When you are fabulously wealthy, you probably spend money on things that others might consider inappropriate. That's perfectly fine. But when you are a politician's wife, and your husband is trying to appeal to the middle class, and you say something like, "I don't think of us as being wealthy," you open yourself up for a lot of critique. Welcome to Ann Romney's closet: after wearing a $990 shirt on television earlier this week, Romney caught a whole lot of heat.
On Tuesday morning, Ann Romney wore a very expensive blouse on CBS This Morning, and it's as if there was no interview at all; all the media talked about after her appearance was the shirt. Interestingly, the gyrfalcon, which is the bird on the shirt, is the world's largest falcon and is the mascot of the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Maybe Ann Romney is just a big "Portlandia" fan and wanted to "put a bird on it."
Plenty of politicians and their wives wear expensive clothes. It doesn't matter. But when you preach to the public that you don't think your family is rich, but then you wear a shirt that costs as much as some people's rent or mortgage payment, it's reasonable for people to be a little irked.
The shirt is designed by Reed Krakoff, who also turned the Coach brand into a $4 billion purse enterprise. But, lest you think Romney was wearing a sample and didn't pay for the shirt, Krakoff says he "100 percent didn't send" the shirt to her. "We don't get involved politically," he said.
