The Empress' New Clothes

Whew!!! Finally my "Bush's Last Day" countdown is finished and I can celebrate Obama's inauguration with my fellow Obama supporters! Yay! What a wonderful day this has been. But I know, this is supposed to be a style column, not a political column, so let's talk Michelle's fashion choices.

Oh, sad. I know lots of people liked her Isabel Toledo inauguration ensemble. I'll let the critics have their say, but my initial feeling is that the gold brocade number leaned a lot more toward Barbara Bush Dowdy than Jackie Kennedy Chic. Who the heck is Isabel Toledo anyway? She's a Cuban-American with a very small following who was let go as the design director for Anne Klein two years ago--whatever. I didn't like the outfit much. The color was ok for her, (they called it gold but it looked chartruese on t.v. ) but I felt the sillouette was unflattering and the rhinestone neckline was a little too cocktail-y for me.

Why? Why? Why, Michelle? For one thing, you looked like you were freezing to death--why not wear a nice warm coat like you wore to Arlington earlier in the week? Now THAT was a fabulous, chic, linear line, a Narciso Rodriguez beauty in such a beautiful lavender color--loved it. And you could have added some cool boots like Jill Biden wore, a fuzzy scarf, maybe even a hat. The world would have been a lot more comforted knowing you were warm out there in that 27 degrees with the wind blowing.

Or you could have chosen the very sleek & sophisticated number you instead wore to the concert at the Lincoln Memorial: also Narciso, camel and black--it looked a lot warmer than the brocade.
Why didn't she ask me first? fail. I suppose she'll have lots of hits & misses, but why does she miss on the most important occasions? Waaaaaah!

But now we're all hanging on to see what she wears tonight! Stay tuned!