What do women in the sphere of power as antagonistic to each other as Yolanda Díaz, Isabel Díaz Ayuso or Queen Letizia have in common? The answer is simple and brief: the choice of the color red when wearing their most famous outfits on historically important days and events. The explanation and nuances underlying this circumstance contain, however, a little more substance.
Recently, the vice president of the Government and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, appeared at the presentation of the pact for a coalition government between her party and the PSOE dressed in a completely red sheath dress. Next to her, Pedro Sánchez was seen with a modest dull pink tie as an almost imperceptible nod towards his partner, revealing the true difference in power in terms of representation that exists between both groups. Díaz renounced her own identity in pursuit of that of the other. Making only that of the leading partner visible, thereby sending a message of programmatic submission.
And wearing red is never a trivial decision, much less in politics. Every time a woman with relevance and public projection opts for this color, she is fully aware that, with it, a message is being sent that is probably not going to go unnoticed by the media. There are countless examples that can be found in recent Western political history of ladies in red who, because of this clothing, have starred in covers, headlines, criticism, praise and analysis in equal measure. They know it: they do it at will. However, the message that is sent with a red outfit – and the one that is intended to be sent – is not always the same.
Red has historically and geographically been constituted as a signifier of diverse meanings; Yes, neutral, never. For centuries, red stood as a symbol of power and class, being closely linked to royalty and aristocracy, among other reasons, because it was one of the most expensive pigments to obtain. In fact, in some regions it was even prohibited by law for anyone who did not belong to the noble class, including the bourgeoisie who could afford it, to wear crimson clothing.
This almost essentializing association between red and power took place especially in the case of men, but for women it was - and continues to be today - a somewhat trickier issue. And the symbolic attributions of red are also related to passion, sex, eroticism and blood. Thus, red becomes a double-edged sword for women: it is also associated with the absence of decorum, hypersexualization and promiscuity. At the time, there were even misogynistic stories that considered women impure if they were menstruating, which expropriated women from the possibility of choosing red outfits and redirected them towards blue (calm, patience, serenity) with the which was represented, for example, the figure of the Virgin.
In this sense, throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, women in positions of power have been reappropriating the color red as a demand, a firm, clear and loud sentence: “you see me, I am here and I am not hiding.” nor do I hide my presence.” It is well known that, in the Second World War, Winston Churchill himself promoted the popularization of red lipstick, which increased the morale and self-esteem of women by providing a touch of color among all colors in that dark and gray period.
Thus, red has been championed by fundamental designers such as Valentino, and today it has ended up becoming one of the most characteristic tones of what is known as power dressing. In the United States, for example, although since 2000 the Republican Party has been identified with the color red, Hillary Clinton herself attended the presidential debate of her campaign as a candidate for the White House in 2016 in a bright red monochrome suit. And it's not the only one. In 2018, the former speaker of the House of Representatives and member of the Democratic Party, Nancy Pelosi, blew up social media by attending a meeting with former President Donald Trump wearing a red Max Mara coat that created such a sensation that It was put back on sale after several seasons.
Michelle Obama also made multiple vermilion appearances at many events during her husband's administration, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attended his historic speech in response to the sexist attack by Republican Congressman Ted Yoho - who publicly addressed her as a "fucking bitch." - clad in a scarlet jacket suit with matching lipstick, which ended up leading to an international feminist solidarity movement with the rouge à lèvres as a symbol.
And in addition, in 2017, red had become a color of feminism for women in the United States -without relegating violet-, in homage to the cultural and political boom caused by The Handmaid's Tale, and During that year they went to the Women's March on March 8 to show off it. The intention was, on the one hand, to dispute Trump's distinctive color, as a symptom of resistance to his anti-feminist policies; on the other, claiming as their own that color that had always been used to mark women with the scarlet letter, blaming them for sexual violence for being “too provocative,” subtracting their legitimacy for being “frivolous” in spaces of power if they were wearing makeup… .
In recent times, Spain has also witnessed a resurgence of red as a distinctive symbol of women's looks in the institutions of power regardless of their political sign, escaping the dichotomous logics blue=right and red=left that, for Generally, they operate in our imagination.
Perhaps one of the most unforgettable is the Lorenzo Caprile dress with which Letizia Ortiz made her debut in society as the future queen of Spain and which did not go unnoticed by anyone, a few months after the famous "let me finish" that she said to her fiancé before the press and which earned her countless criticisms for appearing too empowered in the face of monarchical and patriarchal authority. Thus, in the face of the communication strategy that seeks to prevent - for the moment - the monarchy from giving something to talk about after the crisis of the institution precipitated by the emeritus and that insists on dressing Princess Leonor in white and other neutral colors that do not attract attention , in her day Letizia would periodically relapse into red as a declaration of intentions. She was seeking, precisely, to be seen.
Just like Lady Di at the time, the Lady in red par excellence - although Chris de Burgh himself denied having written the eighties hit inspired by her -, vilified to the point of exhaustion and who was made to pay dearly for not succumbing to the resignation of her identity in pursuit of strict royal standards, also in relation to her iconic style.
Regarding representative politics, with repercussions on the electoral field, for decades many PSOE women such as Carme Chacón, Bibiana Aído, Adriana Lastra, María Jesús Montero and even Begoña Fernández have regularly worn red, as an identification badge. characteristic of its brand and of much of the European socialist tradition. But the Americanization of politics experienced in the last decade has also been imported into the field of fashion, making scarlet power dressing the order of the day. With an undisputed ambassador of red: Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
And, in the case of Ayuso, it contains a double strategic aspect. Firstly, that power dressing with which he always seeks to stand out above those around him, whatever the context. Including Alberto Núñez Feijóo himself, as could be seen on the balcony of the PP headquarters in Genoa on the night of the 28J elections, when the militancy began chanting the name of the president of the Community of Madrid while the candidate addressed, In theory, your audience, a few words.
On the other hand, and in line with the rest of his discursive strategy, Ayuso tries to dispute the identity symbols and concepts of his adversary, on the left. From “freedom” or “well-being”, to the color red, with the aim of emptying them of content and resignifying them for his own interests, making them his own. And a political formation expropriated of its symbols is a formation without identity, without presence and, therefore, without power.
Furthermore, in the case of the color red, Ayuso has managed to transform it into her own heritage, becoming the one who represents red, which in turn is the color of the flag of the Community of Madrid, which gives rise to a direct analogy: it is the Community of Madrid. Culminating what her predecessor, Esperanza Aguirre, already began in 2006, when she attended an event dressed by Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada in a skirt that was, explicitly, the flag of the region. And she snatched the possibility of carrying out that same company from the leader of the Más Madrid formation, with whom she coincided in embodied jacket in the electoral debate of the 2021 regional elections.
In short, not only clothes, but the bodies of the women who wear them continue to function today as a tool of explicit political communication. Like an instrument. But women's bodies, like red, are no one's heritage. It all depends on the stories you seek to build around them. And that they themselves are the ones who enunciate them.
