Kamala Harris has white Chuck Taylor Converse, black Chucks, slip on and lace-up pairs, and worn-out pink satin Chucks. For formal pantsuit-requiring occasions, Harris wears platform Chucks. On Twitter, one user took a cue from Harris’ practical footwear, sharing a GIF of the senator showing off her sneakers and captioning, “Get your comfortable shoes on and vote!”

Harris’ dedication to Converse has been unvwavering on Capitol Hill. In July 2019, the sneaker-wearing senator had to enter the Congressional Chamber through a cloakroom. The Chamber has a strict dress code, journalist Erica Werner tweeted, and the California Senator was not allowed to formally enter while wearing Converse.

For Harris, there are two main types of footwear: Chucks or heels. “It’s one or the other,” she said on a September episode of talkshow Desus & Mero. The vice presidential candidate’s face lit up as host Desus Nice, himself in front of his own sneaker collection, asked about her shoes. “[Converse have] definitely been my thing for a long time,” she said, lifting her foot to the camera to reveal black low top All-Stars. Nice smiled. It’s refreshing, they said, that she is always in sneakers. Of course, Harris’ black Chuck Taylors are very different from the colorful leather high tops on display behind Nice. While Nice sported a bright Yankees cap and a bold black-and-white button down, Harris wore a navy blouse and grey blazer. 

The VP candidate’s casual-chic look is classic and non-abrasive. Her signature item, Chuck Taylors, are quite possibly the single most diversely loved cult fashion item of the past century. Everyone from middle schoolers to models to Michelle Obama wear the minimalist sneakers. Of course, there is a difference between sneaker culture and laid-back ready-to-work signalling. As the first person of South Asian descent and the second Black woman elected to the senate, Harris has long faced racialized criticisms.

“If she was to put on a pair of Yeezys, we’d be having a different discussion,” Highsnobiety founder Jeff Carvalho told The Guardian. “Practical fashion in politics is now entwined with a leader’s political messaging,” Lauren Rothman, a political stylist, told Elle. In other words, Harris’ genuine love of her Converse may show a fun, softer side to a powerful politician, but they’re also an opportunity for criticism. However, her signature sneakers and suit perfectly serves as a visual metaphor for Harris’ actual politics. A Converse candidate promises easy-to-implement progressive policies, not sweeping political or economic reforms. Before Harris was Joe Biden’s running mate, she ran her own campaign. Her platform was the “3 a.m. agenda,” plans to fight the issues that keep Americans awake at 3 a.m. Health care. Gun violence. Student debt. Teacher pay. 

She is pragmatic, the outfit says, dedicated to making change that results in the immediate benefit for the greater good. In 2019, Harris told The Daily that she made decisions with one question in mind: what will help the most people? Critics often call her approach hypocritical, citing the Senator’s marijuana record—Harris now champions legalization, but as a District Attorney pursued harsh consequences for non-violent marijuana offences. Her supporters, however, remain faithful in her ability to evolve. Harris, like her signature shoe, is versatile.

In many ways, Harris’ look feels very Phoebe Philo. The former head of Chloé and Celine helped define the 2010s’ normcore look, championing chic, well-tailored minimalist looks and sending sneaker-wearing models down the runway. Plus, Philo had her own preferred signature sneaker, Adidas’ Stan Smiths. Philo’s influence soared post 2008 recession, a somber national moment where luxury came to mean knowing when to be tasteful and understated. 2020, a time when over 200,000 Ameicans have died from a pandemic, when schools have been shut down, when countless families have lost their sources of income, feels similarly bleak. Harris’ Philo-influenced style is put together, chic even, but never showy. 

Much like Philo’s runway blazer and sneakers outfits, Harris transitions easily from candid and joyous to serious and dedicated. When Desus Nice asked her a question about health care in September, she stopped laughing about her love of Chuck Taylors and vehemently defended the Affordable Care Act (ACA). “We have to fight,” she said, then explained how universal healthcare protected people with preexisting conditions, which are disproportionately common in Black communities. With facts and reason, Harris laid out for viewers how protecting—and expanding—the ACA is a racial justice issue. This was the same tone she set during the 2020 Vice Presidential debate–although her candid facial reactions to opponenet Vice President Mike Pence’s were Twitter’s biggest takeaways from the evening.

It is at best reductionist, and at worst deeply sexist, to reduce a female candidate’s philosophies and political beliefs to a single item of clothing. But, Harris is fighting an administration that ruined the red baseball cap and destroyed the skinny suit. For a woman like Harris, who is being photographed dozens of times each day, with her image being shared across Twitter and social media, her clothes show something to the viewer. It isn’t that we should judge a woman on her clothes, but that we often implicitly do, and political figures know this. It’s why male politicians wear the same tried and true uniforms, and why adept female ones will highlight their own values and styles. Think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s red lip and gold hoop earrings, Nancy Pelosi’s coordinating scarves and face masks, or back to Hilary Clinton’s pantsuits. For Harris, her Chucks indicate that she’s “laced up and ready to win,” as she said on Twitter.