Don't Blame the Dress

Until I finish my opus on the 2008 campaign here's a side note on my second favorite topic of discussion -- what is Michelle wearing?

Never one to play it safe fashionably, Michelle Obama can go from fabulous to well ... that's the risk you take as a fashion risk takers. Sometimes folks are going to balk. Just like the floral print, crazy looking dress she wore on the last night of the Democratic National Convention the red and black widow number she trounced out for the Obama family's BIG NIGHT has proven to be the big head scratcher leading to comments and emails such as these:

"I think Michelle usually looks super fine. But last night in Chicago!?! What was that? Could she have chosen a more unflattering dress? Time to get a stylist," a reader, Tom

"Could see possibly have missed the fact that the dress she had on the world stage on election night was an exact rendition of a Black Widow spider. It must have come off the Halloween rack. My wife and I were shocked, and we doubt that we are the only people in the country that thought that about the dress. What was Michelle thinking ???? - Or did she choose it on purpose to make a point," -- Robert J., a reader

"For someone with such great style, the red & black dress Michelle Obama wore on election night was a horrible choice. It looked like it was made from velvet, satin, spandex and Elmo muppet fur. Not only was it unbelievably ugly, it was terribly unflattering," Anonymous reader

"Who in the world dressed Michelle last night? Was that dress left over from Halloween? PULease!!!" Melanie, a reader.

Tell me how you really feel! But hey, I didn't like the way it looked either, but DON'T BLAME THE DRESS! The dress is hot.

An original by designer Narciso Rodriguez, it rocked his spring 2009 collection during New York's fashion week. It's a cocktail dress and looks great. The problem was all the changes made to the original dress to make it more matronly and less sexy. So what you got was a weird, unflattering, choppy, red splotch with criss-crossing black satin. Perhaps the dress looked better before she added the extra material up top and the sweater. Perhaps it looked smoking. But the world will never know because she frumped it up. Sigh.

Thank goodness, Michelle will have four or more years to make this up to me.