Joy, faith and hope. President-elect Joe Biden mentioned these words during his speech in front of a crowd of supporters on Saturday night in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. Humbled by the trust and confidence placed in him by voters, he added that he will seek to unify rather than divide and that he doesn't see "red states or blue states", only the United States.
"I owe you everything", Biden told his voters, thanking them, and remembering the support he got from his family and in particular from his wife Jill, an indefatigable English professor who, Biden added, will represent American educators at the White House.
Never mentioning the presidency of Donald Trump, Biden quoted the Bible stating that this is a time to heal and redefined America as the land of opportunities and possibilities.
America as a land of possibilities was also at the core of Kamala Harris' speech. People, Harris stated in her historic victory speech, chose hope, unity, decency, science and truth at this election and thanks to the voters a barrier has been broken as she is now the first woman and the first woman of colour to be elected US vice-president, but, she warns us, she won't be the last (Harris holds other records: she was the first Black woman attorney general of California; elected to the Senate in 2016, she became the second Black woman in history to serve in the chamber).
In both Biden and Harris' speeches there was a shift in pronouns - they moved away from Trump's beloved "I" and talked directly to the crowd, using the pronouns "you" and "we", a wonderful choice, hinting at a collective of human beings and celebrating unity and empathy in very difficult historical times.
Harris also honoured the women who "paved the way for this moment tonight" and mentioned her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who left her home in India and moved to the States in 1958, at the age of 19.
The colour of Harris' suit, white, didn't go unnoticed: the Carolina Herrera suit matched with a Tory Burch white silk bow blouse, were a tribute to the neutral shade and to its long history in politics and protest. Suffragettes adopted it to symbolise purity and because the colour was intended to be a symbol of peaceful protest.
For example, if you look on the Internet for images of suffragettes in white you will find labor lawyer Inez Milholland Boissevain at the National American Woman Suffrage Association parade in Washington on March 3, 1913, wearing a dashing white cape and riding a white horse (you can discover more about this event in Rebecca Boggs Roberts' Suffragists in Washington, D.C.: The 1913 Parade and the Fight for the Vote).
Shirley Chisholm wore white in 1968 when she became the first African American woman to be elected to Congress; Hillary Clinton opted for the same shade to accept the Democratic nomination for president in July 2016 and several female lawmakers wore white to President Trump's first State of the Union address in 2017 and in 2019 as well.
So, while the United States can now reclaim their sense of purpose, the hard work begins with a new focus on the pandemic, racism, climate change and healing the soul of a nation, as announced by Harris.
But, for the time being let's close this weekend and this long political week by celebrating unity via fashion and in particular via three designs by Norman Norell (1900-1972) featuring the red, while and blue shades.
As founder and president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Norell became a symbol for American designers (Michelle Obama opted for a vintage Norell dress to a Christmas concert in Washington, D.C. in 2010, View this photo).
One of his most popular designs was the white sailor dress with red and blue accents. He reinveted it constantly, as proved by the images in this post showing designs from 1951 (the one with a full skirt; from the FIDM Museum archive) and 1956 (the daytime dress with a straight silhouette and short sleeves; from the Texas Fashion Collection at the University of North Texas Digital Library).
Norell's inspirations came from practical, functional menswear as proved also by another red, blue and white dress designed in 1970, reminiscent of a jockey's racing silks (from the FIDM Museum archive). This design could easily be used as a fashion symbol of the outcome of the 2020 US Presidential election, with the patriotic colours of the flag reunited in a balanced and harmonic way.
As a further reference to unity via colours, check out this vintage cover of Italian magazine Annabella (13th November 1960). The entire issue was dedicated to functional and practical styles from the US and the cover paid homage to the American flag with three young women modelling three elegant coats in blue, white and red.
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