Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Shoes Become Fashion History at Cornell Exhibition

Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) wardrobe has been making headlines since she stepped into Washington D.C. and a reporter decided to “struggle”-shame her suit on Twitter. While it was upsetting, it wasn't shocking. Women’s fashion is relentlessly scrutinized — particularly for those in powerful or public positions — and often weaponized against them. But while focusing on fashion can sometimes be a negative result of sexist criticism, that's not always case. Shortly after claiming victory against House Democrat Joe Crowley last June, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a picture of the single pair of shoes she wore throughout the campaign; ragged and worn through to the soles, they tell the story of her hard-earned success.

"Some folks are saying I won for “demographic” reasons. 1st of all, that’s false. We won w/voters of all kinds.2nd, here’s my 1st pair of campaign shoes. I knocked doors until rainwater came through my soles. Respect the hustle. We won bc we out-worked the competition. Period," she wrote on Twitter accompanying a photo of the shoes.

The sentiment behind her post highlights exactly how fashion can be symbolic, especially for women. Sure, those shoes were cute and practical but they are a symbol of the work she put in during the campaign.

Now, just a few months after the photo moved people on social media, those symbolic shoes will join dozens of other garments which clothed the callers of great change, from activists to politicians, academics, scholars, artists, athletes, and everyday heroes at the Women Empowered: Fashions from the Frontline exhibition at Cornell. On show, they are displaying the iconic collars of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg alongside garments worn by the suffragettes; a skirt suit worn by the first female attorney general, Janet Reno; a #1199 cap from the Union Power, Soul Power healthcare workers’ campaign led by Coretta Scott King in 1969. Also displayed is a powerful creation by designer Rachel Powell, a dress which debuted at the Cornell Fashion Collective runway show, and brought visibility to the issue of rape culture, her own story empowering women to share theirs, months before the news of Harvey Weinstein broke and the #metoo movement gained momentum.

Clothing has always been political, and despite the enormous gains made by women in the 2018 midterms, media discourse continues to fall short of progress with its fixation with what they wear. In 1995, Hillary Clinton joked, “If I want to knock a story off the front page, I just change my hairstyle,” – a truism that would chase the coverage of her own presidential campaign 20 years later. Meanwhile, Michelle Obama, in her recently published memoir Becoming, relays how she reframed the media’s obsession with her appearance as an opportunity to shift the spotlight onto the important causes in her vicinity. According to the Cornell students who curated the Women Empowered exhibit, this scrutiny of women in the public eye is a symptom of society’s “cultural ownership over women’s bodies”. When reclaimed, it can carve out a meaningful point of connection between the powerful and the general public.

“Dress can be an armor or a weapon,” says Rachel Getman, an MA Apparel Design student involved in curating the exhibition; the unremarkable black suit serves a cloak of invisibility for “male and pale” power, but that women have the freedom to operate via “another platform for visibility, that is arguably not afforded in the same way to cis-men, is empowering”.

How can women wield the full force of these nonviolent arms in 2018? Only weeks since she was elected into congress, Ilhan Omar is working to lift the ban on the hijab in the House. And while it’s unlikely the critical commentary squared at women will concede any time soon, with figures like this on the frontline, and cultural movements to celebrate them, we’ll at least be rolling our eyes a little less often.