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    Trump and Harris Have One Thing in Common: Power Shoulders

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    This is an installment of Visual Studies, a series that explores how images move through and shape culture.In terms of personality and policy, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are starkly contrasting figures. Yet they’ve often had one thing in common: a silhouette that features powerfully padded shoulders.For 150 years, the size of a suit jacket’s shoulder pad — which exists today as a small, simple, triangular shaped piece of material stuffed with wadding — has fluctuated in response to fashion trends. But in this year’s election, the power shoulder has become a potent, multifaceted symbol.The complex history of the power shoulder means it can convey confidence, power and authority. But it can also conjure swagger, playful subversion and an outsider’s defiance of an established order. For both candidates, this strong silhouette offers the opportunity to shape a defining image: for Mr. Trump, as a billionaire who positions himself as anti-establishment; for Ms. Harris, as a formidable figure who more than belongs in a realm once reserved for men.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why the Olympics’ Parade of Nations Is the World’s Costume Party

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      When the athletes march in — or float in, as they will in Paris on Friday — you can enjoy the illusion that it’s a small world after all.Welcome back to the Olympics, and a five-ringed circus of sport and security, national pride and international sponsorship.This summer’s Games begin in Paris this Friday, with an uncommon opening ceremony: athletes and acrobats floating along the Seine for as many spectators as the antiterror police will allow. “No other country would have tried this,” crowed President Emmanuel Macron in an interview this week, though the ministers by his side will be from a caretaker government. France is still processing its recent snap legislative election, which nearly brought the far right to power. The ceremony will be all about France’s openness to the world. Not all the local spectators will approve of the message.A rendering of the opening ceremony of the Paris Games. Participants will sail upriver to the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadéro: two landmarks of the capital that were built for 19th-century World’s Fairs.Florian Hulleu/Paris 2024, Agence France-Presse, via Getty ImagesA big modern show, then, after the Covid-shocked, zero-spectator Summer Games in Tokyo. But for all its contemporary soft power — the “Emily in Paris” tie-in, the medals displayed in Louis Vuitton trunks — these Paris Olympics will also be a throwback.The modern Games are a French invention, after all: a projection of Panhellenic manhood onto contemporary Europe by a romantic educator and “fanatical colonialist” (as Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Games, called himself). The opening ceremony, especially, plunges the world’s athletes into the nationalist structures of the late 19th century. The flag-waving of the Olympics, the it’s-a-small-world amusements of the universal exhibition, or the repellent human zoos at colonial fairs: there have been many ways to bring the whole world to Paris.This year’s parade of nations will be on the water. Teams will process through the city center on nearly 100 boats before arriving at the Trocadéro.Florian Hulleu/Paris 2024, Agence France-Presse, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cries of Sexism Greet a Nike Olympic Reveal

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      The sporting giant offered a sneak peek at its track and field outfits for Team U.S.A., and an unexpected backlash ensued.Ever since the Norwegian women’s beach handball team made it known that they were required to wear teeny-tiny bikini bottoms for competition into a cause célèbre, a quiet revolution has been brewing throughout women’s sports. It’s one that questions received conventions about what female athletes do — or don’t — have to wear to perform at their very best.It has touched women’s soccer (why white shorts?), gymnastics (why not a unitard rather than a leotard?), field hockey (why a low-cut tank top?) and many more, including running.So it probably should not have come as a shock to Nike that when it offered a sneak peek of the Team U.S.A. track and field unies during a Nike Air event in Paris celebrating its Air technology on Thursday (which also included looks for other Olympic athletes, like Kenya’s track and field team, France’s basketball team and Korea’s break dancing delegation), they were met with some less-than-enthusiastic reactions.See, the two uniforms Nike chose to single out on the mannequins included a men’s compression tank top and mid-thigh-length compression shorts and a woman’s bodysuit, cut notably high on the hip. It looked sort of like a sporty version of a 1980s workout leotard. As it was displayed, the bodysuit seemed as if it would demand some complicated intimate grooming.Citius Mag, which focuses on running news, posted a photo of the uniforms on Instagram, and many of its followers were not amused.“What man designed the woman’s cut?” wrote one.“I hope U.S.A.T.F. is paying for the bikini waxes,” wrote another. So went most of the more than 1,900 comments.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More