It always feels a bit odd to be an American overseas as July 4 nears; strange jingoistic impulses rear their heads and sudden desires to fry chicken and eat corn on the cob seem overwhelming. It’s one of those hokey US holidays that non-natives often find difficult to understand and easy to dismiss: all that flag waving and self-celebration, at a time when the country is fast skiddo-ing down a slippery slope to non-global domination; how deluded are you?
This is typically when I decide I really, really do need that red-white-and-blue Chanel shorts suit and cardi after all, or the white silk star-spangled YSL dress, or at least the Topshop “homage” versions of the same. Forget flying the colours: I want to wear them. In your face, buddy!
Barack Obama didn’t go nearly far enough with that little flag lapel pin he sported when it became clear he would get the Democratic nomination. I mean, after the Chanel show last March, designer Karl Lagerfeld had explained his Betsy Ross-inspired collection by stating it was time to give the US some obvious support. If a German designer of a French house feels that way, shouldn’t the actual Yankees? Sometimes the sartorial message doesn’t need to be so subtle.
And actually, when it comes to US presidential candidates, it usually isn’t. There was nothing difficult to get about George W. Bush’s cowboy boots, or Bill Clinton’s baseball caps, and there’s nothing obscure about the rolled-up shirtsleeves Obama used to favour, when he was being accessible as opposed to presidential. What’s interesting about it all, however, is the way the men use their wives to help them cover the electoral landscape. As they reach out to the big, working-guy population, dressing as though they can hunt and fish like any other man (for real, not just congressional, game) their other halves reach out to what seems, in most cases, a somewhat different niche.
Think of Cindy McCain, with her neatly coiffed platinum blonde locks, princess-line coats and pastel suits, and Michelle Obama with her ceiling-busting uniform of wide black belts, primary-coloured sleeveless shifts and gobstopper pearls. Both are clearly aligning themselves with various traditions – the former, the Nancy Reagan-esque, supportively-seen-but-only-appropriately-heard-spouse; the latter, the Jackie Kennedy-type, asset-beside-the-throne – while also providing an updating of sorts: sensitivity on the one hand, and muscles on the other.
This is typically when I decide I really, really do need that red-white-and-blue Chanel shorts suit and cardi after all, or the white silk star-spangled YSL dress, or at least the Topshop “homage” versions of the same. Forget flying the colours: I want to wear them. In your face, buddy!
Barack Obama didn’t go nearly far enough with that little flag lapel pin he sported when it became clear he would get the Democratic nomination. I mean, after the Chanel show last March, designer Karl Lagerfeld had explained his Betsy Ross-inspired collection by stating it was time to give the US some obvious support. If a German designer of a French house feels that way, shouldn’t the actual Yankees? Sometimes the sartorial message doesn’t need to be so subtle.
And actually, when it comes to US presidential candidates, it usually isn’t. There was nothing difficult to get about George W. Bush’s cowboy boots, or Bill Clinton’s baseball caps, and there’s nothing obscure about the rolled-up shirtsleeves Obama used to favour, when he was being accessible as opposed to presidential. What’s interesting about it all, however, is the way the men use their wives to help them cover the electoral landscape. As they reach out to the big, working-guy population, dressing as though they can hunt and fish like any other man (for real, not just congressional, game) their other halves reach out to what seems, in most cases, a somewhat different niche.
Think of Cindy McCain, with her neatly coiffed platinum blonde locks, princess-line coats and pastel suits, and Michelle Obama with her ceiling-busting uniform of wide black belts, primary-coloured sleeveless shifts and gobstopper pearls. Both are clearly aligning themselves with various traditions – the former, the Nancy Reagan-esque, supportively-seen-but-only-appropriately-heard-spouse; the latter, the Jackie Kennedy-type, asset-beside-the-throne – while also providing an updating of sorts: sensitivity on the one hand, and muscles on the other.
- added September 19, 2008
- flag
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