Although blazers were initially worn for sport (the term comes from the red jackets worn by members of the Lady Margaret Boat Club at St John’s College in Cambridge, which visually “blazed” along the water), by the early 1980s, they symbolized belonging in polite society. Blazers allowed one entry into country clubs and Ivy League alumni houses, where paintings of 19th-century men hanging above mahogany wainscoting enshrined success according to particular moral and professional codes. For many conservatives, such environments represented civility and decorum.
Four decades later, that uniform has all but vanished. The shift isn’t unique to Republicans—men’s fashion writ large has grown increasingly informal. But within the GOP, that broader trend reflects a reordering of power. The Republican Party is no longer governed by Reagan’s acolytes but by Donald Trump, a real estate showman whose understanding of politics is indistinguishable from his understanding of branding. Trump has remade the party not only in spirit, but also—perhaps primarily—in aesthetics, transforming it into a right-wing populist platform in which grievance is currency and performance is power. Where Reaganism once whispered the genteel respectability of brass buttons, Trumpism bellows in red MAGA hats, “Never Surrender” T-shirts, and metallic gold sneakers that give off a tinsel gleam like a casino chandelier. The shift in aesthetics mirrors that in politics: Everything is spectacle, and the louder the spectacle, the more authentic the power it claims to represent.
To trace the evolution of the Republican aesthetic, one must understand codes in men’s tailoring. Before Trump’s rise in politics, Republican dress was firmly rooted in Brooks Brothers, the oldest American menswear brand in continuous operation. The relationship between Brooks Brothers and conservatism was once so tight that the anarchic attempt by Republican operatives to stop the 2000 Florida vote recount became known as the “Brooks Brothers riot.”
For much of the 20th century, Brooks Brothers represented the white bourgeoisie—particularly WASPs who traced their roots back to the Mayflower. In the early 1900s, the company debuted its iconic No. 1 Sack Suit, which was distinguished by its soft, natural shoulders, center hook vent, and a three-button closure with lapels gently rolling to the center button. Most notably, the sack suit lacked a front dart, the long, stitched-down fold that makes the garment hug the wearer’s contours. The sack suit carried American elites from the jazz clubs of the Roaring Twenties through the Great Depression and onto the Ivy League campuses of the postwar boom.