It was the news heard ’round the world: Senator Kamala Harris made history yesterday as the first Black woman and the first South Asian woman to be selected as a vice-presidential candidate for a major party. Although she’s already served as the San Francisco district attorney, the California attorney general, and a California senator, securing the national ticket now thrusts her into the brightest spotlight of her 30-year career.
And yes, that means more people will be paying attention to what she’s wearing. As every avid fashion lover knows, you can be interested in a woman’s style and her substance, not just one or the other. And with this mindset, I wanted to point out the one piece of jewelry that Harris has incorporated into nearly every outfit for public appearances for decades: pearl necklaces. Our first photographic evidence? Her 1986 college graduation photo.
Harris has clearly made a deliberate choice to use pearls to craft a signature style—a uniform if you will. Not only does having a uniform make it easier to get dressed in the morning, but I believe it can also convey a sense of reliability and even loyalty. It’s also worth pointing out that the pearls could be an homage to Harris’s college sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha—the first African American Greek-letter sorority—where the founders are referred to as the Twenty Pearls. Any way you look at it, there’s no doubt she intends to bring her pearls of wisdom to the White House, both literally and figuratively. Scroll down to see how she’s worn them over 25 years.