Best Dressed Statesman

[am55]

View attachment 1265867 Bashar al-Assad opthamologist and President of Syria.
I imagine his corpse hanging upside-down, Mussolini-style
amid the ruins of Aleppo.

He is the quintessential example of someone wearing nice clothing badly. I do not understand his insistence on the potato sized knot when he could have been another Anwar Sadat, who VGE referred to as having the "silhouette and bearing of a British officer":

 

[comrade]

Then why post a photo of him?

You have issues.

He's well dressed.
I also posted Franco and Count Ciano.
Both Fascists

 

[comrade]

He is the quintessential example of someone wearing nice clothing badly. I do not understand his insistence on the potato sized knot when he could have been another Anwar Sadat, who VGE referred to as having the "silhouette and bearing of a British officer":

View attachment 1266115

Not surprisingly, Egypt was under control of the British,
and the British controlled the Egyptian Army during
World War 2 when Sadat became an officer. Despite
being imbued with British training and military culture,
Sadat was a member of the anti-British nationalist officers
who eventually deposed King Farouk in 1952. During
the War he was imprisoned by the British.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Egypt_under_the_British

 

[Schwazer]

Lord Carrington.

 

[am55]

Talking of people who resisted British rule, an interesting dandy was Avraham Stern, who splintered the independentist group Lehi from Irgun, itself an offshoot of Haganah (the main anti-British organisation and ancestor of the IDF), to pursue a form of Jewish fascism before being (allegedly) murdered by the British for having approached the Nazis (!) for help in 1941. Some consider his death to have been a turning point in opinion by crystallising and popularising latent anti-British feelings. Unlike Ze'ev Jabotinsky or Menachem Begin whose style was very much rooted in their era, Stern's look would still pass muster today.

Thought of the chap after Colholm's Dr Muller post. In the original Black Gold serial, Tintin was captured by Irgun; by 1971, world events and a change in philosophy (and his editor) forced Herge to move the whole thing from the British Mandate to the fictional state of Khemed. In the original context, Tintin's refusal to take sides (core to the plot of the album) makes more sense.

 

[Clifff]

I can't beleive no one has mentioned the Shah of Iran. He and his wife were considered to know their fashion pretty well. The Shah also owned a large collection of the latest sports cars which he drove around all dressed up in the Island of Kish which ordinary people were forbidden from approaching or entering...

 

[comrade]

On a very current note, George Kent, Department of State high official.
As you can see, Ivy/Trad is alive and well at State, except for the matching
pocket square:

 

[Schwazer]

George P. Kent.

 

[JJ Katz]

On a very current note, George Kent, Department of State high official.
As you can see, Ivy/Trad is alive and well at State, except for the matching
pocket square:

Outside of iGent tropes, that is only a misdemeanor, when weighed against everything else.

 

[comrade]

When I was at State, decades ago, I do not recall ever seeing a pocket square. It was
all white handkerchiefs.

 

[Schwazer]

John Profumo.

 

[Clifff]

Yes, also known for the Profumo affair. Is the girl pictured the one he boned when she was barely 18 years old?

 

[JJ Katz]

Yes, also known for the Profumo affair. Is the girl pictured the one he boned when she was barely 18 years old?

The girl he had an affair with was Christine Keeler.

 

[comrade]

Her good friend was mandy Rice Davies:

 

[A.D.]

In 1984 the Swedish PM made $5800 a month, in today's money. Now he's paid $18200.
Members of parliament have also increased their monthly basic salaries by $2000 in the last 20 years.

You know, I can't help imagining that they dress like depressed Japanese salarymen to avoid reminding people...

Here's a PM from a different time, Per Albin Hansson in 1941.