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Taupe: how to look better than Obama in a mushroom-coloured suit
President Obama has caused much debate after wearing a beige suite earlier in the week. Here we find out how it should have been done
The Telegraph
Helena Kealey
8/29/2014
Excerpt:
When President Barack Obama entered the James Brady Press Briefing Room on Thursday to discuss the crisis in Ukraine and Syria, Twitter went mad. Within minutes there were 4,000 tweets. The President was mocked and condemned. You see, Obama was wearing a taupe suit.
“Yes, we tan” read one of the tweets. “The audacity of taupe” said another, twisting Obama’s best-selling book title. “Obama’s tan suit is a signal. We must need to figure out *what he’s trying to tell us*” said a third, tweeted by @moneyries.
Well, @moneyries, we can’t know for sure what Obama was “trying to tell us”, but we can have a good guess, which is why we’ve asked Jamie Millar, Style Editor for Men’s Health, to tell us what he makes of the whole wardrobe fiasco...
How Obama wore the suit:
“I think the Twitter reaction indicates that Obama made a bad choice here. Part of me admires his willingness to wear something a little different but in this instance the choice and the timing of it were not great.
“The problem with a tan suit is that it is inherently less smart than a darker suit. When you are an important leader, you want to protect your gravitas. It’s a risky move at the best of times, and when you’re in high level discussions about geopolitical situations, a beige suit is not the best choice."
Obama’s styling choices:
“There are a couple of issues with this suit. It doesn’t fit him properly, and because it is light-coloured, that is much more obvious. Dark suits tend to be more slimming and if they are roomier, they’re also a bit more forgiving.
“Obama's suit is a really neutral shade with nearly no colour in it, and on the rest of his outfit he hasn’t bought any colour. If you’re going to wear a neutral-coloured suit, you want to put some things in there. This is a bit cold and he looks washed out.
“Obama’s shirt and tie are an issue. Because they’re so close to his face there’s a lack of colour and warmth. A nice mid-blue would have been good for the shirt."
What was he trying to say?
“I don’t think he was trying to make as much of a statement as he has made. He was probably just trying to mix it up a little bit. A taupe suit can look really great but not this particular suit and not in this situation. This kind of suit is inherently less formal and suggests his attitude to proceedings is casual on some level. Which is almost certainly not the case (or at least you would hope not); that's the power of what we wear.
"His choice of suit shouldn’t make any difference, but particularly for female politicians, it’s an occupational hazard that [what they wear] detracts from what they’re doing. This quite clearly has distracted from what he was doing at the time."
.................................................. ............
View the complete article, including photos, at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/active/11...ured-suit.html
President Obama has caused much debate after wearing a beige suite earlier in the week. Here we find out how it should have been done
The Telegraph
Helena Kealey
8/29/2014
Excerpt:
When President Barack Obama entered the James Brady Press Briefing Room on Thursday to discuss the crisis in Ukraine and Syria, Twitter went mad. Within minutes there were 4,000 tweets. The President was mocked and condemned. You see, Obama was wearing a taupe suit.
“Yes, we tan” read one of the tweets. “The audacity of taupe” said another, twisting Obama’s best-selling book title. “Obama’s tan suit is a signal. We must need to figure out *what he’s trying to tell us*” said a third, tweeted by @moneyries.
Well, @moneyries, we can’t know for sure what Obama was “trying to tell us”, but we can have a good guess, which is why we’ve asked Jamie Millar, Style Editor for Men’s Health, to tell us what he makes of the whole wardrobe fiasco...
How Obama wore the suit:
“I think the Twitter reaction indicates that Obama made a bad choice here. Part of me admires his willingness to wear something a little different but in this instance the choice and the timing of it were not great.
“The problem with a tan suit is that it is inherently less smart than a darker suit. When you are an important leader, you want to protect your gravitas. It’s a risky move at the best of times, and when you’re in high level discussions about geopolitical situations, a beige suit is not the best choice."
Obama’s styling choices:
“There are a couple of issues with this suit. It doesn’t fit him properly, and because it is light-coloured, that is much more obvious. Dark suits tend to be more slimming and if they are roomier, they’re also a bit more forgiving.
“Obama's suit is a really neutral shade with nearly no colour in it, and on the rest of his outfit he hasn’t bought any colour. If you’re going to wear a neutral-coloured suit, you want to put some things in there. This is a bit cold and he looks washed out.
“Obama’s shirt and tie are an issue. Because they’re so close to his face there’s a lack of colour and warmth. A nice mid-blue would have been good for the shirt."
What was he trying to say?
“I don’t think he was trying to make as much of a statement as he has made. He was probably just trying to mix it up a little bit. A taupe suit can look really great but not this particular suit and not in this situation. This kind of suit is inherently less formal and suggests his attitude to proceedings is casual on some level. Which is almost certainly not the case (or at least you would hope not); that's the power of what we wear.
"His choice of suit shouldn’t make any difference, but particularly for female politicians, it’s an occupational hazard that [what they wear] detracts from what they’re doing. This quite clearly has distracted from what he was doing at the time."
.................................................. ............
View the complete article, including photos, at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/active/11...ured-suit.html