Notes From the Candidate's Stylist
I used to wonder what it was like to be a woman in America in the 1950s.
Then I married a member of Congress and found out.
Sherrod and I were married in 2004. He was 50, I was 45. We’d done a lot of living on these bones. We hoped for many more, infused with the reckless optimism necessary to give yourself another chance. Leap, and don’t look down. I highly recommend it.
Sherrod was accustomed to public life. I had been a columnist for less than two years and was still getting used to the heat of that spotlight when the second row of lanterns flicked on. Overnight, the man who had been responsible for his own appearance for decades became the photographic evidence of my failure to intervene. Or at least notice.
Lots of opinions out there about my husband’s appearance, and my failure to control it. Words like rumpled, disheveled and tousled are frequently tossed about, including in a recent New York Times story about Sherrod. Only now, he is “famously disheveled” in his “trademark rumpled suits.” An upgrade, for men only.
Sherrod needs new shirts, I’m told. New suits. New shoes.
“A new wife?” I once asked a critic.
“Your words,” she said. “Not mine.”
If you’ve caught even an occasional glimpse of me, you might wonder why anyone would think I should be an expert on fashion. If you know me well, you’re laughing your behind off right now and I’d appreciate it if just this once, my besties, you could spare me that text chain. I like to think of my style as Clean and Current, and I’m a little sad that this hasn’t caught on as a thing.
Sherrod is running for reelection this year, so the fashion advice is ramping up again. Top of the list: Sherrod’s hair, which frequently resembles a salt-and-pepper field of sprouted Brussels. I love this about him, but people have their opinions. We had been married three weeks and four days the first time someone told me Sherrod needed a haircut. More recently, I was on the receiving end of this advice in the produce section of our local grocery store.
“Connie?”
I turned and smiled at the man, who was shaking his head. “I love your husband, but.” He shook his head again. “Sherrod’s hair. I shouldn’t need to tell you how important it is to lasso those curls.”
I nodded, smiled again and tapped the brim on my imaginary Stetson. “Okey-dokey, cowboy.”
(Autocorrect just tried to change that dokey to donkey, and how wild is it that Microsoft Word can summon a version so close to my first, unspoken response?)
If you’re that guy and you’re reading this right now, I want to say sorry for calling you a cowboy. There was nothing about your attire or demeanor to suggest you’d ever seen a horse, let alone hopped onto one. In my defense, you caught me right after I’d seen the price of blueberries. Anyway, two days later Sherrod got that haircut, so you won that rodeo.
People mean well. They want Sherrod to win, and they want me to do those wifely things of yore to help him. I’m all in, except for that time when a woman started tapping parts of my face as she suggested Botox injections. “You owe him this,” she said as staff circled—to rescue her. I love how they can read the lines in my face.
Yesterday morning I assembled a wardrobe of everything Sherrod would need for a day of shooting campaign ads. The staff sent a list with an appropriate preamble of apologies for saying what we all know to be true: When it comes to the aesthetics of candidate packaging, I am their only hope. It feels a little like getting a kid ready for camp, except with neckties.
I don’t mind. He brings me breakfast in bed, I make sure his shirts looked pressed until he puts them on. This year we’ve added sweaters to the mix. Totally my idea. Sherrod likes to wear them, and I like how they hide the wrinkles.
After he appeared twice on TV wearing gray sweaters, a viewer reached out and suggested I add a few colors to the mix. Good idea, I told her. I bought him sweaters in four more colors for Christmas.
“Almost there,” she wrote a month later. “He could use a blue one.” She included a sales link.
Done.
Earlier this month, the day after Ohio’s primary election, Sherrod appeared on Morning Joe to talk to Mika Brzezinski and our friend Claire McCaskill. He was freshly shorn, wearing the gray cable-knit sweater I gave him for his birthday and the blue-and-silver tie that once belonged to my brother.
I’ve waited 20 years for this interview.
“Sherrod,” Claire said, “I’ve got to tell you, you look really nice this morning. I don’t know if Connie had a hand in your – I mean your hair is combed, your tie is all l neat. This is not the Sherrod Brown who has sometimes roamed the halls of the United States Senate.”
Sherrod laughed sheepishly as Claire spoke and Mika chimed in:
“Oh, Connie did!”
“Connie!”
“It’s Connie!”
I’ve never felt more seen.
Love this! Love his "look"...it makes him appear to be the down-to-earth and hard working guy that he truly is.
He's too busy doing good things to worry about being a fashion statement.
That Sherrod is so grounded in reality is a major asset. Keep up the good work.