After Ardern Politics Will Never Look the Same

“[Jacinda] Ardern may have been known on the international stage for many things as a leader, but her wardrobe was rarely among them,” Vanessa Friedman reports for The New York Times.

“Yet throughout her time in office she always understood that fashion is a political tool – one she wielded so easily and subtly in the service of her agenda that most people didn’t even realise it was happening,” Friedman writes.

“She used fashion as a form of outreach, not just as a way to support and market local industry (though she did that, too), but as a way to connect with her constituencies on a personal level.

“She wore New Zealand designers almost exclusively from her first election night … And she defined ‘New Zealand designers’ as broadly as possible, wearing a kahu huruhuru feather cape – a symbol of power and respect – to the Commonwealth dinner in Buckingham Palace in 2018, and donning a feather stole for the queen’s funeral in September, custom-made by Māori designer Kiri Nathan.”

Original article by Vanessa Friedman, The New York Times, February 2, 2023.