Our Long National Nightmare of Campaign Style Has Begun

A throwback from the archives

(This article previously appeared in GQ Magazine, 2015.) 

Whether we want it to or not, clothing always reflects the psychology of whoever’s wearing it—which is why, my fellow Americans, we should be deeply concerned by the wardrobes of our 2016 presidential candidates. Whereas dapper pols like JFK once wore Wayfarers and skinny ties, today’s White House wannabes are now so exhaustively focus-grouped (and are so terrified of making any fashion mistake) that they’ve drained themselves of sartorial charisma.

This election’s early favorites are a yacht-load of honkies who all default to boxy charcoal gray suits, starchy white shirts, and shiny silk neckties (nearly always red, regardless of party affiliation). It’s a classic high-contrast Leadership color palette I like to call “Fascist Contemporary.” For their daytime-casual look, the candidates remove their jackets and unconvincingly roll up their sleeves for a “changing my own tires for the good of America” appearance. Just as murky, inscrutable, inoffensive content is their default choice when it comes to rhetoric, their campaign uniforms seem expressly chosen to obscure their humanity.

It has always been difficult to tell the many Republicans apart, both ideologically and sartorially, and indeed Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, and Lindsey Graham dress so identically, and so without a trace of personality, they could all be represented by the same Lego character. But the other candidates from both parties find their own special ways to, shall we say, distinguish themselves. Crusty progressive Bernie Sanders stands out as the most consistently disheveled candidate, a man whose style muse seems to be Jack Klugman and who can be easily imagined waddling unshaven onto the White House lawn to retrieve his newspaper, wearing a flannel bathrobe, tube socks, and BluBlockers.

Jeb Bush, the fussiest politician since Mitt Romney, has the visual distinction of Reaganing harder than the others. His Dial-A-Prayer hair and higher-thread-count suits exude a “fuck you” wealth that the other rich candidates take care to avoid in the interest of wooing voters beyond just the two Koch brothers.

Ted Cruz, a Hispanic Canadian-Texan, favors dark suits that, combined with his helmet hair and concerned-mortician  demeanor, suggest he will bury America with somber dignity. It is difficult not to notice that with a pencil mustache, he would look exactly like the dashingly ghoulish Gomez Addams.

The ladies of the race, Carly Fiorina and Hillary Clinton, have their own closet problems. Both are given to loud monochromatic suits in interchangeable electric blue or vermilion, projecting just the right blend of femininity and alpha gusto, with a shrill top note of “Send in the drones!”

Nobody really knows why Donald Trump feels qualified or even wants to be president, but he has always dressed out grandiose delusions of ruling the world. Analysts have suggested that his radical hairstyle, that virile strawberry angora haystack, is a business power move intended to invoke confusion and fear—which of course it does, like a wig made of live snakes. Lately, however, he’s been covering his coif with a Make America Great Again baseball cap, either to convince voters that he has the common touch or to protect them from being turned into stone.

If we’re going to elect one of these jokers to represent the world’s most powerful office, is it too much to ask that he or she have at least some style? Other countries already snicker at us because America can’t seem to make the cognitive leap that civilization equals culture, and culture equals art.

As fashion is our most personal, most intimate art form—one we all practice every single day, regardless of what we wear—we oughtn’t let our next president shuffle around the globe looking like some federal rube with his/her own reinforced changing bunker beneath the Nordstrom at the Pentagon mall.

Aren’t We the People embarrassed enough as it is?

Cintraw@gmail.com

Artwork: “Hijab,” oil on linen, Cintra Wilson 2022