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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
