Barack Obama tan suit controversy



On August 28, 2014, United States President Barack Obama held a live press conference in which he discussed the prospect of escalating the U.S. military response to the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria. For the conference, he wore a tan suit, which at the time was unusual for Obama. It received considerable attention, with whether it was appropriate for the subject matter of terrorism being discussed in the media. The issue remained prominent for several days, and was particularly widely discussed on television talk shows.

Background
On August 28, 2014, President Barack Obama held a press conference about the situation regarding ISIS in Syria, and how the U.S. military was planning to respond to it. At the conference, Obama said that the U.S. had yet to develop a plan regarding the removal of ISIS, and talked extensively about his concerns in the region. During the conference he wore a tan suit, which until that point was uncommon for Obama.

The light-colored suit was seen by conservative commentator and Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs as "shocking to a lot of people". The controversy was seen in the context of the slow news season before the run-up to the 2014 election campaign. The suit received mixed reviews from a sartorial perspective.

At the time, the unusual attention given to a male leader's fashion choices was contrasted with that of his 2008 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's "regular experience" as a woman in politics.

Immediate response
U.S. Representative Peter King, a member of the Republican Party, deemed the suit's color combined with the subject matter of terrorism to be “unpresidential.” He went on: "There's no way, I don't think, any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday. I mean, you have the world watching."

Reporters and political commentators joked about the tan suit, making a play on words of Obama's "Yes We Can" and "the audacity of hope" phrases into "yes we tan" and "the audacity of taupe." The latter phrase, a parody of Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope, was recycled from media coverage of a 2010 Oval Office redecoration by Michael S. Smith which featured a prominent taupe rug and furnishings in similar muted colors, playfully criticized by Arianna Huffington among others. The day after the press conference, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that Obama felt "pretty good" about his decision to wear the suit. Fashion designer Joseph Abboud, who had previously made suits for Obama, praised Obama for the decision, saying that "You don't want to look the same every day of your life. It's boring as hell." Multiple news outlets noted that other U.S. presidents had also worn tan suits, including Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Still others said that the tan suit commentary was overshadowing the greater implications of the conference, and of the U.S. strategy for combating ISIS.

Legacy
Ultimately, the controversy came to be seen as petty and trivial. For Obama, the tan suit controversy became a topic to joke about at future events.

During the presidency of Donald Trump, Obama’s successor, the tan suit controversy was frequently referred to by Trump critics to draw a contrast between Obama and Trump. These critics contrasted the attention devoted to this trivial issue under the Obama administration with various examples of Trump's actions that broke more substantial political norms while generating less coverage, and argued that the episode illustrated how Obama's presidency was covered in comparison to Trump's.

During the week of Obama's 60th birthday in August 2021, and near the seventh anniversary of Obama's tan suit incident, President Joe Biden wore a tan suit for a press conference, which was widely reported as a jab at the initial controversy.

On September 7, 2022, at an event honoring Obama's official portraits unveiled at the White House, Obama joked about the tan suit incident.