Nehru Jacket is Top 10 Political Dress Statement

Well tomorrow 26th January is India's Republic Day. Note that this is not India's Independence Day which is 15th August. According to Time Magazine, a Nehru Jacket is a Top 10 Political Statement - as worn by India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, often referred to with the epithet of Panditji.


Coming in at #7 is the Nehru Jacket. So let's celebrate The Nehru Jacket. 

India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru 

But as Rajendra Prasad was India's first President it could easily have been called the Prasad Coat as he followed the same aristocratic Indian dress code.

Rajendra Prasad was India's first President

Some public figures end up popularizing their favorite fashions; a select few have their fashions named after them.

That was the case for Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who effectively took India's reins from none other than Gandhi (his mentor) as the first Prime Minister of a free India.

Hardly reminiscent of Gandhi's famous homespun clothing, the Nehru jacket is a descendant of the northern Indian achkan, a closed-neck, coatlike garment usually considered court dress for Indian nobility.

Indeed, it was when the jacket was marketed to Western audiences that it took the "Nehru" title, the charismatic Prime Minister having popularized its style in public appearances during his tenure in government.

Nehru wasn't the only prominent figure associated with it; the minimalist aesthetic of the jacket inspired the likes of the Beatles (who wore the style at their Shea Stadium performance) as well as Sammy Davis Jr., who claimed to own more than 200 of the jackets.

Well I keep telling myself that I must get myself a Nehru Jacket sometime (or even a Prasad coat). I never did have one. But I have an unused White Dinner Jacket and it is feeling rather lonely so perhaps a Nehru Jacket could calmly hang beside it in splendid tranquillity.


You shouldn't really wear a Nehru jacket if your inside leg measures less than your waist - and that applies both in centimetres and in inches of course. There's no hiding. Women's sizes do vary of course and one person's size 10 is another's size 14.


And the same applies to double-breasted jackets. If your waist measures more than your inside leg forget the double-breasted coat. 


I haven't worn double-breasted suits for some decades.


And no ties are worn with Nehru jackets.


From my days as a banker I've got dozens of those ties where the logo is on the front of the thin end. You know the ones where you carefully have your tie in disarray where the thin end pokes out from behind the fat front end and shows the designer's logo just by chance.


OK so that's me out on both scores. So no Nehru jacket for me unless I lose some [OK several] waist inches. Maybe that's a good incentive for 2012 but getting my inside leg measurement less or even equal to my waist is going to be impossible. I haven't been there since university days. But I'll try and get close.


I have not checked the basis for the ranking but they are probably just as good as Standard and Poor's country ratings ;-)


Oh and Time's Top 10 are:

#1 Rick Santorum's Sweater Vests [How many people outside the US have heard of hom?]

#2 Fidel Castro's Tracksuits [Not by me. I imagine him in jungle fatigues as so doe Wikipedia]

#3 Every Male in American Politics, Ever.[Eh?]

You've seen it before: the crisp white button-down. Neatly tailored dark suit. Red or blue tie in a Double Windsor knot. Flag lapel pin.

This is the uniform of every male politician in the Western world, a modern marvel of sartorial science that beams reassurances of competence and conformity into the brainpan of every person in the room. Ever seen a G-20 group photo?

It's two women, the King of Saudi Arabia and 17 guys wearing this outfit.

Note how Argentina's Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has changed her style from lacy white to black? A man in a skirt one could say if she wasn't so spectacularly good looking - for a woman of course.

Too much deviation from the norm — think Rick Santorum's sweater vests, Barack Obama's mom jeans and Bill Clinton's short shorts — and an inspirational leader risks becoming an object of ridicule. Don't do it, gentlemen. You know who wears fancy duds? Divas and dictators.

#4 Kim Jong Il's Khaki Safari Suits and Sunglasses [Spot on]

#5 Jimmy Carter's Cardigan [I don't remember that]

#6 Mao Zedong's Suits [Looks to me like Kim Jong Il's Khaki Safari Suits. Or is it the other way round?]

#7 Jawaharlal Nehru's Jackets

#8 Muammar Gaddafi's Everything 

#9 Hillary Clinton's Pantsuits [Yes. Dressing like a man. See #3]

#10 Sarah Palin's Glasses [O-O]

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