For a limited time, George Washington’s inaugural coat, which distanced his office from the military and from European royalty, will be on display at Mount Vernon.
Fashion has always been political, but never more so than when coupled with the towering bully pulpit of the U.S. presidency.
John F. Kennedy popularized the Ivy League style with his slim, single-breasted suits, signaling an end to the buttoned-up culture of the 1950s. In keeping with his transformational persona, Barack Obama tried to liven things up with a tan suit, only to scandalize the fusty Washington establishment. Donald J. Trump’s straightforward power ties celebrated traditional masculinity. Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s retro aviator shades winked winsomely at an aging nation.
And before all that, there was the unexpectedly elegant, mid-thigh-length brown coat George Washington wore to his inauguration as the nation’s first president on April 30, 1789, at Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan. (At the time, New York was the capital of the United States.) The garment is fragile and usually stays in storage, but it will be on display at Mount Vernon, Washington’s expansive plantation home, for the next few weeks to coincide with Mr. Trump’s second inauguration.
Mr. Washington was a rich man, but the unadorned, single-breasted brown coat made of American wool does not suggest a longing to meet the tastes of London and Paris. Nor is there any hint of the president’s record as the commander in chief of the Continental Army — no golden epaulets or bright blue sashes, such as those that he wore when Charles Willson Peale painted him after the Battle of Princeton.
“He very clearly made the decision he wasn’t going to be a monarch,” said Summer Anne Lee, a historian at the Fashion Institute of Technology who is writing a book about presidential fashion. “He wasn’t going to dress like a king.”