When I was pregnant, finding relatively stylish maternity clothes was a breeze: An excellent pair of dark blue, straight-leg Earl Jeans endured until the last week of my pregnancy. Two Japanese Weekend wrap dresses carried me through work meetings, date nights, family dinners, and holiday parties.

I never thought I would have trouble buying flattering clothes once my waist was restored. But two-and-a-half years after my daughter was born, I struggled to find tailored dresses in a sea of baby dolls, goddesses, empire waists, and wide A-lines. Why must it be so difficult to locate dresses cut for women neither childish nor with child?

Quoted via The Daily Beast:

Like many resort communities, Martha’s Vineyard has a look. From Oak Bluffs to Edgartown, this Massachusetts outpost typically yields a stylish contradiction of straw hats, boating basics and pared-down interpretations of runway resortwear. But things look different this year—at least in historically African-American Oak Bluffs—as local store owners take a note from the arbiters of fashion and outfit their well-heeled customers in Obamawear in advance of the first family’s arrival this month.

Obama-inspired fashions via The Daily BeastSince the late days of the campaign trail, notable names in high fashion have been weighing in on—and supporting—Michelle and Barack Obama.

CHICAGO — In Michelle Obama's hometown, working women hustle back and forth from home to the office in stylish shoes they can walk fast and far in. They wear chic but commonsense coats that keep them warm in the winters — and those famous sleeveless tops favored by the first lady in the summer.

Chicago's Rush street windows of Ikram Goldman's boutique. Ikram is considered to be MIchelle Obama's chief fashion advisor and intermediary with designers. It's that Midwestern pragmatism with a cosmopolitan edge, personified by Mrs. Obama, that is shining a runway spotlight on Chicago's fashion scene, say style watchers, retail experts and fashion designers.

via TIMEWho cares what the First Lady wears? The stock market, for one. Since the Inauguration, every time Michelle Obama has worn a J. Crew outfit, the company's stock has enjoyed a boost, and the items she has chosen have sold out. Michelle's sleeveless dresses have sparked a national dialogue about appropriateness, and her decision to wear a cardigan sweater to visit Queen Elizabeth provoked an international debate about etiquette. But watching the attire of the nation's First Ladies is hardly a new sport. Pat Nixon's cloth coat and Jackie Kennedy's pillbox hats provoked plenty of conversation in their day. "What First Ladies wear and how they present themselves is indicative to what's happening in the country, in the world, and is a presentation of the Administration," says Susan Swimmer, author of Michelle Obama: First Lady of Fashion and Style (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers). Swimmer, a shrewd fashion watcher, is a contributing editor at More magazine. TIME senior reporter Andrea Sachs reached Swimmer at her home in New York City. more

Finally, it may be that fashion enthusiasts have become accustomed to the sight of a first lady who rarely wears suits, who prefers her dresses form-fitting and who has, perhaps, never seen a brooch that she could resist.

Michelle Obama visited an orphanage in Moscow; she toured the earthquake zone in L'Aquila, Italy, and she withstood the heat of Accra, Ghana, in a series of ensembles that reassured fashion folks that her contemporary style was not a fluke but, at the same time, did not send them into such spasms of rapture that they couldn't focus on what she said or did. The long season of widespread Obama fashion mania may finally have passed.

MOSCOW (AP) — Michelle Obama brings her superstar glamour to Moscow this weekend as she accompanies her husband on his summit with the Russian president.

But the American first lady, who has wowed publics in the U.S. and Europe with her easy elegance and charm, will perhaps face a bigger challenge in winning over a Russian public that has scant respect for women who grab the limelight from their powerful husbands.

First Lady Michelle Obama's inaugural outfit, designed by Isabel Toledo, r., is displayed at the Museum of FIT. http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/fashion/2009/06/17/2009-06-17_first_lady_michelle_obamas_inauguration_day.html#ixzz0Ih58BYNp&DMillions oohed and aahed over First Lady Michelle Obama's inauguration outfit from a distance. Now they see the wool-lined, yellow Isabel Toledo ensemble in person.

The Museum of FIT in Manhattan is displaying the dress and matching coat and other Toledo designs starting Wednesday.

When it happened for the third time, I had just finished a quarter-mile swim at the local pool. My hairline was branded with the imprint of my swim cap, my bloodshot eyes looked like peppermints, and I was hunched next to the "Slow Lane" sign catching my breath with a cacophony of gasps and coughs. Nearby, a 60-year-old in a small navy swimsuit had folded himself into some sort of bridge pose on the concrete, supporting his arched body with bony shoulders and the back of his head. It was like watching a scantily clad Santa Claus doing experimental yoga. And then he started to speak. "Excuse me," he began, and I worried that he'd caught me staring. "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Michelle Obama?"

Wow, look at her go. Michelle Obama, who was in London on a short sightseeing trip with her daughters, didn’t let the small issue of a failing government stand in the way of her sunny style.

While the men around her look to be in mourning, Mrs O stands out like a beacon against the night sky. Ok, the appliquéd tunic has the air of Malia or Sasha’s art class about it and sure, it does nothing for her hips – all that extra fluff and detail around the middle adds bulk to her usually smooth lines.