Why Were Jill Biden, Melania Trump and Michelle Obama In Animal-inspired Looks?

With the presidential election days away, the contest has become a bit primal with both sides fighting for a win.

While many of the 50 million-plus early voters can be spotted by their red, white and blue “I Voted Early” stickers, First Lady Jill Biden and former first ladies Melania Trump and Michelle Obama have been sporting stripes of a different color.

All three internationally recognized women have sported animal-inspired looks in the past week. To be clear, Biden did so in the spirit of Halloween wearing a panda costume for Wednesday’s annual trick-or-treat event at the White House. On Oct. 27, Trump turned up at her husband Donald’s rally at Madison Square Garden wearing a zebra-printed Michael Kors coat. And the day before, Obama took to the stage in support of Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris in a custom Theory pantsuit that looked like a leopard-inspired print.

What does it all mean?

Leslie Irvine, director of Animals and Society Certificate Program at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said Friday, “Today, we no longer believe that dressing like say, a tiger, gives us the power of a tiger. But animal prints and costumes still send strong cultural messages. Mainly, the wearer cannot be ignored. Whether by capturing some of the wildness of the leopard or the playfulness of the panda, the wearer is blurring the human-animal boundary in either a rebellious or a playful way.”

And animals have always had a role in human adornment including in Indigenous societies, where wearing animal skins and body parts had a spiritual role, in that the wearer harnessed some of the qualities of that species, Irvine said.

William & Mary’s director of the Institute for Integrative Conservation John Swaddle also flagged how the three women’s recent choices are “all easily recognizable,” as well as the panda being the global symbol for conservation as seen in the World Wildlife Fund’s logo. (FLOTUS also had a hand in bringing two giant pandas “Bao Li” and “Qing Bao” from China to the Smithsonian National Zoo.)

More than anything, Swaddle sees the animal-inspired choices as “a connection to nature and that connection crosses political divides,” he said. “Nature gives us the fundamental services for our society, no matter how we envision political systems. Nature gives us the food on the table, the clean water we drink, and the air we breathe. It gives me hope that these ladies feel that connection and choose to express it through their clothing. Nature can bring us together.”

Swaddle added, “We must work together to stem our current extinction crisis so that everyone can flourish. Everyone wins when nature is strong.”