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“I wonder what fashion she’ll be serving this week,” read a message in my Instagram inbox ahead of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) happening this week in Chicago, where Vice President Kamala Harris is set to accept the party’s nomination for president.
My reply: “Well, she’s not a pop star!”
As things go in the United States, most things eventually become entertainment. Sports, music, film, politics. Fashion is inextricably linked to each of these tenets of culture, seldom in the shape of a runway look, but always in the form of ‘style’. Much can be said about whether or not we should discuss Harris’s style choices, discourse that picked up on the national scale when she became President Joe Biden’s running mate for the 2020 election. Are we scrutinizing her choices more because she’s a woman? Yes, unfortunately. But to say that what Harris wears is inconsequential is to ignore the subtle yet unavoidable messaging any politician’s sartorial choices carry.
You really do care, don’t you?
Politics is an optics game — in this, politicians are akin to pop stars — and what they wear speaks to us as their constituents. Tim Walz wears a Midwestern dad camo hat, which the Harris-Walz campaign turned into sold-out merch; President Biden wears cool-guy Ray-Ban aviators religiously; and Barack Obama once wore an infamous tan suit, subject to petty controversy back in 2014. Suffragettes wore white, United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went viral for carrying a Telfar bag, and Hillary Clinton made the pantsuit a metonym for her presidential campaign in 2016 (remember ‘Pantsuit Nation’?).
Even if there is no intended message, we — as in the people, but also the media — assign one, because it is inevitable to read into how people in power look, for better or for worse. (Dare I invoke the infamous words “I really don’t care, do u?”)
What Harris wears matters, not whether she’s fashion forward or on-trend, but because how she chooses to present herself to the world says something about the country. This pressure is immeasurable and perhaps unfair, but it is inextricable from her role. (Donald Trump’s ill-fitting suits and too-long ties say something about the country, too.)
Fashion diplomacy
Appearing on stage at the DNC on Tuesday night, Harris wore a custom camel two-piece suit designed by Chemena Kamali for Chloé. It is the second time the Vice President has worn the label, following a green gown and matching cape to attend a state dinner at the White House this past May. A double-breasted version of the jacket is described on the Chloé website and a few luxury retailers not as tan, like some of the media has reported, but…wait for it: “Coconut Brown”.