THE UGLY RISE OF “RED TIE GUY”
What is it with Trump and his MAGA goons and their white shirt / red neck tie combos? They look like Ken dolls who have just got their first office jobs. Thinking of copying the look? Well, don't.
When he was Arsenal FC’s manager, the rake thin, stoic, cool and taciturn, tactical genius Arsene Wenger earned himself an unfortunate nickname. The moniker had little to do with the French man’s professional record - this was the late 1990s / early noughties, when Wenger’s Gunners were regularly winning trophies and Premier Leagues (and even league and cup doubles), during the memorable 2003/2004 “invincibles” period, actually going the whole season without losing a single game - and more to do with his dress sense. “Le Professeur'' Wenger was alternately dubbed - admittedly, mostly by rival Tottenham fans, “The Coach Driver”.
Why? It was his deathless deployment of a crispy white, mean-collared, straight-from-the-packet shirt and a skinny, silken red tie; the grim combination favoured by everyone from nu-Republicans and neo Nazis to old 1970s National Coach drivers. The red and white of, yes Arsenal, but also of blood-letting barbers, pofaced Gary Numanoids, of junior school authoritarianism and general right wing nastiness.
Magazine editors, stylists, influencers, Tik-Tokers and YouTubers…Substackers even - men all over the world have a view on how to dress and what not to wear. How to look younger, sexier, more likely to be chosen for an upgrade or a better table. How to dress your age; what to wear after 30 and 40, after 50…after 60.
There are tips on clothing items to buy and bin, footwear and ‘fits that women will find a turn-off, garments that you think will make you look younger but actually make you look older. Colours, fabrics, prints and designs to avoid. Some of this stuff is sage advice, plenty of it overly-prescriptive, staid and unimaginative…or too fashion and trend-based to be of use (and often containing sponsored links to retail sites).
So, here’s MALE ON SUNDAY’s contribution. A single stitch of sartorial advice that serves all ages, identities and persuasions. Do NOT wear a white shirt and a red tie. Even if you are Arsenal or Arsene. Never. Not ever. Just don’t.
Why not?
Two Words.
Donald. Trump.
That’s not enough of a deterrent? Don’t worry, there are plenty more reasons (many of them Trump-adjacent) As a clothing choice, the Red Tie gives off toady and suck-up, middle-management, MAGA-groupie, cod-boss vibes. In just the same way that Trump is a poor person’s idea of what a rich person looks like (thank you for that Christoper Hitchens) the red tie is a nine year old boy’s idea of what an important adult should be wearing. A Ken doll’s interpretation of what someone with a desk job needs to be changing into of a morning. As a colour way, Red Tie on White Shirt has a Hasbro-esque simplicity and garish immaturity; generic, basic, inelegant and, as the kids like to say “NPC”. Ironic then, that it is worn by many men who really think they are bonafide players. (NPC being gaming parlance for “Non Player Character” btw)
Just look at the men who endorse it via repeated, show business / ugly people outings. During the first Republican presidential debate for the 2024 election, for instance, all seven male candidates were sporting some version of the obsequiously dismal, foolhardy foulard. Red tie at night = Bigot’s delight.
More recently, when Donald Trump needed moral support at his hush-money trial in New York, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Byron Donalds from Florida, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, JD Vance, Senator Rick Scott, Ken Paxton, House Speaker Mike Johnson et al all showed up in Manhattan wearing a toadying take on the WS/RT ensemble. A grisly chorus line of sycophants, desperately cos-playing their job applications, effectively wearing the tour t-shirt to the gig, their collective sartorial tastes no more mature or sophisticated than a 12 year old Swifty’s. (Inexplicably, I’ve also seen late night chat show hosts - Kimmel and Colbert - roasting Trump during their monologues donning the unforgivable WS/RT merger. Barrack Obama is also guilty of the occasional red on white crime. WTF?)
Why red? Well, it is the right wing Republican party’s livery of choice, obvs (somewhat confusing for the Brits where red is representative of the left) and yes it “pops” on live TV and in photos (so does the swastika, btw) but you just know that each and every Trump fan-boy candidate on that debate / X Factor audition and outside the courtroom, was hoping that the Big Fat Red Neck-tie Don himself would see it on TV and choose them for his 2024 campaign running mate.
Trump has spoken about his collection of comedy-length power ties, which he hilariously believes to be “slimming” (he keeps them neat and un-flappy by sellotaping the seam-sides together at the back - aw, bless) his cheap white shirts and the navy suits that appear to have been tailored for a circus bear trying to pass itself off as human.
Channelling his inner Anna Wintour, Trump calls the combo “the look” - what he sees as the correct, boardroom-to-bordello mufti ensemble of the big, fat-necked, testosteronal, law-making man-in-full. All of its constituent apparel parts available for purchase at a provincial airport’s duty free mall, the red making a nice colour match with the KFC bucket he’ll soon have in front of him.
US Comedian Patton Oswalt has another term for it. “The hungover limo driver look”. And in 2024, if it’s sitting near you in a restaurant, you have every right to ask for another table.
Even wife-slaying OJ Simpson knew that the white shirt and red tie was a red flag. During the famous Nicole Simpson murder trial, back in 1995, the running back slasher advised his legal team against wearing it. Especially on the court days where domestic abuse or blood spatters were being discussed. The so-called “power tie” (is that short for “white power tie”?) OJ had learned, was aggressive and a stripe of red silk might suggest, as Gilbert says in his book “that we had blood on us”
As early as 210 BC during the reign of Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang the red tie symbolised aggression, power, and dominance, red neckwear later becoming a signifier of a young pioneer in socialist era Soviet Union. Russia had the pionerskiy galstuk (pioneer's neckerchief), in Vietnam it was khăn quàng đỏ (red scarf) and in Cuba pañoleta roja (red scarf). Years before MAGA mutants and Republican party reptilia co-opted it, red ties and white shirts were the uniform of the greed-is-good, non-lunching, Cheerios-defiling Wall Street monster - the dominant, bloody and threatening colour contrast purportedly giving the wearer a psychological, competitive edge over his rival. Attention seeking red also has links to high testosterone levels, wealth, strength, authority, passion, good luck and nationalism. Red tie + White shirt + Blue suit = patriotic!
Really though? That’s not what any man with grace, taste and sprezzatura will see. Fire engine scarlet, phallic, silk and floppy, flaccid but also rigid in its pathetic aggression, the red tie is a canine penis of an accoutrement.
Angry, raw and arrow-headed, and, like one of those old “I’m With This Idiot” t-shirt slogans, pointing downwards to the genitals - actually frottaging with them in the Donald’s strangely extended case - if it is now difficult to not think of the words “poodle priapism” every time you see the great orange oaf and his big, dumb, red tie on TV, this men’s style advisor will feel like he has done his job.
So true. So well written Simon. Bravo.