…And even if it wasn’t at all worth the headache to the Republicans, you can’t deny that Palin and her family looked great that night — the night that was probably the peak of her glory.

I saw the NYT story last night and thought, “If I ever become wealthy, that’s the stylist I want to hire to dress me.” Palin looked great last fall. I loved her Valentino jacket at the convention and drooled over these Cole Haan boots. When you live in DC and are forced to wear business clothes all the time, Kline’s style is appropriate yet still fashionable. I wish she would leverage this announcement into a style guide for dressing fashionably and professional. I get tired of my closet always looking like an Ann Taylor store.

The hoopla last year was ridiculous, especially when Kline breaks down all the charges. She had less than 24 hours to completely build a wardrobe for Palin for the convention and dress six other people for the speech night over a holiday weekend.

In other circumstances, Ms. Kline said, she could have bought Ms. Palin’s wardrobe for far below retail through her relationships with designers. But it was the Friday of a holiday weekend and “there wasn’t a person around,” she said. “The only avenue was retail, straight retail.”

Perhaps the gossip-mongers have never watched an episode of the Rachel Zoe Project, but stylists buy lots and lots of clothes for their clients, help them put together looks, arrange for alterations and then bring back the unwanted clothes. Jezebel notes:

Those include Klein’s purchases for Palin at Barneys and Saks Fifth Avenue in New York (at retail, since it was so last-minute), a frenzied run at Neiman Marcus to the tune of $75,062 once Kline realized she needed to dress the whole family, plus her own fee of $54,900, which included an assistant, a seamstress, and round-the-clock labor on a holiday weekend.

You have to look nice with any public appearance, and since the Palins were coming from a more People of Walmart environment than Manhattan, they needed to do a lot of shopping. Plus, how do you dress an average, middle-class family to match Cindy McCain’s level of style? She always looks perfect, but that that kind of dressing is far above what most Americans could ever dream of spending.