Putin's puffy coat, Zelenskyy's T-shirts and the power of fashion in war

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/22/ [login to see] /putin-coat-zelenskyy-shirts-fashion-statement-russia-ukraine-war
A designer coat President Vladimir Putin wore last week during a rare public appearance has turned the Russian leader into a meme and a source of derision at a time when Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy's understated fashion choices have helped transform him into a wartime hero.

The blue coat underscores how Putin is out of touch with ordinary Russians and is yet another example of the information war he's engaged in, fashion experts and historians contend.

The coat, which was reportedly fabricated in Italy and cost approximately $14,000, is part of the carefully curated way Putin attempts to present himself to the world, said Marlen Komar, a fashion history journalist.

The coat is a strategic part of Putin's propaganda machine which operates day and night to combat reports portraying Russia "as a poor, suffering country that is on the brink of collapse behind its exterior image," Komar told NPR over email.

Zelenskyy, on the other hand, knows exactly what he's doing in his simple green T-shirts and other military garbs, said Dr. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, a fashion historian and author of "Red, White, and Blue on the Runway: The 1968 White House Fashion Show and the Politics of American Style."