Stacey Abrams

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I remember a story that my grandmother told me, and I talk about it in my book, Our Time Is Now.

She talked about the first time she and my grandfather and his brother and sister-in-law, the first time they went to vote in Mississippi in 1968, they were voting in the presidential election.

And when she told me the story, she said they'd come home from work and

And my grandfather and Uncle LP and his sister were waiting in the front room for her to finish getting dressed.

And I remember stopping her in the story saying, why were you going to get dressed?

And she said, well, we had to get dressed up.

She was changing into...

I mean, she was a cook.

She and my grandfather were cooks at a college.

And they got out of their uniforms, and she was putting on her Sunday best because this was an event.

They were going to participate as full citizens for the very first time in their lives and cast a ballot.

And for her, the sheer act of getting dressed up carried such weight and meaning.

And it, to her, seemed absolutely necessary.

And I juxtapose that with how some of my friends think about whether they vote or not, let alone what they wear to vote.

And I guess I would ask you, you raised respectability politics, but I think there's also just the question of what are current examples that you see that, if not carry the exact same weight that we can imbue in that moment of history that give you some echoes in current conversations about fashion and politics and their intersection?

Well, I'm going to stick with the idea of thoughtful dressing and do a juxtaposition and a contrast.

You had Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who refused to wear a suit during his first Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump, saying, quote, "'I will wear a costume after this war is finished.'"