Madeleine Albright may not be a recognizable name unless you are of “a certain age” but you should read her pins.
She is a former Secretary of State (the first woman to hold that office) and she served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. She was in New Orleans to open the New Orleans Museum of Art’s exhibit of more than 200 pins from her collection, titled Read My Pins.
While in politics Albright used the pins to express herself subtly as men did with neckties; pretty pins on good days, bugs, serpents, etc. on bad days. She wore several jeweled insect bugs to meet the Russian Foreign Minister after it was discovered the Russian secret service had attempted to bug the State Department
As you can imagine, there are a lot of patriotic eagle pins. 
Of course my favorites were the butterflies, which reminded me of Casart’s Blue Morpho avatar.
She had an hour chat with Mayor Mitch Landrieu about any and everything, took questions from the audience, accepted gifts of pins and signed her book, Read My Pins, Stories From A Diplomat’s Jewel Box. When she signed my copy, I presented her with a very contemporary blue lucite wizard holding a staff with a crystal ball, sporting a robe with a crescent moon and a wise owl. His face is a mirror which reflects the viewer’s face.
Among the pins on display in New Orleans is a diamond-studded one called the “Katrina Pin,” presented to Albright during one of her trips to New Orleans by a man whose mother died because of the hurricane. It had been a 60th wedding anniversary gift from the man’s father to his mother.
“I said I can’t accept this,” Albright said. “And he said you have to because our mother loved you and it would be our honor.” She considers it the most significant pin in the collection, “because it’s a sign of how an inanimate object can in fact become a symbol of relationships and friends and love.”
– Lorre Lei
Addendum-Times-Picayune Fashion editor, Susan Langenhennig, interviewed Albright and published that in the May 28th issue. Albright was asked what she’d wear today to convey her feelings about the “Arab Spring” uprisings. Her reply offered a perfect ending for this post. “I would wear the glass ceiling pin,” she said. “This is time for all those countries to understand that if they are going to prosper, they have to make sure women, who are half the population, are politically and economically empowered.” Thank you, Madeleine and thank you, Susan!
LLJ
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