What’s common between MS Dhoni and Kamala Harris

As the Chennai Super Kings get ready for the IPL, another person with a Madras connect has embarked on her mission in her field. And like the cricketers, she too goes about her job wearing sports shoes.

With the US Presidential race picking up speed and animosity, it has not gone unnoticed that Kamala Harris, the vice-presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, is a sneakers person. Converse Chuck Taylors are her favourite. Even though Harris identifies herself more as American, the fact remains that her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was from Chennai. And Harris has made trips to her maternal roots.

Speaking about her choice of footwear in an interview, Harris said, “I run through airports in my Converse sneakers. I have a whole collection of Chuck Taylors: a black leather pair, a white pair, I have the kind that don’t lace, the kind that do lace, the kind I wear in the hot weather, the kind I wear in the cold weather, and the platform kind for when I’m wearing a pantsuit.”

Politicians know what they wear makes a statement, and will be interpreted in various ways. A blue collar yet trendy and pedigreed shoe like Chuck Taylors, originally made for basketball players as per the insights of Taylor, a player and Converse salesman, should gain some image points for the ambitious Harris.

“Sneakers are a form of footwear finding their way into many women’s closets as part of a larger challenge to outmoded concepts of femininity,” Elizabeth Semmelhack, the author of the book Sneaker X Culture: Collab, said about Harris in an interview. “The sneakers are acting as the sartorial equivalent of being willing to roll up her sleeves. They suggest Harris is a woman of action.”

Say ‘whistle podu’ to that.