Forget white suffragist pantsuits, the political uniform of the female Trump opposition during the president’s first term. On Tuesday night during President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress, about three dozen members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus wore bright hues of pink.
Amid the sea of dark suits in the House chamber, all that pink was impossible to miss. It was also impossible not to wonder if the members of Congress were falling back on an old performance strategy rather than grappling with their bigger problems.
There were congresswomen in hot pink. In shell pink. In baby pink. In pink jackets and pink skirts. There were even some congressmen in pink ties. Nancy Pelosi wore a bright pink pantsuit; Representative Jill Tokuda of Hawaii, a bubble-gum pink blazer with “We the people” scrawled in black on her lapels; Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico, chair of the caucus, a raspberry jacket and cotton candy colored palazzo pants.
“We decided to use a strong color because what’s happening now is more extreme than ever,” said Ms. Fernandez, referring to Mr. Trump’s policies and executive orders on women’s health care and Ukraine, among other things. Pink is, she said, “the color of women’s power, of persistence and of resistance.”
As a color, pink has been associated in modern times with stereotyping and marginalizing women and gay people. In the 1970s, the term “pink collar jobs” referred to jobs overwhelmingly assumed by women: secretary, nurse, cleaning lady. Later the term “pink ghetto” was coined to refer to low-paid female labor.
But Elsa Schiaparelli also called the color “shocking!” and “Barbie” made pink a feminist flag.
It speaks of the female body and flesh in an almost visceral way. (There’s a reason breast cancer awareness adopted the pink ribbon.) It also recalls 2017 and Mr. Trump’s first term, when thousands of women around the country knitted pink pussy hats to wear at a protest march the day after his swearing-in.
Though the hats have not reappeared, by adopting the color and extending it to their entire outfit, the congresswomen are attempting to reclaim it as a sign of opposition. It made for a striking contrast with the subdued gray Dior suit worn by Melania Trump and the black Oscar de la Renta of Ivanka Trump. Not to mention casting the blush colored trouser suit of Usha Vance, from the Los Angeles label the Sei, in a somewhat confusing light.
Other colors were used as a form of quiet repudiation during Mr. Trump’s speech — Representative Bill Foster of Illinois wore a tie striped in yellow and blue to support Ukraine, as did a number of his colleagues.
But it was the pink that seemed to symbolize the complications, both good (it was a start at a unified response) and bad (it risked coming across as superficial and kind of flimsy), of linking a protest to a color.
Still, the lawmakers believed it was worth wearing something that would stand out. Mr. Trump may have the microphone, Ms. Fernandez said, “but with color, right in front of him, we could register our protest.” Or at least try to.
(The protest was, of course, not merely a matter of color. Democrats brought guests to the address, focusing on people who had been harmed by Mr. Trump’s policies, and carried paddles that read “Musk Steals,” “Lies” and “Save Medicaid.”)
While it’s hard to know whether the pink bothered Mr. Trump or spurred him on, it’s clear that Mr. Trump is hypersensitive to the power of costume, especially at times of high public pageantry and peak television viewership. Look at how he greeted the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky last week before their diplomacy-busting meeting by commenting on his choice of attire, sarcastically observing of the long-sleeve military shirt and trousers he had worn to the White House, “You’re all dressed up today.” Mr. Trump has his own patriotic uniform, and Vice President JD Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson both styled themselves to match for the joint address.
Little wonder that at almost every State of the Union during Mr. Trump’s first term, dress became a form of silent protest: those white suits in 2017, 2019 and 2020; black for #MeToo in 2018. By the time of Joe Biden’s last State of the Union, when the presidential race was underway, it was a visual sign of the battle lines being drawn on both sides of the party aisle — and a preview of what was to come.
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