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      The Strategic Fashioning of Casey DeSantis

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      With an eye to the Kennedys, and the Trumps. Sometimes, a wardrobe is a strategy.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has finally, officially, entered the presidential race. The long-anticipated Trump-DeSantis matchup is about to hit prime time. Which means that so, too, is what Mr. DeSantis himself called in his recent book, “The Courage to Be Free,” the “Ron and Casey traveling road show,” a Camelot-meets-Mar-a-Lago by way of Disney series that is now going national. And while Mr. DeSantis may be the nominal star, it is his wife, in her supporting role, who has been making the most notable entrances.At least judging by the previews that have been playing for the past few months at most of Mr. DeSantis’s major public events, including his re-election night celebration in November 2022, his inauguration in January, his State of the State speech in March and his trip to Japan last month. Throughout, Ms. DeSantis, 42, a former television news anchor, mother of three and breast cancer survivor, has demonstrated a facility with the power of the visual statement, and the way it can tap into the national hive mind, that has been as strategic, and big picture, as that of any political spouse in modern memory.“She understands the image game and how to play it,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist who masterminded communications for the confirmation of the Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch. “How to maximize the levers of attention and the media.”Put another way, while Mr. DeSantis may be talking presidential policy, Ms. DeSantis has been making him look the part, primarily by “dressing her part,” said Kate Andersen Brower, the author of “First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies.” By using all sorts of synaptic cues to connect what we see to what we think, she triggers associations with terms like “Kennedy” and “Trump” and even “royalty” — not as odd a grouping as it may first appear, given that Kennedy was the first TV president, Trump the first reality TV president and Ms. DeSantis clearly a student of both.Ms. DeSantis with her husband at a meeting with the Japanese foreign minister in Tokyo in April, wearing an ice blue Badgley Mischka dress that looks similar to …Pool photo by Eugene Hoshiko… the ice blue dress Jacqueline Kennedy wore to meet Prime Minister Nehru in the gardens of the presidential palace in New Delhi in 1962.Getty ImagesShe has the bouncing, glowing Breck locks of Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” (the 1991 animated version) and Catherine, Princess of Wales mixed up with the full-skirted pastel wardrobe of a well-mannered debutante, some fleece and a cape or two. She’s “dressing to be either princess of the world or first lady,” said Tom Broecker, the costume designer for “Saturday Night Live” and “House of Cards,” who has made something of an art of studying and replicating the style of first ladies. “There’s so much intentionality and purpose behind everything.”To acknowledge that is not to undercut her substance — the work she has done for mental health, cancer research, hurricane relief — but to credit her with understanding a basic truth of modern campaigning. “Presidential campaigns are M.R.I.s for the soul,” said David M. Axelrod, the founder of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and a former senior adviser to Barack Obama. “Folks are not just evaluating your positions, they are evaluating you as a person.” To that end, he said, “spouses play a really important role in filling out that picture.”Picture, in this case, being the operative word.The Camelot ConnectionThough Ms. DeSantis has always been a considered dresser, a lesson from her days as a local anchor with WJXT in Jacksonville, Fla., when she and Mr. DeSantis met, she has ratcheted up her style over the past year. On election night in 2022, she wore a floor-length gold and yellow one-shoulder ruched gown that made her look as if she were on her way to a state dinner, rather than simply taking the stage in the Tampa Convention Center.It was her outfit on inauguration day in January, however, that really foreshadowed the couple’s ambitions in the public eye: a mint-green dress by Alex Perry, an Australian label, with a built-in cape flowing from the shoulders, worn with white gloves. In its color and line, it seemed to draw its lineage straight from the Kennedy era. This was only compounded by the bright pink dress Ms. DeSantis wore to her husband’s State of the State address, with a portrait neckline and more white gloves, another seeming nod to Jacqueline Kennedy, one of the most recognizable, revered and stylish first ladies in American history. Ditto the ice-blue dress she wore to accompany Mr. DeSantis to Japan, another caped style, this time with floral epaulets at the shoulders.It’s a smart move, even if it can also seem like a cliché (clichés are clichés, after all, because they are part of common parlance). As Michael LaRosa, a communications strategist who was Jill Biden’s spokesman during her husband’s 2020 primary campaign for the White House, said: “Americans love glitz, glamour and attractiveness, celebrities and TV. Casey DeSantis understands all of that.”Déjà vu dressing: (clockwise from top left) Casey DeSantis at the governor’s State of the State address in May; Jacqueline Kennedy on a boat ride in Udaipur, India, in 1962; Mrs. Kennedy at her daughter’s wedding in Hyannis Port, Mass., in 1986; Ms. DeSantis at the her husband’s inauguration in January. Clockwise from top left, Phil Sears/Associated Press; Cecil Stoughton/FK Presidential Library/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; PL Gould/Getty Images; Lynne Sladky/Associated PressBy connecting herself and her husband implicitly to the Kennedy tradition, Ms. DeSantis connects to myriad ideas rooted in the American narrative: youth and generational change (not incidental when two of the other candidates are setting records as the oldest in history), glamour and taste. Blink, and a button deep in the cerebral cortex gets pushed.Never more so than when she dons her capes and gloves, accessories from the costume department freighted with meaning, trailing whiffs of kings and queens as well as old-fashioned morality and gender roles. The clothes both act as a “disguise for how political and strategic she is,” Ms. Brower said, and support her husband’s position as a warrior for conservative values.So while Ms. DeSantis may be, as The New York Post called her, the governor’s “not-so-secret political weapon” and, according to Politico, a “superstar of a political spouse” who is “unusually important and uncommonly involved,” with her own portfolio, the broad-stroke portrait is of the classic helpmeet smiling charmingly in the background.“She has been able to use her position to showcase what they could be,” Mr. Bonjean said.According to Mr. Broecker, she is “manifesting the message.”Beyond TrumpAnd the image-making is not limited to herself. Like Catherine, Princess of Wales, Ms. DeSantis is adept at color-coordinating the couple’s young children for their public appearances, the better to present a snapshot of family unity: the two little girls wearing matching dresses and pinafores, their brother echoing their father. She and Mr. DeSantis even wore matching white rubber shrimp boots when viewing the damage after Hurricane Ian.It all makes for an implicit contrast to the current Republican front-runner, Donald J. Trump, whose own children have been divided during the campaign (Ivanka staying away, Tiffany largely absent) and whose wife, Melania, has been largely absent since his announcement.Ms. DeSantis wearing a Republican red Trina Turk caped dress at a news conference with Governor DeSantis in Miami in May, 2022, which looked very much like …Joe Raedle/Getty Images… the red caped Givenchy gown Melania Trump wore when she and President Trump attended a dinner with Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles in London in 2019.Doug Mills/The New York TimesAnd though Ms. DeSantis shares a certain style ethos with Ms. Trump, her clothes are more aspirational than elitist, sourced largely from the contemporary, as opposed to luxury, market, with an emphasis on brands like Ted Baker (the blue coat she wore for her husband’s first inauguration), Badgley Mischka (the caped dress and white floral pantsuit she wore in Japan) and Shoshanna (that gold and yellow ruched gown).All of which fits with the more accessible narrative the campaign is building around her — especially when combined with the zip-up athletic jackets with the Florida state flag on the breast that she tends to wear with jeans when meeting constituents on the road.Put another way, both Ms. DeSantis and Ms. Trump may have worn Republican-red caped gowns at different times, but while Ms. Trump’s was Givenchy, Ms. DeSantis’s appears to have been Trina Turk. Ms. Brower called the effect “Melania lite” — easier for most people to digest.Yet Ms. DeSantis also chose a label for her official portrait — Chiara Boni La Petite Robe — that is the unofficial uniform of the women of Trumpland, a favorite of Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Kayleigh McEnany and Jeanine Pirro, thanks to its ability to play to both boss lady and the male gaze. All of which underscores her husband’s pitch that he is the palatable alternative to Trump: familiar, but less baggage.Casey DeSantis in an official portrait as Florida’s first lady, in 2019, wearing Chiara Boni La Petite Robe.Colin HackleyThe DeSantis team declined to comment on Ms. DeSantis’s role, but for those who think her image-making is simply happenstance or a fortuitous coincidence, consider the fact that in his book Mr. DeSantis notes that it was Ms. DeSantis who asked him to wear his naval “dress white uniform” for their wedding, complete with all his medals, though he had planned on wearing a tux.She also held an on-air competition, he wrote, so viewers could vote on what wedding dress she should wear. When it came time to walk down the aisle, Mr. DeSantis wrote, she looked “less like a TV anchor and more like a princess.” Together, however, they looked like nothing so much as cosplay from the triumphant finales of both “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “A Few Good Men.”In other words, from the beginning Ms. DeSantis was thinking about the images that would be captured for posterity and their public repercussions, and “I was happy to defer to my bride on that call,” Mr. DeSantis wrote. Odds are that pattern will continue.After all, when you can deploy a spouse in a primary, Mr. LaRosa said, “it’s the equivalent of having the advantage of two candidates.” You get twice the airtime and twice the eyeballs.Indeed, Mr. Bonjean said, “The team will do everything they can to get attention. And she will be a big part of that.” More

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      The Revolutionary Power of a Skein of Yarn

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      Not long ago, Michelle Obama posted a black-and-white photo of herself on Instagram, cozy in an armchair, a nearby side table displaying an adorable baby pic of Malia and Sasha. She is barefoot, dressed in wide-legged jeans and a satin shirt, smiling widely as she looks down … at her knitting. “Every time I tell people how much I love to knit,” she writes in the caption, “They seem so surprised!”And I thought, why?I suspect it’s because knitters, unlike Mrs. Obama, are presumed to be aging ungracefully: prim, elderly (probably white) ladies rocking away on the porch in cultural irrelevance. Before I refute that — yarn lovers come in all ages, genders, sexualities and races — I want to ask, even if it were true, so what? The dismissal, the reflexive derision of women from midlife onward — especially if we stop chasing social media standards of beauty — is a nasty form of ageist sexism.Besides, that imagined innocuousness can be a strength, even a superpower. Knitting is considered a “craft,” one you begin by “casting on,” evoking spells and witchery, a kind of practical magic. What greater sorcery is there, really, than making something, whether turning raw fiber to thread or raw flour to bread or engaging in the ultimate creative act: conjuring new humans from nowhere at all?Our needles have also been a sharp political tool, wielded to fight injustice, to express both patriotism and protest, especially when other outlets were forbidden. No matter how you ended up feeling about those pink pussyhats, it was no accident that women’s first collective act of dissent after the election of President Donald Trump was to knit.Back in the days of the American Revolution, women’s boycotts of British cloth in favor of “homespun,” and their defiant public “spinning bees” were at least as instrumental in the fight for independence as the spilling of all that tea. Molly “Old Mom” Rinker, one of the era’s fabled spies, reportedly tucked bits of information about British troop movements into balls of yarn. Who would suspect an aging matron, placidly knitting socks at a scenic overlook, of tossing message-laced skeins to the patriots? Knitting’s benign reputation allowed her to subvert the very conventions she appeared to uphold.The French had their “tricoteuses,” which translates to women knitters (they have a word for that!), particularly those who, during the Reign of Terror, sat before the guillotines bearing grim witness to public executions. You may recall Madame Defarge from “A Tale of Two Cities,” whose stitches formed a Reaper’s roster of the condemned. Her real-life counterparts were equally complex, a mix of feminist hero and vengeful villain. Many (presumably savoring l’ironie) were said to knit liberty caps as the heads rolled: those red, conical hats with the point folded forward that represented freedom from tyranny. Marianne, a national symbol of France, is often depicted in a liberty cap. So, for reasons I cannot determine, is Papa Smurf.Sojourner Truth offered a different twist on yarn and femininity during the Civil War, posing for photographs with her knitting, a nod to her belief that education and industry were the key to her community’s advancement. Decades later, when troops in World War I were dying by the tens of thousands from an epidemic of trench foot, caused by persistently wet toes, it was knitters to the rescue. The best defense was to change your socks — a lot — but factories of the time couldn’t handle the load, so home crafters produced them. I’m not saying we won that war because of women’s knitting, but I’m not sure we would’ve won without it.Another activist first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, was rarely without her knitting and began the Knit for Defense campaign during World War II. Similarly to Old Mom Rinker, female spies of the time used knitting as cover, one even parachuting behind enemy lines, then using her needles to transport secret code.Today’s public knitters — and crocheters — are arguably more radical, perhaps in part because making something with your own hands almost by definition pushes back against dehumanizing technology and consumer culture. Knitters have mobilized against nuclear proliferation and the decimation of coral reefs. They have made blankets to welcome refugees; crafted tiny sweaters to save oil spill-damaged penguins; knit “temperature scarves” whose rows and colors document climate change; stitched for racial justice; sent handmade uteri to Congress in support of abortion rights (an especially apt political statement, since knitting needles were notoriously used, to women’s peril, in back-alley abortions). During the second Iraq war, a knitter in Denmark swathed a tank in a massive, homey knit blanket. The Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot famously masked their identities beneath brightly colored, knit balaclavas while performing songs such as “Putin’s Pissed Himself” and “Kill the Sexist.”Do such acts of “craftivism” ultimately make a difference? I can’t say. But I do believe that change starts with personal reflection, followed by connection to like-minded others, and, finally, engagement in repeated, targeted collective action. The conversations our projects inspire can jump-start that process, one stitch at a time.In that spirit, I’d like to see knitters, perhaps led by Mrs. Obama, next aim their needles at the fashion industry, pushing for the kind of large-scale overhaul here that is beginning in the European Union: an unprecedented series of measures addressing the catastrophic environmental and social impact involved in the making and disposal of our clothing. The goal by 2030 is for all textiles sold in that market to be, among other things, reparable, recyclable, often made from recycled fibers that are free from hazardous chemicals and produced with respect for labor rights.It’s a necessary start. Fashion is responsible for more greenhouse gasses than international flights and maritime shipping combined, not to mention a fifth of global plastics and trillions of microfibers: tiny plastic threads shed by clothing when laundered that have become one of the biggest threats to the ocean. Treatment of the industry’s largely female work force in Asia, long a human rights concern, has deteriorated so badly since the pandemic that some activists now refer to it as the “garment industrial trauma complex.” Not so pretty.This would be a natural fit for those who value the materials, skill and care that go into our garments. Besides, people who think about the ethics and planetary cost of what they put into their bodies ought to extend that “omnivore’s dilemma” to what they put onto them.Knitters might consider yarn-bombing the New York State Legislature (we like a little levity with our lobbying), where the recently-amended Fashion Act aims to hold large companies accountable for their environmental and labor practices. Or perhaps support the FABRIC Act, sponsored by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, which includes increased safety and wage protections for American piece workers, for whom handicraft is decidedly not a luxury.So yes, knitting can be meditative, it can be relaxing, it may reduce vulnerability to dementia, anxiety and high blood pressure. It also results (if you’re lucky) in some pretty nice stuff. And maybe the demographic does still skew toward the older and the female. But why not embrace that?Because Michelle and the rest of us aging ladies? We don’t have to just sit and rock; we can rock it.Peggy Orenstein (@peggyorenstein) is the author of “Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Costuming of George Santos

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      George Santos used fashion to flout the rules.There is a scene at the beginning of “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” the 1999 film adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith book, in which Tom Ripley, the young man who becomes one of fiction’s greatest fakers, borrows a Princeton jacket from a friend to sit in for the piano player at a ritzy garden party. From that assumed finery, an entire novel’s worth of cons are born.It’s not unlike Frank Abagnale shrugging on a PanAm pilot’s uniform in “Catch Me If You Can” to convince the watching world he is a pilot, or Anna Sorokin, a.k.a. Anna Delvey, the fake heiress of recent grift, swanning through New York society in Celine sunglasses and Gucci sandals. Or even Elizabeth Holmes assuming the black turtleneck of Steve Jobs, and with it his mystique.Throughout history, the greatest grifters have understood that dressing the part is half the game. And so it has been with George Santos, the Republican congressman representing parts of Long Island and Queens, who has been unmasked as having fabricated pretty much his entire résumé in his quest to get elected, potentially committing campaign finance fraud in the process.Why, people keep asking, did it take so long for his lies to be revealed? Why did no one think to poke deeper? Why did the people who did know something fishy was going on not speak up?In part because he just looked so darn convincing.He went to Horace Mann, Baruch and N.Y.U. and came from money? Behold, the uniform of preppy private-school boys everywhere: the button-up white shirt, crew-neck sweater (most often in the old-school colors of periwinkle and gray), blue blazer and khaki trousers, like something straight out of “Dead Poets Society.”More on the George Santos ControversyBehind The Times’s Investigation: The Times journalists Michael Gold and Grace Ashford discuss how Representative George Santos was elected to Congress and how they discovered that he was a fraud.Split View: New York Republicans are ready to rid themselves of the newly elected representative after his pattern of deception was revealed. But House Republican leaders badly need his vote.Facing Inquiries: Federal and local prosecutors are investigating whether Mr. Santos committed crimes involving his finances or made misleading statements, while authorities in Brazil said they would revive a 2008 fraud case against him.Alternate Identities: A newly surfaced video shows Mr. Santos in 2019 using one of his alternate identities and urging members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community to embrace Republicans. The clip offers insight into Mr. Santos’s early forays into public political life.He was a financier, who had worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs? Lo, the three-quarter zip sweater and fleece (or fleece-like) vest, uniform of bankers everywhere. Just consider the last six seasons of “Billions.”The semiotics of sweater dressing: Mr. Santos in zip-front knitwear. Tom Brenner for The New York TimesHe went deep into the costume department of the popular culture hive mind and built his cover story layer by layer, garment by garment.He may wear suits sometimes, but it is the sweaters, in their various permutations, that have been the telling detail, along with the horn-rimmed glasses — visual shorthand, in pretty much every medium, for intellectual. Both are props that push the buttons of stereotype buried in our subconscious. We are so much more likely to believe a story if it is embedded in the codes we expect, dress code being among the first.Yes, it’s a cliché. That doesn’t mean it isn’t effective. Clothes are the camouflage that gets you in the door. Especially in a world in which the line between visual truth and fiction is increasingly filtered.It would not be surprising then, that Mr. Santos is alleged to have bought hundreds of dollars worth of garments and shoes in Brazil using checks stolen from his mother’s handbag. And that a former roommate claimed in The New York Post that the Burberry scarf Mr. Santos wore to a Stop the Steal rally in 2021 didn’t actually belong to him but to the roommate, and Mr. Santos took it when the two men shared an apartment. That another said Mr. Santos had taken some of his dress shirts, including an Armani number. Mr. Santos clearly understood that no matter the character you are playing, what you wear tells the story.So he dressed up his story of embodying the American dream in the fashion vernacular of archetypes. By indulging public preconceptions of how someone with his résumé should look, Mr. Santos was implicitly underscoring his own credibility.And he is still doing it. It is not an accident that since his fabrications have been revealed, he has stuck largely to his preppy layering. See the periwinkle blue crew neck he wore over a white shirt and navy-and-white tie and under a navy suit during the House swearing-in; it’s a uniform both protective and promising. One that had a Pavlovian association with words like “wholesome,” “polite,” “youthful,” “well intentioned.” It’s the kind of style that conjures up images of grandmothers saying, “But he looks like such a nice boy.” (He even arrived for the ceremony toting a backpack.)Outside a Stop & Shop in a fleece-adjacent look. Mary Altaffer/Associated PressJust as when writers sometimes clean up the language of interviewees to make the written statement easier to read than the spoken one — which can often seem garbled on the page — dressing to satisfy expectations rather than reflect everyday reality is a form of sleight of hand.(The practice of quote amelioration became something of a cause célèbre when the psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson sued the journalist Janet Malcolm for libel for massaging his words.)But in fact, while bankers may love a logo fleece, it’s usually one that advertises the institutions to which they belong or the invite-only conferences that they attend (Sun Valley! Davos!). Mr. Santos’s version, worn mostly on the campaign trail as he was selling his myth, advertised his own candidacy.And according to Lisa Birnbach, the author of “The Official Preppy Handbook,” Mr. Santos’s version of preppy style is too groomed, too layered, too contrived to be that of a genuine prepster. She said she hadn’t seen a crew neck under a blazer over a tie since George Plimpton ran The Paris Review in the second half of the 20th century. Mr. Santos, she said, looks like an extra in “Family Ties,” the sitcom that starred Michael J. Fox as a teenage Republican. He’s trying too hard.Some are now beginning to speculate that even the glasses are fakes, donned to complete the picture, that they don’t have the distortions associated with corrective lenses.That we should have realized, really, they were too easy to see through. More

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      John Fetterman Got a New Suit for His Senate Swearing-In

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      The Pennsylvania lawmaker joins the Washington establishment. Sort of.John Fetterman has a new suit. On Jan. 3, the junior senator from Pennsylvania, whose penchant for Carhartt sweatshirts, Dickies and baggy shorts was as much a part of his political brand as any stump speech, was sworn in as part of the 118th Congress wearing a relatively tailored, previously unseen light gray two-button number. This is a big deal, in part because during his time as lieutenant governor, Mr. Fetterman had made a point of stating that he had only one dark suit. On a day notable for the chaos around the election of Speaker of the House, that suit, as well as the light blue striped tie and polished black lace-ups Mr. Fetterman also wore, may have been the biggest political fashion statement of the incoming class. It was more symbolic even than Nancy Pelosi’s bright pink passing-of-the-baton outfit, or the smattering of suffragist white worn by some women in the House, or even J.D. Vance’s Trumpian uniform of navy suit, white shirt and glowing red tie. And it confirms Mr. Fetterman as one of the more unexpected image makers in Washington. It’s not that he dresses particularly well, though the new suit was a step up. It’s that he dresses with purpose.Indeed, Mr. Fetterman’s new suit was as notable as any of the fashion statements made by various members of Congress since clothes began to play a bigger role in electoral communications. To wit: January 2019, when a large group of women of the newly elected 116th Congress wore white to their swearing-in in honor of their suffragist predecessors (and as a counterstrike to the image-making focus of the Trump administration).Or, for that matter, almost every State of the Union and major public event since then — most recently in December, when a number of lawmakers wore yellow and blue to Volodymyr Zelensky’s congressional speech. If there’s a photo op involved, there’s generally a fashion decision aforethought.The silent communication that comes via clothing has become a standard part of the political toolbox. It’s wielded with increasing dexterity by, for example, elected officials like Kyrsten Sinema, who used her kooky wardrobe of sleeveless tops, colored wigs and the occasional denim vest to telegraph her independence from political norms long before she officially became an independent. Also Jim Jordan, who symbolized his willingness to fight during committee hearings by abandoning his jackets and rolling up his shirt sleeves. The Washington wardrobe is so standardized that any deviation from the norm stands out, especially on TV.Unless, of course, your default position is deviation from the norm — in which case a return to business as usual becomes the surprise. As Mr. Fetterman well knows.Before heading off to the Capitol for his swearing-in, he tweeted, “For those of you asking, yes, there will be a Fetterman in shorts today, but it’s not me.” (It was one of his sons, gamely continuing the family campaign to free the knee.) Rather than deny the idea that he thinks about what he wears, or having his staff deny it for him, Mr. Fetterman long ago turned his wardrobe into an asset: the subject of self-deprecating funny asides, social media jokes and pretty potent public appeal.He has blogged that he can’t roll up his sleeves because he only wears short sleeves. He has tweeted that his outfits are “Western PA business casual” and celebrated his new “Formal Hoodie.” (His wife, Gisele, has made fun of him for it; political couples — they’re just like us.) He was never exactly a working man — he was a mayor with a master’s degree from Harvard — but he dressed like one, and it helped humanize him, get him recognized and make a name for himself that resonated beyond the borders of Pennsylvania and into the realm of late-night TV even before he won his election. Arguably it helped win the election.And it meant that when he showed up on Capitol Hill in November for his orientation in a dark suit and blue tie, he got the sort of excited attention not normally bestowed on a senator-elect making a drive-by visit to his new workplace. Rather he resembled some sort of semi-celebrity, even as his willingness to play by Senate dress code rules and fit into the institution can’t have escaped his new colleagues.Nor, probably, could the sleight of hand that managed to make wearing a conservative suit look like a radical move. And they can expect more where this came from: According to his office, the new suit is one of three Mr. Fetterman has purchased, along with six — count ’em — ties. More

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      Playing Twinsies at Gucci

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      Plus gremlins, goddesses, Paris Hilton at Versace and a triumph at Bottega Veneta. Things are getting funky in Italy.MILAN — The night before Italy went to the polls on Sunday for its first general election in five years, almost 20,000 people thronged the square in front of the Duomo. It was raining, but they stood side by side, jittering in mass anticipation. A raised stage had been constructed before the soaring cathedral, and on either side stood towers of floodlights and two enormous screens.Then out marched another mass of people in white puffer jackets. The Moncler 70th anniversary experience had begun, and it seemed like the brand had invited practically the whole city (plus Colin Kaepernick) to come together and watch.Italy may have been on the verge of voting in its most extreme right-wing government in decades, but Italian fashion has been swinging in the opposite direction. Normally the promise of the country’s first female prime minister — Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party — would have designers nattering on about women and power and what it means to them (big shoulders, usually), but not this time. This time, the looming shift in vibe has seeped onto the runways in a different form.Moncler, spring 2023.Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York TimesSitting front row at Bottega Veneta, for example, Gaetano Pesce, the artist and architect who created the swirling, multicolored set with its hundreds of unique chairs for the brand’s designer Matthieu Blazy, called the concept a tribute to diversity and the differences that define us. Mr. Blazy later called it “the world in a small room.”He celebrated exactly that, in a tour de force of a wardrobe variety show that ranged from the everyday — Kate Moss in what looked like a plaid flannel shirt (which turned out to be leather) over a white tank and faded jeans (also leather) — to the extraordinary: a trio of calf-length dresses in kumquat, lemon and light blue covered in thousands of feathery filaments that seemed to undulate in the air.Bottega Veneta, spring 2023.Antonio Calanni/Associated PressBottega Veneta, spring 2023.Matteo Corner/EPA, via ShutterstockIn the middle were assorted pick-your-personality options including pantsuits with the seams pinched together into little raised fins at the back of the calves and arms, and gorgeous knit jacquard dresses that looked like abstract landscapes, hugging the shoulders and finished in deep-pile fringe. A turquoise leather skirt sprouted a garden of three-dimensional flowers beneath a skinny ribbed knit while filigree ivory slip dresses came scattered with furry pastel blooms and hung with iridescent beading, like drops of water. All of it united by exacting technique and generosity of spirit. And the idea that there are no designer dictators here.Goddesses and RebelsThis was after Stella Jean returned to the catwalk — after a two-year absence in protest at the lack of designers of color in Milanese fashion — with her multicultural WAMI show, an acronym for “We Are Made in Italy,” featuring the work of five other designers as well as her revisionist plantation dressing overlaid with Haitian-inspired prints. After she ended that show with a rabble-rousing speech, crying, “When it comes to civil rights and human rights we are all part of the same party.”And after Donatella Versace, who earlier in the week had posted a red, white and green heart on Instagram with the words (in Italian) “vote to protect rights already acquired, thinking about progress and with an eye on the future,” sent out a parade of what she called in her show notes one “goddess of freedom” after another.Versace, spring 2023.Alessandro Garofalo/ReutersAs to what goddesses of freedom wear, well, the same thing as goth moto rebels from the 1990s apparently, liberating themselves from the tyranny of good taste (often equated with conservative taste). That meant fringed and abbreviated black leathers, slashed peekaboo jersey, animal-print sheer shirting over hipster cargos, and teeny lacy lingerie numbers in neon Barbie shades, complete with bridal veils.And it meant Paris Hilton strutting her stuff in a glittering pink crystal minidress as a surprise finale — in what seemed a somewhat Teflon nod to the recent trend for re-examining the narrative around the women who became cultural punching bags at the turn of the millennium.(As it happened, Paris wasn’t the only famous blonde making a guest appearance: As seen in scores of social media clips, Kim Kardashian, who collaborated on the Dolce & Gabbana show and its bustiers forever! sparkle, took a finale bow, alongside the designers.)But still, there’s a lot of emotion permeating the clothes, generally in a good way.Seeing DoubleIt infused the Gucci show, certainly, which was called “Twinsburg.” Inspired by the designer Alessandro Michele’s mother and her identical twin sister who helped raise him (rather than the Ohio town of the same name or the stuff of horror films) — as well as the idea of the “other” — it featured 68 pairs of identical twins.Not that anyone in the audience realized it at first, since each model was seemingly just walking on their ownsome in the gobbledygook fantasia of muchness for which the designer is known: tiger stripe boots under chinoiserie pencil skirts with tabard tops and sunglasses dangling rhinestone fringe; gray suits with the pants turned into stockings complete with garter belts; sofa brocades and cheongsams and Lurex 1940s Hollywood goddess gowns; gremlins.Gucci, spring 2023.GucciWait — gremlins? Yes, those furry creatures from the 1984 black comedy about adorables with twin personalities whose evil instincts come out when they get wet. They were made into bags, worn on the front of belts and the tops of slides, and even printed on the hem of an evening dress. They mixed it up with overalls and traffic cone-orange sequined jackets splashed with the word “Fuori!!!”That was the name of a 1970s magazine from the Fronte Unitario Omosessuale Rivoluzionario Italiano, or the United Homosexual Revolutionary Front. It was, Mr. Michele said later in his usual post-show stream-of-consciousness news conference, a reminder that “we are entitled to freedom. We fought to say the issue was freedom.” And that, he said, it is time to fight again.He did it on the runway not with his clothes, which don’t really change from season to season (How could they? He’s already put every imaginable permutation of everything on the runway), but with how he framed them. This time that meant a backdrop featuring portraits of twins — which later rose up to reveal an identical show taking place on the other side.Then the twins reappeared, reaching across the divide to clasp hands, traversing the show space as one. Metaphor alert!One that turned out to be utterly convincing for conveying the idea that we are, in fact, stronger together.Two is a TrendIn one of those weird mindmelds that occasionally takes place in fashion, like every designer suddenly making blue or, in this season’s case, cargo pants with cropped tops, the Sunnei designers Simone Rizzo and Loris Messina were also playing with the idea of twins, using them to explore the transformative power of fashion.Jil Sander, spring 2023.Pietro S. D’Aprano/Getty ImagesIn the audience they had planted models who clambered out of their seats dressed in basic mufti (denim miniskirts, chinos, oversize sweats) and then down the runway to disappear through a revolving door, their doppelgängers then emerging in entirely new, brightly colored geometrics like a parade of Supermen from their phone booths.Then there was Brunello Cucinelli, who this season introduced the concept of “twinwear,” meaning paired items (easy shirts and trousers in the same beaded champagne satin; an earthy knit skirt and cardigan with tiny sequins) that can lounge equally well in the light of day or a candlelit evening. And at Jil Sander, Luke and Lucie Meier combined their men’s and women’s wear, the more effectively to reveal the gracefully minimal suiting that — along with some lusciously fringed evening wear — is the ideal antidote to the Gen Z pandering that has become ubiquitous on so many runways.Tod’s, spring 2023.Filippo Monteforte/AFP, via Getty ImagesIt all made Walter Chiapponi’s blandly serene collection at Tod’s, shown in the shadows of Anselm Kiefer’s towering installation “The Seven Heavenly Palaces” and full of buttery leathers in 50 shades of camel and greige, seem awfully disconnected by comparison. Even with Carla Bruni, France’s former first lady, to start things off. More

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      in Elections

      Colombia’s First Black Vice President Spotlights Afro-Caribbean Fashion

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      The wardrobe of Francia Márquez, Colombia’s first Black vice president, is the creation of a young designer at the center of an Afro-Colombian fashion explosion.CALI, Colombia — At a premier fashion event in the coastal city of Buenaventura this year, a pair of towering models strutted down the boardwalk, one in a red minidress with a fluted top inspired by an open seashell and the other wearing a blue-and-gold gown fit for a modern queen.The models were Black and the fabrics imported from Africa — unusual for a major fashion show in Colombia. But what most distinguished them was the designer himself: Esteban Sinisterra Paz, a 23-year-old university student with no formal design training who is at the center of an Afro-Colombian fashion explosion.“Decolonization of the human being,” is the aim of his work, he said, along with showing the world an expansive view of “the elegance of identity.”Mr. Sinisterra is the man behind the wardrobe of Francia Márquez, an environmental activist and lawyer who on Sunday will become Colombia’s first Black vice president.The wardrobe of Francia Márquez, who on Sunday will become Colombia’s first Black vice president, is largely designed Mr. Sinisterra, a 23-year-old social work student with no formal design training who is at the center of an Afro-Colombian fashion explosion.Federico Rios for The New York TimesIn a nation where race and class often define a person’s status, Ms. Márquez, 40, has made a remarkable leap from profound poverty to the presidential palace, emerging as the voice of millions of poor, Black and Indigenous Colombians.In a matter of months, she has not only pushed racism and classism to the center of the national conversation, she has also revolutionized the country’s political aesthetic, rejecting starched shirts and suits in favor of a distinctly Afro-Colombian look that she calls a form of rebellion.Natural hair. Bold prints. Dresses that highlight her curves.But Ms. Márquez and Mr. Sinisterra are just the most visible ambassadors of an Afro-Colombian aesthetic boom that proponents say is part of a larger movement demanding greater respect for millions of Black Colombians.Mr. Sinisterra with some of the pieces that he uses to create a distinctly Afro-Colombian look.Nathalia Angarita for The New York TimesIn a nation where 40 percent of households live on less than $100 a month — a percentage that has grown during the pandemic — Afro-Colombians are among the poorest groups, with the regions where they predominate, including the Pacific Coast, some of the most neglected by generations of politicians.Officially, Black Colombians make up between 6 to 9 percent of the population. But many say that is an undercount that perpetuates a lack of recognition.“Colonization tried to erase Black people,” said Lia Samantha Lozano, 41, who began outfitting her hip-hop and reggae band, Voodoo Souljahs, in African fabrics more than a decade ago, positioning her as a pioneer in the movement.In 2014, she became the first Black woman with a runway show at Colombiamoda, the country’s biggest fashion event. Today, politically oriented Afro-descendant brands have proliferated on the internet, and in shops across Cali, a major hub of Afro-Colombian culture, with Black celebrities, models, politicians and activists increasingly using clothing as a political tool. And the Petronio Álvarez Festival, an annual celebration of Afro-Colombian culture that draws hundreds of thousands of people to Cali, has emerged as the movement’s fashion week. Ms. Lozano now sells a bright, hip-hop inspired line at a major shopping mall in the capital of Bogotá.“A big part of the plan was to make us feel ashamed of who we are, of our colors, of our culture, of our features,” she went on. “To wear this every day, not as ‘fashion,’ not to dress up for a special occasion, but as a way of life, as something you want to communicate every day — yes, it is political. And, yes, it is a symbol of resistance.”Mr. Sinisterra at a fashion show in Buenaventura with a model wearing one of his designs, which he called “Royal Imperialism.”Augusto GalloAmong the movement’s signatures are bright patterned fabrics called wax, which are wildly popular across West, East and Central Africa and famous for telling stories and sending messages through their pictures and designs. (Prints can celebrate everything from pop culture to religion and politics, featuring tubes of lipstick, the faces of religious figures or portraits of politicians and celebrities.)Afro-Colombian aesthetic often references nature — Mr. Sinisterra has a dress with sleeves like wings inspired by Colombia’s famous butterflies — and can incorporate elaborate beaded jewelry and woven bags by artists from Colombia’s many Indigenous communities.The movement’s leaders include not just Ms. Márquez, but also Emilia Eneyda Valencia Murraín, 62, a mentor of Mr. Sinisterra’s who in 2004 started Weaving Hope, a multiday celebration of Black hair in Cali.Emilia Eneyda Valencia Murraín, 62, is a mentor of Mr. Sinisterra’s.Nathalia Angarita for The New York TimesColombia’s sartorial moment is years, many would say centuries, in the making, drawing on activism in Latin America, Africa and the United States; the baggy street style of hip-hop and the sparkly astral vibes of Afrofuturism; the turbans of Colombian market women; the mermaid silhouettes of Senegal and Nigeria; and even the influence of Michelle Obama, who famously used clothing to make political statements.The aesthetic is also expansive and fluid, including everyday clothing — like tunics from the brand Baobab by Consuelo Cruz Arboleda — and showpieces like Mr. Sinisterra’s Royal Imperialism, a tight, ruffled strapless gown whose grandeur he said embodies the modern-day cultural empire that the descendants of Africa have constructed in the Colombian Pacific.“We are transforming the image that we have of power,” said Edna Liliana Valencia, 36, a popular Afro-Colombian journalist, poet and activist.Edna Liliana Valencia is an Afro-Colombian journalist, poet and activist.Nathalia Angarita for The New York TimesMr. Sinisterra is among this movement’s newest stars. Born into a poor family in the small town of Santa Bárbara de Iscuandé, near the Pacific Ocean, his family was forcibly displaced by armed men when he was 5, among the millions of Colombians victimized by the country’s decades-long internal conflict.In the nearby town of Guapi, and later in the port city of Buenaventura, Mr. Sinisterra learned to sew from his aunt and grandmother, whom he called “the designers of the neighborhood.”“Esteban African,” he said of his clothing line, “began out of a necessity to bring money home.”Mr. Sinisterra wanted to study fashion, but his father thought that was only for girls, so he entered university as a social work student.But he began building a name designing increasingly elaborate pieces for a growing list of customers, finding inspiration online and selling his work on Instagram and Facebook. Then, in 2019, Ms. Márquez called. She had been referred to him by a mutual friend and needed an outfit. Mr. Sinisterra is in his seventh of eight semesters at university. When he’s not in class, he sews the vice president’s outfits in a windowless room in his small apartment in Cali. His boyfriend, Andrés Mena, 27, is a former nurse who switched careers to become general manager of Esteban African.Mr. Sinisterra with his boyfriend, Andrés Mena, left.Nathalia Angarita For The New York TimesAmong the brand’s best known items are two pairs of earrings. One features the map of Colombia, etched with its 32 departments. A second looks like two gold orbs meant to evoke the mining pans Ms. Márquez used as a child miner in the mountains of Cauca, near the Pacific Coast, long before she became a household name.Ms. Márquez once slept on a dirt floor beside her siblings. She later worked as a live-in maid to support her children, went to law school and eventually won a prize known as the environmental Nobel.In an interview, she called Mr. Sinisterra’s work a critical part of her political identity. “He’s showing young people that they can succeed, using their talent, they can get ahead,” she said.Mr. Sinisterra has never been to Africa. A visit is his dream, along with studying fashion in Paris and “building a school where the children of the Pacific can have alternatives,” he said, “and their parents, unlike mine, will not think that sewing and cutting and making clothes is only for girls.”Today, he said, his father is proud of his work.Lately, he has been barraged by media and customer requests, and he manages his newfound fame by working around the clock.One day in July, barefoot and sweating, he laid a pair of fabrics on the floor, cut them freehand, then stitched them together using a new Jinthex sewing machine he’d bought with his now improving wages. He was making another dress for Ms. Márquez.On Election Day in June, he outfitted her in kente cloth, a Ghanaian print whose interlocking lines evoke basket weavings, to symbolize vote collection.Ms. Márquez wearing a kente cloth dress on Election Day in June.Federico Rios for The New York TimesThe dress had a ruffle down the front, representing the rivers in Ms. Márquez’s home region, and the jacket on her shoulders, all white, symbolized peace, he said, “in this country so torn up by political postures.”He’s made three outfits for inauguration day. “Whichever she chooses is fine with me,” he said.As he ironed the newly stitched piece, he said he was both excited and anxious about Ms. Márquez’s ascension to power.In the last few months, he has come to feel like a part of her political project, and she has made enormous promises to transform the country after decades of injustice.“The responsibility is going to grow,” he said.“My responsibility, Francia’s responsibility, backing this process so that the people — our people — don’t feel betrayed.” More