Remembering Ferraro, and her wardrobe

Last year, we took a look back at Geraldine Ferraro's look during her 1984 vice presidential run. Her passing yesterday has produced a flurry of memorial articles accompanied by images from that time, all the way through last year.

One of the most common is an AP file photo from '84 where is she wearing glasses, long pearls and an argyle sweater vest. At the time, it was a common preppy look but now she looks....pedantic? dorky? Part of that is certainly the pose. But this is not the kind of look she is typically remembered for.






It's usually something more like her Time cover, or the white suit she wore to accept the nomination, which features in this CNN clip, along with lots of other great '80s fashion:



ABC News has helpfully assembled a slide show of Ferraro through the years. I was most struck by the fact that objectively, she was always very much in style with career women of any given year, even if she did refer to herself as "a Queens housewife."

Political fashion history: Geraldine Ferraro 1984

March is Women's History Month, so let's have a look back at what women in politics were wearing in the past. Today: Geraldine Ferraro's Vice-Presidential run in 1984.

When I started looking at some of the iconic press photographs from the campaign, I was struck by how feminine her look was. For example, here's her Time Magazine cover from July 23, 1984:

She's wearing a dress and long pearls. Not a suit, not black. Of course, this dress is that bright red that we know so well in politics today as The Red Jacket. But there's no hint here of "dressing like a man" that we hear about (and fear) for women in politics today.

The shapes she wore were feminine too. Look at this campaign photo:

Dusty blue, pearls again, and a soft shape to the dress with a decidedly girly short-sleeved jacket.

We can contrast this with what Sarah Palin wore as a vice-presidential candidate 24 years later:

While this Valentino jacket later became infamous for its price point, no one argued with it style, which was structured, covered up and achromatic. Practically the polar opposite of Ferraro's red, delicate dress. I'm not sure if this is progress or not, but it's notable.