Clothes make the crook

George Santos used fashion to break the rules.
There is a scene at debut of "The Talented Mr. Ripley", the 1999 film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's book, in which Tom Ripley, the young man who becomes one of fiction's greatest fakers, borrows a Princeton jacket from a friend to sit for the pianist at a posh garden party. From this assumed finery, the value of a whole novel was born.
It's a bit like Frank Abagnale shrugging his shoulders on the uniform of a PanAm pilot in "Catch me if you can" to convince in the world of observers, he is a pilot, or Anna Sorokin, alias Anna Delvey, the false heiress of a recent scam, strolling in New York society with sunglasses Céline and Gucci sandals. Or even Elizabeth Holmes assuming the black turtleneck of Steve Jobs, and with it her mystique.
Throughout history, the greatest con artists have understood Dressing up is half the game. And so it was with George Santos, the Republican congressman representing parts of Long Island and Queens, who was exposed as fabricating just about his entire resume in his quest to get elected, potentially committing campaign finance fraud in the process.
Why do people keep asking, did it take so long to let his lies be exposed? Why didn't anyone think to dig deeper? Why didn't people who knew something fishy was going on speak up?
Partly because he sounded so convincing.
He went to Horace Mann, Baruch and N.Y.U. and came money? Here's the uniform for preppy private school boys everywhere: the white button-up shirt, crew-neck sweater (most often in the old-school colors of periwinkle and gray), blue blazer, and khaki pants, as something straight out of "Dead Poets Society."
He was a financier, who had worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs? Lo, the three-quarter zip sweater and the fleece (or fleece-like) vest, the uniform of bankers everywhere. Just consider the last six seasons of "Billions".
Santos mesh zip front. Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times
He delved into popular culture's hive mind costume department and built his cover layer by layer, garment by garment.

He may occasionally wear suits, but it's the sweaters, in their various permutations, that have been the focus. revealing garlic, as well as horn-rimmed eyeglasses — visual shorthand, in just about any medium, for intellectual. Both are props that push the stereotype buttons buried in our subconscious. You're so much more likely to believe a story if it's grounded in the codes you'd expect, with the dress code being among the first.
Yes, it's is a cliché. That doesn't mean it isn't effective. Clothes are the camouflage that gets you through the door. Especially in a world where the line between visual truth and fiction is increasingly filtered.
So it wouldn't be surprising if Mr. Santos bought hundreds of dollars of clothes and shoes in Brazil using checks stolen from her mother's purse. And that a former roommate claimed in the New York Post that the

Fashion Jan 19, 2023 0 44 Add to Reading List

George Santos used fashion to break the rules.

There is a scene at debut of "The Talented Mr. Ripley", the 1999 film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's book, in which Tom Ripley, the young man who becomes one of fiction's greatest fakers, borrows a Princeton jacket from a friend to sit for the pianist at a posh garden party. From this assumed finery, the value of a whole novel was born.

It's a bit like Frank Abagnale shrugging his shoulders on the uniform of a PanAm pilot in "Catch me if you can" to convince in the world of observers, he is a pilot, or Anna Sorokin, alias Anna Delvey, the false heiress of a recent scam, strolling in New York society with sunglasses Céline and Gucci sandals. Or even Elizabeth Holmes assuming the black turtleneck of Steve Jobs, and with it her mystique.

Throughout history, the greatest con artists have understood Dressing up is half the game. And so it was with George Santos, the Republican congressman representing parts of Long Island and Queens, who was exposed as fabricating just about his entire resume in his quest to get elected, potentially committing campaign finance fraud in the process.

Why do people keep asking, did it take so long to let his lies be exposed? Why didn't anyone think to dig deeper? Why didn't people who knew something fishy was going on speak up?

Partly because he sounded so convincing.

He went to Horace Mann, Baruch and N.Y.U. and came money? Here's the uniform for preppy private school boys everywhere: the white button-up shirt, crew-neck sweater (most often in the old-school colors of periwinkle and gray), blue blazer, and khaki pants, as something straight out of "Dead Poets Society."

He was a financier, who had worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs? Lo, the three-quarter zip sweater and the fleece (or fleece-like) vest, the uniform of bankers everywhere. Just consider the last six seasons of "Billions".

Santos mesh zip front. Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times

He delved into popular culture's hive mind costume department and built his cover layer by layer, garment by garment.

He may occasionally wear suits, but it's the sweaters, in their various permutations, that have been the focus. revealing garlic, as well as horn-rimmed eyeglasses — visual shorthand, in just about any medium, for intellectual. Both are props that push the stereotype buttons buried in our subconscious. You're so much more likely to believe a story if it's grounded in the codes you'd expect, with the dress code being among the first.

Yes, it's is a cliché. That doesn't mean it isn't effective. Clothes are the camouflage that gets you through the door. Especially in a world where the line between visual truth and fiction is increasingly filtered.

So it wouldn't be surprising if Mr. Santos bought hundreds of dollars of clothes and shoes in Brazil using checks stolen from her mother's purse. And that a former roommate claimed in the New York Post that the