From Ron DeSantis to Prada’s Runway, Fisherman Gear Catches On

John Kerry wore barn jackets. George W. Bush wore cowboy hats. Now, in his own pitch for relatability, Ron DeSantis is wearing fishing shirts.

The Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate has been stumping in a Columbia Sportswear back-vented nylon button-down. “Governor Ron DeSantis” and “DeSantis for President” are embroidered just above its fly-ready chest pockets. 

DeSantis’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment, but the governor, who is from Jacksonville, Fla., and has called his home state “the fishing capital of the world,” appears to be using the shirt to underscore his coastal bona fides. 

“He’s communicating that he’s from Florida, that he’s from a saltwater state, that he’s active,” said David Coggins, a longtime angler and the author of “The Optimist: A Case for the Fly Fishing Life.” 

DeSantis, who is struggling to gain traction with voters, deploys the short-sleeve shirt selectively. He’s worn it in Texas and New Hampshire, but opted for a traddy suit and tie when speaking at the “Moms for Liberty” conference in Philadelphia and a fleece zip-up at his rally in landlocked Iowa. In those coastal or rural confines where he pulls out the shirt, “he’s probably trying to show that he’s agreeable to a certain type of man,” said Coggins. 

That is, of course, the political reading. But know it or not, the Florida governor is oddly on trend. At its men’s fashion show in June, Italy’s Prada sent out several sure-to-be-pricey riffs on fishing vests, with a plethora of pockets and metallic hooks festooned to the front—more suitable for the Adirondacks than Ischia. 

Other fashion labels are also angling for angler style. Maison Margiela produced a $2,635 set of leather waders that would likely get wrecked in a thigh-high tributary. Japan’s CMF Outdoor Garment makes a $430 pocket-overloaded fishing jacket. And though more fit for the dockside than a deluge, strappy fisherman sandals are the curious shoe of the summer. New York label Aimé Leon Dore makes a $275 pair that’s nearly sold out online in brown leather. 

For more budget-conscious stock, paddle down to the Gen-Z favorite resale site Depop, which is teeming with $15 to $20 used fishing vests from rugged retailers like Cabela’s and Field & Stream. Similar vests with abundant compartments have been seen on celebrities like Jaden Smith and the Instagram comedian Druski quite far from any ponds, lakes or reservoirs. Adding to the phenomenon of seeing fishing vests out of water, the Journal reported last month that people were wearing these pocket-packed gilets to dodge baggage fees on airplanes. 

“The trend trickled up from something that was not fashionable at all, strictly utilitarian,” said Jordan Page, a freelance creative director for fashion brands in New York City. Today though, “people are paying attention to how cool [fishing gear] looks.” This fishing fad has been gestating for years, but has only swam upstream to the Milanese runways. It is also a finer splicing of the gorpcore trend from a few years ago, which lifted camping style into the fashion mainstream. 

The sport itself is enjoying a surge. “Customers of ours have gotten way into” fishing, said Timothy Grindle, co-founder of the Boulder, Colo., clothing boutique Canoe Club, which he said is situated just 20 minutes or so from a remote creek where you can cast an afternoon away. The sport enjoyed a pandemic bump that hasn’t receded. In a report last year, the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation found that 52.4 million Americans fished in 2021, up from 45.7 million in 2015. 

In Grindle’s telling, fishing is one of those pastimes that stokes gear consumption. “You’re just going to keep leveling up in price the more you learn about it.” Start with an elemental $30 rod, and before you know it you’re clicking “buy now” on a pair of Sitka’s $1,000 waders.

He has customers who are out there every weekend, fly fishing in Japanese label South2 West8’s canny but costly gear—a $363 “Trout shirt” with pendulous cargo pockets or a blinding orange $143 bucket hat that might scare the bass away. 

“You get to just nerd out and buy a bunch of stuff,” said Matt Roberge, 36, a used clothes dealer in Vancouver. An angler since his childhood in the Poconos, Roberge operates @fishnthrift, an Instagram account where he sells supplies like a $90 Simms Gore-Tex wading jacket and a $30 mesh-paneled Columbia cap.

The bulk of his customers, he said, are hobbyists, but he’s lately noticed a different crop of shoppers: employees from fashion brands who he assumes are buying his pockets-galore gear for design inspiration.

“Fishing clothes will always resonate with men because of their extreme and visual functionality,” said the fishing author Coggins. Translation? “Men like compartments,” he said.

The fashion consultant Page agrees. “I can’t really take claim to the fly fishing culture, but I love pockets,” he said, adding that he’s been buying fishing shirts for years. 

Grindle of Canoe Club credits wannabe aspiration with lifting the trend’s tide. “It’s a desire to live a lifestyle that you might not have access to,” he said. He likened the interest in fishing gear to demand for the Salomon hiking shoes his stores sells. He’d guess only 25% of shoppers are actually going hiking in them. The majority just like how they look. 

What do rodmen who’ve clocked hours standing in streams feel about the Pradas and Margielas of the world wading into their waters? “I like some of it, but I’m annoyed because I would never spend that much money,” said Roberge, who noted that he has friends who trudge into the water in snowboard jackets. “They can just put on any jacket.”

Still, he welcomes urbanite shoppers for a simple reason: They pay more.

Write to Jacob Gallagher at [email protected]