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News in from America, where style-watchers have christened Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg as something of a flourishing fashion plate. Truly it’s a low bar. Recent viral obsessions have included a conspicuous chain necklace and somewhat jaunty Arthur Daley-esque sheepskin jacket. That statement piece came from a cowboy-ish all-American brand called Overland — yours for $995.
Given he could well afford to spend a lot more than that, it’s an interesting man-of-the-people punt. It’s giving low-key American-dad who would never try to steal all your data and make your job obsolete with ambitious AI experiments.
There is something of a method to his newly tuned fashion antennae. In a painful-to-watch video with Instagram head of fashion and former Condé Nast editor Eva Chen, the two espoused the launch of Meta’s new Ray-Ban “smart” glasses collaboration. If you’re going to get into the style game, perhaps you do need to look somewhat the part.
In that video, “Zuck” even disclosed his current side-project of developing a personalised chain featuring an engraving of the prayer he reads to his daughters every night. What a sweet billionaire!
As someone who took a career detour into gaming, I have personal experience when it comes to seeing tech bro fashion choices up close and on Zoom. Sadly, the Patagonia fleeces and Allbirds trainers that hyperbolic trend features had promised were rather wide of the mark. Real-life developers are generally speaking more: badly fitting jeans, Star Wars merch T-shirts, flip-flops all year round. And for that, I loved them.
Given our obsessively visual age where people presume clothing choices equal personality, it’s no surprise
Given our obsessively visual age where people pretentiously presume clothing choices equal a personality, it’s not a great surprise that these public-facing men have adopted a few get-ready-with-me tropes. The easiest way to cut through is with a comment-inspiring outfit.
At the other end of the tech-style scale is Jeff Bezos, a man who in some ways defies explanation, yet I can but try. His weight-training-octopus-for-breakfast regime has allowed him to embrace the pert bodycon choices of the middle-aged man who regards himself as nothing short of an Adonis, external perception be muted.
The tight guns-baring polo shirts, the natty padded gilet, the cowboy hats and Top-Gun adjacent Aviators are giving ChatGPT-generated Tom Cruise. He started off selling books from his garage, he now escorts his buxom fiancée Lauren Sánchez to Milan fashion week and wears a brooch on his tux at the Oscars Vanity Fair party. It’s a classic fairytale reinvention arc.
As is the modern way, Bezos and Sánchez will be anointed by fashion’s very own queen Anna Wintour at Monday’s Met Gala. The dress code takes its cue from J G Ballard’s short story The Garden of Time, a metaphor for how the rich attempt to stave off death by destroying the environment. Maybe Wintour does have a sense of humour after all.
