Because you can't have depths without surfaces.
Linda Grant, thinking about clothes, books and other matters.
Pure Collection Ltd.
Net-a-porter UK

Thursday 30 October 2008

Cometh the hour cometh the suit

everyone crazy bout a sharp-dressed man
I suspect that there is a rift in America between those who like their aspiring candidates to look just like them, and those who prefer the candidates to look as if they are actually aspiring. There's a good discussion of all this in the Telegraph.

"Fashion has always been political since the days when sumptuary laws prohibited people of lower rank from wearing certain fabrics," says Caroline Evans, professor of fashion history at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

"But there are new, unwritten laws as to what kind of clothes political figures choose to wear. Like it or not, in a media age they will be judged by their appearance as much as by their convictions."

But politicians need to play the game carefully, insists Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys. "Image is vital, but people need to feel gravitas from their politicians - and you don't feel gravitas from a politician who's wearing Dolce & Gabbana."




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2 comments:

StyleSpy said...

Yet more truth from the wonderful Simon Doonan...

Anonymous said...

And then there are the ties and the odd Republican Red. In any other western country, the candidate of the Left would be wearing the red tie in various shades, the Conservative would be in blue (see all recent photos of Sarkozy, for example).

Linda, I hope your tour went well.