Lisa Armstrong | November 07, 2008

THEY could have given her an hour or two to enjoy her husband's historic victory before raining on her parade. But why break a habit of the internet's lifetime?



And so, moments after Wednesday's victory rally, the poisoned arrows hailed down on Michelle Obama's crimson and black Narciso Rodriguez dress.

This is both depressingly trivial and yet fascinating.

Of course what our leaders wear matters, in the big-picture sense. Clothes are integral to the image they present. Dubya's good ol' country boy schtick was as considered as Barack Obama's modern urbanite.

A leader -- or his or her spouse -- who doesn't care to look contemporary and pulled-together is taking a big risk. They are ambassadors for their country and their country does not wish to see a shambles representing them on the world stage.

Watching a candidate find that line between alarming extravagance and patronising faux frugality is an illuminating exercise that can be helpful to an electorate searching for clues on their political nous.

Michelle Obama has been particularly forthright on this issue. I'm guessing she doesn't find wearing snappy, fashionable clothes a hardship; otherwise she would have made it plain, as Laura Bush did, that she did not want to play the fashion game.

Hillary Clinton stopped shopping at one point at her beloved Donna Karan, for fear of alienating the women of Main Street.

Ms Obama has demonstrated a healthy respect for high-quality designer clothing -- she is a lawyer of independent means.

Nothing too ostentatious or showy; rather a single-minded focus on the kind of expert cutting that makes for a memorable silhouette. If that means buying fancy labels such as Moschino, then so be it. But taste is a subjective matter. You may like or dislike Michelle Obama's dress, but that's not as interesting as the agenda behind it. This was possibly the most choreographed First Family-Elect Appearance in history; even Sasha Obama had been dragooned into that monochromatic colour scheme.

Once one accepts that every last detail of this picture was scripted, one can read all sorts of coded messages into it. Red, the Republicans' mascot colour? A gracious olive branch from the victor to the vanquished: this will be a family that heals rifts.

A Cuban-American designer? Just one in a line of ethnically diverse Americans Michelle Obama favours. Dash of black? Cool, modern. Immaculately cut fitted shift? Oooh, shades and shades of Jackie O, Camelot, the US's golden era.

The internet allows for micro-examination of everybody's clothes. Witness the eerie popularity of sites that rate the outfit choices of folk on the street. There will be plenty more criticism to come. And message-wise, the matchy-matchy family look probably was a nod too far to girl-band styling and control freakery. But these are early days. Heck, they were early minutes.

Maybe the organisers got a bit tired and emotional. Maybe they already regret it. They'll learn.