Vitals

Leonardo DiCaprio as Billy Costigan, undercover Massachusetts State Police trooper

Boston, Fall 2006 to Spring 2007

Film: The Departed
Release Date: October 6, 2006
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Sandy Powell

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

The Departed was widely released 20 years ago today on October 6, 2006, days after its September 26th premiere at the Ziegfield Theater. William Monahan adapted the material from the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, also taking inspiration from real-life Boston crime figures like Winter Hill Gang leader Whitey Bulger and his crooked FBI handler, John Connolly. After six nominations, the prolific Martin Scorsese finally won his first Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed—which was also honored with Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay to Monahan, and Best Film Editing to Scorsese’s regular collaborator, Thelma Schoonmaker.

This was also Scorsese’s third consecutive collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio, who stars as the working-class Massachusetts State Police (MSP) recruit Billy Costigan tapped by Captain Oliver Queenan (Martin Sheen) to infiltrate a ruthless Boston mob run by Francis “Frank” Costello (Jack Nicholson).

Billy fully integrates himself into Costello’s organized crime family, which Queenan suggests also has a man inside their own agency—not yet suspecting that it is MSP Special Investigation Unit Sergeant Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), who has been groomed by Costello from his youth. As the stakes grow higher and deadlier for Billy, he develops a mutual attraction to his court-ordered psychiatrist Madolyn Madden (Vera Farmiga)—who also happens to be Sullivan’s girlfriend—and learns that Costello has operated for so long by trading his criminal cohorts to the FBI!

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What’d He Wear?

Unlike the traditional Scorsese-an gangster seen in the likes of Mean Streets, Goodfellas, and Casino, Billy Costigan’s rise through the underworld isn’t sartorially indicated by flashy suits and jewelry. Instead, he continues wearing essentially the same oversized, nondescript layered workwear as he had when acting the part of a paroled wannabe drug dealer in Boston’s blue-collar suburbs. The only significant upgrade to his style is the leather jacket he adopts as a trusted part of his wardrobe as he grows closer to Costello.

Collectors and fans are well-aware that Billy specifically wears the summer-weight variant of the Belstaff Police Jacket, its name perhaps an easter egg to Billy’s identity that Costello’s crew was foolish to overlook! A squared black patch with Belstaff’s familiar yellow-embroidered stylized phoenix logo and wordmark is sewn onto the upper left sleeve, albeit subdued so that Billy’s scenes remain rooted in a crime drama and not a Belstaff commercial.

Billy’s black goatskin leather Belstaff waist-length jacket has a straight front zip, which extends up the convertible funnel-neck collar. A horizontal yoke seam crosses the chest and upper back, and the sleeves fasten closed with a single brass-finished snap at each cuff. The set-in hand pockets have vertical openings that also close with brass-finished zippers.

Billy always layers the Belstaff jacket over his usual loose-fitting solid cotton T-shirts, limited to a dark spectrum from a rich navy-blue to black. The sleeve lengths vary between short and long, with at least one charcoal-gray tee rigged with full-length sleeves. He always wears a thin gold necklace with a gold pendant (likely a religious medallion), typically tucked under his shirts’ wide, round crew-neck openings.

Both on its own and as an intermediate layer under the jacket, Billy often wears a plain dark-brown hooded sweatshirt with a full, straight-zip front. Likely made from cotton or a soft cotton/polyester blend, this hoodie has slanted-entry hand pockets and a brown drawstring that doesn’t contrast against the body of his sweatshirt.

He first pulls on his blacked-out Boston Red Sox cap, featuring the team’s stylized “B” logo embroidered in black with a white border over the front, echoed by the white undervisor. This fashion-forward alternative of the classic red-on-navy Red Sox colorway is still produced by licensed sellers like ’47 Brand.

As the stakes intensify with Billy and Colin unknowingly closing in on each other, he switches to a plainer black baseball cap that is otherwise identical with its white undervisor.

Billy maintains consistency with pants rooted in workwear, from black canvas Carhartt-style work trousers to his dark indigo denim Levi’s jeans. The latter are clearly identifiable by brand signatures like the leatherette rear patch, branded red tab, and arcuate stitching across the back pockets. He wears them long, with the bottoms bunching over the tops of his boots in a fashion I remember all too vividly (and was indeed also guilty of) during the mid-2000s.

He holds these up with a wide black leather belt that closes through a squared silver single-prong buckle.

Abandoning the wheat-colored Timberland work boots he notably wore into Costello’s bar when making first contact, Billy has only somewhat refined his daily look by swapping those out for chunky black matte leather derby-laced plain-toe work shoes.

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The Gun

Billy Costigan regularly carries a Walther PPK with a nickel finish, chambered in .380 ACP and tucked sans holster into the small of his back. The PPK design was already three quarters of a century old by the time The Departed was released, released in 1931 as a shortened evolution of the Walther PP (Polizeipistole) introduced two years earlier. Both the PP and PPK were available in a variety of small calibers, with .32 ACP (7.65x17mmSR) and .380 ACP (9x17mm) the most common, though the PPK’s shorter grip frame meant magazines that carried one less round—thus seven rounds of .32 ACP or six of .380 ACP.

Walther’s blowback-operated PP series began life as a German police pistol, with the smaller PPK particularly favored by plainclothes and undercover officers who appreciated its easier concealment. When World War II broke out, Walther PP and PPK pistols were issued to certain branches of the German military as well as Nazi Party officials like Adolf Hitler, who infamously used his personal PPK to commit suicide in his bunker. The PPK’s reputation was redeemed in the 1950s when Ian Fleming took the advice of firearms expert Major Geoffrey Boothroyd to swap it in as the preferred sidearm for his literary spy, James Bond, and his eventual cinematic counterpart.

The shape and size of Billy’s pistol are consistent with a PPK rather than the PP or the PPK/S, which was designed for the American market after the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA). Closer looks at the left side of the slide confirm this, reading “Modell PPK” and “Cal. 9mm Kurz/.380 ACP”. Above this is marked that the pistol was made “UNDER LICENSE OF Carl Walther Waffenfabrik Ulm/Do”, which has been present on all American-made PPK pistols not actually manufactured by Walther.

This began in the late 1970s after Interarms of Alexandria, Virginia finally secured manufacturing rights to produce the PPK domestically after the GCA determined the original PPK to small and light to satisfy the new U.S. import points system. Interarms contracted out to Ranger Manufacturing in Gadsen, Alabama, where these PPKs were made for two decades.

In the early 2000s, Smith & Wesson took over Walther’s U.S. distribution. These markings remained generally the same, but S&W significantly lengthened the rear frame tang to address the PP-series’ infamous “slide bite”. This beavertail is arguably the most distinguishing feature of S&W PPKs; since this doesn’t appear on Billy’s PPK, we can safely determine he likely carries an Interarms-licensed PPK.

This is reinforced by an Interarms PPK featured at the NRA Museum, described as DiCaprio’s screen-handled weapon. Its serial number #A084789 aligns with a 1996 production date.

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How to Get the Look

Billy Costigan’s subdued, workwear-informed wardrobe neatly represents a streetwise Boston hood who ups his style with a cool leather jacket once he gets a little extra money in his pocket.

• Black goatskin leather waist-length jacket with straight front-zip, convertible collar, zip-up vertical hand pockets, and snap-fastened cuffs
  • Belstaff Police Jacket
• Brown cotton-blend zip-up hooded sweatshirt with hand pockets
• Black, charcoal, or navy cotton crew-neck T-shirt
• Dark indigo-blue denim five-pocket jeans
  • Levi’s
• Black leather belt with silver-toned single-prong buckle
• Black matte leather derby-laced plain-toe work shoes
• Black cotton twill baseball cap, either plain or emblazoned with a black-and-white Red Sox logo
• Gold necklace with gold pendant
• Pale-blue cotton boxer shorts

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

So what the fuck are we talkin’ about here?