Politics as a venue for fashion isn’t new. Revisiting 250 years of America through Women’s Wear Daily’s 115-plus years of coverage made a strong case for Washington, D.C., style and its influence over the decades. Political style — good, bad or indifferent — is often a reflection of party lines. In the country’s capital, the rest is inferred by those who have access to the party — and WWD did.
“Washington-Go-Whirl,” WWD, March 11, 1964. Drawing Kenneth Paul Block; Images Guy DeLort/Fairchild Archive
Along with WWD’s Washington bureau editors, staff photographer Guy DeLort beginning in the ’60s played a significant role in capturing the essence of Washington and the White House‘s social scene. His lens and that of other staff photographers put WWD and its sister publication, The Daily News Record, front and center, capturing inaugurations, arrivals, picnics, state dinners, royal visits, Kennedy Center Honors events, as well as diplomatic mishaps and maneuvers — Watergate included — over three decades.
WWD articles such as “Inauguration Letter,” “Washington-Go-Whirl,” “State of the Union,” “The Party Favorites” and “Stars Over Washington,” among many others, remain notable examples of its D.C. fashion coverage. Together they captured the changing sensibilities of each American first family and their lasting impact — or not — on fashion.
John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, 1962 and Nancy Reagan and Ronald Reagan, 1972. Fairchild Archive/WWD
Often in the spotlight, first ladies were the ones adjusting the White House’s fashion persona during their husbands’ tenures, responding to public opinion and the demands of the moment. Jacqueline Kennedy is perhaps best remembered for bridging modern fashion with conservative sensitivity to the White House.
But it was “Lady Bird” Johnson — née Claudia Alta Taylor, wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson — who formalized fashion’s official entry to the White House, when in 1968 she welcomed the crème de la crème of Seventh Avenue for its first fashion show there during her “Discover America” campaign. Her press secretary, Liz Carpenter, told WWD, “Now that it has happened once, it hardly seems likely that the first fashion show at the White House will be the last.”
Lady Bird Johnson at a Congressional Club brunch at the Hotel Shoreham in Washington, D.C., wearing a yellow and white Courrèges dress and jacket by Marquise. Guy DeLort/Fairchild Archive
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Fashion accepted the invitation, sustaining a steady stream of industry support that continues to resonate.
While the first ladies made duty their devotion, their social secretaries, socialites and not-to-be-overlooked ambassadors’ wives also helped maintain the formalities of Washington style. Nancy Kissinger, wife of Henry Kissinger, and Deeda Blair, wife of U.S. Ambassador William McCormick Blair Jr., were partly responsible for making D.C. a place to be, along with local style setters and famed hostesses from Evangeline Bruce to Susan Mary Alsop and Marietta Tree to Katharine Graham. They brought friends, media and philanthropic contingents — including the Mellons, the Rockefellers and the Paleys — and a bevy of noteworthy fashion doyennes to join the festivities whenever possible, keeping Washington’s social circuit abuzz.
“Stars Over Washington,” WWD, Dec. 8, 1981, and Donald Gummer and Meryl Streep at the Kennedy Center Honors reception in 1981. Budd Gray/WWD
Some of WWD’s most memorable “Eye” page coverage, during DeLort’s years captured Washington’s political swashbuckling and stargazing — from receiving lines at Kennedy Center Honors galas and state dinners to a who’s who from both sides of the political aisle.
While the deep political divide in Washington — and the demise of the political hostess — make it unlikely the cross-party social swirl of the past will ever return, the influx of new congressional blood after the mid-term elections in November could create some new style stars to watch in the years ahead, and WWD will be keeping its eye out.
