Fashion meets politics on the RNC's red carpet
While the Republican National Convention is a political event, it’s also a time for attendees to show off eye-catching outfits on the red carpet. (Yes, the convention floor in Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum is covered with a red carpet.)
For delegates and alternate delegates, the outfits they wore during the convention were ways to show pride for their state, their party, the country and their support for their candidate of choice, former President Donald Trump.
Here are some of the most unique outfits that were seen on the convention floor.
Linda D. Buckles
Linda D. Buckles’ sequin red hat has been with her to all seven conventions that she’s attended. And while Buckles, who is from Tennessee, doesn’t switch out her head apparel, she will rotate out buttons that she clips to her hat and keep ones on for a special occasion — like a pin from 2020 with Trump's image she pinned right in the front.
“Not many people have the 2020 [pin] because there were only five of us that got to go to the convention in 2020 from our state. And I was one of those five."
Blake Marnell
Trump liked Marnell’s orange brick suit when he wore it to one of Trump’s rallies in 2019. So he brought Marnell, now a delegate from San Diego, Calif., on stage at that event.
Since that viral moment, Marnell, who’s known as “Brick Suit” or “Brick Man,” often wears the suit — including to the RNC this year.
“It's a metaphor. The suit is meant to call into mind a strong border wall along America's border with Mexico and everything that that entails, such as stronger border controls,” Marnell said.
Marnell said immigration is his biggest issue as a delegate and a voter.
“It's my top issue, 100%,” he said. “At this point, every state in America is effectively a border state.”
Sam Mabini Young
Mabini Young has often been mistaken to be from other U.S. territories. That’s why the delegate from Guam wanted to make it clear where she’s from.
“I am sporting an outfit that really celebrates Guam, where I’m from. I’m born and raised,” said Mabini Young, who sported an outfit inspired by the puletasi, a Samoan formal dress.
“This design is actually stemming from that part of the region. But one thing we learned from the islands: We kind of blend and borrow from each other, whether it's how we weave or how we travel in the ocean or maybe what we wear.”
Mabini Young said if Trump sees her outfit, she hopes it shows him “that Guam is a U.S. territory, that we are standing behind him 100%, proud to stand behind him as our next president of the United States.”
She got a matching shirt with her husband — and accented her hair with a flower behind her right ear. She said her husband poked fun at her for choosing to put it over her right ear.
“So when an island girl wears the flowers to their right, it means they're available. ... So I got heat for that,” she said. “But I [told him] I only wore it there because I part my hair this way.”
Stacy Goodman
Stacy Goodman of Cave Creek, Ariz. put gauze on her right ear as a tribute to Trump, who had a bandage covering his ear during his appearances at the RNC. A growing number of Trump’s supporters have been replicating the look after Trump, who survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa. last Saturday, wounding his ear.
“We stand with Trump 100%,” Goodman said. “We love him. We support him and we wish him well.”
Hanging on her lanyard were pins — one representing her state, and another representing her time as an officer with the New York Suffolk County Police Department. She’s traded pins with other delegates she’s met during the convention, but she’s kept the one from Suffolk County. It reminds her of when she volunteered and helped identify remains following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Scott Thomas
Thomas, who is from Jacksonville, Fla., saved his best outfit for last.
“Well, I wanted it to be festive,” he said on the final day of the convention. “This is history-making today. And so I wanted to show my patriotism and support Trump.”
Thomas originally bought the red and white vertical-striped blazer for the 2020 Republican National Convention, but didn’t have a chance to wear it when it turned to a mostly virtual format, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He pulled it out of the closet for this year, and it still fits. He also put on the jacket a medal reserved for delegates.
Barbara Finger
You could say military pride runs deep for Barbara Finger. She spent 24 years in the Navy, and has been stationed all over: in Hawaii, Japan and Australia. That’s why she wore this camouflage one piece not just at this convention, but in 2016 too.
And she had to wrap up the look with an original Cheesehead hat, in homage to her team of choice, the Green Bay Packers.
“That's kind of our symbol,” Finger said.
George Etchemendy
George Etchemendy picked out an outfit for the third night of the convention that’s essentially what he says he wears all the time on his cattle ranch in Douglas, Wyo. He calls it a “western look.”
The uniform: wrangler boots, cowboy hats, and western shirts. He completed the look with a bolo tie, which typically is a necktie made of a braided leather and pinned together with a metal clasp.
Kathy Aulson
White jeans. Check. Cowboy boots. Check. And matching cowboy hats and Lone Star shirts. Check. That’s the outfit that Kathy Aulson and her fellow Texas delegates – the second largest delegation in the party just behind California — coordinated to wear.
Aulson said it’s their way of projecting Texas’ strength.
“We consider Texas a leadership state in our country,” said Aulson, who lives in Waxahachie, Texas. “It shows us how strong we are, how united we are — and how fun we are.”
Rachel Wallace
Rachel Wallace loves her newest piece of convention swag: a custom-made baseball jersey inscribed with “Alabama” in cursive and “Trump” written in the back. Wallace says it was designed by John Wahl, the chairman of the Alabama Republican Party.
“I’m already planning on where I’m going to wear it to next,” she said. “It could become a normal part of my routine, whether it’s the grocery store. I could wear it to work.”
She completed the look with a pair of ribbon earrings — one sparkly blue, and the other sparkly red.
“So when I was little, I always wore hair bows when I’d go into church when I felt I wanted to dress up,” she said. “And I feel like every day here, I kind of want to dress up and still be comfy. So this is my way.”
Alvin Portee Jr.
Portee Jr. who lives in Columbia, S.C., wore a hat with an image of President Abraham Lincoln to pay respects to him.
“Abraham Lincoln lost his life because he wanted to do away with slavery,” Portee Jr. said. He also wore a dashiki, a top garment worn in some African countries, to represent his African American heritage.
