And on the first day of the 119th Congress, Representative Nancy Pelosi wore flats.
The former speaker arrived in the House chamber on Friday morning for the first time since fracturing her hip in a fall on a marble staircase at a palace in Luxembourg and undergoing emergency hip replacement surgery.
Gone were her signature four-inch stilettos, which Ms. Pelosi, 84, has worn religiously decades after most women have forsaken uncomfortable shoes for more forgiving, if less fashionable, footwear.
Instead, she was wearing cozy slip-on clogs.
The sight of Ms. Pelosi, otherwise perfectly coifed with a periwinkle sweater draped on her shoulders over a matching pantsuit, in a shoe that looked vaguely orthopedic was a jarring one. High heels have been such a fixture on the master tactician of the House that it seemed as if she might have permanently arched feet like Barbie.
“Nancy Pelosi is 84 and wearing stilettos and I have refused to go to a concert unless there are chairs since I was like 26,” the comedian Jill Twiss wrote on social media last summer.
Flats may be only a temporary fix: In a text message, her daughter Alexandra Pelosi said that Ms. Pelosi’s doctor actually told the family that it was better for her to stand on the ball of her foot and that there was no need for her to give up heels for good.
Ms. Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, has long been her personal shopper, and her sleek designer suits and heels have long been her signature look, projecting feminine power. “He’s got Armani on speed dial,” Alexandra Pelosi said in an earlier interview. “He’s the full-service husband.”