What a week it was for . . . men dressing badly

It was a statement of the Krays' power that they could take on the clothes of the upper classes while indulging in the violence of the street

Organised clothes, for organised criminals at work in an organised society. That is what the dapper, natty Kray twins stood for - at least in the eyes of supporters in London's East End.

The shapeless, rippling clothes on display at Ronnie Kray's funeral on Wednesday spoke of a society that for many people, not just the Krays' white, working-class supporters, has lost its shape and order.

Two sets of gangsters tell the story of two different worlds.

The Krays' men were boxers, lithe and agile, with skills learnt in rings equipped with no more than a punching bag, in rooms above pubs. The minders on Wednesday were more like weightlifters: lumbering, leaden men, brought up on a diet of Nautilus machines and modelled on Oddjob of James Bond fame.

The Krays liked to wear heavy worsted suits: conservatively cut, three- piece affairs. On Wednesday there was a lot of flowing silk, beneath ankle-length coats. The minders' leader was wearing a leather coat made of a latticework of thongs. He could have come from the set of Mad Max, or more likely an avant-garde Hamlet performed at the Royal Court.

Then there was the hair. The Krays took great care of theirs: oiled, combed back and artificially blackened to keep its sheen. The Krays' hair knew its place and was stuck to it. The hair on Wednesday was all over the place, from savage crew cuts (the Krays would never have looked as though they were in the army) to unkempt, shoulder- length versions of Michael Bolton worn by men who should have known better.

Of course, there were some strands of continuity. One was preening male vanity. The twins were vain to the point of having regular manicures for their murderous hands. Another was the jewellery. Reggie and Ronnie liked chunky gold rings and large watches. The gold on display in Bethnal Green could have doubled as an armoury of lethal knuckles.

But there the similarities between the eras ended, apart from Reggie himself, neat and understated, lost in a sea of hangers-on.

The Krays cut a sharp, defined image for themselves, all pressed, starched shirts and creases : suits, white shirts, thin dark ties and trousers cut narrow to their ankles. They came from a world before Carnaby Street, fashion, hippies and the sexual revolution had leached its colours, odd shapes and habits into the East End.

That look stood for many things. It spelt power and wealth. They wore the kind of suits that they thought only rich people could wear, people who lived in Mayfair and Knightsbridge. (Reggie and Ronnie probably got their clothes dirt cheap from local tailors.)

They were projecting more than just their money. Their affront to respectable society was made more potent by looking so respectable. It was a statement of their power that they could take on the clothes of the upper classes while indulging in the violence of the street and the pub bar.

Yet the main message conveyed by those pictures of them in identical pinstripes, standing proudly with their mum, Violet, in Vallance Road, is one of order and conservatism. It was a world where sons did what their Mums told them and their Mums never ventured far beyond their kitchen.

Organised criminals wear organised clothes. Myth has it that big-time criminals execute meticulously planned crimes. Nothing is left to chance. And so it should be with the way they look: who, taking in the geometry of those neatly put together outfits, could doubt the Krays' attention to detail? It is almost a uniform: cold, clinical, unyielding, completely without sentimentality. It is an image of the gangster which has been passed down to us, most recently in the dark silhouettes and sunglasses of Reservoir Dogs.

For the Krays, the way they dressed was also about class, their place in society. Anyone visiting the Krays' Mum was expected to look smart, or else. To those around them, the twins were wearing their Sunday best every day of the week, the surest signal they could send not just of their wealth, but also that they did not earn their living by selling vegetables on a market or making furniture.

The East End at that time was an organised place, within and without. It had a more clearly defined economic role, around the docks and the markets. It was predominantly white and working class. The infiltration of the City and the yuppie, the wine bar and the video shop, was still decades away. The families that lived within the East End and among its denizens knew it was organised into networks of streets, manors, which were controlled, governed even, by powerful figures within them.

It wasn't Ronnie Kray that was lamented on Wednesday, it was the passing of that world of criminals in starched collars, Sunday bests.