Politicians aren't there to dress well. They're there to take dirty corporate lobbying money, or navigate an unfriendly Twittersphere for doing the right thing, or, indeed, an amalgamation of both. But on a recent visit to Capitol Hill, Mahershala Ali (Esquire cover star, and all round good man) put some lawmakers to shame in an audience with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Congressional Caucus and the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.
In Washington DC, the Green Book star involved himself in the issue of religious persecution (look, we told you he was a very good man), and managed to out-dress the current West Wing in the process.
Rather than the sagging, unflattering suits of guys with an ungodly penchant for corporate tax cuts, we saw razor-sharp tailoring. No insipid, forgettable lapels either, but peak ones. And lest we forget the lack of a shirt altogether, instead replaced by a mandarin collar and just the right amount of glint - something of a signature for the 45-year-old.
It is, in short, a happy balance of current trends and The Norm in a place as hallowed as Washington DC. While the luxury school uniforms of Thom Browne et al may be welcome at New York Fashion Week, they may not be as appropriate in a discussion centred upon the systematic persecution of certain religious practices. In response, Ali kept things simple, dialled down, but still refused to blend into the grey homogenous blob of what may well be the worst-dressed sector on the planet.
That's why we're all in for Ali.
