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W
e adjourn to a reception area at Trin-
ity. Nearby is the kitchen that Pelosi
and her fellow students used to sneak
into at night to purloin ice cream. It
was so dark on these ice cream raids
that she could not always identify and
grab her favorite, chocolate, which
continues to be her main stress-buster. (She has been known to
conduct interviews in her Capitol Hill office while dining on a
DoveBar, which she eats daintily with a knife and fork.)
Pelosi is using her vaunted leadership skills to steer the Democratic
ship in a middle lane. She wants to protect the new House mem-
bers who won in districts where Trump is popular, and she hopes
the presidential candidates don’t veer too far left and scare away the
mainstream or fight too much with one another. “I just don’t want
it to look like bumper cars,’’ she says. Even though the number of
Democratic House members who favor impeachment is creeping
up, some in the party argue that Pelosi is still wary about it because
she feels that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would kill it in
the Senate, and she fears that Trump could use that to say he was
exonerated and play the victim, as he loves to do. “You know what,
other people say it. I’ve never said that. We have a responsibility to
the Constitution of the United States.”
Pelosi has seen a remarkable transformation from the monochro-
matic old boys’ club she found when she first came to Washington
as a member of the House from San Francisco in 1987. Back then,
women were not even allowed to wear pants on the House floor; theoutfit she had on for our interview would have been banned. She
and her friend former California Congresswoman Barbara Boxer,
another petite brunette, were constantly mixed up and dismissed as
“the girls from the Bay Area.” They were told to stand against the
wall at one meeting, rather than taking a seat, by a male senator who
claimed he thought they were staffers. (Boxer refused.)
Pelosi has attracted a lot of attention for her colorful but elegant
wardrobe because politics in D.C. has always had a somber hue;
until recently, if you dressed too stylishly, people figured you were
a peacock, focused on clothes when you should be studying the
Law of the Sea Treaty. But The New York Times’s chief fashion critic,
Vanessa Friedman, hailed Pelosi’s pink and orange palette as a way
to communicate “women’s relish at being on the front lines.”
And when Pelosi wore her famous orange Max Mara coat the
December day she schooled President Trump on the impending
government shutdown, Barry Jenkins, the director of Moonlight and
If Beale Street Could Talk, tweeted: “This is diplomacy in motion, soft
power wielded like a machete through the diligent, decisive act of
dressing.” The coat even got its own Twitter handle, @NancyCoat,
and Max Mara ended up reissuing it this season.
André Leon Talley likens Pelosi’s look “to the late, great Jackie.
It’s stylish simplicity empowered by natural confidence,’’ he tells me.
“She has powerful stiletto stamina. At the age of 79 , she walks tall,
and those pointed high heels speak truth to power. Her uniforms,
her suits and dresses, and that classic, cool Max Mara coat do not
outshine her. They are simply fine armor.”
Pelosi says she doesn’t like to shop, and she gets a little embarrassed
by too much attention placed on her style. (She also reacted shyly
when, after decades of being painted as a liberal boogeyman,
she got an ovation when she and her husband, Paul, went to see
Springsteen on Broadway last year.) She says she pulled the orange
coat out of her closet that day simply because “it was clean. As
a person who eats chocolate all the time, I have it on all my clothes.’’
She ordered online the hot pink dress she wore to take back
the gavel in January two days prior, she recalls, “because I thought,
‘I want color, and I don’t want to wear pants.’”
Having five older brothers helped her know how to deal with a
chamber that still comprises mostly men. “One thing is, I know a
lot about sports—baseball, football, basketball,’’ Pelosi says. “I played
half-court and double dribble basketball at Trinity. So you have a lot
to talk about with the guys about sports. And they’re always surprised
when you know anything in detail.” She still sees sexism among her
male colleagues. “Some of them don’t realize that what they’re
saying is like a nick,’’ she says. “In a day, you’ve got a thousand nicks.
But you can’t worry about that. That’s their problem, not yours.
If they’re your friend, you might say, ‘A little sensitivity training on
that.’ But if they’re not your friend, you don’t even care.’’
The Women’s March protesting Trump’s election changed the
world, she says. “It’s a glorious thing to see so many women running.
And it took the election of somebody like Donald Trump to make
that happen. We hit rock bottom—boom! Then we just went for it.
Women are being more helpful to each other and recognizing ➤Woman in charge. This page: Coat, blouse, pants, and shoes, Max Mara. Ring (worn throughout), her own.
Opposite page: Coat and blouse, Max Mara. Bracelet, David Yurman. See Where to Buy for shopping details. Hair: AlexaRodulfo.com for T3 Micro;
makeup: Adrian Avila for Karma Beauty Lounge; production: Jen Barrie for Barrie Creative.