But she is one of the First Ladies I would most like to meet. (I'm no beauty myself, and my idea of entertaining is to make sure my guests are well fed and comfortable.)
Posted on 08/03/2004 11:55:44 PM PDT by MadIvan
TERESA Heinz Kerry has presented herself to Americans as a multi-lingual free spirit, a woman with a taste for a Seventies-era Jacqueline Bisset coiffure and a habit of tossing a sweater over her shoulders, as if her political outings demanded no more of her than patio luncheons in Nantucket. Were she to take up residence in the White House as first lady in a John Kerry administration, no-one would expect her to fade into the chintz.
She is in many ways a contrast to Laura Bush, who has sought above all to look imperturbably well-kempt. After nearly four stressful years in the White House, Bush’s smile remains dependably attractive, her hair neatly clipped and her neutral suits are as proper as schoolgirls’ uniforms.
And so another battle of sorts has intensified following the Democratic National Convention - this one over the many contrasts in taste and appearance and comportment between the potential first ladies. It is a pageant that many might prefer did not exist, but which nonetheless occupies a corner of voters’ minds.
In the popular view, the scrutiny and fascination with the style of first ladies began with Jackie Kennedy, and redoubled with Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton. But a focus on fashion is not so exclusively modern a preoccupation, either by the electorate or by first ladies themselves. Fashion memorably concerned a number of presidential wives who pre-date the mid-20th century, a few of whom wielded a distinct influence over the tastes of American women at a time when the celebrity culture’s tentacles were not yet so all-entangling.
Kerry’s look of vague aversion to the constraints of political life, in fact, might call to mind Grace Goodhue Coolidge, who, as the wife of Calvin Coolidge, who served as president from 1923 to 1929, arrived in Washington to observations that she "kept her wits at the end of her tongue". With her lean frame, the result of a passion for hiking and swimming, Coolidge was America’s first ambassador of women’s sportswear.
"It was the 1920s, Gertrude Ederle had swum the English Channel and there was this great sense of excitement about women and sports, and Grace Coolidge embodied this new athletic ethos," says Carl Anthony, author of several books about first ladies and life in the White House. She adapted herself to flapper style in a manner so admired that she was awarded a gold locket by the couturier Charles Worth on behalf of the French garment industry.
Few political wives, though, have ever commanded quite the sartorial attention that the country heaped upon Frances Folsom, who, at the age of 22, on a June day in 1886, became the wife of President Grover Cleveland, a man who was nearly three decades her senior.
As early as the 1870s, the press was tuning in to what women were wearing to presidential inaugurations. But the arrival of Cleveland created a new kind of frenzy. "The papers absolutely loved Frances Folsom," says Alden O’Brien, costume curator at the Museum of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington, "because she was so pretty and it was just so newsworthy and charming to have this incredibly young woman in the White House."
Cleveland’s preference for shoulder-baring clothes managed to arouse the ire of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, which petitioned her to dress more conservatively, saying that her style posed a threat to the chastity of young American women. Comparisons to Britney Spears do not seem out of place.
At one point during the Cleveland presidency, a gossip report declaring that Cleveland had abolished the bustle from her wardrobe knocked the fashion industry on its head. When Cleveland read this fabricated item, she decided the rumour was not worth denying and stopped wearing bustles publicly.
And consider, too, the fame of Julia Gardiner Tyler, second wife of President John Tyler, who married him while he was in office in 1844. A socialite of New York and East Hampton, Tyler had been given the name the "Rose of Long Island" before she reached the White House. She scandalised her family by appearing in an advertisement for a clothing merchant in 1839. A year later, she and her sister, Margaret Gardiner, toured Europe, in search of vibrant social life and wealthy husbands. A chronicle of the trip was published in the 1920s as Leaves from a Young Girl’s Diary.
One suspects Heinz Kerry would have had quite a time with the Gardiner girls, and probably improved their Italian, French and Spanish - and their Portuguese - to boot.
Uh, considering some of the other fashions that came before...no. And Grace Coolidge was at least put together enough that she could carry it off.
Seriously, there hasn't been a first lady who knew how to dress since Jackie Kennedy. Well, Barbara Bush and from time to time Laura, but we need to talk about the suits.
Yes. And that woman had a sense of style like no other.
LET THEM EAT CAKE!!!
ping
But she is one of the First Ladies I would most like to meet. (I'm no beauty myself, and my idea of entertaining is to make sure my guests are well fed and comfortable.)
Even la Austrichienne would be insulted!
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