Let me begin with a disclaimer.  I personally have zero fashion sense.  I am literally incapable of dressing myself.  In addition, I am color blind.  I do see color; it just isn’t the same color as seen by most people.  Up to now, the world has been protected from me showing up wearing some really bizarre color combinations solely through the dedicated efforts of my wife and my three daughters.  The pattern was been repeated on numerous occasions.  I would get dressed and come down stairs.  Instantly all four females would scan my outfit for color violations.  I still remember when my youngest daughter was five years old.  I came down the stairs and was immediately greeted with:  “Dad….NO!”  I now have “safe” outfits, usually including black pants which, theoretically, work with any color.

 I once was at a trade show where Doug McClure was making appearances at the booth next to me.  I noticed that everything he wore just looked right.  I was also keenly aware that even if I wore the exact same clothes, they still wouldn’t look right, because he was Doug McClure and I was, well…me.  It’s really simple:  some people got it, some people don’t.  With all due respect, Jacqueline Kennedy do, Michelle Obama don’t.  Even to someone like me, that is really obvious.  I couldn’t begin to give advice on how to look good, but I still know it when I see it.  Yet, there were all these articles gushing about Michelle Obama.  The following headlines are typical of the crap we have been assaulted with for the past two years:

New York Daily Post – August 27, 2008

Michelle Obama’s fashion running mate

AFP – January 21, 2009

Michelle Obama becomes First Fashion Lady

Today – November 25, 2009

Once again, first lady’s fashion sense dazzles

New York Times

Don’t Get Gravy on the First Lady’s Gown

Note:  This article was so over the top I couldn’t resist providing the following excerpt: 

FIRST Lady Michelle Obama is now officially a fashion plate.  Not that there were any doubts before, mind you. Often called the First Lady of Fashion, Mrs. Obama has a sense of style, as we all know by now, that rivals Jackie Kennedy’s.

 There are certainly friends of mine who do have some sense of fashion that confirm my opinion.  But, I viewed this similar to the way I view modern art.  Beauty must be in the eye of the beholder because sometimes what other people consider to be brilliant art looks to me like the random result of a collision between several open paint cans, each with a different color.  In the case of Michelle Obama, there were these “other pictures” of her circling the internet indicating that my personal opinion was not necessarily unique.   Then there was the following article today in the Hindustan Times.  This is from the HT Fashion Watcher and it is, well, refreshing:

 Heard what they said about you, Mrs O?

Is it dreadfully hot in India? Doesn’t she have a stylist on this trip? Her hair looks like she hasn’t bothered combing it and her makeup and eyebrows are also a bit off …” says CJ in London. “She needs a tailor and a stylist. Everyone in the whole world knows this,” says This isn’t just another celebrity being dissed in conversation; these are the comments that Michelle Obama’s outfits during her trip to India, are drawing on the World Wide Web. While the Indian media thought that the first lady’s outfits were elegant and understated, people on the other end of the globe had a different take on her choices.

From being called “frumpy” to “old and unflattering” to “sporting the worst look ever,” the bashing by bloggers began right from the day she landed in Mumbai wearing a blue-grey outfit. Comments like “It’s a colour for someone who’s 70,” or “the emperor’s wife has dreadful taste” have flooded mrs-o.org, a blog that follows Michelle Obama’s fashion sense. Readers on washingtonpost.com, dailymail.co.uk and even on huffingtonpost.com are not mincing their words.

So what’s the real reason the first lady is being fashion bashed? How can someone who’s been on best-dressed lists for three years in a row, suddenly be criticised for every piece of clothing or accessory she owns/wears?

The answer may lie in the recently held mid-term polls in the US. When a country is unhappy with the presidency, one of the first things that is often targeted is their lifestyle. Something that Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy are acutely aware of.

This is entertaining, but the author missed the point.  Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion hasn’t changed.  All that’s really happened is that the glow from the halo has diminished to a level where the star struck main stream media can actually see, well, Michelle Obama.  Jacqueline Kennedy’s legacy is still safe!

TDM