Bill Shakespeare would perhaps not have written “what’s in a name” if he had seen the jacket Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wore to his joint dinner with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday.

Netanyahu shared a clip on X (formerly Twitter) in which he was seen clad in the stone-coloured sleeve-less coat paired with a white long-sleeve kurta. He spread his arms for Modi before the two closed in with beaming smiles for press photos.

The Israeli prime minister wrote in Hindi: “Before our joint dinner, I surprised my friend Prime Minister Modi by wearing traditional Indian attire.”

Mod’s response to the post later in the day ensured that the sartorial gesture became among the highlights of his Israel visit. “Truly splendid! Your fondness for Indian attire reflects your respect for the rich culture and traditions of our country,” was his reply, also in Hindi.

The jacket, of course, has lived many lives.

“Netanyahu wears a traditional Indian attire also known as the Modi Jacket to welcome the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at dinner. Some call it the Nehru jacket,” wrote NDTV senior executive editor Aditya Raj Kaul on X, setting off trolls and historians alike who insisted that was the other way round: Nehru jacket, called Modi jacket by some.

Closely associated with first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s post-Independence intellectual chic, it was also adopted by the Beatles in the late-1960s as part of their psychedelic era.

But Nehru had a hold over the name across the globe. It was called the Nehru jacket in an Archie comic clip (see embedded tweet thread below) from 1969.

And in 2021, New York-based journalist Arun Venugopal had tweeted: “Today I covered the exoneration of two men wrongly convicted for the murder of Malcolm X and the highlight was getting to school the other reporters on appropriate sartorial language. "Um, that's not a tunic -- it's a Nehru jacket."”

But the garment has undergone one of the most efficient rebranding exercises in modern history. Back in 2018, South Korea’s then-President Moon Jae-in had tweeted a photograph of coats with “MODI Jackets” written boldly on the label.

“During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister @narendramodi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture,” he had written.

Omar Abdullah, who is now Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, had reposted that photograph, saying: “It’s really nice of our PM to send these but could he not have sent them without changing the name? All my life I’ve known these jackets as Nehru jackets & now I find these ones have been labelled “Modi Jacket”. Clearly nothing existed in India before 2014.”

Most cultural critics remind that the garment was in vogue long before it became a political trophy. That kind of garment, distinguishable by its structured fit, can apparently be traced back to the Yeuzhis, a nomadic Central Asian tribe, according to some reports.

“The traditional bandhgala was central to royal couture,” fashion designer Abhishek Roy told The Telegraph Online. “This was adapted to colonial trends as well. Although heavily politicised, throughout history, the garment has gone through evolutions where every now and then it got tagged by an icon.”

The jacket – what’s in a name – was not the only fashion choice of the Israeli prime minister to show his love for India.

When receiving his Indian counterpart at the airport, Netanyahu was accompanied by his wife, Sara, who was clad in a saffron suit, matching the colour of Modi’s pocket square.

Netanyahu made sure to highlight the thoughtful colour-coordination, pointing to Modi’s pocket square. Bilateral ties have clearly officially moved into the matching-outfits phase.