As the hazy summer heat takes over Capitol Hill, so does the season of senators wearing puckered cotton fabrics. Seersucker outfits are back once again, carrying on a Senate tradition that Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott began in 1996.
Expect to see the striped, New Orleans-inspired suits on lawmakers in abundance in June, which was recently declared National Seersucker Month, with every Thursday through August as Seersucker Thursday.
Typically, the Senate dress code requires senators to wear business attire, meaning a suit with a jacket and tie for men and a dress or skirt for women, but lawmakers have, time and again, strayed from the norm.
Take, for example, Sen. Tim Scott, R.S.C., a GOP presidential candidate for 2024, who is known for wearing colorful socks and participating in “sock battles.”
“It’s just my way of taking the mundane and making it at least a little more interesting. “I think I wear blue, charcoal gray and black, so anything that provides color on my ‘uniform,’ so to speak, is great,” Scott told NPR in 2015.
Or consider the viral images of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing different brands of sneakers when meeting President Joe Biden at the Oval Office in March 2023, as The New York Times reported.
Although Biden has classic Oxfords on, some of the other lawmakers chose a different route.
In March, political commentator Saagar Enjeti criticized the wearing of sneakers in the Oval Office after seeing a photo of actors from “Ted Lasso” visiting Biden and first lady Jill Biden in the White House.
“Call me old fashioned but no man should set foot in the Oval Office without dress shoes and especially not sneakers,” he posted on Twitter. He also noticed the lack of ties.
In fact, a sneaker culture is brewing on Capitol Hill. A bipartisan group of lawmakers launched the Congressional Sneaker Caucus in April, led by Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore.
“It’s a bridge back to people my age who grew up in the 1990s and also a way to connect to young people,” said Moskowitz, who has been seen wearing Nike Jordans around Capitol Hill and has nearly 150 pairs in his collection, according to Roll Call. “It’s a great bipartisan way to talk to people.”
Meanwhile, Chavez-DeRemer has often been seen wearing Nike or Adidas sneakers but isn’t much of a collector.
Even Mon. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., was seen wearing formal-looking sneakers when the Senate voted on the debt ceiling on July 1. She paired the shoes with an embroidered sleeveless dress with a cutout in the back.
In the past, the dress code for women in Congress included not showing shoulders or arms in the building. As The New York Times reported, this rule was amended in the House in 2017, while the Senate changed it when Sinema was elected to the upper chamber in 2018.
Sinema is known for her eccentric style, putting together outfits with bold colors, patterns and sometimes, even wigs. In 2021, while presiding over the Senate, Sinema wore her red glasses with a pink shirt that said, “Dangerous Creature.”
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, approached her and said: “You’re breaking the internet.” Her response? “Good.”
She told Politico last year that the news headlines about her outfit choices in the Senate were “very inappropriate.”
“I wear what I want because I like it. It’s not a news story, and it’s no one’s business. It’s not helpful to have (coverage) be positive or negative. It also implies that somehow women are dressing for someone else.”
While the socks, shoes, and bold colors may be a great way to show personality, there are others, like Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who has embraced a more casual style.
Before Fetterman, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, cast a vote in 2021 in his workout clothes. His justification was that he was in the middle of a basketball game.
But Fetterman, a Democrat, has made his hoodie, basketball shorts and sneakers a part of his persona, according to the Deseret News.
The Senate floor has a required dress code but Fetterman has a workaround: He votes from the doorway or the side entrance.
Whether people believe Fetterman’s look makes him more appealing to the everyday man or that it disrespects the office he holds, it’s clear that casual dressing has evolved to become a part of the larger American culture.
As The Atlantic reported, before the 1950s, Americans wore starched collars, overcoats and hats to work, to the airport and even to the movies. The three-piece suit culture faded away from most places except the office and church — but now, even that has changed.
The 2017 article noted two outliers — high-stakes boardrooms and political settings, with the former being challenged by Silicon Valley’s “tech bros.”
Where the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs wore a turtleneck, which he called his uniform, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg styled himself in a gray T-shirt and a hoodie.
Zuckerberg had an explanation, as he told GQ Magazine in 2016: “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve (Facebook’s) community.”
While highly accomplished tech bosses have dropped the formal suit for efficiency, political leaders use a casual style to connect to the masses.
Apart from Fetterman, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s signature look does not include a suit but T-shirts, sweatshirts and tactical trousers, almost always in the shade of military green, as The Washington Post reported.
Whether he is meeting with Biden or addressing NATO, the actor-turned-president keeps his look consistent.
Back on Capitol Hill, the month of June might invite many to take out their seersucker suits, but expect political leaders to continue pushing the boundaries even further on the written and unwritten dress code, pairing sneakers and colorful socks with their outfits — and in some cases, even a hoodie.