If first lady Michelle Obama and losing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton want salve for their sorrow at Trump’s election victory, they can peruse the front page of the New York Times Sunday Styles section for consolation.
Fashion writer Vanessa Friedman started with a tribute to the political significance of the first lady's sartorial elegance, “How Clothes Defined Her – No first lady understood the role of fashion, and the potential uses of it, better than Michelle Obama.” A college of Michelle Obama in various stylish outfits took up the top half of the page.
It began with Jay Leno.
It began, to be more specific, in October 2008, when Mr. Leno, the host of “The Tonight Show” at the time, turned to his guest, Michelle Obama, the wife of the Democratic nominee for president, and said -- with glee, with gotcha expectation, because it had just been revealed that the campaign clothes budget for Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, was $150,000 -- “I want to ask you about your wardrobe. I’m guessing about 60 grand? Sixty, 70 thousand for that outfit?”
“J. Crew,” Mrs. Obama said of her silk blouse, gold skirt and cardigan fastened with a big rhinestone brooch. “Ladies, we know J. Crew. You can get some good stuff online!”
And thus was an eight-year obsession born. Not to mention a new approach to the story of dress and power.
Too bad the future first lady’s down-market move was purely partisan politics, as Friedman hinted in parentheses:
When Mrs. Obama understood the impact of that early answer -- when she saw the public response to her outfit (which had been chosen specifically as a riposte to the Palin news) -- it set in motion a strategic rethink about the use of clothes that not only helped define her tenure as first lady, but also started a conversation that went far beyond the label or look that she wore and that is only now, maybe, reaching its end.
....there is simply no ignoring the fact that during these two terms, clothing played a role unlike any it had ever played before in a presidential administration.
After a long, long list of evidently famous designers worn by Mrs. Obama, Friedman assured us that the first lady is no shallow clotheshorse.
It is, by any measure, an unprecedented list.
....
There have been a lot of words since the 2016 election devoted to how Mrs. Obama loved fashion and fashion loved her in return, and that is true; to listen to designers who have dressed her is to hear a chorus of “it was the privilege of my career.” That the first lady, a Princeton-and-Harvard-educated lawyer and hospital power player, was publicly able to enjoy clothes allowed a swath of smart women to stop being so neurotic about dress (as she said to Vogue in her third cover story, the most of any first lady, one of the factors in choosing a garment always has to be, “Is it cute?”).
But her real contribution went far beyond giving women a license to like clothes and use them to celebrate their own strength and femininity. ....
Rather, like first ladies from Jacqueline Kennedy to Nancy Reagan, Mrs. Obama understood that fashion was a means to create an identity for an administration. But unlike any other first lady, instead of seeing it as part of a uniform to which she had to conform, with the attendant rules and strictures that implies, she saw it as a way to frame her own independence and points of difference, add to her portfolio and amplify her husband’s agenda.
Also on the front of Sunday Styles was a fawning Laura Holson, on the royal treatment losing Democratic candidate is receiving in her spiritual home of Manhattan: “Not Quite a Victory Tour. But...--Hillary Clinton is being embraced around town by those eager to lift her spirits.”
After documenting in nauseating detail the rapturous reception Hillary Clinton received when she attended the final performance of The Color Purple on Broadway, Holson had more anecdotes from New Yorkers star-struck at the site of a defeated veteran politician:
....in recent weeks, Mrs. Clinton has emerged from the Chappaqua woods with her husband and family in tow, much to the delight of New Yorkers who have embraced her as a battle-scarred heroine, and seem to want to help the former Democratic presidential candidate get over her election blues.
Hillary’s not exactly rubbing shoulders with the ordinary folk (a theme that probably hurt her results in the Midwestern states).
In late November, she made a surprise appearance at Unicef’s Snowflake Ball, where she presented an award to the pop singer Katy Perry, a prominent supporter of her campaign and who sang at the Democratic National Convention last summer. Weeks later she was photographed greeting friends at her granddaughter’s dance performance in Manhattan.
....
For some, the appreciation is more than political. Steve Tyrell performs at the Café Carlyle every Christmas, where he croons Frank Sinatra hits and old standards for a holiday crowd...When he got to the lyrics about picking oneself up after falling flat, Mr. Tyrell said the crowd of 100 or so leapt to their feet and cheered. Mrs. Clinton beamed and clapped her hands overhead.
“It was a very personal performance,” Mr. Tyrell said. “It gave everyone this feeling that they were seeing something special.” Whatever one’s politics, said Mr. Tyrell, Mrs. Clinton’s decades of public service should be recognized. “I think she should be appreciated,” he said, “not be told: ‘Lock her up. Lock her up.’”
During intermission at “The Color Purple,” the actress Cynthia Erivo popped up again, gushing that Hillary was “doing a wonderful job at being graceful” after her defeat:
So much so, after the curtain call, the actress Patrice Covington thanked the audience for showing up and noted that there were several well-known people in attendance. “I’m not going to call all of them out -- I know you already know them,” she said. She paused and waved in Mrs. Clinton’s direction.
The crowd burst into another round of applause.
