That dress Michelle wore on THE VIEW sold out in a week in stores because it was affordable.
Sara - You need your own show! This really is the best insight I've read into Fashiongate. Thanks!
A heck of a lot more insightful than Robin Givhan in the WaPo.
Thanks. I've often thought that I should have Robin Givens' job.
Fashion is, as I said, a vastly important means of cultural communication. New York is the capital of American fashion. The Times needs a fashion writer who takes the field seriously enough to interpret the messages and symbols people are sending with their clothing choices.
What does it mean when designers fill the stores with somber colors, or outfit us for Victorian-era safaris, or put us in bohemian garb? They sell us this stuff because they're reading things in our mood, and in our dreams. Why those dreams? What are we really wanting to be?
There was a lot to be said about Hillary's flash of cleavage, too -- but, contrary to Givens' obsession, it wasn't about whether or not it her tank top was "appropriate." Rather, it was about how Americans view power, age, and sexuality, and how that comes into play when a female politician of a certain age falls into that intersection.
THAT would have been an interesting discussion. Emily Post-type fretting about what's "tasteful," on the other hand, was pretty damned useless.
Yeah, I'd love to have that job.
Sara
Hillary's suits are custom made in Beverly Hills by a private dressmaker who was featured in last month's L A Times Magazine.
Susanna Chung Forest is the owner of Susanna Beverly Hills.
Suits are approximately $3000 for the jacket, $2000 for the trousers, and $1350 for the blouse. That's approx $6350 per ensemble.
http://www.latimes.com/features/
...1,0,62255.story
~
Slight nit to pick: the Palins live near Anchorage, not Fairbanks, so they would probably shop there.
For a women's fashion-challenged guy like me, this is a fascinating post. Thank you!
LC, really? I've seen her in some beautifully-fitted suits -- especially at the debates -- and I'd believe that those were custom-made.
But that's not what she wore on campaign trail. At the debate last summer at Netroots Nation, she was pretty rumpled, and it wasn't at all well-fitted. There are a lot of photos of her wearing stuff that doesn't have the structure those "good suits" have. Not that I'd blame her -- like I said: clothes wear out quickly when you're campaigning in them for months on end. I suspect she was wearing the $600 suits, not the $6000 ones, for most of her events.
(FWIW, she's also overpaying. The best custom women's tailor in Vancouver charges about $800 for a suit. I know, because I've bought two of them -- one of which some of my GNB cohort has actually seen me in.)
Being a guy is so much easier.
I've read somewhere that Palin's net worth is some $2 million. Why in the name of Bonaparte's Balls is the RNC doing buying her shit? Can't she afford her own clothes, makeup and hairdressing appointments?
Presidential Debates 2012: "Who are you wearing"..... :-|
Mr. Blackwell just passed so we won't be having the Best/Worst dressed in politics edition from him.
Great piece Mrs. R. 
Sara
I believe she started using Susanna just last year. If you read the article, there is a custom mannequin made of you and a minimum of three suits to buy to justify constructing the mannequin. That's between $18,000 and $22,000 to start. The tangerine pantsuit Clinton wore at the Dem convention is one of Susanna's.
As for the prices, she's helping to pay Susanna's Beverly Hills rent.
Wanderer
On progressive talk 1150 AM, they were talking about Palin having to pay taxes on the $150K since it's considered income. The RNC was making some noises about the money being a loan, but it seems that if what you buy with the loan loses value, as clothing and shoes do, the taxes will have to be paid.
Pat Nixon, Nancy Reagan, Cindy McCain.
The progression is telling. Wasn't it Pat Nixon who talked about her respectable, Republican cloth coat?
Nancy Reagan wore designer, but not at the level of Cindy McCain. She bargained to get better prices due to her position!
Laura Bush is such a cipher, I don't know where she fits in the progression. I get the feeling that she was a small town girl caught up in a family whose values she didn't share but to which she acquiesed. I don't find her taste all that developed in keeping with her position, or maybe the Bush women are all dowdy?
In the end, McCain represents a complete break from and disregard for the sensibilities of the ordinary American
~
The Bush women are an interesting mix. The family roots are in New England -- a part of the country where hooshing it up is a great big fat no-no (and, once upon a time, got you banished or put in stocks). Because of this history, New England style is almost pretentiously unpretentious -- no makeup, no hair dye, no artifice of any kind, and no-nonsense, durable clothes from LL Bean. The Puritans live.
But the last two generations have done their time in places like Texas and Florida, both big-time hooshing capitals. The Bush twins and nieces go all-in. Laura's a weird hybrid, though: a Texas girl with that understated New England way about her. Her best fashion moment of the past eight years was a dark blue silk shirtwaist dress (very 1950s) that she wore in a Vogue spread and later in a family portrait. It was really lovely, and I'd have bought that dress in a heartbeat if it hadn't cost $10K.
Other than that, she's been as quiet in her fashion statements as she's been about everything else. The leading quality you need to be a co-dependent is the ability to keep secrets, even if they're eating you alive. That's Laura all over, and you can see it in her wardrobe choices, too.
The thing about clothes is that even when people think they're not saying anything, they're still sending messages. There's no such thing as truly message-neutral clothing -- because even the choice to be inconspicuous is still a choice.
Too funny RE Palin in "native dress." Could you imagine the uproar if someone saw Obama campaigning in a dakishi or something?
Jen
When I saw that photo I immediately thought, "that's what hockey moms in Wasilla wear when they want to display their Alaskan-ness" I bet almost every mom in many Alaskan towns has at least one such outfit.
~
yeah, we have a whole bunch of folks in arizona that like to dress up "indian."
there was a group called the smoke eyes that barry goldwater belonged to. originally they had envisioned the hopi and other nation's snake dances to be a great tourist attraction. the hopi objected. the white guys ignored them, then the hopi objected violently. since they are our cousins the apache objected with them.
so the smoke eyes began to dress up like hopi and perform their own "ceremony" using bull snakes. they said it was something they did to honor us. we did not feel honored.
all the smoke eyes who danced had little snakebite tattoos on their hands and they were very proud of them.
later in his life, barry goldwater realized that he was commercializing and mocking a very sacred ceremony. he renounced his membership in the smoke eyes and had his tattoo removed. he went to the hopi and apologised to them.
barry goldwater was a bastard on many levels but toward the end of his life he saw some truths.
itisgoh barry. you saw that one clearly.
mrs. robinson, i'm forwarding this link to one of my favorite fashion mavens. i'm certain she will be impressed as am i with your fine sense and insight.
Possibly; but it could also have been a gift to the governor from a Yu'pik community. The buttonwork around the waistband is very, very specific to Northwest traditional styles.
Actually, I find it charming -- and extremely appropriate to the local climate up here in the Great Northwest. (I am, in fact, inspired enough by this photo to be scanning my calico pile with an eye toward making something similar to wear this winter. Maybe one in blue, to wear with thick leggings and mukluks. I'm a big fan of indigenous dress styles.)
But it's not the kind of thing that'll impress them in the enclaves of Palm Springs, no. Or, for that matter, anywhere that's not Alaska, BC, or the Yukon.
Not to mention pragmatic. It makes sense to adopt native dress when it is successfully adapted to a place like Alaska with extremes of weather.
MB
There's a difference between adopting dress for practicality and messing around with somebody else's rituals. Too bad so many don't know the difference.
Uck.
~
Minstrel, this is an interesting conversation. Where is the line between being inspired by someone's traditional garb -- and being disrespectful of it?
I ask this because ethnic fashion is a lifelong hobby and passion of mine. I can name all the parts of a traditional kimono; identify dozens of regional south Indian sari weaving patterns; and can give you the decade-by-decade rundown on the finer points of several centuries of European fashion. I mean: I really, deeply love this stuff -- the way people have expressed their cultural identities and environmental challenges through clothing.
Which is how I took one look at that outfit and said, "Oh. It's not a dowdy calico bag -- it's a Yu'pik tribal dress."
Does growing up virtually Paiute entitle me to wear Native clothing? It shouldn't, really: modern Paiutes now wear Shoshone buckskins for fancy dress, but they wore dresses of reeds and woven rabbit hide in the old days. By rights, the Paiute are stealing from the Shoshone, and I'd be perpetuating that.
Am I over the line when I visit my brother's house in Santa Fe, and get out my fringed leathers and Navajo velvet blouses and skirts? Am I stepping out too far if I wrap my legs in white deerskin, like the Hopi women do? Should I lay off wearing the squash-blossom necklaces I inherited from both sides of the family? (I own four.) How about Pendleton blanket coats? Rabbit mukluks made by the Blackfeet in Alberta?
I'm not being argumentative. I'm sincerely interested in knowing where the line is, and what the rules are that define a transgression. Where does admiration cross into disrespect?
Since I live in a very remote one and a half season beach town island municipality, my understanding of fashion has atrophied completely since I lived in Midtown Manhattan 30 years ago. The explanation of the basics here was very educational.
I really don't care that much about the Palin outfits, although they mostly look good on her, the concern is her parochialism, a problem I have with the mayor of my own small town. I hope we can ignore Ms. Palin and her outfits and her small ideas after November 4.
Meanwhile, I always thought the whole idea of buying a Barbie was to buy a wardrobe too, and dress her up, no? I have two daughters and that was the idea they had when they were in the Barbie phase.
When I saw that photo I immediately thought, "that's what hockey moms in Wasilla wear when they want to display their Alaskan-ness" I bet almost every mom in many Alaskan towns has at least one such outfit.
Ummm....no.
I lived in Alaska 10 years and never once saw an Anglo woman ever wear any sort of native dress. Not once. Casual wear at the supermarket is jeans, fleece, and Sorels. People in Alaska dress basically the same as the Pacific Northwest.
mrs. robinson, you're right as usual. it is a very delicate, often sticky issue. as with most things pertaining to culture and to identity i think it all goes to intent.
what is the intent? there was a fairly famous local kid who decided while in the boy scouts that he wanted to live like an apache, in the old ways. he was allowed to live on the rez, out in the boonies and he raised himself a family of white kids. he dressed in many traditional clothes.
if someone's intent, which is usually pretty easily discerned is to identify and honor. please, by all means, wear your turquoise and your velvets. especially if they are made by actual navajos and zunis. the knock off stuff that is found all over the pow wow circuit is easy to find, and often much less expensive, but, i would never object to seeing somebody wearing a navajo, apache, hopi, or zuni made hiishi or squash blossom necklace. it shows support and appreaciation of the community.
given sarah palin's record on native issues, i see her wearing the clothes like a costume. a false flag if you will.
and never, please, never, presume to honor our sacred traditions by making them into tourist events. i'm sure you wouldn't do that.
deerskins are a fine leg wrap. i've been known to wear them myself. fringe is a good thing. shawls and blankets (again, especially those woven and made by the locals) are a fine way to show respect and honor.
like language, it all goes to intent.
p.s. one of my favorite winter coats is an old hudson bay trade blanket (it is a four stripe meaning that the trade value for the blanket was four pelts) that a wonderful navajo grammy cut and lined with a shearling from her own flock. the button frogs are made from elk horn. it is warm as toast.
pendaltons are fine. lots of indians wear them because they are good things.
Great work. Just another example of the muddled messaging that comes on account of a crappy candidate. Somehow she was supposed to shore up all of McCain's weaknesses.
given sarah palin's record on native issues, i see her wearing the clothes like a costume. a false flag if you will.
BINGO:
Those of you not from Alaska may not know the political landscape. Native Alaskans and Native villages are overwhelmingly Democratic. Non-native rural whites are overwhelmingly Republican. The divide between these two groups is very deep goes to some uniquely Alaskan issues such as subsistence hunting and fishing rights.
In point of fact, the only Republican Alaskan politician who has been remotely sympathetic to native subsistence hunting and fishing rights has been Ted Stevens.
There's way too much to go into here, but the assumption that a Republican politician in Alaska is friendly towards native issues is laughable. What she was wearing in that photo was nothing more than political costume.
Minstrel, this is pretty close to the way I'd worked it out in my own head, so thank you.
Yes, my jewelry is all native-made. (Somebody on the Zuni rez told me that there's actually a town in the Philippines that's renamed itself "Zuni" so its knockoff needlepoint jewelry can be labeled "Zuni-made." You gotta be careful these days.) Most of it was either bought by Evan's folks during their summers on the Big Rez, or by a local Paiute jeweler named Gene Sanchez who my dad commissioned for several pieces.
I figure that if I've bought something that was made by a native artisan, I'm giving my money to the community, and thus supporting them. It's a fair trade. On the other hand, we've never bought anything with Yei symbols on it: the Yei were always intended to be transient figures that were invoked only for the duration of a sing, and the idea of putting them on anything permanent really bothers us. I know they alter the designs for these goods, so it's not really quite a violation; but to us, it seems like the Navajo are selling out their own traditions, and we're damned if we'll help them out with that.
Also: No Navajo kachina. Ugh. Kachina are Hopi and Zuni; the Navajo just ripped them off. There's a guy named Alph Secacucu at Second Mesa who literally wrote the book on kachina for the Heard Museum, and is a member of several Hopi lodges. If we ever wanted another kachina (no, really: we have plenty) we'd get it from him.
As for ceremonials: Sometime (maybe around the solstice), I'll tell the story of how I ended up as the only white face at Shalako.
Mrs. Robinson,
That's one of the finest pieces on fashion and its role in politics I've ever read.
And thank you for noticing that Michelle Obama (and her husband) don't wear fashion -- they have personal style. There are very few men and women who can do that -- Katherine Hepburn, Joni Mitchell, and Cary Grant come to my mind, instantly -- but very few politicians and political consorts rise to that level.
At some point this summer I wore blue suit with a white open collared shirt -- and people immediately noticed that it was almost exactly what Senator Obama had been photographed wearing a few days earlier. It's a style that takes some nerve to pull off, and has most often been seen on Hollywood stars like Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Senator Obama does it, naturally.
Sara:
Thanks for the great explanation. As a dyke who was raised in rural Appalachia, I don't get "fahsion" at all. Too fussy by half--I literally order all my clothes from LL Bean (only place I can get pants that are long enough), and call it good.
My god....The elite do NOT pay nearly enough in taxes. $15K for clothes? That's more than some Americans make in a year. Given the fiscal crisis, I'm looking forward to the days when folks with unearned income of 200K (or more) per year pay at least 50% in taxes.
Fascinating post, Mrs. R.
I love it when someone brings a POV that's totally unfamiliar to me to bear on an interesting subject. Especially when they do it so well.
Fantastic and really insightful analysis in this post.
Huffington Post linked to an old interview with the Obamas from earlier this year where they discussed shopping on a budget for clothes for their family.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
20...i_n_137009.html
There's a great pic of Michele and Barack if you scroll down -- Michele in a $35 H&M dress with HORIZONTAL stripes -- snd she rocks it. Doesn't look cheap (which a lot of H&M stuff does, imo) and I can't believe she can wear horizontal stripes and unlike me not look like a house LOL.
Kudos to Michele for being herself and doing it on a reasonable budget.
Oh and I shop at the GAP too mainly bc they have a full range of petites
Gosh and when getting a $400 haircut makes one an elitist, lord only knows what $150,000 makes one. Oh ya, one of the common folk [sigh]
thorstein veblen
Good article! Very interesting analysis. I'm so not interested in fashion. My mother was into it, though.
I once went to a Costumer's Guild convention, and took a two or three hour course in how to put on Victorian underwear. Another on fans.
I guess I equate fashion with costume.
It's wonderful to read something intelligent about fashion in a political blog; it's usually along the lines of "Tsk-tsk, how shallow!--someone actually made some effort over her appearance."
However, considering how clumsily this campaign handles itself, I submit that the expensiveness of Palin's clothes isn't a well-tuned dog-whistle to the super-rich. Seriously, what have you seen to suggest that they're quite that clever?
I think it's more likely that some deep-pocketed lady McCain supporter (possibly Cindy herself) was handed the task of outfitting the Palin family, and consequently Palin is swanning around in the sort of clothes you might think a respectable woman-of-the-people politician would wear if you yourself had $100 million and no concept of what it was to get dressed for work every morning.
No, I think Sara is right on (ours, not theirs) with this. There was a deliberate attempt to buy things that LOOKED to be upper middle class bridge clothing but wasn't. You can bet your boots that 99% of what she has been sporting could easily have been purchased for a fraction from a Dana Buchnam-type line (which for me is outrageously pricey in and of itself).
The other thing that Sara didn't mention is the very conscious attempt to dress her in a sexy, provocative manner. Skin tight pencil skirts. Red patent fuck me pumps. No professional politician would be caught dead in those, because you don't dress to make the little soldier stand up straight unless that is specifically what you are trying to do. I've done it myself - having to present something to a group of men who I knew would be highly resistant - if half their mind is trying to figure out how to stand up and hide the woodie, they won't be paying very close attention, yet will be in a compliant mood. The GOP is doing this with Palin - look at those boys in the audience A churchy tramp. Talk about your madonna/whore complexes!
Love this discussion. Sara brings up a point that had also occurred to me - why dress Palin in Valentino instead of "bridge" suits? And Sara, you have a great theory - it's the upper-class dog whistle.
I found it amusing that the RNC spokesperson responded to the criticism by saying the clothing would be donated to charity "after the campaign."
Oh really? Then what was supposed to happen next? Is this a tacit acknowledgement on the part of the RNC that McCain/Palin's going to lose?
Because, surely, if they expected her to win, they would want her to continue to wear the costume.
I am enjoying the discussion on wearing native or traditional attire, but I wanted to keep my comment to the Palin/political issue.
Thanks for an interesting discussion!
Oh - another comment - you say about Cindy McCain don't know anybody in real life who dresses like that, and I'll bet you don't, either.
Actually, I DO in fact know people in real life who dress like that, and they are, in fact, people just like Cindy McCain. My work brings me into contact with people who donate money to non-profit institutions in Los Angeles, and I have seen exactly the same kind of clothes on the backs of the wives of L.A. billionaires. It's funny, because seeing Cindy on TV really reminded me of a couple of ladies I know - all dripping with money.
You're right though - no one ELSE dresses like that in real life.
Kent from Waco
Thank you for the lesson in Alaskan politics. All I saw was a comfortable, practical way of dressing that seemed smart to adopt and made an assumption. That fact that most white rural people are Republican and most Native Alaskans are Democrats seems to make her decision to wear what she's wearing problematic or opportunistic.
I found this:
http://www.talkleft.com/story/20...9/9/193512/
8898
and now I'm really puzzled, if she's going around in native dress, and her husband is part native alaskan, then what is her rationale for attacking Native rights?
Does anyone know where and why the photo was taken? Was this just after some political event that had something to do with Native Alaskans and she didn't bother to change?
~
This is brilliant! Sara, of all the stuff I've read about Palin's fashion foibles, your post really gets to the bottom of the matter: the value of image.
I always have a laugh when people dismiss fashion--and, indeed, clothes and appearance in general--as insignificant, silly, pointless, and even foolish. Ah-ha!, I say, But you are affected by it nonetheless, as humans always have been, one way or another, throughout history. Better to have it work for you than against you, I think.
Which is not to say I don't love my very faded, very shredded jeans.
Only that I know from the power of a wonderful suit (my favorite one happens to be oyster-colored, too, only it's from the 1940's and cost just $7 at the local church thrift store plus a bit of time and thread to alter it to fit). And wonderful heels.
(When I think about the roomful of one-of-a-kind vintage gowns--Dior! Galanos! Maybe even a Charles James!--that $150K would buy, I want to weep for America's non-billionaire fashionphiles.)
>>and now I'm really puzzled, if she's going around in native dress, and her husband is part native alaskan, then what is her rationale for attacking Native rights?
It's accceptable to reappropriate, it's acceptable to be "native" as long as you pass -- in fact it gives you the right to be a 'hardass'.
...and could she have sprung for the matching skirts on those overrated jackets?
Lilbrit, my daughter -- who bitched for four years straight about her kilt-tie-and-blazer school uniform -- is now in college. And she thinks most of the boys there look untouchably scuzzy. She got so used to boys in blazers and trousers that she didn't even realize that what the other 95% was wearing was so much worse. Now, she sees it, clearly; and is surprised at how much she doesn't like it.
And she's also understanding that the whole point of that uniform was to train the kids to wear the mantle of power. She's noticed that she and her peers have an effortless relationship with those clothes that people who didn't grow up in them don't have -- that easy way of the aforementioned CEOs who look like they were born in suits. The ones who went prep school practically were.
At this point, her new fetish is vintage cocktail dresses. The best vintage store in town provided her graduation dress, which was a '50s heavily-boned handmade Audrey Hepburn black faille number. In August, they turned up a royal blue silk chiffon dress by Ceil Chapman (who dressed Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe -- there's a famous early portrait of Monroe in a white Chapman drape-neck wiggle dress almost identical to this one, but with sleeves). She scraped together her last dime to buy it. It was sooo worth it: she looks like a perfect blue goddess in it.
I'm going through a different transformation. Americans are casual dressers, except in just a very few areas. Law is one of them. Politics is another. Being a think tank fellow, I'm spending more and more time in places where an impeccable suit matters. It's odd, but I'm not minding it: part of me feels like I've been rehearsing for this part all my life.
Oh, and me: Those jackets with the matching skirts would have very quickly put the outfits right over the top, into overt Cindy McCain territory.
Bridge looks tend to be more somber and mix-and-match (they're more practical and professional-looking that way); and Palin's contrasting black skirts are one big way to set that desired lower-end note.
The dress Sarah Palin is wearing is called a Kuspuk, and they are worn by Inuit and Yup'iit women primarily, stretching around the coast from Cordova (which is Eyak Indian territory) through Oil Spill country (Prince William Sound to the Kenai Peninsula), down the Alaska Peninsula a ways but not so much into the Aleutian Islands, then north through Bristol Bay and around the coast to Canada where it continues more or less. Cook Inlet was Dena'ina Indian, so no kuspuks here in Anchorage but some out by Kachemak Bay. Let me say that her husband's family is Yup'iit from Bristol Bay and Todd does cleave to those folks a bit, but Sarah is making a political gesture that can be gutsy for a Republican to make in Wasilla. Many Native folks are now seasonal residents of the Mat Su borough, including friends of mine who fish Bristol Bay in the summers, or used to when the price was good enough to make it a paying proposition.
Lots of white women have kuspuks, with zero to lots of fur around the collar. You can buy them around Anchorage as they are a handy item to wear. They originated in the days when the Russians were trying to get Native folks to trade more peltry for Chinese manufactured cloth, such as Nankeen. The Russians traded the pelts to China through Kiakhta, where they had exclusive trade privileges (shared with Portugal at Macao, on the coast) for a long time before the British fought their way in. They traded for tea, china wares, opium, and manufactured goods, which they traded back to Alaska and to European Russia. The Alaska Natives wanted the good stuff for their pelts-sugar, tea, tobacco, shot and powder, metal tools, china, and cookware. The Russians wanted to trade as little as possible in exchange for pelts. This worked well until the Russians and their Aleut hunters wiped out the sea otters, and they had to switch emphasis to land peltry to exchange with China. During this time, the British were drinking the Russians' milkshake big time, and competing on the west coast with Russia and the US for ownership. US trumped the UK with the California Gold Rush, which started with the guy who bought Russia's base in CA on the Russian River, Fort Rossia. All those Aleuts at the fort came back to Alaska with CA native wives who were used to French fashions brought by independent US traders like Grays, and soon cloth clothing supplanted fur clothing as the ideal of beauty in dress.
Back in AK, though, this was not practical-too cold, and wool tends to get wet and soggy. So the men bought the cheap Chinese cloth and the women designed dresses that went over their fur clothing and protected the furs from the messes of rural life on the land-seal blood, caribou blood, and the like, which could shorten the life of fur. Native women could and did replicate in detail the finest Parisian dresses seen in magazines and newspapers, using local materials-gut, whalebone, hides, and imported cloth, sewn with sinews, down to manufacturing parasols.
So a point for Sarah on the kuspuk, which doesn't take away all the rotten to simply venal things she does and has done. She is a product of her place and time to be sure-pipeline refugees are the Dust Bowl Okies of Alaska.
Check out Lydia Black's books on Alaska history and ethnography if you are interested. There are several good books on kuspuks, too, including from the Park Service.
http://tinyurl.com/5vx82v
This has been the absolute best discussion about the wardrobe issue since it first came up a couple of days ago. Brava!, Mrs. R. I still have your essay on Indian saris bookmarked in my favorites. I don't know beans about fashion, but I still find it fascinating.
>>and Palin's contrasting black skirts are one big way to set that desired lower-end note.
very true the whole contrasty thing is very updated "Working Girl" -- like how people 'think' a professional woman should dress. although I think it's very interesting how QUICKLY she's moved into matching sets, albeit in all black and all red.
Cindy McCain's matching suits are over the top b/c they are secondary and tertiary colorways.
Mrs. Robinson, I am a huge Ceil Chapman fan--I have six of her dresses, three of which don't fit, though--I must get around to altering so I can actually wear them. Fortunately, I began collecting vintage in the late 1970's, before the prices got completely out of control for "name" pieces like Ceil.
With all the money she spends on clothes and a paid professional stylist, shouldn't Cindy McCain look better? She really has no sense of style at all.
I also get tired of hearing her called a "blonde beauty." She isn't beautiful. Her face looks as though it has been carved into a rictus of pain, her eyes are just freakin' weird, and her hair looks like straw.
I feel uncomfortable just looking at her!
Phil, wow. Just wow. Thanks for the input. You have left me better-educated. (And part of what I love best about fashion is those stories of economic and cultural trade that drive it. I appreciate that.)
Me, I hadn't thought about the colorways specifically, but yes, that's a huge part of the upper-class look. They wear colors you just don't see anywhere else, especially the bright Lilly Pulitzer kelly greens and fuschia pinks and sunny yellow; and Hermes' trademark orange.
Working those colors into a primary wardrobe is hard, unless you've got a very good eye. And you can't wear them with much else: if you're going that direction, you're buying whole outfits that can't be readily mixed and matched. That's one of the attributes that makes them "exclusive."
The colors also say: "I'm so rich that I don't have to wear conformist little bridge suits in non-offensive tones." Those are suitable court wear for courtiers. But part of being queen is that you can grab as much attention as you want.
And I agree that Cindy looks hard and tired, dried up the way women get on the Arizona deserts and in the dessicating sterility of bad marriages. As far as the desert effects are concerned, the secret is to go with that, and not fight it. Let yourself become old, leathery, and handsome. Probably because of the bad marriage thing, Cindy still fights it much too hard.
Lilbrit, I'm handy with a needle (where I grew up, if you couldn't find what you wanted in the Sears catalog, you had to make it yourself -- I started sewing at age eight) -- but I wouldn't even dream of altering a Chapman dress. The tucking and gathering is all so damned intricate I can hardly figure out how she put it together in the first place, let alone how I'd set about putting it back.
Good thing my size-8 daughter was built for this stuff just as it comes off the rack. And the store she's getting it from charges way less than it costs online. Part of what induced her to buy it was the promise that if she took good care of it, she could wear it a few years and then sell it for three times what she paid for it.
That's what we call real investment dressing.
Sara-- I have a couple of lovely pieces from the 1950s or 40's that were my mother's. Unfortunately, I will never be that small again.* (My mother had a 19 inch waist when she got married.)
When you stop in the SF Bay Area to visit me you can have a look at them and see if they are anything you would want for your daughter.
*Unless, of course, the coming Depression leaves me literally starving. I am currently storing up fat for that possibility.... at least that's my excuse....
What a fascinating thread. Talk about wide ranging!
Beans and hand me downs, but I'm following this with a sociological appetite!
Mrs R -- that's what I found SO interesting about the backlash re: HRC's tangerine suit. Or even the running jokes about her dark suits with bright scarves or bright cardigans draped over her suitjacket. I mean *I* dress like that!
I think Cindy is alienating lookwise not only because of her wardrobe choices that way but is very slim, very blonde, pale. Again emphasizing the untouchable rich heiress meme. Hillary in a orange suit is going to look like a middle aged woman making a mistake. Cindy just looks rich.
I loved Hillary's tangerine suit at the DNC!
Excellent analysis.
Not that I have any kind of eye for this stuff, but I thought Pelosi's dress at the convention was incredibly (and uncharacteristically) unflattering. But I can't seem to find a full-on photo to refresh my memory.
Nearest I can find is this:
http://www.daylife.com/photo/03M...o/
03MLbYF4AH5q0
My reaction was that the thing made her body look huge and her head small. The bottom part of the dress, IIRC, flared out and thus heightened the effect. To me it looked like something Carol Burnett might have made out of curtains. It looked impossible to sit in or look comfortable in, it made her look bloated and old, and it was out of place tone-wise next to the Obamas' crisp, modern styles. It was not at all Senatorial.
That was my reaction anyway. Easy to say when none of you can see how lousy I dress.
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