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Dozens of lawmakers, including Democratic lawmaker Lori Trahan
and Republican congresswoman Victoria Spartz, who is
Ukrainian-American and who was born in Ukraine, attended the
speech wearing blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian
flag.
Jill Biden, the first lady, also participated in the fashion
diplomacy. She wore an embroidered applique of a sunflower,
Ukraine's national flower, on her dress sleeve in a sign of
support for the country's people, the White House said.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, meanwhile, said in a tweet
that she was wearing a scarf - which also had blue and yellow
elements - given to her last year by Ukraine's foreign minister.
Other lawmakers carried miniature Ukrainian flags, at times
waving them around to demonstrate support for the president's
remarks.
Even Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, who gave the Republican
response to Biden's address outside her state's Capitol, got in
on the action, sporting a pin that included the Ukrainian flag.
The speech itself was dominated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden assailed Russian President Vladimir Putin, barred Russian
flights from American airspace and led Democratic and Republican
lawmakers in a rare display of unity.
Fashion at the State of the Union has garnered outsized
attention at a president's annual speech before. In 2019,
Democratic women lawmakers wore white to celebrate 100 years of
women having the right to vote in the United States.
First-term Republican lawmaker Lauren Boebert, clad entirely in
black, issued a different message on Tuesday with her clothes:
"Drill Baby Drill" scrawled in gold across a black shawl, urging
an increase in U.S. energy production.
(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Alistair Bell)
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