Get Michelle Obama’s dress, Trendsetter!

Michelle Obama’s recent TV appearance on ABC’s gabfest “The View” apparently struck a chord with many viewers, and not just because of her friendly fist-bumps and sparkling conversation. When the show???s audience saw her breezy, black-and-white, high-waisted print dress designed by Ricco, they had to have it. Virtually overnight, the dress all but sold out at the White House/Black Market boutiques that sell it for an affordable $148.
“In the last few days we’ve sold probably about 12 ??? which is a lot,” said Kathy Wajeeh, a sales associate for White House/Black Market in the Galleria. As of Friday morning, the Galleria store had only two of the $148 dresses left.

Tall, poised and elegant, Ms. Obama is emerging as a new high-profile clotheshorse upon which designers and retailers are pinning their hopes. While the word “Camelot” has been bandied about when discussing the sartorial projections of Ms. Obama — fueled in part by the 1950s flip hairdo that she sometimes favors — her style sensibility is expected to have broad appeal.
Indeed, the 44-year-old Princeton- and Harvard-educated lawyer represents and has much of what many women admire: her own impressive resume, confidence, and, perhaps just as important, a real woman’s body (unlike recent celebrity style icons such as the lithe Sarah Jessica Parker). Her clothes seem carefully chosen to show that she is in shape without projecting an inaccessible skinniness.

A $148 dress is out of reach of many in America, but it’s a much closer representation of realistic fashion than the usual outfits she wears. It’s surprising that the press didn’t take Obama to task for that, for some form of “fashion pandering.” It would have been more legitimate that complaining about Obama “offer[ing] the back of her hand to Elisabeth Hasselbeck.”
Tom Julian, the president of Tom Julian Group (NYC-based brand consultancy), has marked Obama as on the same influence level as Opera; saying her outlook of style appeals to the middle women and is wonderful in its originality compared to those who need the labels and stylists, reported by LA Times.
“I’d put her in an Oprah sphere” in terms of influence, says Tom Julian, president of the Tom Julian Group, a New York City-based brand consultancy, who predicts this is just the beginning of Mrs. Obama’s ability to drive sales because of her broad appeal. “She’s modern ??? a boomer, woman of color with a real shape and a real mind. This potential First Wife can forge ahead with a Midwest sense coupled with a dynamic personality.”

If Obama could do anywhere near the same, inspiring women to run out and by a Tank Leaf Print Dress, for example, it could be a boon for Chico???s, which has been in a major slump since last year with same-store sales falling. The company also has seen profits fall and even reported a loss for the key fourth quarter.
The women???s apparel sector has been depressed for more than a year, hurt by a slumping economy and a lack of compelling fashion.

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Posted by Women Diary on Jun 22 2008. Filed under Self Development, Women Business, Women Career, Women Fashion, Women Lifestyle, Women Personality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry