Claudette Miller

Mireya Acierto

The Glam Dame

January 31, 2008

Claudette Miller, 44, is a commercial litigation attorney and lobbyist.

Tell me about your hat.

It’s my homage to Tippi Hedren. I went to this concert. My friend Danielle’s like, “I know we’re really old and we’re losers and we shouldn’t go, but I really wanna go.” I’m like, “Totally, I love Gwen Stefani!” And she said, “We’ll have to try to look interesting.” So I put this hat on with a suit and all these Japanese girls were like, “Wow, where’d you get that hat?” When 12-year-old Japanese girls at the Gwen Stefani concert try to buy your hat off you, you must be doing something right.

Even your everyday look is very glam and 30s. Have you always dressed like this?

When I was really, really little I had a big thing for Clark Gable, and people used to tell me I looked like Carole Lombard. I always just liked that stuff. My mother would be like, “Really, you’re five. You want a gold lamé bathing suit?”

What’s fashionable right now looks terrible on me. I don’t wear anything that’s not very tailored. Anything that has an empire waist is a nightmare on me. I’m really, really long-waisted. I haven’t been able to find a pair of pants in years. They said high-waisted pants were going to come back, but I haven’t encountered a pair yet. I almost always wear skirts and dresses. I usually wear suits, quite honestly. I don’t ever wear shirts.

Why not?

Have you ever tried to find a blouse? Seriously.

What about in the winter? Aren’t you tempted to dress a little more practically?

I don’t care about being practical at all. People are always like, “Are those shoes comfortable?” And I’m like, “No, of course they’re not comfortable.” It’s not important to me. I tell my friends I’m starring in my own Merchant Ivory production. I’m just wearing whatever I want to wear—it has no relationship to what I’m doing or where I’m going.

Don’t law offices usually have a pretty conservative dress code?

They don’t care what I wear as long as I do my job. The boys will be like, “Oh, who are we today, Claudette?” They’re very tolerant. My favorite client, she’s like, “Claudette, it’s Halloween, are you going to dress up like a lawyer?” —Heather Kenny