Riding (In Style) With Bonnie & Clyde

In an era where J Edgar Hoover ran the FBI, our government dealt with a very real public relations issue in that a large populous of Americans sympathized and even glamourized certain outlaws, notably Bonnie & Clyde. This was of course a time of much cynicism towards our government by its citizens. A time when good people were basically destroyed losing their homes and savings to the banks, massive unemployment, and to top it off, folks could not legally forget their sorrows in a cocktail. Prohibition was the icing on the cake which left many in our country seeing police and officials as a joke. (The government seeming a joke and out of touch with its citizens, people losing their homes, etc...... hmm, sound familiar? ;)

And then you have Bonnie & Clyde--young, stylish, and robbing banks. Perversely symbolizing a sort of freedom. Renegades out on the open road opposing the out of touch law men and oppressive government.

What do you think would have been the case in the past year if we would have had ourselves a modern version of these notoriously stylish young outlaws? I think they'd be on the cover of every paper in this country, as well as Us Weekly, Ok!, In Touch, and People Magazine and seen on PerezHilton.com. There would be people employed to know or at least speculate on what brand of shoes our modern Bonnie was wearing and who made this Clyde's suits. It would be a feature on E! and Entertainment Tonight. Would the Sartorialist shoot them? Heck, would fashion public relations people risk their lives to get Bonnie & Clyde their client's hats, shoes, and dresses? Very likely!

Below is an excerpt from Playboy magazine 1968 by W.D. Jones, a former member of Bonnie & Clyde's gang of outlaws, after the release of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway's "Bonnie & Clyde" film (of which Beatty was a producer). Its no surprise to me that the pair of outlaws were so stylish, she was a little Libra lady afterall :)

Bonnie was always neat, even on the road. She kept on make-up and had her hair combed all the time. She wore long dresses and high heels and them little tams on her head. She was a tiny little thing. I reckon she never weighed more than 100 pounds, even after a big meal. But them big meals was usually bologna and cheese sandwiches and buttermilk on the side of the road. Run, run, run. At times, that seemed all we did.

She had light-colored hair, but she dyed it different shades. She seemed to like to do that, and Clyde approved. It made a good disguise. She even dyed his and my hair. Only once for me, though. In them days, dyeing hair took more than a little time. She had me all wrapped in towels and I had to sleep that way one night. It worked, though. My hair come out black as coal.

Its a great little read: Click here.