On September 26, Angela Merkel will leave power after 16 years at the top of European politics. In addition to having been Chancellor of Germany continuously since 2005, she has held the positions of President of the G8 and President of the Council of the European Union. However, if there is an adjective that defines the most powerful woman in the world, it is “austere”. The hamburger has made the three-button jacket and trousers a uniform as characteristic as that of the Silicon Valley idols. A style that he has also maintained in his way of life and that denotes that he has neither been dazzled by power nor has he let his personality change one iota.
Practical style
Enigmatic and surrounded by a very small circle of trust, the Chancellor has such a static style when it comes to dressing that it has caused a joke to circulate among the Germans: “Do you know what Angela Merkel does with her old clothes? She puts them on”. On one occasion, a journalist asked her why her clothes were monotonous, to which she replied: “Because I am not a model but a chancellor.”
The reason why so many personalities today choose to create a uniform was explained by Barack Obama in an interview with Vanity fair in which the former US president said that with his characteristic gray and blue suits he was trying to reduce the number of decisions he makes: “I don’t want to choose what I eat or dress because I have many other decisions to make (…) You can’t go around the day distracting yourself with trivia “.
“Seen like this because I’m not a model but a chancellor”
Although not everyone liked this feature. His compatriot Karl Lagerfeld aberrated his style and criticized Angela when she wore appreciably wide and long pants during a meeting in Berlin with Obama precisely in 2014. For Lagerfeld, “the pants were too long”, while the rest of the clothes kept “bad proportions”, as declared for the occasion to the magazine Focus. “Mrs. Merkel should wear tailored clothes”said the then creative director of Chanel.
A few words softer than those he dedicated to her at the beginning of his term: “Horrible colors, stern jackets, pants dragging the hem … Everything is wrong with her!”. Still, even she has managed to be criticized for just the opposite. When the leader wore a stunning cleavage at the opening of the new Oslo Opera in April 2008, his gutter was the most commented and the Daily Mail he referred to it as “his weapons of mass distraction”. The chancellor responded by emphasizing that the same would not have happened if he were a man.
Your favorite cut
Black ankle-length tailored pants, matching top with a boxed collar and your favorite jacket. This last knitted garment is the star of Merkel’s famous uniform. Comfortable but to dress and you have in at least 8 different colors in the closet: red, various shades of pink and blue, garnet, black and even marbled.
Despite the simplicity of the garment, it is easy to distinguish it from any other jacket of the same cut because theirs have three buttons in the middle, two pockets (either up or down) and no collar and lapels.
We could say something similar about his masculine haircut, which has hardly changed throughout her life, as can be seen from the photos that have transpired from Angela’s family album: short blond pearl in the Martin Luther style.
Communicative austerity
The prestigious anthropologist Albert Mehrabian points out that words only make up 7% of a message. Tone of voice and other vocal details account for 38% of content, while body language accounts for 55%. In that sense, we can say that we have seen Merkel remain rigid and expressionless even when a waiter spilled a beer on her.
Sober lifestyle
Despite the thousands of gross euros she charges per month for her position, Angela Merkel also leads a low-cost, austere existence. When she had to rest after suffering a partial tear in her pelvis while skiing, the media noticed that in the photos of her vacation in the Swiss Alps she was seen wearing a pair of original skis from the German Democratic Republic (the eastern socialist state you grew up in) and not manufactured since 1995.
“My husband is the one who does the laundry at home”
In addition, she has confessed not having domestic service at home and taking care of household chores between herself and her husband. The paparazzi have caught them shopping on occasion and in an interview on Deutsche Welle, the international German television channel, Merkel explained that it is her husband, Joachim Sauer, who takes care of the housework: “My husband is the one who puts the washing machine and does the laundry”Merkel noted.
On the other hand, that house is not located in the Chancellery but rather the marriage lives in an apartment building in Berlin located in the central district of Berlin-Mitte between ordinary neighbors. A restaurant, a souvenir shop and a supermarket are the closest businesses to the property where she already lived before becoming the chief executive of her country.
Photos | Gtres