From Lisa Schiffren:
…a few days before Labor Day, lightening hit. The governor of Alaska turned into a vice-presidential candidate, who had to show up in front of the nation for the next 60 days, several times a day, always looking camera-ready, and impeccably turned out. She also had to project that new, somewhat amorphous thing: female power. We, as a nation, have not yet been led by a woman, and we aren’t sure what it looks like. It will, of course, vary from woman to woman, depending on her personal needs and style, but not so much. Can’t be too sexy, too severe, or too casual. For sure it requires perfectly fitted, constructed jackets, with a serious shoulder line, in good quality fabrics. Nowhere are those cheap. Palin had to look at least as good as the women we see on TV all the time. You may not realize it, but you don’t see Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer or any of the on-camera female talent at the networks, CNN or Fox in off-the-rack stuff from Macy’s. It is all upscale designer stuff, and at the low end it costs a couple of thousand per outfit. Always. Hair and make-up is done, professionally, any time you see them, at the cost of much time and money. That is the visual standard women at the upper end of politics must meet. Condoleezza Rice, who needed to project power, figured it out. Others have not. If Palin hadn’t bothered with any of it, we would have heard about that too.
Had she been a creature of Washington, Palin would have had closet full of suits, unexciting, perhaps, but appropriate. Had she been a former First Lady running for president, whose husband has raked in $109 million in the last 8 years, she could have called Oscar de la Renta, and and had him come for a fitting. He did well with Hillary’s jewel-toned pantsuits, (at a few grand a pop?). She might already have collected some of those great Gurhan necklaces, which accentuated Hillary’s suits all election season. (Look up for yourself what they cost.) Were she Speaker of the House, and the wealthiest Democratic lawmaker, she could have called Georgio Armani himself — and worn the Pelosi pearls that cost more than the Palin’s house.
I think that this is a stupid and trivial issue. Can you imagine what the press would have made of her had she made campaign appearances in jeans and parkas?