Fashion Writer Tsks Cheney's Wardrobe Malfunction

OSWIECIM, Poland – Vice President Dick Cheney's (search) utilitarian hooded parka and boots stood out amid the solemn formality of a ceremony commemorating the liberation of Nazi death camps, raising eyebrows among the fashion-conscious.

Cheney replaced the zipped-to-the-neck green parka he sported in Thursday's blowing snow and freezing wind with a more traditional black coat — red tie and gray scarf showing underneath — for his tour of Auschwitz (search) on Friday.

Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan (search) described Cheney's look at the sober and dignified 60th anniversary service as "the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower."

"Cheney stood out in a sea of black-coated world leaders because he was wearing an olive drab parka with a fur-trimmed hood," Givhan wrote in Friday's Post, also mocking Cheney's knit ski cap embroidered with the words "Staff 2001" and his brown, lace-up hiking boots. "The vice president looked like an awkward child amid the well-dressed adults," she said.