I preface the following with the thought that I spent half of my life in the fashion business. Therefore, if only by rubbing elbows with formal occasion outfitting for 12 years, I submit the following:
Cindy McCain is wearing the proper hemline for a mature woman in a business or professional setting. Palin's skirt should be about two inches longer -- that is covering her knees.
The teenage Palin girls can get away with the skirt above the knee look -- Mom might have chosen it for effect. Again (please take my background into account) the first thing I noticed was that Governor Palin's skirt was too short. This look is more appropriate for a business after-five look than for a formal conservative political occasion.
(Photos courtesy of Daniella Zalcman on Flickr)
I MUST add that I think she is a beautiful woman, and probably looks good in JUST about anything she puts on for every occasion. What made me think twice about all this, well OK more than twice, is that there were many "sex laden" campaign buttons sported by the convention crowd. For example, a large red, white and blue button reading, "Indianapolis Supports Hot Chicks" worn by an octogenarian. Although I am loathe to admit it, I believe that there was some portion of the electorate inspired by the spicing up the Republican ticket with Sarah Palin.
So, will the use of sex and celebrity serve to sell a bid and close the deal for the Presidency of the United States of America? Will we lower the bar for the Vice President to include the willful objectification of a woman just to win the White House? Will womankind be diminished in the process if (God willing) she fails to garner on behalf of the Republicans, the office of Vice Presidency? Will she be blamed if John McCain is passed over for President?
My husband found the following video, which he has generously shared with me. I am being judgmental, and I REALLY do not like snarky, bitter women or seeing that trait within myself. I will just say that even in my 20's, when I was about this thin, I would never have allowed this photograph to be taken:
So, I had been to quick to judge when I said that I would prefer the Vice President of the United States to have had more modesty and sense of decorum than to pose for the photo above. I am feeling pretty bad about myself for judging her -- I thought I had moved beyond this level of pettiness. Yet, we have been encouraged on most levels to assess Sarah Palin, the female, the soccer mom, the hunter, the goddess. We need to STOP THE MADNESS!!!
There is a bigger issue at stake for the American publis in that photos and bad information will continue to surface. As Haggismold suggested in the comments below, there is something wrong that we have to even question a person's sexuality with regard to the important office of Vice President of the US.
I like to dream that we are reaching a tipping point with regard to these elections. I believe thoughtful Americans want election coverage to be about issues and policy platform. We should not need to know ALL about the candidate's story-line for good reason.
The scope and breadth of an experienced candidate's life is too complex to be dissected into soundbites. In effort to provide for a simple, clean understanding of their entirety, the politicos and MSM turned to myth and narrative to make it easy for the public to judge which person appealed most to their values.
We are expected at this point in our electoral history to make an objective assessment of a candidate's suitability to run a mega-power based on hugely subjective criteria. This needs to end -- we have experienced at least eight years of the result of campaign marketing to voters solely of the narrative of the candidate.
This is so simple, but infinitely true: We need to refocus on the issues!!
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Michael Rodgers
Lea Lane
Dennis Loo
E Alvers
Kind of Blue
Rev. Dr. Monte Canfield
Salon.com
Comments
This is the conundrum of women everywhere. I think that if you make it fair game in your favor, you should be prepared for the fact that it will be fair game to use it against you. If you want to be a professional woman, taken seriously by your peers, you need to put yourself forth without using sex as a tool. Inasmuch as you do use it as a tool, you need to expect it will cut both ways.
Women who are too sexy in professional environments, who cross the line, do suffer reprecussions for it. For Palin to want her cake and eat it too is what is disingenuous here. She wants to have her supporters call her "the hot chick" on the ticket, but wants to have her detractors not call her out for posing for half naked pictures or calling her a "beauty queen."
I may have more thoughts on this later, but I have to go....
nicely put! especially since you can put 'man' in there too.
Her look is going to be heavily scrutinized whatever is chosen. With the exception of the $300,000 outfit with the lime green dress, I thought Cindy McCain was fashionably well-dressed each and every appearance. Laura Bush always looks tailored and conservative -- pretty consistent there as well.
I guess because of my age, and I assume her handlers know this as well, sending Sarah Palin out for her opening speech in that particular jacket and skirt might be viewed (by those inclined to such) as an odd choice. The back of the jacket was cut like a Country and Western jacket (less the fringe), with a V yoke across the back shoulders. It was made up of a nubby, "pebbly" looking fabric that could have passed for a berber carpet pattern.
The skirt length had to have been chosen purposefully. The suit would have looked OK with two inches more length on the skirt.
They choose a leggie look, IMHO, on purpose. She looked approachable, maybe they wanted her to look a little casual for the occasion as well.
Palin looked fantastic in a regular well-cut woman's suit on the day of her announcement, however. All up, her outfits should not be of any importance whatsoever.
Like everything else about her bizarrely short existence in the limelight of candidacy, her look had to have been planned.
Final observation: As if to replace the "gray styrofoam columns" Palin denounced seeing on Obama's convention stage, apparently, the Palin women and men all dressed in grey on the last night. Were they meant to be some subliminal substitution for conservative tradition? If not, why grey -- such a drab color...!!
OK, enough, I have given myself a headache.
;-)
There isn't a hard and fast rule for hemlines if you have a good style sense. I am small and look better with skirts just above the knee. Sometimes I go with a shorter hemline, but then ususally with some cool Woolford hosiery, or black tights and knee high black boots - and the shorter the skirt, the less fitted it is. There are many ways to play with skirt length and not make it THE issue. Sarah Palin appears to be either bare legged or is wearing nude-colored hose. Bare-legged is totally in appropriate for an event like this, I'm assuming even women out in the boonies of Alaska know this, so let's assume nude-colored hose -that choice emphasized her skirt length. Had she gone with taupe, it would have looked fine. I found the skirt surprisingly fitted for this occasion. While women may not intend to provoke sexy thoughts when donning a fitted skirt, you have to recognize that clothing that hugs your form will draw eyes to your form, and decide if that's really where you want the attention. If not, choose something looser.
For myself, I am just glad we won't have to look at or speak of John McCain or Sarah Palin ever again after the first week of November.
I wish I could go to Rancho Laurena and curl up with the Kiltlifter til then...
On an issue brought up by Liz and others, I was thinking the other day about Dan Quayle... I'll just quote this NYTimes opinion in full:
If George Bush wanted Dan Quayle on his ticket partly to close the gender gap, the choice has already produced one advance for women. The Indiana Senator has become the first male politician to be widely described as a blue-eyed blond. ''Anyone that handsome is bound to appeal to women,'' was the theme when Mr. Quayle was named. Yet it is men, not women, who are more plausibly accused of valuing looks above all in the opposite sex. Talk of Mr. Quayle's looks and the female vote faded as it became clear that women voters might likelier dwell on his record as a hawk or his opposition to abortion. But on the streets and in the media, the assessment of Mr. Quayle's looks continued. Does he really resemble Robert Redford (who says he will vote for Michael Dukakis)? Or is it the young Mickey Rooney? Then The Wall Street Journal ran an Op-Ed piece by Kenneth Adelman, formerly of the Reagan Administration, praising Mr. Quayle's substance. ''Dan Quayle: Not Just a Pretty Face,'' read the headline. And one more step out of the old stereotypes seemed complete.
So the strange and difficult issue is this: Quayle was widely perceived as a lightweight, a pretty face brought in to spice up the Republican ticket, or so I remember. Palin's being brought in for largely the same reason (though the appeal to evangelicals can't be dismissed). If Democrats were to raise the same objections to Palin as they did to Quayle, it would be perceived as a sexist attack. Are good looks in general just off-limits? That seems to be an odd sort of restriction (and it would have put Fox commentators who just loved Fred Thompson and his manliness in a bind) but I don't think it's an unreasonable one.
I really hate to focus on this, as I am certainly not a fashionista. I could not help but notice the length of Palin's skirt after years and years of checking hemlines for my customers.
Now we have the right trying to turn the sexist argument, that went largely ignored during the primary, onto the DEMS and the "liberal media". Give me a break!
I do what I can do to understand how and why this stuff still happens. I just wish it would STOP!!!! :(
Women are not so bad as a group -- can't we just all get along!!!
I hope that isn't what I am saying, but I agree with you that the better looking ANY candidate, the more under scrutiny they become. Think Dan Quayle, but also John Edwards -- the Breck Girl. What would have happened if Evan Bayh came on board? He is handsome, but maybe not overly so?
Again, it all goes to our perception of "sex and celebrity". I am sick to death of it.
By the way, Palin was just outed on CNN for NOT selling the jet on Ebay. She put it on Ebay and it didn't sell. Then she was forced to sell it in a private sale, at a loss, although apparently the previous governor overpaid for it. Just lie after lie, half-truths in every sentence...I am so tired of it all!
How to dress: the old British ladies told us , long ,long ago, that your outfit should be tailored in a very conservative way but you should not be afraid to use bold colors to gain attention. Look at lady Thatcher or Cindy McCain for that matter.
The other issue: man still look at women as sexual objects. It is not fair but, that is their weakness as well, they look at the pretty face and forget to analyze the message transmitted.
It can work, but making it campaign material for a potential US president represents an offense to all women that respect themselves.