Capitol Style Spotlight: Rochelle Behrens
The Washington Examiner, 12/16/08

The Power Suit. It says confident, smart and put together. And yet, women's suits are a virtual jungle of discomfort, misfit and bad cuts. It's no wonder that many Washington career women have given up on this staple.

Critical to examining DC's collective style, it is important to pay homage to those who are buck the "Washington lacks fashion" myth.
Rochelle Behrens, 26, a Washington lobbyist by day and budding fashion designer by all other hours of the day, has been inspired by what she's seen in DC, but knows there's room for improvement.
Her "no gape" shirt is making a statement of its own. Picture this, you're in a meeting with your client and your boss, so naturally you're wearing a button-down blouse and suit jacket. You happen to look down and notice that there is a wide gape in a very inopportune place: your chest. Perhaps even worse, that most important button on your blouse has somehow come undone (no matter your cup size!).

Fed up with impractical, poorly fitting, and just plain boring work attire, Rochelle took to her own, creating the centerpiece to her debut line, The Rochelle Behrens Collection.

Rochelle is continuing to expand her collection, offering an array of figure flattering suits, jackets and dresses certain to fit your frame. See Rochelle most recently on the Today Show:

She Is Not a Crook
Daily Candy, 12/05/08

This town has seen Watergate, Zippergate, and a whole slew of other embarrassments.
But the worst of all is Polyestergate. And it’s still going on.
Leave the cleanup to Rochelle Behrens. The local lobbyist-by-day noticed the difficulty in finding affordable day-to-night outfits in quality fabrics, so she launched her own line of chic dresses and separates.
In her new fall/winter collection, Behrens uses dreamy black Italian knit and dark tweed. The materials do wonders for contours in styles like high-waisted, cuffed pants and a subtly sexy tulip skirt.
She also tackles Gapagegate (the universal blouse gaping issue) with a line of patent-pending blouses that guarantee your buttons will lie flat.
Keeping things refreshingly under wraps.

Celebrations are in Order
Project Beltway 12/08

Congratulations to Rochelle Behrens, who attracted my attention back in July and has since been featured in DC magazine, on NPR, and just this week, both Daily Candy and The Today Show! (in the video, they keep panning to a shirt with an annoying gape, which is not one of her shirts. It must have been there to prove the point, but why didn’t they point that out…?!). Rochelle is smart as hell and has made a line of smartly tailored clothes for women who work and who don’t have time to fuss around getting dressed in the morning (even if we had the time, wouldn’t we rather sleep?). When I went to her trunk show back in July, the women were snapping up the blue scoop neck dresses like hotcakes…
Read More

The Guest List: December
Washingtonian, December 2008

Welcome to the Guest List, a monthly roundup of the eight people we’d most like to have over for drinks, good food, and conversation.
Max Stier —How should the Barack Obama administration staff the government? The head of the Partnership for Public Service has lots of ideas about doing it better.
Rochelle Behrens —In her spare time, the Quinn Gillespie associate has launched her own clothing line for professional women.
Phil Kerpen —Where should the Republican Party go from here? Ask the policy director at the new-right think tank Americans for Prosperity.
Neel Kashkari —The bailout czar, a.k.a. the interim assistant secretary of the Treasury for financial stability, is at the center of the world’s economic drama.
Nicolle Wallace —The top Republican operative is at the center of the controversy on whether Sarah Palin helped or hurt the ticket.
Valerie Jarrett —President-elect Obama’s close confidante can shed some light on how Washington might change.
Aaron Schock —The 27-year-old Illinois Republican is the youngest member of the freshman class in Congress.
Campbell Brown —By calling things as she sees them, the CNN anchor is reshaping the network’s lineup with her new show.

Will Camelot return in an Obama White House?
Associated Press, 11/15/08

This April 14, 1963, photo shows President John F. Kennedy and family as they pose outside the Palm Beach, Fla., home of the president's father after a private Easter service. From left are first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, John Jr., 3, President Kennedy, and Caroline, 5.
Read More

Lobbyist launches clothing line
Politico, 9/9/08

Like today’s shopping trip, her new métier started with a “frustrating conundrum”: the button-down shirt.

So many professional women, explained Behrens, experience what she called “the gape” — that awkward space between the third and fourth buttons of a shirt. Behrens solved her own gape issues by simply (or maybe not so simply) fastening her shirts from the inside using a safety pin.
Read More...