Fall’s Biggest Fashion Trend is Politics
August 31, 2011
by Lara Brown PhD
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This September, the question is not what’s in Vogue, but who’s in Vogue – and Elle and Glamour. The answer: powerful female politicians and activists talking policy from all across the ideological spectrum.
Vogue interviewed Christine Lagarde, the recently appointed managing director of the International Monetary Fund. Although the profile centered on her “oatmeal-hued suit,” “bandbox-neat” appearance, and overall “elegance,” it also discussed her “classically liberal” leanings towards Adam Smith’s economic thought, meaning her preferences for “free trade and minimal government intervention, positions usually associated with conservatism.” Further, it quoted her saying, “Joseph Stiglitz endorsed me. [Paul] Krugman did not.” Smith, Stiglitz, and Krugman – names that I never thought I’d see in Vogue.
Glamour went to Africa to interview Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who was talking up her entrepreneur program for women, which helps “small-business owners take their brands international.” While still focusing on her “wheat-blond hair” and “kitten heels,” the profile hones in on Clinton’s life-long dedication to promoting the advancement of women and girls. It mentions her 1995 “game-changing speech” in Beijing, her “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” presidential campaign, and the professional risks she hopes young women will take as they put together their careers (“Try it! Put your foot in the pond and see if you want to swim.”).
Women's Right (ELLE): (From left) Firearms advocate and hunter Regis Giles; conservative commentator S.E. Cupp; pollster Kellyanne Conway poses for the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute’s 2009 calendar, “Pretty in Mink”; attendees of the Conservative Political Action Conference pick up Sarah Palin posters; presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann and South Dakota Congresswoman Kristi Noem address the CPAC crowd.
Perhaps, soon Bazaar will catch on to this trend and decide that having Lady Gaga interview Debbie Harry about being blond is not cutting-edge journalism – talking to a woman who helps manage the world’s economy, a woman who raises the issue of “gendercide” in China and rape in Africa, and a woman who says that she wants to “see more headlines stating ‘Girl kills attacker with gun’ than ‘Girl found dead after being raped and choked to death” are all much more “edgy.”
Although none of these fashion profiles challenge the women they interview, they do highlight varied points of view and show women in positions of power, making a difference in politics. Hopefully, they will also encourage more women to take note of both female political leaders and politics more generally. Just last week, Lagarde offered her economic prescriptions for a global recovery in Jackson Hole, Wyoming; Clinton dressed down Syria; and the young conservative women profiled by Elle became incensed that the magazine referred to them as “Baby Palins.”
It’s a brave new world, and women are changing it.
The thing is to me “women’s content” is content women will actually pay to consume. I don’t know any women who actually read any of these magazines. I don’t even see them in Dr or Orthodontist offices or Emergency rooms. I see some of them when I go to get my hair cut but most women are actually reading the outrageous gossip mags or Oprah or Martha Stewart sometime Self or the newspaper. Vogue, Elle, Glamor etc are 80 years behind the times. They are advertising venues. Yes this is a baby step in the right direction but they still exist to sell women the idea they should always obsess about how they look and always strive to an impossible and unhealthy “norm”. I find the way they take women and stuff them into the narrow confines of extreme fashion and then photograph them offensive. It says more about the photographer than the woman being photographed. If these magazines are making any effort to modernize it is because they aren’t selling, and if they aren’t selling to women they aren’t women’s content in my book.
Love it Lara. It’s the closest we get to being hip – I’ll take it!
I think it is a myth that these magazines have much cultural influence and it is also a myth that they reflect our culture. Same with MTV which is something like the 45th most popular channel. There are more than 150 million women in this country, the vast majority of them don’t engage with MTV or these magazines. What is relevant to our culture is the things most or many of these 150 million+ women do engage in and care about. I don’t think these advertising venues can be looked to to lead women or girls to their most productive future, As soon as the media delivery monopoly is broken (that will be soon with internet TV) new women’s media institutions which are relevant to women, not the men who want to advertise to women, will develop. Corporate Media is still at the stage where they are more concerned that “women’s media” not offend men than that it attracts and entertains women. And so far Corporate Media has the delivery monopoly to keep fresh ideas out of the market so they are still to some extent the only game in town.
Thank you Lara. Well done!
Gives one hope that things are indeed changing.
Nancy
Excellent. I loved fashion when I was in my 20s and could often be seen on the subway with a freshly bought Elle or Vogue. If fashion highlight powerful and inspiring political women I’m all for that! We want young women to be able to identify with political and powerful women and if fashion magazines portray this as “trendy” I say this is success!
Great article! I thoroughly enjoyed this one as a feel good moment of the day
I agree Lara wrote an important article, it’s good to know what content the Media Cartel is aiming at women but things will change when young women write and edit their own magazines and they are perfectly capable of doing that. If change is left to the Media Corporations and men who run them, young women will be on the 100 year plan for having relevant media. Young women can’t afford the fashion in these mags and it also doesn’t fit normal female bodies. Studies have shown young women feel worse after reading “women’s content” magazines. Young women deserve immediate change, not glacial change. They deserve to have a voice and control of their own media.
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