I am not really fit to have an opinion on fashion, let alone criticize the sartorial choices of others. My only advice would be: "If you can't afford designer clothes, wear black." Luckily, black goes very well with my colours. When I buy shoes, I always buy expensive and classy ones to wear them for decades. I buy, too, good clothes and have forgone about 10 years ago to wear short skirts. I thought that it would be better if people regret that I do it instead of wishing I'd do it. I think long skirts and pumps look very dressy. The fact that I do not like patterns and prints adds to the lucky circumstance that I can wear my duds for many years without looking too obviously out of place. And to reveal one of my dark secrets: I have a "thing" for ball gowns and evening dresses and own several I have never, or only once, worn. Apart from that, fashionistas can bite me!
But I will explode if I don't say something about Michelle Obama's sartorial choices. That is not because I find the hype about dressing matters worth adding to, but because the hype about the Obamas, who seemingly can't do wrong in the eyes of the world (at least of my part of the world) creeps me out. Here we have examples from the gutter-, as well as from the "quality" media.
Michelle Obama is a great looking woman, or at least she would be wouldn't her resentful nature be written all over her face. At almost six foot, slim and trim, with great legs and arms and a curved figure -- far from the clothes rack appearance of most "supermodels", one should think she couldn't do much wrong in the sartorial field, yet she goes from bad to worse to the sycophantic acclaim of the world.
At her husband's inauguration she wore a cat-sick-yellow (widely described as "golden") thing with ugly texture and an even more ugly meant-to-be "decorative" neckline, together with cow-pat green, voluminous leather gloves.
At the inauguration ball she wore a dress that looked like a wedding dress for a teenage- or early twenty-ish bride from one of the cheaper off-the-rack lines.
To be realistic, that was only what we could expect. I mean... look at the dresses in the pictures below. The first one resembles a Haloween-horror costume, the second would be alright, albeit a bit too tight, weren't it for the colour that would suit hardly any woman's skin tone, and the purple and black colouring of the third, together with the cheap-looking accessories, is a mess as well.
The Obamas are not the only megalomaniac phonies who like to be compared with the Kennedys. The futility of the claim is obvious.
(Wasn't Jackie heavily pregnant at her husband's inauguration?)
To prove our lack of political bias, here is Laura Bush at the same occasion. Nobody has ever accused her of being well dressed, but THAT even beats Michelle Obama's blunders by several lengths.
Hillary at her husband's second inauguration ball: Perfect! She must have a whole staff of extremely competent advisers. Now she is a political heavy-weight herself, she is one of the few female politicians, maybe the only one in the higher echelons of that class, who has escaped the trap of appearing either as butch or simpering. I just wish she would just sometimes wear a skirt.
Mamie Eisenhower in her inaugural ball gown: Timeless chic! I am glad that this is a black-and-white photo, though, because I have a hunch that the dress was in that awful pink she so loved.
Nancy Reagan: Very nice -- for a woman thirty years younger. It is fair to assume that this influenced Hillary's above choice of an inaugural ball gown.But back to the Obamas. I seem to remember that Jackie Kennedy was much criticized for her choice of French over American designers, when all the world is gushing ecstatically now over Michelle Obama's third-world chic. To suppress the urge to make an -- aggressive -- statement at any possible, and impossible, occasion would do her appearance a world of good.
Cross posted at The Evil Style Queen!
11 comments:
An IBA Fashion Critique from the Editrix.
This is great. Thanks for writing it.
My guess is Michelle will gradually morph towards more elegant designs. One thing about the elections of Obama and Clinton, and Abraham Lincoln for that matter, is they prove ANYONE can become President of the United States.
Obama, Clinton, and Lincoln, all came from very humble backgrounds. And yet, they were able to rise on the strength of their ideas, their will, and the peculiar forces of their personalities, to the highest office in the land.
And, that is something we have to be proud of.
My point is, we can not expect that people from such backgrounds will always be elegant. Lincoln was constantly made fun of for his odd appearence.
By the way, Nancy Reagan wore exactly the dress one would expect of an aging movie star who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars.
;-)
Ain't that America?
I love this fashion critique.
Not to be mean or anything, but I hope that MO's fashions don't become the primary choices for women's fashions.
Look, I'm as sick as anyone else over the media fawning (Time headline: "America's Next Top Model"). But it's nauseating in large part because it's so completely irrelevant. The First Lady's wardrobe is such a total non-issue, it's foolish for either side to waste time on it. Don't mock the dresses; mock the libtards' slobbering over them them.
To the extent Michelle matters, concentrate not on what she wears, but what she is: an angry, whitey-hating harridan.
(Of course, comments on the hypocrisy of multi-zillion dollar inaugural balls for the Leftist superrich aren't amiss).
I am not much into ladies fashion but I am of an age when going out meant dinner jacket or tophat and tails. There are certain rules for gentlemen, first and foremost is that no gentleman wears a white tie with a dinner jacket, it is only worn with tails. More important you never wear a clip-on bow tie as he is obviously wearing. That is the first sign of a parvenu.
"The First Lady's wardrobe is such a total non-issue, it's foolish for either side to waste time on it."
I do not agree, at least not entirely. Fashion and how one presents oneself to the world are important statements.
Michelle Obama expresses her aggressively anti-American stance with her way to dress and choice of designers.
Pastorius, I do not agree that Obama comes from a very humble background. His mother was an educated and privileged woman, his grandparents could at least afford her and their grandson's Ivy League education. What about Harry S. Truman? A much better example.
I may find him a disastrous choice as a president, but from his attitude, bearing, looks and poise he is more of a gentleman than any other American president I remember in my lifetime.
Truman was not, initially, elected to be President, so I left him off my list. It is much easier for an incumbent to be elected, even if he was not first elected.
Obama does seem like a gentleman, but to me, Bush Jr. and Sr. seemed like gentlemen, and Reagan as well.
I have to wonder if this is a cultural difference in perception, or if the world's media has given you a misunderstanding of our Presidents.
Obama was not as poor as Nixon, Clinton, Truman, or Lincoln, but the fact that he was a black man (a minority) from a middle class family, and that he was elected President of the USA, says something great about our nation, in my opinion.
The fact that our media never made him answer for his associations with radicals like Ayers and Jeremiah Wright says something bad about our media, and ultimately our nation as well.
"...but to me, Bush Jr. and Sr. seemed like gentlemen, and Reagan as well."
I patently forgot about Bush Father, but I don't perceive the others as gentlemen in the above mentioned sense. But that is surely a cultural thing.
The media hype about Obama at this end is, if possible, even more frightening -- and telling.
Editrix,
Yes, I don't think we American men are very gentlemanly.
In fact,I guess this is a change of the subject, but the American male reaction to Feminism has, in recent years, turned into a stampede which is running over every notion of chivalry ever conceived.
And, quite frankly, I think American women, for the most part, deserve it. They act like Bridal whores (by that, I mean they believe we ought to buy their pussies with ATM cards and future alimony payments - women even get full alimony when THEY CHEATED AND RUINED THE MARRIAGE) and expect to be treated like Princesses, while at the same time being given every right a man has.
I can not think of any way in which American women are at all accountable, according to our laws.
If any American women want to dispute what I am saying, I more than welcome it.
All this being said, I am married to a beautiful woman for whom I would do anything. We have been together for 20 years and we have two kids. I can not imagine my life without her. I know some men who are also in happy marriages. But, most men I know are ,moerately to extremely unhappy with their wives.
By the way, if you don't believe what I am saying about American women, then see if you can watch a TV show called Housewives of Orange County. Here I'll give you a link. These women are from the area in which I live:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA5UAMwtMH0
"Yes, I don't think we American men are very gentlemanly."
Pastorius, what I was referring to is a habitus, the appearance and bearing of a man. GWB and Ronald Reagan do, from their appearance, not fit into the image I have of a gentleman. Bush Father and Obama do. The former two may well possess, or have possessed, gentlemanly personalities, but that was not my point.
As for the other points you mention, I couldn't agree more. At my now practically defunct website I put up a couple of interesting essays. I am of the opinion that feminism is more destructive to our Western society than all other "-isms" together. I have met over the years quite a few American men, some of them intimately. All of them were pathetically grateful for a kind word and non-bitchy female company. But in a way, I think they need and want to be treated badly. Treat them mean, keep them keen. So sad!
A theory of mine says that the self-styled "preciousness" of the female part of the American populations comes from the historic frontier situation where women had been a rare and thus precious thing and somewhere along the way somebody has forgotten to tell them that the frontier ended a considerable time ago.
I either get on with American women them like a house on fire or not at all. I am under the impression that they are either the salt of the earth or the spoilt bitches you describe, with very little in between.
The Editrix,
You said: A theory of mine says that the self-styled "preciousness" of the female part of the American populations comes from the historic frontier situation where women had been a rare and thus precious thing and somewhere along the way somebody has forgotten to tell them that the frontier ended a considerable time ago.
I say: Wow, I think that is a very good theory.
About the idea that many American women are salt of the Earth: That is probably true. I live in California. When I meet people from the MidWest, they seem much more down to Earth than those I meet where I live. The women might be better.
Orange County women are, perhaps, particularly stupid.
The best women I meet are the one's I meet in Church. I know many fine women in the various Chruches I have attended. However, their worldview is formed by the Bible, Prayer, and an intimate knowledge that God is the Center of the Universe, and thus not them.
:)
The best women I meet are the one's I meet in Church. I know many fine women in the various Chruches I have attended. However, their worldview is formed by the Bible, Prayer, and an intimate knowledge that God is the Center of the Universe, and thus not them.
That coincides 100% with my experience and AMEN!
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