Irene Montero films viral video in ring light and designer tracksuit

Montero swaps the lectern for the ring light and the designer tracksuit

Irene Montero appears in a video shot with a ring light, doing her makeup and wearing an outfit that mixes a tracksuit with an expensive designer pyjama set. The clip circulates as an invitation to a party and has been enough to set off comparisons with twenty-something influencers. The scene has real substance: the same politician who once lectured the country on economics now appears in the homemade TikTok format, with the living room as a studio and the phone as a camera.

From the ministry to the living room: the new career path

The video is no slip-up. It is one more piece of a communication strategy that blends the personal and the political. The ring light does not switch on by accident: it is the basic tool for anyone looking to build a personal brand outside of office. The transformation into a posh girl, with an expensive tracksuit and colourful accessories, fits into that natural step from laughing at the system to cashing the commission.

The outfit, though, belongs in court. The jacket seems to be the wrong size, impossibly slim, and the trousers could pass for a skirt in a mishmash of colours that never quite comes together. Some defend it as comfortable, stylish clothing; most dismiss it as a ridiculous look that grows as the posh-girl tone rises.

The bodyguard, the penthouse and the 300 euros from the European Parliament

The wardrobe controversy obscures an older one: that of accumulated privileges. Beneath it all looms the list of comforts attributed to the former minister: a bodyguard who warmed up her car half an hour before she left so she would not catch a chill on the way to the ministry, special state schools, private schools, exclusive mortgages, penthouses in the Prosperidad neighbourhood of Madrid and trips to New York with her friends. Add to that the detail of the 300 euros for signing in at the European Parliament and heading off to breakfast.

Meanwhile, ordinary people watch the video and compare. The makeup scene is just the tip of the iceberg of a narrative in which closeness to ordinary life is staged with a ring light and contradicted by the bank account.

Ridicule as a political brand

This is not about a pair of trousers. It is about an aesthetic conversion: where there used to be guitar at summer camp and Sunday mass, there are now protests and makeup tutorials. Today's fashion is to film yourself, and politics is not exempt. The result is a video shared more for the mockery than the message, and a public image that suffers with every new shot.

Some argue that all this is a trivial anecdote. Against that stands the argument that an anecdote, repeated, builds a character. And the character, in the end, is what remains when the ring light goes off.