Gold Sneakers and Too-Tight Suits: The Menswear Guy Weighs In on Inauguration Weekend

Do you think that sort of classic American look—Ralph Lauren, the Oxford shirt—is going to be MAGA’s purview forever, or do you see that changing?

Although I don’t think the classic American aesthetic is strictly MAGA. I think a Brooks Brothers look is like the ABC of menswear; It’s like a very classic American tailored look. In the postwar period, just after the end of World War II, there was a culture clash between the establishment lifestyle—the man in a gray flannel suit, who works a corporate job, and a conventional type of nuclear family and white picket fence house—and the counterculture. It was this kind of liberal side of the political spectrum. They wore work clothes and chambray shirts, hippie gear, motorcycle jackets. All that became the counter culture.

But if you go back further than that, everyone from criminals to CEOs to liberals and Republicans wore suits. Ralph Lauren could not have built his empire if button-down shirts and penny loafers were exclusively conservative clothing.

I think it’s interesting that the current state of Republican politics is Brooks Brothers trying to combine aesthetics with gold sneakers. Do you see them coming together?

I think it’s a strange dilemma at this point, because the MAGA movement and Republicans in general are always looking back at certain ideas of America. Although not every man wore a suit in the 1950s, the suit has historically been associated with a bourgeois lifestyle. And a lot of conservatism in general is about supporting bourgeois lifestyles, morals, identity, politics, and so on.

Now there is a populist part of the Republican Party that is not about Reaganism or Bush. It’s about Trump too. And its aesthetic is very different from what William Buckley wore. William Buckley did not wear gold sneakers.

I think they are distinct and contradictory, but people can have conflicting ideas in their heads. We live in an age where politics is very tribal. And as long as it fits the description of our tribe, then I think it’s coherent for that group. For Republicans, I think these two very conflicting aesthetics exist within the party now.

Tech men are new to the MAGA crowd, but many people have noticed a significant change in their appearance, especially Mark Zuckerberg’s. What are they trying to signal and who can talk about it?

I’ve heard that through the grapevine in my industry [Elon Musk] Used to have a stylist. I don’t think she has a stylist anymore. Mark Zuckerberg denies having a stylist, but I don’t believe him. He’s definitely been going through a style change in the last year and three months, I’d say. Jeff Bezos obviously has a stylist. I don’t think politics has anything to do with what they are doing. I think Jeff Bezos went through a style change after his divorce. And I suspect Mark Zuckerberg is tired of dressing like a college student. Elon has clearly ditched his stylist and doesn’t dress very well.

[Zuckerberg] Dresses more like an MMA guy. She wears boxy tees and gold chains. But she looks like someone who has updated her look to be trendy. There are a lot of people wearing that silhouette and gold chain and I don’t know if that says anything about their politics.

We saw a lot of “spaghetti western” vibes going on. What is your opinion on that?

As a fashion trend, the western look has really become more liberal now, as it is popular in big cities. Conservatives now dress like early 2000s metrosexuals and liberals dress like Bush-era conservatives. Conservatives wear slim-tight suits or slim-fit suits and liberals like Carhartt double-knees, western shirts, cowboy boots. Some of this is inherently right because it’s a Midwestern look.

But like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk often wears cowboy boots.