There seems to be a new trend in vogue among heads of state. After the publication of photos posted on March 14 on the Instagram account of the official photographer of the Elysée, Soazig de La Moissonnière, the international press wondered: Emmanuel Macron, photographed in a hoodie, would he try to imitate Volodymyr Zelensky’s style? Since the Russian invasion in Ukraine, the Ukrainian president has dropped the costume to opt for a khaki t-shirt, soon accompanied by a three-day beard. An appearance close to the people, relaxed, which contrasts with the seriousness of the functions occupied by the former actor. But what does this style change really mean? Interview with François Hourmant, lecturer in political science at the University of Angers, who explored the metamorphoses of appearance in the political world in a book released in December – Power and beauty, The taboo of the physical in politics.
L’Express: Since the start of the war, Volodymyr Zelensky has abandoned the suit in favor of a khaki T-shirt. What does this change of outfit mean?
Francois Hourmant: At the start of the invasion, Zelensky appeared in his khaki T-shirt, in “battle-dress”. It is an explicitly military garment: he becomes a war chief, and his outfit also indicates this. He is the President of the Republic, but he is also a fighter. In a way, her outfit contributed to the process of heroization that affects Western opinions. It is a communication operation. There is a performativity of clothing: it is good because the situation is exceptional that the president puts on a trivial, banal wardrobe.
Next, Zelensky’s outfit is interesting in that nothing distinguishes it from that of ordinary fighters. There are no ranks or medals. No element gives a hierarchy. This president is one with his people, in a form of humility which is that of the locker room. This refers to the image he intends to build as a chef. Zelensky is in a rather paradoxical form of distinctive indistinction. His wardrobe in no way distinguishes him from his men, but his outfit becomes distinctive by virtue of the new status he has been able to acquire.
An outfit very different from that worn by the Russian authorities…
Indeed, his wardrobe contrasts sharply with that of officers in conventional armies, in particular with the rigidity of the Soviet wardrobe, now Russian, where generals often wear a very ostentatious ceremonial uniform. the battle dress Zelensky’s khaki is reminiscent of the outfits worn by Cuban revolutionary leaders Fidel Castro and Ernesto Guevara. At the time, this contributed a great deal to constructing the figure of revolutionaries, of fighters, which was much more seductive and attractive for the generation of the 1960s than was Erick Honecker, for example, leader of the German Democratic Republic.
Ukrainians are faced with an invasion, a time of war that allows us to free ourselves from other conventions. This is to signify the change of state of the president, who has been much decried because of his status as an actor, an actor, and who, all of a sudden, in exceptional circumstances, turns out to be a warlord. Her outfit condenses this subtle alchemy, which is also a political communication: there is no exercise of power without controlling appearances.
What to think, precisely, of the fact that Putin remains in his classic presidential costume?
I was talking about the opposition between the heroic image of Cuban leaders and the bureaucratic aspect of Eric Honecker. The contrast is also striking with Putin, who did not change his wardrobe before and after the Russian invasion. We are with two different imaginations. Zelensky arrives with a form of relaxation, his chair in his hand, and settles near the journalists, with proximity and relaxation. With Putin, it’s an imaginary of domination, of authority. The locker room has not changed. The Russian president has not put on a military costume because he denies being at war, it is, according to him, only a special operation. Putin’s uniform is a suit and tie, a symbol of the regime’s bureaucracy, and of the war as he conducts it.
A series of photographs of Emmanuel Macron in a hoodie has caused a lot of talk. Is it a pure imitation of Zelensky?
This locker room has attracted a lot of attention from journalists, in particular this famous hoodie, this hoodie. There is a mimetic dimension that has been highlighted, especially on social networks. We are faced with a staging, quite similar to that of Zelensky, but in a different register. With this hoodie, Macron refers as much to the street as to the military authority, with this symbol of the special forces. It’s quite paradoxical, because in one case as in the other the relaxation that is staged builds the new posture of the warlord. He does not wear a uniform, but that, duplicated, of Zelensky. The new uniform of the democracies of the 21st century is no longer the military uniform, but an assembly of parts that no longer correspond to it. Macron also plays on two aspects: he is as much president by the verticality and the golds of the Elysée, as a candidate by the proximity of his outfit.
Beyond the garment, there is also psychology: like Zelensky’s beard, there is also Macron’s, which denotes a distance from the role. Note that Macron had already played this card of political communication in January 2016, where he sported a three-day beard. All the media had commented on this beard, almost relegating the debate on the forfeiture of nationality to the background. By superficially altering its appearance, journalists became interested in it, perhaps more than in the issues.
Next, it seems obvious to me that there is an aestheticization of power here. All of this has been weighed and thought through. Until now, the presidential silhouette was framed, pasteurized, adjusted. Here, nothing of the sort: today, political legitimacy is largely built on deviation from the norm, by strategies of distinction and therefore by transgression, the rejection of institutions. This is a particularly difficult approach for a president to adopt. As a candidate, Macron must therefore both play the institutional card and reject it. In the vast movement of deinstitutionalization that we know, in this rejection, opting for a “street” cloakroom allows a distancing.
Could we see in this desire for relaxation an inspiration from the United States? During these two terms, Barack Obama has been photographed a lot in action, in shirt sleeves…
The political cultures are not the same between the United States and France. Obama imposed a form of relaxation, youth and nonchalance on the post of president. The French are always more corseted. Obama’s influence is therefore perhaps notable at Macron, but he is not the only one to have fallen off the suit. George W. Bush, for example, donned a bomber jacket during the Iraq war to look more like a warlord. It is the use of the trivialized locker room, perhaps seen as a desire to dust off the presidential institution without necessarily desacralizing the function. A way to resolve this tension between distance and proximity.