“I love it,” President Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he arrived at the White House on Monday for a high-stakes meeting.
Trump was talking about Zelensky’s suit. When the Ukrainian leader emerged from his vehicle, he was wearing a blazer-style jacket, collared shirt (no tie), pants and combat boots, all in his favored black. The patch-pocket jacket, crafted from army canvas fabric, came from Viktoranisimov, the Ukrainian label whose clothes he’s worn exclusively for most of this year, according to a representative for the brand.
It seemed to land with its audience: outside the White House, Trump gave Zelensky a good once-over, gesturing at his get-up like a proud grandfather.
Trump’s seemingly tossed-off compliment was in fact rife with meaning. The last White House meeting between the two leaders in February quickly devolved into an acrimonious argument, and included one American reporter for the outlet Real America’s Voice criticizing Zelensky’s choice to wear a casual black henley rather than a suit. “Why don’t you wear a suit?” asked Brian Glenn. “You’re at the highest level in this country’s office, and you refuse to wear a suit.” Vice President JD Vance chuckled, before laying into the Ukrainian leader with his own criticisms a few minutes later.
Zelensky might well have known that his outfit would cause a stir. Trump is more image-obsessed than most world leaders, often boasting that his cabinet looks pulled from “central casting.” Zelensky’s wartime wardrobe, meanwhile, differs sharply from Trump’s closet full of Brioni suits.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Zelensky has largely kept to military basics like brown and olive-green T-shirts, fatigues and combat boots. His defiantly not-business-casual wardrobe seems intended to broadcast a straight-to-the-point humility—an assertion, perhaps, that wartime isn’t the time to observe formalities. Occasionally, as in his February meeting with Trump, it’s worked against him.
Starting in February, though, Zelensky changed things up. In April, he topped off an all-black outfit with a black field jacket at Pope Francis’s funeral. In June, he wore a military-leaning blazer over a collared shirt, pants and combat boots, all in his favored black, to a NATO summit in the Netherlands.
The jacket he wore to the White House on Monday was subtly different: Anisimov, its designer, added vents to the back and sleeves, per a representative, “gradually shifting the President’s image towards a more civilian style, while still preserving the military reference.” The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House had requested that Zelensky wear a suit and tie to the meeting.
“While more formal than what he was previously sporting, it still conveys that not all is well in his part of the world,” said Jacob Neiheisel, a professor of political science at the University at Buffalo, who likened Zelensky’s looks to Winston Churchill’s WWII-era “siren suits.”
“Given the criticism that he received from the Trump administration and its allies in previous meetings surrounding the way in which he was dressed,” Neiheisel said, “I believe Zelensky is showcasing that he is willing to bend a bit to convention for the good of his country.”
The jacket itself is unfussy—the sort of “convertible” piece that can function like both a blazer and a more casual chore coat depending on how it’s worn. But with the jacket buttoned up for Zelensky to greet President Trump, its utility was obvious. To any onlookers, and one in particular, the Ukrainian leader was wearing a more formal jacket than his usual garb.
Zelensky’s outfit came up briefly when he and Trump spoke with reporters in the Oval Office. Glenn, the reporter who took Zelensky to task over his outfit in February, prefaced a question by telling the Ukrainian president that he looked “fabulous.” Trump put his hand on Zelensky’s arm and agreed: “I said the same thing.” Trump reminded Zelensky that Glenn was “the one who attacked you” back in February.
“I remember,” Zelensky replied, before tossing back a crack of his own: “And you’re in the same suit. You see, I have changed, you have not.”
