Right or left: same costume, same tie ...<

One, two three, Bleu Costume de France or Gordini.Thank you Barack!We owe him the possibility of wearing a blue costume to the highest peak of the state.In the first debate of the presidential election on Monday there were three of them: Benoît Hamon, Emmanuel Macron and François Fillon.It looks like nothing but he saved us anthracite gray, dark blue and black.Jean-Luc Mélenchon held black with a Cuban jacket with four pockets and four buttons, suitable for winter constraints.Alter-eye nod to alter-globalism which has the advantage of trying something.Let's leave Marine Le Pen, the only guest candidate.It will be said that she takes up the absence of distinctive signs claimed by her neighbors: black jacket and pants.

Besides, the whole planet gets black with the exception of Pakistani, Indian, Iranian leaders or the monarchies of the Arabian peninsula.Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, who has made his entire career at the UN before becoming the secretary general, tells Dominique and François Gaulme, the authors of the clothes of power - a political history of male clothing (Flammarion, 2012) that'He has seen the colored spots disappear over the years.When has power lost its colors?Is there a tiny hope of seeing them come back?We asked the authors the question.She is a journalist, he is an ethnologist, and they have observed, for years, the tribe of heads of state and government.

Que disent les tenues des hommes politiques en France ?

Dominique Gaulme: all the same.You only have to see them during television debates, during the right and the center or socialist primaries, or to the last debate of the presidential candidates on Monday on TF1.You have to go into details to find differences.No fantasy, risk -taking, nothing that distinguishes Benoît Hamon, Emmanuel Macron and François Fillon.

François Gaulme: François Fillon is the archetype of the curator.Its Arnys costume is the mark of a timelessness that finds its source in England.On the other side of the Channel, it is accepted, that is part of the decor, and the whole political class, but also bankers, businessmen accept this rule of the game.We dress according to a very specific social code.

D.G.: It feels like we must avoid the slightest note of originality.Politicians could seek to attract the look.They blend into the mold.

F.G.: As much in London there is no choice of the cut, the jacket is an armor which must corseter the body, in Paris, one can have more flexible cuts, in the Italian.Fillon, who married an Anglo -Gallen - his father is Welsh, his English mother - adds to the Gentleman -Farmer side with his forest jacket, the photos in the countryside with the horses and the family walking in the park of the castle.For once, he's really his style.

François Fillon représente le conservatisme. Mais les autres doivent essayer de se distinguer ?

D.G.: Jean-Luc Mélenchon tries.The others must have advisers who dissuade them from making the slightest gap.The difference will be on the price of costumes.Before becoming a public man, Emmanuel Macron wore much more expensive costumes, then he gave up tailor-made.Now he puts young costumes that seem to be worth less than 400 euros.The cut is more flexible, closer to the body, it means having a body that goes with.After, when the costume is new, it doesn't make a big difference with a costume at 6,000 euros.Afterwards, we always end up with a plain shirt, a plain tie, blue most of the time, sometimes red.In the first debate, probably to do modern, Bruno Le Maire had no tie, he hurried to put one in the second.Mélenchon plays the map of Guerillero Urbain with Cuban jackets, with four pockets.Sometimes it feels that he will come out of an appointment with the undercom fee Marcos.For the debate, he wore the classic outfit of Prof Union of the left of the 70s with a red tie, but at least he tries to invent something.

Quand le pouvoir a-t-il perdu ses couleurs ?

F.G. : C'est venu d'Angleterre, à la fin du XVIII^e siècle avec Brummell.The British dandyism requires dressing very simply in blue and beige.Navy blue for the jacket, beige for the pants, and that every day.There is a brutal impoverishment of male clothing from 1780.Before, we were not afraid of bright colors.The King of Sweden, in 1771, and Louis XV, in 1774, were portrait with jackets of a firecracker red.Ten years later, everyone goes to blue and beige like the English liberals who will revolution the United States.

D.G.: There are eccentrics like Robespierre, the virtuous who defended a French coquetry.But neutrality, democratic equality, will impose itself.Robespierre had an old diet side with his outfit, his powders, his extraordinary ties and his wigs.He was guillotined in 1794.

Napoléon rompt-il avec cette tendance ?

D.G.: Completely.In France, the color returns with absolutely mind -blowing uniforms that will make the whole of Europe jealous.There, we go straight away with gilding, fodder, the fanfreluches.It is a fireworks display, and it will give ideas to all non -democratic countries.Louis XVIII, who had trouble standing, will be put on shoulder to look like a soldier descending from his horse.

F.G.: It is with Louis-Philippe that we come back to a bourgeois model in which black is essential.Even if, as for Napoleon III, he puts Garance red pants when he is in uniform. Avec Adolphe Thiers, le premier président de la III^e République, le noir s'impose pour le haut et pour le bas.It is the bourgeois in all its discreet splendor.

Depuis la IIIe République rien ne bouge en France ?

D.G.: Or little. Il y a, au milieu du XX^e siècle, une américanisation de l'homme au pouvoir.From 1945, with cinema, with Hollywood, American politicians adopted a much more relaxed style.Everyone remembers John F.Kennedy seducer, who dresses sport.We drop the hard collars, remove the jacket and roll up the sleeves.Barack Obama is the heir to this school.

En France, ça ne passe pas ?

F.G.: Not really.Georges Pompidou put turtleneck sweaters, moccasins ... But for the official photo, he wore evening clothes.With Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, English traditionalist, we rather fell but he wore a city costume for his official photo.It didn't go very far.

D.G.: In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan wore a blue prince-de-(Bleu Costume to go to a G7 summit in Versailles.And, opposite, you have an impeccable mitterrand, armored in dark blue or anthracite gray, it's so dark that we don't know anything about it anymore.

F.G.: We followed the American code but in a stuck version.

D.G.: It depends that wears it too.Barack Obama can do everything: when he rolls up his sleeves, the sexiest gesture for a man is to fall back on.In contrast, everyone remembers François Hollande for a G8 at Camp David where he keeps his jacket when everyone is in shirt or sweater.

Il n’y a rien à inventer pour l’homme politique ? Rien de possible ?

D.G.: They are afraid that something protrudes.Something that shocks.Right or left, they put the same suit, the same shirt and the same tie.Even Marine Le Pen endeavors to give an image of her reassuring, she is the office neighbor, the HRD.His father was a "thug", he could put blazers in incredible colors, incredible pockets, he did not care.

Du coup, il n’y a pas de différence entre la droite et la gauche ?

D.G.: In 2012, you have very amazing photos.When David Cameron, Conservative Prime Minister, receives François Hollande who has just been elected, they have the same costume, the same shirt with the same collar and the same dark blue tie.There is only the Legion of honor of the French president to make the difference.

F.G.: We can observe differences until the 1970s, with the velvet costume.There were the big tiles of Georges Marchais.He had endimanché prolo jackets.Afterwards, it becomes complicated to see a difference.Jack Lang brought a distinctive touch by taking advantage of the freedom left to him by his portfolio as Minister of Culture.He could wear pink gingham shirts with an English collar, incongruity, but it was passing.

Le degré de liberté est égal à zéro ?

D.G.: For men, yes.Now, we must not forget that for women, there is also an impossibility.Remember Cécile Duflot's welcome when she came to the assembly with a flower dress.It is "always too much or not enough", which Elisabeth Guigou spoke to me.These gentlemen did not miss him.It was mind -boggling.Hence, the brotherhood of pants tailors which was a blessing for women in power.