Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Knows You'll Talk About Her Clothes, So She's Using Them to Say Something

From ELLE

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arrived at the 116th Congress swearing in-where she officially became the youngest congresswoman the country's ever seen-she knew there was a lot she could say.

Not physically, though; the congressional swearing-in doesn't really account for speech-making or quote-giving. So instead, she communicated through her outfit, her accessories, her lipstick. She wore a white suit, her signature red lip (she's said she favors a Stila lipstick in Beso), and thin gold hoops.

When people noticed the monochromatic look, Ocasio-Cortez responded on Twitter, writing, "I wore all-white today to honor the women who paved the path before me, and for all the women yet to come. From suffragettes to Shirley Chisholm, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the mothers of the movement."

Then when someone else tweeted about about her hoops and lipstick, she replied again: "Lip+hoops were inspired by Sonia Sotomayor, who was advised to wear neutral-colored nail polish to her confirmation hearings to avoid scrutiny. She kept her red. Next time someone tells Bronx girls to take off their hoops, they can just say they’re dressing like a Congresswoman."

These are all deliberate choices, the same ones women have always had to make as we carefully choose the armor we will wear out into a world where people police our bodies and make assumptions about us based on our clothing. But Ocasio-Cortez isn't dressing for anyone else-she's making these choices to bypass traditional forms of media and deliver her own message, not one parroted to her. She's making them for herself, for her community, to send a message of inclusivity every way she knows how.

After all, Ocasio-Cortez knows she has power. The flurry of media attention she's received since she won her primary, beating out a 10-term incumbent and threatening the old school leadership of the Democratic party, proves it. She has over two million people following what she says (and does and wears) on Twitter. (She's even teaching a Twitter class to the Democratic Caucus.) On Instagram, she has 1.8 million followers. On the day Ocasio-Cortez came to the ELLE.com offices to take a photo for a feature on the new congresswomen, she took to Instagram Stories to explain why she chose to wear a braid that day.

She wrote, "When I wear a braid, it is to honor the African and Indigenous heritage that is part of being Puerto Rican. My family is Afro-Latina. When my niece was very little, it upset me to see how early she started to feel that her big, curly, beautiful, natural hair was anything other than gorgeous. I don't want my little nieces to ever be told that their hair or their brads are 'unprofessional.' That's why I chose to wear one today - to MAKE it normal and celebrated, with respect and honor of our ancestors, and to let every little girl out there know that they can bring their braids to Congress, too."

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez embraces fashion and its potential messaging in a much more open way than say, Melania Trump. When Trump infamously wore a jacket that said "I REALLY DON'T CARE DO U?" during a day when she went to visit migrant children at the border. First Trump said the coat had no meaning, and then later backtracked and said it was a message to all her critics. The choice to wear the coat seemed callous, and was made more controversial by her sloppy handling of the resulting fracas.

It also seemed like the antithesis of Ocasio-Cortez, whose style choices choices are thought-out and gracious. They're meant to open doors for other women, to make them feel valued and accepted and normal. Her outfits are also financially accessible: women from all kinds of economic situations can likely afford a red lip, some fake gold hoops and a set of press-on nails. Ocasio-Cortez knows the maelstrom of media attention lends inherent power to everything she does and wears-even if that power and attention aren't necessarily wanted. She's decided to use that influence to highlight issues she cares about, and to make other women feel like the halls of government are open to them regardless of their nationality, their current job, their paycheck, or their culture.

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