Coming On Like a Cocktail Cowboy

The arrival of Gerald Ford at a weekend party for journalists in Washington set off more than the usual hubbub. The President, with a bravely smiling Betty Ford at his side, was all tricked out like a cocktail cowboy in a snazzy Western-style shirt suit of blue-gray flannel decorated with white saddle stitching. For some guests, Jerry Ford's new garb, a gift from friends, brought to mind his past uncertain flights of fashion. Greeting Japan's Emperor Hirohito last year on a grand tour of Asia, for example, the President was dressed in a cutaway--with his striped pants hiked several inches above his shoes and his socks showing.

The President's sartorial image has troubled his second-generation White House tailor, Harvey Rosenthal (whose father suited up Dwight Eisenhower). He is working, diplomatically but determinedly, to give Ford "a more presidential look." Rosenthal thinks that Ford, with his trim 6-ft. 1-in. frame and 37-in. waist, is a tailor's dream. But, in Rosenthal's view, the President's Middle American mod choice in clothes has been a bit too flashy for the White House. So next week, when Rosenthal is ushered into the Oval Office with a portfolio of materials from which the President will choose his winter wardrobe, there will be none of the plaids, brightly striped shirts and rainbow-hued ties that Ford favors. Instead he will be urged to choose solid shades or conservative stripes in his suits and shirts, quietly striped or solid-color ties, and jackets with a conventional single vent. Rosenthal's success in the remaking of a President is far from assured. According to Betty Ford, her roommate never throws anything out. Recently, when White House Photographer David Kennerly kidded him for wearing a jacket with lapels wide enough to take wing, a defensive President responded, "What's wrong with this? I like it. I got it in 1955."

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