After Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s first debate, right-wing commenters unable to accept the former’s president’s disastrous performance chose instead to attack Harris’ … earrings.
One attack came in the form of a conspiracy theory, amplified by erstwhile liberal feminist–turned–Steve Bannon associate Naomi Wolf, that Harris’s pearl earrings were transmitting audio to her in real time. (This technology does exist; a pair of pearl earrings from the tech company Icebach comes embedded with tiny speakers. But this accusation was simply ridiculous.) Other critics took aim at the price of the earrings, speculating that they were $800 Tiffany & Co. pearls, the insinuation being that wearing an expensive accessory somehow makes Harris ineligible for the office she seeks.
Clearly, for some people, it was easier to believe that Harris’ forceful performance was somehow fraudulent—that she could only hold her own if she was being fed answers by some backroom Democratic operative. Or that an accomplished woman wearing expensive jewelry on a potential make-or-break night for her career was somehow disqualifying.
But however absurd the analysis, the trolls weren’t wrong to look for significance in Harris’ pearls. Her earrings do say something. I’d go as far as to argue that they are perhaps the quintessential symbol of Harris’ quest for the top office, a totem of her ambition. She has worn the exact same pair she wore at the debate (or a very similar pair) many times while campaigning and during diplomatic visits to foreign countries as vice president. She even seems to have worn them in an event this week with Oprah!
She also wore pearl necklaces and earrings as a student at Howard University, as a prosecutor and attorney general, at the presidential primary debate in 2019, and while accepting the democratic vice presidential nomination in 2020. In other words, Harris’ pearls are worth paying attention to. She wears them all the time.
And in this campaign cycle, where Harris has been cagey about engaging with the media—choosing to let her campaign appearances be the campaign—it’s even more appropriate to analyze what she wears when she’s interacting with the public.
“I believe that Kamala Harris knows the power of a pearl necklace in American politics, and she uses it, like other important women in politics, as a tool of feminine expression connected to a historical tradition of power,” Sebastian Grant, a curator, art historian, and professor at Parsons School of Design in New York City told me. Pearls were favorites of many first ladies, including Jackie Kennedy and Laura Bush, and when more and more women were elected to public office, pearls became a fixture for legislators, too. Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been known to rock a string throughout their time in office.
Pearls convey “a sense of dignity for the executive role, and give their wearer an elegant sense of glamor that never comes off as too showy,” Grant said.
But pearls don’t just legitimize Harris in a tradition of female politics. They are also a symbol of Harris’ Blackness and a reminder of her ties to her family’s legacy of service. It’s well-known, at this point, that Harris is a graduate of Howard University and a member of the first historically Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. The sorority was founded in 1908 at Howard to empower Black people by expanding economic wealth, fighting for social justice (“to be of ‘Service to All Mankind’ ”), and crucially, creating pathways to leadership for Black women. Its members were active in the suffrage movement and in the Civil Rights Movement and it is not an understatement to say that AKAs can be found at leadership levels in all corners of society today.
When they gather, AKA women are often easy to spot in their pink and green garb—and in their pearls. The founders of the sorority are known as the “20 Pearls” and new members are given a badge with 20 pearls. “Pearls represent refinement and wisdom,” Glenda Glover, international president of AKA, told Vanity Fair in 2020. “We train young ladies to be leaders and to make sure they have the wisdom to lead … and that goes hand in hand with the true meaning of what AKA is all about.”
In other words, pearls are emblematic of AKA’s mission and what is Harris doing but working to achieve that mission—at the highest level of public office in the United States?
Her relationship with pearls apparently goes back further. In her 2019 book The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, Harris recalled receiving pearls from her mother’s mentor when she was a girl. “Pearls have been one of my favorite forms of jewelry ever since,” she wrote. In Harris’ own words, then, pearls are a connection to the intellectual community that raised her and that she so often references on the campaign trail.
In a 2019 Instagram post (and in speeches since) Harris said when she would complain as a child, her mother would ask her: “Well what are you gonna do about it?” In her memoir, Harris writes that her mother used to always tell her, “You may be the first. Don’t be the last,” as a reminder that she may break glass ceilings in her life, perhaps in her career, but her success wasn’t just about her.
The pearls are a symbol of that too. Of pushing forward, amid adversity and criticism and sexism and racism—the same kind of adversity and criticism and sexism and racism exemplified by internet trolls claiming that Harris is too stupid to debate as well as she did, or that Harris is a “DEI hire.” The pearls show refinement, yes. But they are also a rebuke to critics that would underestimate her as a woman and woman of color.
What does all this add up to? Pearls certainly do not a president make! But it’s still a window into how Harris wants to be seen. And because she keeps her style understated and rarely (if ever) takes sartorial risks, every fashion choice she makes is noticeable.
More interestingly, Harris has so far very much avoided making her identity a big part of her campaign. If she wins in November, her presidency would be historic for the many communities who identify with her and what she represents, even obliquely. In this context, her string of pearls and pearl earrings aren’t just pieces of jewelry, but a nod to the legacy of women and to women of color, to the communities that have pushed and sacrificed to get Harris to where she is, and a subtle reminder that although Harris may become the first, she’s part of a continuum. The jewelry is the visible connection to the challenges that those who came before her have overcome. In other words, Harris may not be talking about how she would be a historic first, but her pearls are.
