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The danger of dressing down |
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By The Hill Staff
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Posted: 02/16/05 12:00 AM [ET] |
I tend not to look lawmakers up and down because, for one thing, it’s not ladylike. For another, it tends to make them ill at ease.
But on a recent flight to Dallas, I couldn’t help but notice the attire of the newly elected Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). After bidding him congratulations on his win, I noticed how un-senatorial he looked dressed in blue jeans and a royal-blue sweater with a white button-down shirt.
Of course he was kempt and clean-cut in his low-key attire, but he looked like any other 56-year-old man on the flight. Unlike more nationally known political figures such as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who can’t walk through a restaurant without being mobbed for a handshake or an autograph, Coburn, who was sitting in coach, was approached by no one except for nosy me.
Seeing some lawmakers shed the Washington uniform of suit and tie can be unsettling. As one of my colleagues put it, “It’s like running into your teacher on the weekend at the grocery store. It’s out of context.”
But it’s more than that. Seeing lawmakers stripped of their starched dignity also temporarily strips them of apparent power and importance. Observers can see what their fashion taste really is once the blue suit and red tie are out of the way.
But, as one Capitol employee noted, “You [also] have some members who don’t look like members no matter how they dress.”
Sometimes seeing a lawmaker dress down is just bizarre. My colleague recalls being startled by the sight of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-N.M.) in his tennis whites and Rep. John Sweeney (R-N.Y.) in a Saturday-night leisure shirt at a Patton Boggs party at the Republican convention.
At a GOP retreat some years ago, my colleague witnessed Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), usually a sleek minimalist in immaculate suits, wearing a “grandpa sweater from hell … a garish red-and-white-stripe” number.
Last year, I ran into Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) in a Rayburn hallway. He was in blue jeans and a parka. It took a serious double take before I recognized him. He looked so unlike himself in his Mississippi fishing attire, or so unlike the lawmaker I have known.
To be candid, there are lawmakers I’d hate to see attempt casual attire — Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who in a seersucker suit resembles an ice-cream vendor from the 1950s.
One exception is Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), who leans toward a laid-back look anyway. Instead of wearing suits, he often opts for a blazer with a button-down shirt and no tie. Sometimes he pairs trousers with a shirt and a leather bomber jacket. Last week he wore a heather-gray V-neck sweater, dark tie, dark trousers and no blazer.
To Taylor, the Fashion Critic takes her hat off. To other lawmakers attempting a non-congressional style, please be careful. |
