Susan Scafidi, director of Fordham Law’s Fashion Law Institute, spoke to Women’s Wear Daily about how Vice President Kamala Harris’s and former President Donald Trump’s styles are very much “front and center for fashion” this election season as well as how the fashion and retail industry will face a very different policy landscape under a President Trump or a President Harris.
“There’s no rule requiring U.S. presidents or their families to buy American, but when they do, their style choices boost brand awareness,” said Susan Scafidi, founder and director of Fordham Law School’s Fashion Law Institute.
“Emerging designers’ hopes are likely pinned on a Harris victory, as she made a point of wearing indie designers including Sergio Hudson and Christopher John Rogers from her earliest days as VP and recently appeared on the cover of Vogue in Gabriela Hearst,” Scafidi said.
“Team Trump, by contrast, favors established and often European fashion houses,” she said. “Although the Trump family has dabbled in the fashion business — ties and gold sneakers from him, fine jewelry and contemporary clothing from his elder daughter [Ivanka Trump] — there was little love lost between the deep-blue fashion industry and his previous administration, and few designers are likely to clamour to dress his entourage if given a second chance.”
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Fashion is subject to the same workplace laws that apply to other businesses, but Fordham’s Scafidi said “state legislatures have recently turned their attention to fashion in specific ways that could be replicated at the federal level under a Democratic administration.”
“The most significant pending federal legislation is the FABRIC Act, which covers some of the same pay-related issues as the recent California Garment Worker Protection Act, as well as investment in garment manufacturing,” she said.