Fashion awarding politics

Last Monday evening, I attended Glamour's Women of the Year awards in New York City. This event, now in its 20th year, has frequently highlighted leaders in politics, including Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Condoleezza Rice, Ann Richards, Olympia Snowe and Barbara Mikulski.

But this year they took a somewhat different approach, and honored "Our World's Female Heads of State" collectively, as represented by:

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia

President Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania

Prime Minister Iveta Radicova of Slovakia

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago

who were able to attend the event. Here they are from my upper balcony perch, with their awards that were presented by UN Ambassador Susan E. Rice:

I'm not sure if their power was fully understood by the assembled audience of fashionistas (would they have paid more attention with Angela Merkel on the stage?) but they were some of the most eloquent speakers of the evening for sure. Here's their advice for us:

It was a surprisingly inspiring night!