On any given day during her eight years as first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama said she could go from giving a speech to meeting with her counterparts in another country to digging in her garden with a group of schoolchildren.
Her clothes must be prepared for this. With so much else to do, including raising daughters Sasha and Malia, she said she doesn’t have time to dwell on it what is she wearing.
“I worry, ‘Can I hug someone in this? Will it get dirty?'” she said during a moderated conversation Wednesday night, tracing her style choices to growing up on Chicago’s South Side when she found herself in the national spotlight as the first Black woman to hold the role. “I’m the kind of first lady who doesn’t know what she’s going to do.”
Obama will become one of the most talked about women in the world, not only for what she says and does, but also for what she wears. She chronicles her fashion, hair and makeup journey in her book Latest book “Appearance” Co-written with her longtime stylist Meredith Kupp and published earlier this month.
As First Lady, she was known for her athleticism, catching NFL players’ footballs, kicking a football with David Beckham, breaking the Guinness World Record for jumping jacks, and doing push-ups with South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
She wants her clothes to be both popular and versatile.
“I find that the thing about clothes is that they can welcome people in or they can keep people away, and if your clothes are so put together and so precious and the stuff is so fragile and the pins are so big, you know, it can tell people, ‘Don’t touch me,'” she said.
She said she wouldn’t wear white at roped events in case someone wanted a hug.
“When someone needs something from me, I don’t push them away, and I don’t let clothes get in the way,” Obama said.
Here’s what she had to say about some of her famous fashion choices:
The dress she prepared for Obama’s first inauguration
This white one-shoulder chiffon gown was designed by Jason WuAn unknown 26-year-old young man born in Taiwan at that time. But when she showed up to the inaugural ball wearing the gown, it was a moment that changed Wu’s life. That’s by design, she said.
“We started to realize that everything we did was sending a message,” Obama said of herself and her husband. former president barack obama. “So that’s what we’re trying to do to change lives through the choices we make.”
She continues to help launch the careers of other up-and-coming designers by wearing their pieces.
Chainmail state banquet dress
Obama wears rose gold Versace gown at Obama administration ceremony last state banquetpresented to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in October 2016.
“So it’s an ‘I don’t care’ dress,” she said of the shimmering one-arm gown.
“I put it on. I was like, ‘This is sexy.’ This is the last time,” she said, referring to their final state dinner. “Ultimately, all my choices are about beauty—and things that look beautiful.”
The pantsuits Joe Biden wore to his inauguration
“I’m really in pragmatic mode,” Obama said in explaining her choice. Maroon ensemble by Sergio Hudson She wore a flowing, floor-length coat, unbuttoned, revealing a belt around her waist with a large, round gold buckle. Her boots were low-heeled.
“The current president is trying to make us believe that January 6th was just a peaceful protest,” she said.
The inauguration ceremony took place at the Capitol two weeks after President Donald Trump’s supporters attempted to overturn Biden’s victory, sparking riots on Jan. 6, 2021.
She said she had been thinking about whether she would have had to run away if something else had happened that day.
“I want to be able to move. I want to be prepared,” she said. But she said she and her team had “no idea” the outfit “would break the internet.”
White House East Wing
Obama also talked about the East Wing, the first lady’s traditional base of operations, which Trump demolished last month to make way for a ballroom he had long wanted.
Obama described the East Wing as a happy place, which she remembers being filled with apples, children, puppies and laughter, while the West Wing dealt with “terrible things.” There, she worked on initiatives ranging from fighting childhood obesity to uniting countries around military families to encouraging developing countries to send girls to school.
She said she and her husband never thought of the White House as “our home.” They see themselves more as gatekeepers who have work to do in the mansion.
“But every president has the right to do what they want in the House, so that’s why we have to be clear about who we allow in,” Obama said.