DAVOS, Switzerland — In fashion, accessories make the dress. In politics, they make the moment.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s sunglasses and his Top Gun look at the World Economic Forum were the talk of the Swiss town this week and beyond, so much so that it seemed to make people forget the geopolitical hits he took from the likes of Donald Trump as Paris tried to push back against the U.S. president’s now-withdrawn tariff threats against those opposing his designs on Greenland.

Even Trump complimented the French leader’s pair of blue aviator sunglasses.

“Beautiful. But what the hell happened?” he said during his keynote speech on Wednesday.

What happened was Macron appeared to have burst a blood vessel in his eye. The French president first appeared in public with a bloodshot eye on Jan. 15 for a speech to the French military, which he began by apologizing for its “unsightly appearance” but also noting it was “completely harmless.”

The next day he showed up at a meeting at the Elysée sporting the now-famous shades, widely reported to be from the French brand Henry Jullien (€650 a pair), which he again apologized for and said he was required to wear for several days.

The glasses were ridiculed in some corners. The running joke in Davos was that he and Brigitte got into another scrape. But resorting to an eyepatch, like Olaf Scholz did while running in 2023, wasn’t an option, not least because of the pirate-themed ridicule the then-German chancellor suffered. That accessory in France has long been associated with Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founding father of the French far right.

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Fortunately for Macron, when the internet noticed, the verdict was largely favorable. The shades were a sensation.

Online memes portrayed a cool Macron as a Godfather-like figure, a heavyweight wrestler or a fighter pilot.

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And like many things that spread like wildfire on social media, the memes are both petty and deeply meaningful.

Europeans have forever been on the back foot when it comes to dealing with Trump, projecting indecisiveness, weakness and division. With European momentum growing in favor of confronting Trump, are Macron and his blue-tinted shades the symbol of European coolness and sophistication they need to combat the brash MAGA world?

The French president himself has enthusiastically leaned into the underdog motif. Speaking to a gathering of French CEOs on Tuesday evening, he echoed a refrain from his speech to the French military, to channel their inner “Eye of the Tiger” mojo.

“That’s why I’m wearing these glasses,” he said.

“Don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up” in the face of uncertainties and challenges, he hammered.

“We’re going back to bootcamp. It’s Rocky III,” he said. The CEOs cheered.

Standing up to superpowers is a quintessentially French role, reaching back to Charles de Gaulle and beyond. France is a country where school children are brought up reading about Asterix and Obelix, the story of embattled Gauls fighting against the Roman Empire.

Macron and his country this week embraced that role by calling on the European Union to use the Anti-Coercion Instrument against the U.S. in response to Trump’s tariff threats over Greenland; then declining an invitation to join Trump’s Gaza Board of Peace, citing concerns over its extensive powers, to which Trump responded by threatening 200 percent tariffs on French wine and Champagne; and finally, hours before Trump touched down in Switzerland, calling for NATO to organize a military drill in Greenland.

On stage in Davos Tuesday, Macron wasn’t afraid to poke at Trump, telling the audience that he preferred “respect to bullies.”

There’s something slightly reckless in Macron’s recent moves. But he is a man with little to lose. A tired lame-duck centrist, he faces the possibility of a painfully slow end to his reign before the next presidential election in 2027.

Macron can, at least for now, project power in memes. But turning that into political muscle is a whole different dogfight.

Kathryn Carlson contributed to this report.