For his recent meeting with Barack Obama, India’s prime minister wore a suit with his name written in the pinstripesSuits you, Sir: India’s prime minister Modi sports his bespoke suit as he meets Obama. Detail of Narendra Modi’s pinstripe suit.
In the glamorous and dynamic sphere of world leader fashion, one man
rules them all: Narendra Modi. Like a supermodel, the Indian prime
minister is said to have changed outfit three times
on Sunday but it was his otherwise sedate suit, worn to host a lunch
for Barack Obama during the US president’s three-day visit, that seems
to have made the biggest impact.
He appears to be wearing a pinstripe suit, but zoomed-in photographs
reveal the stripes are actually letters repeatedly spelling out Modi’s
name. Sadly for Modi, he can’t claim to be the pioneer. The recent trend
was set on the political world stage in 2011 by noted style
trailblazer, the ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak (unfortunately
for him, in a sartorial equivalent of the misspelled tattoo, the
lettering in English on his suit reads “HOSNY”). But the concept goes
even further back. A piece in Fortune magazine in 1999
mentions one personalised pinstriped suit owned by the former Argentine
president Carlos Menem, and the boxer Evander Holyfield who has “four
suits that read, respectively, EVANDER HOLYFIELD, THE CHAMP, THE CHAMP
ONE MORE TIME, and THE THREE-TIME CHAMP.”
The burning question is where can you get one? The bespoke tailors King & Allen
is just one company offering a personalised pinstripe suit – they
introduced it about three or four years ago, though nobody has ordered
one yet. “The price, I think, is quite prohibitive,” says co-founder
Jake Allen, whose business is based on more affordable tailoring.
The cloth, made by the longstanding manufacturers Holland &
Sherry which supplies much of Savile Row, has to be specially made at a
minimum of nine metres – this is enough for Allen’s company to make two
suits, which would cost upwards of £15,000 (more for cloth with gold
thread).
Who would wear one? Allen laughs. “An egomaniac? Generally I think it
is a great touch, having something so personal made. The beauty of it,
as extroverted suit styling always should be, is that it is very subtle.
See the suit from any more than 3ft away and it looks like a regular
pinstripe. It is only when you get really close that you can make out
the lettering, or even that it is lettering. When Obama and Modi are
hugging, Obama is probably noticing it for the first time.”
Not everyone is keen. “I think it’s absolutely horrible,” says Robert
Johnston, style director of GQ. “One thing I learned very early on in
life is clothes should never be fun. There is always an attempt to jazz
up a pinstripe – I’ve seen rainbow pinstripes, or done in gold thread,
or this with your name. It’s just a gimmick, isn’t it? It’s a name tag.
What is he – a world leader or someone going to a photocopying
conference in a Travelodge?”
