Photo by Max Letek
I write this blog admitting that I have never written about women’s fashion at any point in my life. Notice I am fearing backlash. Our country is still like an open wound after the Insurrection, and I just read about the furor over what Kamala Harris was wearing that appeared on the print version of Vogue and the Digital Version. I gather that she approved the digital version but controversy is swirling over whether she approved the cover for the print version. Women pounced on what they saw. The only salvific notion was that a black person was the photographer.
I have no fashion sense. Since I am a clergy person, I wear black shirts and sometimes dark suits. I was approached by a fashionable EA parent who informed me a few years ago that, “This is your year, Jim! Black is in!” When people admire what I am wearing, I comment on the long period of time it took me to pick it out! They know that I am kidding! I usually put on the first thing I see in the closet.
From what I could gather from the article, the controversy is over the print version where Ms. Harris is wearing a black jacket, perhaps leather, white blouse, black slack and sneakers. The digital version pictures her in a light blue blazer, a white blouse, and blue slacks. I learned that Vogue is the fashion Bible. I couldn’t believe the conflicting points of women’s responses. One woman indicated that “she looked like she forgot to do her homework” in the print version. The article stated that Michelle Obama appeared on the cover, and all was fine.
Clearly the tension rests on the Vice President Elect’s handlers who let the offending picture get by them.
But here is the point! I didn’t see Joe Biden on the cover of GQ. Who thought that this was a good idea? Focus on what she has done. Don’t focus on her attire! This has gender issue written all over it! Kamala Harris is a savvy lady.
Quite frankly I never knew that there was so much to learn about what constitutes good fashion. It reminds me of being at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York city. What is art to some look like sticks thrown in a corner to me.
I am tempted to mention the importance of the “eye of the beholder” in ethics where what counts is not what you say that is important as much as how a person receives it. I would bet that The Vice President Elect is OK with it. She is the embodiment of grit and toughness.
Forgive this post, but I needed some levity in a week that has been so heavy. I will remind all the folks who are commenting on Kamala Harris’ attire to remember the biblical phrase to, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” (Matthew 6:28-29)
That has always been good enough for me!
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