What Kamala Harris's Converse All-Stars tell us about how shoes shape our identities

Like most public figures, Kamala Harris adapts her shoes to different occasions. While her wardrobe includes traditional options like formal black heels, it was her appearance within the Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars on the February 2021 cover of Vogue that attracted particular attention.

As a Democratic presidential candidate, these sneakers became one again Center point their campaign.

With her alternative of sneakers, Harris signals a brand new era in women's political leadership — and shows how her alternative of footwear can shape a pacesetter's identity and their ability to attach with voters.

Comprehensive American values

We may know not to guage a book by its cover, but all politicians – especially women – know that we inevitably do. The appearance of others is the best way we categorize people to grasp the world and our place in it.

Clothing is a central medium with which we discover ourselves and others. Shoes are particularly meaningful: When we have a look at an individual's shoes, we will tell from them whether we discover with that person or not.

This is something that politicians and their teams know and manipulate to win votes.

One famous scene A very good example of that is Democratic Congressman David Norris of Brooklyn's concession speech within the film The Adjustment Bureau (2011).

The character played by Matt Damon reveals the numerous work that goes into putting together the proper outfit:

We associate shiny shoes with high-priced lawyers and bankers. If you would like to get the vote of a employee, you’ve got to wear your shoes out a little bit, but you possibly can't wear them out a lot that you simply piss off the lawyers and bankers […] So what’s the right amount of abrasion? Do you recognize we actually paid a consultant $7,300 to inform us THIS was the proper level of attrition?

While Harris' Chuck Taylors generally look flawless, she makes it clear that she is aware of the style's importance to potential voters, explaining in a single Interview 2020:

No matter your background or what language your grandmother spoke, all of us had our Chucks sooner or later, right?

Relatively inexpensive and practical, the Converse All-Star is an all-American shoe worn by people of all ages, races, genders and sexualities. He is a social balancer – a wise alternative for a politician who desires to discover with a broad electorate.

As other As I discovered, Harris' alternative of sneakers signals her American values ​​and no-nonsense attitude.

In these shoes she is prepared for anything.

Shoes change us

Interviewed in 2018Harris' relationship with the sneakers goes back several years and definitely seems authentic.

Whether the unique decision to wear them was her own – or, like Norris, that of a team of consultants – not matters. Through the technique of wearing them, shoes change us.

They not only affect how we physically move through the world, but additionally shape our social relationships with others.

Anyone who has chosen a specific pair of shoes for a job interview or an important day knows their transformative power in helping you are feeling the piece.

Identity may be understood as something that’s performed. When a performance is perceived as compelling, we turn into the role we’re playing and the identity is integrated into our sense of self.

Harris' shoes are comprehensible. In them she is perceived as approachable and down-to-earth and might due to this fact feel that way.

During the campaign, the social interactions it allows improve their ability to attach and socialize with other people. Through this process, their performance and their identity turn into one.

You could say she has turn into their shoes; In this manner, she embodies the all-American values ​​that she represents. And at just one.75 meters tall, the choice to not compensate for her height with heels exudes a self-confidence that increasingly women are discovering.

This woman knows who she is and is reassuringly comfortable.

Find authenticity

Next to ongoing speculation When it involves Trump's height and whether he wears height-adjustable insoles, his alternative of footwear has drawn comparatively less attention, as is usually the case with male politicians.

Accordingly Shoe Newshe rarely deviates from black leather shoes, indicating his corporate associations. However, that didn't stop Trump from launching one Line of golden sneakerscalled “Never Surrender High-Tops” and priced at $399 in February. A brand new design with the words “Fight, Fight, Fight”, was released after the attack in July.

This represents a really different use of shoes to have interaction with voters.

At a time when authenticity is increasingly valued in politics, Harris' shoe alternative represents greater than only a campaign strategy. It reflects changing expectations of power and leadership.

Her Converse sneakers challenge the concept that women must literally elevate themselves to authority figures.

Instead they suggest a latest sort of political performance where power comes not from size or traditional status symbols, but from the power to create an actual reference to voters.