Presidential Candidates Could Use a Fashion Primer

“This is not a stellar field of stylish men.”

That’s how Joseph Abboud sums up the men in the presidential race, or in the case of Democratic candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris, her spouse.

Much like his campaign mantra to Make America Great Again, former president and Republican candidate Donald Trump’s fashion choices harken back to the supposedly golden days of the mid-1980s when he believed the country was great and he began donning what has become his fashion uniform. A red tie — always a red tie, and always more like a red scarf masquerading as a tie — white shirts and a very roomy two-piece suit define his style. It’s cookie-cutter businessman, or candidate. He could be running for president again, or he could be on his way to the Metropolitan Club in Manhattan to talk about a real estate deal. One can never be too sure.

In his leisure hours, he’s often found on a golf course wearing a polo with solid color pants and a red MAGA hat. Think Ted Knight in “Caddyshack,” sans the hat.

“I’ve never been a fan of red ties,” Abboud said. “They have always reminded me of politicians and airline pilots. But they can be effective. Just look at Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky affair — navy suit, white shirt, red tie with a huge American flag in the background. A very presidential image. Trump has done the very same thing: predictable and consistent, a nonissue.”

While his running mate, JD Vance, is perhaps best known for his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” and the subsequent Netflix film, he now dresses like the Yale graduate and former private equity investor he became. He reportedly gets his suits custom made by an Italian tailor in Cincinnati, a bit of a non sequitur if there ever was one. Since entering the political scene in 2021, Vance has gone the Esquire gentleman look: finely trimmed beard, single-breasted dark suits and ties in navy or gray. He’s straight out of the Yale Club.

But since the nod to become Trump’s vice presidential candidate, he at least has ventured into lighter blue suits and paler colored ties, which exude youth and power versus the Old Real Estate Establishment of his boss.

And Vance at least did learn something while working in Silicon Valley: when not on the campaign trail, the 39-year-old Ohio senator favors jeans, polo shirts, open-collar button-down shirts, dress pants, quarter-zip sweaters, chinos and the occasional hoodie — a techie’s everyday wardrobe but downright revolutionary for a politician.

Abboud called Vance a “fashionable utilitarian with an air of a military background, sort of a no-nonsense approach.”

Then there’s Tim Walz, Harris’ vice presidential pick, who seems to be able to make anything he wears look rumpled. Walz, as he has throughout his career, unabashedly embraces his Midwestern dad and former football coach vibe, opting for LL Bean or Carhartt chore coats, camo hats, plaid flannel shirts and chinos when out in the woods hunting small game or turkeys. In fact, within hours of the news that he had been selected as the Democratic vice president pick, an official Harris-Walz camo hat came out and swiftly sold out.

On more official appearances, the Minnesota governor opts for two-piece suits, the ubiquitous white button-down shirt and complementary tie.

No matter what he is in, all you want to do is run up to him and say, “Put me in, Coach.”

“What can I say stylistically?” Abboud said. “Totally undefined, body covering only — and maybe that’s OK.”

Turning to Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, it’s been suggested that he’ll need to polish his style if he’s going to step into the role as the country’s inaugural First Gentleman. While his daughter Ella might be in fashion, she clearly isn’t giving her dad any tips: He opts for unremarkable navy suits with white or blue button-down shirts with a tie one forgets as soon as one looks at it. On occasion, he’ll — gasp — slip on a windowpane sport coat over dress slacks, one step up from used car salesman.

Emhoff also definitely could use a few pointers about what to wear when he’s off the clock — he did the tree pose from yoga in a sport coat and gray dress pants and somehow thought that slipping one of his navy suit coats over a Pride T-shirt and jeans was dressing down. Not so much.

Finally, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was in the mix until Friday when he suspended his campaign, could nonetheless give the other candidates some lessons when it comes to fashion choices. Clearly RFK Jr. has been studying his father’s and uncle’s styles — or else it’s just genetic. Oxford shirts with rolled-up sleeves, skinny ties and dress pants evoke a 1960s-style Kennedy swagger.

“The Kennedy family has a certain mystique,” Abboud said, adding that he’s been a longtime friend of his neighbor RFK Jr. “He’s in great shape and wear clothes well. It’s in his DNA.”

Kennedy mystique aside, for Abboud, the style choices of men in politics will always take a back seat to the women. But perhaps that’s not a bad thing.

“There’s a downside to overdressing as a politician,” Abboud said, pointing to Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, who routinely gets “lambasted” for his over-the-top fashion choices. “Fit and body type have a great deal to do with projecting a stylistic and appropriate image for our leaders,” Abboud said. “But I do think more attention should be paid to ‘first impressions are lasting,’ and that has a great deal to do with the clothes they wear and how they fit.”

Presidents should never be fashion plates, after all, but style does project power.