How do Politicians Signal their Values with Sartorial Decisions?

Consciously or unconsciously we choose clothes that reflect our lifestyles and tacitly express or obscure our identities; a pragmatic laborer may opt for durable blue jeans and a loose fitting button up while a business executive may opt for a sharp suit to reflect his professional status. In politics, where every detail is deliberate, a politician’s style is engineered in order to reveal their political attitudes and present themselves as charismatic and relatable. These sartorial decisions are calculated performances, designed to align the wearer with specific values, histories, and constituencies. Fashion’s ability to serve as a nonverbal language has allowed it to evolve tandem to European politics, and their histories are deeply intertwined. In recent decades, however, as the visual culture of politics has become inseparable from media performance, clothing choices have become an especially crucial weapon in a politician’s arsenal, and the need to understand these choices has become more pressing than ever before.

We have records of political elites distinguishing themselves using fashion in Ancient Rome, where clothing was part of a legal code which visually marked citizenship and class. In the renaissance, sumptuary laws were imposed by kings and princes which restricted furs and silks to the nobility. However, the protestant reformation began to shift the political fashion paradigm. While aristocrats and baroque courts continued to embrace flamboyant displays of wealth and taste, the protestant reformation birthed a modest dress ideology: sober black garments, austere silhouettes, and covered heads signalled piety and anti authoritarian ideals. It is important to note that fashion had become ideological and performative in Europe at the beginning of the renaissance. Powerful individuals had begun signalling their political affiliations with personal styles that reflected either a loyalty to the monarchy or a rejection of divine hierarchy.

Importantly, in 1666, King Charles II introduced the three piece suit to the courts of Britain in order to deliberately demarcate the British textile industry from the popular French fashions of the time. While the three piece suit of the seventeenth century is unlike the business attire worn by politicians today, the evolution from the former to the latter is easily traceable. Although King Charles II preferred simple black and velvet suits, his contemporaries wore suits with rich trims and extravagant embroidery. These fashions, especially the decorative silk waistcoats, were later adopted by the French courts.

In late eighteenth century France, the sans-culottes movement subverted the elaborate and ornate dress of the french elites. Working class revolutionaries forewent aristocratic breeches (“culottes”), opting instead for long trousers and plain jackets. Not long after, dandies such as Beau Brammel rejected the breeches worn by the British elite, preferring bespoke trousers, a dark tailed jacket, and a plain white waistcoat. The simplification of the suit continued until the twentieth century, when three piece suits were phased out in favor of the modern lounge suit which consists of a jacket and trousers. Today, suits exist as a symbol of professionalism, business, and individual liberalism.

The lounge suit today is a uniquely hegemonic and ubiquitous symbol, so how is it manipulated by politicians to market themselves and their causes? When running for the position of prime minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer dressed differently. The former, a member of the conservative party, appeared awkward in his ill-fitting suits, his jackets often malproportioned and tight around the shoulders. These intentional imperfections allowed Sunak’s campaign team to construct an image of humility and relatability that offsets his elite background and polished demeanor. These decisions can be powerful in a political climate where polished aesthetics can often make a politician seem out of touch. He is wealthy, technocratic, and intensely image aware, however he chose clothes that muted this image. Keir Starmer, a member of the labor party, on the other hand, made some more obviously deliberate sartorial decisions on the campaign trail, which reflected his public personality and party’s ideology. In an effort to appear trustworthy, Starmer opted for simple dark suits that fit nicely around his neck, with well styled hair, and glasses that complimented the shape of his face. His suits represented professionalism, while the repetition of his shirts and ties created a sense of consistency and reliability. In contrast to sunak’s prada loafers and €4000 bespoke suits, Starmer has sported adidas sneakers and stone island tops in order to brand himself as a man of the people.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy forgoes the suit entirely, opting instead for plain olive or grey sweatshirts adorned with the Ukrainian crest. While this serves as a powerful show of solidarity for Ukrainian soldiers, his critics use it as evidence of unprofessionalism and disrespect towards the world leaders from which he meets to seek aid. When asked by a conservative reporter why he eschewed the suit during his meeting with Trump in late February, Zelenskyy responded simply, ‘I will wear costume after this war will finish’. It is important to note that “suit” in this context can be interpreted in Ukrainian as “kostyum”. In response to criticism from the American right, Zelenskyy supporters posted pictures of Winston Churchill wearing a casual one piece suit during World War Two.

The intersection between fashion and politics becomes much more complicated when examining the sartorial decisions of female politicians. European political fashion has increasingly demanded austerity since the renaissance and thus male flamboyance fell out of style, only to be replaced by female ostentation. The political elites of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries lived vicariously through the fashion of their wives and daughters. This shift in the fashion paradigm, coupled with the coincidence of the rise of female activity in politics and celebrity politics created a difficult to navigate minefield of sartorial decisions for women entering the political sphere. Schwartzenberg (1977) argued that women in his era had greater difficulty than men with navigating celebrity politics, needing to hide their femininity and imitate men, while imitating the style of coercion adopted by politically active men leads to accusations of sexual frivolity. While the conclusion that he later draws from these distinctions appears as sexist to the modern reader, this point remains topical, especially when considering the American right’s reaction to Kamala Harris’ recent campaign. The minefield extends beyond the general difficulty of navigating politics as a woman, because women simply have more options than men in terms of professional attire. While a man can choose between different suits, ties, and shoes, a woman must navigate the decision about whether or not to wear a suit at all, or instead to choose a plain dress, or a skirt and a blazer. As difficult and varied as these decisions are, very few have proven more equipt to make them than Angela Merkel.

With the exception of a brief foray into a style similar to that of Hillary Clinton, a public figure who has received major backlash for her out of touch styling decisions, complete with a soft wave and out of character jewellery, Merkel herself has proven that she does not care much about her personal style at all, and that shows in her pragmatic and minimal wardrobe. Merkel’s wardrobe is almost entirely created by a sole designer and has been specially curated to present an image of stability and substance. Although she is rarely praised for her fashion in a conventional sense, her clothes make their own subtle statements which reflect her refusal to participate in the traditional pressures that are usually placed on women in politics. She neither dresses to please or to provoke, neutralizing her femininity without erasing it. Merkel’s greatest sartorial triumph, however, is her disinterest in sartorial messaging altogether. She dresses the way that she dresses because it allows her to appear professional in a setting where professionalism is the norm without being manipulative or forced. It is truly an honest and reflective personal style which is rarely seen in modern politics.

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