Ann "Babe" Huggett
Michelle Obama: First Lady of fashion victims
By Ann "Babe" Huggett
While U.S. President, Barack Obama, is back from apologizing to our enemies for America's existence, First Lady, Michelle Obama, toured London's Westminster Abbey on Tuesday in an outfit so outlandishly silly that it appeared she wanted to go that one step further and hold up America as an object of ridicule.
The Drudge Report has a cropped picture of her in a childish and unflattering beribboned and 3-D flowered tunic nipped in at the waist with a black checked belt, topped with two sweaters and wearing what can only be described as a retro-nod to 80's tapered pants. Under this picture of a fashion disaster on the hoof are such glaring headline links as London Shock Fashion and Michelle and the Orange Snake.
They mercifully go to less harsh articles at the UK news sites Mail Online and Times Online respectively but if you want to read what the Brits call a real load of codswallop, check out the breathless fashion reporting touting "Mrs. O" as, "...First Lady of Fashion.," and "Wide stripes sound like a neurotic fashion no-no, but again the First Lady knows exactly what she is doing."
Well, if the angry glare Michelle Obama gave to France's chic First Lady and former fashion model, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, at the 65th anniversary D-Day ceremonies they both attended in Normandy on June 6th is anything to go by, the Brits got the neurotic part right.
Alright, all you conservative fashionistas out there; I know you are reading this because the title caught your attention. So, please raise your manicured hands if you are sick of First Lady, Michelle Obama, being held up as some sort of Fashion Icon because she runs around London looking like a bad Mary Englebreit illustration. That same slavish, sycophantic liberal media that finally elevated President Barack Obama to a living Marxist god king status last week has also been falling all over themselves since before the 2008 election to convince us that Michelle Obama is the ne plus ultra of fashion sense and style.
Puh-leeze! We are talking about a "what's-bred-in-bone-comes-out-in-face" pear-shaped woman with excruciatingly average-to-bad taste in desperate need of an apolitical professional stylist. Instead we get Vogue, O Magazine, People, Ebony, Essence, Ladies Home Journal, Time and Harper's Bazaar devoting cover after cover and issue after issue to Michelle Obama and her regrettable public wardrobe.
The last time the media paid so much attention to clothing was their feigned outrage over the 2008 McCain/Palin campaign kitting out of the Leftists' hated nemesis, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, whose smartly thrifty consignment store clothing purchases weren't considered good enough by country club Republican backers. And no one rivaled First Lady Jackie Kennedy's taste better than the elegant First Lady Nancy Reagan but the press was merciless against Mrs. Reagan every chance it got. No matter; Nancy Reagan will always be remembered for her smart fashion choices of Bill Blass suits, knits and flattering red gowns.
Now no one, except for sore-loser Leftist media types towards Republican First Ladies, would deny any Presidential spouse her day in the Sun. So even with months of puff piece, fantasy fashion articles about Michelle Obama already history up to and including all the approving hysteria over that dreadful, belly highlighting, black and red Narciso Rodriguez dress from his Spring 2009 collection that she wore on Election Night, I was willing to cringe and just look the other way. On Inauguration Day she paired cheap looking green gloves from J. Crew with green shoes as accessories for her lemongrass yellow lace-over-wool coat and sheath dress with a too-early-in-the-day cocktail crystal neckline by the Cuban-born designer, Isabel Toledo.
To hear fashion stylist and commentator, Mary Alice Stephenson, of the oxymoronically named America's Most Smartest Model on VH1 tell it, Michelle Obama is Every Woman in that outfit.
"What's so powerful about Michelle Obama is we all see ourselves in her. She's a modern woman who is fashionable and even flamboyant in her style and she is still taken seriously," she said. "She's wearing that dress today for all of us. We're all wearing that dress with her. The dress is elegant, appropriate and has the individual style stamp of Michelle Obama and is timely for a woman in her 40s and she wears embellishment during the day. Hallelujah!"
Errrr...,"Hallelujah!"? With an attitude like that, is it any wonder that Michelle's fashion mistakes are adding up? The Empress has too many clothes rather than no clothes and they are all wrong for her. Her adoring non-critics tell her that her inappropriate choices of clothing by designers Jason Wu, Thakoon Panichgu, Junya Watanabe and Basso & Brooke make her look hot but, in actuality, she looks like a hot mess.
Now, why is Michelle Obama's fashion disaster wardrobe so important when there are true disasters and catastrophes out there many of which her husband is either responsible for or creating even now? Look no further than a telling remark that she dropped during an interview in The New York Times, which was then picked up by London's The Telegraph with an article titled, Michelle Obama says her husband Barack knows nothing about fashion and which added the subheading, "President Barack Obama is obsessed with his wife's clothes but knows nothing of fashion, the First Lady, Michelle Obama reveals"
The New York Times article via The Telegraph wrote, "Describing a scene which will sound familiar to many less illustrious couples, Mrs. Obama said her husband remains bemused by her interest in clothes. "He's always asking: 'Is that new? I haven't seen that before,'" she said, revealing that she replies: "Why don't you mind your own business? Solve world hunger. Get out of my closet."
Claiming that President Obama is "obsessed" with the trivialities of his wife's closet rather than the hard politics of the real world, The Telegraph is broadly hinting that Barack Obama is a man of style over substance and it's a cheesy style at best. Whether he's taking stock of Michelle's shoes or insultingly displaying the soles of his shoes as his feet are propped up on his desk during an Oval Office photo op of him talking on the phone to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Obama is a man without a plan when it comes to world events. He is all about show on the domestic front and world stage without the attention to vitally important detail that is necessary for an effective leader in an increasingly hostile and dangerous world. Even the President's wife can dismiss him with a trivialization reference to world hunger as he roots through her wardrobe. Such shallowness on both their parts ultimately makes us all fashion victims.
© Ann "Babe" Huggett
June 11, 2009
While U.S. President, Barack Obama, is back from apologizing to our enemies for America's existence, First Lady, Michelle Obama, toured London's Westminster Abbey on Tuesday in an outfit so outlandishly silly that it appeared she wanted to go that one step further and hold up America as an object of ridicule.
The Drudge Report has a cropped picture of her in a childish and unflattering beribboned and 3-D flowered tunic nipped in at the waist with a black checked belt, topped with two sweaters and wearing what can only be described as a retro-nod to 80's tapered pants. Under this picture of a fashion disaster on the hoof are such glaring headline links as London Shock Fashion and Michelle and the Orange Snake.They mercifully go to less harsh articles at the UK news sites Mail Online and Times Online respectively but if you want to read what the Brits call a real load of codswallop, check out the breathless fashion reporting touting "Mrs. O" as, "...First Lady of Fashion.," and "Wide stripes sound like a neurotic fashion no-no, but again the First Lady knows exactly what she is doing."
Well, if the angry glare Michelle Obama gave to France's chic First Lady and former fashion model, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, at the 65th anniversary D-Day ceremonies they both attended in Normandy on June 6th is anything to go by, the Brits got the neurotic part right.
Alright, all you conservative fashionistas out there; I know you are reading this because the title caught your attention. So, please raise your manicured hands if you are sick of First Lady, Michelle Obama, being held up as some sort of Fashion Icon because she runs around London looking like a bad Mary Englebreit illustration. That same slavish, sycophantic liberal media that finally elevated President Barack Obama to a living Marxist god king status last week has also been falling all over themselves since before the 2008 election to convince us that Michelle Obama is the ne plus ultra of fashion sense and style.Puh-leeze! We are talking about a "what's-bred-in-bone-comes-out-in-face" pear-shaped woman with excruciatingly average-to-bad taste in desperate need of an apolitical professional stylist. Instead we get Vogue, O Magazine, People, Ebony, Essence, Ladies Home Journal, Time and Harper's Bazaar devoting cover after cover and issue after issue to Michelle Obama and her regrettable public wardrobe.
The last time the media paid so much attention to clothing was their feigned outrage over the 2008 McCain/Palin campaign kitting out of the Leftists' hated nemesis, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, whose smartly thrifty consignment store clothing purchases weren't considered good enough by country club Republican backers. And no one rivaled First Lady Jackie Kennedy's taste better than the elegant First Lady Nancy Reagan but the press was merciless against Mrs. Reagan every chance it got. No matter; Nancy Reagan will always be remembered for her smart fashion choices of Bill Blass suits, knits and flattering red gowns.Now no one, except for sore-loser Leftist media types towards Republican First Ladies, would deny any Presidential spouse her day in the Sun. So even with months of puff piece, fantasy fashion articles about Michelle Obama already history up to and including all the approving hysteria over that dreadful, belly highlighting, black and red Narciso Rodriguez dress from his Spring 2009 collection that she wore on Election Night, I was willing to cringe and just look the other way. On Inauguration Day she paired cheap looking green gloves from J. Crew with green shoes as accessories for her lemongrass yellow lace-over-wool coat and sheath dress with a too-early-in-the-day cocktail crystal neckline by the Cuban-born designer, Isabel Toledo.
To hear fashion stylist and commentator, Mary Alice Stephenson, of the oxymoronically named America's Most Smartest Model on VH1 tell it, Michelle Obama is Every Woman in that outfit.
"What's so powerful about Michelle Obama is we all see ourselves in her. She's a modern woman who is fashionable and even flamboyant in her style and she is still taken seriously," she said. "She's wearing that dress today for all of us. We're all wearing that dress with her. The dress is elegant, appropriate and has the individual style stamp of Michelle Obama and is timely for a woman in her 40s and she wears embellishment during the day. Hallelujah!"
Errrr...,"Hallelujah!"? With an attitude like that, is it any wonder that Michelle's fashion mistakes are adding up? The Empress has too many clothes rather than no clothes and they are all wrong for her. Her adoring non-critics tell her that her inappropriate choices of clothing by designers Jason Wu, Thakoon Panichgu, Junya Watanabe and Basso & Brooke make her look hot but, in actuality, she looks like a hot mess.
Now, why is Michelle Obama's fashion disaster wardrobe so important when there are true disasters and catastrophes out there many of which her husband is either responsible for or creating even now? Look no further than a telling remark that she dropped during an interview in The New York Times, which was then picked up by London's The Telegraph with an article titled, Michelle Obama says her husband Barack knows nothing about fashion and which added the subheading, "President Barack Obama is obsessed with his wife's clothes but knows nothing of fashion, the First Lady, Michelle Obama reveals"
The New York Times article via The Telegraph wrote, "Describing a scene which will sound familiar to many less illustrious couples, Mrs. Obama said her husband remains bemused by her interest in clothes. "He's always asking: 'Is that new? I haven't seen that before,'" she said, revealing that she replies: "Why don't you mind your own business? Solve world hunger. Get out of my closet."
Claiming that President Obama is "obsessed" with the trivialities of his wife's closet rather than the hard politics of the real world, The Telegraph is broadly hinting that Barack Obama is a man of style over substance and it's a cheesy style at best. Whether he's taking stock of Michelle's shoes or insultingly displaying the soles of his shoes as his feet are propped up on his desk during an Oval Office photo op of him talking on the phone to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Obama is a man without a plan when it comes to world events. He is all about show on the domestic front and world stage without the attention to vitally important detail that is necessary for an effective leader in an increasingly hostile and dangerous world. Even the President's wife can dismiss him with a trivialization reference to world hunger as he roots through her wardrobe. Such shallowness on both their parts ultimately makes us all fashion victims.
© Ann "Babe" Huggett
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