Most politicians roll up their shirt sleeves and take off their neckties to show they are hard at work on behalf of the people — especially during trying times. Donald Trump, by contrast, always remains fully suited up, tie tight around the neck. After all, he’s a Businessman, with a capital B. Or at least he played one on TV!
As the former U.S. president headed into Manhattan criminal court on the first day of his hush-money trial, he stayed true to his sartorial branding: blue suit, white shirt and red tie, resembling a human American flag.
Defendants often use clothing to signal innocence, social standing or virtue. Think of Gwyneth Paltrow’s understated “stealth wealth” wardrobe for her ski trial last year, Johnny Depp’s three-piece suits with pocket squares for his defamation trial in 2022 or Winona Ryder’s ladylike Marc Jacobs outfits when she was tried for shoplifting in 2002.
Trump appears to have taken a page from Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France who attended his 2020-21 corruption trial in his customary slender black Prada suits with custom-tailored Hilditch & Key slim-fit white shirts and black ties. Stay the course, look presidential, however presidential wardrobe precedent has been set.
Trump has certainly developed a consistent personal image. By looking nearly exactly the same all the time, he has avoided the unwanted attention that befalls male politicians when they veer outside their lane. See: that time Barack Obama dared to wear a tan suit instead of his usual grey or navy in 2014, or Justin Trudeau’s lamentable foray into traditional South-East Asian clothing during a tour of India in 2018. Sometimes a style deviation is deliberate: last summer, Canadian Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre responded to a likability polling crisis with a Clark Kent in a phone booth makeover. He lost the accountant glasses and picked up an aviator sunglasses habit along with off-duty white Ts and folksy denim shirts during Stampede to bolster his down-home cred.
Trump always looks smart, but it isn’t fashion. He is no Sarkozy, or Macron or Obama, who favour slimmer silhouettes and a stylish cut to their jib. Joe Biden often leans into cool with his aviators and Hoka sneakers. But that isn’t Trump’s message.
Trump is clearly a vain man — witness the signature hair-sprayed coif, the perma-bronze visage — but his loose-cut suits are more old-fashioned, and that is by design. An instinctive populist, he knows he walks a line between being seen as ultrasuccessful a la “The Apprentice” and a man of the people. Being too stylish can alienate.
Still, those blue suits of Trump’s aren’t cheap. He is known to favour Brioni, the Roman atelier where suits begin around $8,000. He has also commissioned late Brooklyn tailor Martin Greenfield, who created custom suits for many a U.S. president.
In the 1970s and ’80s, when he was just a tycoon around town in Manhattan, Trump used to wear wide striped ties, floral ties, a bit of jazz. His stint on TV and then the move into politics solidified his choices. In recent years, Trump has sometimes worn a medium blue or yellow tie, but of late he has gone all-in on red.
A few questions remain: what is with the weird way Trump wears his ties? Remember the shot of the Scotch tape on the back on his tie when it flapped in the wind? See also: why so long?
One theory could be that he thinks long ties are elongating. He is obsessed with height; he is 6’3” and likes to belittle opponents who are shorter with cruel nicknames. We know that he deliberately orders his ties extra-long: the brand Italo Ferretti brags on its website about his standing order for its red and blue silk ties, which clock in at $290 and come with a patented feature that keeps the tie secure at the back (no more Scotch tape!). Note that Trump sells his own red tie for $170 on trumpstore.com, the official site where you can Experience the World of Trump by buying branded gear.
It is campaign season, and a red tie nicely sets off a scarlet MAGA trucker hat. A trucker hat is never going to look good with a suit, no matter how much panache anyone has, but it keeps his base happy to share that accessory with their idol.
The MAGA faithful is the base sticking with Trump through thick and thin. They have a fixed, familiar image of him — whether that image is clear-eyed or true doesn’t matter — and he knows it is comforting that he doesn’t change. It gives them a sense that the train is not running away without them on board; he will not leave them behind.
Back when he had the Marine One helicopter to toodle around in, Trump would sometimes wear a windbreaker with the presidential seal. Sometimes, we see him in golf attire. Buddy does leisure in a cart and loves a white polo almost as much as he loves a mulligan. (Trump Store also sells polo shirts.)
Occasionally, he’s required to don formal wear. He botched white tie dressing at a state dinner with Queen Elizabeth II in 2019, and was exquisitely speared by the sharp pen of Washington Post style columnist Robin Givhan. “Great flapping yards of the tailcoat are not meant to hang below the jacket. The sleeves should not stretch to the base of the thumb. The jacket is not to be buttoned,” she wrote, adding that white tie is a fact-based dress code. “One does not make white tie decisions based on one’s gut, lest one end up with the gut overly exposed.”
For the most part, he goes for business not casual, with tie done up, sleeves resolutely down, jacket on. This gives him an opportunity to use persuasive body language when he’s speaking. He has many patented moves, which Columbia University actually collated into a guide to Trump’s non-verbal communication. He likes to signal OK with his hand. He points at the air, makes gun gestures, and makes his hands into a wall, a reminder of his exclusionary policy initiative. Perhaps the most Trumpian gesture is the dancing without moving his feet. These oratorial manoeuvres stand out because his clothing is so familiar it falls away.
This ability to convey narrative will come in handy in Trump’s immediate future as he sits behind a table in a Manhattan courthouse, listening to evidence being presented and waiting for a jury to decide his fate.
