Friday, February 22, 2013

(Mrs.) Nixon in China


Forty-one years ago today, Pat Nixon looked at ducks, plucked and otherwise.  At times - and really China was not by a long shot the most surreal passage of her life - she must have wondered how and why things turned out exactly as they had.

I was struck by this picture not just because, well, it's Pat Nixon looking at some very wizened ducks, but because, despite her rather dire coiffure (side curls, Pat?  Really?), that is just about the most chic dress I've ever seen her in.  I wonder what Madame Mao made of it...

4 comments:

  1. Since 1995, I can't look at pictures of Pat Nixon without also thinking of Joan Allen. Such perfect casting.

    My perception is that she's been most remembered as the suffering, stoic, tragic figure who stood by a disgraced husband. It saddens me because she was quite a terrific political wife and a swell First Lady.

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  2. I admire how coordinated she is.
    It's amazing how she's matched her hair so perfectly to those dead chickens.

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    Replies
    1. Not to mention her hands! It's not as if they didn't have moisturizer in the '70s...

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  3. I so agree! For once she looks like she's NOT wearing scratchy, stiff polyester double knit. Most of the time she looked like pictures out of the JC Penney catalog.

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