Harris’s outfit Saturday night was a sartorial thunderclap. Her white Carolina Herrera suit was a clear nod to the women’s suffrage movement. Underneath her suit, she wore a pointed silk pussy-bow blouse that seemed to pull the look back from Melania.
The watch? A perfect fake Cartier Ballon Bleu. If the Cartier were as methodically plotted out as the rest of Harris’s outfit, then it is a historic callback. The only other president (or VP) known to wear Cartier is John F. Kennedy: Jackie bought him one with a circular dial for their fourth anniversary. Purposeful or not, Harris is bringing Cartier back into the White House.
Interestingly enough, when the Ballon Bleu was first introduced in 2007, it was initially marketed as a men’s model, according to George Cramer, a Cartier expert who wrote a book on the French maison. The first release was a 42-millimeter, and the second was an even-larger piece with a tourbillon. “Both were men’s models,” Cramer said over email. Harris was able to take something traditionally and historically intended for men and reclaim it for herself. (I’m talking about the Swiss made Cartier replica here, of course.)