Do you think this kind of classic American look — the Ralph Lauren shirt and the Oxford shirt — is going to be kind of MAGA’s specialty forever or do you see that changing?
I don’t think the classic American aesthetic is strictly MAGA. I think the look of Brooks Brothers is like the ABC of menswear. This is like a very classic American look. In the post-war period, immediately after the end of World War II, there was a cultural clash between the corporate lifestyle – the man in a gray flannel suit, working a corporate job and having a traditional nuclear family and a white picket fence. Home – and counterculture. This was the liberal side of the political spectrum. They wore overalls, chambray shirts, hippie gear, and motorcycle jackets. It all became counterculture.
But if you go back even further, you’ll find that everyone was wearing tailored clothing, from criminals to CEOs to liberals and Republicans. Ralph Lauren would not have built his empire if button-up shirts and loafers were exclusively conservative clothing.
I think it’s interesting that the current state of Republican politics is trying to unify the Brooks Brothers aesthetic with gold sneakers. Do you see them getting together?
I think that’s a weird dichotomy right now, because the MAGA movement and Republicans in general have always looked back toward some idea of America. Although not every man wore a suit in the 1950s, the suit has historically been associated with the bourgeois lifestyle. And a lot of conservatism in general is about supporting bourgeois lifestyles, morals, identity, politics, and so on.
There is now a populist section in the Republican Party that has nothing to do with Reaganism or Bush. It’s very much about Trump. And its aesthetic is very different from what William Buckley would have worn. William Buckley wasn’t wearing gold sneakers.
I think they are different and contradictory, but people can hold contradictory ideas in their heads. We are in an era where politics has become very tribal. As long as it fits our tribe’s narrative, I think it’s coherent for that group. For Republicans, I think these two very contradictory aesthetics now exist within the party.
Tech guys are new to the MAGA crowd, but many people have noticed a big change in their looks, especially Mark Zuckerberg’s. Can you talk about what they are trying to refer to and to whom?
I heard through the grapevine within my industry that [Elon Musk] He had a hairdresser. I don’t think he has a hairdresser anymore. Mark Zuckerberg denies having a hairdresser, but I don’t believe him. He’s definitely been going through a change in style over the past year and three months. Apparently Jeff Bezos has a hairdresser. I don’t think what they are doing has anything to do with politics. I think Jeff Bezos went through a change in style after his divorce. I think Mark Zuckerberg is tired of dressing like a college student. Elon has clearly ditched his hairdresser and is not dressed well.
[Zuckerberg] Dresses more like a mixed martial arts man. He wears boxy tees and a gold chain. But he looks like someone has updated his look to be more modern. There are a lot of guys who wear these kind of silhouettes and gold chains and I don’t know that that says anything about their politics.
We’ve seen a lot of “Spaghetti Western” vibes going on. What do you think about that?
As a modern fashion, the Western look is leaning more liberal at the moment, as it is popular in big cities. Conservatives now dress like metrosexuals in the early 2000s, and liberals dress like Bush-era conservatives. Conservatives wear skinny suits or suits, then liberals like Carhartts with knees, western shirts, and cowboy boots. There’s some of that inherently on the right because it’s a Midwestern look.
But Elon Musk frequently wears cowboy boots, as does Jeff Bezos.