Coats and Chucks: Kamala Harris and the rise of soft power dressing

Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris has swapped the power suit for a softer look. Photo / Getty Images

It's a slick, unstructured coat. The kind you can wear indoors or out, the kind that works on its own, over a sleeveless camisole, or a chunky sweater, looks as good unbelted as it does cinched in because it's deliberately designed to hang straight without clinging.

Kamala Harris's coat is from a label called Harris Wharf. No, they're not related. Nor, despite the name, is it British.

Harris Wharf is inspired by London though – to be precise, by a part of the Regent's Canal in London where Aldo and Giulia Acchiardi, the siblings behind the label, lived when she was studying fashion at the Marangoni Institute and he was learning the dark arts of economics.

They founded the label, specifically focussing on coats, in 2010 because Giulia couldn't find decent, versatile ones like this at prices that didn't make her choke.

Interesting, given that the name is relatively under the radar, this is the coat label that Michelle Obama and Theresa May have also turned to when they want a quick, easy, pulled-together solution.

Made in the Acchiardi family's factory in Turin, they're classic, modern and quietly distinctive. Giulia spent months designing an unlined template.

"It's much more comfortable and less restrictive than a lined coat," she tells me on the phone from Italy.

"I find so often linings can be very cumbersome. I wanted something with the ease of jersey but not the look of it."

So she developed a fabric called Polaire which looks almost fleecy and makes the coats feel almost like cardigans. You can shove your hands in the pockets and mooch around knowing you look smart and your thighs and bottom are shaded. Edges are bonded or left raw, to give them a contemporary look, and often collars and cuffs are in a contrasting colour to make this work horse of a garment seem a bit playful.

There's nothing very radical about Harris' coat – but that's what makes it refreshing. In truth, nothing so far she's worn is radical. That's probably the point. She's a checklist of approachable, relatable, professional tropes – without seeming to have contrived them. After four years of untouchable, spiky Trump - women fashion, the accessible, authentic aura is a big part of her appeal.

The fact that she's fractionally glossier than most of us, and with fabulously shiny hair, is another. If pollsters ever managed to coax the truth out of those they canvas in their endless focus grouping, they'd discover that what most of us want from a politician is someone who thinks and behaves like we do, because let's face it, we're always right – but who, without being confrontational about it, looks a bit better, because it never hurts to be easy on the eye, especially in the US.

Kamala Harris tends to swap the heels out for a pair of Chucks. Photo / Getty

I know, I know. Harris is a serious person and this is about politics. But increasingly clothes are political. It is, for instance, almost inconceivable that in the immediate future left-leaning women will feel comfortable about dressing, publicly at least, in ways that have become so associated with Trump's women. The extreme body con dresses and impossibly spiky heels, designed to communicate wealth, status and rigorous self-discipline – and those impeccably tailored jackets, with military overtones favoured by the current First Lady, will, I think, be off the table.

When we do see Kamala Harris in a skirt suit – and it's not as if she's a stranger to them – it will be softer, and the heels will be lower or they'll have some kind of strap, slingback or detail that makes them somehow less Cruella de Vil, more Kamala. Once it might have seemed nonsensical that a shoe could have political leanings. But we've seen crazier things these past few years.

For now, anything that looks as though it cost $15,000 and was designed for White House Barbie will be off the table. That matters because Harris is going to be so ubiquitously visible over the next few years she can't fail to influence the way other professional women dress.

And it will be useful, because Harris, at least so far, really does exude a kind of idealised Every Woman appeal. As for what's in that working wardrobe of hers: slim trouser suits with slim cut jackets (easier to wear unbuttoned) in non-searing shades of grey, good quality T-shirts and trainers for starters.

Bare ankles wherever possible, a statement necklace, probably pearl and definitely not the slightly dated, here's-some-clay-beads-I-baked in-the-oven genre favoured by some politicians eager to find some humanising accessories, silky blouses (wearing something on top that subtly reflects light onto the face is never a bad idea), a noteworthy sweater, some V-necks (she knows how showing a little bit of skin translates, literally, as unbuttoned up) are key components. And as a checklist of re-entry pieces to wear as we edge our way back into the office, they're sound.

So yes, her soft power pieces are familiar. But the astonishing speed with which all those insidious ideas about power dressing that seep down from on high, whether we like it or not, have been turned on their head – and by a one time district attorney – is breathtaking. It can take big fashion designers several seasons and a whirl of expensive advertising campaigns to jump start the gentle evolution change that Kamala Harris has.

If she can take the US back into the Paris Climate Agreement as niftily, this could be an exciting ride.