First Lady Dr. Jill Biden‘s stunning white ensemble at Wednesday night’s celebration of the inauguration of President Joe Biden had a secret message embroidered all over it. New York design house Gabriela Hearst shared the beautiful meaning carried by the design on Instagram Thursday, revealing that the flowers embroidered across the bottom of the jacket and all over the chest and arms of the dress were from every state and federal territory.
“The message of Unity is the main inspiration for the creation of the Ensemble,” Hearst wrote on social media. “Unity makes strength and it is needed for the road ahead.” The state flower of the Biden’s home in Delaware, the peach blossom, was embroidered at “heart level,” and “from there, all the other flowers branch out.” Each flower took two hours to embroider, and all materials used in creating the outfit were of existing available fabrics to “minimize the impact on the environment.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
View this post on Instagram
In addition to the floral message of unity, the first lady’s coat also carried with it a special message “representing the lifelong calling and service of Dr. Biden as an educator.” Hand embroidered inside the coat on the lining is a quote from founding father Benjamin Franklin: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
Dr. Jill Biden’s meaningful attire was only one of the outfits worn by prominent women to the inauguration with a special meaning. Vice President Kamala Harris, former first lady Michelle Obama, the former first lady, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Elizabeth Warren all wore purple Wednesday, considered the color of bipartisanship, as it is the mixture of blue and red.
“Purple is the color of loyalty, constancy to purpose, unswerving steadfastness to a cause. White, the emblem of purity, symbolizes the quality of our purpose; and gold, the color of light and life, is as the torch that guides our purpose, pure and unswerving,” explained a newsletter from the National Woman’s Party in the United States on Dec. 6, 1913.
Harris, who is the first Black and south Asian woman to be elected vice president, wore clothing and accessories by Black designers Christopher John Rogers and Sergio Hudson, including her purple jacket and signature pearl necklace, which is a nod to her Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority days.
