Qaddafi - A Life in Fashion

Source: Vanity Fair

Since completing his transition from international pariah to statesman, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi - the longest-serving leader in both Africa and the Arab world - has brought color and his own eccentric panache to the drab circuit of international summits and conferences. Drawing upon the influences of Lacroix, Liberace, Phil Spector (for hair), Snoopy, and Idi Amin, Libya’s leader - now in his 60s - is simply the most unabashed dresser on the world stage. We pay homage to a sartorial genius of our time.

Qaddafi, in a lineup of G8 leaders at a summit this year in L’Aquila, Italy, channels Saturday Night Fever in a white suit under the traditional Arabic bisht, accessorized with a small billboard of medals and, on his right breast, a brooch of Africa, just in case anyone forgot that Muammar is the president of the African Union. From UPI/Landov.

Qaddafi’s cocktail ensemble at the summit - an embroidered kufi and an extraordinary combination of patterns and textures that seem to prompt U.S. president Barack Obama to move rapidly out of frame. By Greenfield/Sipa.

Qaddafi arrives at Rome’s Ciampino airport in June with the usual retinue of 40 virgin bodyguards - all in lipstick and nail varnish - but without the camel that he transported to Paris on an official visit. For the occasion he opted for the traditional uniform of a banana-republic dictator, with shades and epaulets that would have embarrassed Napoleon. Stuck, or pinned, to his right breast was a photograph of Libyan national hero Omar al-Mukhtar, who was executed by Italian colonial authorities in the 1930s. This had a charming homemade quality, which leads us to suspect that the photograph and botched red frame were knocked up on the flight from Tripoli. Beset by various scandals involving young women, Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, left, must have welcomed the arrival on Italian soil of a man with even more obviously dyed hair who made him look positively somber and statesman-like. By Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis.

All that’s missing from the signing of the official guest book during the colonel’s December 2007 visit to the Palace of Versailles are aviator goggles. The Snoopy hat and leather bomber jacket raise the questions: Where does this extraordinary individual get the ideas for his wardrobe? Does he have a team of designers back in Tripoli, working up the hundreds of bizarre looks required of a world leader on official business? What gave him the idea that a fur trapper’s hat was right for this moment in the home of the Bourbon dynasty? By Patrick Kovarik/Reuters/Corbis.

Not much flair for Qaddafi’s meeting with lawmakers from France’s lower house of parliament on the same visit - simply a map of Africa in Libya’s national color and a handsome cape and scarf tossed over his shoulder in the manner of the great French cabaret impresario from the time of Toulouse-Lautrec, Aristide Bruant. C’est magnifique! By Christophe Ena/A.P. Images.

The Dear Leader arrives at Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in January 2007 wearing a white Dr. Evil jacket, the ubiquitous clip-on military ribbons, and the very height in traveling chic, a sheer peach bisht. The ribbons are interesting because for years after the coup in which he took power Qaddafi was only ever seen with a few rows of decoration. Today, there are eight - indicating a score or more of awards. Who has conferred these medals to Qaddafi, and what for? By Andrew Heavens/Reuters/Corbis.

On Qaddafi’s home ground, Sirte, where he was born to a Bedouin family in the middle of W.W. II - 1942 - he sports an outlandish chemise printed with pictures of - we assume - African heroes. We can only guess as to the significance of the shirt, but there is no doubt why Qaddafi wore Cuban heels for this seaside summit in August 2005, because he inches above President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. As everyone knows, even the finest dye jobs can be ruined by a stroll in the sun, hence the white parasol. By Yousef Al-Ageli/A.P. Images.

Qaddafi relaxing at home (in a Bedouin tent) in a typical Africa-motif-emblazoned shirt to play host to Time magazine in 2003, the moment at which he said his country would accept responsibility for the bombing of a Pan Am flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

Qaddafi on a trip to Swaziland in 2002, with battered fishing hat placed at a jaunty angle and left hand placed nonchalantly in his trouser pocket, accompanied by the usual stout female killer-in-camouflage. By Obed Zilwa/A.P. Images.

This, astonishingly, is Qaddafi’s idea of appropriate luncheonwear for a meeting with Portuguese prime minister Antonio Guterres at Cairo’s Sheraton Hotel, in April 2000. That, or his luggage got lost en route and he whipped up an outfit from his hotel room’s upholstery. By Laurent Rebours/A.P. Images.

Qaddafi rises from an ornate chair in the style of a Ruritanian despot to salute a march-past of Libya’s armed forces in 1999. For this occasion he wears no fewer than 16 different orders and decorations, which look as if they were picked up at the Paris flea market. By Waleed el Mehelemy/Reuters/Corbis.

When the English writer and rake Jeffrey Bernard asked the painter Francis Bacon who in the world he would most like to bed, he replied, “I’d like to fuck the pants off Colonel Qaddafi.” Maybe this 1984 picture of the colonel in his prime explains why. From Bettmann/Corbis.

Early Qaddafi, in the elegantly tailored tunic of a military butcher, before he learned the fine art of accessorizing with maps of Africa and photos of dead people. From Bettmann/Corbis.

Eyes left—I’ll have that one, that one, and that one. Qaddafi surveys the graduates of the women’s military academy in Tripoli, 1981. By Christine Spengler/Sygma/Corbis.