The Michelle Obama “Fashion Anxiety”
From Danielle Belton at The Black Snob:
I get it.
Next to Angelina Freakin’ Jolie, she’s one of the most photographed women in the world and she’s practically rubbing your nose in it by re-wearing her green Jimmy Choos and her favorite belt, rocking the J. Crew and random new kid designers and doesn’t have a stylist — just a loyal boutique owner — as her gate keeper. How dare she be … different, and not fawn all over the uptown crowd in the fashion industry.
Boo hoo, fashion industry. Boo hoo, for you.
Apparently the inevitable backlash of the (moneyed) fashionistas has begun. Nothing with names tied to it, of course (less they ruin their chances of getting the First Lady to don their frocks), but people are grumbling. Folks who used to be able to saunter right into the front door, bypassing everyone else, now must go through the same, slow pecking order whether you’re Kai Milla or Oscar de la Renta. Michelle O. doesn’t care. There is no fast track to lay hands on her body and dress her in finery.
You have to wait like everybody else and it has the IMPORTANT PEOPLE burning.
And this…
For years the fashion industry has lived in a fantasy world where all women were damn-near Nordic white, 5′11″ and 110 lbs. Now we have a tall, super brown First lady who is athletic in her build and looks good in a paper sack and sacre bleu! What to do when you’ve ignored huge segments of planet earth for decades? Can you continue the ostrich with your head in the sand routine and continue to design pasty, dull heroine chic outfits for Kate Moss or can you dig it and stop treating black folks (as well as Asians and Latinas) as some sort of fashion modeling equivalent of “The Death Star” where your overpriced pieces of “art” go to die?
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