Free Speech: Hadley Freeman Explores The New Epidemic of First Lady Fashion Fever

In the absence of an economy that allows us to do any proper shopping these days, the only way to survive, of course, is to shop vicariously. Thankfully, the USA—nay, the world—now has the ideal model on whom to hang our shopping dreams: Michelle Obama. Literally, in fact. One of my favorite pieces of Obama paraphernalia that I have purchased (and believe me, there is substantial competition in this category) is a book of Obama paperdolls, featuring outfits for all the family, including Sasha and Malia, of course, but with particular emphasis on Michelle.

Anyway, I digress. Lest this look like the sad squeals of a fashion freak attempting to impose her own minority interests on an international event, put this anecdote in your pipe and smoke it. I was in Chicago during the election and had breakfast with a member of his campaign team on November 6, a mere 48 hours after the result was announced. This charming young gentleman spoke dutifully over our bagels and coffee about how plans were shaping up for the upcoming changes, etc. and so forth, when I made some self-mocking reference to my excitement about Michelle’s possible inauguration outfits. My friends, this wonk’s eyes lit up brighter than if I’d dropped some scurrilous gossip about Bristol Palin. “Oh, I know! We’re all talking about that,” he said, and that’s a direct quote.


And of course they are. Yes, part of the media excitement about having another stylish First Lady at last comes purely from relief at being able to brighten up dull news days on TV and in the papers with some pictures of Michelle looking fab. But there is also symbolic value. The last chic First Lady was Nancy Reagan, and she was stylish in a very eighties ladies-who-lunch way—all twig-armed couture skirtsuits and that sort of thing. Cindy McCain would have offered something very similar, which is fine in its way, but hardly suggestive of a new, modern world. Then we entered the age of Barbara Bush, who, like Laura Bush, took a defiantly “I’m the invisible wife, please don’t look at me; I’m only here to support my husband” approach to dressing, while Hillary Clinton’s phobic avoidance of anything that might be construed as feminine was just as old-fashioned.

With Michelle, we have a woman who is sufficiently confident in her intelligence, career, and personal status to know that enjoying how she looks will not signify that she is a bubblehead. So what should she wear on January 20, then? Well, newspaper reports are already claiming, unsurprisingly, that designers are nigh on falling over themselves to get her their wares. The comparisons between her and Jackie O are really just about their shared interest in style—their respective styles are actually very different. Jackie—and I don’t mean this as a bad thing—took a guaranteed, even safe approach to chic: She knew the conservative shapes that suited her and she worked them. Michelle fearlessly goes for something a little more awkward and, as a result, looks far more independent and modern and cool and appealing to women. This is not a gal to get out the cleavage. On the other hand, she doesn’t feel she has to wear a Comme des Garçons hunchback dress to prove her fashion-aware-but-still-cerebral credentials. Think of the red and black Narciso Rodriguez affair she wore the night of the election: not my cup of tea, personally, but you gotta admire a woman who worked such a number on the international stage.

So for all these reasons, I think she should stay with the smaller, niche designers. No, you cannot beat a de la Renta for guaranteed elegance, but Michelle strikes me as much more of a Milly gal—retro, but with a modern kick (and anyway, Oscar would have been Cindy’s choice, which rules that out). She’ll presumably have to stick with an America label—although it would be awesome if she picked up something from Swedish high street behemoth H&M, as she did when she was on the campaign trail, or maybe even Topshop. But a canny little Marc Jacobs number would make me very happy, too. Definitely a shift dress—that woman can really work a dress—and in a gorgeous block color, like the nigh-on-historic purple Maria Pinto one she wore earlier this year. And that, I think, is the likeliest scenario: something from her mate Maria, a plucky designer from Chicago pretty much no one had heard of at the start of this campaign but who by now has become very famous indeed and everyone is asking, how the hell didn’t we notice this piece of class before? I mean, really—is there a more apt choice for the Obama inauguration?

—Hadley Freeman