Since Barack Obama’s emergence as the democratic presidential candidate, his wife’s fashion choices have become a cultural phenomenon. Now that Michelle Obama is our first lady, it is hard to open any fashion or gossip magazine without finding at least half a page to her latest looks.
Michelle Obama is a stunning woman and would look beautiful wearing just about anything. I commend her for choosing to wear bold colors and taking fashion risks. However, although ‘MObama’ definitely has a unique sense of personal style, I don’t think her fashion choices are worthy of the amount of attention they receive.
A big part of the MObama fashion hype revolves around the first lady’s choice to occasionally wear affordable clothing that is available to the masses, such as J. Crew. My first problem with that is this, while J. Crew is reasonably priced and certainly doesn’t touch the price of couture, a simple cardigan is probably around the range of a hundred dollars and t-shirts run about forty bucks. No, a trip to J. Crew probably won’t break the bank (especially for most SMU students), but it is certainly not “cheap.” In fact, it may be pricier than the clothing most of America wears.
Not to mention that the items she wears with her ‘affordable’ choices from J. Crew often cost ten-fold the price. Which leads me to my next complaint regarding America’s obsession with Michelle Obama’s fashion. She is widely praised for wearing certain outfit components more than once, which I think is great. One particular item that she has received a lot of attention for sporting multiple times is a black studded belt by Azzedine Alaia that costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $950. Not to mention she also has one in purple, that she has only worn once while gardening. We are in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and her husband is the leader of the free world and governor of our economy; although we want our first lady to look her best, she better wear that belt more than once. In fact, it is a slap in the face to the masses of Americans who currently face financial struggles NOT to recycle her couture. You can bet that’s something President Obama’s team realizes when they consider the future of his approval ratings.
Another factor many MObama fans fail to account for is the fact that Michelle Obama is significantly younger than most of her predecessors. She is able to make more relevant fashion decisions because she has a much wider range of appropriate choices to select from than other recent first ladies. In fact, just imagine if Laura Bush, who is also a very beautiful woman, had tried to wear many of the bright colored or form fitting outfits that Michelle Obama has stepped out in: she would have undoubtedly suffered immense public criticism for dressing inappropriately.
There is so much more to Michelle Obama than what is in her closet. The woman has a degree from Harvard Law School for goodness sake, can we please talk about something besides her clothes and her arms.
