Washington Post writer explains how fashion shapes political images at Kelly Writers House

Rachel Tashjian, 2011 College graduate and fashion writer for The Washington Post, discussed the fashion of the political world at Kelly Writers House on Oct. 24. 

The event “Fashion: A Political Statement” was hosted by Anthony DeCurtis, an English professor at Penn and contributing editor at Rolling Stone. Around 50 members of the Penn community gathered to hear Tashjian analyze the fashion choices of various politicians and explore the meaning of clothing.  

After graduating from Penn with a bachelor’s degree in English and art history, Tashjian worked at a variety of fashion magazines including Vanity Fair and GQ. In her current position at The Washington Post, she covers fashion and style on the runway and in the media and politics.

In his introduction, DeCurtis praised Tashjian’s distinctive way of approaching fashion writing. 

“There’s a tendency among smart people to condescend about fashion … but [Tashjian] writes about it like it’s important,” DeCurtis said. “She writes about [fashion] well and deeply, but she still understands that it’s so much fun.”

Throughout her presentation, Tashjian presented several different outfits worn by politicians. Displaying a picture of former president and 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump, Tashjian argued that his classic blue suit with a red satin tie sends a deeper message to the audience than one might assume. She pointed to significance of the length of his tie. 

“It could be that he doesn’t know that the tie is too long [or] he’s making a statement with the tie being too long, which is to say he is painting himself as kind of an outsider,” Tashjian said. “That’s the kind of information that when you’re looking at fashion, either as an observer or as a reporter, you take that in.”

Analyzing two different pictures of Vice President Kamala Harris, Tashijan pointed out a difference between her style a few years ago and her style now as a presidential candidate. During the early years of the Biden administration, Harris wore bright colors and professional clothing. However, Tashjian noted that over the past year of her vice presidency, she has changed her style to tell a political story — a tool known as “sartorial diplomacy.”

“This is the first vice president who’s a woman, who is of South Asian descent, who is black, and she is telling that story and highlighting that with her clothing,” Tashjian said. 

She added that Harris’ style has become more uniform now that she is running for president. 

“She’s making a choice that many men make, which is ‘I don’t want to submit to the pressure of having to tell a story with my clothing because I have a lot of work to do,’” Tashjian said. 

Tashjian said that she occasionally receives criticism for her writing, such as her piece about former First Lady Melania Trump, before noting that fashion and media have close connections to the “image-making of political figures.” 

As she concluded her presentation, Tashjian took several questions from audience members. Shifting the conversation from political fashion to an analysis of fashion on Penn’s campus, one audience member — a first-generation student at Penn — noted that “on campus, clothes are still used as a wealth symbol … and I feel like it’s very popular for students to be very well dressed.” 

In her response, Tashjian recounted a story from her time at Penn when she saw a classmate wearing a pair of shoes she saw in Vogue the previous month. When it comes to how someone dresses, Tashijan said that “context and your environment is everything.”