Following Suit

The French are in the middle of a cultural merde storm with a bill being hotly debated in parliament that would ban the wearing of face-covering veils such as the niqab or burqua in public. Secularists to the soul (God bless them) but with the largest Muslim population in Europe, the French are walking a political tightrope that would put Philippe Petit’s stroll between the Twin Towers to shame.

I’m not going to weigh in on this touchy subject because, for starters, I don’t live in France, but I have a suspicion the real reason a large majority of the French back the ban is sartorial. In a country that not only coined the term haute couture (loosely translated as “high sewing” or “high dressmaking”) but protects its criteria and use by law, the deliberately gruesome burqua must be particularly offensive. I know when I strolled down the Champs Élysées wearing a perfectly acceptable American ensemble of jeans, top and leather boots, I felt déclassé to say the least.

Lately, I’ve been giving this idea of banning a certain article of female clothing much thought. The only problem is, some of the elected officials who’d have to get behind the prohibition are its most ardent adherents.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m talking about that ubiquitously horrendous combination of blazer and pants that’s come to be known as “The Hillary Suit.”

That damning designation is a bit unfair. Yes, ever since Hillary Clinton decided to seriously pursue her own political career, she’s been seen exclusively in the eponymous suit (at least she dropped the all-black look awhile ago and branched out into color, although that orange number was a poor choice), but this has been the “uniform” for all serious female pols since they were permitted to wear pants on the Senate floor in the early 1990’s. (And wasn’t that mighty white of their male counterparts.) It’s also become the go-to get-up of any woman in corporate America who’s looking to take a hammer to the glass ceiling.

I don’t get it. If a woman can wear only one type of apparel to prove her worthiness, is there that much difference between a business suit and a burqua? Isn’t it just as repressive for a woman to be required to cover her whole body to gain acceptance, as it is to ape the look of a man?

I wish I had a solution to fascist female fashion in all its guises, but Coco Chanel I am not. Maybe it’s about time women themselves cut the burquas, business suits and ties that bind.