A Closer Look at J.D. Vance’s and His Wife Usha’s Style

After months of speculation and debate about whom Donald Trump would choose as his running mate, J.D. Vance was given the nod Monday afternoon.

The 39-year-old Ohio senator is known beyond the Beltway and political circles, as is his wife Usha Vance, a high-powered attorney and mother of two sons and a daughter. The Cincinnati-based couple’s fashion style reflects their dual-sided work and family life. On Capitol Hill, the Millennial senator is a shirt-and-tie kind of guy, and at more relaxed public events or family outings, he favors such items as jeans, polo shirts, open-collar button-down dress shirts, dress pants, quarter-zip sweaters, chinos and the occasional hoodie.

Like Trump, J.D. Vance also believes that suits make the man and doesn’t shy away from controversial statements. Vance criticized last year’s short-lived relaxed dress code instituted by the Senate and its majority leader. “Look I know [Chuck] Schumer changed the dress code, but letting someone in the senate chamber dressed like this really crosses the line,” Vance posted on “X” last year showing a photo of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in an army green button-down shirt that he wore when visiting Congress. 

Within a week, that casualization movement was nixed in favor of a more-formal dress policy. Recognizable for his finely trimmed beard, Vance, who entered politics in 2021 and was elected to the Senate in 2022, often sports traditional single-breasted suits with neckties in navy or gray that he reportedly buys from an Italian custom tailor in Cincinnati, according to The New York Times. As of late, Vance has taken on a more sartorial style, choosing well-constructed single-breasted suits, with a power shoulder. He’s also begun wearing lighter blue suits, which exude youth and power, and the beard screams masculinity. For today’s announcement, Vance appeared at the Republican National Convention wearing a medium blue suit with a paler blue tie. His wife was also conservatively dressed in a sleeveless khaki-colored sheath dress.

After enlisting in the U.S. Marines after high school, Vance later earned an undergraduate degree at Ohio State University and then a law degree at Yale University. He worked as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley starting out with Peter Thiel, the PayPal cofounder and first outside investor in Facebook, before starting his own firm.

Millions already know about Vance’s working-class background in Ohio from his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” and the Netflix film based on that debuted in 2020. Before he orbited in political circles, the author grew up poor while his mother struggled with addiction. In his book, he described a world in Appalachia filled with poverty, addiction, family dysfunction, trauma and violence, and one that severely lacked economic or social mobility.  As of mid-March, there had been more than two million copies of “Hillbilly Elegy” sold.

Two hours after Saturday’s shooting at a campaign rally for Trump, Vance posted on the social platform “X,” “Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

Vance’s attorney wife appears to lean towards business attire like traditional suits and sleek dresses. Downtime is for the more predictable short-sleeved tops, jeans and printed items.

As a litigator at Munger, Tolles & Olson’s San Francisco and Washington offices, Usha Vance specializes in complex civil litigation and appeals in such sectors as higher education, local government, entertainment and technology, including semiconductors. She also has seen the U.S. Supreme Court’s inner workings as a former clerk for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Vance also has had firsthand experience clerking with Judge Brett Kavanaugh during his days in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Her résumé also included working for Judge Amul Thapar, when he was at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

The Vances met at Yale University, where Usha earned her law degree, and served as the executive development editor of the Yale Law Journal and managing editor of the Yale Journal of Law & Technology. During those years on the New Haven, Conn., campus, she participated in the Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic, the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, and the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project. They married in 2014.

She holds a B.A. in history from Yale and a Master of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Her MPhil project investigated the methods used for protecting printing rights in 17th-century England by focusing on the career of John Field, a printer who operated between 1642 and 1668 in London and Cambridge.

Prior to pursuing a law degree, Vance taught American history as a Yale-China Teaching Fellow at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. She was raised in San Diego.

Her interests include serving as a trustee of the Washington National Opera, a secretary of the board of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and a board member of the Gates Cambridge Alumni Association. She also served as director of media relations for GCAA.