What to Wear to a State Dinner？
By Jason Chow
- Alex Wong/Getty Images
- U.S. President Barack Obama, right, and first lady Michelle Obama, left, pose for the official photo with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Grand Staircase of the White House Jan. 19 in Washington, DC.
White House state dinners don’t happen often — this week’s was just the third for U.S. President Barack Obama — and they are formal affairs.
But Wednesday night, Chinese President Hu Jintao did not wear a tuxedo. Instead, he opted for a dark suit and conservative blue tie.
On a sartorial level, the Chinese President was shown up by his American counterpart and the first lady. President Obama wore an elegant dinner jacket; his wife, Michelle, a flowing red dress by Alexander McQueen. And so the picture of the presidential couple with Mr. Hu — in his pragmatic suit and tie, standing alone (his wife stayed behind in China) — made for a visual mismatch: Mr. Hu was outdressed.
But let’s be fair. Mr. Hu isn’t the first head of state to attend a White House dinner in a regular suit: Jiang Zemin wore an all-black suit with a traditional Mandarin-collar jacket in 1997. Among the other notable attendees not going full formal were former President Bill Clinton, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. They all wore tuxedo jackets, but like Mr. Hu, eschewed the bow tie for a long tie.
Perhaps next time, Mr. Hu should take his cues from Jackie Chan. Hardly a style icon, the martial-arts star wore a black dinner jacket with a white mandarin-collar shirt and no tie: East-meets-West, tastefully done.
http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2011/01/20/what-to-wear-to-a-state-dinner/
