"She was dressed in black cropped pants and blazer. She was toting a very large white handbag and later was wearing a matching face mask with tiny metallic stars.... and White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany... was in a closefitting double-breasted blazer with gold metallic buttons and skinny trousers. She was perched atop a pair of stiletto pumps — a style of footwear that this White House, all on its own, may be keeping in circulation."
From
Robin Givhan's fashion-and-politics account of Trump's Bible-laden procession to St. John's Episcopal Church.
It wasn't a terribly far walk...
... but I was struck that the women had to — or chose to — wear stilettos. It made me think of those
traditions of crawling to church — deliberately taking on pain and suffering as you make your way to the sacred destination. There are similarities and differences...
The look is not meant to say
I am suffering. The idea is to walk fluidly alongside the men as if it's completely natural and perfectly comfortable. There's no visible expression of humility or sacrifice. If anything, the expression is of
pride in the prettiness, the extra height, and the complete hiding of any difficulty.
So, it's a bit like
a hair shirt, which is a hidden item of clothing that inflicts suffering and is worn as penitence. And yet the stilettos are not worn in secret. They are quite conspicuous and that is the point. And the suffering is merely endured, not undertaken for a higher purpose.
Have stilettos gone out of fashion? Robin Givhan — whose work requires her to keep up with fashion — calls them a "style of footwear that this White House, all on its own, may be keeping in circulation." That has to mean they are passé. Maybe it's like the way right-wing women in the 1960s continued to wear teased, sprayed bouffant hairdos long after other women had moved on to what was called "the natural look."
पोस्ट्स
