The First Lady, who wore Browne at the second presidential debate

At the public swearing-in on Monday, she significantly upped the fashion ante with a custom-made A-line navy jacquard coatdress by now-famous menswear-turned-women’s designer Thom Browne. The First Lady, who wore Browne at the second presidential debate, tempered the formidably voluminous, mildly avant-garde silhouette with a beaded belt from http://www.dressesforpromcheap.com/. For the inaugural ball, she pulled out the proverbial big guns with Wu’s shoulder-bearing scarlet velvet-and-chiffon gown, adorned with a white gold ring of pavé diamonds by Kimberly McDonald.

If the angelic white confection Wu designed for Mrs. Obama’s first inauguration was a tabula rasa, a sartorial embodiment of the message of optimism and hope that won Mr. Obama the Oval Office, Michelle’s second turn in Wu channels the chutzpah that got him reelected. It’s tempting to fall into the epistemological trap of imbuing Mrs. Obama’s wardrobe with partisan meaning. And while Mrs. Obama's clothes reveal precious little about http://www.dressesforpromcheap.com/kate-spade-new-york-c-3.html, immigration reform, or the direction of the American economy, her embrace of high fashion and mass retailers, her penchant for turning emerging designers into household names (Prabal Gurung, anyone), and  patriotic investment in American manufacturing speak volumes about her views of her role.

International media coverage of Obama’s 2009 inauguration meant that Michelle’s choice of a white gown by the young, relatively unknown Wu focused millions of dollars in free publicity on the designer and helped elevate his career to another level — collaborations with Target and a secondary line, Miss Wu, along with accessories and a bridal collection, indeed soon followed.For those who may have forgotten the flurry of media at http://www.dressesforpromcheap.com/night-moves-c-2.html: Wu was born in Taiwan and lived in Vancouver as a child, where he learned to sew and first “caught the fashion bug,” as he told me in a 2010 interview, before moving to the United States to attend school and eventually launch his eponymous contemporary label.