GOP congresswoman Victoria Spartz has been wearing the zip-front bodice with the unmistakable United States Congress seal repeatedly. Is she that desperate for visibility and recognition?

Victoria Spartz at the Hamilton town hall meeting. And then on CNN three days later. Photo (left): Reuters. Screen shot (right): CNN

The relatively unknown U.S. congresswoman Victoria Spartz has been in the news recently after two town hall meetings she attended last weekend were met with boos and jeers. The video recordings of those sessions were shared online and they showed Ms Spartz rather overwhelmed by the boisterous reaction to the questions she was unable to answer satisfactorily. At both events, in Hamilton and Delaware counties, which were mere hours apart, the Republican representative of Indiana’s 5th congressional district was seen wearing two different dresses, one red and one baby blue, but over which was the same heather-grey gilet. A closer look at the outer, which is a sports vest, revealed a fairly large United States Congress seal on the left breast. Rather than a name tag to identify her, Ms Spartz preferred an appliqué that spoke of the office she held, in case you didn’t know.

A day after the two not-quite-successful town hall sessions, Ms Spartz appeared on CNN to talk to anchor Fredricka Whitfield about the reaction she received. And, again, she wore the same gilet, this time over a floral shirt (if it was a dress, we could not tell as the camera framed her from the waist up) that could have been offered in the now-ended Uniqlo X Ines de la Fressange collaborations. The feminine shirt, bordering on the frumpy, was visually at odds with the vest. It looked like she threw it on at the last minute before she went on air, it was unzipped and looked messy, which gave her the appearance of an off-duty PE teacher in an elementary school. The Ukrainian-born American (hence her accent) took the opportunity to claim that the town hall meetings she attended were “organised and ambushed by Democrats and a lot of radical groups to push a false narrative that Republicans are doing something wrong”.

Ms Spartz in a Delaware Town Hall session. Photo: Ball State Daily

It is possible that for the town hall meeting, Ms Spartz wanted to appear relatable, with none of the swank associated with fellow congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna from Florida. The gilet probably afforded her a working-for-the-people look, but it turned out that no one was impressed by her appearance, even less her refusal to answer questions satisfactorily. The homely gilet was not worn to make a fashion statement, but more as a reminder that she served her constituents, just as the now-ubiquitous red MAGA hat immediately says who the wearer is aligned with. She was announcing that a member of congress she was. But, whether her wearing of the vest—at least thrice in four days—had been successful visual declaration of the affinity to whatever she held close or expression of their attendant values was not at all clear.

If sounding officious in any form of communication these days is no longer an effective tool to reach out, why does sporting the symbol of officialdom help? Some symbols are far from neutral, and the spaces they represent frequently serve as battlegrounds for political and legal disputes. Despite the Republicans preference for formal attire (or dressed-up for women), Ms Spartz’s irrefutably casual dress was not a style associated with appearances that traditionally project authority and leadership. The seal, as large as a cup saucer, on the gilet was regrettably tired shorthand for political, not national allegiance. Its presence on the garment likely reinforced the image that she was connected to the official function and authority of the legislative branch of the U.S. government, and little else. And an article of clothing associated with sports was the best way to relax her image, making her approachable, but even at the town halls, she was not.