Fashion in DC, or Why is Desiree Rodgers Leaving?
I've been waiting for Robin Givhan's take on the Desiree Rogers departure ever since I heard the news last week-and I have to sayI was disppointed in her column about it. She seems to believe that you can't wear straight-from-the-runway coutoure and succeed to DC-that this city is still full of badly-dressed people who run the world. While it is true the DC is full of people who still believe you can't dress well and still be smart and competent, that has changed a bit-but Desiree Rodgers just set back the cause for dressing well in DC by 10 years. And why is that? Well, she committed two cardinal sins:
1) She didn't do her job and
2) She outshone her bosses
Did she do her job? When it came down to crunch time, no, she did not . Despite the Secret Service taking the blame for letting in people to a State Dinner that did not have invitations, everyone knows it was Rogers' office who was at fault. Were there people checking names at the door? No, there were not. Was there a master list? No, not really. And where was the person responsible? Was she running the party? No, she was seated at the dinner in her Commes des Garcons dress. My point here is that the person running this sort of party should not be seated there-who should her underlings ask if something goes wrong? I guess they should just deal with it themselves, because they can't go up and ask her. Anna Wintour has people who run her parties, so she can sit there and look great-that's what Ms Rogers wanted, to sit there and look great and let someone else run the party-unfortunately, it was her job to take responsibility for it.
But I think outshining her bosses is an even more egregious sin. Did she forget that she worked for the President of the United States and the First Lady? Otherwise why on earth would you wear a dress that had been shone on the runway literally a few weeks before this dinner and was designed to be an attention getter? The issue with the dress is that, if you're paying attention, you can see how fashion-forward it is-it's NOT your typical state dinner lovely dress (that would be Michelle Obama's Naeen Khan dress). No, Rogers' dress was designed to say "Look what I'm wearing and how fashionable I am-I KNOW the fashion world", while Michelle Obama's dress said beautiful and elegant State Dinner dress. There may be places where outshining your boss is okay, but at a State Dinner and your bosses are the President and First Lady, is not one of them.
And all would (probably) have been forgiven if the dinner had run smoothly-but it did not. There were gate-crashers who got to meet the President-so instead of talking about how well everything went, all anyone could talk were the mistakes-not what anyone wanted, least of all the President and First Lady.
1) She didn't do her job and
2) She outshone her bosses
Did she do her job? When it came down to crunch time, no, she did not . Despite the Secret Service taking the blame for letting in people to a State Dinner that did not have invitations, everyone knows it was Rogers' office who was at fault. Were there people checking names at the door? No, there were not. Was there a master list? No, not really. And where was the person responsible? Was she running the party? No, she was seated at the dinner in her Commes des Garcons dress. My point here is that the person running this sort of party should not be seated there-who should her underlings ask if something goes wrong? I guess they should just deal with it themselves, because they can't go up and ask her. Anna Wintour has people who run her parties, so she can sit there and look great-that's what Ms Rogers wanted, to sit there and look great and let someone else run the party-unfortunately, it was her job to take responsibility for it.
But I think outshining her bosses is an even more egregious sin. Did she forget that she worked for the President of the United States and the First Lady? Otherwise why on earth would you wear a dress that had been shone on the runway literally a few weeks before this dinner and was designed to be an attention getter? The issue with the dress is that, if you're paying attention, you can see how fashion-forward it is-it's NOT your typical state dinner lovely dress (that would be Michelle Obama's Naeen Khan dress). No, Rogers' dress was designed to say "Look what I'm wearing and how fashionable I am-I KNOW the fashion world", while Michelle Obama's dress said beautiful and elegant State Dinner dress. There may be places where outshining your boss is okay, but at a State Dinner and your bosses are the President and First Lady, is not one of them.
And all would (probably) have been forgiven if the dinner had run smoothly-but it did not. There were gate-crashers who got to meet the President-so instead of talking about how well everything went, all anyone could talk were the mistakes-not what anyone wanted, least of all the President and First Lady.
posted by SHbookworm at 6:26 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home