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      Nikki Haley Wears the Skirts

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      Whether on the debate stage or “The Daily Show,” the Republican presidential candidate is strategic about standing out — in every way.In a crowded field of Republican presidential candidates, Nikki R. Haley is starting to stand out. Such, anyway, seems to be the conclusion of pollsters, voters and donors alike, who have helped bolster her numbers since she first took to the debate stage back in August. She’s on enough of an upswing that “Saturday Night Live” has started to prep a Haley character in anticipation.But as the third debate — and, perhaps, Ms. Haley’s debut as an “S.N.L.” character — looms, it’s worth considering just how tactically she has used the fact that she unmistakably stands out, even before she has opened her mouth to show off her foreign policy experience, or scold a competitor, to her advantage.Yes, I am talking about gender. Being a woman has always been seen as an issue to manage in a presidential race. Ms. Haley is using it as an asset. She announced, in the first debate, as her opponents were sniping at each other, “This is exactly why Margaret Thatcher said, ‘If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.’”And where is that woman? Just open your eyes and look.Mr. Ramaswamy, left, in the typical Republican uniform, next to Ms. Haley, in a uniform of her own choosing, at the debate in August. Morry Gash/Associated PressIn that initial debate, surrounded by seven men in the exact same outfits — dark blue suits, white shirts, red ties, tiny flag pins, otherwise known as the political uniform of the non-debating Donald J. Trump — Ms. Haley was a beacon in a light blue bouclé skirt suit and high heels.In the second debate, with the men in pretty much the same outfits (Tim Scott did wear a red and navy striped tie that time), there she was, in gleaming crimson silk shantung and pumps. And chances are, as the field shrinks in the third debate, such distinctions will become even more apparent.“Political campaigns are about differentiation,” said Cheri Bustos, a former congresswoman from Illinois, who said she also wore skirts and heels during her first primary campaign, when she was the only woman in a field of six. “The best candidates look for every opportunity. Nikki Haley has taken advantage of the situation.”Ms. Haley in crimson at the second Republican presidential debate in September. Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAnd she has done so while repudiating conventional wisdom when it comes to women seeking the highest office. You know, the truism that trouser suits should be the uniform of choice for women as well as men, the better to fit in with the group and downplay the whole gender issue.Hillary Clinton was, of course, the ultimate pantsuit champion, though she swapped her signature rainbow of trouser suits for basic black when she was on the debate stage in 2016, segueing to symbolic suffragist white only after she had won the nomination and setting a tone that has defined the American female political wardrobe ever since.Indeed, in the 2020 election cycle Kamala Harris, Tulsi Gabbard and Marianne Williamson stuck almost entirely to the clothing script, Ms. Harris in dark suits and Ms. Gabbard and Ms. Williamson in white. Since Ms. Harris became vice president, she has worn dark pantsuits almost entirely.But Ms. Haley wears the skirts. And not just any old skirts: knee-length skirts. The kind of skirts often referred to as “demure,” that suggest legs crossed at the ankle, and traditional gender roles. The irony is, in adopting this more classically female garment in this context, she looks both acceptably conservative and radical at the same time.Ms. Haley at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Annual Leadership summit in Las Vegas in October, in her trademark skirt and high heels.Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesAfter all, you’re not exactly fooling anyone in a pantsuit. So why not upend the status quo and wear something your rivals cannot?Besides, the pantsuit is in part a Democratic convention. Republican women have hewed more to the sheath dress-skirt suit tradition in presidential politics. When Sarah Palin was John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate in 2008, she wore skirts and skirt suits for most of her major public appearances, including her debate with Joe Biden. Ditto Elizabeth Dole in 2000 for her presidential run.Many Republican candidates seem to buy into the idea, expressed by Mr. Trump during his term in office, that the women who worked for him should “dress like women,” in the most clichéd sense. Though Ms. Haley’s interpretation of that idea is less Fox News presenter and more Thatcherite. (Ms. Haley did title her 2022 book on female leadership “If You Want Something Done.”)Still, clichés, generally shared, are also a subtle way for Ms. Haley to plant a seed in viewers’ minds without anyone necessarily being conscious of what is going on. “Her presentation adds to her credibility,” said Frank Luntz, a political communications strategist. “Her verbal strategy and her visual strategy are in sync.”Ms. Haley may have flip-flopped in her positions on Mr. Trump and his transgressions, especially the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, but she has always stuck to certain core principles, at least when it comes to her image: color, heels, skirt or dress (when not at the Iowa State Fair, where she we wore jeans). She grew up working in her mother’s clothing store in Bamberg, S.C. Her husband is a commissioned officer in the South Carolina Army National Guard, currently serving in Africa. She understands the impact of uniform.Ms. Haley at the Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia in June.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesOne of her favorite lines, first trotted out in 2012 when she was the governor of South Carolina, is about her shoe preference. “I wear high heels, and it’s not a fashion statement — it’s for ammunition,” she said back then, adding: “I’ve got a completely male Senate. Do I want to use these for kicking? Sometimes, I do.’’She recycled the line, with a few edits, when addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 2017: “I wear heels. It’s not for a fashion statement. It’s because if I see something wrong, we’re going to kick them every single time.”Then she made it the capstone of her February announcement video: “You should know this about me: I don’t put up with bullies, and when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.” And just last week, she discussed it on “The Daily Show” in reference to resurfaced rumors that Ron DeSantis wore lifts in his cowboy boots to make himself taller — an allegation the DeSantis campaign has denied but which his opponents, especially Mr. Trump, have somewhat gleefully embraced.When Charlamagne Tha God, a host of the show, asked if Ms. Haley would be wearing higher heels than Mr. DeSantis so she could be taller, Ms. Haley replied: “I’ve always said, ‘Don’t wear ’em if you can’t run in ’em,’ so we’ll see if he can run in ’em.”It’s probably not a coincidence that Tom Broecker, the costume designer for “House of Cards” (and “S.N. L.”) said he always dressed Robin Wright Penn’s character in pointed high heels when she was president.“She felt in control when she had them on,” Mr. Broecker said. “High heels make you walk, and stand, a certain way, as if you can go toe to toe with a person.”Given the cloud of suspicion hanging over Mr. DeSantis’s shoes, and what they may reveal about his insecurities, it’s not a bad time to have a facility with strategically wielded footwear. Like Hillary Clinton, who after years of pushing back against discussion around her clothes, finally started joking about it and thus neutralized it as an issue to be used again her, Ms. Haley has pre-emptively weaponized her wardrobe for herself. She owns the heels in this race, just as she owns the skirt.It may seem like a minor detail, but it is starting to become a telling one. More

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      Republican Fashion Watch: The Hottest Trend for 2024 Candidates

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      Ron DeSantis wears a “Ron DeSantis” shirt. Tim Scott sports a “Tim Scott” hat. Self-branding is all the rage for presidential candidates. To find out why, we asked Vanessa Friedman.Some politicians need no introduction. The rest are running for the Republican nomination for president.Ron DeSantis has the words “Ron DeSantis” plastered across the breast of his fishing-style shirts. On sunny days, Tim Scott wears a white baseball cap that says “Tim Scott.” Vivek Ramaswamy’s polo shirts read “Vivek,” and Doug Burgum and Asa Hutchinson wear hats and shirts with their names on them.Even Donald J. Trump — so recognizable that he didn’t need a mug shot after his first three indictments — wears the famous red hat emblazoned with his name, along with his Make America Great Again slogan.On the 2024 trail, nearly all of the Republican presidential candidates have turned themselves into human billboards for their campaigns. It’s a fashion choice that would be more typical for a state legislator, and it hasn’t been seen before on such a broad scale during a national campaign.Why are the candidates doing this? For the relative unknowns, it may be a necessity. For others, it may be yet another reflection of the trickle-down influence of Mr. Trump, the branding impresario leading the polls by a mile.To be sure, this batch of presidential candidates is hardly the first to don easily identifiable uniforms. Four years ago, Democratic primary candidates wore the same clothes all the time. You might vaguely remember Pete Buttigieg’s white shirt and blue tie, Elizabeth Warren’s black pants and cardigan or blazer, or Beto O’Rourke’s jeans and sweat-stained button-up shirt.To get a sense of what these Republican candidates are telling us with their stump-speech outfits, I checked in with Vanessa Friedman, the chief fashion critic at The New York Times. Our sartorial chat has been lightly edited.Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rourke each developed a signature look during the 2020 Democratic primary race — but that did not include garb emblazoned with their names.New York Times photographs by Tamir Kalifa, Ruth Fremson and Allison V. SmithReid Epstein: Hi, Vanessa. Why do you think these candidates feel it is necessary to wear shirts and hats with their names on them? If people come to see you when you’re running for president, shouldn’t you expect them to know who you are?Vanessa Friedman: They all understand that what they are selling at this point, more than any specific policy platform, is the brand that is them. Four years ago, the branding was slightly more abstract. Now, in our social-media-everything moment, it’s totally literal.They are using their clothes to frame themselves as relatable: You like a slogan tee? Me too! Especially when it is my slogan on the tee.Nikki Haley, along with Mr. Christie, has tended to shy from the trend. But like other Republicans, she sells branded merchandise.John Tully for The New York TimesReid: When Donald Trump ran for the first time, he made the red MAGA hats a ubiquitous best seller. Now his 2024 competitors are taking the self-branding a step further. Ron DeSantis hardly goes anywhere without a fishing shirt or vest that says “DeSantis for president.” At an ice cream shop in Iowa, even his 3-year-old daughter wore a T-shirt that said “DeSantis for president.” Don’t we know who DeSantis is by now?Mr. DeSantis often wears fishing shirts and vests with his name on them. His family has sometimes followed suit.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesVanessa: Everyone has to emoji-fy themselves. That is one of the legacies of Trump. He was doing it even before the hat — with the hair, the tan, the too-long ties — but at this point, the hat causes an almost Pavlovian reaction in anyone seeing it. It’s instant semiology, and that is worth its weight in votes. The rest of the Republicans have to distinguish themselves from the pack any way they can.I was struck by the fact that at the first Republican debate, every candidate except for Nikki Haley was in the Trump uniform of red tie, white shirt, blue suit — which made them all look like Mini-Me versions of the guy who wasn’t there. The DeSantis gear is probably an attempt to stand out. I don’t think it’s an accident that he has stuck his name on fishing shirts and fleece vests. Those are uniforms of two very specific constituencies.Whether it was telepathy or that they all called one another to coordinate beforehand, the male Republican candidates matched their wardrobes at the first debate.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesReid: Right, there are plenty of Republican men who spend a lot of time fishing and doing whatever people do in fleece vests. I must admit here that I do not own any fleece vests.It must make it harder for DeSantis to stand out by wearing his name on his shirt when everyone else is doing it, too. That may be a metaphor for his larger problem in taking on Trump in a crowded Republican field.Vanessa: You know who famously wears fleece vests? The Sun Valley crowd. Many of whom fled to … Florida during Covid. Many of whom DeSantis wants to woo for their deep pockets and connections. All of these clothes are attempts at camouflage, ways to communicate subconsciously to specific groups that you share their values because you share their outfits. It sounds silly, but it’s true.The risk in doing so, I think, is that you look inauthentic — that you are literally trying something on. John Fetterman is fine in his Carhartt and Dickies because they are clearly his clothes. But imagine Mike Pence? It would be ridiculous.Reid: OK, let’s talk about Mike Pence.Vanessa: And the leather biker vest?Reid: At the Iowa State Fair, he wore a blue-and-white striped shirt. No name! But on an earlier trip to Iowa for Senator Joni Ernst’s motorcycle-ride fund-raiser, he wore a leather vest with too many patches to count. Including one with his name on it.Mike Pence showed off his biker bona fides at a fund-raiser hosted by Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesVanessa: It was the most incongruous garment-person combination I have seen in this campaign — though a photograph of Mike Pence riding with the Hell’s Angels might do interesting things for his image. To me, the Pence signature is the perfect head of immovable white hair. Also, if we don’t know his name by now, he has a bigger problem.Which brings me to … Vivek! What do you think of his branding?Reid: Nobody in this campaign has tried to copy the Trump model more than Vivek. He’s got signature hats — they say TRUTH, rather than MAGA — and wears shirts that say “VIVEK 2024.” It fits with his broader attempt to cast himself as a millennial Trump.His branding uses his first name, Vivek, which is easier for people to spell (if not to pronounce — it rhymes with “cake”) than his last name, Ramaswamy.Mr. Ramaswamy has often pitched himself as a millennial version of Mr. Trump. Sophie Park for The New York TimesVanessa: Definitely. Also, he has made good use of the “V” in terms of design, which is pretty catchy (even if I am partisan when it comes to Vs). It reminds me a bit of Andrew Yang’s “Yang Gang,” the same way Vivek’s “TRUTH” reminds me of Yang’s “MATH.” And it’s effective. Whatever happens to him in this primary, people are going to remember the symbols.Interestingly, the one candidate who refuses to play this game, as far as I can tell, is Chris Christie.Reid: I’m not sure that Christie has changed his wardrobe much over the years. He still wears shirts with his initials — C.J.C. — monogrammed over the chest pocket and on his cuffs. In my conversations with Christie before he entered the race, he was very proud of the idea that he was better known than anyone in the field except Trump.Vanessa: Christie is indeed recognizable because of his reputation, and his slightly rumpled self (“I’m a real person, not a media-trained bot!”). Also, his campaign website doesn’t sell any merch, which is interesting. He doesn’t have any “Christie 2024” shirts close at hand.Mr. Christie prefers subtly monogrammed shirts. Sophie Park for The New York TimesReid: The lesser-known candidates have a lot more work to do in introducing themselves to voters. Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas have been doubling up — wearing both a hat and a polo shirt with their names on them. Outside the Iowa State Fair, Burgum, who is very rich, had his campaign handing out free T-shirts that said “Who is Doug?”Vanessa: Yes, he’s making a joke about his anonymity, which is a good idea. Humor is always a boon in politics, though I am not sure it’s going to be enough, in this case.Reid: Also, Doug is a fun name to say. Doug!Asa Hutchinson has doubled down on his self-branding.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesSo has Doug Burgum, who like Mr. Hutchinson trails far behind in the polls.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesVanessa: Remember … Jeb!?Reid: We should talk about Trump.Vanessa: One of the problems with the name merch is that it all seems a little flimflam. A little cheaply made (even though it is all Made in the U.S.A., according to the candidates’ online stores).Reid: Trump’s look remains enduring and, like so much of his political enterprise, just about impossible for anyone else to pull off. The power ties, the hats that declare him both the 45th president (true) and the 47th president (false … for now). The man who slapped his name on buildings around the world seems to be above putting it on his own shirt.Vanessa: He’s just doubling down on his look. Everyone made fun of it, but he got the last laugh, because, whether we like it or not, no one can forget it.Mr. Trump’s face is everywhere at Republican events, including on merchandise not sold by his campaign.Rachel Mummey for The New York Times More

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      Plus-Size Female Shoppers ‘Deserve Better’

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      More from our inbox:Why Trump’s Supporters Love HimChatGPT Is PlagiarismThe Impact of China’s Economic WoesThe ‘Value’ of CollegeKim SaltTo the Editor:Re “Just Make It, Toots,” by Elizabeth Endicott (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 20):Despite the fact that two-thirds of American women are size 14 or above, brands and retailers continue to overlook and disregard plus-size women whose dollars are as green as those held by “straight size” women.The root cause is simple, and it’s not that it’s more expensive or time-consuming; these excuses have been bandied about for years. There are not enough clothes available to plus-size women because brands and retailers assume that larger women will just accept whatever they’re given, since they have in the past.As Ms. Endicott pointed out in her essay, this is no longer the case — women are finding other ways to express themselves through clothing that fits their bodies, their styles and their budgets, from making clothes themselves to shopping at independent designers and boutiques.We still have a long way to go, but for every major retailer that dips a toe into the market and just as quickly pulls back, there are new designers and stores willing to step in and take their place.Plus-size women deserve more and deserve better. Those who won’t cater to them do so at their own peril.Shanna GoldstoneNew YorkThe writer is the founder and C.E.O. of Pari Passu, an apparel company that sells clothing to women sizes 12 to 24.To the Editor:Plus-size people aren’t the only folks whose clothing doesn’t fit. I wore a size 10 for decades, but most clothes wouldn’t fit my wide well-muscled shoulders. Apparently being really fit is just as bad as being a plus size.I wasn’t alone; most of my co-workers had similar problems. Don’t even get me started about having a short back and a deep pelvis. I found only one brand of pants that came close to fitting and have worn them for almost 40 years. They definitely are not a fashion statement.Eloise TwiningUkiah, Calif.To the Editor:Thank you, Elizabeth Endicott, for revealing the ways that historically marginalized consumers grapple with retail trends. You recognized that “plus size is now the American average.”As someone who works for a company that sells clothing outside of the traditional gender binary, I’d add that gender neutral clothing will also soon be an American retail norm. It’s now up to large-scale retailers to decide if they want to meet this wave of demand, or miss out on contemporary consumers.Ashlie GrilzProvidence, R.I.The writer is brand director for Peau De Loup.Why Trump’s Supporters Love HimSam Whitney/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Thing Is, Most Republicans Really Like Trump,” by Kristen Soltis Anderson (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 30):Ms. Anderson writes that one of the most salient reasons that Republican voters favor Donald Trump as their presidential nominee is that they believe he is “best poised” to beat Joe Biden. I do not concur.His likability is not based primarily on his perceived electability. Nor is his core appeal found in policy issues such as budget deficits, import tariffs or corporate tax relief. It won’t even be found in his consequential appointments to the Supreme Court.Politics is primarily visceral, not cerebral. When Mr. Trump denounces the elites that he claims are hounding him with political prosecutions, his followers concur and channel their own grievances and resentments with his.When Mr. Trump rages against the professional political class and “fake news,” his acolytes applaud because they themselves feel ignored and disrespected.Mr. Trump is more than an entertaining self-promoter. He offers oxygen for self-esteem, and his supporters love him for it.John R. LeopoldStoney Beach, Md.ChatGPT Is Plagiarism“I do want students to learn to use it,” Yazmin Bahena, a middle school social studies teacher, said about ChatGPT. “They are going to grow up in a world where this is the norm.”Ricardo Nagaoka for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Schools Shift to Embrace ChatGPT,” by Natasha Singer (news article, Aug. 26):What gets lost in this discussion is that these schools are authorizing a form of academic plagiarism and outright theft of the texts authors have created. This is why over 8,000 authors have signed a petition to the A.I. companies that have “scraped” (the euphemistic term they use for “stolen”) their intellectual properties and repackaged them as their own property to be sold for profit. In the process, the A.I. chatbots are depriving authors of the fruits of their labor.What a lesson to teach our nation’s children. This is the very definition of theft. Schools that accept this are contributing to the ethical breakdown of a nation already deeply challenged by a culture of cheating.Dennis M. ClausenEscondido, Calif.The writer is an author and professor at the University of San Diego.The Impact of China’s Economic WoesThe Port of Oakland in California. China only accounted for 7.5 percent of U.S. exports in 2022.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “China’s Woes Are Unlikely to Hamper U.S. Growth” (Business, Aug. 28):Lydia DePillis engages in wishful thinking in arguing that the fallout of China’s deep economic troubles for the U.S. economy probably will be limited.China is the world’s second-largest economy, until recently the main engine of world economic growth and a major consumer of internationally traded commodities. As such, a major Chinese economic setback would cast a dark cloud over the world economic recovery.While Ms. DePillis is correct in asserting that China’s direct impact on our economy might be limited, its indirect impact could be large, particularly if it precipitates a world economic recession.China’s economic woes could spill over to its Asian trade partners and to economies like Germany, Australia and the commodity-dependent emerging market economies, which all are heavily dependent on the Chinese market for their exports.Desmond LachmanWashingtonThe writer is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.The ‘Value’ of CollegeSarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group — Los Angeles Daily News, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Let’s Stop Pretending College Degrees Don’t Matter,” by Ben Wildavsky (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 26):There are quite a few things wrong with Mr. Wildavsky’s assessment of the value of a college education. But I’ll focus on the most obvious: Like so many pundits, he equates value with money, pointing out that those with college degrees earn more than those without.Some do, some don’t. I have a Ph.D. from an Ivy League university, but the electrician who dealt with a very minor problem in my apartment earns considerably more than I do. So, for that matter, does the plumber.What about satisfaction, taking pleasure in one’s accomplishments? Do we really think that the coder takes more pride in their work than does the construction worker who told me he likes to drive around the city with his children and point out the buildings he helped build? He didn’t need a college degree to find his work meaningful.How about organizing programs that prepare high school students for work, perhaps through apprenticeships, and paying all workers what their efforts are worth?Erika RosenfeldNew York More

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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