The Beau Brummel of the Pecos

Texas Monthly's got a sneak preview of its big Robert Draper piece about George W. Bush up on its site now. I love this part about how just after he was elected Texas governor, his advisers went in and cleaned out his closet, given that he was a notoriously bad dresser. You might think it makes him look bad, but I appreciate (seriously -- I'm not being sarcastic) how human it makes Bush seem:

Now, however, he was on a stage where such things mattered. “It’s part of the discipline,” Jim Francis would say. And so one day Francis called tailor Barry Smith, who arrived at George W.’s Dallas home on Northwood just after the 1994 election.

Knowing it was time for a proper schooling, George W. listened. “I know you don’t like clothes—I can tell that,” began Smith. The governor-elect did not take umbrage, so he continued: “But we need to figure out what’s going to work well for you, because you’re entering a public profile. So, three things we need to think about. One, what is what you’re wearing going to look like on camera? Two, what are your best colors? And three, what do you like?”

“Well, obviously, I need dark suits,” George W. said. “I don’t do a lot of patterns.”

“Then let’s stick to basic blues and grays, get you inaugurated, and we’ll go from there.”

They stood in his walk-in closet and appraised his current wardrobe. It was a horror show. The tailor fingered the polyester Haggar slacks with the elastic waistband (the Haggar family were friends of George W.’s) and said, “I don’t think these portray the right kind of image you’re looking for.”

“I like them. I don’t much care for belts.”

“But they don’t take you to the next level. I’m not saying you have to throw them away. Wear them around the house if you want.”

Drawing the line, the governor-elect said, “I don’t like cuffs. They always get caught on something.” Smith assured him that he could do cuffless trousers.

Footwear: boots. A couple of pairs of loafers (which once had tassels, but he had cut them off), several pairs of running shoes, but otherwise, boots. He would be wearing them with his suits. Case closed.

They moved on to his dress shirts, which were all white—or had been at one time. “These have seen better days,” George W. chuckled as he noted the yellow rings under the arms.

They looked at his suits. A couple of them, purchased at a Dallas haberdashery, were quite nice. But George W. didn’t like them. “These jackets, they’re grabbing me,” he said. “So I’m just not gonna wear ’em.”

Smith suggested that they take all of his suits out of the closet. In one pile they would place the suits to be retained. The other pile would be donated to his church. In the end, the church made out like a bandit. Two suits were culled from the junk—uncomfortable ones, but they cost so damned much it seemed a pity to just toss them out.

It was done. Having already achieved success, George W. Bush would now begin dressing for it. And fevered from the breakthrough, he went a little crazy that afternoon, also ordering from Smith several pairs of socks, belts, ties, shirts, sport coats, and even a couple of basic lace-up cap-toe shoes.

But he kept some of the Haggar slacks with elastic waistbands. So comfortable!