Curtis Thomas, a young ready-to-wear designer based in Washington D.C., has fashioned a new politically-driven line of pro-Hillary apparel that he’s calling “Clinton Couture.”
House of Hillary launched in April and has since been building buzz as a political fashion statement for supporters. The shirts designed by Thomas bear phrases such as “Herstory In The Making,” “Polls Before Bros,” and “Hillary vs. Everyone.” One shirt takes on the Chanel No. 5 perfume label, replacing No. 5 with No. 45 (as in, the 45th president) and Chanel with “Clinton.” Another plays on designer brand Céline, with a logo “Breaking the Glass Céline” across the shirt.
Clinton already has a crew of designers on her side, with Prabal Gurung, Tanya Taylor, Tory Burch, Diane Von Furstenberg and Public School’s Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne having made T-shirts for sale in the official Clinton campaign store.
The goal of House of Hillary, however, is to provide a secondary avenue to rally support and drive voter awareness, similar to the way people rallied around Barack Obama in 2008. The shirts also sell for a cheaper price point at $26, compared to the official campaign store’s price of $45. However, while Thomas’s line is looking to raise awareness for Clinton, it’s not donating any percentage of the profits to the campaign, unlike the designers.
“I felt, with Obama’s historic presidency being in its final year, support for progressive issues might wane, and progressive candidates might have a harder time driving the once victorious Obama coalition of women, minorities, and young people to the polls,” said Thomas, who added that House of Hillary wants to be seen as more than a line of political apparel, it wants to be considered the “future of political engagement.”
That’s a tall order. But Curtis’s grassroots brand has gotten attention on social media over the past five months: House of Hillary’s Instagram account, @houseofhillary, has 37,000 followers. The company has pushed people to use the hashtag #HouseofHRC in order to appear in a social curated photofeed on the website.
Thomas’s brand, which he calls “the fashion house of Hillary Clinton,” plans to continue up to and beyond the election.
