Oh my gawd! Did I just see Sarah Palin, the vice-presidential candidate of the United States of America, wink? I am so lucky to be here in this land where it’s getting more surreal day by day in the run-up to the presidential elections. Now, it wasn’t just a nano-second twitch of an eye for the benefit of over 72 million people watching the televised debate between the Governor of Alaska and Senator Joe Biden. Doggone it, it was a full, head-on wink with the upper lid of one eye slamming determinedly down on the lower one, with her lips stretching wide into a smile so lustrous it could light up a coal mine.

This was so like a freshly crowned Miss America blowing kisses to a crowd. Come to think of it, Governor Palin was a beauty queen. You can still see traces of it in those sparkling eyes behind the, by now, signature rimless glasses that have had wannabe-Palins rushing to opticians to buy the rectangular wonders. A mature Barbie Doll (as some have said) who makes the right sounds to reach out to the blue collars rather than to the blue chip guys and dolls. But the folksy-cutesy language – ‘doggone it’, ‘darn it’, ‘say it ain’t so, Joe’ (Biden that is,) and ‘Joe six-pack’ — was carefully calibrated to reach out to the common man or woman tired of the elite processed in Ivy League colleges, or the seasoned ‘insiders’ of Washington.

Shrewdly her wardrobe, too, seems to be calibrated – in this case to walk the line between clothes that signal high-end designers (not to speak of snobbery and bling) and the downright dowdy and behenji-ish. Though, canny scene-stealer that she is, Palin once sported red peep-toe heels by Naughty Monkey on her campaign trail. According to fashion gurus tracking the governor’s sartorial excursions, Paris Hilton likes to buy this shoe designer’s ‘sexy sky-high heels’. Imagine Senator Hillary Clinton wearing peep-toe shoes beneath her usually monochrome pantsuits. In fact, could you even visualise her sporting dangling earrings the way Palin occasionally does? Never!

Dress for success
Clothes, as the cliché goes, make the man – or woman. Historically, leaders and politicians have let their appearance do much of the talking for them. Image is everything, well, almost. Closer to home khadi became de rigueur for politicos of the Congress Party. The Nehru topi was also ubiquitous for a while. Indira Gandhi’s elegantly tasteful saris, usually handloom, evoked authority tempered by a touch of femininity. Her circle of friends, including the late cultural czarina Pupul Jayakar, enabled her to do so. No fussy jewellery detracted from her forceful personality. The streak of white in her short hair was almost like a tick mark signifying can-do-it, a bit like Nike’s ‘just-do-it’ coat-of-arms.

The second Mrs Gandhi also has her entourage of aesthete taste-makers who do much the same for her. Sonia Gandhi’s understated handloom saris and absence of baubles ensure an aura of dignity and restraint, along with more than a hint of Olympian aloofness. And then, how can one forget Jayalalitha and her trademark cape: it seems to endow her with powers beyond those of ordinary mortals. Perhaps Mayawati will soon acquire one to speed her along on her quest to become PM.

Hats off
Sartorial savvy has often come to the rescue of damsels in distress, in a state of stress; or even opened doors to opportunity. Please don’t misunderstand: men are equally aware of the importance of using apparel to impress or impose as the case might be. But women have in the past had greater need to use their wardrobe and accoutrements for fashioning an identity and at a deeper level, of expressing themselves.

In the new film, Duchess, British actress Keira Knightley who plays the lead role, has a pithy line that could not be more succinct and spot-on about clothes and female empowerment for her times and situation: the film is set in 18th century Georgian England. When her husband, the rather brutish Duke of Devonshire — wittily played by the marvellous Ralph Fiennes — makes a disparaging remark about Georgiana Spencer Cavendish’s clothes sense, she defends herself by saying: “You have so many ways to express yourself but we have only our hats….” As a critic quipped: men have wit; women have feathers.

Well, I have to say that she is expressive in the extreme. Designer Michael O’Connor confected 30 hats for the film, one more, well, expressive than the next. Towering headdresses made with the help of fox tails, vintage ostrich tails and feathers galore were meant to compensate for the lack of political rights, or even basic rights at a time when the main prupose in life of women of the aristocracy was to provide male heirs. At any rate in this film Keira Knightly looks like a Gainsborough portrait come alive.

This duchess, like her distant descendant Princess Diana, acquired a fashion-plate reputation and both women, locked in loveless marriages, were vastly more popular (style icons really) than their spouses. The publicity machinery of the film slyly hints at parallels between the two. Clothes did not only go a long way to make the women, they probably made up for what was lacking in their lives. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph O’Connor says: “…there is something about the duchess having to compromise, having to put a brave face on it. Does an 18th century sprigged muslin bear any relation to a mid-1980s electric-blue one-shouldered dress? Probably not, but in terms of attitude, well, it does.” Perhaps.

Fashion revolution
Throwing the gauntlet, sartorially speaking, is something that the legendary Coco Chanel did with equal élan. The same week that the Duchess opened in the States the small screen premiered a mushy biopic of the designer, with Shirley MacLaine playing the older Coco and Barbara Bobulova the younger one. Bored as a stand-by mistress of a rich playboy she began to design hats — it was also a way of expressing herself. Her fashion revolution against society is said to have begun with deconstructing the chapeau. Her flapper creations are said to have been a slap in the face of Belle Epoque millinery. So, doggone it, perhaps Palin, with her sparkling earrings, peep-toe shoes incongruously matched with the more staid black jackets, is also throwing a gauntlet at the establishment in her own way. Beauty queen from small town America takes on the stentorian Goliaths of the Beltway.
So, go ahead and wink, gals. Good girls do wink.

Subscribe to Verve Magazine or buy the Verve issue on stands now!