John Mulaney's Reason for Dressing So Well Makes His Dad Look Like Even More of A Badass
Like so many of John Mulaney’s best bits, the story behind his distinct, sharp and formal stage attire starts with a certain Catholic lawyer named Chip Mulaney. One black coffee.
Of all the categories of celebrity performers that exist in Hollywood, there isn’t a group of public figures who are less known for their fashion sense than stand-up comedians. Anyone who has ever been to a sad, Tuesday night open mic knows that, from the biggest star to the most obscure upstart, most comics’ onstage uniform is a T-shirt ruined by pit stains, a pair of ragged jeans and a haircut that costs less than you’ll spend just to meet the two-drink minimum.
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But not John Mulaney. No, the stand-up phenom and former Tumblr heartthrob is famous for dressing up for work like it’s 1965 and he just scored his first spot on Johnny Carson. Mulaney’s spiffy suits and sleek hairstyles are an inextricable part of his stage persona, but he can’t take full credit for the fabric decisions that made him Netflix’s most dapper stand-up superstar. As Mulaney told Conan O’Brien on a recent episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, he dresses like he's about to take a seat on the hallowed couch next to Steve McQueen because he’s nothing if not a chip off the old block:
During the talk, Conan complimented his guest’s famously formal sense of style, noting that most comedians — including himself — “looked like shit” during their own meteoric rises while Mulaney showed up to the New in Town taping looking like a family member was getting married. “It seems like you know how to dress, where did you know how to dress?” Conan asked Mulaney.
“So I’ll tell you this story,” Mulaney began. “The first time I ever came to New York, I was 13, I was with my dad, and we’re walking around downtown New York, and (I formed) two memories that meant a lot to me, both just about how to comport yourself as a person.”
“This guy’s coming down the street that my dad had done a deal with, and the guy had been super unethical,” Mulaney started of the first memory. “So he walks up and he goes, ‘Hey, Chip Mulaney!’ My dad goes, ‘I’m not shaking your hand,’ and we keep walking. And he goes, I didn’t mean to do that in front of you, but that man was very unethical in a deal we did.’ I thought, ‘I’ve never seen anything so badass in my life.’”
If that wasn’t enough, Mulaney got a second glimpse at Chip’s famous ruthlessness later that same day. “So then we go to NYU Law School, my dad wants to see a classroom that’s been dedicated to a federal judge that he once clerked for, this guy Ed Weinfeld, who had passed away by then,” Mulaney recalled. “So we walk up into the law school, and there’s a security desk, and there’s a student who has misplaced their ID. And the security guard is giving them a ton of shit like, ‘Well, I can’t let you back in, you can’t get into the library.’”
“My dad’s wearing a jacket and tie, just because, and we just walk right past the security guard,” Mulaney recounted. “And as we’re walking up the stairs, my dad doubles back and looks at me, and goes, ‘The power of dressing well.’”
That lesson stuck with a young Mulaney, and when he began building one of the most celebrated stand-up careers of the current Millennium, those memories ended up being two of the most important Chip Mulaney stories of his career, even though they haven’t yet made it onto the stage. Clearly, Mulaney was blessed with a badass dad, but his fans already knew that — just like Chip always knew that something was up with that creep Bill Clinton.
