Commentary

Picturing The President



As Kamala Harris continues her fight for the presidency, one thing that she has side-stepped, thankfully, among more important issues that she faces as our country’s first female candidate of color, is criticism of her wardrobe.

 People seem more interested in attacking her policies, which is progress.

Certainly, it’s a dramatic change in relation to Hillary Clinton’s run in 2016.

While trying to break the ultimate glass ceiling as the first female president, Hillary had to take constant flak over sexist topics intended to diminish her. That included her pantsuits. Starting with her early days in the White House as First Lady, and up to 2016, she had to battle to be accepted as authoritative, which she was, naturally, yet still had to deal with outmoded concepts of “femininity.”

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Whereas Harris gets attacked on the womanly front for “not being a mother” while she explains that modern families come in many forms.

So does progress.

Of course, Donald J. Trump has worn a uniform of a blue suit/long red tie since the 1980s, which has become part of his persona.

Harris has her own dark-suited look that she has evolved over the years. It’s hardly groundbreaking, but it is easy, graceful, and appropriate. She’s never out of step.

These days, she wears mostly fitted jackets and pants with dark, high-heeled pumps, and an array of  sophisticated blouses and necklaces. She also has a casual look in Converse “Chucks” – which made the cover of Vogue and has blown up on social media.

I bring up the fashion issue only to compare her with an iconic 1993 Donna Karan ad campaign called “In Women We Trust,” from then New York agency Arnell/Bickford.

Since the mid-‘80s, Karan had been known for her pioneering line of easy, elegant workwear for women. She sold her business in 2015.

But In 1992, inspired by “The Year of the Woman” as it was dubbed, which seems ironic now, “In Women We Trust” got a flurry of attention but was not universally loved. In an op-ed in the New York  Times, Anna Quindlen derided it as “camp.”

“Camp is how the nation still sees the idea of being led by a woman as well,” she noted.

No longer. More progress.

And considering the challenging years to come, the provocative, cinematic print campaign campaign was eerily prescient and bravely creative.

“In Women We Trust” presented power-dressed model Rosemary McGrotha (Karan’s stand-in) entrenched in the trappings of the American presidency. It had a documentary, newsprint feel, as it captured a ticker tape parade and the hushed crowds and awe that commanders-in-chief historically received while being sworn in.

Some thirty years before "Veep," "Madam Secretary," and Hillary Clinton’s run, the photos modeled a portrait of a seasoned (and perfectly dressed) pro riding in an open car surrounded by Secret Service men and working in the Oval Office. Created by Peter Arnell, and photographed by Peter Lindbergh, the wordless visuals spoke a credible language of "sky's-the-limit" female empowerment.

The uncanny part is how much this president resembles Harris. She and model McGrotha are parallel body types and style, with similarly shaped faces, and hair.

Side by side with images of Kamala, the Karan campaign seems current.

 At the time, Karan tapped into a new market of women who paid for their own designer clothes and wanted to look like it.

Later, when Hillary was running, Karan told The Washington Post, ”I’m not sitting here saying how a woman should dress. Empowerment isn’t about one style, it’s having a personal style and wearing what you want to reflect it.”  

Whatever Harris is doing is working, style-wise.

As feminists used to say, “You have to see it to be it.”

We see it. Thanks, Donna.

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