First lady Michelle Obama serves as fashion icon

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><img src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/01/21/Production/Daily/Style/Images/2013-01-21T165012Z_01_WAS222_RTRIDSP_3_USA-INAUGURATION.jpg" /><br /><span class="photo-credit credit" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline-block; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.78333282470703px; margin-right: 9px; text-align: right;">Kevin Lamarque/Reuters -</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.78333282470703px;"> First lady Michelle Obama and her daughters, Sasha and Malia, arrive for inauguration ceremonies in Washington Jan. 21. The first lady’s fashion sense has been credited with pushing the American fashion industry into the international spotlight.</span><br /><br /><div class="module byline" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-style: none; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 10px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><h3 property="dc.creator" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; margin: 17px 0px; padding: 0px;">By <span class="author vcard" style="color: #666666;"><span class="fn"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/robin-givhan/2011/03/09/ABjWOnP_page.html" rel="author" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Robin Givhan</a></span></span>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/first-lady-michelle-obama-serves-as-fashion-icon/2013/01/21/655215dc-6413-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7_story.html#license-655215dc-6413-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7" id="license-655215dc-6413-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7" rel="item-license" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"></a><span class="timestamp updated processed" contenttype="article" datetitle="published" epochtime="1358817277000" pagetype="leaf" style="color: #6e6e6e;">Monday, January 21, <span class="time special" style="color: #cc131e;">5:14 PM</span></span></h3></div><div class="relative" id="article" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; line-height: 10px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div id="article_body" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="article_body entry-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div style="font-size: 12px;"></div><article><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;"><span class="dateline"></span>First lady Michelle Obama stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol during President Obama’s second-term swearing-in, holding the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s black leather Bible in her magenta-gloved hands. The smaller Lincoln Bible rested atop it. Michelle Obama said nothing during the hour-long inaugural ceremony. But in the sea of black topcoats and C-SPAN stodginess, she stood out — statuesque bearing, new bangs accentuating her cheekbones and grooming attuned to both the history books and high-definition TV.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">After rallying the country to fight childhood obesity, speaking to the value of mentoring and championing the contributions of military families, she was once again in the spot where she had stood four years ago: A silent symbol of an administration’s mood and manner, a template of patriotism, a standard-bearer for femininity.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 1.5em;"><img src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_296w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/01/21/Others/Images/2013-01-21/_SM41489cropped1358788753.jpg" /></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Wearing a navy Thom Browne coat cut from custom-made jacquard and a coordinating dress, she was a more subdued, more reserved presence than in 2009. She had traded in the bright, idealistic sheen of the lemongrass Isabel Toledo ensemble for one that was structured, relatively spare and unadorned except for the black, bejeweled J. Crew belt she added after the morning’s prayer service.</span><br /><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">In four years, her style had shifted from fizzy hope to glimmering pragmatism.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">Her clothes, in fact, mimicked her husband’s. The Thom Browne coat was created from tie silk and echoed his discreet blue neckwear. As expected, the president wore a sober black overcoat, dark suit and black gloves, with a tiny American flag pin dotting his lapel. Their daughters, Sasha and Malia, finished the family portrait wearing coats in shades of lilac and violet. The elegant silhouettes underscored their new maturity.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">Still, the first lady’s clothes stand apart. Observers obsess about Michelle Obama’s wardrobe because it offers clues to the personality of a public woman — a historic woman — who remains a resolutely private person. In an era of televised confessionals, she has never laid herself bare. But thankfully, her clothes, with their quirks and eccentric embellishments, do not adhere to unwritten protocol or dowdy traditions that have so often left first ladies little more than beige cyphers.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">For four years, Obama’s clothes have connected with the public in contemporary terms, in the language of Hollywood’s progressive glamour, Seventh Avenue’s bold entrepreneurship and the democracy of the mass market.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">In the constant tug of war between style and substance, Obama has proven they can be one and the same.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">More than any other first lady in history, Michelle Obama has pushed the American fashion industry into the international spotlight. With a global reach unlike any actor or musician — and an authenticity untouched by endorsement deals or fealty to a single brand — she carried the creative skills, the technical wizardry and the earnest ambitions of Seventh Avenue stalwarts and upstarts into Buckingham Palace, the center of the Holy See, the neighborhoods of Ghana and into fashion’s very heart of darkness . . . Paris.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">From: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/" style="line-height: 1.5em;">http://www.washingtonpost.com</a></div></div></article><div style="font-size: 12px;"></div></div></div></div></div>

Fashion First lady Michelle Obama First lady Michelle Obama serves as fashion icon

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters -  First lady Michelle Obama and her daughters, Sasha and Malia, arrive for inauguration ceremonies in Washington Jan...

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