El look casual de los candidatos

Wall Street Journal:

How do a Harvard-schooled private-equity titan, a Mandarin-speaking former ambassador, a libertarian physician-congressman and the nation's longest-serving governor convince Americans that they are men of the people?

Campaign casual.

Fashion observers say the men in the Republican presidential primary race are setting a new standard for studied sartorial ease. Working the campaign trail in shirt-sleeves and jeans, they're tossing off their neckties—and with them, a century of tradition.

"Good lord, what have we come to?" says Daniel James Cole, professor of fashion history at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. "I read that Mitt Romney's wife bought him Gap skinny jeans…We don't think of jeans as being presidential." The Romney campaign didn't respond to requests for comment.

A Republican former White House aide suggests the 2012 candidates have gone far beyond what he calls the "three F's" rule: A president looks better without a tie only when appearing at a fair, on a factory floor or at the scene of a flood.

Indeed, Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, went tieless when kicking off his candidacy.

Giving an informal air to the formal announcement, he wore a roomy shirt in a tattersall pattern—a plaid first used in 18th-century British horse blankets—with sleeves "rolled as if he [had] entered an impromptu hot-dog-eating contest," wrote Kurt Soller, Esquire's style editor. The magazine's Web story was titled, "Mitt Romney's New Strategy: Stop Dressing Well."

Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah and U.S. ambassador to China, traveled New Hampshire this past spring in a plaid lumberjack shirt and oversize jean jacket that staffers say brought him luck in his 2004 and 2008 gubernatorial races. Back in the state over the Fourth of July, the candidate, his daughter, wife and a staffer all were decked out in gingham plaid.

Max Wastler, who writes the men's fashion blog All Plaidout, wants politicians to stop wearing plaid to denote regular guy-ness. "It smacks of falsehood—like you're trying to be the Brawny paper towel guy, when you're really Mr. Peanut with your monocle and cane," he said.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul ditched the dress shirt entirely and worked Iowa this summer in a striped polo shirt with a little orange logo on the breast. So far he's the only contender who has dressed down to the minimum, posting Facebook images of himself in a swimsuit.

"Business suits: They are so 2004," Wonkette blogger Kirsten Boyd Johnson wrote.

In some ways, the candidates are reflecting Americans' growing preference for more-comfortable clothing.

But the clothes also carry a political message. Wearing less-tailored clothes helps multimillionaire Mr. Romney and Mr. Huntsman, the son of a billionaire, play down their wealth and patrician backgrounds. All the candidates are striving to reach unemployed Americans and rural voters.

Mr. Romney's informal look won praise from John Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor. "You're taking your casual clothes from the bottom of the drawer," Mr. Sununu says he told Mr. Romney recently.

Casual clothes may also help the candidates reach young people disillusioned with that other shirt-sleeves candidate President Barack Obama. Studies show that "people under 25 don't trust men in ties," says Mark-Evan Blackman, menswear design professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

But he adds: "The pitfall is wearing…granddaddy jeans," a fashion faux pas committed by nearly every male candidate in the race, including the president, who has appeared several times in roomy, high-waisted jeans.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry often outdresses his competitors, which may seem surprising for a man who grew up in denim, went off to college in boxers sewn by his mother and as governor has worn trucker hats and hunter's camouflage. But people who know Mr. Perry well say that unlike Mr. Romney, known for careers in both business and politics, Mr. Perry needs to show that he's more than a farmer's kid who has done well.

"Perry is my favorite for his machismo, his husky look," says Mr. Wastler, citing the candidate's taste in ties "as thick as Texas toast." But even Mr. Perry has lost the necktie in several recent campaign appearances.

The one exception to the campaign casual look: Michele Bachmann, who generally avoids being seen in anything less formal than skirt suits, often paired with a starched, stiff-collared white blouse.

Her traditional look may be aimed at a traditional goal, says the Fashion Institute's Mr. Cole: Signaling to voters that she means business.