So, a few months ago, I noticed something strange, something shocking. Mark Zuckerberg has stopped flaunting his chain. Zuckerberg adopted the chain sometime in early 2024 as part of the same so-called Zuckissance that saw him grow his hair out, toss his hoodies, and start dressing in heavyweight boxy t-shirts that made him look like an MMA fighter or a crypto podcaster. At the time, I thought this butch-up makeover reflected the Silicon Valley vibe shift. A more populist and maybe more right-wing Zuck was emerging. But the Zuckissance has continued to evolve. The chain is now gone or demurely tucked into the shirt collar, and the boxy tees are increasingly alternated with expensive Prada knitwear.
What's happening with Zuck's look? What is he trying to communicate? And where is he getting all these t-shirts? New York Times chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman recently spent time with Zuckerberg in his Tahoe compound. She joined me from Paris Fashion Week [music] to discuss the millennial billionaire's evolving fashion sense and shopping habits and what it tells the world about him. [music]
Vanessa, welcome to Hard Fork.
I think by the transitive property, if you are the chief fashion critic of the New York Times, you are also the chief fashion critic of Hard Fork. So I'm really glad to have you on. I hope you'll be on many times to critique, you know, not just billionaires' style, but also the style of me and all of our guests.
I am very honored to have that title, [laughter] too.
So, I thought we could begin by maybe talking a little bit about what the Zuckissance is. Zuck has a kind of a new look. How would you describe how Zuck dresses now?
I feel like we're now kind of in Zuck 4.0, right? Like there was like Zuck one, which was the post-college slides, hoodie, shorts, you know. Zuck two, which was the gray t-shirt, jeans, gray hoodie, robot guy. Zuck three, which is what you're, I think, talking about, like the Zuckissance that happened after COVID, where he suddenly like popped up on Instagram with like longer hair and a chain and a sort of boxy t-shirt. And now we're sort of in Zuck four, where he's getting a little more polished, I'd say, and like there's collars on the shirts. The pants are maybe a little narrower than they were for a while. Um, and we got to see where this one is going.
Yeah. I mean, maybe we can use that as an opportunity to ask, what do you think Zuck is trying to communicate with these fashion choices?
[sighs] I'm a person. [laughter] Like, number one, literally. Um, you know, like I'm not a robot. I'm not a lizard. Like he said that, right? Like I'm not a lizard guy. Um, you know, like I am. So, you know, I think he is seen as so completely alien to so many people that this in a way makes him seem more accessible, maybe, right? Like he's got messy hair, it's like a thing. [snorts] Um, you know, and then there's like the whole manosphere dimension to it, which I think, you know, came into play because this coincided with his like showing up at the Trump inauguration and his like embrace of MMA and then like going to the UFC fight on the White House lawn and like talking to Joe Rogan and that whole side of things.
So, here's a photo of Zuck on stage wearing a sort of boxy t-shirt and some slightly baggier pants. How would you describe this outfit? What do you think it says? Where is it from and what is it doing?
Well, it literally says something, right? It says 'building is my love language,' I think. Right. That's a custom-made Mike Amiri t-shirt that he designed with, um, with [snorts] this LA-based menswear designer who he has been working with since his reemergence as, um, someone who's experimenting with his look, I guess. And so that's going to be a very expensive t-shirt. Um, I think like that, like the message on it is like 100% what he wants people to understand about him right now. Um, right. Like he likes building stuff, building Facebook, designing t-shirts, designing glasses. It's like he wants people to think that for him this is like a meaningful part of his personality and his, like, um, obsession. His obsession is not stealing your data. His obsession is making something.
And tell me a little bit about the cut of that shirt because it's got this kind of boxy... the sleeves are a little longer than you would expect on a t-shirt. It's a little larger. I know you guys talked about this when you spoke.
It's like a fashion t-shirt, right? Like that's going to be heavy cotton. It's embroidered. It's not like, um, Etsy or, you know, Redbubble. Um, so like that's a really nice t-shirt. And he thinks, you know, he attributes his affinity for boxy t-shirts to his experience with MMA and the, like, friends he made in MMA, because, like, he does, like, there are now teams that will come and train with him, you know. So his fighters tend to wear these bigger t-shirts as a sort of flex because it is a sort of backhanded way of saying to people, 'Hey, I'm in like awesome shape. I'm in such good shape, you don't have to see what good shape I'm in because you know it. So I'm going to like hide it in my [clears throat] t-shirt.' Um, and he just kind of adopted the same style because he likes those guys.
So, here's a slightly different Zuck look. Um, this is a more recent one. He's front row at a Prada fashion show and he's got a sort of oatmeal, a brownish knit collared long-sleeve shirt. He's got nice brown slacks and these sort of big funky black shoes. Um, I mean, how does this fit in with the boxy t-shirt MMA look for Zuck?
It doesn't entirely. I mean, this is Prada, right? He's in Prada head to toe because he's at Prada and I would guess they dressed him or at least gave him options. They don't really do big boxy t-shirts. Um, this to me says, 'Hey Prada, I want to design glasses with you.' [laughter] I think like that's what it's saying.
Yeah. I mean, I'm interested in the polo here because I know one thing you guys talked about was Mark feeling like he's become a polo guy. Kind of a polo collar guy.
He's a polo guy. He's like on a quest to find the 20 best polos that exist via Instagram.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm interested in particular also because Silicon Valley is sort of traditionally a place that I think thinks of itself, the culture of the Valley has been, images don't matter. What matters is your track record. What matters is your ability to build. But it's also very clear that it is now, and arguably always has been, a place where image is extremely important. Um, I mean, again, as you say, these are some of the most powerful people on the planet. Um, but also Mark Zuckerberg's fortune is built on apps where people are manipulating their own images and putting forward their own sort of personal brands and everything else.
I mean, first of all, like the pose that they don't care about clothes or image doesn't matter is itself, you know, a conversation about image, right? Like rejecting something is still thinking about it and telling the world something about how you feel about it. So like it's kind of a specious argument, I think.
Yeah. I mean, well, probably the tech CEO whose legacy looms largest over the Valley right now is Steve Jobs, who very famously, yes, he had a uniform that he wore every day, but it was an Issey Miyake uniform. It was like a, it was sort of a high-fashion uniform that he'd thought about a great deal and put together so that he didn't have to think about anything. And I think that it's interesting here that Zuck is sort of going in the opposite direction. Uh, I mean, he used to have a uniform and now he has a panoply of outfits that he puts on depending on, I don't know, what side of the bed he wakes up on, I suppose.
Yeah, I guess. Or what world leader he has to meet with?
Who's helping him? Um, I mean, does he have a stylist? Is Priscilla, his wife, helping him pick out outfits? How is he making these decisions?
Priscilla? Priscilla is like hands off the wardrobe. Like, 'I don't get this at all.' His closet is bigger than mine. He's got way too many shoes. This is like many, many millennial wives I know are just absolutely not interested in their husband's late-in-life discovery of fashion. She is claiming no responsibility for this. In fact, he buys stuff for her, um, which she semi-appreciates. [laughter] I think he likes to Instagram shop. Like he has discovered most of this for himself.
Yeah. Well, this is one of the things I wanted to talk about. One of the most interesting parts of your interview with him is revealing that he's doing what a lot of people are doing, which is staying up late at night in bed scrolling through Instagram and just buying random stuff and allowing the Instagram algorithm to sort of point him in a particular direction. Was that surprising to you?
