The New York Times reports today on the fashion rage that is sweeping Bolivia as a result of the couture of President Evo Morales. It seems that everyone and their mom wants a copy of the now infamous sweater that Evo wore during his audience with Spain’s president, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the King of Spain, Juan Carlos and other European dignitaries:

Lately, though, it is not just Mr. Morales’s oratory or policies that are getting attention, but his clothing, especially the multistriped sweater he wore to meet world leaders last month during a tour of Madrid, Beijing and beyond, before his inauguration on Jan. 22. Copies of the sweater are flying off the shelves in La Paz, the capital, at $10 each.

I was in Spain at the time, and I can tell you that his suéter a rayas didn’t have the same effect on Spanish press. The NYT goes on to say:

When he showed up in button-down Spain in early January, two weeks before his inauguration, to meet Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in a sweater, ABC, the conservative Madrid newspaper, scoffed.

“Is there no one who might lend Mr. Morales a dark suit?” asked a writer for the paper, which also noted that “pullovers like that” are given away to the poor in Spain. Reforma in Mexico wrote that the sweater was the “garment of discord, far from official protocol.”

The fashion police, though, were quickly drowned out by the likes of José Saramago, the Portuguese Nobel Prize-winning author, who called all the hubbub the “stupid pride of civilized countries.”

Indeed.

In related news, Evo Morales speaks out about Fidel to Univision’s Jorge Ramos.

Get the sweater on Novica.com

Via / The New York Times