Paul Manafort, the former chair of President Trump’s campaign, is on trial this week for bank fraud and tax evasion. But his biggest crime of all appears to be one of fashion, if the evidence introduced so far in the case is any indication.
Prosecutors, making the case that Manafort hid tens of millions of dollars that he made as a consultant for a Ukrainian politician, said he spent $1.3 million on menswear alone in a four year period.
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The singer Dolly Parton once said, “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap,” but even that doesn’t quite do Manafort’s purchases justice. So we got fashion legend and former Vogue editor-at-large André Leon Talley to critique Manafort’s style.
“He’s the alpha gangster of the moment,” said Talley. “He has taken a lavish luxury and gangster greed to the highest level. And I don’t quite understand what his taste level was.”
Talley wasn’t a fan of Manafort’s expensive purchases, including the infamous $15,000 ostrich jacket (“Simply a kind of absurd, misinformed kind of luxury”) and the $18,500 python jacket (“It’s just snake. It’s just slithering glossy snake.”)
“Maybe when you were hobnobbing with the oligarchs of Russia on the weekends and you’re going to brunch or lunch over there with the oligarchs you have to wear ostrich or python to impress them,” Talley mused.
This segment originally aired August 8, 2018 on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
