She looked as though she was off to a jaunty al fresco lunch party with girlfriends. She wore - well, there isn't a woman in the land who can't roll off the outfit by now, but I'll run through it anyway - a mint greenshantung silk skirt, sparkly 'Constellation' cardigan (£207 and sold out) and vest top (all by high-street chain J Crew), with pearls, a natty, on-trend mish-mash of bracelets, non-matching, snake-print courts and, get this, bare legs. She was at it again yesterday when she visited the capital's Maggie's Centre, the charity of which Sarah Brown is a patron and which provides a homely retreat for cancer sufferers and their families. There's another message for us: when it comes to my wardrobe, I act unilaterally, so please don't even think about telling me what to wear. For the evening do, she shed the demure cardigan by the exquisite Parisian designer Azzedine Alaia, revealing those infamous arms once again. So what did Michelle wear on Tuesday night at the Downing Street reception? A crepe silk, black and ivory 'tuxedo-tank' dress with cute bow belt by Isabel Toledo, the same one that she had worn beneath a classic calf-length satin opera coat by Jason Wu on arriving at Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen. No matter that she wore an elegant black shift dress by Michael Kors and signature double pearls, it was the flesh that did it for her. Such was the outcry, you would think she was a Victorian turning up to a salon sporting decolletage. Love-bombing us with her image, her signals shoot like missiles: I am in control (I wear clothes I feel comfortable in, not clothes that others might deem appropriate), I am part of the solution, not the problem, and share the G20's commitment to an end to unfettered capitalism (I don't throw money at designer clothes, I wear pieces more than once) and I am not afraid of change, nor of doing things differently.Īt the White House inauguration in January she sported, wait for it, bare arms. She uses clothes like Gordon Brown uses her husband: to forge a special relationship with the rest of us. If one thing is for sure, it is that Mrs O understands the subtleties of power and the power of a working wardrobe.

Michele obama fashion faux pas