SUCCESS AS a modern first lady calls for the gifts of a silent movie star: a larger-than-life glamour that radiates from the screen, an indefinable ability to capture the mood of the moment, and the ability to communicate with the public largely in semaphore.
Jackie Kennedy, of course, was as if to the manor born; Hillary Clinton never looked comfortable being seen and not heard. Laura Bush overcame her shyness to master the art, but by then she was sidekick to a show nobody wanted to watch.
Michelle Obama is a natural. This week she faced her first major challenge on the international stage. She may have passed her American screen tests with flying colours, appearing on the cover of Vogue, but the delicate negotiations in London, against the backdrop of high-profile protests, posed a new test.
With electorates newly suspicious of elites and worried for their future, the G20 leaders and their wives knew that every step taken meant walking on political eggshells.
Barack Obama and Gordon Brown have international interpreters and banks of microphones, policy pronouncements and footnoted treatises to help them deliver their messages. Their wives, by contrast, have only clothes, body language, and the knowledge that their schedule of appointments will be minutely observed for clues written in diplomatic code.
Almost exactly a year ago, Carlamania swept these shores when Carla Bruni-Sarkozy dazzled court and country in an enchantingly formal wardrobe.
Ms Obama’s first coup was in tuning her wardrobe to a pitch of sunny, homely optimism, rather than sparkling glamour. For most of the visit the sleek, dynamic shift dresses which have been a feature of her wardrobe were replaced by low-key outfits of skirts and tops in colours whose deliberate almost-mismatch lent them a casual tone: a blush-pink cardigan with mint gingham skirt on Wednesday, a peacock-and-turquoise combination on Thursday. When she did wear a dress, it was styled not to look like one: the zingy lemongrass Jason Wu frock she wore on arrival was layered with a black coat and belt.
The sequinned cardigan and check skirt were bought from J Crew, a midmarket US retailer whose clothes the Obama family often wear. Instead of changing accessories with each outfit, Ms Obama wore the same double string of pearls throughout the visit. These are minor details, but ones which help fix the first lady in the public perception as “real”.
Ms Obama’s feminine skirts and detailed cardigans gave her the air of a woman having coffee with friends.
This tone of female comradeship came to be the defining feature of her visit: greeting cancer sufferer Trudi Cogdell and her daughters with the words “come on, big hugs”; presenting Sarah Brown and Samantha Cameron with volumes of nursery literary classics for their children; charming the queen so that the two women stood with their arms around each other; making a surprise visit to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson girls’ school.
The success of this trip for Brand Michelle was not that the international public think of her as more beautiful, or even as more stylish, but that they like her more, they relate to her more, and they trust her more. – ( Guardianservice)
