What Leading Women Look Like
“I’m a big believer in recycling, even carpets,” Hillary Clinton said in a February issue of US Weekly, joking about a heavy, tapestry-like coat she wore in 2000. The US Weekly spread featured Clinton’s repertoire of fashion foibles and the then presidential hopeful poked fun at her past style decisions. Perhaps she anticipated the front-and-center position fashion would take in a presidential race in which women play a more prominent role than ever before. Perhaps she knew she would never be the sort of leading woman who wowed fashionistas and she wanted to deflect potential criticism by embracing her awkwardness. Whatever the reason, Clinton’s US Weekly spoof was as foreboding as it was entertaining.
Clinton won’t be in the oval office in 2009. Instead, three women with more classically feminine wardrobes are vying for a spot in the White House. Focusing on details like clothing seems inane, even irresponsible, when bigger issues are on the line, but there’s something telling about the way the women of this campaign have chosen to dress.
Deciphering candidates and projecting what they’ll do as leaders is an impossible task and, maybe as a way of underplaying this impossibility, journalists and critics tend to blow every gesture up to absurd proportions. When Michelle and Barrack Obama bumped fists after Obama accepted the nomination, some screamed terrorism while others saw romantic optimism. After the October 7th debate, body language experts gave their professional opinion about how McCain positioned his feet or Obama moved his hands. Fashion fits into this same blown-out-of-proportion conundrum. Sure, Sarah Palin’s red heels should be inconsequential next to the economy and the war in Iraq. But if we can decipher Palin’s shoes maybe we’ll be a step closer to understanding her candidacy.
Michelle Obama’s quiet class, Cindy McCain’s expensive effeteness, and Sarah Palin’s womanly, no-nonsense wardrobe seems a stand-in for the strangely contradictory roles women play in this presidential race. Feminism and gender relations are still convoluted entities in the United States and, if nothing more, the physical personas of this year’s hopeful first ladies and GOP vice-president embody this convolution.
On the second night of the Republican National Convention, Cindy McCain wore a flouncing, golden-yellow Oscar de la Renta dress, a white ceramic watch by Chanel and 3-karat diamond earrings. She disregarded the conservative pencil skirt or sheath dress norm and Vanity Fair’s fashion department estimated that her ensemble cost approximately $300,000, thanks to a $280,000 pair of earrings. The estimate caused quite a stir in the blogosphere, periodicals and papers—no wonder McCain doesn’t know how many houses he has, some journalists wittily suggested; his wife’s got the value of one hanging from her ears.
The Convention was by no means McCain’s only moment of glamour. Over the last few months, she’s donned a span of hip, heiress-appropriate outfits: brown leather jacket and slacks in Florida; a silver-grey sheath in Virginia; a tweed suit with a thin black belt at the White House; and a fitted red dress in Colombia. She doesn’t avoid frills and pleats and she tends not to dress her age, a woman who refuses to let hip accessories and styles be wasted on the young. But her youthfulness works, making her seem more Eva Peron than Eleanor Roosevelt. Her wardrobe evokes flavorful stateliness, leaving the straight-talking forcefulness to her suit-clad husband.
Michelle Obama is a different story. She dresses her age and has none of McCain’s affluent abandon—her look consists of solid colors, tailored blouses, understated suits, and dresses that hang effortlessly. The purple sheath she wore the night her husband accepted the Democratic nomination prompted comparisons to Jacqueline Kennedy and, like Jackie O, Obama has class on her side. She takes the less-is-more approach and it’s working for her. She made People’s best dressed list, a distinction she shares with Anne Hathaway, Heidi Klum, and Gwyneth Paltrow, and she’s graced the covers of More Magazine, Ebony and The Ladies Home Journal.
In what might be the most extreme example of Obama’s fashion prowess, Tyra Banks impersonated the potential first lady, posing in a Harper’s Bazaar photo spread. Dressed in Diane von Furstenberg, Michael Kors, and Oscar de la Renta, Banks reads to schoolchildren and celebrates victory amid red, white, and blue confetti. Obama as instant fashion icon is a strange phenomenon. What happens if the Obamas don’t win on November 4th? Will Michelle’s iconic status end as quickly as it began?
As if the fashion of politics weren’t already complicated enough, Sarah Palin adds another, jarringly anomalous dimension to the campaign’s image. While McCain shoots for age-defying glamour, and Obama achieves timeless class, it’s hard to tell whether Palin is terribly dated or the trendiest of the three. Is she recalling the eighties with her top-heavy French twist and her shoulder-heavy jackets? Or is she breaking barriers, merging chic with retro while still projecting confidence?
According to the Washington State Journal, Palin’s Kazuo Kawasaki eyeglasses have become so popular that Italee Optics can’t keep up with the demand and the Naughty Monkey shoe line has seen a surge in sales ever since Palin wore a pair of their pumps. But the Palin fashion craze has cost the GOP: Politico.com recently reported that the Republican National Committee spent $150,000 on Palin’s hair, makeup, and wardrobe in Septermber. Most of the money went to Neiman Marcus.
Palin’s look, which is unmistakably feminine—her heels are unapologetically high and her lip liner so visible that it’s become a regular topic of conversation among entertainment pundits—somehow manages to take a backseat to her persona. No matter what Palin wears, her assuredness—critics might say brazenness—is immediately noticeable. Isn’t that a hallmark of fashion genius, using clothes to accent aura?
“Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with [Hillary] Clinton,” Gloria Steinem wrote in an LA Times editorial. Steinem’s assertion could be expanded: Palin, Michelle Obama, and Cindy McCain share little more than a chromosome. But maybe that’s the one truly uplifting conclusion that can come from the fashion fetish. Women, even strong, politically dominant women, are not a type. Like the male leaders of this country, they’re different in so many ways: in sentiment, in conviction, in attitude, and in appearance.
The fact that a divergent collection of women have taken prominent positions on today’s political horizon is a laudable success, even if these particular women don’t necessarily embody feminism as it existed at its inception. And if hyper-analyzing Palin’s Naughty Monkey shoes and Obama’s purple sheath can open us up to discussing the bigger, ideological issues that separate the candidates, then maybe fashion isn’t inane after all.
>Written by d/visible contributor Catherine Wagley.
