From Melania to Jackie: this is how the first ladies do politics (with their wardrobe)
From the revered style of Jackie Kennedy to the baffling messages of Melania Trump, Vogue takes a look at the subliminal content of fashion chosen by first ladies, past and present.
When the puzzling results of the 2016 US election came to light, the fashion world was unsure how to respond. Would you continue business as usual? The designers pleased to exhibit their garments before the international scene, the usual firms covering the fashion needs of the incoming first lady ... Or was there a more than worrying difference? Sophie Theallet, who dressed Michelle Obama, felt the latter was the more likely; and that is why she wrote an open letter to her fellow designers encouraging them not to dress Melania Trump in the face of "the racist, sexist and xenophobic rhetoric that the presidential campaign of her husband launched."
Two years later, and the midterm legislative elections just held, such issues seem increasingly complicated and urgent. What does it mean to dress the first lady? Or how do we respond to the fashion you choose? Do her wardrobe choices influence the image we form of her husband or of the government she exercises of her? Or do we run the risk of being distracted from that content by focusing exclusively on the appearance of these women?
The answer, obviously, is that we are talking about complex issues, but it is no less true that the clothes that the first lady chooses to wear attend to a whole series of juicy decisions linked to economic, ideological or cultural interests.
Michelle Obama and Melania Trump
Take for example Michelle Obama. The former first lady's influence was more than palpable, with a wardrobe ranging from affordable J.Crew options to creations by a variety of emerging designers, including Jason Wu and Thakoon. The message was clear: through her clothes, Obama proved to be a close figure and at the same time an advocate for young talent.
As the Nepalese designer Prabal Gurung, who dressed Obama regularly, reflects, "at first, every time a famous woman wore something of ours, she would call my mother very excited and tell her: ' dress. 'And she always replied,' Great, but call me when the dress has been put on by the first lady. 'When I finally made that call, it filled me with pride. My mother said, "Now you're not just a designer, you have a great platform and you represent our native country, Nepal, facing the whole world ”. At that moment I understood the magnitude of what the former first lady gave us: a platform, a voice, a privilege and a responsibility ”.
Her fashion choices also had a very positive economic impact. In 2010, a study led by Professor David Yermack of the Stern School of Business at New York University revealed that when Obama appeared with a certain garment, said company received an average of 14 million dollars in shock. Now, in the case of Melania Trump, her choices also greatly influence buyers and clothes like the famous Delpozo dress were sold out instantly. However, her image is very different: it is based on ostentatious luxury displays with a penchant for European versus American designers.
In her case, her passion for her luxury seems to underwrite that this particular first lady does not need to appear close to or attached to reality at all. While Obama was criticized in 2009 for bringing a $ 540 Lanvin trainers to a food bank in Washington, last year we saw that Trump, on a trip to Sicily, had no problem donning a Dolce & Gabbana coat. $ 51,500. Given the wealth her husband boasts, she too can afford to dress in whatever she wants (although the question of who pays the bill for the first lady's wardrobe has always been controversial).
She has also skipped her tradition of protocol, especially in the looks she chooses for abroad: wearing a veil in the Vatican but despising the headscarf in Saudi Arabia; or wear a helmet with the colonialist overtones that she carries on a recent trip to Kenya. Whether deliberate or careless, they all perfectly reflect her husband's contempt for diplomacy.
Brigitte Macron
But what has been said does not apply only to the United States. Worldwide, what the presidents' wives choose to wear acquires very different meanings and messages depending on the country. Brigitte Macron, first lady of France, has been praised for some daring looks that defy convention (and age), based on armed shoulder jackets, vertigo heels and sixties minidresses that separate her from the much more demure image of predecessors like Carla Bruni.
Peng Liyuan
Peng Liyuan in China, a former folk music singer, prefers boldly colored coats, understated cuts and the work of Chinese designers, including Ma Ke. In her case, her choices raise a complex web of questions about luxury, elegance, and public image.
Letizia Ortiz and Rania from Jordan
Queen Letizia of Spain and Queen Rania of Jordan regularly enter the best dressed lists, both adhering to a very professional glamor of tailored pants and classy dresses. The second presents especially interesting features as a public figure, since with almost 5 million followers on Instagram, her outfit is not far from that of any influencer and her wide public presence has even led her to appear on the Oprah show .
Jackie Kennedy
Again in the United States, there have been numerous fascinating precedents: Mamie Eisenhower's adoration of light pink, a shade that came to be marketed as 'Rosa Mamie'; the rescued and repeated outfits that Rosalynn Carter wore; or Hillary Clinton's range of jacket suits as a vindication of her status as a professional and a working woman.
It is obvious that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis continues to be one of the main pillars at the fashion level. Professor Stella Bruzzi, Dean of Arts and Humanities at University College London, has already delved into the iconography of the pink suit - “Chez Ninon's sanctioned copy of a Chanel design” - that she wore the day her husband was murdered. "Jackie had a lot more sense of style than the average female politician, but she also had a fascination for fashion that exceeded the shores of America," she notes. “She was ambitious; she attributed a certain mysticism (for her European disposition, her love for culture…).
She was actually wearing very fashionable clothes, no ordinary or functional clothes. " A fan of both American designers (Oleg Cassini) and French designers (Givenchy among them), Kennedy Onassis continues to be an important reference today, an example with which all current first ladies - Obama and Trump included - are compared.
It is therefore clear that the wardrobe of the first ladies not only contains a political content, but also other heavy and complex implications. As Prudence Black, a Ph.D. at the University of Sydney, who has written so much about contemporary and historical first ladies, observes, “they all care about 'fitting' in the best way possible for their role ... as well as to negotiate the spaces they are going to occupy, something that presidents do not do ”.
Rather than wield real political power, public office consorts use clothing to deliver messages and amplify their ideas, whether to subtly support local talent, oppose (or not) waste, fold (or no) with diplomacy to the costumes and customs of the countries they visit or fall into the absolute horror of wearing on the back of a $ 39 jacket a slogan that underpins the hateful policies of a certain executive.
Perhaps the most pertinent question is to ask ourselves how many of these decisions really carry a political burden, and to what end. Clothes –like so many other tools that chisel our appearance– have the great ability to improve the image, soften it, attenuate it or radically change it. Style is not a minor subject of analysis when it comes to questioning how politicians and their partners present themselves to the world.
So much so that in today's cultural and political climate, in which more and more countries seem doomed to retrograde and dangerous ideologies, we cannot allow glamor to dazzle or distract us. In such circumstances, the chosen style requires clear analysis, not blind praise.
And what does all this represent for designers? Can you afford to be silent? Gurung believes not: "Regardless of your career ... we cannot be complacent ... You have to work together to bring about change, and in my opinion it all starts with raising your voice, speaking out about the injustices you see or experience. And then you have to collect all this debate and turn it into action. "
