Dear Vanity Fair:
I generally enjoy your magazine a great deal and always look forward to it's pithy, insightful analysis especially with regards to politics. However, while I was perusing your website this weekend, I came across a post entitled Cindy McCain's $300,000 Outfit on your Politics & Power blog in which you proceed to parse her fashion choices and estimate the cost. To be perfectly honest, I found it sexist not to mention biased and unfair. However, the content of the post paled in comparison to some of the vitriolic comments left by many of your readers. Then again, the post was written in such a way as to elicit precisely this kind of response, wasn't it? And if that wasn't bad enough, your follow-up post was even worst.
In the interest of clarity, I would like to point out that I was offended by your piece not because I'm a fan of Cindy McCain, her husband, her party or indeed, a fan of her fashion choices. However, like Cindy McCain and incidentally, Michelle Obama, I am a professional woman who earns her own money and spends it as I alone see fit. Not once do you mention in either post that Cindy McCain owns and successfully runs her own company and makes her own money. She is also not running for elected office. If she can afford to dress in Oscar de la Renta and accessorize with diamond earrings, why shouldn't she? More importantly, if you're going to zealously scrutinize Cindy McCain's sartorial choices, shouldn't you do the same for Michelle Obama? After all, Obama routinely hits the campaign trail wearing a stunning perforated black patent-leather belt (read: Kinky) by Azzedine Alaia, a Tunisian-born (read: Muslim), Paris-based (read: Unpatriotic) designer that retails for approximately $1000 - $1500 USD (read: Elitist). That's just her belt. How's that for parsing? Fair is fair, no?
I suppose what disappoints me most about this post is that I've come to view your magazine as a reliable source of analysis on American politics. Indeed, despite the glossy covers and the veneer of glamour, your writers and contributors usually deliver well-reasoned and well-researched pieces on issues that matter. This brings me to my point. Aren't there enough issues at stake in this presidential election to skip the bitchy commentary about the candidates' respective wives? And if you absolutely must throw the topic of fashion into the discussion along with energy policy, the looming recession, mortgage foreclosures, the credit crunch, global warming, affordable healthcare, unemployment and the war, how about shining your spotlight on the candidates' sartorial choices? They are after all the ones running for office and frankly, both gentlemen would benefit from a top-to-toe makeover if they ever hope to 'look presidential' by November 4. Or, better yet, how about examining the fact that while both candidates are married to accomplished and successful career women, both women have been re-styled to look like demure, well-behaved Stepford wives just in time to walk across the stage and gaze adoringly at their respective husbands? What is it exactly about American political culture that requires a candidate running for office in 2008 to be married to a 1950's housewife? If you have to make fashion a campaign issue, spare us the sexist vitriol and make it count for something.
Sincerely,
The Luxe Chronicles
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