page_title: Pat Nixon
section_title: Fashion and style
hierarchical_section_title: Pat Nixon / First Lady of the United States, 1969–1974 / Fashion and style
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Mrs. Nixon.
context_page_description: Thelma Catherine "Pat" Nixon, also commonly known as Patricia Nixon, was an American educator and the wife of Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States. During her more than 30 years in public life, she served as both the Second and First Lady of the United States.
  Born in Ely, Nevada, she grew up with her two brothers in what is now Cerritos, California, graduating from high school in 1929. She attended Fullerton Junior College and later the University of Southern California. She paid for her schooling by working multiple jobs, including pharmacy manager, typist, radiographer, and retail clerk. In 1940, she married lawyer Richard Nixon and they had two daughters, Tricia and Julie. Dubbed the "Nixon team," Richard and Pat Nixon campaigned together in his successful congressional campaigns of 1946 and 1948. Richard Nixon was elected Vice President in 1952 alongside General Dwight D. Eisenhower, whereupon Pat became Second Lady. Pat Nixon did much to add substance to the role of the Vice President's wife, insisting on visiting schools, orphanages, hospitals, and village markets as she undertook many missions of goodwill across the world.
context_section_description: The traditional role of a First Lady as the nation's hostess puts her personal appearance and style under scrutiny, and the attention to Pat was lively. Women's Wear Daily stated that Pat had a "good figure and good posture", as well as "the best-looking legs of any woman in public life today". Some fashion writers tended to have a lackluster opinion of her well tailored, but nondescript, American-made clothes. "I consider it my duty to use American designers", she said, and favored them because, "they are now using so many materials which are great for traveling because they're non crushable". She preferred to buy readymade garments rather than made-to-order outfits. "I'm a size 10," she told The New York Times. "I can just walk in and buy. I've bought things in various stores in various cities. Only some of my clothes are by designers." She did, however, wear the custom work of some well-known talents, notably Geoffrey Beene, at the suggestion of Clara Treyz, her personal shopper. Many fashion observers concluded that Pat Nixon did not greatly advance the cause of American fashion. Nixon's yellow-satin inaugural gown by Harvey Berin was criticized as "a schoolteacher on her night out", but Treyz defended her wardrobe selections by saying, "Mrs. Nixon must be ladylike."
  Nixon did not sport the outrageous fashions of the 1970s, because she was concerned about appearing conservatively dressed, especially as her husband's political star rose. "Always before, it was sort of fun to get some ... thing that was completely different, high-style", she told a reporter. "But this is not appropriate now. I avoid the spectacular."
caption: Pat Nixon posing in the White House, 1970
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