Years ago, when I was a student apprentice in Hyderabad, people in buses would thrust money in my face demanding, “One ticket Nampally.” My friends suggested that I stand towards the front of the bus to avoid being mistaken for the bus conductor, but that didn’t work either. Clearly, my jeans and matching denim shirt were too strongly associated with the blue of the bus conductor’s uniform in commuters’ minds to make a difference whether I rode fore or aft in the bus.
What do our clothes say about us? US President Barack Obama was quick to acknowledge Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strong personality and declare him a “style icon”. Given the media coverage of Prime Minister Modi’s sartorial taste, the day may not be far when Mr Modi may be said to have inadvertently started his own line in fashion. What do his sartorial choices tell us about him and how he wants to be seen?
I asked a social psychologist, an eminent professor, what the Prime Minister’s bespoke dark suit with his full name Narendra Damodardas Modi embroidered into the pinstripes of the fabric said about him. “Oh, just that he is quintessentially a Gujarati. Successful Guajaratis like to show off by adopting the latest in fashion and brands.” The Washington Post has claimed that Mr Modi, despite his Hindu nationalist image, loves top foreign brands and wears Bvlgari shades and a Movado wrist watch.
In 2011, when Daily Mail, London, reported that the former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak wore a similar suit, their reporter contacted a bespoke pinstripe cloth manufacturer, Holland & Sherry. They revealed that the clients for its Signature Collection included members of “royalty and captains of industry, as well as champions of sport in boxing and riding.” Mr Modi, therefore, like successful businessmen, boxers and champion riders, is making a statement that he has arrived.
Washington DC-based clinical psychologist
Dr Vinita Mehta writes in her blog in Psychology Today that “a substantial body of research has shown that the male penchant for premium or exclusive brands isn’t so much about quality or function it’s a signal to attract mates… that material goods like flashy cars or expensive watches are a lot like the peacock’s colorful plumage, which conveys their fitness to peahens. They are attention-getters that say, ‘Pick me, I’m a highly desirable partner’.”
Assuming that the 62-year-old Prime Minister of India is unlikely to be addressing “peahens” of any variety, how can one read his latest fashion statement? By a constant change of clothes during the day (much like good-old Shivraj Patil), specially woven cloth for a suit and patronising fashion designers, he certainly seems to be asserting his access to resources and signaling that he is a high-value individual.
As a statement of disproportionate access to power, his use of branded fashion may be directed at intimidating his cohort of other wannabe alpha males, the style statement being a myth-making exercise about oneself. The de rigueur attire of a politician in India is the white kurta-pyjama and a Nehru jacket. However, if one wishes to distinguish oneself from the run-of-the-mill politico, one can get a designer tweak as
Mr Modi has done by favouring half-sleeved long khadi kurtas and designer jackets in pastel shades of orange, yellow and blue, avoiding green at all costs, as his Ahmedabad-based tailor helpfully informed reporters. Sceptics, who still wonder whether what we wear really matters to others, may be directed to a study published last year claiming that people do make snap judgements based on what they see someone wearing.
Researchers asked 300 adult men and women in the UK and Turkey, to look at images of a man and woman for three seconds and then make a judgement about them. The models’ faces were pixilated to eliminate any hidden messages that the subjects might see in facial expressions. In some pictures, the models wore made-to-measure suits and in others very similar off-the-peg suits bought from the high street. The differences in the suits were minor with the colour and fabric being matched.
The study found that in just a three-second exposure people judged the man in the bespoke suit more favourably. And the judgements were not about how well dressed he was. “They rated him as more confident, successful, flexible and a higher earner in a tailor-made suit than when he wore a high street equivalent.” Mr Modi, therefore, may be said to be dressing up not only for himself but to influence others and evoke favourable judgments about his legitimacy, authority and occupancy of the highest position in government. The question, however, is: Does dressing up also evoke confidence and trust in a political leader? It may, if wealth distribution in a society is not terribly uneven.
In India, where access to even the basic resources needed to sustain life is highly unequal, dressing up in politics could alienate the have-nots. Already the image of a spotless white khadi-clad politician in white Ambassador cars has ceased to evoke any trust or confidence in the people. The Prime Minister’s choice of fashion may have brought him closer to world leaders, but it may also distance him from those who catapulted him to the top. Is it possible that he may have got the societal context wrong in deciding whether he should be dressing up or dressing down?
Mahatma Gandhi chose to be a minimalist dresser to show his empathy with the poor. Lalu Prasad Yadav’s rustic charm lies in the way he dresses like the ordinary folk. And Arvind Kejriwal’s muffler and strap-on sandals identify him with quintessentially “Middle India”. Mr Modi’s fashion style, however, reproduces the same alienation and intimidation that he seeks to challenge. Frequent demagoguery is not sufficient to compensate for that loss. In Greek tragedy, mortals who displayed hubris learnt pretty quickly that over-extension of the ego seldom goes unpunished. More recently, Shivraj Patil learnt it to his cost during the 2008 Delhi bomb blasts that obsession with one’s clothes can quickly erode the street credibility of a politician.
The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi
