That ball gown: does Michelle Obama read neo-neocon?
Yeah, yeah, I know she doesn’t. But a while back I recommended a better look for Michelle Obama at state functions—something like the Oleg Cassini ball gown once worn by Jackie Kennedy at a 1962 White House dinner honoring Nobel laureates.
Here’s the Kennedy dress again; I suggested a different color for Michelle, but a similar cut:
And here’s what Michelle Obama wore at a dinner honoring Mexican president Felipe Calderon and his wife. It certainly not up there with Jackie’s Cassini (what is?)—the lines are not nearly as elegant, and the material has a tacky metallic thing going. But its not bad—although reminiscent of Whitney Houston in happier days. All in all, I think it’s uncharacteristically flattering. But what’s up with that rag on Calderon’s wife Margarita Zavala?:
what’s up with the right breast smash job?
“smash job”: Heh heh heh.
She’s got kind of an uncomfortable look on her face, too.
However, my big complaint is that this seems a bit high-waisted, bordering on an empire waist, a style I dislike.
However, the color’s good, and the over all look is far better than her usual.
With that wig, or whatever it is, and the rest of her getup, she looks like she just stepped out of a 60’s “Go Go” cage.
Well it looks kind of thrown together to me. I don’t mind an unimpeded empire waistline, but this isn’t really an empire waistline so much as it is a maybe otherwise graceful gown, with its flow choked off and scrunched up with that awful, discordant belt. As we’ve wondered before, what’s up with the belts?
I think a year managed and instructed by a team of stylists (whose professional skill, after all, is to persuade the most stubborn of clients) had done her good.
Of course she’s not in Jacqui’s class – and she never will be. She’ll never be even in Laura Bush’s class: she is not a lady. It’s her personality that trickle through all the finesse she’s given at our expense and no amount of grooming with fix that.
However, if we compare her pictures 1.5 yr ago to this one – the progress is obvious. Someone taught her to wear flattering cut for her figure, forget about ruffles and floral prints which made her look like a chambermaid and to choose a color combo suitable for her skin tone.
She looked squashed in and overflowing on her right side, and the shoulder strap is skimpy. In other words, the long flowing idea is good, the execution isn’t.
If you want to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, you had better get a silk sow.
Anyone who is interested in following Michelle’s fashion hits and misses should really check in to Hillbuzz on a regular basis. They never miss an outfit (and they’d argue that most of her outfits are misses).
I tend to agree. She has far, far more misses than hits, yet the press persists in positioning her as a fashion icon ala Jackie Kennedy. Michelle’s inaugural gown (the white off-the-shoulder fluffy thing by Jason Wu) would not have looked out of place at a junior high dance in 1977.
Meow 🙂
While we’re at it, I must mention Hillary, who had (and has) the fashion sense of a thrift-store shopper. I’ll always remember seeing her in a White House State-Dinner receiving line, dressed in what looked like a buttoned-up, floor-length suit jacket.
Yeah–meow! 🙂
I agree theres something up with Michele and those belts. Best i can figure is her a** crack stops just below her shoulder blades.
I bet she picked it for the belt. (And yes, what IS up with the belts??) I agree that it is much more flattering than most of the evening wear we’ve seen her in the past, and the color’s great on her — but it’s too bad the dress doesn’t fit. The bodice is cut too high under her right arm and/or the bandeau top is too tight. As a result, she looks quite uncomfortable, a state entirely inconsistent with elegance!
The color is the only good point on the dress. Unfortunately the problems with it overpower any style points.
For one thing it looks damned uncomfortable in that second picture. There should be no “overflow” – overflow means it doesn’t fit right. Then there is the single strap look that I have never seen anyone carry off well – it always looks like something broke and you were stuck wearing it anyway. Of course the belt seals the deal on the entire thing – cinching the waist in like that is too much for all that material. The picture from a distance doesn’t look too bad, but up close…
The material is cheezy and whoever told her that the belted look is flattering on her should be horsewhipped.
You’ve got to be kidding. That dress is design disaster. It looks like it was stolen off a maniquin before it was finished. It seems to me that like so many artists in today’s culture dress designers have run out of ideas. I had to go back to the Jackie dress just to get the bad taste out of my mouth.
How right you are Neo! First of all, the neckline — or what passes for a neckline — on this dress is jagged and unflattering with it’s sharp angles. It’s just not pretty. From a distance the dress was a little prettier, but in the more closeup pics, the fabric also looked somewhat stiff which is why is does not gather in soft folds on the bodice as, for example, the Cassini dress does, and most other draped dresses. This also accounts for the rather stiff cone-like “gathers” emerging from under the belt — which may be intentional as Mrs. Obama has some rather large hips which I’m guessing the designer was trying to minimize, while drawing attention to a smaller waist. The waistline seems to be in an awkward place — rather high for a natual waistline, but way too low for an empire bodice.
One should also note that it is one thing to snap a pic while she is standing still, but nothing can be done with Mrs. Obama’s very awkward unfeminine gait which is very heavy and masculine for some reason.
But the color is nice! And why shouldn’t the wife of our self-annointed “king” (as he seems to view himself, if not the people of this country) coopt royal purple?
But then, the Obamas and their designer apparently are unaware of the significance of the color purple for most Latins: it is reserved for funerals and represents death! (or maybe they think that’s appropriate? It’s just the death of whom I’m worried about; or maybe what (i.e. the United States of America as we know it?) is the better question?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiquette_in_Latin_America
(This comment comes from a former fashion designer who designed espressly for Neiman-Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, among others)
Shouldn’t the First Lady be able to get a dress that at least fits properly?
csimon:
I thought about the belt and the reason you mention came to my mind, too: that the designer tried to camouflage the hips by drawing attention to the waist – but this trick only works on very tall women. On anybody shorter this would do the opposite of what’s intended.
Apart from obvious bad fit and the stiff metallic fabric (which could be manifestations of her personality that I mentioned… the same insecurity that make women who outgrew their size of 5 years ago insist on it…or sticking to a hairstyle or fabric choice of their youth – coz everybody liked the way they looked then!) – apart from that I still thinks her image has been improved.
Remember that scary black-n-red-number she was wearing? The one that afford her a “black widow spider” nickname?
Shudder.
No, really: compared to THAT- definite improvement.
Looks like a shower curtain to me….
Blech. Lipstick on a pig, almost literally.
Hair, expression, dress — they all scream “I’m trying desperately to be something I am not.” There could not be a more blatant contrast to Laura Bush’s natural elegance. And she compares quite unfavorably to Condi Rice, who was always comfortable in her own skin.
The dress looks like curtains ripped off from a game show. And what’s with the JBF hair?
And the constipated expression?
“” Mrs. Obama’s very awkward unfeminine gait which is very heavy and masculine for some reason.””
CSimon
Thank you. Watching Good Morning America and hearing them rave over her feminine beauty had me wondering if it was just me. You nailed it!
Lol at JBF hair!..Even funnier that i had to google it..Ohhh..Got tears in my eyes..
Mrs. Obama looks like and walks like a truck driver, which is fine if you are a man. There is something really strange about this couple. Men rarely marry women who are much less attractive than they are. Successful black men tend to marry women who are clearly fairer than they are (think Tiger Woods). Among blacks there is a strong awareness of complexion and real discrimination against dark skin, even in families and between siblings. Elite black college sororities look for girls who are fair, the color of a paper grocery bag.
It’s almost as if Obama’s choice of a spouse was like his choice of a preacher. In both cases it helped his street cred. As a good looking, fair complected Harvard grad his behavior is hard to understand other than in a political way.
I’m not much of a fashion person – it either looks good or it doesn’t. I do not have they eye to pick out why or if it looks bad how to fix it (which leads me to wearing things that I know look bad – not married so it’s just me picking my clothes. It’s more or less random).
In this case it looks better than her normal, but her normal is horrid. My description here is that she looks MUCH more manly than Obama does. She’s normally not that masculine looking, but something about it just makes her look thick and mannish.
Now other female in the picture also looks “big” in her outfit, bigger than she probably is. However it looks like “female big” not “man shoulders and torso”.
Frankly she looks like something I would do – expensive clothes that are supposed to look but do not and not enough knowledge to fix it. But then I have an excuse – I’m a single male in his 30’s, a software engineer, and a body shape that is hard to find any clothes for, let alone stylish.
Oh dear. Yes, the abused “lipstick on a pig” phrase does jump to my mind every time I see Mrs. Obama dressed to the nines. I try not to be prejudiced, really I do!
I think you’re on to something, Mr. Frank. Obama’s deepest insecurity is his mixed identity, and his marriage to Michelle was a way to come down on the black side of his heritage. It was also politically shrewd, as you observe, and she comes from an important black Chicago family. But I don’t see it as a marriage of convenience, exactly. Somehow there seems to be an undercurrent of SM in that relationship — the intellectual with slacker tendencies who puts himself under the whip of a harsh and dominant woman.
Having a strap on both sides of the dress would have eliminated that unfortunate blob of extra boob, or shoulder or arm or whatever it is that is so prominently squeezing out of the top of the dress like toothpaste out of a tube.
Color is fabulous, even the metallic shine matches the silver belt, but the belts are just too much.
Michelle overdoes the belts the way Hillary overdoes the pantsuits. If there’s some sort of figure flaw being disguised, just deal with the figure flaw. Get a personal trainer, the WH already has enough cooks & chefs to cook for an army, take six months and work on it. Sheesh.
Boots: working on figure flaws does NOT eliminate them, unless the answer is starvation, and that creates a very different (and more frightening) kind of figure flaw.
Michelle Obama is bottom-heavy, a not uncommon trait in women. Her upper body is fairly slim, and she is fairly fit in general. There is no way to spot reduce. If she lost enough weight all over to make her bottom slim, her lower half would simply become proportionately smaller, and her upper half would look way too thin. The best solution in a situation like hers is to dress in flattering styles.
As for the belts—I can’t figure it out. But this blog’s got a lot to say on the topic.
Men rarely marry women who are much less attractive than they are.
I’ve seen comments on other blogs to the effect that Teh Won is so vain he couldn’t tolerate a woman as “pretty” as he is.
Ow, my eyes! Some of those belts I’d forgotten all about, and some of them (like the World Wrestling crest) I’d missed until now.
Now that I’m done making fun of her figure flaws, I can get back to working on my own problem area, artfully hidden by baggy sweaters until the weather warms up. Like it will this weekend. Oops.
For once, I thought Mrs. Obama looked really pretty. I love the long, flowing dress idea, and the color is good with her skin. I liked her hair, too, as it looked softer and youthful. About the belts . . . this one wasn’t NEARLY as bad as her others. Too bad the dress didn’t fit properly. I wince every time I see it. Ouch!
Neo is right. You can’t spot-reduce as all we women have unfortunately learned.
She looks like she sucked on a lemon and the lousy fit is inexcusable. She always shows too much bosom at least the little she has of it.
Want to know what she used to look like?
The Amazing Transformation of Michelle O
The lines of the Jacqueline Kennedy dress are soft and the fabric is voluptuous. Mrs. Obama’s dress looks stiff and the color is horrible. The bust area looks as though it’s made of cardboard, or worse, metal, like the stays on an old girdle. The belt is unnecessary and garish. This is a statuesque woman who could very easily carry off the style as well as the color, perhaps a bit deeper celadon, of the Jackie Kennedy dress. The designers she seems to favor aren’t doing her any. Michelle needs an emergency infusion of Chanel or perhaps Armani, but, you know, you can lead a horse…..
“Michelle Obama is bottom-heavy, a not uncommon trait in women.”
It’s more than that. She has a physique that is common amongst black women. Actually, she has a combination of two physiques common to black women:
1) her upper body is quite masculine;
2) she has “high hips.”
The color looks nice on her, and her arms look great. She still looks pretty not so good, but it is a definite improvement to some of the stuff we’ve seen. Don’t get why her dress doesn’t fit properly. Also the one shoulder thing is so bizarre with her. The Jackie dress had two shoulder straps. The one shoulder strap that Michelle loves is so unflattering. I don’t get it. We see the one shoulder strap all the time. It’s a bad idea!!! Still, you’re right, she looks presentable here at least. And her height is an asset with this kind of gown.
Even I can see that the Oleg Cassini dress is a masterpiece.
As for the “rag on Calderon’s wife Margarita Zavala”, it’s obviously a maternity dress.
Michelle is still trying to prove she’s good enough to get into Princeton. She hasn’t figured out that her striving turns people off. Laura Bush is and always will be the librarian from Texas, no matter how far she goes or what she achieves. She is happy with herself, which to my mind is real class. In the same way, Jackie never pretended to be a farmer’s daughter, but she pointed out the values she shared with Americans in her WH tour. We were proud that she could wow the French and didn’t begrudge her her designer clothes because she was who she was. Americans are pretty accepting of differences if you don’t try to use them to game us.
I think we would all stop remarking on Michelle’s looks and clothes if she would chill out a bit.
I’m sorry, but Me-chelle’s hair looks like Medusa’s with all the snakes. And considering the snake she’s married to, the cut is appropriate.
When I saw pictures of this gown, all I could say was “OUCH!” I cannot imagine enduring an entire evening with boning jabbing the top of my breast. No wonder she isn’t really smiling. IMO, the closest MO ever came to true elegance was in the dress/hairdo of the state dinner for the Indian prime minister. I thought the dress was beautiful, her hairdo appropriate and the over all effect worthy of the wife of the most powerful man in the world. (Or COULD be the most powerful man in the world if he would stop groveling to everyone who hates us.)
For the love of God, don’t let her see this.
Who dresses this woman? Could they not see that her upper right side is slopping out over the edge? Couldn’t someone do some tailoring to make this stuff fit? This is actually gross.
rickl:
don’t worry, there are no belts completing the ..er…garments there.
We all can heave a sigh of relief.
I’m another whose reaction was “Lipstick on a pig.”
I don’t think she or her handlers took your excellent advice. She looks freaky. What is with the belt ?
Hm. The color is good, but that’s about it IMO. I agree with whoever up-thread said that the “one-strap” style just looks like something broke and she had to wear it anyway. The material of the dress looks cheap and tacky and the hairstyle is doing her no favors at all.