Styling the world’s most famous women
Bethan Holt meets the designer styling Clinton’s way to the White House – and reveals her power-dressing formula
It’s not often that a fashion designer precedes an interview by sending over a forensically detailed, 14-slide PowerPoint presentation crammed with statistics from corporate behemoths, quotes from eminent psychologists and references to behavioural economics. But Nina McLemore is no ordinary designer.
A former executive at Liz Claiborne, a company that filled a workwear niche in the Eighties, and founder of a private investment firm, McLemore has made it her business to create clothes – specifically, perfectly tailored blazers – that help women to navigate high-powered boardroom positions with style and confidence.
When Hillary Clinton addresses the Democratic Party Convention today, the chances are she will be wearing one of McLemore’s go-to jackets. The self-declared “pantsuit aficionado” (according to her Twitter biography) has depended on McLemore’s key pieces as she navigated her way from first lady to presidential nominee. From the bold turquoise jacket she wore to meet South Korea’s President Lee while secretary of state to the fuchsia blazer she’s chosen for many TV appearances, credit goes to McLemore.
For many of the designer’s highachieving fans, from Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi to US senator Elizabeth Warren, it’s her no-nonsense approach to “power dressing” that has won them over. Even when Clinton is not wearing McLemore’s label, she stays true to her rules; for her appearance via video link to address the convention on Tuesday, she wore a pink jacket with the stand-up collar that McLemore favours (“it projects more confidence”).
The tailored jackets and trouser suits for which the designer has become known are all based on meticulous market research. Every detail is backed up with pragmatic reasoning. For example, she encourages her clients to wear bright hues, rather than black. “Colour can entirely change your attractiveness and how people see you,” she explains. “A woman wants skin that has a pink touch to it, not grey or yellow, which is what black gives. In law firms, 70-80 per cent of the people are in black, so they don’t stand out.”
The sleeves on McLemore’s blazers sit around an inch longer than a standard jacket, but they come with linings in contrasting hues that can be flicked up to the exact right length for the woman wearing it. The trick also lets them emulate rolled-up shirt cuffs, which has become a favourite sartorial signal of male politicians in recent years.
McLemore will never create a blazer with a power shoulder (unflattering) and keeps the silhouette neat, but allows plenty of room around the back and arms for ease of movement. Also, she says, a jacket that’s buttoned is more slimming than one that isn’t.
“Essentially, it’s all about the image that you’re portraying – not just how others see you but how you see yourself,” she says. “There’s also an impact on your cognitive ability, so the research is showing that how you dress has a definite effect.”
McLemore says this kind of prescriptive styling is a response to the uniform way of dressing that men have long adopted in the workplace.
“There is no uniform for women and our bodies have more places with shape than men,” she observes, noting that women also have more interesting tools in their arsenal to play with. “We can change things with hair, make-up and shoes. Women need to learn at a young age that if they’re serious about their careers, they need to dress a certain way. The fashion industry has adopted a very sexually provocative image, so if you look at clothes in retail it’s hard to find clothes that project a powerful, confident image.”
There is constant bemoaning of the fact that high-profile women are more closely scrutinised than men, but that, says McLemore, should be seen as an opportunity. “One of the things that I have noticed about the women who are chief executive officers or in high positions is that they are strong people and able to deal with really difficult challenges. They can be tough when they need to be tough, but when there’s tension in the room, they can deflate it with a sense of humour. It means the clothes you wear also can send that message of ‘I’m a positive person’ – which is much more challenging for men in grey suits to project, short of resorting to a novelty tie.”
And what of her most famous client? “The consensus is that fashion is not her strength,” McLemore says. “She does not photograph well. In person she’s much more slim and more attractive than on camera, so I think that she probably needs to think about clothes that make her look slimmer. But also clothes that appeal to a younger audience, because she is not particularly winning over huge numbers of young women.”
With such conflicting campaign trail pressures, it’s little wonder that the cheerful appeal of a tailoring with scientific levels of fit has become Hillary’s signature. McLemore’s rules mean that she can at least count on her clothes to make her feel confident and powerful. And, as she prepares to face Donald Trump, a powerful armour will be a huge help.