When I quit my job this past June I had to quit surfing Bergdorf’s and Neiman’s web sites. I couldn’t trust myself not to just say “fuck it” and purchase the next great pair of shoes or coat I ran across. So when I decided to try and virtually spend $150,000 on clothes, shoes, makeup and jewelry, I thought I’d found the best of all worlds: indulge both my political and fashion manias.
This is hard! What’s wrong with me? I’m even being generous in understanding the amount and type of clothing that Sarah Palin needs!
Dear Helen can be dismissive, but she’s wrong. There is no way to dress a Vice Presidential candidate in $300 or less. You probably can’t even do it for less than $30,000. While I may be incredibly dismissive of Sarah Palin as a Vice President/possible President, I am incredibly understanding of what it means to be a woman on the national stage.
First off, she’s a woman. We all saw what happened to Hillary starting way back in 1992 when her hair, clothes, mannerisms, cooking was picked apart rabidly. In the Democratic primary, it was less so—because she’s such a known commodity—but it still happened. Ms. Palin was only going to get more picked apart because she’s new to the game. Plus, her appeal to men is based in part on her attractiveness so that has to be maintained as well. So she needs the clothes, hair, and makeup to keep her pretty and appear professional.
And the campaign trail is brutal. Multiple appearances a day, traveling by auto or plane across multiple locations throughout the day. She needs to have enough clothes to get through multiple appearances a day. As any woman knows, a cheap skirt looks like a wrinkled piece of rag after sitting in a car or on an airplane for 30 minutes, much less crisscrossing a state or several in one day. One outfit a day isn’t going to cut it. She probably has ten of those black pencil skirts (probably two or three per day as the rest get cycled through dry cleaning) and goes through at least two of those jackets per day. If she’s in a place like Florida, she’s going to go through three or four per day to avoid stinking up her rallies in that heat. Can you imagine what US or OK magazine would do to this woman if she showed sweat stains or creased front wrinkled skirts?
Not only does she need multiple skirts/pants of the same type, they need to be of good quality craftsmanship and material. A cheap JC Penney’s skirt isn’t going to last long under this type of wear. Better constructed fabrics—which cost significantly more—are needed in order to last out a week, much less months of this type of wear.
And to keep her from looking too repetitive (which would also get picked apart), she’ll need about 5 skirtsuits and/or pantsuits. She’s primarily a skirt lady, so I’m focusing the bulk of my shopping on that.
Shoes, so near and dear to my heart. And my feet. When I worked I usually wore heels. Not because it was required (I worked in the tech industry) but because I like to. So I know what it’s like to be in heels day after day. And if you’re going to wear high heels on the campaign trail, you need some serious shoes to get through it. Screw the Naughty Monkeys. Those won’t cut it. You need Choo’s, Blahnik’s, Louboutin’s, Alexander McQueen’s. You need what I call the six hour 3-inch heel. If anyone scoffs that it doesn’t make a difference, you’ve never put these babies on your feet. I have a great pair of Nine West heels that’ll keep my on my feet about 2 hours, but I can go eight hours in a pair of Manolo’s.
In short, I get her needing some seriously expensive shoes.
And she’s going to need some dressier, though professional, evening outfits for fancier and more intimate dinners. And she’ll definitely need at least four inaugural ball gowns if they win, though I certainly hope those haven’t been pre-purchased.
So all that plus accessories, under garments (hope those aren’t being donated to charity), makeup, hair pieces, handbags? It’ll be interesting whether even I can rack up that kind of bill. But I’ll give it an honest try.
So yeah, overall, I get that Sarah Palin needs good clothes. That doesn’t keep me from laughing at the pickle they’ve put themselves in. What they should have done was find a few Joe Designers struggling in this economy and chose them to design a Sarah Palin look. Then they could have been both populist and fashionable. But they didn’t, they went the easy designer route and created so much enjoyment for people like me.
Time to go shopping! If I’m feeling creative, I’ll showcase the collection.
No comments:
Post a Comment