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A New Wrinkle in Palin Clothing Hubbub
One outstanding mystery of the hubbub over the $150,000 spent by the Republican National Committee to outfit Gov. Sarah Palin was several thousand dollars in charges at Atelier, which many had initially assumed to be a high-end men’s store in New York.
But a fashion-conscious reader recently pointed out to The Caucus that there was another possibility, Atelier Designers, which produces a series of trade shows for women’s boutique buyers, including one that ran Sept. 13-15 at the Doubletree Hotel in Times Square. Indeed, the address listed in Federal Election Commission records, “7th and 47,” corresponds with the location of the show, not the men’s store on Crosby Street downtown.
One potential discrepancy is the date of the $4,902.05 charge in campaign finance records is Sept. 10, but the dates in these filings do not always exactly correspond with when the charges were made. If it is true that the purchases were actually made at the trade show itself, this appears to be in tension with statements Ms. Palin has made in which she insisted the clothes were only bought for her use at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, which ran Sept. 1-4.
“Those clothes are not my property,” Ms. Palin said in an interview on Fox News last week. “We had three days of using clothes that the R.N.C. purchased.”
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Ms. Palin said the clothes were “loaned to us during the convention.”
The McCain campaign has said about a third of the clothes were returned after the convention and much of the rest has never been worn. The R.N.C.’s most recent campaign finance filing for the first half of October does not appear to show any record of returns. Officials said the remaining clothes would be given to charity after the campaign is over.
The biggest charges made on Ms. Palin’s behalf were $75,062.63 at Neiman Marcus and $49,425.74 at Saks Fifth Avenue.
The owners of Atelier New York, a high-end men’s store, had been puzzled by news of the charges ostensibly at their store and searched through their receipts and could not find any that matched the purchase amount in campaign finance records.
Atelier Designers’ Web site describes itself as offering “creative international fashion collections of women’s wear and accessories to the wholesale trade only. Active in New York fashion trade shows for 13 years, Atelier represents over 100 studio designers. In three trade shows yearly during New York Fashion Market Week at the Doubletree Times Square in Manhattan, a selection of these designers show designer fashion, couture, evening wear, jewelry and accessories.”
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Here is why Michelle chose this…
I really don’t like Sarah Palin and this article proves it. Why does someone need to spend that much money on clothes? Michelle Obama (okay I am a little biased) only spends 150 dollars on the dresses she wears. Micelle Obama also only spends the money from her pocket. Not the Democratic party’s money. I mean Sarah Palin is from Alaska and primly wears only what Alaska has to offer but honestly the only time we talk about her or McCain is when were saying something bad not good in any way.
Since when did the price of peoples clothing matter in an election?
I do not care about Sarah Palin’s clothes at all. There’s so many actual important things to discredit her with that this is irrelevant.
I think this article speaks for itself. We don’t need someone so materialistic in office!
It was obvious that that clothing thing was moronic, but capitolism has its heart in materialism.
oh well