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

However, 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 custom look. In the post-war period, right after the end of the Second World War, there was a culture clash between the established lifestyle – the man in a gray flannel suit working in a corporate job and a conventional kind of nuclear family and white-cock – fence house—and the counterculture. It was this kind of liberal side of the political spectrum. They wore work uniforms and chambray shirts, hippie gear, motorcycle jackets. It all became counterculture.

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

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

I think that’s the weird dichotomy right now because the MAGA movement and Republicans in general have always looked back to some idea of ​​America. Although not every man wore a suit in the 1950s, the suit has historically been associated with the kind of bourgeois lifestyle. And a lot of conservatism in general is about maintaining bourgeois lifestyles, morality, identity, politics, and so on.

There is now a populist part of the Republican Party that is not about Reaganism or Bush. It’s very much about Trump. And his aesthetic is very different from what William Buckley would have worn. William Buckley would not have worn gold sneakers.

I think they are clear and contradictory, but people can hold conflicting ideas in their heads. We are in an era where politics is very tribal. And as long as it fits the narrative of our tribe, then I think it’s cohesive for that group. For Republicans, I think those two very conflicting aesthetics are only now within the party.

The men of technology are new to the MAGA crowd, but many people have noticed a significant change in their appearance, especially Mark Zuckerberg’s. Can you talk about what they are trying to convey and to whom?

I’ve heard it through the grapevine in my industry [Elon Musk] used to have a stylist. I don’t think he has a stylist anymore. Mark Zuckerberg denies having a stylist, but I don’t believe him. He’s definitely going through a style transformation in the last year and three months, I’d say. Jeff Bezos clearly has a stylist. I don’t think what they do has anything to do with politics. I think Jeff Bezos went through a style makeover after his divorce. And I suspect Mark Zuckerberg just got tired of dressing like a college student. Elon has clearly given up on his stylist and doesn’t dress very well.

[Zuckerberg] dress more like an MMA guy. He wears the boxy tee and the gold chain. But he looks like someone who updated his look to be trendy. There are a lot of guys who wear that kind of silhouette and gold chain, and I don’t know that it says anything about their politics.

We saw a lot of the “spaghetti western” kind of vibe happening. What is your opinion about it?

As a fashion trend, the western look is really more liberal now because it is popular in big cities. Conservatives now dress like metrosexuals in the early 2000s, and liberals dress like Bush-era conservatives. Conservatives are in slim tight suits or skinny suits, and then liberals are like Carhartt double knees, western shirts, cowboy boots. There is some of this inherent on the right because it is a Midwestern look.

But Elon Musk wears cowboy boots very often, as does Jeff Bezos.