As Election Day approaches, candidates are using everything at their disposal to woo voters: targeted ads, text messages, taunts, and campaign speeches.

As a fashion historian, I believe that clothing is an often overlooked aspect of the campaign trail, because it is a quiet but powerful way for candidates to communicate who they are to the American public.

It is an act as old as power itself.

“Clothing, from the king’s cloak downward, is symbolic,” wrote Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle in Sartor Resartus, a seminal text in fashion studies.

Tim Walz, Kamala Harris, JD Vance and Donald Trump have all taken a cue from this 1834 publication. Each of them wears an emblem to appeal to voters – and to indicate how they will lead.

Baseball cap by Walz

What’s more American than a baseball cap?

When Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, wears one of these during the election campaign, he is not only covering up his thinning hair.

To the chagrin of many churchgoers and office managers, baseball caps are no longer just seen in the stadium, but have become a ubiquitous symbol of an American guy.

“It’s completely egalitarian,” concluded a brand guru at New Era, the official baseball cap supplier of Major League Baseball. “It’s the crown of the people.”

The baseball cap was born out of functionality. Eyes shaded with shades can see better. In the 1880s, baseball players chose between styles ranging from pageboy-style pillbox caps with thick brims to something that newsboys might wear. Consumer choice led manufacturers like Spalding to opt for the domed design used today.

I think Walz wears these hats to tell voters, “Hey, I’m just like you.”

He has a cap for every occasion. The former high school coach wears a trucker cap with mesh sides when he’s hosting a fishing competition; he wears a camouflaged number when he’s talking to other hunters; he switches to an NFL Minnesota Vikings version when he’s eating corn dogs with reporters and another with Goldy Gopher – the University of Minnesota mascot – when he’s hugging piglets at the State Fair.

Kamala’s sneakers

Whether she’s dancing to the beat of a drum or frying burgers, presidential candidate Kamala Harris is usually seen in a classic pair of Chuck Taylor All-Stars.

Marquis Mills Converse designed the sneaker in 1917 at his Massachusetts-based rubber shoe company to appeal to basketball players, a relatively new sport that was gaining popularity. The shoe’s diagonal lug sole prevented players from slipping on the basketball courts that were springing up on college campuses and in cities across the country.

Today, the cultural influence of the Chuck Taylor All-Stars cannot be overestimated.

Fashion historians say the shoe’s democratic origins – it once dominated more than 70 percent of the basketball shoe market – are part of its enduring appeal. The company’s archivist attributes its success to its utilitarian simplicity.

But in the 1970s, the emerging Adidas Superstar, which was lighter and had a protective toe shell, became a favorite among basketball players.

No matter. California’s skateboarders fell in love with the All-Star’s soles, which provided extra grip on their decks, so it’s somehow fitting that a California politician made the shoe a part of her signature style.

The low-cut model worn by Harris was introduced in the 1950s for a non-athletic market and she raves about the shoes’ practicality and versatility.

“I walk through airports in my Converse sneakers,” she told online fashion magazine The Cut in 2017. “I have a whole collection… a black leather pair, a white pair, I have the laceless kind and the laced kind.”

She wore the shoes on the cover of Vogue magazine in 2021 and they were a constant presence during her campaign for the top job.

Beyond the comfort that sneakers offer a candidate who spends a lot of time on her feet, I think they convey a more subtle message that recalls her origins: ready to move, ready to spin, ready to win.

Republican Red

A red tie is nothing new. For centuries, military leaders and their armies used red scarves to demonstrate power and aggressiveness. Chinese imperial warriors wore red headscarves. To match the color of Emperor Trajan’s cloak, Roman soldiers wore red headscarves.

Former President Trump has worn a red tie since the early 1980s, when he was best known as a ruthless real estate mogul. As president, he took it up a notch: “Republican Red.”

Although red has long been associated with dominance and passion, it only became the color of the Republican Party in recent decades after television networks assigned the party the color to announce election results in each state.

Oscar Wilde wrote, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” and Trump’s supporters criticized his style of dress.

Vance is one of them. The fact that the Republican vice presidential candidate is wearing the red tie is the icing on the cake of his transformation from tech bro to MAGA supporter.

As menswear expert Derek Guy wrote, Vance’s road to the vice presidential nomination was a tour de force. Gone were the days of off-the-rack gray suit jackets paired with open-collar and button-down shirts and nice jeans.

Instead, the uniform of his new boss: navy blue suits, worn with the more formal spread collars – and yes, shiny red ties.

Guy sees Vance’s redesign as “a fad my faultan opportunity for him to walk back his previous criticism and prove his loyalty to Trump.”

Vance’s suits fit better than Trump’s, and his tie is a little looser, but the message is the same as it has been for millennia: “I am the man in the room who commands this army.”

Well, as long as Trump isn’t there.

Trump’s fake orange tan

Trump blames energy-saving light bulbs for the orange color of his skin, but that’s not all.

The New York Times compares Trump’s fake tan to “Warhol’s shock of white hair or Big Bird’s scarlet plumage,” and it was “a culturally embedded image of his personality long before he entered politics.” Beauty editors have picked apart the look, cartoonists have mocked it, and his critics have mocked it relentlessly.

And yet he continues to shine. Why?

Although sun worship has existed since time immemorial, tanned skin is a 20th-century cultural phenomenon. The trend is often attributed to French fashion designer Coco Chanel, who told Vogue in 1929, “A golden tan is a sign of chic.” More likely, tanned skin became popular due to a boom in outdoor recreational activities such as sailing, tennis and golf, which became the domain of the rich and famous.

Trump’s tan plays into his public image as a wealthy power broker. Sociologists who studied why people use artificial tanning found that “tanned white skin can mean that its owner is a healthy, relatively wealthy, sociable, physically fit and attractive person.”

To achieve this goal, tanning enthusiasts turned to science. The first tanning salon opened in 1978. By 2004, there were already 50,000 establishments serving 28 million customers.

Self-tanners – the widely accepted cause of Trump’s skin color – have been around since the Chanel days. Originally they were a form of makeup. But by the 1970s, all the major cosmetic brands were offering chemical versions that actually colored the skin. Soon, magazine editors were falling over themselves to provide instructions on how to prep the skin and apply the product for an even finish, a problem that occasionally plagued Trump.

For Trump, the self-tanner’s ability to convey youth and vitality is even more important than in the past, since the former president’s age has become a target of criticism.

Public historian Kate Barilla contributed to this article.

Deirdre Clemente, Associate Professor of History, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.