The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2019

48 JULY-AUGUST 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The LANGUAGE of Dress Appearing in a second outfit, Newman twirled to show off a full cotton skirt, patterned in a traditional African black, green, gold and rust print. She stopped to pose, one hand on her hip, so we could take in the blousy black top, its high neck tied with a bow, sleeves long, sheer and cuffed. The audience in the Dean Acheson Auditorium cheered. The emcee, Czech Ambassador Hynek Kmoní č ek, announced that the designer of the outfit, Isabel dos Santos, will soon be opening a shop in Maputo, Mozambique, and will also sell her creations online. Diplomacy and Design “As an ambassador’s wife, I can’t open a boutique in Wash- ington, D.C.,” dos Santos, who is married to Carlos dos Santos, Mozambique’s ambassador to the United States, later tells me. “We aren’t allowed to work.” Indeed, spouses of diplomats fromMozambique and many other countries are not permitted to work in Washington because their governments have not signed bilateral work agree- ments with the United States, meaning spouses of U.S. diplomats T oward the end of the first-ever Glamour & Diplomacy fashion show, organized by the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide and held at the State Department in April, Changu Mazama Newman, wife of David John Newman, Botswana’s ambassador to the United States, took a star turn. Earlier that morning, Newman had modeled a modern take on a traditional Tswana dress with a head scarf. The vibrant olive green and red dress was accented with a Masai-style beaded neck piece and bracelet. Martha Thomas is a freelance journalist in Baltimore. She previously wrote for the Journal in May 2016 ( “It Takes a Village” ) about the aging-in-place movement. In Washington’s diplomatic community, fashion and diplomacy go hand in hand. BY MARTHA THOMAS FEATURE