When a beautiful woman is photographed often enough, and her picture appears everywhere, she becomes a powerful cultural force. Such is the nature of female beauty.

Two women who typify this phenomenon are Princess Di and Michelle Obama. The deceased princess had spectacular clothes and the current first lady does too.

Interestingly, they are both viewed as women of great feeling,conspicuously compassionate and supportive of a politics of emotion. There seems to be an inexorable law of fashion under modern socialism: Power women dress with heightened exuberance, glorying in their vitality, while dress standards overall deteriorate. Children look much worse, as if they rolled out of bed in their pajamas, and most women and men do too. This is an age of the horribly dressed. But elite women are triumphantly feminine and wear some genuinely fantastic threads.

I asked the writer and artist Kidist Paulos Asrat what she thought of Michelle Obama’s clothes.

Kidist writes:

There are a few factors which contribute to the public’s perception of her fashion sense. Firstly, what people see in her sense of style is really what most “career” women are wearing these days. There is a myriad of magazines, from Oprah’s O Magazine to Instyle, which go into step-by-step directions on how to coordinate dresses,skirts,pants, blouses, shoes, accessories and even hairstyles in order for women to look well-dressed. The surprising thing about career wear for women these days is how pleasant and feminine they look. I simply think it is the natural tendency for women to want to look attractive and “pretty” (if you can be that at the office). The 80s-style macho woman is out.

So, I think there is that modern career woman’s sense of style that Michelle is copying very successfully.

Another factor is, I think, the traditional black American sense of style, which is colorful and vivacious. She seems to have grown up in a fairly traditional family, and I expect her mother and other women would have instilled in her this formal and attractive style. Thirdly, she is surrounded by stylists, experts and high-level designers, so it is not easy to go wrong.

Despite all of this, she makes atrocious mistakes, which I think shows her lack of understanding of clothes, her lack of style, and her lack of an eye for beautiful things.

Some examples are: her terrible shrunken sweaters which she clinches with wide, ungainly belts; the short shorts she wore on the public family holiday this summer to the confusion of every fashion and pop culture commentator; her dress for the “Christmas at the White House” interview which was too short, showing her unattractive calves (here I think she was “upgrading” the clearly fifties dress she was wearing to appear more modern and hip.) Often the prints on her clothes are odd and abrasive. And, she insisted on wearing unsightly flats for many of her official visits abroad, when even short heels (like Hillary wears) are an attractive alternative to high heels.

My conclusion to all this is that I think she is stubborn. I also think she doesn’t respect the people around her, who expect some decorum and style out of her on all occasions. She is not really willing to relinquish her career woman role for that of a much more subtle and high-level office which scrutinizes everything down to the bracelet on her wrist.

If she wants to do something, it seems to me that she will do it. I am sure she is advised against these choices by her stylists and designers – any stylist would cringe at them – but she goes ahead anyway to make her point.

But, there is a final and more subtle reason, I think, for her choices. I’ve noticed this with black celebrities. They seem to want to form their own style, different from the white world around them. Perhaps Michelle refuses to follow the precedent of listening to experienced stylists and designers, who themselves are formed by the white world, and thus will make her dress “white.” So, I think she takes matters in her own hands and ends up with the disasters that keep cropping up.

                                                                — Comments —

The Kitchen Madonna writes:

I guess one of Michelle Obama’s worst fashion mistakes I’ve noticed is the way she wore spring fashions and short sleeves or no sleeves to showcase her now “legendary” arms. I saw this time and time again when she travelled abroad on state occasions. She would be photographed next to other high ranking ladies and they had on winter-weight fabrics, long sleeves, and they did not look like they were  going to catch a chill.

(Okay, I finally got to get that catty remark off my chest.)

Laura writes:

Her sleeveless outfits have been controversial. You’re not the only one to find them inappropriate.

To me, Mrs. Obama appears at times to be wearing a costume. I can’t quite explain why she looked silly in her designer veil and black attire at the Vatican, but she did. The long black veil is traditional for meeting with the pope, but she seemed overly conscious of it. Michelle has an enormous variety of outfits and many are flattering, but they are in general overly festive.

Karen I. writes:

You are completely right about the way children are dressed these days. Some really are walking around in their pajamas as their busy mothers put them to bed in some of the clothes they wear the next day! I have heard of more than one mother that does this and the way the kids look at my son’s school make me wonder if some of their parents even see them in the morning before they walk out the door. Others allow their children to wear anything they want for fear of cramping their style. I saw a girl of about four yesterday at the pediatric dentist. She was wearing a short sleeved pink sparkly party gown made of a thin synthetic material, white tights and white plastic play dress-up heels two sizes too big. The high temperature here yesterday was about 28 degrees. I thought she might be poverty stricken until her father walked out behind her after paying the bill. He was dressed like a professional in a heavy overcoat, good shoes, shirt and tie. It was then I realized he was one of those overly indulgent parents allowing his daughter to “express herself” through improper attire. My children were dressed for the season in heavy boots and jackets. They rolled their eyes and giggled when they saw the party princess.

Kidist writes:

Michelle’s lack of style is evident here. The veil is too long and plain (look at Jackie Kennedy’s veil, which although long, has beautiful lacework), and the dress is frumpy. And there’s that belt again!

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