Madeleine Albright: Kicking Butt With Her Brooches

Truth be told, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to post about today. But then I heard a fabulous interview with Madeleine Albright (Former U.N. Ambassador and the first female Secretary of State) on NPR on my way to work about how she used her pins to bring about world peace! (Ok, I might be exaggerating a little bit, but she definitely used her pins to her advantage.) Hence her new book!

(Turns out there's another book about Mrs. Albright's brooches: "Brooching it Diplomatically: A Tribute to Madeleine K. Albright" by Helen Drutt.)

Albright says her pin party began when Saddam Hussein called her a "serpent."

'"I had this wonderful antique snake pin. So when we were dealing with Iraq, I wore the snake pin"' (via). What's that saying? Something like, 'hell hath no fury..." That's right biotch!

From that day on, she began wearing pins that were related to whatever issue/person she was dealing with.

In 1999, the Russians bugged the US State Department. The government found out, and at their next meeting with the Russians, Mrs. Albright had this guy sitting on her shoulder (via).

After Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, his widow, Leah Rabin, gave this pin to Albright. She wore it whenever she gave a speech on peace in the Middle East (via).

When Albright met with President Putin in 2000, she wore this pin to show how she felt about the tradgedies happening in Chechnya. She thought the Russians were "ignoring the human rights violations they had committed" (via).

Albright says she wears this pin when she's having fun and doing a little flirting, too (via).

Albright with Nelson Mandela

Albright with Yasir Arafat

Albright with Aga Khan (Shiite spiritual leader)

It's easy, as a lady, to lose yourself in what you think a "professional" should look like. I.E., nothing feminine, and the more masculine the better, and no one will take you seriously if you look too fancy! Mrs. Albright threw that stereotype out the window and ran it over with a mack truck. Not only did she wear her fabulous pins to meet with some of the most serious (and sometimes dangerous) world leaders, but she did so with unabashed panache while kicking some major butt! Her jewelry had meaning, and it sometimes communicated what she couldn't.

Sometime's jewelry's not just pretty sparkles. ;)

Click here for the rest of the fabulous slideshow and article (and to read an excerpt from her new book!) over on NPR.

AND, there's an exhibit of Albright's pins at the Museum of Arts and Design in NY: Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection
September 30, 2009 - January 31, 2010