How Kamala Harris makes power dressing modern

Dress for the job you want, the adage goes, but does Kamala Harris dress like a president? In one sense, yes, because they’ve all favoured suits, and so does Harris. But also, no, because there isn’t a precedent for what a female president of the US wears.

Politics and popular culture have created expectations of how female leaders dress. On the world stage we’ve had Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel and Ursula von der Leyen, and we’ve watched TV politicians such as Veep’s Selina Meyer, House of Cards’ Claire Underwood and even an episode of The Simpsons in 2000 with Lisa Simpson as the first female president in a mauve suit and pearls that uncannily presages Harris’s outfit for the 2021 inauguration. And then there’s power-adjacent first ladies, from Nancy Reagan to Michelle Obama.

But Harris will still have to carve her own path. Like Hillary Clinton, who was also up against Donald Trump in a close race for the presidency in 2016, she has created a formula. Clinton has said she opted for trouser suits because “a uniform was also an anti-distraction technique: since there wasn’t much to say or report on what I wore, maybe people would focus on what I was saying instead” — although eventually her pantsuits in rainbow colours became such a repetitive trope that she would joke about it, calling herself a “pantsuit aficionado” in her Twitter bio.

Harris is probably using a similarly pragmatic trick. The VP has forged a signature modern power-dressing look based around suits in a mix of corporate colours such as black, navy and grey, and more unusual, fashion-literate shades of coffee, aubergine, royal purple, rose pink and caramel. The trousers are slightly flared, making her appear taller than she is. She pairs her suits with silk tops or blouses with a pussy bow or other interesting neckline, and accessories include heeled courts, some by Manolo Blahnik, a gold and diamond US flag pin by jeweller David Yurman, and gold and pearl jewellery, notably from Tiffany and Irene Neuwirth.

And now Harris’s aesthetic has been captured for October’s digital cover of US Vogue. In the Annie Leibovitz portrait, she wears her own dark brown Gabriela Hearst suit with a plum-coloured silk blouse, her Tiffany pearl earrings and a flag pin. She’s dialled up the sophistication since wearing skinny black trousers and Converse for her first US Vogue cover in 2021, which was interpreted as too casual and familiar. Sometimes Harris dresses down for practicality, teaming a jacket with dark-wash jeans and loafers, but her emphasis now seems to be on looking presidential rather than relatable.

Harris is said to be working with stylist Leslie Fremar, who styles Charlize Theron, but as the race ramps up she has finessed her formula rather than opt for a radical makeover. Brooke Bobb, fashion news director for American Harper’s Bazaar, says of her look since accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in August: “I don’t think it has changed at all, which is the strength of her style. She is who she is and she knows what she likes. There’s real power in that, especially for a woman in politics.”

It’s a clever take on power dressing because it combines the authority and stability of a suit with a touch of femininity. The opposite of the “weird” toxic masculinity coming off Donald Trump.

Trump’s distinctive look increasingly resembles a pavement-art version of himself. There’s the too-long, too-wide tie, which looks as if it might be attached with a piece of elastic; the tartrazine tan; the candyfloss hair; the Tony Soprano-style sloppy suits and Maga hat. Harris, by contrast, looks polished and professional. If she wins, she could be one of the best-dressed presidents of the 21st century.

Her pussy-bow blouses, which help soften a suit and frame the face, have attracted plenty of interest recently. Margaret Thatcher famously wore them, often with an elaborate Christmas-present-like bow, while Harris tends to favour a more streamlined loop. Harper’s Bobb observes that “Kamala Harris’s pussy-bow blouses are always loosely tied, as if to say that she’s approachable and unstuffy — a fresh candidate to lead us into the future without any conservative strongholds.” Thatcher groupie Liz Truss, UK prime minister for 49 days in 2022, also favoured the style, as have British royals from Diana, Princess of Wales, to the Duchess of Cambridge. Regal and presidential aren’t so far apart.

But the lavallière blouse, as it’s also known, has been interpreted as symbolic, too. Melania Trump chose a Barbie-pink Gucci version shortly after her husband’s boast that he could “grab [women] by the pussy”, and it’s been questioned whether Harris is seeking to underline Trump’s lack of respect for women’s rights by wearing them.

Reading meaning into clothing is a spectator sport in Washington, and Harris’s choice of a camel-coloured Chloé suit for the Democratic National Convention in August was also interpreted by some as loaded. Back in 2014, Barack Obama caused a minor sartorial controversy when he wore a light brown suit instead of a customary dark one for a press conference about Syria, and reactions included Republican Peter King calling it “unpresidential” for a serious occasion.

Was Harris playing with people’s perceptions of how she should dress? Or living up to the viral tweet from millennial singer Charli XCX that she is “brat” — a bit rebellious, with some swagger. Or perhaps just flexing fashion muscle in a Chloé grain de poudre wool suit with flared trousers that exudes ’70s-inflected quiet-luxury panache.

Choosing Chloé, a heritage house having a renaissance thanks to cool new female designer Chemena Kamali, also suggests modernity, and being in tune with the zeitgeist. As well as several Chloé suits and blouses, Harris has worn a super-chic bespoke Chloe evening dress in forest green with a cape back.

She’s worn American brands too, including African-American designers Christopher John Rogers, Sergio Hudson and LaQuan Smith, but Bobb believes that “she would do well to support American designers more frequently, as it is a powerful show of support for an industry and the people in it who have a huge impact on our economy.”

Whether European or American, it’s clear Harris likes her luxury labels. There’s no comparison between her slick wardrobe and the more mid-range suits favoured by the British government (though she’s not so hampered by British squeamishness about being seen as flashy). It’s like a Hollywood wardrobe department vs a school play. And then there’s the bling, much of which is American-designed. A similar but much shorter version of her two-strand Irene Neuwirth pearl-and-gold necklace is on the designer’s website for £14,517 and she has recently been wearing a chunky gold Tiffany chain necklace.

Despite the occasional Converse trainers, Harris isn’t really signalling everywoman with her wardrobe. And a recent interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast hinted why this could be. Asked about Arkansas governor and Republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s comment that, without biological children, Harris doesn’t have anything to keep her humble, the VP replied that a lot of women “are not aspiring to be humble”. Maybe they’re aspiring to lead the world’s biggest economy instead.

Sign up for Fashion Matters, your weekly newsletter with the latest stories in style. Follow @financialtimesfashion on Instagram and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen