Donald
Trump’s weird clothes: from shoulder pads to extremely long ties, what do they
mean?
His
sartorial choices are nothing if not bamboozling – so we went in search of some
logic to the strange proportions and shiny fabrics
Zoe Williams
Thu 15 Aug 2024 12.42 BST
Donald Trump has always cut a peculiar figure on the world
stage, due to the juxtaposition between his tweedledum figure and
primate-dominance loom. But his clothing choices are pretty “weird” too: is he
doing it on purpose, to amplify the bafflement and make you question your own
reality? Or is he doing it all out of vanity and self-consciousness?
Menswear expert Derek Guy’s analysis of Trump’s intriguing
sartorial choices went viral on X earlier this week, following the former
president’s Tuesday interview with billionaire businessman Elon Musk. “Padded
coats look great when you’re standing still,” Guy pointed out, “but they can
look artificial when you move or sit when your shoulders pitch forward” – as
Trump did during their chat.
But it’s far from the only example of Trump’s wardrobe
seemingly working against him. I don’t want anyone to mistake me for an expert
in men’s tailoring; this is, rather, a psychoanalytic take on Donald Trump’s
approach to menswear.
PS: I’m not a psychoanalyst either.
The
shoulder pads
Doesn’t
suit you, sir … Trump pads up.
Trump’s extraordinarily bulky jackets seem to be part of his
ongoing quest to mask his shape, but the shoulder pads that he wore when
interviewed by Musk are a sartorial paradox that someone (maybe Ivanka?) should
walk through with him. They complicate the silhouette (Why is the material
bunching in that strange way? Is he storing things in there?), and you begin to
ponder things (Is he strong? Why is he wearing weird armour? Is he an Ayn
Randian superman?) that you might otherwise have not.
The
too-long tie
You just
can’t keep a man’s long tie down.
The worst mistake a heavyset man can make, apparently, is
the too-short tie, which lands in the middle of the belly like a thin but noisy
flag, proclaiming: “Look at me! I am a belly, and I am mighty!”
This is thought to be why Trump wears his ties so
eccentrically long, the wedgier side coming well below his belt-line. It is so
unusual that it actually disrupts the time-honoured tie mechanism. The
behind-side is meant to tuck into a loop at the back, but his can’t reach,
being now too short. Physics, eh? Not all the money in the world can befuddle
it. Instead, he ties the short side down with Scotch tape, which is just plain
odd.
My husband has another explanation, which is that he wears
his tie too long to make people think his manhood is similarly XXL. I want to
tell you how long it took for me to understand what he was saying, and then how
long I spent going: “Seriously? That’s seriously what men think?” But I don’t
want to put everyone else off getting married.
The white
tie
Not
amused … the Queen shows her distaste at Trump’s woeful attempt at white tie.
Visiting the UK in June 2019, Trump met the Queen and wore
white tie; so far, so normal, other people were also wearing it. Probably for
the same reason as the too-long tie, the waistcoat under the jacket was way too
long, while the jacket itself was kept to its traditional, short length. The
overall effect looked all wrong.
The interesting thing was how embarrassed the Queen looked
to be standing next to him. She devoted her life to hiding her emotions –
except for when she would beam at the gee-gees. If only momentarily, Trump
undid her with his fashion sense.
The
primary-coloured tie
Keeping
it simple … Trump’s blue tie is his pathway to the presidency.
Red being (think, self, think!) the colour of the right in
the US, not the left, is the natural hue for Trump to favour, but he does own
other ties. He has a yellow one, and he has a blue one with white stripes,
which split the tie like a cheaply paved path. This may be because he thinks
nuance and complication are fundamentally effeminate.
The Maga
hat
Maga mind
… Trump’s cap speaks to the people.
In common with so many populist authoritarians, Trump fugles
the superiority of his supporters (“You have good genes, you know that?”) while
seeming somewhat repulsed by them. As recently as 2015, he pointed out a crowd
of supporters, saying: “Look at these people … It’s literally a little bit
sad.”
The Maga hat is, fascinatingly, both a statement of that
contempt and a mask for it. The message: look at these silly people; imagine
putting your infantile hopes and dreams on a baseball hat. And now I am wearing
the hat, and they think I am like them, would you just look at that?
You wouldn’t catch him dead in his own $400 gold trainers. A
man has limits.
The golf
attire
Black and
white and orange all over … Trump goes sports casual.
It’s hard to maintain a photogenic angle when you’re trying
to play a game, and Trump famously accused malign agents of maxing his stomach
with AI, after one particularly unflattering shot of him, mid-swing. Let’s just
stick a pin in the disinformation universe and concentrate on the golf clothes:
Trump favours a modern white polo and dark slacks, and all the pizzazz
associated with the sport is limited to some fancy monochrome golf brogues. His
relative sobriety is because he doesn’t think of golf as leisure; he thinks
it’s his real job. You wouldn’t wear fancy dress to the office now, would you?
The
wide-legged trouser
Too wide,
too long … Trump leads the baggy revival.
An awesome amount of material must go into making Trump’s
trousers, which are both too wide and too long. It gives him a fairytale look,
like he might be able to take off, or sail across an ocean using just what he’s
standing up in. Which maybe is the look he’s going for, idk.
The shiny
material
Shiny
unhappy person … Trump is all about the surface sheen.
To be fair to all of them, US presidents only dress one way:
they wear a navy suit; that’s just what they do. Maybe the next guy to come
along (in 2032, if Kamala has her way) will have been emancipated, and he’ll be
able to wear a grey suit. Or even – oh my – herringbone. Dream big, guys!
Anyway, Trump, wishing to inhabit the office of president in the time-honoured
way – and yet be a bigger, hotter, more manly, genius president than has ever
gone before – chooses to go navy-but-shiny. It’s the kind of visual signifying
a bird might do. No, not a woman, literally a bird.
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