“Conservative girl” makeup recently has gone viral for all the wrong reasons: over-application, mismatched foundation, cavalier disregard for god-given brow density. But is conservative fashion similarly uninspired? And is it the same across the world as it is in the United States?
There are numerous places to turn for examples in the U.S., but you could start with Melania Trump’s 2025 White House portrait, which has all the charisma of a stock image. Or the suburban Realtor-on-a-billboard style of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Right wing style is largely defined by perfectionistic, heavily aestheticized elements: over- symmetry, over-harmony, edge avoidance. In the top ranks, the result is bland, frisson- free dressing.
Kathleen M. Brown, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, believes right-wing style approximates “corporate-feminine.”
“Women in corporate America have long been told to straighten their hair, hide the gray, remove any traces of facial hair, and straighten and whiten teeth,” she told HuffPost. “They have also been subject to fat-shaming. When I superficially turn my attention to what right-wing women are wearing today, I don’t see anything that new: just a variation on the corporatization of individual identity, expression and intellect. The clothes are not the cause of these transformations, but they are the costumes and the props that support and reveal it.”
Style evolves osmotically and aesthetics are charged by cultural cross-pollination, so it makes sense that MAGA fashion is a humorless monoculture. Conservative ideology opposes pluralism and views foreign influences as contaminants that threaten a noble, racially pure identity. Among mid-ranking ideologues and right-wing press, the party line seeps into the wardrobe like a telltale stain: unmoving coifs, aggressive blondness, overglossy blowouts, tedious sheath dresses and makeup stripped of sophistication.
For presidential events, the senior Trump women have always steered clear of the inclusive and humanizing touches that have animated the wardrobes of many former White House occupants, nods to the service-of-the-people nature of the office and the country’s melting-pot ethos. Their coordinated black and white palette at the Inaugural Ball telegraphed a return to tidily binary ways of thinking.
Quite differently from their leaders at the helm, female conservative constituents go for elements that signal urgency and community: MAGA hats, Confederate flags and affiliative tattoos.
Minoo Moallem, a professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of California, Berkeley, explained the phenomenon. “The national political elite exemplifies a form of white gender normativity, dressing in ways that emphasize conformity, respectability and a notion of tradition that appears frozen in time and space. Following their lead, the popular classes often adopt items like cowboy hats or baseball caps traditionally associated with whiteness,” she said. “While both men and women use these commodities to assert a sense of unity, they also reinforce gender binaries by reverting to conventional gender norms. This reflects a longing for the ‘good old days’ and a ‘reskilling’ of traditional gender roles, which promise a future aligned with the return of a past where women were expected to remain in ‘their place’ despite their involvement in the public and political spheres.”
So what does conservative fashion look like across the globe? Below, we examine the personal style of popular conservative leaders.
Alice Weidel, Germany
The polemic-spewing leader of Germany’s radical right favors sleek, professorial androgyny. Pearls, polo necks and pocket squares top chinos and skinny jeans; jaw-grazing shirt collars are tucked inside structured blazers.The effect is fetching but Weidel’s relative youth, revisionist takes (such as the Hitler-rebrand upsetting historians) and oratorical chops unfortunately bring to mind disgraced corporate charlatan Elizabeth Holmes.
Marine Le Pen, France
Le Pen has worked hard to distance herself from her father’s legacy of boldfaced bigotry. Her vanilla style — functional jackets over basic blouses, hair that often overshoots French standards of acceptable dishevelment, unwieldy handbags — feel like attempts to optically flatten the class disparities between her and her constituents and downplay her elite background. She bristles at being called an extremist, and while her personal style is all about enhancing relatability and sanding off the rough edges that earned her father criminal convictions, most aren’t buying it.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy
The premier enjoys a spangled sweater. She may also be the first head of state to sport purple eyeshadow and to snap-wrap a press conference because her heels were killing her. Her style is more infomercial star than hardened ideologue: sparkly eye makeup, blouses with bewildering flourishes, dangly earrings, the odd chunky cuff. There is not a color she hasn’t suited up in. Of course none of this should be held against her. Only her anti-humanitarian, anti- refugee policies should. She has formalized the banning of gay adoption. Scholars have lamented her anti-feminist beliefs, especially her insistence on putting motherhood at the heart of legislative efforts. They argue that this is a way to sideline women who do not subscribe to traditional values.
Kemi Badenoch, Great Britain
Leader of Opposition and “anti-woke” politician Kemi Badenoch is all about braids, blazers and belligerence; her own party often finds her corrosive candor hard to stomach. It’s unfortunate that she pulls off a beautiful bright dress (a feat given the country’s muted parliamentary palette) while spouting hateful rhetoric against immigrants and trans people. Badenoch enjoys comparisons with her hero Margaret Thatcher over political nous, and her style feels like a fluid, pared-down upgrade on Thatcher’s excessive blouses and prim boxy skirt suits.
Smriti Irani, India
Irani’s 2000s TV soap career cast her in the role of a long-suffering wife, sweeping viewership ratings and making her the nation’s daughter-in-law. She parlayed that gratifying fiction into a political career, so her personal style feels like a bit that’s gone on too long.She continues to dress in the vein of conservative middle-class Hindu matrons, down to the finishing touches of sindoor, bindi and red glass bangles. The often ill-fitting blouses and poorly tied saris add up to an overall appearance of scruffiness, neglect-by-way-of-sacrifice. It is a clever complement to the campaign-creased khadi worn by India’s senior male politicians and a rebuttal to the starched perfection of the saris on her political rivals, accused by her party of hand-wringing in their ivory towers and being out of touch with the masses.