Oh my gaaaaaawd...I actually have a Tracy Reese dress. A more formal dress than Michelle's, too! It's espresso silk organza, with a fitted bodice and a full, 1950's-style skirt with petticoats underneath. I bought it on sale at Anthropologie for just under $100, to wear to a wedding; it was originally about $300. This was last year. It's highly unlikely Michelle's dress cost much more than $300. Tracy Reese is an American designer and her stuff is not haute-couture: it's fun, beautiful, feminine, and pretty reasonable, really.
The reasons that dress looks so expensive: (A) Michelle is beautiful, and her strong, lithe arms look wonderful in sleeveless dresses and (B) Michelle probably had a seamstress (or her Mom!) alter the dress so it fit her perfectly and the lines would show off her waist. Oldest trick in the book (and I did write one of those): Have your clothes tailored. You can buy a suit for $10 at the consignment shop, have it tailored/altered to fit your body perfectly, and suddenly it looks like a $1000+ suit.
But of course, Republicans don't think that way. They buy overpriced off-the-rack stuff at Neimans and assume everyone else is that stupid.
Sununu has always been a nasty bully. And compared to Oscar night or any movie/TV wardrobe featured outfit, $350 is chicken feed. Holy FSM, it's a special occasion! It makes sense Michelle Obama went with something slightly upscale and chic but not obnoxiously expensive. (Plus, it's still $149,650 less than Sarah Palin's supposed wardrobe bill, although to be fair, that was for more than one outfit.)
It's funny, isn't it, the way the wingnut mind veers back and forth? A wingnut I know posted something suggesting Michelle Obama bought pricey garb while Ann Romney was content with cheaper outfits like the reg'lar amurcan she was. Really. The conservatives attack the Democrats saying that they hate success, hate the rich, and so on, then turn around and attack the Democrats for supposedly spending a lot? They keep trying to push this weird idea that any Democrat who's rich is a hypocrite. They honestly cannot understand why anyone would want to raise their own taxes, or understand such ideas as the social contract, altruism, and compassion. All of it comes down to their weird tribal class system. John Kenneth Galbraith said, "We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much." Most conservatives are not even consciously aware of the class system in their heads that they view as the natural order (where they deserve to be on top, of course). You can find wingnuts upset that the poor have cell phones, or livid that they can use food stamp cards these days instead of actual stamps, because they want to see the poor publically humiliated. For the conservatives, it all comes down to whether someone is the right "sort" of person, and they believe their own kind is deserving while the wrong sort should suffer. When conservatives say "freedom," they really mean privilege.
Most importantly, attacking Michelle Obama's wardrobe is an attempt to minimize her, and ignores that she totally kicked their collective ass with her speech.
Similarly, Limbaugh couldn't refute Sandra Fluke, so he lied about what she said and called her a slut. Rich Lowry and Nick Gillespie couldn't out-argue Rachel Maddow, so they acted condescendingly to her, prodding her to try to get her to snap (plus, they're just assholes reflexively). Sununu tried to bully Soledad O'Brien when she fact-checked him. Some of this is a conservatives-hating-liberals thing, but it's even more a conservative-men-hating-women-who-don't-mind-their-place thing.
Batocchio's comments are excellent. "When conservatives say 'freedom', they really mean privilege." That is spot-on and going to be one of my regular phrases.
The class system is reinforced by conservative framing of morality. Badness must be punished, and punishment means you have been bad. Interrupting this cycle is immoral, because it prevents driving badness out of a person or society. This reinforces a Calvinist view of reality: if you are poor and miserable, it's because God decided you should be punished for something. Trying to interrupt this punishment restrains morality and is therefore immoral. Thus, social safety nets are immoral. "God, in his wisdom", doled out suffering, and abating it for anyone beneath me is unfair to me and therefore immoral.
Driftglass' comment, "If you just beat them a little harder, they'll shape up and stop being poor!" was a perfect synopsis.
This also speaks to the place of women, from subverting their places as God-ordained baby-holders for their husbands, to subverting their place as someone taking dictation from a white man.
Lastly, personally, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see Rachel Maddow have a MHP-style "WILL YOU F*ING STOP IT!!!" style explosion on somebody. She has dressed-down enough BS'ers on her show to make it clear she is smart enough to destroy someone.
"The US President personally selected a navy blue wool fabric woven by Reid & Taylor in Dumfriesshire.
And when told that his chosen material was made in Scotland, Dubya said: "All the better".
Now the Langholm-based firm hopes the president's taste will signal a shift in fashion from Italian to Scottish fabrics.
Bush was helped in his choice by veteran tailor Crittenden Rawlings, who made suits for his former-president father.
The president chose _ a fabric which costs pounds 65 a metre, but he is considering a move for another Reid & Taylor weave that could cost him up to $30,000 dollars per suit."
Oh my gaaaaaawd...I actually have a Tracy Reese dress. A more formal dress than Michelle's, too! It's espresso silk organza, with a fitted bodice and a full, 1950's-style skirt with petticoats underneath. I bought it on sale at Anthropologie for just under $100, to wear to a wedding; it was originally about $300. This was last year. It's highly unlikely Michelle's dress cost much more than $300. Tracy Reese is an American designer and her stuff is not haute-couture: it's fun, beautiful, feminine, and pretty reasonable, really.
ReplyDeleteThe reasons that dress looks so expensive: (A) Michelle is beautiful, and her strong, lithe arms look wonderful in sleeveless dresses and (B) Michelle probably had a seamstress (or her Mom!) alter the dress so it fit her perfectly and the lines would show off her waist. Oldest trick in the book (and I did write one of those): Have your clothes tailored. You can buy a suit for $10 at the consignment shop, have it tailored/altered to fit your body perfectly, and suddenly it looks like a $1000+ suit.
But of course, Republicans don't think that way. They buy overpriced off-the-rack stuff at Neimans and assume everyone else is that stupid.
Sununu has always been a nasty bully. And compared to Oscar night or any movie/TV wardrobe featured outfit, $350 is chicken feed. Holy FSM, it's a special occasion! It makes sense Michelle Obama went with something slightly upscale and chic but not obnoxiously expensive. (Plus, it's still $149,650 less than Sarah Palin's supposed wardrobe bill, although to be fair, that was for more than one outfit.)
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, isn't it, the way the wingnut mind veers back and forth? A wingnut I know posted something suggesting Michelle Obama bought pricey garb while Ann Romney was content with cheaper outfits like the reg'lar amurcan she was. Really. The conservatives attack the Democrats saying that they hate success, hate the rich, and so on, then turn around and attack the Democrats for supposedly spending a lot? They keep trying to push this weird idea that any Democrat who's rich is a hypocrite. They honestly cannot understand why anyone would want to raise their own taxes, or understand such ideas as the social contract, altruism, and compassion. All of it comes down to their weird tribal class system. John Kenneth Galbraith said, "We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much." Most conservatives are not even consciously aware of the class system in their heads that they view as the natural order (where they deserve to be on top, of course). You can find wingnuts upset that the poor have cell phones, or livid that they can use food stamp cards these days instead of actual stamps, because they want to see the poor publically humiliated. For the conservatives, it all comes down to whether someone is the right "sort" of person, and they believe their own kind is deserving while the wrong sort should suffer. When conservatives say "freedom," they really mean privilege.
Most importantly, attacking Michelle Obama's wardrobe is an attempt to minimize her, and ignores that she totally kicked their collective ass with her speech.
Similarly, Limbaugh couldn't refute Sandra Fluke, so he lied about what she said and called her a slut. Rich Lowry and Nick Gillespie couldn't out-argue Rachel Maddow, so they acted condescendingly to her, prodding her to try to get her to snap (plus, they're just assholes reflexively). Sununu tried to bully Soledad O'Brien when she fact-checked him. Some of this is a conservatives-hating-liberals thing, but it's even more a conservative-men-hating-women-who-don't-mind-their-place thing.
Also, too, on wardrobes:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-romneys-halloween-costumes-dressing.html
Batocchio's comments are excellent. "When conservatives say 'freedom', they really mean privilege." That is spot-on and going to be one of my regular phrases.
ReplyDeleteThe class system is reinforced by conservative framing of morality. Badness must be punished, and punishment means you have been bad. Interrupting this cycle is immoral, because it prevents driving badness out of a person or society. This reinforces a Calvinist view of reality: if you are poor and miserable, it's because God decided you should be punished for something. Trying to interrupt this punishment restrains morality and is therefore immoral. Thus, social safety nets are immoral. "God, in his wisdom", doled out suffering, and abating it for anyone beneath me is unfair to me and therefore immoral.
Driftglass' comment, "If you just beat them a little harder, they'll shape up and stop being poor!" was a perfect synopsis.
This also speaks to the place of women, from subverting their places as God-ordained baby-holders for their husbands, to subverting their place as someone taking dictation from a white man.
Lastly, personally, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see Rachel Maddow have a MHP-style "WILL YOU F*ING STOP IT!!!" style explosion on somebody. She has dressed-down enough BS'ers on her show to make it clear she is smart enough to destroy someone.
Mike.K.
"The US President personally selected a navy blue wool fabric woven by Reid & Taylor in Dumfriesshire.
ReplyDeleteAnd when told that his chosen material was made in Scotland, Dubya said: "All the better".
Now the Langholm-based firm hopes the president's taste will signal a shift in fashion from Italian to Scottish fabrics.
Bush was helped in his choice by veteran tailor Crittenden Rawlings, who made suits for his former-president father.
The president chose _ a fabric which costs pounds 65 a metre, but he is considering a move for another Reid & Taylor weave that could cost him up to $30,000 dollars per suit."
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/PRESIDENTIAL+SUIT.-a093280454
Michelle Obama just does not know how to properly squander an inheritance.