Juliet Polcsa on Styling ‘The Sopranos’ 25 Years After the Show Changed Everything

When it comes to current fashion movements, millennials and Gen Z have consistently turned to The Sopranos for style inspiration. And it’s no wonder. The resurgence of Y2K-era flashy designer labels, Italian prints and maximalist jewelry can be traced to the HBO series. The “mob wife” aesthetic has the internet in a spin and borrows directly from the show’s designer-clad characters.

“I feel like I've talked more about my work recently than I did when I was doing the job,” Polcsa explains over the phone from her home just outside New York City. “I'm happy that people 25 years later are still fascinated and interested in the work we did.” While TikTok interests shift as swiftly as the next scroll through the feed, the “mob wife” flame has a certain timelessness about it beyond clothing. “It speaks to strength and confidence. It's sexy and you feel good, and there's something slightly dangerous about it,” says Polcsa.

“A girlfriend of mine, who had been struggling with some health issues, went out with her daughter to a nice restaurant in LA. Her daughter decided to dress her up as a mob wife and did her hair and makeup. She had a leopard jacket on. This is not how she dresses at all. And I asked her, ‘Well, how did it make you feel?’ She goes, ‘Great.’ I loved to hear that.”

To source outfits for the show, Polcsa opted for a more true-to-life approach rather than going straight to designers for items (or what she terms “method shopping”). The Sopranos’ creator David Chase wanted to present the characters “as real as possible,” says Polcsa. “He didn't want somebody's stereotypical thought of what the mob looked like. He wanted to know what the mob really did and their families as well.” This involved excursions to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn where Polcsa would find the signature button-downs and tracksuits that became emblematic of the show. These retailers were places that “real mob guys would shop, and so the owners of these stores became almost like my technical advisors,” says Polcsa.

As for Carmela Soprano’s look, the mix of low-cut V-neck tops, belted power suits and matching sweater-vest sets mostly came from the places that “mob wives” were likely to frequent. And where else were they spending their free time but at the paragon of American consumption? “I spent a lot of time in New Jersey malls, on early afternoons, with these wealthy women walking around with nothing else to do,” says Polcsa. One store in particular—Cache—became the backbone for much of Carmela’s wardrobe, while she also flirted with higher-end pieces from Alexander McQueen and the now-defunct luxury distributor Vestimenta.

Carmela’s daughter, Meadow, was almost like a counterpoint to such maximalism. “As the show ended, she had become a grown up,” says Polcsa. “Very liberal-minded, the complete opposite of her mother, much more sophisticated and fashionable.” The actors behind the characters also helped inform some of the sartorial decisions, most evident with Robert Iler’s nu metal-inspired A.J. Soprano. “I asked Robert, ‘What kind of things are you into?’ And he was into metal and bands like Slipknot. We incorporated a lot of that into the set-dressing in his room, T-shirts and things that he would wear because he felt comfortable. It felt real. As he got older and started dating, a lot of that went away and the clothes weren't as baggy anymore.”

Adriana La Cerva’s famous tiger-stripe catsuit, which came from a famed store in Los Angeles called Trashy Lingerie, has regularly made the rounds of “best Sopranos outfits” lists. “When the show started in the early 2000s, there was a lot of mall shopping,” says Polcsa. Arden B, the more grown-up, sexier counterpart to the classic mall store Wet Seal, served as the jumping-off point for much of Adriana’s wardrobe. “That girl could pull off anything,” Polcsa remembers of actress Drea de Matteo. “I used to joke with her, ‘It doesn't matter what size I give you, I could give you a toddler size four,’ and she would rock it.”

And where would the mobster men of The Sopranos be without their tracksuits? Paulie, Silvio, Christopher—their tracksuits provided a sense of comfort, whether they were at Satriale's or making a collection, but also carried a sense of formality. “They were coordinated, so it looked like they had uniforms on,” says Polcsa. “You think about a lot of mob guys, these are blue-collar working-class guys who, through criminal enterprises, have money. They don't necessarily have the taste and sophistication that somebody with old money might have. They still have a very blue-collar working-class attitude towards how they dress.” 

In that sense, much of the clothing was pulled from real life, as opposed to the Hollywoodification of what mob life purported to be. While that did appear at times, the show was “about a New Jersey family—a very nouveau riche Jersey family,” says Polcsa. “There was a need to get that right too, people who live in McMansions. This was the era of malls.” Martin Scorcese’s film Casino, starring Robert de Niro, served as inspiration for some of Silvio Dante’s looks, providing starting points for some of the louder and more colorful looks he wore to work at Bada Bing.

Tony’s ever-recognizable bathrobe, his routine at-home look, softened his otherwise tough-guy exterior. “He's around his house and this is where he feels comfortable. [It’s] not how anybody would expect to see a boss, but it's a more intimate moment,” says Polcsa. The robe became a prominent figure in Tony’s wardrobe, requiring a roster of different variations to work from. “We knew that Tony was going to be in a robe all the time. I just wanted to have the most pedestrian, average-looking robe, and a terry cloth bathrobe just seemed perfect,” says Polcsa.

Tony’s endless stream of button-down, short-sleeve bowling shirts in geometric patterns and sometimes iconic graphic prints—including the legendary Tabasco-print shirt—also became characters within themselves, signifying emotions and attitudes that hinted at something deeper. “It was always hard to find something that wasn't Versace-looking. I wanted the prints to be a little bit more abstract in a way, but James [Gandolfini] liked those loud shirts because he felt like he's laughing on the outside, crying on the inside—the sad clown, because that's how he felt about Tony.”

The language of clothing can also signify hierarchies, an important, unspoken dynamic that plays out dramatically in the world of Tony’s mob. “You would never see Tony in a tracksuit with the rest of the guys. You would see him in a tracksuit only at home. When he was with the guys, if it was casual, if they were at Bada Bing, then he'd be in one of his loud shirts or a knit shirt or a polo shirt, a short-sleeve sweater.” Visits with his therapist Dr. Melfi, were a more “formal” outing, and so, Tony would wear a sport coat or a suit. “Tony was a lot more toned-down than the other guys,”says Polcsa. “There was a vagueness about what he wore intentionally, that he could straddle a couple of different worlds and also look in charge. You couldn't make fun of his clothes.”

Polcsa feels a lot of pride when looking back on The Sopranos, describing the hours as long and full of “blood, sweat and tears.” She notes how the style milieu today is a lot different to what it was back then, not least due to the rise of social media and the platforms that spawned the “mob wife” movement. “25 years is not a very long period, but so much has changed,” says Polcsa. “I remember our final season of Sopranos, somebody on set had an iPhone. iPhones came out in 2007, and it was like, ‘Wow, look at that.’ They're so ubiquitous now. We were still at a time of payphones and papers. Sure, we all had cell phones, but we weren't attached to them the way we are now.” 

Today, a lot of things may be different, but The Sopranos remains as urgent as ever, maturing like one of Tony’s favorite bottles of Chianti and inspiring new generations of audiences. “I'm very happy that people like what we did and like what I did,” says Polcsa. “It was a special time.”

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