“It was the ’70s,” Dunn says, “but we didn’t make anything out of polyester.” And every suit Ace wears was custom made by a New York tailor. For example, Dunn says that Sharon Stone’s Ginger McKenna marries Rothstein in a dress identical to the one that her true counterpart, Geri McGee, wore when she married Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, the real-life Ace. Their research also included drawing inspiration from photographs of the real people on which several characters are based. Ryack and Dunn, who first worked together on Broadway musicals, prepared for the job by studying the period’s style and fashion. Every single item the characters wear-from brightly colored jackets and five-point pocket squares, to bedazzled dresses and a tri-hued chinchilla coat-is of the hyperspecific aesthetic of ’70s and early ’80s Vegas, a mobbed-up city whose grit hadn’t yet been fully washed away by glitz.
“And Marty is much more involved.” Casino, based on coscreenwriter Nicholas Pileggi’s book of the same name, was no exception. “Some directors are like, ‘OK, whatever you say is fine,’ Dunn says. To Scorsese, the son of a garment presser and a seamstress, clothes have never been an afterthought. ‘Casino’ Has Always Been About More Than the Neon Vegas Lights
