Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) — and his signature fashion accessory — is being recognized for his sartorial prowess, making the cut on The New York Times Style section’s “71 Most Stylish ‘People’ of 2023.”
The newspaper explained, in the list released this week, that “people” was in quotations in the title of its list because “some weren’t people, but they all made us talk: about what we wear, how we live and how we express ourselves.”
The 48-year-old lawmaker, who on Tuesday announced his retirement at the end of this Congress, made the cut on the stylish list, the publication said, because he was “a silver lining of watching the many House speaker votes.”
McHenry served as the Speaker pro tempore in October after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was unseated.
The Times’s listmakers praised the outgoing congressman’s “various bow ties.”
McHenry isn’t the only political figure to be honored on the somewhat-unorthodox “Most Stylish” list.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was saluted for his “pitch-perfect performance of ‘American Pie’” during a state dinner at the White House in April; 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio got props for his “admirable transparency” with his “newly dyed hair”; and Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones (D) was lauded for the white suit he sported that “became a potent political symbol” when getting expelled from the state House in April after participating in a gun violence protest.
Other people — and objects — making the “Most Stylish” list: Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s schooner, Dylan Mulvaney, The Sphere in Las Vegas, King Charles III and E. Jean Carroll.