Michelle Obama Calls Her Own Fashion Shots

Reading this delightful article Mad about the dress, by Financial Times columnist Susie Boyt, who is  New Yorker, I thought of all the controversy around Michelle Obama's clothes this week.

After moments of celebrating Isabel Toldeo and Jason Wu, and our fabulous First Lady, those irrepressible fashionista claws came out. After all, we need a good story . . . our very own version of shock-jock radio.

We love; we hate "the dress", especially Michelle's Jason Wu gown. Some columnists raved; others just puked all over those ivory crystals. (Sorry for the word . . . but they did.)

People write with the convictions of the Queen Anna Wintour, as if we are even qualified to analyze style. It all amuses me, and I've reviewed 250,000 fashion editorial photos in my life, trying to make meaning of fashion.

At the end of the day, there are few rules about right and wrong in style. The critiques tend to reflect the personalities and sartorial prejudices of the writers behind the keyboard. Fashion is a value system.

The Woman Within

Without a doubt, I'm more focused on the woman wearing the dress, and the shifts in fashion, as an expression of identity.

What are we trying to say with the clothes we wear? This question arouses me.

Susie Boyt goes off in search of the perfect birthday dress, a milestone dress, although she doesn't say which one. I could probably nail her age, after 60 seconds in Google, but I won't. She's entitled to manage her own story.

Reading her words, I couldn't help thinking about fashion as an expression of age, and also sensuality.

Confidence Dominates Any Dress

It takes a confident woman to buy the dress that Susie Boyt settles on.

Reading the description, one swears that the writing is a quiet reference to Michelle Obama's Jason Wu's evening gown . . . but that's probably Anne looking for connections.

Boyt explains what she desires to the shop assistant (who are now called Design Consultants - smile):

I tried to explain to the fellow in more detail and, because no one else was buying dresses, he indulged me. “I’m done with demure; it’s too faux-girlish, and elegance suddenly suggests the over-55s. Pretty doesn’t seem powerful but I shy away from anything severe. I always want my clothes to make me look irreproachable but I’ve little to hide in that regard just now. And what’s wrong with confessing you’re a little at fault?”

What I wanted, it struck me then, was a dress that was, well – completely mad. A dress that looked as though it had already had a drink or two, been round the block, and what of it? A dress that didn’t care, that did not seek to please a soul but would just make everyone grin. Not a beautiful dress, because beauty can be oddly lifeless, but an insane dress. A dress that looked the world in the eye and cackled: carefree, lustrous, so funny and startling it was almost coming apart at the seams at the thought of itself – but not, you know, in a self-conscious way.

Ice Queen via !.keesssss.!Fashion Deadbeats

The critiques, both positive and negative of Michelle Obama's dressing this week, tend to reduce her to a mannequin, when her confidence, radiance and maturity dominated the global stage.

Michelle Obama is wearing her clothes, and not vice versa.

True, sometimes one outfit adds 10 pounds to her toned physique, beamed out on global TV. Who cares. We all know that Michelle has a great body and works hard to stay healthy and physically toned.

Her muscles inspire not only Barack, but the rest of us as well (although we are loathe to admit it, depending on our own relationship with the gym.)

Perhaps our New First Lady wants to look approachable, and not always perfect.

Pardon me, but Michelle Obama is not a Park Avenue ice queen. She is redefining her position, at the top of the First Lady pyramid. Women's obsession with the need to look "perfect" is exhausting and ultimately self-defeating.

As Diana Vreeland says: "Too much elegance can be boring."

We will never be confident, defining ourselves through a camera lens. And you know what? Confidence is a woman's greatest asset. Not the lines of her dress, but how she wears them.

Let me do a bit of editorial correction here. I know that confidence in women is a most attractive quality to many men. They're bought into the notion of the modern, confident woman. Bring her on, they say -- not to suggest that everything is just fine in the corner office.

I believe that women (if we search our inner selves) are ambivalent about confident women.

At times, we need to tear her down . . . to our size, our sense of self. And what better way to do that, than through her clothes?

Our National Babe Is No Mamie-O

LATimes: The Dish RagAddressing the National Prayer Service, Tracy Feith printed dress, I swooped down in defense of Michelle, writing that her stomach looks pretty flat to me. This comment attempted to deflect the suggestion in multiple press reports,  that she looked preggie in the Isabel Toldeo outfit (which I love).

Even I couldn't run that fashion football field for the First Lady.

Who cares about her flat stomach on Wed.! The conversation has moved to her looking like a dowdy Mamie Eisenhower.

How absurd to suggest that the confident woman walking with the Prez, has the heart and soul and personality of Mamie Eisenhower (who I'm sure was a lovely woman, even if she -- like the cool Ice Queen Jacqueline Kennedy --  did suffer in silence -- as her guy made out royally, in his way around the world).

Wrong comparison, my fashionista friends!!!

Diana Would Approve

Michelle Obama, with the counsel of her fashion advisers, does not need to open her eyes every morning, hoping that she will please the hoards of fashion reporters waiting for her slip to show. Michelle learned in the campaign that you can't please all of the people, all of the time.

Her ambitions and focus is on issues that matter.

The First Lady's love of style and clothes as self-expression gives the American fashion industry, especially young or unappreciated designers especially, a welcome shot of adrenalin.

Michelle is dressing in her own, unique style, a look cultivated from clothes that express her personality . . . yes with grace and elegance, but also one that breaks out of a predefined script. You're in Blackberry country my friends, . . . i-Pod land.

Obama's heritage and the nation today -- America for real -- does not reflect the world of Jacqueline Onassis. Michelle and Barack will translate "taste" into a style that is right for our times, one that is much more eclectic and energetic than the world of the Kennedy years.

Diana Vreeland is a far better reference than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, when we think of Michelle Obama.

Watching Caroline Kennedy whimp out in the New York senatorial race this week, I was glad that she didn't go to Washington -- although I initially thought she would be great for the senator's job.

Yes We Can

The world has changed.

If a woman can't take the heat of today's rough and tumble public life, then she needs to get back in the kitchen . . . although with all my Food Porn blogging, I'm trying to redefine that hothouse as well.

Michelle Obama is far too much the Lady, to give her fashion critics the finger. So I'll do it for her. Bad Anne!

Done.

Give me a woman with great style, real substance, confidence, passion, a body that intimates the heck out of size 2 mannequin girls, along with a True Grit determination to build a new America, and I'm one happy blogger.

Orchid bento by Sakurako KitsaThe Soul of a Good Dress

Back to Susie Boyt . . . she found her dress:

It was made from crumpled cream muslin, with slightly odd drapes and panels and folds and seams, and was covered in wide black unfinished silk satin ruffles in the most surprising places. When you looked closely at the material it had small discoloured patches that couldn’t help but make you think of old sheets. When I read the label it told me quite forcefully that any apparent defects must be considered specific characteristics to be greatly prized. Its weaknesses were actually its strengths! I may have heard better news but couldn’t think when.

Amen for True Grit, Confident Women like Michelle Obama!

I adore pansies, but strong, bold, erotic flowers are the new style. This look suits many of us just fine. So carry on ladies.

Love always, Anne