Punk, Politics and Power

It's been a week of punk - the look, the idea, and the difference between the two.

I finally had a chance last weekend to get to New York to see the Met's latest show from the Costume Collection, Punk: Chaos to Couture, whose opening gala was endlessly and breathlessly covered by the entertainment press, and the show itself rather less so.



I was struck by the juxtaposition of haute couture designers who have adopted the esthetics of 70's punk as part of their endless churn of revisiting and reinventing the styles of decades gone by, against the designers who are the intellectual descendants of punk, looking for ways to express ideas of disillusionment, deconstruction and protest through clothing.

The visual distinction between the two can be somewhat subtle, but the intellectual one is not. There just isn't all that much to say about a dress with giant gold safety pins by Versace or a belt with locks by Dolce and Gabbana, other than that they found a way to take design elements that were originally intended to be agressive and shocking, and sanitized them just enough to make them beautiful and a bit titillating. It's barely worth talking about, at least not any more than any other wave of high fashion trends. On the other hand, deconstructed and found-object pieces by Rei Kawakubo and Martin Margiela don't look like anything in the punk film clips projected on the walls, but the ideas they represent are a natural continuation and extension of the ideas Macolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood were trying to convey through original punk culture. This is real clothing with a political purpose.

The show makes no distinction between the two, however. For every slogan t-shirt about climate change ("Save Our Sea"), there is at least one pure cashmere sweater dress that was carefully shredded by trained artisans, and both are treated as equal successors to the fetish wear from the Sex/Seditionaries shop in London. This seems like a missed critical opportunity, a chance to challenge the viewer to consider the consequences of adopting visual symbols without the intention behind them. That kind of cultural literacy is exactly what the Met should be seeking to teach in a show like this. It reminds me of how punks and some of their successors in the 80's wore rosaries as necklaces, as a statement of rebellion against the Catholic church. Now I see young people in my neighborhood wearing them who apparently seem to think they're just nice cross necklaces. A rosary is a devotional item, meant to be held in your hands when in use and sometimes worn at the waist by priests and nuns - it is not now and has never been a necklace, and I'm always astonished when people don't know that. But for the Met, I suppose when the main sponsor of your exhibition wants to sell clothes inspired by it, you can't be too critical of the pretty stuff.

Speaking of deliberate challenges to religious symbolism, HBO released a new documentary on a much more recent case of iconoclasm, Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer. If you somehow missed the story last summer, these young women who are alternately called guerrilla performance artists, a punk band, and political activists, made headlines for an extremely brief but highly forbidden performance of a blasphemous song at the altar of an important cathedral in Moscow. The doc is largely the story of their trial.



Here again we can talk about their style of dress as the inheritance, not the imitation, of punk. They're well known for their DIY balaclavas, dresses, and tights all in very bright colors. DIY is punk for sure, but hot pink isn't, at least on the surface. But Pussy Riot's clothes are chosen for specific political impact: from what they wear, we know with certainty from a great distance that they are women, and for the performance in the cathedral, their arms were exposed. This became a factor in the trial - not just that they entered a space they weren't supposed to enter and said words they weren't supposed to say, but that they did it with bare flesh exposed. That exposure was specifically cited as part of what offended the victims in the trial. The clothing was part of the political message, and that's totally punk.

Whether you wear fur or vegan leather, bare arms, turtlenecks or hijabs, my advice to you in politics is always to dress with intention.

Paul Ryan's clothes don't matter. There I said it.

The internet discussion of Paul Ryan's image has reached critical mass. Yes, everyone from Pulitzer Prize-winner Robin Givhan to the twitterverse is talking about his hair, as we noted earlier this week.

But it's not just the hair. It's the lack of a tie. It's the ill-fitting jacket. It's his overall "hotness."
 


And now, in a way only possible in the internet age, people are talking about how much people are talking about what Ryan looked like at Romney's announcement: here's Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast.

All this discussion of image and hair and clothes reminds many of us of the last time the Republicans announced a vice presidential nominee. Jen Doll draws it out for us on the Atlantic Wire.

But here's the thing: Paul Ryan will soon go back to wearing ties and jackets that fit. And then this discussion will be over. Blogs like this one and fashion columnists might continue to have something to say about what colors he selects for the vice presidential debate and so on, but barring a major gaffe, this will be the last time we see his wardrobe discussed on CNN. There will be no close scrutiny of photos to try to identify the designers and prices of his clothing on morning network talk shows. And while we might see endless references to his blue eyes and "boyish charm," they will appear in preface to whatever it was he actually said or did. And in this way, Ryan will benefit greatly from the accident of his gender. He will not see his wardrobe become an entire conversation independent of anything else he says or does, as it has for Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, or any number of the women who have appeared on this blog. Women must work much harder just to draw the focus away from their clothes. This is why I write this.

Final word on scrunchie-gate

I know it's summer and you may have (like me) spent some time at the beach, and some more time basking next to the air conditioner, and basically let some routines go. But I bet no matter what you were reading, you heard about the day Hillary Clinton wore a scrunchie. Oh boy did you. The story was everywhere - you would have thought she stepped off a plane wearing one of my grandmother's house dresses:

And yet I wonder, was the scrunchie really such a problem? I'll let you decide:


We've talked before in this forum about how Secretary Clinton isn't particularly well served by pulling her hair back. It tends to focus us in on each individual feature of her face, instead of seeing her face as a dynamic and expressive whole. I think it's that discomfort that we're really reacting to here. There's nothing wrong with wearing a little white silk ruffle in your hair - and ultimately, that's all a scrunchie is, provided it's clean, well cared for and made of good materials, just like all the rest of your clothing and accessories.

The other thing I think some of my fellow bloggers and journalists were reacting to is simply that it's Hillary Clinton, a woman whose looks have been a lightning rod since her public life began. On another political woman, this might have been a non-story. If you're skeptical, simply ask yourself: Did you hear a single word out of anyone when Kirsten Gillibrand wore a banana clip in the Senate last week?

No, you didn't. Not until now.

The forecast in DC today is a high of 92 degrees. I might pull my hair back. Now let's grow up and get back to work.

O'Donnell embraces the joke... sort of

Saturday Night Live included a sketch this weekend that played off Christine O'Donnell's "I'm you" ad, showing her wardrobe choice in another light:

While we drew the comparison between O'Donnell's outfit and the signature look of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, SNL shrewdly pointed out the irony in wearing all black while declaring, "I'm not a witch." She was going for sober and serious, but what she projected, at least for some people, was clearly something different.

O'Donnell herself tried to demonstrate a sense of humor without repeating the word "witch" (again) with this tweet almost the moment after the clip aired: 

Of course, SNL is so meticulous about their characterizations that the hair was almost exactly like hers, definitely not better. But this comment lets her be self-deprecating, and might even fend off either Fiorina-style catty remarks or weather-related mishaps.

I suspect we'll see her add some color to that black suit next time, though.

What does it mean to be attractive?

Last week, the candidates in the Republican primary for the New York Senate seat held by Kirsten Gillibrand held a debate. They were asked to compliment their eventual opponent, Senator Gillibrand. Here is what attorney Bruce Blakeman had to say:

"She's an attractive, bright woman, who I believe is a good mom." Yes, he really said that.

Here is Senator Gillibrand's reaction:

Of course, this isn't the first time the Senator has encountered public comments about her looks, and she was clearly prepared.

Even while Mr. Blakeman insists this was in fact a compliment, we can read his implication readily here: Pretty girl, go home and take care of your babies. It's really only one step removed from the era when women candidates with young children were constantly asked who was taking care of their children while they were running for office.

The irony of Fiorina's hairstyle opinions

Carly Fiorina inadvertently made a candid comment about her opponent's hairstyle on camera while waiting for an interview to start today:

There are two things that I don't understand about this.

1. Barbara Boxer's hair looks great. The style is appropriate for her age and flatters her face. Here she is in her latest campaign video:


 2. Fiorina's present hairstyle, which is short and undyed, has come in the aftermath of chemotherapy treatments for cancer that caused her to lose all her hair. But before that, she sported a style that was remarkably similar to Boxer's:

Has Fiorina's taste really changed that much in two years? Or are we just having a middle school moment here?

What we wear matters - a response to Robin Givhan

I promised you that we would discuss Robin Givhan's controversial review of Elena Kagan's style. And so we shall. I'm sure by now you've read it, and read numerous responses, reviews and rehashes of it. If you haven't, maybe start with Fishbowl DC. 

In a way, it's the reaction that surprises me - this article is precisely what we would expect from Robin Givhan right now. It's what she was hired to do. She wrote a practically identical article about Sonia Sotomayor during her hearings. And although she makes comparison to the "utterly ordinary" style of Samuel Alito and the other male justices in the Kagan piece, there was no article about his fashion choices or body language. She wrote a similarly analytical (although significantly more flattering) essay on Nancy Pelosi when she became Speaker. These are prominent women in Washington and intense scrutiny is the name of the game.

I don't necessarily agree with Givhan - I don't think Kagan's style on the Hill was deliberately drab, nor do I think her appearance is the sole reason for persistent innuendo about her sexual orientation. And Givhan's suggestion that there would be "nothing profoundly inappropriate" about wearing platform stilettos in the halls of Congress other than the fact that it would fly in the face of expectations for a political figure is patently absurd. As if perception didn't matter in politics. Givhan has always had a profound disdain for what Washington considers appropriate to wear in any given situation, on no particular authority other than that she is a fashionista and not a Washingtonian.

But it's tough to blame a fashion critic for being, well, critical about fashion choices, even when she's wrong. ["Bland equals responsible. Matronly equals trustworthy." Please.] I do think Kagan could have made better choices for herself in some areas. Her jackets were too boxy for someone so famously short. Her jewelry, as I've said before, is in serious need of an update. And if you're wearing a skirt, you do need to keep your knees together. It's not like she was at risk of a Britney Spears-style flash, but any recruiter would tell you that body language matters in a job interview. Like it or not, if her look is drawing this much negative attention, there's a problem. And that is where Givhan and I sort of agree. In writing about Nancy Pelosi in 2006, she said this:

Attire is not the sole province of women, but in comparison with men, it remains an area in which they have the greater number of choices, more flexibility, the heavier burden. The public has already settled on the defining characteristics of a powerful man: He wears a dark suit that is well tailored. He pairs it with a crisp white shirt, and if he wishes to underscore his authority, he wears French cuffs. He wears a four-in-hand -- a bow tie if he wants to emphasize his eccentricity. He tries to look dignified and serious. But what does a woman of great power look like?

It's a valid question, and one that still hasn't been figured out. Pelosi has found one way, Condoleezza Rice found another - a way that Givhan clearly prefers, as she seems to spend so many column inches wistfully suggesting a return to that chic sexuality. With an Obama cabinet and administration full of so many prominent women - Hillary Clinton, Janet Napolitano, Kathleen Sebelius, if you've been reading carefully, you don't really need another list - we can see that there might be as many ways of dressing a powerful woman as there are powerful women.

People ask me all the time why I write this blog. Am I trying to be funny? Am I trying to be snarky? Do I want Robin Givhan's job? No, none of those. What we wear matters. What we look like communicates a message to our viewer, and women in politics don't need one more reason not to be heard. Bad clothes and sometimes "good" clothes can draw attention that distracts from our words simply because we are women. Making good choices about what we wear will help us get our point across. At least we are getting to a point where people are not just noticing but expressing outrage at the blatant sexism that makes a woman's wardrobe newsworthy in a way that a man's is not.

Homework assignment

Oh, yes, we're going to talk about Robin Givhan's article on Elena Kagan in the Washington Post. But I'm having a pretty busy week, so have a look at the article, and Senator Klobuchar's remarks below, and our previous coverage of both Kagan and Klobuchar, and then we'll talk.


Extra Credit: Read Pearls, Politics, and Power: How Women Can Win and Lead by Madeleine Kunin.

Palin's wardrobe deja vu

Did you see the photos from Sarah Palin's Tea Party speech yesterday?

You read that correctly.  That was yesterday.  Does her outfit look familiar?  Oh wait, it does:

That was during her 2008 Vice Presidential run.

Now, I know I said earlier this week that I think Palin can and probably should keep wearing leather, including leather jackets. But this outfit, and this red leather jacket in particular, became one of the most prominent symbols of the firestorm surrounding her wardrobe during the campaign. For the record, these are two different jackets, so we can probably assume that the 2008 version was in fact donated to charity as the campaign said it would be. But the similarity is absurd. Could this possibly be a coincidence? I think probably not. What a clever way to thumb her nose a her detractors.

Palin vs. Obama: A Manufactured Debate

I don't know whether you saw Cathy Horyn's piece in the New York Times last week on the styles of Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama. Given the Christmas Eve timing, I hadn't until the Mrs. O blog brought it to my attention. Mrs. T and her commenters largely get it right, and I encourage you to read.

Horyn's biases and contradictions have already been thoroughly highlighted, but if you ever wondered why Michelle Obama never appears in this space, it is precisely because of the false comparison Horyn tries to set up in her article. Their purposes and roles are fundamentally different. The First Lady is not elected, appointed or hired. It's a role, not a job. We're talking about the working women here.

Palin, the Stylist, and the Budget

This week, the stylist who dressed Sarah Palin and her family during the campaign "came out" and identified herself in response to Ms. Palin's mention of her (although not by name) in her new book. The story broke in the form of an interview in the New York Times with Lisa A. Kline, which you can read here.

Kline defends the job she did, stating:
A. She was given very little time to get the family outfitted, so she had to pay retail prices.
B. No one on the campaign gave her a budget or questioned how much she spent.

And after doing that job, we know there were two significant results:
1. Her clients looked great.
2. It didn't matter how great her clients looked, because their clothes created a huge media firestorm.

So what went wrong here? Kline wants us to acknowledge points A and B and subsequently give her credit for result 1, but no blame for result 2. I can't do that, and here's why.

It's true, she had very little time, and that with more time, she could have procured many of those clothes directly from designers and using professional discounts instead of going to Saks and paying full retail. But come on, does anyone really believe that the public would have been more accepting of a Valentino jacket that she got for $1,000 through an insider discount, instead of the full price $2,500? The problem here was that she fundamentally did not know who her client was or what image she was trying to project. It was as if she had shopped for a "politician" stock character with brown hair and a nice figure instead of understanding who the governor of Alaska was and what her political image was all about. New York magazine is right in saying that even the average American "doesn't go to T.J. Maxx when they're in a pinch," but if Ms. Kline had taken the same shopping trip to Macy's instead of Saks and Neiman Marcus, we would be having a much different conversation right now. Ms. Palin wouldn't have been as chic or as elegant, but for this client, that probably would have been a lot more comfortable.

Kline also reminds us that no one questioned her spending, and wants us to conclude that there was no way she could have understood that she was out of line on this project. That's a pretty embarrassing abdication of responsibility. She was hired to be the clothing expert for this campaign. Who should know what this wardrobe should cost better than she does? Simply because the campaign (or a private/secret donor or whoever) had the money doesn't mean it was appropriate to spend that much. It was her job to take responsibility for the look of this family - not just ensuring that the clothes look good, but also considering what the clothes say. I can only conclude that Ms. Kline was not up to the job.

There have been people who try to claim that the male candidates were wearing suits that cost at least as much if not more and aren't criticized, and so scrutiny of the cost of Palin's wardrobe is therefore sexist. This, of course, is not true. Do you remember John Edwards's $200 haircut? That was a story for weeks.

A good stylist has to think about these things. All of them. Looking good is not enough.

Sarah Palin calls Newsweek's reprint of her Runner's World photo sexist

I have some ambivalence about covering this story at all, but I think we have something to learn here, so I will. By now, you've probably seen that this week's cover of Newsweek features a photo of Sarah Palin in running shorts and sneakers that originally appeared in Runner's World magazine, under the headline "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?"

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Ms. Palin called this use of the photo "sexist" on her facebook page, a claim that Tina Brown counters in the clip above (or in this article, almost verbatim) as being no worse than provocative photos of Bill Clinton or Elliot Spitzer in the recent past. I agree with that comparison, and also with Brown's conclusion that Ms. Palin's outrage is largely for effect.

But as I said, we have something to learn here. Why is this photo embarrassing? It's not because she's wearing short running shorts. There's nothing wrong with them, actually, and she has a great figure. The problem here is the context in which she's wearing them. Even though this photo was taken for a running magazine, she's not running. She's not at a gym or outside. She's posing like a beauty queen, leaning on an artfully draped flag. It's a portrait, and no one should show that much leg in a portrait. If she were running down a road, or running on a treadmill, or even standing on a treadmill as if she had just stopped running, the photo would not have the same effect. There would be no story here. So the moral of the story is not that you should never be photographed in anything other than a jacket and pearls. It's the same as everything else - you simply need to wear the right clothes for each occasion.

And did you notice her warm up jacket? It's red.