Everybody had something to say about the power coat Nancy Pelosi wore to last December’s meeting with Donald Trump regarding border wall funding—the one where the president threatened a government shutdown. Even Moonlight director Barry Jenkins weighed in, calling its particular shade of red “deeply emphatic, yet serene.” In our photo-saturated moment, the coat telegraphed its message loud and clear: “Don’t mess with me.” Max Mara was the company behind it, and you can bet the brand capitalized on the situation. In the press, creative director Ian Griffiths said, “You develop an emotional relationship with a coat like nothing else in your wardrobe. I can imagine why Mrs. Pelosi chose to wear it for this important moment, and I’m deeply honored.” The label announced it would reissue the 2013 style in a range of colors for 2019.
Mrs. Pelosi was front and center on Griffiths’s Fall mood board this morning. He was making a connection between power and glamour. Traditionally a feminine trait, glamour hasn’t always been linked with power, but with a record number of women in the House of Representatives, and multiple Democratic women presidential candidates gunning for the 2020 nomination, that’s changing. Griffiths naturally wants to keep Max Mara in the conversation, and on the backs of Mrs. Pelosi and other women like her. Hence the collection’s boss tailoring. Strong shoulders and full, pleated pants or skirts cut similarly were topped by matching coats, and the ensembles came in head-to-toe buff, camel, charcoal, or a tawny light brown. Extrapolating on the idea of working women, he added precisely cut utility pockets lifted from workwear to coats, vests, shift dresses, and a terrific poncho. The bags harnessed across the chest took the idea a step too far; they didn’t pass the Roxane Gay rule: “Dressing like a woman means wearing anything a woman deems appropriate and necessary for getting the job done.” There was no Pelosi red, but Griffiths did send out trios of models in bold colors. We could picture the House Speaker in the cerulean.
