Sizing up Michelle Obama

last updated 8 January 2015

Barack Obama turned the page on American history, said Booth Moore in the Los Angeles Times, but Michelle Obama turned the page on American fashion. On inauguration day, the First Lady wore a lemongrass wool lace ensemble by up-and-coming Cuban-American designer Isabel Toledo and gave the nation a look at a “new generation of talent.”

Pleasing the “eagle-eyed fashion pros” on inauguration day is a near-impossible feat, said Bonnie Fuller in The Huffington Post. But Mrs. Obama “flouted tradition and didn't wear any all-American Barbara Bush-ish colors, nor a somber suit befitting the sober times. Her choice telegraphed both that she's "going to have fun with fashion" and "take the world by surprise in more ways than one.”