Why the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s clothes matter

Kamala Harris speaking at a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday, wearing a joyful bright blue suit. Photo / Sara Stathas for the Washington Post

On Friday, Kamala Harris made history, first and foremost with the story of her upbringing, her desire to live in an America that gives opportunities to all its citizens and her sweeping message of a redefined freedom.

And with her clothes. As the first South Asian and black woman candidate for President of the United States, she demonstrated a new picture of authority. She wore an ensemble you might consider her comfort suit, because she wears the shade and silhouette often: a square-shouldered, loose-legged pantsuit in navy, with the kind of matte silk pussy bow blouse she’s made into a signature. An American flag pin was on her slightly broad lapel. The subdued tone allowed the women in the audience who chose to wear white in honour of her candidacy to pop – it was an act of sartorial graciousness.

The brand behind the look was Chloe, a playfully confident, feminine brand based in Paris. Harris seems to have formed a bond with it: Chloe made the brown suit she wore on Monday, and her gown for the Kenya state dinner in May. Since late last year, Chloe has been under the creative control of Chemena Kamali, a German designer whose first collection revisited the carefree, insouciant attitude of 1970s Bohemianism. There are lots of ruffles, but they are not the stuff of tortured poets. They are worn with chin held proudly high, as if to say, “If you think my interest in frilly stuff means I’m silly, then you’re fooling yourself”.

Harris will get flack for not wearing an American designer. Perhaps she preferred to wear clothes made by a woman. Or maybe Harris is doing what most men before her have done: putting on what feels right so that she can focus on doing the job at hand. (How many presidents have worn suits by international designers, with no one the wiser? We may never know.)

She looked as if she felt good, but wasn’t thinking a whiff about what she was wearing. Maybe she didn’t need to, because she knew when she put on the outfit that it worked.

Women have historically been scrutinised for what they wear – especially women of colour – and subjected to double standards where men can slip into the (literal) suit of power. Look at how easily Harris’s running mate, the middle-class Carhartt-wearing coach, pivoted to looking “presidential” on Thursday in a navy suit and blue tie.

But there is a difference between judgment and observation. What Harris wears creates possibilities for her – and more significantly, for us. This is a moment for us to change the way we look at a woman in power, and understand the choices she makes.

Harris seems more comfortable with her style than we are. Rather than fretting or retreating to something staid, she has tightened up her image. (She has rarely, if ever, complained about or even mentioned commentary on her attire, which may in fact have stifled it.) While she still wears suits with a strong shoulder and bootcut trousers, often with a pussy bow blouse or T-shirt and pearls (a nod to her historically black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha), her tailoring is more precise, transmitting a bit of California cool.

She’s added European designers to her roster, a move that may ruffle those who think she should use her post to boost the creativity of American designers. She is also risking the criticism that usually comes with a political figure wearing expensive clothes. Perhaps she’s calculating that her comfort is more important than the stories her garments could tell – time will reveal more.

As I previously reported, the murmurs in the corridors of fashion power are that, while Harris once worked with a stylist, Karla Welch, who wanted to narrate her identity through clothes by dressing her in designers of color, she is now working with another, Leslie Fremar, whose clients are the sort of sleek, “don’t mess with me” power players of Hollywood, such as Charlize Theron. (Neither has returned requests for comment.) The average person wouldn’t clock that, say, very chic French brand Chloe made the tan suit she wore on Tuesday, but perhaps the point isn’t that it matters to us, but that it makes her feel good, which is to say, confident. Comfortable. Commanding.

Harris’s candidacy is an opportunity for us to see what she wears not as a means of dissecting her, but as a manifestation of the quality Democrats have spent the past four nights extolling: joy. Harris enjoys food, laughing, family, her friends. She has brought joy to this election and wants to bring it to the country, her fellow politicians and other speakers have said again and again. And there can be joy, too, in wearing what pleases you. If she is someone who so easily experiences joy, her clothing must reflect that. Everyone has that suit, dress or outfit they call upon because it makes them look and feel fantastic. Harris seems to know what those pieces are for her. Shouldn’t we find that inspiring?

You wonder if the reactive, anxious response we often have to discussing what female politicians wear comes from the fact that so few of us know which clothes to put on to make us feel joyful, confident. That doesn’t mean wearing a designer suit or an Instagram-bait dress. It means that, when you are prepared – whether for a job interview, a date, the biggest performance of your life – what you have on your back gives you that extra little boost. Maybe you put it on and never think about it till you take it off at the end of the day. Or maybe you catch your polished self in a mirror or feel the starchy fabric of a clean white shirt, and say, “Yeah, I’ve got this”.

This is a time for Americans to move on from an outdated conversation about the way we look at women – that we look at their clothes to size up whether they can do the job. No. There are so many other reasons to take in what a person wears. Now, we may look at Harris to see a new definition, a new vision, of power.

Too often, in the hands of men, power has meant conservatism. Homogeny. Hardly anyone can tell the difference between a US$300 ($480) men’s navy suit and a US$3000 one, especially on TV or through their phones, so the “power suit”, such as it were, is really any suit worn by a man at all. Culturally, we’re taught to respect a man in a suit. Women have had no such option, to slip into something so codified and be taken seriously immediately. But they have also used that to their advantage.

Hillary Clinton described herself as a “pantsuit aficionado” and wore a white one when accepting the Democratic nomination for President at the party's national convention in Philadelphia in 2016. Photo / Ricky Carioti for the Washington Post

Even as Hillary Clinton’s supporters and detractors fretted over whether discussing her appearance amounted to sexism, she was embracing it lightheartedly, describing herself as a “pantsuit aficionado” on social media. After she wore white to accept the nomination for President in 2016 as a tribute to suffragists, white suits became galvanising regalia for feminist protests in congress.

But maybe, as Harris begins to open our minds about a more varied view of leadership, we should allow ourselves more suspicion of the unchanging men’s suit. More recently, after all, the look of power has been one of aggression, even corruption. Donald Trump’s suits, mostly by the Italian luxury brand Brioni, are broad-shouldered and recall the tailoring of mid-century gangsters. His too-long red tie (allegedly worn that way to make him look taller and thinner) reads like a weapon.

In this most recent era of men in suits, power has gotten a dirty name, between the criminality of elected officials during the Trump administration and the #MeToo movement. A few years ago, when I was interviewing the Italian fashion designer Miuccia Prada, she moved in the span of a few words from why she loves expressive coats to an unpacking of why she believes the patriarchy endures. I told her men have perhaps made power seem unattractive, and she was shocked: for all of history, she said, women have been fighting for more power. Doesn’t that mean we’re interested in having more? If anything, the reason misogyny subsists is because women “are more human”, she said.

The Democratic convention has spent the past four nights humanising Harris. Again, emphasising she is a person who feels joy, who radiates it. What if, as a candidate and perhaps America’s first female President, she allows us to see power instead as confidence in who you are? To see her clothes as a source of joy for her, however big or small she wants it to feel? She doesn’t have to be or look self-serious, and indeed, this week has emphasised through speeches and in ads that she isn’t. She is a person who appreciates pleasure. That is something Republicans have found threatening – indeed, something that, historically, men have found threatening in women.

Joy, in fashion, does not mean colour or attention-grabbing designs. It does not have to mean vanity. It can simply mean being content with what you wear, and understanding that wearing what feels right, feels good. Your clothes won’t do your job, but it might just make you, a figure with immense responsibility, under immense pressure, feel a bit more in control. Fashion is primarily the province of women, and what is at the root of much of the aversion to fashion is most often just sexism. To ask a female presidential candidate, or female President, to ignore it just because we worry she will be taken less seriously is not a reflection on her, but on us. On our perception of what and how women make themselves happy. What are we really asking for if anything that is frivolous, that delights or amuses us, becomes verboten?

England’s Margaret Thatcher, Germany’s Angela Merkel and, earlier this year, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo were all elected as candidates who clearly took at least a passing interest in self-presentation. If anything, each seemed to understand, in her own way, that her style helped etch an iconography, even a global reputation, where people who did not speak their language still understood their principles, with their wardrobes as a kind of shorthand. A president does not dress to represent themselves, but to represent their country. Harris could change the way the world sees us and the way we see ourselves. Clothes are simply one avenue to do that, but women’s fashion, which is much more varied, presents an opportunity that men, stuck with their unoriginal, indistinguishable blue suits, do not have. It would be exhilarating if Harris – if we – seized it.