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On the Runway

Barbara Bush: Soft Power in Fake Pearls

Barbara Bush, wearing the faux pearls that became her signature jewelry, at one of the 1989 inaugural balls.Credit...Paul Hosefros/The New York Times

In 2008 the former Vermont governor and United States ambassador to Switzerland, Madeleine Kunin, published a book called “Pearls, Politics and Power.” I thought of this on Tuesday, when the news arrived that Barbara Bush, former first lady (as well as second lady and first mother), had died at age 92, and almost every obituary and memorial article that ensued included a mention of her pearls.

The book hadn’t been meant for her — its subtitle was “How women can win and lead” — but in many ways its title summed up her public life. Mrs. Bush’s pearls, after all, became synonymous with her own soft power in the political sphere.

Pearls are a trope of first ladydom, almost a default symbol of the job. They have been worn by Martha Washington, Dolley Madison, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jacqueline Kennedy, Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama (to name a few). Historically they have stood for purity, femininity and wealth; strands of pearls are a classic coming-of-age gift.

Some first ladies played up the decorum of the accessory; some, the glamour. Recently, Mrs. Obama took the stuffing out of the style. But during their husbands’ time in office, none were as closely associated with the jewels as Mrs. Bush. Along with her corona of white hair, a three-strand necklace of faux pearls became her trademark. She wore them consistently, and with intent.

For a first lady famously and proudly uninterested in fashion, focused rather on literacy and her family, it was a strategic choice. The pearls reflected her approach to the job — practical, with humor and an understanding of tradition — and her personality in a way that allowed women around the world to relate. They acknowledged the exigencies of the White House and the unelected, often silent, but very visible role that is first lady, with all the expectations of first hostess and first helpmate that implies, with respect but without fuss or frippery.

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Mrs. Bush, in a March 2012 portrait.Credit...Larry W. Smith/EPA, via Shutterstock

In a patrician, dynastic family such as the Bushes, this created no small public relations counterpart and advantage.

It began at her husband’s 1989 inaugural ball, when Mrs. Bush appeared in a royal blue velvet gown with an asymmetric velvet bodice and draped satin skirt by Arnold Scassi (Scaasi being something of her go-to couturier) topped by a triple strand of pearls from Kenneth Jay Lane, the New York costume jeweler. The dress was elegant, but the pearls, declared to be faux, were a global hit, so much so that Mr. Lane renamed the necklace the “Barbara Bush pearls,” acknowledging Mrs. Bush’s role as an influencer longer before the term even existed.

They signaled, in their (relative) affordability, a break with the Reagan administration, and set off a trend for pearls, real and faux, in the jewelry industry — especially as it seemed Mrs. Bush so rarely took them off. As Mark Gurdus, vice president of sales for Marvella jewelry, told United Press International not long after Mrs. Bush moved into the White House, “Barbara Bush wearing them every night on the 6 p.m. news is really not hurting.”

According to the Kenneth Jay Lane website, where the Bush pearls continue to be sold (for $150), “the former first lady wore the three-strand necklace so often she said that, if she took it off, her head would fall off.”

They became her signature. She wore them with suits, with dresses, to casual events and state dinners, and she continued to do so long after her husband left office. She wore them when she met visiting dignitaries, and when she was photographed with her dog, Millie. She wore them on the cover of her official memoir, and on the cover of the coming biography, “The Matriarch,” by Susan Page, Mrs. Bush is pictured wearing a bright red coat and her three strands of pearls. They are now part of the historical record: the strands she wore to the inauguration were donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1990.

Early in the Bushes’ White House tenure, Mrs. Bush’s deputy press secretary, Jean Becker, told U.P.I. that the first lady wore the fake pearls because she “just liked them.” But in a 2015 interview with her granddaughter, Jenna Bush Hager, Mrs. Bush joked that she used them to cover the wrinkles on her neck. Both the attitude and the actuality are now a part of her legacy. She wore them well.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Soft Power in Fake Pearls. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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