-turned-bank robber

Texas to Missouri, Spring 1933

Film: Bonnie & Clyde
Release Date: August 13, 1967
Director: Arthur Penn
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

My last post centered around one of the many quick-and-dirty Depression-set crime films released in the wake of Bonnie & Clyde‘s popularity, so let’s refocus today’s sartorial attention back on the groundbreaking 1967 drama that started it all. Starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty (who also produced the film), Bonnie & Clyde fictionalized the exploits of real-life Texas outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, whose two-year crime spree of mostly unprofitable robberies left a trail of at least twelve dead lawmen and civilians until they were ultimately killed by law enforcement in May 1934.

Robert Benton and David Newman’s Academy Award-nominated screenplay emphasized the twenty-something couple’s youth, capitalizing on the prevailing countercultural sentiment of the late 1960s in the stylized spirit of French New Wave cinema. Presumably even younger than Bonnie or Clyde is their first on-screen accomplice: small-town gas station attendant C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard), whose simplicity often suggests excessive exposure to fuel fumes. Moss served as a composite for several real-life associates of the gang, specifically eventual turncoat Henry Methvin and Dallas teenager W.D. “Deacon” Jones.

Born 110 years ago today on May 12, 1916, Jones was only 16 years old when the 23-year-old Clyde and 22-year-old Bonnie recruited him into their scrappy band on Christmas Eve 1932. After a car theft gone wrong resulted in the murder of Temple, Texas family man Doyle Johnson the next day, Jones became inextricably linked with the Barrow gang for more than a year until his eventual arrest in November 1933, six months before his more famous friends were gunned down in Louisiana.

Already pocked with bullets and buckshot from the gang’s numerous gunfights, Jones later reported that he attempted to join the Army after he was released from prison, but “them doctors turned me down because their X-rays showed four buckshot and a bullet in my chest and part of a lung blown away.” He lived long enough to see Pollard’s Oscar-nominated performance in Bonnie & Clyde, later admitting in a Playboy interview that “Moss was a dumb kid who run errands and done what Clyde told him… that was me, all right.”

Left: The real W.D. Jones in custody of the Dallas police, November 25, 1933.
Right: Michael J. Pollard as C.W. Moss, whose name, youth, and role in the gang suggests inspiration from Jones.

Violence continued to follow Jones through the end of his life, when frenemy George Jones (no relation) shot him three times with a 12-gauge shotgun on George’s own driveway at 10616 Woody Lane in Houston after W.D. showed up shortly before 4 a.m. with the 28-year-old Lydia Johnson. Either W.D. was trying to find a place for Lydia to sleep or his harassment of the young woman had bothered George, but—regardless of the circumstances—W.D. Jones was 58 years old when he died on that Houston driveway on August 20, 1974.

What’d He Wear?

We, Bonnie, and Clyde meet C.W. Moss at the rural gas station where he makes ends meet short-changing little old ladies and blowing dirt out of fuel lines until tempted by the promises of riches when joining the smooth-talking occupants of a stolen four-cylinder Ford coupé. In her inaugural—and Oscar-nominated—credit, costume designer Theadora Van Runkle smartly outfits C.W. as the typical Depression-era country bumpkin in his coarse flat cap, oil-soaked denim, and rotation of sweat-catching neckerchiefs.

Worn for the first half of his scenes until graduating to more sophisticated tweed sport jackets, C.W.’s jacket follows the classic design of the Levi’s 506XX Blouse, later referenced by collectors as the “Type I Jacket”. Levi’s introduced the 506XX in 1905 as their first outerwear made from the heavy-duty “XX” denim from the New Hampshire-based Amoskeag Manufacturing Company. Nearly all Type I jackets are characterized by five metal tack buttons up the front, two sets of forward-facing “knife pleats”, a single pocket over the left chest, single-button squared cuffs, and a cinch-strap over the rear waistband.

Levi’s continually manufactured the “Type I” 506XX for nearly half a century, refining it throughout its timeline with subtle improvements and adjustments. The first of these was the 1928 introduction of a pocket flap, followed by the familiar Levi’s “red tab” added in 1936 to combat copyright issues from imitators. Wartime restrictions informed the next changes, which swapped the Levi’s-stamped tack buttons for iron “donut hole” buttons, replaced the cinch-back’s silver pin-tooth buckle with a bronze slider, and again removed the pocket flaps. Only the latter change was temporary, as the pocket flap was reinstated after the war. (You can read more about the history of Levi’s Type I, Type II, and Type III jackets—and how to appropriately date them—in Mads Jakobsen and David Shuck’s comprehensive Heddels post.)

C.W.’s indigo denim Type I jacket appears period-correct for the early 1930s time-frame; the pocket flap was present for all jackets produced from 1928 to 1941, while the lack of a red tab is correct for pre-1936. The silver slider cinch-strap buckle with its pin teeth was also correct for all Type I jackets produced until World War II.

In the pre-internet (and, thus, pre-obsessive #menswear community with our nitpicking blogs), it shows remarkable accuracy for Van Runkle to have not only outfitted Michael J. Pollard with an era-correct 506XX jacket (given that this had already evolved to the familiar “Type III” trucker jacket by the time Bonnie & Clyde was produced by the 1960s) but also the specific version produced from 1928 to 1936.

Michael J. Pollard as C.W. Moss in Bonnie & Clyde (1967)

The cinch-back was a staple for Type I jackets, though the silver-finished buckle appropriately dates C.W.’s jacket to before World War II.

C.W.’s brown tweed flat cap remains a constant of his wardrobe, whether dressed in a denim jacket or sports coat, reinforcing his boyish appearance and attitude when compared to Clyde and his older brother Buck (Gene Hackman).

“Dirt.”

C.W. is inducted into the gang while wearing a rich indigo-blue plain-woven cotton work shirt patterned with a tight white field of dense but evenly spaced pin-dots, echoing the the white-flecked light-blue western shirt that the real Clyde Barrow wore when he was killed in May 1934. A contrasting beige thread along the seams presents like denim. The shirt has a point collar, two patch-style breast pockets with a pen slot over the right pocket, and single-button cuffs with buttoning gauntlets. Clear white plastic two-hole buttons fasten up the front placket to a two-buttonhole tab extending from the left side of the neck, though C.W. initially wears this undone to allow for his rotation of paisley cotton neckerchiefs.

At the filling station, C.W. wears a deep maroon cotton neckerchief with a bright orange paisley print. Shortly after, he dresses for his first bank robbery with the gang in a blue and white paisley-printed cotton neckerchief and a charcoal wool tailored five- or six-button waistcoat in lieu of his denim jacket.

Production photos of Michael J. Pollard in his indigo dotted shirt and waistcoat as C.W. Moss, including on set during the bank robbery and during a since-deleted scene of C.W. joining Clyde and Bonnie over breakfast that morning.

C.W. was dressed only in his underwear when meeting Clyde’s brother Buck and sister-in-law Blanche (Estelle Parsons), much to Blanche’s dismay, but he eventually pulled on his usual denim jacket and jeans for the ride to Joplin. These scenes also briefly feature him wearing a pale-blue cotton shirt printed with a scattered field of clustered navy-and-white dots.

One of the few glimpses we get of C.W.’s Joplin shirt, and also one of the few remnants of Benton and Newman’s original screenplay which depicted more physical intimacy between Clyde and C.W.

C.W.’s denim jacket makes its final appearance when the gang corners and humiliates their hunter, former Texas Ranger captain Frank Hamer (Denver Pyle), during Clyde’s bathroom break in the Missouri woods. Under the jacket, C.W. wears a cream striped cotton shirt with a spread collar, front placket, and button cuffs. Patterned with widely spaced stripes alternating between pale-blue and rust-brown, this shirt would later be ruined by the oil spilling out from under the gang’s green DeSoto Six getaway car.

At the beginning of the Hamer scene while riding in their black Dodge sedan, C.W. wears the shirt’s top few buttons open as usual with the blue-and-white paisley neckerchief around his neck, but he has the shirt buttoned up to his neck with the kerchief under the collar like a necktie by the time the gang has exited the car to hold Hamer at gunpoint.

Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, and Estelle Parsons in Bonnie & Clyde (1967)

C.W. ought to know his place in the gang when he’s forced to ride in the middle seat.

For all the attention that went into ensuring C.W. wore an era-correct Type I jacket, his Levi’s 501 jeans are clearly a post-World War II model styled with belt loops rather than suspender buttons (which were removed in 1937) or a cinch-back strap (removed during World War II to conform to War Production Board standards). Efforts were clearly made to disguise the manufacturer, with the leather or Jacron “Two Horses” patch removed from its customary position on the back-right waistband and only a hint of the familiar “red tab” visible along the seam of the back-right patch pocket. At least the non-centered rear belt loop suggests C.W.’s jeans were likely produced before 1964. He wears them with his usual plain black leather cowboy boots.

The Gun

The Barrow gang appears to cycle through their arsenal without much rhyme or reason, save for Bonnie keeping the nickel-plated Smith & Wesson revolver that Clyde promised her after their first round of target practice. At this stage in the story, C.W. carries a similar Smith & Wesson Military & Police revolver, albeit in the classic configuration of a blued steel frame mated to smooth walnut grips with a lanyard ring. Introduced around the turn of the 20th century, this six-shot double-action .38 Special revolver would set the American law-enforcement standard for the better part of the century, including after Smith & Wesson re-designated it the Model 10 when it began numbering their revolver models in the 1950s.

Michael J. Pollard, Warren Beatty, Gene Hackman, and Denver Pyle in Bonnie & Clyde (1967)

C.W. points his Smith & Wesson revolver at Frank Hamer while Bonnie holds officer’s own stag-gripped Colt revolver on him.

How to Get the Look

Michael J. Pollard as C.W. Moss in Bonnie & Clyde (1967)

Despite his doofy demeanor, C.W. Moss typifies Depression-era country cool in his indigo Type I jacket and contrasting jeans, completed with coarse tweed flat cap, cowboy boots, and a rotation of work-shirts worn open at the neck for his oil- and sweat-catching neckerchiefs.

Dark indigo denim Levi’s “Type I” 506XX Blouse with five silver-toned tack buttons, double forward “knife pleats”, left-chest pocket with single-button flap, single-button squared cuffs, and rear cinch-strap (with silver-toned pin-tooth buckle)
Blue (with white pin-dots) plain-weave cotton long-sleeved work shirt with point collar, 2-button throat tab, front placket, two patch chest pockets, and button cuffs with gauntlet buttons
Two-tone paisley cotton neckerchief
Light-blue denim jeans with belt loops and five-pocket layout
Black leather cowboy boots
Dark-brown tweed flat cap

Shop the jacket:

While true early 20th century examples exist, these are typically priced at a premium and in delicate condition—despite their rugged denim construction. Luckily for Type I enthusiasts, Levi's and scores of other denim outfitters have replicated the Type I design for modern wearers.