“If you listened to the same speech coming out of the mouth of a man, it would not have the same effect,” he said. “But because of how she looks when she says it, how maternal she seems, it’s much easier to hear.”

After all, in the encyclopedia of political tactics, makeover comes just after Machiavelli. Or, perhaps it should from now on.

Emmanuel Macron’s sober suit modified as his numbers shifted, Mr. Trebay writes:

He is the teacher’s pet, or chouchou, who once dressed like the big kid who literally married his high school instructor. He is an economics geek with a degree in philosophy who headed a government finance ministry while clad in the strictly-tailored power suits favored by members of the Grandes Écoles elite.

He is athletic and mediagenic, a Kennedy-style maverick, a candidate for the digital age and also one whose pretty-boy looks helped propel him onto GQ France’s best-dressed list just as his pragmatic and business-friendly rhetoric carried him to the head of a field of seasoned politicians in the French elections.

He is Emmanuel Macron, the centrist candidate who faces off this week in the second and final round of voting for the presidency against his rival, the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. As a 39-year-old political novice, Mr. Macron has repeatedly demonstrated that a lack of experience running for public office is no deterrent to an ability to manipulate image and shift shape on a dime. His clothes have been one of the many platforms he has used to convey his message to the divided population.