Against suit shaming

Most of the people in my feed spent their weekend talking about how ashamed they are of their country. That’s a sentiment I don’t share. But a very specific shame was still very much on my mind because of the Trump-Zelensky press conference: suit shaming.  

The suit shaming of President Zelensky started as soon as he arrived at the White House looking like one of the henchmen from Anora. As Zelensky stepped from an SUV, Trump commented on his outfit: “He’s all dressed up today,” a power-player rhetorical cue to make Zelensky appear poor and small.  

At the press conference, the media itself got in on the suit-shaming. Brian Glenn, boyfriend of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and an anchor from Real America’s Voice, whatever that is, asked: “My second question for President Zelensky. Why don’t you wear a suit? You’re at the highest level in this country’s office, and you refuse to wear a suit. I just wanted to see… Do you own a suit?!” 

That was when the meeting, to my eyes, started to get tense. “I will wear a costume after this war will finish,” Zelensky said.  

On the one hand, Zelensky is a political leader on the short end of the largest conflict in continental Europe since World War Two. When you’re trying to negotiate peace terms, maybe it’s a good idea to observe some sartorial niceties. On the other hand, some people are just committed to an extremely casual lifestyle.  

It was no accident that I was sitting at my desk in my bathrobe while the world’s most public suit-shaming ever played out in real time. When I read the Twitter feed of Derek Guy, the menswear writer, I might as well be reading furniture-assembly instructions in Hindi.  On days where I put on any clothes at all, I mostly wear ironic T-shirts and goofy baseball caps, just like Elon Musk, the world’s richest and second-most-powerful man.  

So I felt the Ukrainian president’s suit shame fully. I’ve faced suit shaming my entire life. 

The incident reminded me of one of my life’s greatest moments of shame, a burden of which no therapist has ever been able to relieve me. In 1991, when I was a summer intern at the New Republic — a fairly prestigious gig at the time — my parents came to Washington, DC to visit me. They took me out to a nice dinner, to the kind of restaurant that required men to have at least a sportscoat.  

Well, I’d neglected to bring, or own, at least a sportscoat. My father, who was an old-school business type but no big cheese in the world, mocked me about this the entire meal, as I increasingly cowered behind my shrimp cocktail. Twenty years later, after I was a relatively successful guy with books and bylines and TV appearances to my Wikipedia credit, he’d still reference the time we went out to dinner and I didn’t own a suit. He was, quite literally, ashamed of the way I dressed. It was the ultimate shonda.  

That is a lifelong suit shaming — and it’s followed me.  

In 2022, when I appeared as a contestant on the ABC game show The Chase, I wore my “lucky” shirt, some vintage Western wear that I’d picked up a long time ago on a book tour. I loved that shirt, though I love it less because Ken Jennings, now the host of Jeopardy! but then an antagonist on The Chase, did not. He said I looked like “Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl” from Toy Story. “That’s what you choose to wear like on national TV?” said Jennings, who, unlike me, is on TV every day and always dresses like he’s about to head out to a wedding.  

But Ken Jennings and my late father, suit-shamers both, didn’t realize that I am simply not a suit person. I only appear on game shows every so often, and that’s usually the only reason why I would need a suit. Zelensky is also clearly not a suit person, though I’m guessing that he could afford to at least rent one without too much trouble.  

I do actually own a suit, but it’s not a real suit, just something I had to pick up once in an emergency. One morning about twenty years ago, I was in Manhattan with my family, but we were staying in New Jersey and had to get to an afternoon wedding in Brooklyn. My shabby blazer and slacks were a monstrous traffic jam away. So I got out of a cab, ran into a store, bought on credit the first and cheapest suit I could find — and had them hem the legs so I could at least dance the Electric Slide later without falling over.  

That suit, a thick-shouldered blue pinstriped number that makes me look like the leader of the Toon Patrol from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, is still in my closet — and it’s still the only suit I’ve ever owned. I’ve never had it properly tailored; at this point it’s really more of a Halloween costume than actual dress clothes. In the past decade, I’ve had the opportunity to wear it three times: to my niece Katie’s bat mitzvah, to the funeral of my mother in 2017, and to the funeral of my father in 2019. I thought about not wearing the suit to dad’s funeral just to spite his suit-shaming ways, but I instead decided to be a bigger man. In a really big suit.  

Now, much to my ragtag chagrin, it appears very clear that suit-shaming, my ultimate shame, is codified at the highest level of government. This trend should stop immediately, as it’s cruel and unnecessary. On the other hand, I’d desperately like to own a nice suit and would love to have a reason to wear one.  

At the moment, in the extremely unlikely event that the White House, or anyone, summons me for any reason, I suppose I’d have to wear my ill-fitting Roger Rabbit suit. Or maybe my bright green T-shirt that reads “100 Percent Parmesan Cheese.” I’m sure neither would impress President Trump, or Real America’s Voice.