Does it matter what politicians wear?

“When Donald Trump declared in the first debate of the US election that Hillary Clinton doesn’t have “a presidential look” many people wondered whether what he actually meant was: “Hillary doesn’t look like a US president because she is not a man in a suit”.

And even in the many countries where female leaders have broken decades of male dominance, the debate about their “look” continues. Alongside comment on Hillary’s “pantsuits”, we find pages of opinion about Theresa May’s shoes, or Angela Merkel’s blazers. But does what these women wear really matter?

Personal stylist Annabel Hodin says that it does, but that the same goes for men too: “every public figure should look their best all the time”. This is not merely the view of someone who makes money from making people look good, but the findings of a growing body of research.

‘Abstract cognitive processing’

In 2014, a study by Michael Kraus and Wendy Berry found that men dressed in formal business clothes did significantly better in negotiations than men dressed casually. In 2015 Abraham Rutchick found that formal clothing enhanced abstract cognitive processing, one of the characteristics of a leader.

These studies give new depth to the expression “looking the part”: “you have to dress like the tribe you aspire to belong to,” Hodin says. People wearing suits do successful business because they conform to our idea of a business person. The principle is the same for politicians: “when they get it right you won’t notice what they’re wearing,” says Hodin.”