Analyzing the politics of fashion

There is no one more idolized in presidential fashion than Jackie Kennedy. True, she certainly set the bar high with her Oleg Cassini suits, tasteful pearls, Halston pillbox hats and oversized sunglasses, but we’ve gotten to the point where everyone from French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy to Michelle Obama ’85 is compared to Camelot’s queen. Declaring an outfit “Jackie-esque” is meant as the highest compliment, but frankly it bores me to tears. Should this really be our benchmark for evaluating women in politics?

To be honest, I don’t think anyone will ever live up to the Jackie ideal, partially because it is an ideal hard to attain in our world of ever-present paparazzi and 24-hour news, but also because today’s female politicians and potential first ladies are more concerned with giving the public a relatable and complex portrait of their identities than with offering snippets of glamorous perfection.

And how do they do this? For this election, at least, the most popular method has been through their style. This national obsession is an understandable phenomenon, since the way people dress can speak volumes about them, more so than a rehearsed campaign speech ever could. After interviews, it’s often the candidates’ outfits more than their words that newspapers choose to analyze and pick apart. Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s Vogue photo shoot is one of the first links that pops up on Google. The chic and Jackie-esque purple Maria Pinto suit and Azzedine Alaia belt that Michelle Obama wore when her husband Barack accepted the Democratic nomination received numerous mentions in the press.

The main question, then, is this: What do Americans want a woman in power to wear? And, by extension, who do they want these women to be? Someone they can admire or someone they can relate to? Sartorially speaking, Oscar de la Renta or Talbots?

The most important element, I think, is that women in politics cannot wear anything that gives Americans an impression of superiority. If they were to project that curse word of the political sphere — elitism — criticism would inevitably follow.

Indeed, it already has. Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe, purchased from Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, sparked national outrage among voters who are having trouble merely affording food in the current economic downturn. Similarly, when Republican nominee John McCain’s wife, Cindy McCain, wore earrings appraised at around $280,000, Vanity Fair investigated what the $300,000 she spent on that outfit could buy for the average American. Ironically, given the criticism after John McCain forgot how many houses he owns, the first item on the list was “one and a half houses.” In contrast, Michelle Obama’s outfits have been noted for their relatively low — in the hundreds and not the hundred of thousands — price points.

But is this attack on the heiress to the Anheuser-Busch fortune really fair? Should we actually expect her to trot around in Gap? Or, by wearing her unbelievably expensive outfits, is she just being true to herself and what she knows? When Michelle Obama wore her sensational Donna Ricco dress on “The View,” which, for $148 at Nordstrom’s, is closer to the average American’s price range, did she present a realistic portrayal of her style, or did she make a calculated political decision? Michelle Obama may come from a less privileged background than Cindy McCain, but she also has no concerns about affording gas and still looking fashionable.

That is the problem with relying on fashion to judge female politicians: Like their choice of words, their choice of style is too easily manipulated. We don’t see a balanced picture of the female candidate or candidate’s wife; we only see what she and her staff want us to see. Obama’s flattering shift dresses give her the appearance of power and capability, whereas McCain’s conservative suits and upper-crust jewelry put her more in the stratosphere of an Upper-East Side mom on her way for a blowout at Frederic Fekkai’s salon. Both McCain and Obama, however, are still attempting to reach that unattainable Jackie look: All three emphasize strong colors paired with clean lines and flattering, feminine silhouettes. Price points aside, they are adhering to a tried-and-true formula and playing it safe.

That is why one-time Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is so fascinating to me. She doesn’t attempt to transform herself into another Jackie O and instead chooses to etch out her own identity as a powerful woman in a man’s world. For her, that has meant replacing the fussy skirt suits of her time as first lady with streamlined pantsuits in neutral colors.

Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour found Clinton’s primary style unappealing, writing in the magazine’s February 2008 issue that “The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying. How has our country come to this? ... This is America, not Saudi Arabia.”

It is true that Clinton’s choices miss the mark. Her clothes are neither feminine nor flattering, and to fashion queen Wintour, these are unforgivable flaws. Indeed, compared to Sarah Palin — whose distinctly feminine, windswept hair, Naughty Monkey shoes and, most notably, Kazuo Kawasaki glasses have actually sparked multiple fashion trends — Clinton is a train wreck. Unlike Palin, however, Clinton does not try to be a beauty queen, and in that way, she is operating on a new playing field. Like Princess Diana before her, Clinton has had to create her own rules. Unfortunately, though, she isn’t as beautiful or as stylish as the late princess, who singlehandedly brought prestige and glamour to those stuffy royals in their tweeds and wellies.

What Clinton does do is bring a certain je ne sais quoi to politics, and no one can accuse her of emulating anyone else’s style. Though the orange suit that she wore to the Democratic National Convention was … interesting, it may have been its own political statement. As a Los Angeles Times blog pointed out, the orange color is on the opposite side of the color wheel from the blue shift Michelle Obama wore. Clinton thus managed to “[maintain] her political individuality” despite her endorsement of Sen. Obama following her defeat in the primaries. And that’s perhaps the most stylish accomplishment of all.