My Fashion Obsession with Madam Secretary

My friend Margaret and I have big plans for our futures. Margaret wants to be Secretary of State or President, and I want to be her fashion advisor. She has always had ambitious goals, but I recently developed my personal goal to serve as her fashion advisor when I was watching Madam Secretary starring Tea Loni. In the show, the fashion is out of this world. Madam Secretary, Elizabeth McCord, is always wearing the latest  trends and killing the political game in a power suit or classy dress.

As I was scrounging the internet to find some of Elizabeth McCord’s outfits to use as inspiration for when I one day dress my friend Margaret , I was stunned. I found myself “window shopping” on websites such as Burberry (my new homeland) and Marc Jacobs. Soon, I realized that everything Elizabeth McCord was wearing was well over $1,000. Tragically, Margaret and I were both looking to elevate our style now, and Elizabeth’s outfits brought us to a dead end. I don’t know why I was surprised, I knew all of these designers would be quite expensive, but I didn’t expect it to be as difficult as it was to find knock offs or similar articles of clothing. I realized that if I wanted to dress like someone from Madam Secretary or if my friend Margaret wanted to, we needed to get incredibly creative.

Margaret first inspired me to get a Burberry-inspired printed scarf for Christmas. It was the classic Burberry checkered print, but it was a dupe and wasn’t made by Burberry. As Margaret and I have continued to look around, we have discovered how hard it is to upgrade our style within a reasonable budget. Every once in awhile, one of us will buy something new that elevates our style just a little bit, but we have started to notice how this barrier between nice clothing and fast fashion has influenced the world we live in.

In today’s day and age, clothes that are truly accessible to all people are poorly made, casual, and a lot of times very unappealing. They don’t say anything about the individual and they often aren’t elevated enough to truly make an impact in the political world. Political figures today like Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama are constantly getting their clothing designed by A-list designers. People see one of Hillary Clinton’s suits and say, “I want that,” but frankly, most can’t have it. The high fashion in the business world is fashion that isn’t accessible, making it harder and harder for individuals to climb the corporate ladder.

So yes, Margaret and I will continue to look for knock offs, and we will continue to get our inspiration from Madam Secretary, but frankly we can only go so far. I have my faux Burberry scarf and she has a blazer, but one day when I’m her stylist we’ll both have the whole Burberry collection. And hopefully when she’s in her Burberry, she’ll be igniting a policy change to make it easier for everyone to access that luxury material.