It’s hard to tell the exact moment that Joe Biden became inextricably linked with aviators. As the vice president became a jovial pop-culture figure through Barack Obama’s first term, the aviators were already a part of his appeal. By 2014, even he was in on the joke. When he started his Instagram account that year, his first post showed a solitary pair of aviators on his desk in the West Wing. Last year, his campaign began making T-shirts and yard signs featuring a pair of the sunglasses, and at this week’s Democratic National Convention, they were a frequent presence, during the audience applause segments and Tuesday night roll call.
The press has been commenting on his proclivity for the sunglasses for at least a decade. In the days after his selection as Obama’s running mate in 2008, Wilmington’s News Journal wrote that it isn’t too uncommon to see him driving around Delaware in his Corvette wearing a pair of aviators. The story’s headline? “Joe Cool.”
In some ways, Biden has become so known for his sunglasses because his wardrobe, heavy on blue and navy suits, is somewhat nondescript. Obama was occasionally a creative dresser during his presidency, but Biden’s style hasn’t changed too much in the decades since he became a national figure. Unlike Donald Trump, his outfits are well-tailored. The aviators, especially when he pairs them with a bomber jacket and a wide grin, represent Biden’s boisterous personality even in photographs.
According to Biden, he’s been wearing Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses for most of his life. “My lord, I’ve been wearing aviators since I was a freshman in college as a lifeguard,” he told the Skimm in 2016. The story of Biden’s summer as a lifeguard at a Wilmington pool in 1962 has become one of his favorites to recount. The pool mainly served Black patrons, and in his 2008 memoir, Promises to Keep, he said that the experience taught him about the realities of racism.
At a 2017 ceremony where it was renamed the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Aquatic Center, he told the story again to a gathered crowd. (He arrived wearing his aviators.) Last fall the video recirculated on the internet and caused a minor furor, mainly because he recounted an interaction with a supposed gang member named Corn Pop. It quickly was used as an example of Biden’s tendency to embellish, though a few friends backed him up. In the memoir, the story is written as though it is a fight scene from a 1960s teen beach-party movie, with a tidy ending about how he defused the situation by apologizing to Corn Pop. It sounds a bit like an escapade that might have been experienced by the caricature of Biden created by The Onion, “Diamond Joe.” It’s very easy to imagine him wearing aviators during the exchange.
While talking about his summer at the pool, he also mentions his pair of Bass Weejuns, the classic penny loafer. Sunglasses and Weejuns were the quintessential pairing of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Iconoclasts as different as James Dean and John F. Kennedy wore them, only Kennedy opted for Ray-Bans other iconic shape, the Wayfarer. It’s a sign that Biden, who was born in 1942, spent his formative years in the era of American myth-making—of Camelot and Rebel Without a Cause—and it seems like he can’t let go.