Have you seen Michelle Obama lately? She’s on her book tour for The Light We Carry, and every single outfit she’s worn has been a gift. It’s like a fashion Advent Calendar. Her tailored looks have felt sharper, louder, and brimming with more personality than I ever remember of her. She’s always had an admirable sense of style, but this latest iteration on the book tour has felt like a notable departure from more subdued and classic sartorial choices of the past. (I don’t hold that against her—I can’t imagine the high wire act that was getting dressed every day as America’s first Black FLOTUS.)
This aesthetic shift, in large part, can be credited to Obama’s longtime stylist Meredith Koop, whom she’s been working with since 2010. In an interview with Vogue, Koop discussed dressing the former First Lady and said the main reason behind Obama’s style evolution is “wanting to be more and more comfortable. That is huge. That’s like most of it. What’s going to be physically comfortable for her body, for her.” Koop also said that she was inspired by the book’s title mention of “light” and that a lot of these looks use bold colors and sparkles as a nod to that.
Admittedly, I was hesitant to write an entire piece just on loving what the former first lady has been wearing this go around, at the risk of sounding like more traditional women’s media. I also didn’t want this to come across as, like, “wow a woman nearing 60 looks GOOD!? Slay semi-retired queen!! They usually look like DEATH!!”
But this new era in Obama’s outfits feels worth noting. I scrolled across a popular TikTok by Jesica Wagstaff that jokingly (but not too jokingly) suggested the sleepy, quiet luxury trend is on its way out, thanks to Obama and Koop’s collaborations. I reached out to Wagstaff (who disclosed that while she worked for the Obama Administration in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, she didn’t work for the First Lady) to have her elaborate on her observation. “While everyone else discusses ‘quiet luxury,’ Mrs. Obama and Ms. Koop have prioritized relevance, culture, color and vision to communicate a sense of freedom rarely seen in 50+ year old style and certainly not that of former First Ladies,” she wrote to me in an email. “In a word it’s groundbreaking.”
I couldn’t agree more. Let’s take a little tour of her looks.
