J.D. Vance Used to Dress Like Silicon Valley. Now He Dresses Like Trump.

There’s an old episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry David puts on his most Republican-coded outfit in an attempt to earn membership at the exclusive Beverly Park Country Club. David, who almost only wears soft knits, rumpled chinos and short jackets for all 12 seasons of the show, dresses like a New England WASP for his country club interview, donning a traditionally cut, brass-buttoned navy blazer, red regimental striped tie and light blue oxford-cloth button-down shirt. I wonder if J.D. Vance, who Trump announced as his running mate this week , has ever seen that episode.

Over the past few years, Vance has also taken on a new look that telegraphs his politics. But he doesn’t look more like a country-club Republican — he looks more like Donald Trump .

A tour of Vance’s public appearances these last eight years reveals the transformation.

In 2016, Vance went on Charlie Rose to promote Hillbilly Elegy , his memoir about growing up in working-class white America. At the time, he was still working as a venture capitalist with financial backing from conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel. As such, his style resembled that of his Silicon Valley contemporaries. On the show, he wore his typical uniform when promoting his book — an open-collared dress shirt with collar points that slipped underneath his gray flannel suit jacket, which he also wore for his feature in The Washington Post and his interview at the National Book Festival in 2017 .

Vance’s tailored wardrobe at the time seemed modestly sized; he typically switched between this gray suit jacket and one or two navy sport coats . The short, tight fit of his tailored jackets, combined with their narrow lapels , suggested that he shopped mid-tier ready-to-wear, as the styles sat downstream of early 2000s trends. His approach to dressing at this time very much reflected the preferences of white-collar professionals, particularly those in the technology and financial sectors. Wear a tailored jacket, if you must, but don’t put too much thought into it, lest you stand out as being overly stuffy and traditional; dress things down when you can by pairing tailored jackets with jeans and open-collared dress shirts.

When Vance went to the 2017 Allen & Company Sun Valley conference, an annual gathering of high-powered business elites, he wore a high-collared, soft shell windbreaker . When he took part on a panel at the 2018 TechCrunch Disrupt conference , he dressed down his suit jacket with jeans and waxed leather boots . Vance rarely wore a tie during this period of his career, and when he did, he preferred solid-colored silks in colors such as navy and pale yellow , occasionally with a simple blue regimental stripe appearing in the mix.

While promoting his book, Vance carried disdain for then-candidate Trump, who he called a “moral disaster,” comparing his candidacy to “cultural heroin.” But after Trump’s 2016 victory, Vance changed his tune — and when he formally entered politics as a candidate, his wardrobe started to change as well.

In 2021, Vance announced that he would run for Ohio’s Senate seat, a campaign funded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel and hedge-fund tycoon Robert Mercer. That year, he deleted his 2016 tweets calling Trump an “idiot” and “reprehensible.” It was around this time when Vance’s wardrobe became more Trumpian, although the evolution was slow at first. When he appeared in front of the National Conservatism audience in 2021 , he wore a dark worsted suit with a red tie and tattersall shirt. Trump only wears citified, white, semi-spread collar dress shirts, not shirts with country origins. Vance has also occasionally appeared in gray suits , whereas Trump almost exclusively wears navy.

But more Trumpian elements slowly came into view. Vance dropped his tight, short suit jackets with narrow lapels and opted for something fuller — longer jackets with wider shoulders and broader lapels , echoing the boxier proportions of Trump’s Brioni suits, which have a 1980s power-suit silhouette that contrasts with Vance’s earlier shrunken tailoring. Most importantly, Vance adopted Trump’s shiny, bright red ties, which have become a signature part of Trump’s personal brand. When Vance delivered a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2022 , he was a spitting image of the former president. He has also worn this look at several major events: when he was sworn in as a junior Senator in 2023, when giving television interviews , and when showing support for Trump himself, either rallying alongside him at political gatherings or appearing behind him at the Manhattan Criminal Court .

Vance’s style transformation is not unique to him; many in the Republican Party have adopted Trump’s signature, bright red, shiny tie. At last year’s Republican primary debate, all the candidates on stage except Nikki Haley wore red ties — all solid-colored and glossy with the exception of Asa Hutchinson and Chris Christie, the two remaining Trump critics, who wore patterned neckties in softer shades of red. (Republican primary debates before the Trump era show much more diversity in neckwear, such as in 2007 , 2011 and 2015 ).

I read Vance’s makeover as something of a sartorial mea culpa , a way for him to walk back his previous criticisms and prove his loyalty to Trump. Loyalty is paramount to the former president. After all, Trump selected a new running mate because the last one didn’t obey his orders to interfere in the certification of the 2020 election (Pence also started wearing crimson ties when he joined the Trump team, so perhaps sartorial echoing is a requirement.)

Ever since the 1970s, American politicians have dressed down to seem more relatable to voters, first by shedding the suit jacket, then the tie and sometimes even the dress shirt. Gov. Ron DeSantis notably campaigned in a fishing shirt during last year’s Republican primary. Conventional wisdom suggests that a dark worsted suit, particularly when worn with a tie, puts one at odds with the relaxed, unpretentious dress sensibilities of blue-collar voters. But it has gone the opposite way with Trump, and now, seemingly, Vance.

It may be that Trump’s often gaudy aesthetic, which signals wealth while at the same time putting him at odds with the Ivy League aesthetic of the elite, communicates a sense of both power and outsider status. Or it may be that Trump has leaned so strongly into identitarian and grievance politics that his dress doesn’t matter to voters. Much like the red MAGA hat, the big navy suit worn with a shiny, bright red tie is now associated with Trumpism and all that entails.

There’s one element of Vance’s style that still appears distinctly un-Trumpian: his facial hair. He started sporting a full beard during his 2021 Senate race, perhaps to make himself look like a stronger, more masculine leader. Trump has famously disliked facial hair for years, but that hasn’t impacted his view on Vance — or his look, which reportedly played a part in his VP selection process. “You’re one handsome son of a bitch,” he told Vance at a meeting in West Palm Beach . Now, Vance is the first candidate on a major-party ticket to maintain a full beard since 1880, breaking the so-called “beard barrier.”

Vance’s wardrobe makeover has seemingly paid off. During the first day of this week’s Republican National Convention, he took a slow but short walk to the stage, notably wearing a baby blue tie instead of a red one, perhaps to seem less like a copycat in this pivotal moment. With his wife by his side, Vance shook so many hands on his way to the stage that Merle Haggard’s “America First” had to play twice. In what has become one of the fastest rises in modern American politics, Vance is now not only a member of the club — he’s one of its leaders.