Accoutering Autocrats: 'Foreign Policy' Looks At How The World's Dictators Dress

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week ended yesterday. New York City hosted shows by the likes of Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Isaac Mizrahi, Michael Kors, Vera Wang, and dozens of other designers.

Of course, NPR covered this event in our own special way, looking at legislation that would provide copyright protection to inventive designs.

As far as I know, no one from Foreign Policy joined Glamour, Vogue and Marie Claire catwalk-side at Lincoln Center. But that didn't stop the magazine's editors from doing some fashion coverage this week.

In a photo essay called "The Devil Wears Taupe," Foreign Policy looks at how some of the best-known autocrats dress, noting that, "not all the world's dictators are clotheshorses, but as these leaders show, sometimes politics, power, and polyester combine to make fashion magic."

 

The magazine calls Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi "Libya's peacock," noting "his personal style reflects his outsize behavior on the world stage."

Qaddafi is most often seen sporting long, flowing, brown robes that represent his hometown of Sirte, a Bedouin village in the middle of the Libyan Desert. But he also has a strong sense of occasion. For African summits, the "King of Kings" of Africa dons dashikis or more elaborate costumes, as seen above. Other times, he goes for the full-on military dictator look, complete with epaulets and beret. And who could forget the layered milk-chocolate-colored satin outfit (complete with black beret and a pin in the silhouette of Africa) that he wore at last year's U.N. General Assembly session? It made diplomats almost forget that he talked for over 90 minutes.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad favors "a relaxed minimalist aesthetic, what you might call 'dictator business casual.'"

"Fidel and Raul Castro have for decades set the standard in dress for guerrillas-turned-autocrats," Foreign Policy writes. "Their classic olive-green and biege military uniforms, clearly pulled from some Batcave-like closet filled with rows upon rows of identical outfits, have been adopted across the globe."

You can read about the rest — Kim Jong-il, Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez, Yoweri Museveni, Than Shwe and Omar Hassan al-Bashir — here.