When real men wore heels: how the demands of empires have shaped the history of fashion.

• Author: Larson, Christina
• Position: Dressed To Rule: Royal and Court Costume from Louis XIV to Elizabeth II - Book Review

Dressed To Rule: Royal and Court Costume from Louis XIV to Elizabeth II By Philip Mansel Yale University Press, $35.00

This summer, Japanese businessmen have been asked to disrobe. With an eye on the Kyoto Protocol, the government is requiring business owners to keep thermostats set at a toasty 82 degrees Fahrenheit and cajoling salarymen to shed their jackets and ties. It's a hard sell in a country where, as one apparel retailer explained to The New York Times, it's long been assumed that "the man who is wearing a suit is a businessman and the man who not is unemployed." That's why the government has coaxed cartoonists to draw CEOs in short sleeves, mounted extravagant fashion shows, and recruited the iconic chairman of Toyota, Hiroshi Okuda, to prowl the runways jacketless, hoping that eco-friendly fashion will trickle down.

In Washington, however, doors still swing open for pinstripe suits. Though much of the corporate world has gladly left cufflinks and wingtips in the closet, Senate suites and federal agencies remain sanctuaries for starched shirts. On Pennsylvania Avenue, formality starts at the top. If the commander in chief doesn't wear a suit he seems, to voters, less than presidential, incongruous with the lavish decor of the Oval Office. (Jimmy Carter bucked tradition, but his cardigans inspired giggles, not imitation.) With the gold standard set in the White House, all members of the president's court--cabinet officials, senators, policy advisors, and lobbyists seeking his attention--feel compelled to match the shine on his shoes.

Fashions change, but wardrobe's power to signal rank and membership endures. In Dressed to Rule, a book that would appeal to Machiavelli and Martha Stewart alike, Philip Mansel retells modern history with an emphasis on how political leaders have used dress to impress and transgress. Editor of The Court Historian journal, Mansel gleans details from coronation portraits, family albums, travel diaries, and newsreels to show how rebels and kings have wielded highland kilts, high heels, and headscarves as shorthand for identity and ideology. Strategic displays of fabric and flesh often denote not only who's in command, but whether the claim to reign is staked on birth, might, or wit. An historian by training, Mansel is careful in his assertions, and his book is not in service of a central argument. Yet, he implicitly builds the case that no political upheaval has ever occurred without an accompanying revolution...