A CALL TO ARMS
The upcoming fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute is about the model as muse, but what was on the minds of much of the fashion industry this week was Michelle Obama as muse. Of course there was speculation about whether she would attend any runway shows (we got White House press secretary Desiree Rogers instead).
But Obama's presence was felt in other ways. First in the subtle shift in the designer hierarchy. Where Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera used to be fashion pacesetters and favorites of Laura Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton, this season their clothes felt ancient. There was as much or more interest in collections by a new generation of designer talents Jason Wu, Thakoon Panichgul and Narciso Rodriguez, all of whom have dressed the new first lady. This alone has energized the fashion business, which has been clobbered by the economic downturn.
The biggest celebrity at the shows wasn't a fashion editor or even Kanye West. It was Ikram Goldman, an ordinary-looking boutique buyer from Chicago who sat in the front row with her husband (he took photos) and occasionally their twin babies, acting as the first lady's unofficial stylist. Many of the clothes designers showed on the runway also seemed to have Michelle Obama in mind. How inspiring it is to have a 45-year-old career woman and mother as the fashion focus for once, instead of a barely pubescent, 6-foot-tall, 100-pound model named Kate or Jessica. There even seemed to be more racial diversity on the runways this season, something that's been long overdue at New York Fashion Week. (Now if only they would use some older, life-size women.)
The fall season's new erogenous zone isn't a heaving, surgically enhanced bosom or milelong legs. It's toned arms and shoulders, which fitness buff Obama has advertised as her best feature by wearing sleeveless-sheath and shift dresses, most recently on the March cover of Vogue magazine.
Never before have I seen so many arm- and shoulder-baring styles for the fall season -- jackets cut out around the collarbone at Michael Kors and the shoulders at Alexander Wang, one-shouldered and one-sleeved dresses at Kors, Derek Lam, Rodarte, Calvin Klein, Herrera and De La Renta. There were shoulder pads too, a blast from the 1980s past, at Marc Jacobs and Donna Karan.
This call to arms is power dressing for the aughts. And I, for one, am looking forward to seeing women flex some muscle.
