The last few weeks we have been writing about the clothing of the Taliban leaders and how they want Afghan women to dress; dress is everything, and the TRC in Leiden has been studying dress in all its aspects for many years. Dress is, as stated in the title of this blog, a statement of who you are or want to be.

Well well, yesterday I saw three of our leading politicians coming together to discuss the formation of a government, some six months after the last elections. Some urgency is advisable, one would say. And what did I see? I saw our acting Prime Minister Mark Rutte in a kind of 'casual' outfit that he probably regards as suitable for a Saturday afternoon; I saw our former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sigrid Kaag, in an outfit that she probably wears when gardening; and then Wopke Hoekstra, the political leader of the Christian Democrats and acting Minister of Finance, wearing a T-shirt that, and I am being charitable, does not really suit him. 

From left to right: Wopke Hoekstra, Sigrid Kaag and Mark Rutte in fantasy casual clothing. Dutch politics in its sartorial glory Copyright ANP.

So how do these outfits make the statement who they are and who they want to be? I suspect that the three discussed their clothing at length on Friday night. "Do we put on our normal everyday wear, or shall we try something different?" The result is clear. The message is "We are all buddies". We can only hope that their discussions were more fruitful than their combined sense of dress. Anyhow, politics are often compared to a theatre, and there you are!

Willem Vogelsang, 19 September 2021