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When Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby landed in cinemas in 2013, it divided critics sharply. Some found it dazzling. Others found it exhausting. But almost no one had a bad word to say about the clothes.

Costume and production designer Catherine Martin — Luhrmann's wife and longtime collaborator — won her third and fourth Academy Awards for her work on the film. In partnership with Brooks Brothers, who supplied over 1,200 men's suits for the production, and with Miuccia Prada contributing to the women's wardrobe, Martin created a visual world that was simultaneously rooted in the 1920s and completely alive to a modern audience. The result was one of the most studied and referenced costume design achievements in recent cinema history.

More than a decade later, the menswear in The Great Gatsby remains one of the most instructive studies in old money dressing ever committed to screen. Here is what it still teaches us — and how to apply it.

The Vision Behind the Costumes: Catherine Martin and Brooks Brothers

Catherine Martin's approach to the Gatsby wardrobe was not straightforward period recreation. Her goal, as she told Fashionista in 2013, was to capture how 1920s New York would have felt to the people living in it — vibrant, modern, and viscerally alive — rather than producing the sepia-toned nostalgia that period films often default to.

A Modern Lens on a Jazz Age Wardrobe

Martin was explicit that she was not aiming for historical accuracy above all else. The book was written in 1922, published in 1925, and foreshadows the crash of 1929 — which gave her and Luhrmann what she described as free rein over the period. What she was interested in was the idealised silhouette of 1920s fashion illustration rather than its reality: leaner, meaner, more contemporary in its proportions.

The result was a men's wardrobe that drew on authentic 1920s references — high-waisted trousers, peak lapels, linen and cream suiting, double-breasted waistcoats, straw boaters — but filtered through a modern sensibility that made each piece feel wearable rather than theatrical. As Martin put it: "I don't want a nostalgic New York, I don't want a sepia-toned New York — I want a New York that feels as vibrant and sexy and visceral and modern as it would have to Zelda and Fitzgerald."

The Brooks Brothers Partnership

Martin's collaboration with Brooks Brothers — one of America's oldest and most storied menswear institutions, founded in 1818 — was not merely a production convenience. Brooks Brothers supplied 1,200 suits for the extras in the party scenes alone. Following the film's release, Brooks Brothers premiered "The Gatsby Collection" — a line of men's clothing, shoes and accessories inspired by the costumes Martin had designed. The partnership made sense: Brooks Brothers was, as one fashion writer noted, one of the original arbiters of the Gatsby-era look. The actual archive of the brand informed the costumes as much as historical research did.

This grounding in a genuine menswear heritage — rather than costume department approximation — is one of the reasons the film's clothing looks so correct. It was not designed to look like old money. It was designed by people who understood old money, using materials and silhouettes from institutions that had been dressing it for generations.

The Three Men of Gatsby — And What Each Wardrobe Communicates

The most instructive aspect of Catherine Martin's costume design is how she used each character's wardrobe to communicate his relationship to money, class, and power. The three central male characters — Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, and Nick Carraway — dress completely differently, and the differences are deliberate and revealing.

Jay Gatsby: New Money's Peacock

Jay Gatsby dresses to announce himself. His wardrobe is opulent, colourful, and just slightly too much — which is exactly the point. His iconic pink-striped suit reflects his parties: ostentatious, extravagant, and at times tasteless. He lacks the understatement that Tom Buchanan possesses.

The centrepiece of Gatsby's wardrobe is his light pink pinstripe linen three-piece suit — made by Brooks Brothers for the production — which appears during the film's pivotal Plaza Hotel confrontation. The suit combines the author's original vision, timeless tailoring, and contextual significance. It is just pink enough to earn Tom's jealous ire without making the romantic millionaire look too much like a caricature. The suit is the single most iconic piece of menswear in the film — and, paradoxically, the one that least represents old money values.

Gatsby's wardrobe is the cautionary tale. He has the money to buy extraordinary clothes. He does not yet have the understanding to wear them with restraint. His suits are too conspicuous, his shirts too numerous, his display too deliberate. He is dressing to convince rather than to simply be. As Giorgio Armani observed: "Elegance doesn't mean being noticed, it means being remembered." Gatsby is always noticed. He is not always remembered for the right reasons.

Tom Buchanan: Old Money's Armour

Tom Buchanan is Gatsby's sartorial opposite. Where Gatsby announces himself through colour and spectacle, Tom has a subtler "I know you know I'm rich" attitude. A simple black suit and cigar is all it takes for his superiority to be known, and it is through his clothing that we see the disparity between the nouveau riche and those with old money.

Tom's wardrobe is built on dark, structured suits — well-tailored, conservative, and entirely without flourish. He does not need to try. His clothes communicate that he has never needed to try. This is the essential grammar of old money dressing: the less your clothes are doing, the more secure the position they signal. Tom's dark suit and cigar say more about his class position than Gatsby's entire wardrobe combined.

Nick Carraway: The Understated Observer

Nick Carraway is, according to many menswear observers, the best-dressed man in the film. Nick's style is Ivy and country — understated, correct, and entirely without ostentation. Where Gatsby performs and Tom asserts, Nick simply dresses. Tweed, Oxford cloth, linen in neutral tones, a boater for summer afternoons. His clothes do not demand attention. They reward it.

Nick's wardrobe is the most directly applicable to the modern man's wardrobe. It is built on the same principles that have governed classic menswear for a century: natural fabrics, muted tones, clean lines, and the quiet confidence of a man who knows what suits him and wears it without deliberation.

The Key Menswear Pieces From the Gatsby Wardrobe

The Great Gatsby's costume design introduced — or reintroduced — a number of specific pieces to a generation of men who had never encountered them. Here is what each piece is, why it works, and how to incorporate it into a modern wardrobe.

The Linen Three-Piece Suit

The three-piece suit — jacket, waistcoat, and matching trousers — is one of the film's most consistent menswear themes. Worn across multiple characters and scenes, it communicates a level of formal intention that the two-piece suit no longer quite reaches. The waistcoat anchors the outfit even when the jacket is removed — which, in the heat of a Long Island summer, it frequently is — and creates a silhouette that reads as both dressed and effortless.

In linen or lightweight wool for summer, the three-piece suit is one of the most underused pieces in modern men's wardrobes. It works for weddings, dinners, races, and any occasion where a standard suit would feel slightly anonymous. Wear the jacket undone to show the waistcoat. Let the shirt collar breathe. Keep the tie soft and silk in a muted tone.

The Peak Lapel Suit

The 1920s suit favoured by the Gatsby wardrobe features peak lapels — those that point upward and outward rather than folding downward like a standard notch lapel. Peak lapels are inherently more formal and more commanding than their notch equivalents. They frame the upper body with a broader, more assertive silhouette and communicate a deliberate attention to tailoring that the notch lapel does not.

For the modern man looking to add authority and distinction to a suit, a peak lapel is one of the most effective and underused tools available. It does not change the fabric or the colour — it changes the entire character of the suit.

High-Waisted Trousers

The 1920s trouser sat at the natural waist — considerably higher than the contemporary low-rise cut that became standard in the 2000s. High-waisted trousers create a longer, leaner silhouette, elongate the leg, and anchor a tucked shirt in a way that low-rise trousers cannot. They also, critically, communicate a connection to a menswear tradition that predates fast fashion by decades.

High-waisted trousers have been returning to prominence in quality menswear for several years — a correction to the low-cut extreme that dominated the previous two decades. For men interested in the old money aesthetic, a well-fitted high-rise trouser in a quality fabric is one of the most direct visual links to the Gatsby tradition.

The Boater Hat

The straw boater is the headwear of the Gatsby world — worn by Gatsby himself and by the endless parade of guests at his West Egg parties. Flat-brimmed, ribbon-banded, and made from stiff straw, it is one of the most specific sartorial signals of a particular moment in American leisure culture. For modern wear, the boater works best at outdoor summer occasions: races, garden parties, polo matches. It is not an everyday hat — but in the right context, it is one of the most immediately recognisable signals of old money ease available.

The Cream and White Linen Shirt

Across all three male leads, the white or cream linen shirt is the consistent foundation of the Gatsby wardrobe. Worn tucked with high-waisted trousers, with a soft collar and a silk tie in a muted stripe or solid tone, it communicates the same thing it always has: care, formality, and the particular ease of a man who dresses correctly without trying to be interesting. As Ralph Lauren put it: "I'm interested in longevity, timelessness, style — not fashion." The white linen shirt has never not been timeless.

What the Gatsby Wardrobe Teaches the Modern Man

The Great Gatsby is set in 1922. Its costume design was created in 2012 and 2013. Its menswear lessons are applicable in 2025. The reason is simple: the principles behind the clothes — quality, restraint, fit, and the communication of status through understatement rather than display — are not period-specific. They are simply correct.

New Money Dresses Loud. Old Money Dresses Quiet.

The central lesson of the Gatsby wardrobe is the oldest lesson in menswear: the more your clothes announce themselves, the less secure the position they are trying to signal. Gatsby's pink suits and his carefully constructed shirts are the wardrobe of a man who is desperate to be seen as something he is not yet. Tom's dark suits and conservative ties are the wardrobe of a man who has never needed to convince anyone of anything.

The practical application: before any clothing purchase, ask not whether it will be noticed, but whether it will be worn for ten years. The answer to that question will tell you more about its value than any price tag.

Character Defines Wardrobe — Not the Other Way Around

Martin's costume design works because each character's wardrobe is an expression of who they are, not a disguise over who they are not. Nick looks like Nick. Tom looks like Tom. Gatsby looks like a man trying to look like someone else — which is precisely the tragedy. As Coco Chanel observed: "Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street. Fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening." The most enduring wardrobes are those that reflect a genuine identity rather than an aspirational performance.

The Classics Never Need Updating

The Gatsby wardrobe draws on pieces — the three-piece suit, the peak lapel, the linen shirt, the Oxford shoe — that were already classics in 1922 and remain classics now. The cultural impact of the film can't be dismissed. It has really come to define what vintage style means, not just in menswear but in general. The men who appeared on screen in Brooks Brothers suits and straw boaters did not look dated. They looked timeless. There is a difference — and understanding it is the foundation of every great wardrobe.

Final Thought

You do not need to be cast in a Baz Luhrmann film to dress with the quiet authority that Catherine Martin's costume design captured. The principles are available to any man willing to apply them: invest in natural fibres, choose classic silhouettes, build toward restraint rather than display, and let the quality of what you wear speak for itself.