Obama’s 24 Ties

Photograph by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.

The fashion industry is hoping that the stylish Obama administration will help it rebound—social secretary Desirée Rogers posed on the cover of WSJ magazine in a Viktor Rolf trench coat and Cartier ring, although word is that press secretary Robert Gibbs nixed an Oscar de la Renta shoot in the First Lady’s garden.

The “stylish” message doesn’t always reach the male staff: Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wore the same $75 Brooks Brothers tie to a House committee meeting.

The Web site NeckOfState.com tracks what the President is sporting around his neck. During his first 100 days, the site says, Obama wore 24 neckties. The most popular—which he wore nine times—was dark blue with white dots. During the 2008 campaign, he often didn’t wear a tie, but in the White House he’s buttoned up.

This article first appeared in the June 2009 issue of The Washingtonian. For more articles from that issue, click here.   

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Garrett M. Graff