Hungary Spent €80,000 on President Novák’s Wardrobe. She Kept It After Resigning
According to her own account, former head of state Katalin Novák has had a “hellish year and a half” since her resignation—but she could at least take comfort in the wardrobe she amassed during her presidency. Data obtained by Direkt36 shows that Novák kept most of the clothing free of charge after stepping down, while she purchased a smaller portion from her former office at prices well below their original value.
Since resigning as Hungary’s president, Katalin Novák has largely avoided public appearances at home. But on June 17, she resurfaced at a panel discussion in Timișoara (Temesvár), Romania, where she spoke about the difficulties she faced during her presidency. “I’d be lying if I said I haven’t just been through a hellish year and a half,” she remarked, referring to the period since her resignation in February 2024.
While Novák may have faced political challenges, she has not encountered financial hardship. For the rest of her life, she is entitled to a presidential pension equal to the salary of the sitting president—currently €14,000 per month (5.7 million forints). She also receives state-provided housing, staff, and a car with a driver.
And that’s not all. Novák continues to benefit from her former role in other ways—including keeping a wardrobe worth tens of thousands of euros, purchased with taxpayer money during her time in office.
At the Timișoara event—covered in a video report by 444.hu—she wore a cream-colored dress that she had frequently appeared in during her presidency. The dress originally cost taxpayers €300 and remained in her possession after she stepped down.
The exact price and details of the dress come from a spreadsheet obtained by Direkt36 through a public information request to the Office of the President, the Sándor Palace. The over-400-line document itemizes clothing, accessories, and tailoring services purchased for both Katalin Novák and the current president, Tamás Sulyok, for official events—none of which were paid for out of their own salaries. (You can access the full spreadsheet here.)
According to the presidential office, between April 2024 and April 2025, President Sulyok spent just under €5,000 (HUF 2 million) on clothing. The current president had five blazers purchased by the Sándor Palace: two together for €650 (HUF 260,000), one for €112 (45,000 forints), and another two for a total of €730 (292,000 forints). The latter also represents Sulyok’s most expensive clothing purchase—his priciest blazers cost €365 (145,990 forints) each. The list also includes a pair of rubber boots (€150, or 60,000 forints) and two shirts with two ties that were acquired for free—likely as part of a promotional offer.
In contrast, spending under Novák was dramatically higher. Between June 2022 and February 2024—less than two years—the presidential office spent over €80,000 (32.5 million forints) on her wardrobe. In some months, clothing expenses reached €7,500–10,000 (3–4 million forints), roughly equivalent to her monthly salary at the time. The list includes numerous luxury items, such as silk dresses and tailoring bills approaching half a million forints, as well as textile repair services costing between €750 and €1,000 (300,000–400,000 forints) per instance.
The spreadsheet notes that 345 clothing items and related services acquired during Novák’s term were later “written off.” When asked for clarification, the presidential office confirmed that Novák kept these items after her resignation. According to Direkt36’s calculations, the Hungarian state originally paid more than €76,000 (30.6 million forints) for these clothes—which Novák was later allowed to keep free of charge.
In only 14 cases did the presidential office sell items originally purchased for Novák, and even then, at heavily discounted prices. The office confirmed that Novák herself bought these garments, paying just over €1,400 (HUF 575,000) for clothing that had originally cost €4,700 (1.9 million forints). Her best deal was a formal evening gown bought in March 2023 for €1,100 (450,000 forints); she later acquired it for just €71 (28,575 forints).
According to the office, when Novák left, a senior protocol official decided which garments she could keep for free, which could be offered for sale, and at what price.
The spreadsheet also details where each item came from. Among the listed vendors, Direkt36 identified several designers and businesspeople with ties to Hungary’s ruling elite.
In response to our inquiry, Katalin Novák’s secretariat stated that she aimed to maintain an appearance appropriate to her position and did not purchase any clothing for personal use with state funds. According to the secretariat, clothing purchases were planned with a five-year presidential term in mind, and they prioritized the work of young Hungarian designers. They added that after her resignation, Novák bought the outfits she had worn frequently during her presidency at values determined by the Sándor Palace. They also claimed that she donated a significant portion of these garments after purchasing them. The secretariat did not address our questions regarding the clothes Novák took home without payment.
32.5 Million Forints Spent on Clothing in Less Than Two Years
“One of the most elegant outdoor events in the country”—this is how Hungary’s public broadcaster described the 100th Hungarian Derby, held in July 2022. Among the special guests was Hungary’s newly appointed president, Katalin Novák, who had been in office for just a few weeks at the time. From the grandstand at Kincsem Park, she watched the races through binoculars. Photos from the event suggest she even placed a bet on one of the races, and later, she presented the winner’s wreath to the rider of a fittingly named horse: President.
Katalin Novák at the 100th Hungarian Derby in July 2022. Source: Katalin Novák Facebook
Katalin Novák made a striking impression at the Hungarian Derby. Her off-white dress, adorned with a dark-trimmed ribbon, received special attention from pro-government media. TV2’s Tények described her as “radiating in a stunning fashion creation.” According to data we obtained, the dress cost over €650 (approx. 259,000 forints), and after her resignation, Novák was allowed to keep it free of charge.
Data from the Sándor Palace show that during the first few months of her term, Novák’s spending on clothing was relatively modest. One suit purchased at the time cost only €43 (17,000 forints), and a pair of high heels cost €58 (23,000 forints). Her first major expenditure was the Derby dress for €650 (259,000 forints), but soon, similarly expensive items became frequent.
By September and November 2022, the Sándor Palace was spending around €5,000 (2 million forints) per month on her wardrobe. At that point, Novák’s closet already included a dress worth nearly €750 (300,000 forints), several jackets priced at nearly €620 each (250,000 forints), and a hat costing €500 (200,000 forints). In May 2023, €7,700 (3 million forints) was spent on clothing, with the monthly record set in September 2023, when spending reached €10,500 (4.1 million forints).
Near the end of her presidency, in February 2024, more than €2,600 (1 million forints) was spent on clothing in just one week. On her final full day in office—February 9, 2024—expenses for a blazer, pants, jacket, blouse, and tailoring services totaled €1,500 (568,000 forints). All of these last-minute purchases were also “written off”—meaning Novák was allowed to take them home for free just days later.
A Veil for the Pope, a Headpiece for the British King
Based on photos of Katalin Novák uploaded to the Sándor Palace website and various social media platforms, we identified several outfits that appear in the clothing inventory provided by the presidential office. The identification was made easier by the fact that the document included the exact date of each clothing purchase—or more precisely, the date the invoice was paid—which we could then compare with the upload dates of the photos showing Novák wearing the garments.
Katalin Novák at a private audience with Pope Francis. Source: sandorpalota.hu
Katalin Novák at the Council of Europe summit in Reykjavík, spring 2023. Source: Katalin Novák Facebook
A special item on the list is a zippered “Rosette wool dress,” for which an invoice of approximately €1,100 (428,000 forints) was paid on March 28, 2023. Based on the description, public photos, and dates, the former president most likely wore this dress a few weeks earlier, in early March 2023, in New York at the annual session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
On May 9, 2023, more than €1,300 (over 500,000 forints) was spent on expanding the president’s wardrobe. Out of that amount, around €280 (110,000 forints) was used for three headpieces. In early May, Novák was in London for the coronation of King Charles III. Several posts on her social media show her wearing different headpieces at the event.
These garments and accessories, like many others, were kept by Novák free of charge after her resignation.
Novák’s clothing expenses had already drawn media attention earlier. For example, during the 2023 Balaton swim, the outlet Gulyáságyú Média reported that Novák completed the swim in a custom-designed, monogrammed swimsuit. Following a public information request by Magyar Hang, the Sándor Palace stated that the swimsuit had not been paid for with public funds but was personally financed by Novák, covering both the design and production costs. In the spreadsheet obtained by Direkt36, the items acquired for the Balaton swim are listed as “sold.” These are the only items for which Novák paid the full price, amounting to €480 (188,000 forints).
Government-linked suppliers
From autumn 2023, a company called TOTHBORI Kft. appears multiple times on the list of Novák’s clothing suppliers. This company is owned by Borbála Tóth, who previously co-owned a business with the wife of Szilárd Benkő, a longtime friend and former colleague of Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó. That company, called Tressidus Kft., was later acquired by Benkő and merged into his own business, EUTEK Kft.
In 2022, Direkt36 revealed that this Benkő-owned company received nearly €760,000 (almost 300 million forints) in non-repayable support from a background institution of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency (HIPA). When contacted, Borbála Tóth said our questions concerned private and corporate matters, so she declined to answer.
One of the most frequently mentioned suppliers is fashion designer Dorina Dobor, who through various companies invoiced the Sándor Palace more than 50 times over the course of less than two years, totaling over €15,600 (more than 6 million forints). Dobor has been interviewed in her capacity as the president’s designer by pro-government media. These interviews revealed, among other things, that she designed the black high-collared dress Novák wore during Pope Francis’s visit to Hungary in spring 2023.
Publicly available data suggest that Dobor’s husband is Péter Kovács, the managing owner of EU-Fire Kft. Dobor and Kovács live at the same address, and Dobor has taken the married name Kovácsné. In recent years, EU-Fire has won several hundred million forints’ worth of public and EU funding. Under a government program launched in 2020, the company built medical equipment manufacturing plants in the Nyírség region with several billion forints in government support.
When contacted, Dobor said she welcomed the fact that Novák chose to wear creations by Hungarian designers rather than custom-made luxury-brand pieces like many other European political figures. Péter Kovács confirmed to us that Dorina Dobor is his wife but did not substantively respond to questions about EU-Fire Kft.
Pacific tour, private jet, Paris hotel bills
There were other controversial expenditures by the Sándor Palace during Novák’s presidency.
The cream-colored dress mentioned at the beginning of this article was worn by Novák during her visit to Sydney in autumn 2023. This trip to Australia was part of a 15-day Pacific tour during which Novák and her delegation — including Reformed Church Bishop Zoltán Balog, who later played a key role in the clemency scandal — also visited Papua New Guinea. This portion of the trip alone cost about €11,000 (4.3 million forints). RTL.hu reported that Novák traveled to nearly all foreign trips using a private jet — one of the Airbus A319 planes purchased by the Hungarian Defence Forces.
Novák also attempted to have the state-owned Honthy Villa in Tihany, reserved for high-ranking officials, renovated. According to a report by 444, she even had a swimming pool designed for the property. However, Construction Minister János Lázár was reportedly angered by the plans and ultimately blocked the villa’s conversion into a summer residence. A government source confirmed this information to Direkt36. Novák’s secretariat said there had been joint discussions about creating a state guesthouse there — in line with international practice — that would be suitable for hosting visiting heads of state and government, but the plan was ultimately not realized.
The most widely criticized luxury expense of the Sándor Palace was a €590,000 (228.7 million forints) hotel reservation made in advance during Novák’s presidency for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Novák’s team booked 15 rooms for 18 nights at one of Paris’s most elegant hotels. After Novák’s resignation, her successor Tamás Sulyok traveled to the Olympics with a much smaller delegation and stayed for only three days — that is, two hotel nights — making most of the original booking unnecessary.
