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Did the English spread suit-wearing around the world?Britain's colonial past has a new villain. Step forward the lounge suit. At a regional summit this week Uruguayan President Jose Mujica aired a surprising grievance: "We have to dress like English gentlemen. That's the suit that industrialisation imposed on the world." Mujica, who donates about 90% of his monthly salary to charity and is sometimes called the world's poorest president, was rocking a crumpled striped shirt when he launched his broadside.But is he right? The suit has its roots in the French court's matching jacket and breeches. But it was Regency London where it evolved into what we wear today through dandies like Beau Brummell, says Tony Glenville, a creative director at the London College of Fashion. The look was neck tie or cravat with perfectly fitted shirt and crisp suit. The Uruguayan president never wears a tie. Ties are verboten in Iran, where they are associated with pre 1979 revolution decadence and as "symbols of the Cross". But forget symbolism for a moment, says Glenville. "When you're doing business you don't want to be distracted by what someone's wearing." The suit achieves anonymous elegance, whereas a crumpled shirt - a colonial governor might have suggested in clipped consonants - is the mark of a rabble-rouser.
He has been nicknamed 'the poorest president in the world', but the President of Uruguay proved that he has a generous nature, at least, when he recently gave a lift to an unsuspecting hitchhiker.Gerhald Acosta had been forced to leave his job at the Montes del Plata paper mill early and was walking home from work when a good Samaritan offered to give him a lift.The shocked hitchhiker told a local newspaper that it was only as he go into the car - the president's iconic 1987 blue Volkswagen Beetle - that he recognised that the elderly couple was actually President Jose Mujica and his wife Sen. Lucia Topolansky.Gerhald told El Observador newspaper in Uruguay that 25-30 cars had already passed him by without stopping when the big-hearted head of state came to his rescue: 'I couldn’t believe it. The president was giving me a ride.'When I got out, I thanked them profusely, because not everyone helps someone out on the road, and much less a president.' President Mujica and his wife are well-known for their humble lifestyle. Mujica, a former leftist Tupamaro guerrilla leader, famously eschewed the presidential palace after he took office in 2010, and continues to live in a ramshackle farm which is in his wife's name. He once declared that his blue Beetle - a symbol of his famously austere lifestyle - was his only asset, and he is thought to donate much of his £7,200-a-month ($11,000) salary to homeless charities.Perhaps David Cameron and Ed Milliband could learn a thing or two...
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Topic: Is Jose Mujica suited for the job? (Read 4338 times)
