Nigel Farage’s Oddly American Outfit
Last week, Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform U.K., and a key architect of Brexit, vanquished Count Binface to retain his parliamentary seat.
The results were not shocking. More startling was that Farage cast his ballot dressed as if he’d escaped from a Cape Cod clambake.
Farage paraded past the news media in white-soled boat shoes, salmon-tinted trousers and a cream blazer with wispy blue stripes. Similar clothes can be spotted at J.Crew outlets and on mannequins at J.McLaughlin. His hale tan only added to the sense that Farage had interrupted a vacation to perform his civic duty. Here was a politician who for decades has proclaimed British pride and the value of cloistering England off from the rest of the world dressed, well, American.
The outfit appeared especially off-note on Farage, who has been so deliberate in looking British in the most conventional (and occasionally clichéd) sense. He has campaigned in Barbour jackets, Crombie coats and plaid flat caps. One British commentator accused Farage, a private-school-educated former commodities trader, of performing a sort of “country cosplay.”
Partly, Farage’s outfit reflects how flat style has become globally. The internet has mushed together regional mores and idiosyncrasies into an always-a-click-away stew. Today, a politician in Britain has as much access to Nantucket-red style pants as someone in Nantucket. Farage seemed to take it for granted that voters probably wouldn’t even notice if he dressed more like the mayor from “Jaws” than Percy Sugden of “Coronation Street.”
Yet Farage’s outfit also made me think of how younger members of the right dress here in America. OK, the tie is probably out, but Farage’s boat shoes and the salmon pants would’ve fit in at a Turning Point USA conference. (Farage attended one of the group’s conferences as a speaker in 2019, back when he was barnstorming American college campuses.)
Farage’s stances on immigration and his railing against crime make him a political twin to so many members of the rising American right. Last week, he made that connection visual.
