Robin Givhan

Photo: Helayne Seidman

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Robin Givhan incited outrage with her disapproving review in The Washington Post regarding the length and casualness of Michelle Obama’s shorts. The Post closed the comments section online at 366 in response to Givhan’s argument that “ultimately, the First Lady can’t be—nor should she be—just like everyone else. Hers is a life of responsibilities and privileges. She gets the fancy jet. She has to dress for the ride.” Covering topics as far-flung as Christian Louboutin and Mrs. Obama’s health initiatives, the journalist wears two hats—reporting on both fashion and politics, but more often than not, both at once. Just in time for her upcoming chat with Victoria Lautman at the School of the Art Institute’s Fashion Resource Center, we called Givhan to talk about the culture and future of fashion.

Before recently returning to D.C., you moved to New York in 2000 to work at Vogue. How did living in New York and writing about fashion differ from doing it in D.C.?
Living in New York, you are immersed in the industry itself. It’s a bit easier to build forces and make connections because you have the opportunity to engage people year-round. The danger and also the benefit of being in Washington is that it allows you to have an arm’s length distance. Sometimes what happens with New York writers is that you’re in the city where the industry headquarters are, so there’s this tendency to get too insider and obsess about stories that people don’t necessarily think about. For me, the challenge of being a critic has more to do with maintaining a perspective on the industry that is closer to the consumer.

And what is the consumer thinking these days?
I think a lot more people are intrigued by fashion as an industry, and I know it sounds odd, but a lot more people are estranged as well.… [There’s] a greater sense that everyone should be able to participate. As soon as the industry started to change, say in the ’90s, [with] vast corporations…it opened up…as soon as designers started making lines for places like H&M and Target. I think the criticism is a good sign. You really only criticize things you care about.

Has fashion become more politicized over time?
Yes, politics have become so much more of a visual industry. I think back to something a former curator at the Costume Institute at the Met said…which was that Kennedy was the last President who we wanted to look better and seem better than the average person. Then it shifted to ‘Do I want to have a beer with this candidate?”

How does this apply to women like Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton?
The one thing I thought was really striking with the Sarah Palin wardrobe flap [with the Republican Party financing a wardrobe upgrade] was it wasn’t they had actually organized a new wardrobe for her. It was the places they went to get the wardrobe. I’d written a piece about how I thought that if someone on that staff took the fashion industry seriously, someone would have spoken up and said, you can’t sell the everywoman message and go to Neiman Marcus to buy clothes.

So what’s a female politician to do?
When Hillary Clinton was running for the New York Senate [seat], she very ably came up with a uniform [like the men’s suit]. She wore a black pants suit pretty much at every campaign stop. People didn’t talk about her clothes. [I think women] can mix this power and femininity and maybe a little sex appeal and intellect all in one aesthetic package. I think it’s a more potent statement than going with camouflage. For instance, Nancy Pelosi does that incredibly well.

What do you see as the Michelle Obama effect?
To me, it seems like the effect she’s having is the way women over age 30 relate to fashion. I think that seeing someone like Mrs. Obama embracing and incorporating fashion in her public life is kind of a reassurance for a lot of women that [they] can participate.

Robin Givhan talks with Victoria Lautman at the School of the Art Institute’s Fashion Resource Center Friday 13 at 6pm. Call 312-629-6731 to reserve tickets. Tickets cost $35.

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