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What Kamala Harris’ fashion choices really say, from presidential pantsuits to chill Converse trainers – and that controversial Vogue cover
STORYZoe Suen
- Is Kamala Harris the new queen of the pantsuit? The VP has jazzed things up with a Celine gown, worn gold LaQuan Smith to Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour, and rocked sequinned denim to San Francisco Pride
- For President Biden’s inauguration she wore a Christopher John Rogers coat and dress, plus pearls by Puerto Rican-American designer Wilfredo Rosado, and a flag pin from American jeweller David Yurman
Media, and fashion media especially, loves dissecting a female politician’s outfits. What does her heel height say? What does the colour of her dress signal about her take on that hot-button topic? As US Vice-President and Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris takes on a gruelling schedule of campaign events, these are some of the questions on the lips of the sartorial set.
To fully understand Harris’ wardrobe, you must look to her pre-White House past. Specifically, recall her background as a prosecutor, which saw her specialise in child sexual assault cases before climbing the ranks to become deputy district attorney, San Francisco district attorney, and eventually attorney general of California.
Elizabeth Holmes, an American journalist and author of The New York Times bestseller HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style, says this period set the foundations for Harris’ professional style – particularly when it comes to her trusty friend, the pantsuit (also previously a favourite of former first lady and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton).
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“If you rewind to the 2020 campaign when [Harris] first stepped onto the national stage, she wore dark suits. That’s very much the uniform of a prosecutor,” Holmes tells Style. “A dark suit takes fashion out of the equation: you’re showing up to court to argue your case – it’s not about what you’re wearing and very much about what you’re saying. You don’t want to distract from the job at hand.”
Throughout the 2020 presidential primaries, Harris’ tailoring almost blended in with that of the men she was competing with and against. Though she would soften the looks somewhat with silk blouses, the brief remained power dressing through and through.
According to Holmes, Harris has been gradually introducing colour to her outfits since she was picked as President Joe Biden’s running mate in August 2020. Even so, the palette has been subtle, and suits remained the common denominator – an exception being one of Harris’ biggest fashion moments, the 2021 inauguration, when she donned a royal purple Christopher John Rogers coat and matching dress for her swearing-in, accessorised with pearls by Puerto Rican-American designer Wilfredo Rosado, and a flag pin from American jeweller David Yurman.
It wasn’t a surprise that Harris – not only the first female, and first Black and South Asian vice-president in US history, but a daughter of immigrants who has fought for LGBTQ rights throughout her career – chose to platform Rosado and Rogers, a young, Black, queer designer. Her silhouette provided a formal, more feminine spin on suiting, while Rosado’s jewellery cemented pearls as one of Harris’ trademark accessories.
The vice-president’s brighter palette struck an optimistic note, as seen in the fresher baby blue and lilac suits she’s re-worn in Atlanta and Las Vegas throughout the ongoing campaign – the former probably the same suit she wore for American Vogue’s February 2021 cover shoot (though famously not in the image that they ultimately ran). One thing about Harris is that she’s not afraid to repeat her outfits, though the word on the street is she now works with celebrity stylist Leslie Fremar (who also styles Charlize Theron and Jennifer Connelly, among others) to give her looks a boost.