Search For President Barack Obama’s Infamous Tan Suit Begins
Whatever Happened to President Obama’s Infamous Tan Suit? The Search Has Begun
Fourteen years ago we still had presidential controversies, but they didn’t involve wars, or alluding to a ship full of US sailors lying.
In the summer of 2012, for President Barack Obama, it was about his decision to swap out the typical dark-hued black or navy suit for a more nontraditional summer-appropriate tan at a White House press conference.
He broke unwritten presidential protocol with the suit switch-up, and as we near the anniversary, the Chicago Sun-Times and its former Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet are wondering exactly what happened to the suit.
It’s not in any museums, or even his newly opened Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, which even showcases his collection of good luck trinkets and some of Michelle’s most memorable First Lady dresses.
So Sweet’s trying to find the threads behind the “absurd controversy,” but it’s been tough, or as she writes, “This is more than hunting for a needle in a haystack. I don’t even know where the haystack is.”
Making the journey even harder, Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett confirmed Obama doesn’t have it stashed away in some storage unit.
“The reason we don’t have the tan suit is President Obama gave it away when he was cleaning out his closet,” she said. “But we thought about a replica, but that would not be authentic, and so, we do not have the tan suit.”
The suit may not be around, but it’s taken on a life of its own, with several people showing up to the ceremonious opening of the Obama Center wearing the tan suit-and-white-shirt combo in his honor, including Stephen Colbert and David Letterman.
Obama himself and Larry David spoofed the moment in the season finale of their HBO sketch comedy show, Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness.
On her quest, Sweet has found other meaningful tidbits about the suit, including who made it.
“It was made by Martin Greenfield, who sewed his first stitches when he was a prisoner at Auschwitz, repairing the torn shirt of an SS soldier,” Sweet writes. “After the young teen survived the Auschwitz and Buchenwald Nazi concentration camps, Greenfield eventually became a famous tailor in Brooklyn, New York.”
Sweet’s asking for your help on the suit’s whereabouts and if you’ve got any clues, drop her a line.
