Hijacking Sukarno’s Style: Political Fashion, Memory, and Algorithmic White Branding in Indonesian Presidential Election

Abstract

This article examines Prabowo Subianto’s political fashion, which contributed to the electoral victory securing the position of Indonesia’s eighth President. As a military figure historically associated with authoritarianism and human rights violations, Prabowo did not develop a distinct personal style. Since the 2009 election, Prabowo has adopted Sukarno’s sartorial symbols, such as the peci and military safari suit. In 2024, Prabowo expanded this symbolic register through gestural performativity aligned with youth culture, facilitating electoral victory after three previous defeats. Drawing on Malcolm Barnard’s theory of fashion as communication, Walter Benjamin’s aestheticization of politics, and Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse analysis, the study analyzes posts from Prabowo’s Instagram account during the 2024 election campaign. Findings demonstrate that Prabowo mobilized a strategy of style hijacking of state political figures to construct a softened military identity, redefining militarism through warmth and affect. This process became hegemonic through social media algorithms, which softened a controversial past and rebranded Prabowo as a populist and approachable figure. The study extends the notion of fashion hijacking from subcultural and brand-based contexts to hegemonic political figures and demonstrates how the aestheticization of gestures, mediated by digital algorithms, constitutes a defining characteristic of style hijacking in the Global South.

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