“Ripped to Shreds” is a biweekly column by Jaxon Havens about fashion politics.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is too tiny to properly fill out a pair of grey sweats, but that is not the only reason why he announced his hatred of casual clothing at the airport.
It is easy to chalk up Duffy’s statement to him being an uptight loser or having a fetish for button-down shirts, but his actions reflect a more sinister goal of dodging responsibility for the nation’s continuing public transportation issues. Now that the U.S. Department of Transportation is unable to blame Democrats and the government shutdown for the United States’ flight problems, Duffy needs a new scapegoat and, naturally, he has chosen what he views as a longtime threat to the public order: pajamas.
Sean Duffy announced his recommendation to dress up at the airport as a part of a “civility campaign” on November 19, 2025, which imagines a new “Golden Age of Travel.” In his video advert on X, he chastised fliers who forget to say “please” and “thank you.” and warned passengers to keep their children under control. Frank Sinatra’s music blared in the video, seeping 1950s nostalgia into every word. As is often the case when over-middle-aged white men yearn for the 1950s, the video disturbed many young people; after all, the valorization of formalwear and intentional “dressing up” for leisurely activities has a classist undertone.
This question of classism and aesthetic performance is amplified when considering how Duffy’s critiques of fliers’ outfits took on moralizing tones within the campaign, as if opting for comfortable clothing was indicative of moral decay:
“Manners don’t stop at the gate. Things aren’t what they used to be.”
“Are you dressing with respect?”
“Let’s maybe go back to an era where we didn’t wear our pajamas to the airport.”
Duffy lectures the American public with dripping condescension on how they need to adorn their own bodies on flights that they pay for. Given the shortages of air traffic controllers, increases in flight delays, and several deadly plane crashes this year, the aesthetic critique is both out-of-touch and insulting. He may as well have spit in the face of American consumers and told them that they are classless, unfashionable swine. As could be expected, the media’s reaction to Duffy’s words fell heavily along party lines.
The conservative bobbleheads at Fox News supported Duffy’s campaign through the “expert” opinions of Diane Gottsman, who built her career by marketing herself as a specialist in “business etiquette,” and of Jacqueline Whitmore, whose book on the “do’s” and “dont’s” of hosting dinner parties provides some insight into her overall stuffiness. The two argue that dressing up is, in fact, about “respect,” both for oneself and others. Yet, their hierarchy of respectful clothing is puzzling. They affirm Duffy’s tirade on airline sleepwear, with Whitmore claiming that even flip flops and shorts demonstrate a greater respect for oneself than pajama pants. While it may be true that clothing shapes the way that individuals see themselves, one must ask, who gets to decide what kind of clothing lacks respect?
The inculcation of “dressing up” in conventionally formal clothing as a part of the “civility” campaign hinges on the false presumption of universal agreement regarding what kinds of clothing are respectable. Such views are entirely subjective, and given the widespread public approval of sweatpants, there’s dissonance between Duffy’s message and reality. Staff members at People wrote individual responses, including both an agreement to dress up only when flight delays and other discomforts did not exist, and acknowledgements of the need for comfortable clothing given inconvenient flight times. Raven Smith, for Vogue, suggested you should “dress for the seat you paid for.”
The pseudo-psychological link being drawn between “civility” and clothing choice is also something to be concerned about. Duffy attributes a “degradation in civility” in the process of air travel to the kind of aesthetic disrespect coming from improper dress. He claims that his suggestions to dress better will cause a greater increase in civil action as well, mentioning dressing with respect alongside good deeds like helping a pregnant woman with her overhead luggage. But herein lies a bizarre contradiction. If Sean Duffy attributes a lack of civility to a lack of proper dressing, then how can the American public trust that Duffy himself has good character beyond his cosmetic exterior? By his own logic, if Sean Duffy’s suit got stripped away, if he ever wore pajamas outside, he would become unable to properly respect himself and others. We may even expect him to devolve into a non-door-holding, politically-scheming, complicit-in-war-crimes monster!
What we can say about Sean Duffy is that while he currently relishes in his squeaky-clean image, his lack of fashion sense makes his critiques of airfarers even more hypocritical. Images online show him wearing a camouflage baseball cap indoors when posing for a photo with his newborn child. The hat he wears is one of the least self-respect-demanding hats I have ever seen. If I were greeted by such a horrendous hat after exiting the womb, I would cling to the umbilical cord for dear life and start shouting “put me back in!”
But Duffy is in the business of respectable appearances at the airport, not with those dearest to him, which also may explain his stance against paternity leave. Blasting former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on Fox News, Duffy made it clear that his own wife did not get much help from him after she gave birth. Different from Buttigieg’s longer paternity leave, he explained, “We’ve had nine babies in my house. I took maybe two days off. I got back to work.” Clearly, someone’s out of the running for the World’s Best Husband award.
This negligent fathering reveals a core aspect of Sean Duffy’s character: presentation over substance. In order to keep up appearances, he would rather have a claim to workplace dedication that he can lob against political enemies than spend quality time with his own family after the births of his children. It is thus no wonder that his opinions on airplane dressing are obviously uptight and out-of-touch. The machine of conservative politics presents an expectation to maintain the image of a strict, tough, work-obsessed, white-collar man, but in the process, you lose individual expression and the spice of life.
Those ordinary people boarding planes in their pajamas choose to wear them for themselves alone. They are much freer than any sad politician who would bow their head to the conventions of “civil” appearances and forge their character in the confines of a pre-given social expectation. For it is that intensely self-maintained aesthetic restraint which truly destroys one’s self-respect.
