The clothes. Few aspects of Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential candidacy have been more discussed than the $150,000 worth of clothing and accessories bought by the Republican National Committee’s coordinated campaign fund on behalf of the candidate and her family in 2008. Yet interviews with campaign aides and internal campaign e-mails and documents obtained exclusively by Vanity Fair shed new light on the situation, revealing Palin to have been more innocent at the start of this shopping odyssey than has previously been reported—and more knowing and more calculating as time went on.

Initially, Palin objected to the very idea of clothing being purchased for her to wear at the Republican National Convention. When she was first presented with a $3,500 jacket, an aide recalls, the price tag sent her into shock: “I don’t spend that much money on my clothes in a year,” Palin said. “I will not do this.” Aides decided, in future, to cut off the price tags, so Palin wouldn’t quite know how much was being spent. But eventually, they say, Palin grew accustomed to the privilege of a designer wardrobe—not only for herself but also for her family.

On October 21, 2008, Federal Election Commission filings revealed the massive expenditures made on behalf of the candidate, her husband, and her children. As was reported at the time, the vast majority of the purchases—$130,000—were made by Jeff Larson, a Republican consultant in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the 2008 convention was held. Other purchases were made by a stylist, a Dallas fund-raising firm, and campaign staff. In fact, shopping for the Palins involved many campaign staffers: at least eight of the candidate’s aides requested reimbursement for clothing purchases for the Palins that they charged to their personal credit cards. The records of those purchases also reveal that Palin’s later claims—that “we had three days of using clothes that the R.N.C. purchased” (at the Republican National Convention) and that she understood the clothes to have been “loaned to us during the convention”—were completely false. So was the spin of Palin’s campaign spokesperson, who stated on October 22 that “it was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign.” On October 23, in a previously unpublished e-mail (quoted below), Palin wrote that she had no idea the clothes would eventually need to be returned, and suggested that she believed the items were being given to her and her family as gifts. And campaign documents show that, remarkably, the spending continued into October. On the 20th, the day before the clothes-buying sprees were made public, a staffer paid $639.36 for clothes and a coat at Macy’s and Ann Taylor in Reno.

Throughout October, staff members were still buying clothing and accessories for the Palins. That month’s purchases, which totaled more than $9,000, would seem to stretch the boundaries of what constitutes a legitimate campaign expense. On October 9, a “Jersey for Piper” was purchased at a store called I Love Cincinnati. On October 10, a $316.94 pair of Bose headphones were purchased for Sarah Palin in Pittsburgh. (Separate purchases that day were made for “Intimates” and “Workout Clothes.”) On October 16, a “Jewelry case” purchased in Concord, New Hampshire, was charged to the campaign.

On October 17, the day before Bristol’s birthday, after a senior Palin aide asked a junior aide, in an e-mail, “Do you mind talking w/Bristol about getting an outfit for tomorrow … via the campaign. Thanks,” the response came back: “Yep. I talked to her about it this morning and picked up a few dress options at saks during the event today. And a pair of snazzy shoes to wair on her bday : ).” That same day, the same junior staffer charged $1,312.94 at Saks 5th Avenue in Cincinnati. In campaign records, that expense was labeled as if it were made not for Bristol but for the candidate’s appearance on Saturday Night Live. (The memo line reads “Clothes-SNL.”)