In January 1996, the newly sworn-in mayor of San Francisco noticed something wrong at City Hall. One of his aides was wearing a linen suit in the winter. The mayor, shocked, sent him home to change immediately.
The moral of the story: Abide by the fashion calendar. And style matters a great deal to Willie Brown.
Mr. Brown, who served as mayor of San Francisco from 1996 to 2004, is one of the sharpest dressed political figures in California.
The handkerchief peeks out of his Baldini suit pocket at just the right angle, and is just the right color. And he once raced a Municipal Railway streetcar on Market Street to disprove an article that said pedestrians were faster than the train service — all while wearing a suit, wingtips and a wide-brimmed Panama hat.
At the age of 91, Mr. Brown has opened his closet. His green Gucci high-top sneakers? Yours for $105.50. His ivory Kiton cashmere crew-neck sweater? $36. About 50 items Mr. Brown used to wear — shoes, track suits, T-shirts, sweaters, jackets — are being sold at an online auction sponsored by Goodwill, the nonprofit retailer.
Once a year, Mr. Brown would get rid of a few old items in his closet and donate them anonymously to Goodwill thrift stores. Goodwill San Francisco Bay decided to create the Willie Brown Collection on eBay and auction his clothes and shoes to the highest bidders.
“If I don’t wear it for a year, it automatically goes to Goodwill,” Mr. Brown said in an interview.
Mr. Brown is one of the few politicians, retired or otherwise, whose closet would be considered stylish enough to raid. He has stood out in the world of politics, where rolled sleeves, open collars, khakis and blue blazers are the height of men’s fashion. He viewed stylistic gusto and politics as going hand-in-hand to inspire public confidence. And he hated casual Fridays at City Hall.
“Most of us took it as a point of pride that this is how you prepare yourself for work,” said P.J. Johnston, Mr. Brown’s former press secretary. “You look the part. You need to instill a sense of confidence and propriety in the public that you serve, and part of that is being dressed appropriately.”
Mr. Johnston appears to have learned a lot from his former boss, fashion-wise. He’s the aide who was sent home for the linen-in-winter mishap in 1996.
Mr. Brown, who has put some of his clothes up for auction in years past, said good fashion comes down to two things: the fabric and the fit. He was 17 when his mother sent him from his hometown of Mineola, Texas, to live with an uncle in San Francisco, who dressed, he recalled, like “people from Harlem in movies.”
Mr. Brown added: “And he took me down on the first or second day, and I got my first blue serge suit with a white shirt and a yellow tie. And believe me, I went to church that next Sunday, and everybody wanted to know where that came from.”
Mr. Brown is an outspoken Democrat. Last year, he threatened to sue Donald J. Trump for slander and defamation, after Mr. Trump falsely claimed that he had once nearly died in a helicopter ride with Mr. Brown and that Mr. Brown had said disparaging things on that ride about Kamala Harris, whom Mr. Brown had once dated. Both claims were false, Mr. Brown said.
Only a few items up for grabs in this year’s auction veer anywhere close to politics. One of those is a navy blue T-shirt for $14.99, with a logo that reads, “Willie Brown for President 2024.” It had zero bids as of Sunday morning.
Other clothes Mr. Brown used to wear seemed to attract more interest. On Sunday, the green Gucci high-tops had 12 bids. The Kiton crew-neck sweater had 10 bids. The most expensive item, a brown Burberry reversible jacket, at $167.50, had 18 bids.
The items in the online auction were freshly plucked from Mr. Brown’s closet. Missing from the collection are many of Mr. Brown’s more expensive and extravagant suits and apparel. There are none of his trademark fedoras up for grabs, for example. The former mayor seems to have strictly curated what qualified as a giveaway and what qualified as a don’t-giveaway.
He had already donated a black striped suit for the auction when he turned on the television and saw the Rev. Al Sharpton looking sharp wearing a similar one. “Like he had already bought my suit at Goodwill,” Mr. Brown said.
He realized he wanted his suit back — and asked Goodwill to return it, after telling the retailer it wasn’t his.
The suit’s now back in his closet.