October 26, 2008
What Sarah Palin Wore to the Revolution
(Opinion crossposted from Brainstorm)
In 1996 a young, pre-mayoral Sarah Palin had already developed a taste for fashion and a mouth for outchy quotes. A reporter for the Anchorage Daily News, covering the appearance of Ivana Trump at the local J.C. Penney’s to shill her latest brand of fragrances, caught the future VP nominee standing on the 500-strong line of folks and captured her own enthusiasm over Trump’s visit to the state.
He wrote, “ ‘We want to see Ivana,’ Palin said, who admittedly smells like a salmon for a large part of the summer, ‘because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.’ ”
I read the quote in Jonathan Raban’s article on Palin in the London Review of Books, an essay all the more prescient in that it was written presumably for a British audience somewhat unfamiliar with the local and symbolic nuances of the 08 campaign and published a week before the erruption of the latest controversy in the race: the disclosure of the $150,000 spent by the Republican National Committee on upgrading Palin’s wardrobe.
Whatever else one might think about Raban’s delicious quote, he might need to update his kicker: “The blot on the Alaskan landscape that is Wasilla is the natural consequence of a mindset that mistakes Ivana Trump for culture.” If nothing else, Palin’s upgraded not only the contents of her closet but her ability to master the codes of sartorial success. When it comes to attire, Sarah Palin is a walking semiotic soundboard—from her Kawasaki spectacles down to her Dorothy-red heels. What would Roland Barthes have made of it all? I asked Barnard French professor Caroline Weber, who chronicled another famous wardrobe malfunction in her book Queen of Fashion: What Marie-Antoinette Wore to the French Revolution, what she thought about the issue. She termed it Akrisgate.
The Swiss designer brand Akris (dubbed two years ago ‘the most successful brand you’ve never heard of” in the Financial Times) comprises the bulk of the RNC purchases — an inspired and intelligent selection by whomever did the buying. The brand, Weber says, is “super super deluxe, expensive but not ostentatious. It is a stealth choice, a sign of quality that would be recognized by a fashionable European audience but would play no less to Joe the Plumber” for its classy but unthreatening look. Unlike the Hermès scarf sported by Teresa Heinz Kerry in appearances four years ago, Akris doesn’t signify European-ness or conspicuous consumption. With the Arkis label, Weber says, “You can have your cake and eat it too.”
Fashion may work by its attunement to its very obsolescence, its acknowledgment that style and season are always fleeting. The irony of the Akris brand is its seeming opposition to that motor of fashionability. “I have always felt the worst thing is when a women walks into a room and the first thing you look at is her clothes,” Albert Kriemler, one of two brothers who run the shop told the Financial Times last month. At Neiman Marcus — the line is stocked in all 40 of its stores — it is the third highest-selling fashion brands.
“It’s a name that has been whispered in boardrooms and ballrooms for the past five years, handed on from woman to woman as a quasi-password to a rarefied world of super-luxe fabrics and discreet style,” Venessa Friedman reported last month in the Financial Times, which described Akris as one of the few designer brands to weather the financial crunch affecting most ateliers. If nothing else, Akrisgate may have proved the RNC penny-wise and pound-foolish — but at least on the microlevel of cultural codes, the Republicans have shown themselves once again masterful semioticians.
Eric Banks | Posted on Sunday October 26, 2008 | Permalink
I won’t be voting for her, but I would easily if there wasn’t a third party candidate I was already enamored with.
GO SARAH!
— Cicero Oct 27, 10:22 AM #
I’m voting for OBAMA.
I’m so thirsty for change, I’m willing to drink the sand!
— unabashed male Oct 27, 10:30 AM #
Unabashed Male,
I’m voting for McCain. If Obama wins the only change most of us will see, other than a lurch towards socialism and sucking up to countries that support terrorism, are the few coins remaining in our pockets after the Obama tax increases go into effect.
Most of those slated for “tax cuts” under the Obama plan, don’t pay taxes anyway. Hence, his purported “tax cut” for most is in fact a welfare check paid by those who do pay taxes.
TD
— TD Oct 27, 02:35 PM #
Re: 3rd party candidates. I’m all for her support of the Alaska Independence Party. The Constitution would not permit a foreign head of state to occupy the office of Vice President of the US.
— jm Oct 27, 02:37 PM #
Mere clothes—vacuous signs that do not refer to anything.
— Hmmm Oct 27, 02:37 PM #
I think she and the first dude need to tend to their family better; then they can worry about saving the rest of the world.
The kids are dragged to all these campaign appearances… what about school?
Couldn’t McCain have picked the governor of Virginia?
Anyway when McCain began drinking the stalwart GOP Kool-aid I gave up on him. I’m a Navy Vet and have always admired McCain but too much has come out about his bitterness now.
And now a VEEP selection that is great a clotheshorse. Well the other guy is a plugs horse I suppose and that IMHO is worse but he does have a hell of a lot of important experience in multiple areas of Washington and life (widower and single parent) that I admire so much.
The vote goes to Obama and Biden!
— Good ol' Bubba Oct 27, 02:41 PM #
@ TD #3: You need to stop believing what you hear in robocalls. The talkings points you so dutifully recite are almost entirely bogus. The only person I know who would benefit from Obama’s tax plan who does not currently pay taxes is Joe the Plumber.
— Huh? Oct 27, 03:01 PM #
TD #3: The facts are that under the Bush tax cuts, the wealthy have steadily widened the income gap in the US over the past 8 years. Obama’s plan is to keep most of those tax cuts at the high end from becoming permanent.
— Rob Oct 27, 03:15 PM #
Yeah, #3. What #7 said. The tax cuts only affect taxes. Those who pay zero taxes have zero taxes to cut. (Is this math too hard?)
The fact is, ALL taxation is a redistribution of income—“spreading the wealth” toward roads, armed services, sewer pipes, frivolous stuff like that.
One of my hopes for the Obama administration is to lurch away from socialism—the kind of socialism we’ve learned to expect, where mega-profits are privatized and corporate costs are socialized.
— BertW Oct 27, 03:19 PM #
People seem to forget that she did NOT buy the clothes. The RNC did the buying. I would bet that if she had been picking out the wardrobe, it would not have been so expensive. Blame the RNC not Palin. If someone gives me great clothes, I will wear them.
— Professor Lewis Oct 27, 04:32 PM #
There are those who see; those who see, if shown; and those who will never see.
Obama will win because this election is not about him, or Sarah; it is about us!!
Free Barabas!!
— ds Oct 27, 07:19 PM #
I would wear any great clothes gifted to me as well. But I wouldn’t run for vp. Palin, while not necessarily a disgrace to womankind, has made it clear enough that she “doesn’t understand Washington”, ergo, she should stick to what she knows: idolizing Ivana amidst meth addicts.
— jd Oct 28, 01:22 PM #