Obama marks 10 years since tan suit furor with tweet praising Harris

Lauren Sforza, The Hill

Updated: Aug 29, 2024 / 10:55 AM CDT

(The Hill) — Former President Barack Obama commemorated the 10th anniversary of his tan suit controversy with a social media post praising Vice President Kamala Harris.

He posted side-by-side photos of him wearing his tan suit from 2014 and of Harris wearing her tan suit at the Democratic National Convention last week. This comes 10 years after his decision to wear a tan suit as he spoke about the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and Russia’s intervention in Ukraine sparked an online furor.

“How it started. How it’s going. Ten years later, and it’s still a good look!” Obama wrote in a post on social media platforms X and Instagram.

He also shared a link to IWillVote.com, a website paid for by the Democratic National Committee to encourage Americans to check their voter registration status.

Obama’s fashion choice in 2014 went viral, with many social media users posting memes of the ensemble while more serious pundits criticized the tan suit for not being serious enough. Since then, social media users and other politicians have poked fun at the online frenzy Obama’s tan suit caused.

FILE – In this Thursday, Aug. 28, 2014 file photo, President Barack Obama smiles as he takes questions about the economy, Iraq, and Ukraine, in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, before convening a meeting with his national security team on the militant threat in Syria and Iraq. Obama’s summer fashion choice, not unprecedented among presidents – himself included – was the talk of social media, Thursday. Other presidents who have taken on tan include Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush and Dwight Eisenhower. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, file)

President Joe Biden appeared to pay homage to Obama during the former president’s birthday week in 2021 by also sporting a tan suit. Last week, Harris walked out in a tan suit just one day before Obama took the stage during the Democratic National Convention.

The New York Times noted that Harris’s choice to wear a tan suit on Day 1 of the convention broke from the traditional colors of red, white and blue. Many social media users connected Harris’s tan suit decision with Obama’s from about ten years prior, with some suggesting it was Harris’s attempt to lean into pop culture.