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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Politics / Visual Art / The Ladies / Fashion / Inauguration Beyond Conformity or Withdrawal

Posted by on Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 4:41 PM

Amy Davidson has a nice piece on Michelle Obama's magisterial use of fashion as a tool of political as well as personal expression.

Michelle might have responded to that, as many women in similar, if less prominent, situations do, by being flawlessly proper—some unchallenged idea of ladylike, wearing dresses and suits and jewelry indistinguishable from Cindy McCain’s or Ann Romney’s. Or she could have affected dowdiness until getting to the point where, as Justice Sotomayor put it, ““They just can’t fire me over the earrings anymore.”
...
One shouldn’t need to go to Princeton (as Michelle also did [like Sotomayor]) to be treated with courtesy. But... There is the matter of having the right thing to wear, and of asserting—and even demanding—recognition for what the right thing is for you. Fashion can be a fight, and one not so divorced from justice.

I appreciate the way Michelle's appearance embodies the life advice I recall David Mamet once giving to somebody (however dudey his language): "If you're smarter than the other guy, be smarter than the other guy."

 

Comments (6) RSS

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Supreme Ruler Of The Universe 1

Everytime I saw that hairdo I kept thinking of Geraldine ("The Devil Made Me Do It"!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10WP8WEBh…
Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com on January 22, 2013 at 5:23 PM
Lissa 2
This made me so happy. Thank you!
Posted by Lissa on January 22, 2013 at 7:45 PM
Urgutha Forka 3
Fashion is an industry that needs to believe itself to be important in order to be important.
Posted by Urgutha Forka on January 23, 2013 at 12:59 AM
Fistique 4
I never realized you were a nudist, Urgutha.
Posted by Fistique on January 23, 2013 at 7:45 AM
Urgutha Forka 5
@4,
Not a nudist, just unfashionable.
Posted by Urgutha Forka on January 23, 2013 at 9:48 AM
6
@4: The opposite of fashion is not nudity.
Posted by Sam O. on January 23, 2013 at 10:32 AM

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