First lady Jill Biden will not be remembered in history for her clothes, as first ladies such as Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Reagan and Michelle Obama have been. But that is by design. She eschews the pleasures and expressiveness of fashion, instead standing by a few principles: modesty, tastefulness, relatability.
Biden always looks great. Rarely can more or less be said — which made her blue and beige Oscar de la Renta dress at Wednesday night’s state dinner, for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his wife, Yuko Kishida, unusual.
Her ensembles are not memorable, as both Kennedy’s and Melania Trump’s were, nor will they change the popular understanding of clothes, as Obama’s did. They do not tell a tale about glamour as an expression of power, like Reagan’s wardrobe. But Biden’s suits always fit perfectly, and her dresses and taste in prints are inoffensively lovely. They seem suited to what an educator and first lady of the United States should wear in 2024.
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Her clothes are never the story, in other words, but she may be acknowledging, reluctantly, that as the election kicks into gear, that will no longer be the case.
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The Oscar de la Renta dress she wore at the state dinner shows that she is sharpening her sense of decorum into something like a weapon. On the surface, the dress was an expected choice: She has worn the brand, designed since 2016 by Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia, perhaps more than any other, for several formal occasions (including the December 2022 state dinner for France), her 2021 Vogue cover and other public appearances that call for a simply charming floral dress.
“It’s kind of surprising, I think, how much commentary is made about what I wear,” she told Vogue in 2021. But Wednesday’s dress felt like a slight pivot in her sartorial strategy. The gown was almost completely beige, with mists of blue at the neck and shoulders. It drew the eye up to Biden’s smiling face and then quickly over to Yuko Kishida, head to toe in bright, bright blue. Who knows whether Biden knew what Kishida would wear ahead of time, but even if she had chosen a different color, the trick still would have worked. It was a visual act of graciousness, furthered by the thematic interiors of the event, with enormous fans, cherry blossoms and a floor designed to look like a koi pond.
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The decor was nearly Disneyland-ish (though we are at the tail end of cherry blossom season in Washington), yet Biden’s dress was a more successful visual gesture to demonstrate the Biden style of American alliance. Don’t look at me, Biden’s dress said — look at our guests. They are the center of attention, not America’s power, braggadocio or style.
The dress was subtle, but its message was not.
In fact, several high-profile Democratic women in attendance seemed to undertake heavy-handed fashion diplomacy, especially former first lady and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, in a red kimono-like caftan, and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, in a black and white striped evening jacket that, given the occasion, also resembled the Japanese kimono. (Funnily enough, the woman who sidestepped the game altogether, which always verges on the costumey, was Amy Rule, the wife of Rahm Emanuel, American ambassador to Japan. She wore a simple pink tea-length dress with puffed sleeves. Cherry blossom pink, maybe, but not overt.)
The strongest play came from the president’s granddaughter, Naomi Biden Neal, in a cherry blossom print dress with a cape back. From the perspective of pure fashion, she looked lovely. But with the added political context, the message was a bit over the top: We’re! Just! So! Glad! You’re! Here!
Even President Biden’s choice of neckwear seemed like a pointed choice: a necktie in place of a bow tie. Let Prime Minister Kishida have the moment of classic dapperness, it seemed to say.
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Not since the inaugural ball in 2021, when Jill Biden wore a Gabriela Hearst dress embroidered with every state and territory’s flower to symbolize political unity, has the first lady so handily put a message into her clothes.
Of course, that was a tense moment, fresh after the tight race and the attempted overthrow of the results just weeks before, when the Biden administration had to make something graceful out of a chaotic country.
Now, though it is not yet official, we are in a kind of remake of that election season, only freighted with new fears. The first lady will soon be in countless photographs that serve as points of comparison between the Biden administration and the possibility of a second Trump era. Though this kind of outfit jousting is certainly not Biden’s cup of tea, every photo will be scrutinized, every look a study in contrasts, and she is savvy enough to know it.
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Melania Trump is much more at home in the world of clothes. She is a classicist, in a way — indulgent in luxury brands, a woman who enjoys shopping and the way clothes fit her. The election is certainly no beauty pageant; it won’t be won on outfits. But clothing will be an essential battleground.
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Biden will show her consistency and relatability (especially in her willingness to rewear clothes). And now, perhaps an added message of graciousness — that she and her husband represent an America that does not bloviate but instead insists on humility. Melania Trump is rarely seen, though her Garbo-like public profile will make her few appearances even more significant, more fraught with signs and symbols, intended or otherwise.
This is an election that will be fought as much in pictures and posts as anything else — the media and at times the candidates are eager to seize upon anything that paints a contrast.
Perhaps this dinner was an outlier, and Biden will return to her pattern of understatement. But the de la Renta gown felt like a gauntlet thrown.
