Next week Hillary Clinton will realise the dream of thousands of twentysomething models by appearing on the cover of American Vogue. Not bad for a once-bespectacled feminist who recently turned 51. But it comes not a moment too soon; to judge by a swelling chorus of Hillarymania, her new role as cover girl is merely belated proof of her transformation - no snorting- into one of the most revered and glamorous First Ladies ever. She is dressed for American Vogue by Oscar de la Renta, and coiffed and made up by an army of beauticians. She is photographed by Annie Leibovitz, and appears as she may even be in reality; attractive, independent and amazingly immune to the stigma that will attach to her husband for the rest of his public life. A trawl through cyberspace confirms that when it comes to Hillary and the American public, Vogue is just catching up.Alan Baird, for instance, thinks she is the sexiest woman alive. She is intelligent, powerful, famous and good-looking, he says (at least, "she ain't chopped liver"), and all these things are sexy. His conclusion: "Hillary's my dream girl." Joe "D" is more poetic. Hillary "has matured as a First Lady better than a fine wine in both her demeanour, and, in my opinion, her looks," he says. To make the point he loads on to his website a memory-eating slide show of Mrs C in dozens of guises, from Arkansas librarian to Sharon Stone lookalike in dark evening gown, gold earrings and upswept hair. The montage is entitled "Mighty Morphin Hillary". You can find anything on the Internet, of course, but given its popularity with misogynists and conspiracy theorists from the far Right, her rave reviews here are remarkable. >> And nowhere are they more gushing than in the Hillary Clinton Forum, which bleeds on to your screen very slowly because it is so vast. Gradually, under a gently waving American flag, its idol appears, beaming regally into thousands of homes and offices (mine was the 36,902nd). Her red jacket matches lips that frame film-star teeth. A black turtleneck offsets her neat blonde bob. It's all very flattering - and is aimed, ultimately, at putting Hillary in the Oval Office. There are many similar websites: the Hillary 2000 Committee, the Hillary for President Council, even Republicans for Hillary. All will be disappointed in the end, because she is unlikely ever to be President. But in the meantime they are cheering on her arrival as a fashion icon with the excitement of punters watching their horse make a late run from behind. For this Mrs Clinton has to thank, partly, a national surge of admiration for her fortitude during Lewinskygate. She has also had good fashion advice lately, good enough for The Washington Post to declare on Monday that "the evolution of Mrs Clinton as stylish First Lady is complete
. . . It has taken six years of evolving hairstyles, a flying-saucer hat and countless unflattering suits, but at long last she seems to have settled comfortably and unapologetically into a style that suits her".
>> But as much as to either of these, she is indebted to a feisty Californian grandmother whom she once met without realising who she was. Esme Taylor, 64, is the queen of the Hillary underground. It was she who founded the Hillary Clinton Forum in 1995, and it is she who now runs it as a rowdy, often profane, free-for-all that she insists Hillary would "get a kick out of" if only she knew where to find it. (Mrs Clinton has yet to master e-mail, say White House insiders.) Taylor's office on the north side of San Francisco Bay is ground zero for the new paranoid Left that has emerged in response to the Starr report's alleged excesses. "This forum has been designed to protect your messages from Kenneth Starr," her home page states. But it has the good sense to accept contributions from anyone, including "Zippy the Wonder Slug", a diehard Hillary-phobe who once joined in the attacks on the First Lady's "piano legs", but reversed his position on seeing the photograph of her dancing on a beach with the President last year. "You know what?" Zippy mused. "She has a lovely ass." Taylor was born in South Africa to English parents. She moved to America in 1961 and late in life set up an Internet business with the help of computer boffins in Siberia who use Russian military satellites to beam over new software to handle her booming traffic. She has monitored all of Mrs Clinton's makeovers. "In Arkansas she wore her hair longish, with a thick Alice band to keep it out of her face," she says. "But when she got to Washington they couldn't deal with it like that." Hence her first bob, by Christophe, which grew out into a Jennifer Aniston-style face-framer, but by the time of her husband's re-election campaign was too long by half: "In 1995, when we first brought her on to the site, she was looking a bit Arkansas again." A second overhaul followed in 1996, but it took the private hell of this year - and a reported blitz in the gym - for her to find public acceptance at last. "Before Lewinsky the country saw her as powerful and pushy, and Americans still like their women weak and wimpy," Taylor avers. "Now she's the one who's risen above it all, who is being presidential." Taylor knows whereof she speaks. A group of trial lawyers who share her building in the seaside town of Sausalito arranged for her to attend a recent Democratic fundraiser at which Hillary spoke on behalf of her friend Senator Barbara Boxer. "I was the guest of honour," Taylor says. She shook the First Lady's hand and was thanked by her, even though Mrs Clinton is on record as saying she thinks the Internet should be patrolled for smut and other naughtiness. Such censoriousness doesn't seem to bother Taylor or her cohorts of Hillary addicts. For them, after years in the wilderness, Mrs Clinton has come into her own as the antithesis of the pasty-faced Kenneth Starr. Which is to say, as the sexiest woman alive. Arts (Mon - Fri) | Books (Sat) (Thu) | British News | Business | Court page | Features (Mon - Fri) | Go (Sat) | Metro (Sat) | Obituaries | Opinion | Sport | Travel (Sat) (Thu) | Vision (Sat) | Interface (Wed) | Weather | Weekend (Sat) | Weekend Money (Sat) | World News Return to Hillary Clinton Forum Main Page www.hillary.org
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