Last week was the NATO Ministers of Defense Meeting in Brussels. The United States was represented by newly minted Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who seemed to revel in standing out from the crowd during a group photo on February 13. Hegseth even took to X (the increasingly virulent social media platform formerly known as Twitter) to crow about it. “One of these things is not like the others…” he wrote, following that sentiment up with, “America First, always.”
I suppose there’s a real stretch of an argument to be made that Hegseth is referring to American exceptionalism in the grand, philosophical sense. I doubt it. A much better bet is that he’s talking about his suit. Bright blue and festooned with an American Flag pocket square, it’s a clear departure from the sea of navy and charcoal surrounding it. You simply cannot miss it. Hegseth seems to think this is a good thing. It’s not.
While we here at Esquire are all about marching to the beat of your own sartorial drum, there’s a time and a place for wearing splashy suiting. A meeting with NATO at a moment when the United States is increasingly estranged from its European allies is neither. The color of the suit—affectionately termed “blogger blue” back in the #menswear days, when every guy with a Tumblr account was pouring himself into a too-tight suit and buckling up his double-monks—seems unserious in context. Juvenile, even. With his smirk, his gimmicky accessories, and his tan shoe, Hegsworth looks like a kid who crashed the adults’ table.
If he were making some sort of statement other than “look at me, I’m different!” with his suit choice, we’d be having a different conversation. If his outfit pointed to a belief system, an alignment with a specific group of people, or an ongoing political situation—think Zelenskyy in his T-shirts—it might be entirely understandable to make a point using the very clothes on his back.
But if he is, I’m not seeing it, and he’s not articulating it. In which case, it might be best for him to return to the kids table. All the attention-seeking is getting tiring, and he’s making a mess.
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