US first lady Michelle Obama has won accolades from fashion gurus for her choice of clothes starting from the gown she wore at the presidential inauguration ball (extreme left) on January 20 to the easy-going button-downs, belts and cardigans (center and right).
NEW YORK: Every decision President Barack Obama has made over the past 100 days has been analyzed this way and that. The same could be said for first lady Michelle Obama, and nothing has been more widely discussed than her wardrobe choices.
It was with bated breath the world waited to see her inaugural gown, what she'd wear to meet the queen and her fashion face-off with Carla Bruni-Sarkozy of France. Each of those outfits produced subsequent, and significant, debate in the media, on blogs and at coffee klatches everywhere about her bare arms, formfitting sheaths and relaxed style.
Since arriving at the White House, Mrs Obama has stayed true to her independent style, but she's also grown additional confidence, observes Amy Fine Collins, a special correspondent for Vanity Fair.
"She looks less worried about making a mistake, but the definition of what she can wear is being broadened every time she steps out," says Collins, who works with the magazine on its International Best-Dressed List, to which Mrs Obama has already been named twice.
The time had come to break the mold of the first lady uniform, says Hal Rubenstein, InStyle fashion director. "I say this with real snarkiness: They all wore 'that suit.' That Adolfolike suit that was glued onto Nancy Reagan and Laura Bush, and Hillary (Clinton) did her best to fit into it. It became the political wife uniform ... and it was dull."
Mrs Obama has an air of modernity, he says. "I'm not saying you imagine her living down the block but she looks like a modern American woman, not a political artifact."
Nothing did more for her image - and the image of American fashion - than her trip to Europe. She even upstaged her husband, Collins notes, thanks to her elegant, chic look.
"They, as a couple, have a dynamic," Valerie Steele, chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, says, adding that Mrs Obama's image in turn reinforces her husband's as "young, fresh and forward-thinking."
A look back at Mrs Obama's first lady style at home, away, and out and about:
-Formal:
Mrs Obama doesn't hide her feminine shape in her formalwear, instead embracing fitted bodices and slightly flared skirts. It's also a natural time to highlight her toned arms since gowns and cocktail dresses are so often sleeveless.
The bare-arm debate seems very old fashioned, says FIT's Steele. "I think there's an undertone that bare arms are only acceptable for the young. It seems sexist and ageist, but some women are seeing it all as empowering, saying, 'You go girl, show off your arms."'
-In the community:
Belts, button-downs and cardigans are key parts of Mrs Obama's wardrobe when she is in the community, whether she is reading at schools, giving a speech or touring government offices.
Who would have thought someone considered as trend-right as Mrs Obama would make a cardigan a signature? Collins wonders. On her, though, she shows the sweater - which she wears in slim silhouettes and in shades ranging from pink to black - isn't just for children or old ladies.
"It's clever to not wear the jacket all the time, which can look stiff and proper. That's for Hillary (Clinton) or Cindy (McCain), but the cardigan covers up in the same way but it's soft and versatile," Collins says.
-Traveling:
If American armchair fashion critics are interested in Mrs Obama's wardrobe, Europe's were downright obsessed during her recent visit. She gave them a lot of fodder, starting with the chartreuse Jason Wu dress she wore to touch down in London and continuing her fashion show through a meeting with Queen Elizabeth, and later stops in France, Germany and the Czech Republic.
Mrs Obama truly represented the unfussy American aesthetic, especially when she met with Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy, Collins says. "My reading of it was they were dressing to mutually admire each other, and that's the way the women I know dress: so that other women will admire their clothes."
-At home:
Mrs Obama's casual clothes have probably had the biggest makeover since her campaigning days, when she did on occasion wear some dowdier pieces. She now maintains a stylish, pulled-together look.
If the family is on the road together, Mrs Obama counts on slim dark pants and ballet-flat shoes to anchor her outfit, and she seems to have a few good pairs of gardening boots for her days on the White House lawn.
-The girls:
Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10, have learned a lesson in consistency from their mother, says Best & Co's Moellering, but their styles probably will evolve over the next four years simply because they are at ages when girls really start developing their own fashion sense.
Both Amy Carter and Chelsea Clinton changed their looks dramatically while at the White House, she notes.
