What’s Really Behind the ‘Mob Wife Aesthetic’?

It’s not every day that Francis Ford Coppola deigns to weigh in on a TikTok trend.

But he made an exception for the so-called mob wife aesthetic — a louche amalgamation of fur coats, leather and leopard prints that are being presented on the platform as a kind of mafiosa cosplay.

In a recent Instagram post, Mr. Coppola, the director of “The Godfather,” compared the style to that of Connie Corleone, a character from the film portrayed by his sister, Talia Shire: “a sultry, delightful Italian princess.”

Hundreds of videos on the app show young women with no apparent marital relationship to organized crime trying on their own approximations of the look, which usually involve heavy jewelry and heavier eyeliner.

TikTok churns out a new reigning “aesthetic” every few months, and they vary widely in their real-world influence on offscreen dress. So what is actually powering this newly popular glamorization of outlaw-adjacent women?

What is the ‘mob wife aesthetic’?

The most basic version involves throwing a fur coat — real or faux — over an all-black outfit. But according to its proponents, the look is nothing without the attitude to go with it. Careful students of the mob wife oeuvre add red nails and lipstick, a high-volume hairdo and sunglasses big enough to function as a kind of windshield.