Whither the Pinky Ring?

Not so long ago, I had a girlfriend who hailed from an upstanding mobster family in Cicero. Amid anecdotes of various wise-guy shenanigans, she was given to remark, frequently, about the decline of men’s style. One evening, when we were chatting about the vagaries of organized-crime fashion (car bombings, for example, are so outre), I wondered aloud, Whatever happened to the pinky ring? Her reply: What do you mean? That never went out of style!Ah, subcultures, gotta love ’em.Time was, a snappy sparkling number on the fifth digit was no less happening – or commonplace – than a snugly fitting hairpiece. But just as the hirsute ministrations of Cy Spurling and his hairplug ilk consigned the toupe to declasse history, the pinky ring bit the fashion dust somewhere between Watergate and Abscam.But could that be a pinky-ring revival glinting on the horizon? The interest in wiseguy culture that began with “Goodfellas,” has sustained “The Sopranos,” and given rise to “Growing Up Gotti,” has finally caught the attention of the fashion industry. Several of the men’s houses seem to have picked up on the bada-bing vibe, as Gucci, Valentino, Etro, and Richard James are featuring lines this season that put the stress on smoking jackets, tuxedo shirts, and colorful crushed velvet sports coats, all of which can be perfectly accessorized with a nice bit of gemstone on one’s hand.Men’s rings have a history extending at least into ancient Rome. Pliny, for one, mentions the wearing of intaglio-cut gems on the pinky finger; Nero wore a ring picturing the flaying of Marsyas. Particularly in the Middle Ages, the function of rings was as socially determined (indeed, as socially obligatory) as heraldic markers of family and caste. Throughout European society, traditions as varied as the claddagh ring and the Turkish promise ring were passed down until the stirrings of modernity and the rise of business classes threatened ancient customs. But the ring as marker of fraternal organization and affiliation never quite disappeared: Witness the tenacity of the pinky ring’s much older sibling, the signet ring, which perforce was a ring for men in the days before coeducation and remains a rite of passage for high-school and college kids today.But beyond the role of indicating status in much the way that a pair of striped coveralls marks its wearer as an inmate, men’s rings came into their own in the immediate postwar period, when they shouted their possessor’s flashy extravagance. Their rise in fashion mirrors that of men’s wedding bands, a convention of marriage that resisted codification until the late 1940s. (Humphrey Bogart, for example, shocked his fans by donning a wedding band, for the first time, after his fifth marriage, to Lauren Bacall.) But where the wedding band shed its novelty status, the pinky ring struggled to survive in a society in which jeans replaced three-piece suits and comfy canvas trumped pointy patent leather.The ring’s purely decorative function made it much more de rigueur for those outside mainstream society — mobsters, entertainers, gamblers, gay men. Indeed, the pinky ring has enjoyed blingdom respectability for years. Chicago “Outfit” boss Sam Giancana was allegedly never photographed without his giant diamond number. Sammy Davis Jr. was rarely caught without one, onstage or off. More recently, the Wu Tang Clan paid homage to gangsta’ sartorial habits with “Uzi (Pinky Ring)” in 2001, in lyrics that can’t be reproduced among mixed company. Outkast’s Andre 3000 wears one, as do Jay-Z, Usher, and numerous hip-hop personages. Sean “P Diddy” Combs lent even more cachet to the pinky ring, uh, renaissance when he began wearing a prominent number a few years ago.Their fans appear to be listening. An e-Bay search under men’s jewelry results in 6,604 hits for “rings,” slam-dunking the nearest accessory contender (“chains, necklaces,” 3,045) and way out in front of such fashion wannabes as “tie clasps” (642) and “bolo ties” (271). The interest in wiseguy culture shows no sign of abating, and one way to announce some fealty to Tony Soprano et al. is to flash a big rock. On www.abcnews.com, columnist Buck Wolf noted the number of young white men queing for a tour of “The Sopranos” in New Jersey wearing pinkies.I have to admit I fell in love with pinky rings when watching the underrated “Casino” again a few months ago. When the film first came out in 1995, the thought of DeNiro’s mustard-pants-with-checked-jacket-with-yellow-shirt-and-cream-tie get-up was absurd. Merely the fashion blasphemy of tone-on-tone tie-and-shirt combos seemed beyond the pale. Above all, there was that ring that both he and Joe Pesci sported. But as time went by, that “classy” look in loudly colorful sports coats, Gucci loafers, and sharply pressed collars began to seem more daring than dopey – and somehow “right.”My moll friend never did make good on her promise to send me the perfect pinky ring (which was partly my fault; I wasn’t a particularly attentive beau). Probably all for the better: Like deciding on which hairpiece will best suit your active lifestyle, choosing how big a stone you want to wear is a deeply personal decision. And unlike a good rug, you definitely want others to notice.

Whither the Pinky Ring?

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