What's the deal with Ann Romney's $1K shirt?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There's a bit of a double standard at work in the coverage of Ann Romney's $1,000 bird shirt. It's a rather expensive piece of clothing, yes, but how much do you think the men's suits, including her husband's, cost? A lot, I suspect. At least, they look expensive.

And is that wrong? Really, would you expect a high 1%-er like Mitt to wear a cheap off-the-rack suit? Same for the president. Obama needs and wants to look good. Looking good can be expensive.

As for Ann's shirt, I'd say there are two problems, though:

1) As our friend Libby puts it:

I have no problem with Mrs. Romney paying almost a cool grand for only one shirt. Fashion designers need to make a living too, but paying that much for this shirt is a crime...

I figure she went with the eagle motif to relate to the patriotic proletariat likely to be watching, but it didn't work on any level. This is a shirt that might look good on a skinny, 20 something hipster. Definitely not meant for a 60 something aspiring FLOTUS.  

Actually, I'm not sure it would good on anyone. It's horrendous. Ann may know how to spend money with reckless abandon, but it would appear she has questionable taste to say the least. (She apparently doesn't have a stylist, so this was her decision.)

2) Maybe she didn't think it would ever be an issue, but even if there is a double standard she has to know that wearing such a stupidly expensive shirt that is so laughably ugly it was bound to attract attention isn't exactly the best way to help your out-of-touch privileged rich douchebag of a husband appeal to, you know, normal people. Or to appear in-touch yourself.

Then again, this is a Romney we're talking about. And when it comes to flaunting wealth, it's abundantly clear the Romneys have zero clue -- hence her husband's constant "Romneying" (as well as her own) -- about what appeals and what doesn't to those beneath them in the class system, which is to say, almost everyone.

All of which is to say, if you're going to wear stupidly expensive clothing, at least have some fucking taste.

Ann spent part of the interview trying to play Mitt up as some sort of wild and crazy guy, trying to make him seem, you know, human. That was awkward, pathetic, and embarrassing enough.

The shirt just made it all worse.