Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff tips his his ballcap as he arrives on Parliament Hill on Sept. 20, 2010.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Stephen Harper is wearing his eye glasses these days. You rarely see him without them. Is he channeling his inner fashionista? Or is this just simply a case of dry eyes?
Here's your answer: those close to him says it's the dry eyes. His contact lenses are just not that comfortable anymore.
Michael Ignatieff, meanwhile, has stopped wearing a jacket. All summer - and now even for certain appearances on Parliament Hill - he is rocking a very casual look, stripping off the jacket and rolling up his sleeves.
The sartorial choices of our leaders are becoming a hot topic.
Indeed, the Prime Minister's glasses have been a subject of much conversation and speculation over the summer, in the absence of huge policy announcements and debate. Usually, reporters traveling with him see him wearing glasses on the airplane but the contacts are popped in for public events.
Now it's become a story. The National Post is writing about it, saying it's not a good thing for politicians to wear glasses. Preston Manning and Bob Rae got rid of theirs.
An image consultant told the paper that spectacles "create a barrier between the person and their audience." There are suggestions, too, that Mr. Harper may be wearing them to project a more serious image.
None of the above, according to those close to the Prime Minister. It's the dry-eye thing and that's all it is.
The Liberal Leader, meanwhile, is trying to make a fashion statement. His handlers told him to go tie-less this summer during his cross-country bus tour. The strategy behind this was that rumpled casualness would make him more approachable (and less elitist). It went with the drinking of Tim Horton's coffee and the wearing of a ball cap from time to time.
Mr. Ignatieff has embraced this tie-less look to the point that he showed up for a television interview Sunday sporting his summer outfit. On CTV's Question Period, co-host Craig Oliver was wearing a suit and tie while interviewing a very casual Liberal Leader.
"Finally, what's with the blue shirt?" Mr. Oliver asked. "No tie? I mean are you trying too hard not to be a Toronto elite?"
Mr. Ignatieff laughed - Government House Leader John Baird has accused the so-called "Toronto elites" of pressuring rural MPs into changing their votes from supporting the gun registry - and said: "Look, I spent the last two and a half months without a tie and without a jacket, and I know tomorrow I got to go into work in a tie and a jacket, but I want to keep the freedom going as long as I can."
On Monday, he showed up in the Commons in a suit and tie. But later, in an interview with the CBC's Evan Solomon, he shed the jacket and rolled up his sleeves again.