Washington, DC has historically been dominated by two kinds of guys: those who are doing An Important Thing, and those who want to look like they are. Hewing close to a conservative dress code—solemn dark suits and sensible shoes—subtly communicates to your lunch date that he is your least serious meeting of the day.
Trump changed all that. DC’s usual fashion signals have been scrambled by his odd collection of fellow travelers who don’t adhere to the vernacular shaped over decades of political life. The norm-flouting president and crew still dress to establish hierarchy, but taking cues from the boss is no longer required—except when he says it is. The second administration, in particular, is a grab bag of wardrobe power moves: Silicon Valley fuck-you casual, Harvard Yard who-me casual, knots that would offend James Bond, merch that offends the eye.
“It’s all a communications game,” menswear consultant Nick Wooster tells me. “It may not be the message I want to hear, but it certainly resonates with a lot of people.” There’s no single aesthetic that dominates the people in Trump’s orbit, but it’s clear that they all want what they wear to tell a story about who they are, where they came from, and most importantly, what they want American life to look like.
President Trump’s Loud Luxury
Full-cut trousers. Resolutely billowy jackets. Long, satin ties in crayons color. Shoulders as bulky as armor, forged in the white-heat of ’80s New York. Before it was Trump’s presidential uniform, it was his wardrobe on The Apprentice.
Trump’s silhouette is dated, but it is classically proportioned, well-executed, and, after four decades, unmistakably his. Even before campaigning on the issue of American manufacturing, Trump has worn suits from Martin Greenfield, the veteran Brooklyn tailor who dressed Barack Obama, Michael Bloomberg, and Colin Powell. But he has apparently worn bespoke suits by the luxury Italian house Brioni for many years (“the silhouette and fabrics follow his personal requirements,” a brand rep told WWD in 2016).
Brioni is a venerable tailor with a long history; off-the-rack suits start at around $6,000. When Queens-born Trump was making his name and dialing in his look in the 1980s, a brand like Brioni would have probably been seen as arriviste among Manhattan blue bloods, says menswear historian G. Bruce Boyer. “It’s a 1980s new-money attitude, and I think because he’s too insecure to do anything that might speak to some kind of individual urge on his part, he dresses in an absolutely secure way,” Boyer says. “Trump thinks you can buy taste, class, and acceptance.”