Giorgia Meloni walked into the prime minister’s office in October 2022 in a dark suit and clunky black boots. The look said where she came from: the fringes of Italy’s right-wing politics. Nearly four years on, she turns up in pastel suits and wide-legged trousers that cover her high heels, and the change is not accidental, The Associated Press reported in August 2026.
“She understands how important clothing is in nonverbal communication in politics,” said Antonio Mancinelli, a fashion critic and sociologist who teaches at the Costume and Fashion Academy in Milan and Rome. Experts told the AP the softer look conveys authority without confrontation. Meloni’s office declined to comment on her wardrobe or on who advises her.
Governing less radically than feared
When she took office as head of a party with post-fascist roots, Meloni was expected to fight with Europe and take an extreme line abroad. She did not. At home she pursued conservative, anti-migrant policies. Toward the European Union she turned pragmatic, and she became one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters in its war against Russia. She also showed she would stand up to criticism from President Donald Trump, which led European allies to rally around her.
Riccardo Alcaro, a political analyst at Italy’s Institute for International Affairs, ties the wardrobe to the job. “When she was a party leader of a small right-wing party, she had a small electorate that she had to relate to,” he said. “Now she is the leader of a major EU country and has to provide an image of herself as a credible leader of a government who has ideas worth debating.” Her Brothers of Italy party grew from 4% of the vote in 2018 to close to 26% in 2022, Alcaro noted.
From black to pastel
The contrast with her younger self is stark. In 1996, at 19, Meloni was filmed by a French television station while organizing members of a right-wing youth movement, dressed almost entirely in black. In that interview she defended the dictator Benito Mussolini, remarks that have shadowed her career. In Italy black has long been linked with fascism as well as with style and mourning, and as premier she has rarely been seen in all-black suits and boots.
The change began in stages. As Silvio Berlusconi’s youth minister in 2008, she wore mostly dark suits with white shirts. By her 2022 election win she was already broadening her appeal, including a campaign speech in which she called herself “a woman, a mother, a Christian.” Once in office she moved to tailored suits in muted colors, which critics called elegant, serious and approachable. She lightened her hair too.
Michela Bonafoni, who teaches fashion at Unicollege in Florence, reads the palette this way: “Lighter colors suggest a loyalty, tenderness and gentleness. With light colors, you’re more welcoming.”
Designer Stella Jean, who is Italian-Haitian, said the stakes rise when the woman in question represents a country famous for fashion and for an economy that leans on it.
Two G7 summits
Observers point to the 2024 G7 summit in Puglia as a turning point. Her party had just done strongly in European Parliament elections, and Meloni greeted world leaders in a flowing pastel pink tailored suit with palazzo pants.
At this year’s G7 in Evian-les-Bains, France, she wore a beige suit with a matching necktie. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz noticed, and open microphones caught him. “You’re wearing a tie today,” he said. “Yeah,” Meloni replied, “so you can consider me a fighter.”
