Michelle Obama's Fashions

Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Michelle Obama demonstrated not just that she understood the power of clothes to transmit a message, but a readiness to adjust that message as the need arose.
With flashcard clarity, Mrs. Obama signaled an interest both in looking stylish and also in advancing the cause of American fashion and those who design and make it. She wore off-the-rack clothes from J. Crew and, at times controversially, designs by fashion darlings like Isabel Toledo, Thakoon Panichgul and Narciso Rodriguez. She brought to the campaign a sophisticated approach to high-low dressing, a determination to adapt designers’ work to suit herself — adding jewelry or sweaters or wearing flat shoes with sheaths or even altering dressmaking details — as well as a forthright conviction that it is the woman who should wear the clothes and not the other way around.
Hamish Bowles, the Vogue editor who was curator of “Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years,” a 2001 show of Kennedy’s style at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said of Mrs. Obama, “My perception is that she’s already had an extremely potent effect” on the business.
“Just looking at the designers she’s been drawn to, you can see she’s shown astute sartorial judgment,” Mr. Bowles said. What she has also made clear in her choices, he added, is “that thoughtful and intelligent American designers are perfectly capable of creating clothes that have an impact on the world stage.”
The key word in that statement is “American,” a fact not lost on the retailers burdened in recent years by the weakened purchasing power of the dollar in Europe, where most designer fashion originates, and by the decision American consumers seem to have made to shop in their closets as they wait out the recession.
“Mrs. Obama is, first of all, very elegant and has wonderful taste,” said Stephanie Solomon, the fashion director of Bloomingdale’s. “But she also recognizes the value of beautiful dresses and not big prices. She dresses like taste doesn’t necessarily have to do with brand or status, but with what looks well on your body and makes you look glamorous, bottom line.” And that, she added, is “very refreshing and appropriate for this period.”
Reviving a faltering homegrown industry may seem like a lot to expect of one woman, however highly placed. Yet, whether or not she likes it — or has any particular interest in fashion at all — the first lady has traditionally been expected to use her position to help promote American goods.
“What the first lady wears has a lot of effect on the industry, absolutely,” said Arnold Scaasi, who began designing clothes for the wives of American presidents during the term of Dwight D. Eisenhower. The first lady, Mr. Scaasi said, “is seen every day in some form of media, and what she looks like is copied by other women.” After Mrs. Obama wore a $148 dress from the label White House Black Market on “The View,” she set off a shopping frenzy.
“She’s like 25 years younger than the last few first ladies, and her age opens her up to a more youthful approach,” the designer Anna Sui said. “I loved her choice of Narciso,” she added, referring to the designer Narciso Rodriguez, whose dress Mrs. Obama wore, in a version she adapted from the runway original and customized with a cardigan sweater, on election night. (That choice set off living room debates across the land over whether it flattered Mrs. Obama or not.)
“She could potentially do what Jackie Kennedy did, bring about a new awareness and a fresh outlook, just by not being so intentionally ‘first lady,’ by mixing designer things with off the rack,” Ms. Sui said. “She can give a big boost to the American fashion industry — and we need all the help we can get.”
Mr. Panichgul, a gifted industry favorite whose name entered the mainstream after Mrs. Obama wore one of his short-sleeved print dresses on the final night of the Democratic Convention, said it is Mrs. Obama’s casual yet savvy approach to fashion that makes her compelling to watch.
“Actually, her taste is very conservative," said Andrew Bolton, curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- "kind of jock-preppy, a version of a safe American WASP way of dressing. But what is truly compelling about her is her body. She has this athletic, commanding and confident presence that is very American.” She may look great in a shift dress, he said, “but her body is so strong that I end up forgetting what she’s wearing much of the time.” — From “U.S. Fashion’s One-Woman Bailout?” by Guy Trebay, The Times, January 2009. The full article is below.