Kamala Harris wore a tan suit to day one of the DNC – what does it mean?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a prominent female politician in possession of a wardrobe will have her outfits divined for clues about who she is and what she thinks. Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, is no exception.

But the dissection of Harris’s choice of outfit took on a different tone after her surprise appearance at the Democratic National Convention in Monday evening, with some asking simply: is she trolling us?

Harris wore a suit that could be described as tan: a colour that Barack Obama famously favoured during his two terms in office. It was an outfit choice that drove Republicans and right-wing pundits mad. Most famously when Fox News host Lou Dobbs declared that it was “shocking to a lot of people” that Obama wore a tan suit in 2014 to discuss escalating the US response to Islamic State in Syria.

The choice was “unpresidential”, Republican representative Peter King said, according to New York Magazine. “I don’t think any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday. I mean, you have the world watching”.

The White House said at the time that Obama stood squarely behind the decision to “wear his summer suit”.

While some argued that Harris’s suit was in fact camel, the phrase #tansuit was trending on X, as people speculated whether Harris was intentionally trolling , baiting or aiming to trigger the Republicans and/or Fox News.

Menswear writer Derek Guy dissected the Obama suit controversy recently on X, writing that it was “pretty contrived and obviously driven by politics. But in recent years, I also see it represented here as being just about color when that’s not the full story.”

In a thread, he traced the history of the suit, pointing out that in the 1900s, “brown or olive were reserved for leisure or sport in the country”. Robert Mueller, when he was director of the FBI, wore dark blue suits, and according to a 2018 article in the Washington Post, “Mueller imposed this uniform on his subordinates because he felt it represented the FBI’s seriousness. There are stories of FBI agents scurrying out in the night to buy the right clothes before briefing him in the morning.”

Joe Biden wore a navy suit for his speech at the DNC on Monday night.

But US presidents, all of them men, have at times been more outgoing in their choices, Guy pointed out: “Reagan wore tan suits, plaid suits, and even tartan blazers”. He even wore a tan suit when appointing Donald Rumsfeld, discussing the “war on drugs”, addressing US-Soviet diplomatic talks and answering questions about his veto of the Defense Appropriation Bill.

For Harris the choice of tan may have reflected the fact that she was not delivering a scheduled speech, so was, in a way, off duty. New York Times fashion director Vanessa Friedman pointed out that the tan suit was Chloé.

In an article in July this year, days after Biden stepped aside, Washington Post fashion writer Rachel Tashjian Wise asked whether a “political figure [has] ever been less notable for their wardrobe choices than Kamala Harris?”.

Harris, Tashjian Wise wrote, mostly wears “safe, corporate tones such as banker blue and pale purple” but has spent the past several months “subtly making changes to what she wears.”

“They have been so quiet you may not have noticed them, but they have given Harris a new gloss of power and polish – perhaps showing us how she most comfortably imagines herself.”

Writing in the Guardian, historian Einav Rabinivich-Fox argued that Harris’ style hadn’t shifted as much as her energy and that she could take pointers from Black trailblazing politician Shirley Chisholm, the first and only other Black woman to run for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination.

Harris has “shied away from bold fashion statements that would convey the historic nature of her candidacy, or the excitement she stirs,” Rabinovich-Fox wrote.

Related: Model candidate: the style lesson Kamala Harris can learn from Shirley Chisholm

The Harris-Walz ticket is not immune to poking fun at their Republican rivals. Their debut collection of merchandise included an accessory to rival the Maga hat: a Harris Walz hunting cap that raised a million dollars for the campaign within hours of its release.

And Harris has form when it comes to including references in her clothing and image: for her cover of Vogue, she appeared in front of colours that represent her sorority , Alpha Kappa Alpha, and wearing their signature string of pearls. She was also once known for wearing Converse All Stars.

Though the Republicans had, hours after Harris’s appearance, resisted taking the alleged tan suit bait, they have not been above sartorial slights. At the RNC, Republican party co-chair Lara Trump compared Harris to an $1,800 faux trash bag sold by Balenciaga .