Battling Dress Codes at the State of the Union

It’s on.

Such was the gist of President Biden’s State of the Union address; such was the message of the women of the Democratic caucus sitting in the House chamber wearing white en masse; such, even, was the statement contained in the Laken Riley pins and T-shirts of some Republicans. Even if Mr. Biden was the only one officially talking, it was impossible not to see — and thus hear — them all.

The State of the Union has increasingly become a stage for sartorial statement-making, but rarely have the causes embedded in the clothes been this contested. Nor has the fact that the coming election will be fought through every means possible, including imagery, been this clear.

It began in 2017, when the Democratic women adopted the white suits of the suffragists — a choice Hillary Clinton popularized during her campaign for the presidency — at President Donald J. Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress, as a sign of the importance of women’s rights.

The next year white was replaced by black in support of the #MeToo movement, while the members of the Congressional Black Caucus wore kente cloth draped around their necks in opposition to President Trump’s statements about Africa and Haiti. White returned even more emphatically in 2019 and 2020. In 2022, many members, as well as the first lady, Jill Biden, used their dress to signal solidarity with Ukraine.

Still, even in the context of what has come before — perhaps because of the context of what has come before — the women in white were striking. They stood out in a block amid a sea of dark suits like a beacon of solidarity.