The circumstances of the 2021 presidential inauguration were unlike any other in our country’s two-plus century history. Likewise, the pomp was unequivocally altered. With the celebrations limited and live human exuberance typical of the occasion stripped to a socially distant, televised and virtual medium, the optics were magnified.
Perhaps this year, more than any other, fashion was relied upon as a powerful tool, its messaging amplified. There was much to make of it.
The garments and designers Vice President Kamala Harris and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden wore imparted highly considered information. The daytime ensembles have already been discussed, but the eveningwear, while far less visible than it would have been had there been the pageantry of the customary Inaugural Ball, was equally impactful.
Biden chose to wear Gabriela Hearst, an American designer she’s long favored, a woman whose work is ingrained with a mission of sustainability and professional female empowerment. Hearst designed Biden’s ivory double breasted cashmere coat, leather gloves, and ivory silk wool cady dress with embroidery reflecting the federal flowers from every state and territory of the United States of America. (Appropriately, she also wore accessories with a floral motif, the Desert Blooms Mariposa earrings by the New York designer Ruchi Kotahwala.) President Biden himself wore Ralph Lauren during his swearing in.