Hillary Clinton Supporters Plan to Sport Pantsuits at the Polls - Wall Street Journal
Libby Chamberlain says she will honor her presidential pick, Hillary Clinton, on Election Day with more than a vote. She also plans to wear a pantsuit.
Ms. Chamberlain, 33, has also recruited thousands of others who are hoping to see the election of the first female U.S. president.
A private Facebook group she created dubbing Nov. 8 as “National Pantsuit Day” has drawn more than 400,000 members in two weeks. On the page, the invitation-only members trade stories about their admiration for the Democratic nominee and discuss plans to sport their own version of Mrs. Clinton’s signature campaign-trail attire.
“There is a literal pantsuit thing happening, which does involve shopping for some and rummaging around in closets for others,” Ms. Chamberlain said. “But so much more important is the idea that we can take this symbol of feminism and the struggle for equality and own it. Literally wear it to the polls.”
Republican rival Donald Trump’s backers are also seeking to show for their candidate.
On some conservative blogs and Reddit, they are encouraging each other to wear red on Nov. 8. Mr. Trump’s warning that the election could be rigged has some supporters nervous that their vote won’t be counted. Their solution: Create a sea of red that can’t be ignored.
The same “wear red” text has been copied and pasted repeatedly, like a modern-day chain letter, on the message board Reddit and multiple conservative blogs.
But Mrs. Clinton’s fans are facing a trickier challenge: finding a pantsuit. The candidate’s clothes are custom made, and pantsuits aren’t exactly a staple in the modern woman’s closet.
At 67, Camy Clough remembers when she wasn’t allowed to wear pants to work. Then, she had a closet full of pantsuits as they came into vogue in the 1970s. She recently donated many of them to charity but luckily kept a few in the closet.
“I have a black tweedy pantsuit, and then I’m hoping the next day I can come to work wearing ivory slacks and a sweater with a scarf that has purple and gold in it,” said Ms. Clough, a museum educator in Washington, D.C. “That’s all of the colors of the women’s suffrage movement.”
Historically, pants were seen as a man’s prerogative. As women started wearing loose versions of what are now known as pants in the latter half of the 1800s, it was seen as usurping gender roles, said Kevin Jones, museum curator for the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles.
The modern women’s pantsuit, often monotone or patterned slacks and a jacket, hit the stage with the women’s movement of the 1970s. “That’s what we know it as today, the ‘power suit,’” Mr. Jones said. “That was a really heady time of a woman wearing whatever she wanted to wear.”
Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy has the potential to turn it into the ultimate power outfit. On the campaign trail, she has embraced the sometimes-maligned ensemble as a badge of honor—much like the way her female fans latched onto Mr. Trump’s “nasty woman” labeling in their final debate.
Mrs. Clinton’s Twitter bio describes her as a “pantsuit-aficionado,” and she’s nicknamed some of her most ardent followers as “my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits.” The campaign’s website offered an “everyday pantsuit” unisex T-shirt for $30 until it sold out. It is now on a wait list.
Amanda Reddy, 38, stopped at a department store near her home in Columbia, Md., to pick up a white pantsuit. When the sales clerk complimented Ms. Reddy on her choice, Ms. Reddy told her it was in honor of the suffragists who had campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment that gave women the right to vote.
“They used fashion to create a visual identity for their movement and to make it easy for others to express support, even if they weren’t the ones being arrested or harassed in the street,” Ms. Reddy said. “So the white pantsuit is for them.” After hearing the story, the saleswoman gave Ms. Reddy a discount.
Ms. Chamberlain started her Facebook group so she and her friends would have a place to stand “together in a great big pant-suited mass telling each other stories and lifting each other up after an election season that has left many of us wounded, jostled, disheartened, and afraid.”
As one friend invited another, the group ballooned. In a week, it had 100,000 members. In 10 days, there were 200,000. As of Tuesday, they stood at more than 400,000.
Her friend, Caddie Jackson, 34, of Massachusetts, plans to match her candidate, right down to the color she wore in the third debate.
“I went out right away and I bought a white pantsuit that I’m so excited to wear on Nov. 8,” Ms. Jackson said. It cost her $8 at Goodwill.
Elana Snow, an administrator in Somerville, Mass., surveyed her closet, which is full of professional separates that could be pulled together, but no pantsuits. “I think I’m just going to go to Goodwill and get a matchy bright one,” she said.
Ms. Chamberlain, a school counselor in the Blue Hill area of Maine, had hoped to shop for her outfit this week but lost time managing her growing Facebook project. She ordered three pantsuits online, two from Macy’s and one from Amazon, to have one in time for Election Day.
Write to Natalie Andrews at Natalie.Andrews@wsj.com
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