Why Designers Are Dissing Michelle

When Oscar de la Renta lambasted Michelle Obama last week in Women's Wear Daily for wearing a cardigan to meet Queen Elizabeth II - sniping, "You don't go to Buckingham Palace in a sweater" -- he betrayed a disdain for the First Lady's sense of style that is at the heart of the fashion establishment's criticism of her.

Since the Inauguration, I've been hearing fashion insiders - designers, journalists and scholars complain that many of Michelle's clothes by the relatively obscure U.S. designers Jason Wu, Isabel Toldeo and Thakoon Panichgul don't fit right or are unflattering. They think that Michelle doesn't have enough fashion savvy to know what looks good on her, and that she's relying too heavily on Ikram Goldman, owner of the eponymous Chicago boutique, to choose her outfits.

De la Renta, Donna Karan and Vera Wang have gone on record saying that Michelle should start wearing their clothes and other luxury labels, what WWD calls "the big guns of American fashion... whose names resonate around the world."

The designers say that Michelle will help the struggling fashion industry if she spreads her sartorial self around. But it's hard not to read in their complaint a note of condescension. How can Michelle, who comes from a working class background and probably doesn't know the difference between silk ziberline and silk twill, dare to snub them?

Since the beginning of Fashion, designers have had no trouble upholding a tradition of imperiousness. Snobbery is part of their world and dates back to the Court at Versailles and Louis XIV, who invented the kind of luxury dressing that requires rules and constant reinvention. The modern standard for snootiness was set in the nineteenth century by Charles Frederick Worth, who became famous making clothes for Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon the Third. Worth was the first couturier to present his clothes at biannual fashion shows and the first to sew a designer label into his creations. He required clients to have a letter of introduction to get past his front door, and he sometimes turned away a woman whom he deemed too old or fat, or simply because he didn't like her hat.

Ever since, fashion has been all about exclusion - this, despite the fact that some of America's greatest designers, including Halston, Bill Blass and Norman Norrell came from humble homes in the heartland. ("There is nothing like the dull, unattractive childhood to give a bedazzled boy the right push," Blass wrote in his memoirs.) But by ascending to the heights of Fashion, they renounced their drab pasts and lived out their dreams in a rarefied world of fabulousness. They never looked back.

The clothes they made were for the rich -- gorgeous dresses, gowns, suits and coats affordable only to a few women of extreme privilege. Some of these women, such as the Duchess of Windsor, Babe Paley, and Jackie Kennedy, became style icons, idealized figures to whom ordinary mortals looked for fashion inspiration.

Michelle does not have the polished chic of a woman who grew up wearing high end creations. Nor is she a clotheshorse who's made dressing the center of her life. She's an impeccably educated working mother who loves fashion, but never aspired to the Best-Dressed list. Fashion immortality has been thrust upon her.

To be sure, Michelle has her champions in the fashion establishment. Anna Wintour and Vogue magazine have been great supporters of the First Lady, and The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) will honor her this June with a special tribute for her support of American designers. I wouldn't blame her if she didn't show up at the CFDA gala at Lincoln Center, since the diplomacy of the situation seems so fraught. If she wears Thakoon, who's up for the Swarovski award for emerging talent, will she offend Jason Wu, also in the running for the Swarovski, and Narciso Rodriguez (another Michelle favorite) who is one of three finalists for the top womenswear prize?

Last week WWD ran pictures of four looks they thought Michelle should try: a checked coat by Oscar de la Renta, a gray coat with round black buttons by Calvin Klein, and a draped, below the knee dress with cut out shoulders by Donna Karan. My favorite was a photo-shopped image of Michelle's head superimposed on a model wearing an ensemble from Ralph Lauren's fall collection. It's a shimmery gray metallic dress under a gray wool coat - classic, subdued and very Upper East Side. These clothes are, indeed, beautiful and would look great on the First Lady. They just don't happen to be clothes she chose. Let Michelle wear what she wants.

Comments

[lib2dbone]

03:11 AM on 04/25/2009

Mrs. Obama is a brilliant, accomplished person. Mamie Eisenhower, Barbara Bush and Laura Bush would not be the 'beauties' I'd flaunt to make a fashion point.
The men who have a problem with her clothes may not necessarily appreciate a beautiful woman, only what they consider beautiful clothes. It's a fey concept.
Most women dress like Michelle and appreciate her individuality, class and taste.
Effete snobbery is so unbecoming and classless. Who, over the age of 3, needs anyone to 'dress' them?

[Carl Anderson]

06:41 PM on 04/13/2009

Michelle is doing fine, thank you. Oscar is on the decline because 1) Michelle has not yet worn one of his dresses, and 2) she can carry off Lands End ; REALLY bad news for Oscar.

[htd2009]

04:58 PM on 04/13/2009

More bad PR for them...

[HeartT]

04:40 PM on 04/13/2009

Michelle Obama is comfortable in her own skin. When a woman has that kind of self understanding, she doesn't need some designer to interpret her style for her. And let's face it, the woman looks nice all the time. Who cares if she's not wearing a designer outfit. She's accomplished what all women want, to look good in whatever they wear.

Now can we talk about how her garden idea is catching on and how women are working out more to get what we call in my water aerobics class, Michelle arms?

[Attila Honey]

04:39 PM on 04/13/2009

Why wonder why the large fashion houses are dissing M. Obama? This isn't brain surgery. The woman dresses like a WalMart closeout sale. The point is this. Elegance isn't about money and high end clothes. It's about having a sense of yourself and not wearing everything out there that just "looks cool" on someone else. She should seek out someone who really knows fashion and start listening...otherwise she'll continue to look like a dog's dinner and the great designers will continue to diss her.

Any woman can look beautiful if they have the humility and common sense to study their own features and then wear what best accentuates those features. Obviously M. Obama likes the way she looks and if that makes her happy - then I say Go Girl Go! But if she wants to represent this country and WOW everyone, then she'll either find herself a fashion mentor or keep using her WalMart card!
attilathehoney.com

[Corral]

12:01 AM on 04/15/2009

Attila, that is quite brutal. True beauty comes from within, which is why Mrs. Obama is beautiful. You went out of your way to say awful things about her, probably because of your politics. It is so curious why Republicans are generally so hateful. Fashion is such a silly matter, really. For you to go on and on like that is disingenuous.

[elyely]

02:45 PM on 04/22/2009

you're contradicting yourself. if Woman should have a sense of self and not be a copycat, why should she let someone else dress her up, i.e. by a designer.

haven't you considered that maybe the FLOTUS dresses for herself by herself. maybe she doesn't think, "what shall i wear today to wow attila honey and her ilk?" when she opens her closet.

fashion is subjective anyway. when 100% of the population agree that the FLOTUS looks like a dog's dinner, then maybe that's when you can say she look's like a dog's dinner.

[Mary Janssen Van Raay]

11:31 AM on 04/12/2009

It's zibeline without the r.

[OverIt]

11:11 AM on 04/11/2009

Article and poll about Oscar de la Renta and FLOTUS:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/4/173251/6509

Wish someone could send it to him so he could see the poll results! LOL.

[angelwax]

10:02 AM on 04/11/2009

In my opinion, fashion is a function of marketing.Granted the "premier" designers come up with something decent every once in a while, but most of the aura of these designers is created by marketing. To be in "fashion" you have to buy their products that are wildly overpriced. Marketing and brainwashing rules the fashion industry.

[mohamedalgore]

06:28 AM on 04/10/2009

I see some designers have stuck with integrity. More proof that there are people with brains that know that the affirmative action ruler and his fist bump follower are anything but honorable and honest

Integrity goes beyond LIBERAL VITRIOL AND HATE. Even some democrats are honest enough to see that the divisiveness of the quota prez and his sycophants are not good for Real America and will not last.

The jimmy carter2 era will be short and the adults will be called out to clean up after the children - again.

[chicagomike]

04:26 PM on 04/10/2009

Childish babble...you poor thing.

[angelwax]

09:55 AM on 04/11/2009

If I translate this babble correctly, your tin hat is on crooked. The alien brain wave machine is penetrating what's left of your brain and turning it to mush.

[jjgg5]

02:35 AM on 04/10/2009

If your primary concern is fashion, you cannot be taken seriously. Fashionistas, the world is in a recession. I'm just trying to pay my mortgage. I turn my briefs inside out, just to get another day's wear out of them.

[Corral]

02:22 AM on 04/10/2009

Anyone else totally sick of hearing some delusional designer going off at the mouth criticizing women, in general? Their influence has encouraged the most hideous, shallow aspects of our country, for way too long. Some of the TV entertainment shows seem to bow to their opinions as if it mattered. The bottom line truth of it all is that we have primarily "gay men designers" making the regular American woman feel like she is never good enough. This is not a homophobic opinion. I will stand up for gay rights, gay marriage, all of it. This is totally a matter of gay men who prefer pretty men, seeing women as perfect only when they have a stick figure and a gorgeous face, like, a delicious looking gay man!. Anything other than that is horrible to them. So, we have teen girls hating themselves, anorexia, bad self esteem, all of it. Maybe this silly criticism of Mrs. Obama will shed some light on this embarrassing aspect of our culture. Beauty and fashion is as varied as each individual woman.

[doobiedubois]

07:52 AM on 04/10/2009

So, Vera Wang and Donna Karan are "gay men designers"? Either we have read two entirely different articles, or you, my dear, are in the middle of a gay panic.

[TommyObama]

03:16 PM on 04/10/2009

I know you weren't meaning to be anti-gay, Corral, but a little qualification is in order: most gay men come from the same lower-, working-, middle-class backgrounds as the rest of the world does. And they like their men manly and strong, and their women pretty, and just as strong, (with a kick-butt sense of humor, too, if attendance at female comedy shows is any indication!).

But I'll bet my signed Debbie Harry CD that even the gayest fashionistas out there would like to see Michelle in something less stodgy than O DL Renta, DK, and V Wang are proposing. They're grasping at their last shred of relevance in a world that has changed without them, and fast. Perhaps they can get together and outfit Colter and Bachmann.

[freedomfighter1]

01:12 AM on 04/10/2009

You know, it's beyond trivial that these designers are worried about what the first lady is wearing when there are some children who don't even have decent clothing to go to school in. Fashion is not trivial, a person looking their best, often makes them feel their best. But these folks act like Mrs. Obama is dressing in some sort of indecent way. That is simply not the case. I do not like so-called professionals using insults to get someone to try their services. I for one, would go nude first!

[catriley]

12:34 AM on 04/10/2009

Do those dinosaurs of the fashion industry realize how irrelevant they are in our lives?? One of the things that people love about the First Lady is how beautifully she dresses, and how she seems to capture the essence of who she is by the clothes she chooses.

Actually the designers are making me laugh.. She should be wearing expensive creations by the top designers? Really? Isn't that like butchers suggesting that a vegetarian start eating steaks?

The fashion "insiders" and egos need to stick to forcing women into 6" heels that will forever damage their backs and feet, and continue pushing the body type of a 16 year old BOY as beauty, and keep supplying the magazines with cigarette and drug addicted models, so that we bumpkin ladies have REAL role models.

[HC]

12:00 AM on 04/10/2009

Around fifteen years ago at a Q and A session at FIT in New York City, Donna Karan prattled on and on about how she moved up in the food chain of fashion prominence -- and then at some point kept saying after each sentence, 'but you can't afford my clothes'. This to an audience of POLITE students who were eager to hear about how a nearly legend in her own time made it to the top from scrappy nondescript beginnings, you know much like most of the student population in a public school like FIT.

A couple of years later when, BIG SURPRISE, I could actually afford Donna Karan, I passed on it. And in fact I continue to do so.

Interestingly enough Oscar De La Renta followed her at FIT and he was incredibly gracious. And Versace a couple of weeks earlier turned out to be amazingly approachable. Now whether or not any of these designers was actually a decent person is a different topic of discussion. But the fact that Donna Karan couldn't exhibit basic manners to a group of students to me speaks volumes.

[JDWPS]

11:22 PM on 04/09/2009

I love this because I agree completely.
Michelle's style is as authentic as Michelle and that is why authentic people love her!