The best-dressed politician of all time was Anthony Eden. His style was something out of an Apparel Arts illustration; long jackets, peaked lapels on single-breasted jackets (a good 60 years before Tom Ford would revive it), high-waist trousers and double-breasted waistcoats. Even the fabled hatter Lock and Co renamed the Homburg hat ‘the Eden’. Those were the days of Porfirio Rubirosa, Mountbatten and the Aga Khan, when the idea of the sartorial statesman was unexceptional.
As things stand, Jacob Rees-Mogg will never leave behind that kind of legacy. By the lore of classic style, there isn’t anything particularly special about a suit, shirt, tie and polished shoes. He doesn’t embellish or accessorise, but nevertheless, in the tieless House of Commons, he is the best-dressed man currently residing on those verdant leather pews.
Sir Anthony Eden cuts a dash in 1937 (Alan Webb/Fox Photos/Getty Images)
We live in a time in which the smarter you look in public life, the more out of touch you are perceived to be.
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