My-Cherie
Now that President-elect Barack Obama will be taking over the White House, we have a new fashion plate in America — Michelle Obama. Many top designers vie for her attention, especially for the inaugural balls on January 20, 2009.
Women’s Wear Daily commissioned top designers to “dress” Michelle Obama in her role as First Lady. Many of these top designers created beautiful dresses for her, but I think they forgot that she was black and weighed a little more than 100 lbs. Surprised? I’m not. I can get over the fact that many designers sketched her extremely paper thin, but I can’t get over them not adding color to her skin. I mean she is black, right? I know it’s hard for many to believe that we will actually have an African-American family in the White House in less than one month, but it’s a fact. So why would top designers like Marc Jacobs and Rodarte spend all this time sketching elaborate designs for our future First Lady, but not take into consideration the color of her skin? What were they thinking? Hello! She is dark brown, not albino.
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The clothes that you wear should be based on the color of your skin and your body type. You are not going to wear something that doesn’t look right on your skin tone. Your skin color, make-up, body and hairdo can make or break an outfit. Everyone in the fashion industry knows that. You don’t even have to be in fashion to know. It’s common sense.
Debra Dickerson of Mother Jones magazine boldly comments on the drawings: “I get that these drawings are stylizations, but to design for someone individually sorta requires you to deal with their skin tone, right? Would they drape a ‘winter’ in ‘summer’ colors? Are these artists ‘helping’ her by making her whiter (and thus ‘capable’ of beauty”> or are they so squeamish in imagining a sister in couture that they have to whitewash her to make her ‘worthy’ of high fashion?”
These are truly legitimate questions that have yet to be answered. The fashion industry is practically my life right now, but sometimes I have no idea why people do the things that they do. I do know one thing. The last time I checked, black was beautiful, and that was about 10 seconds ago when I looked in the mirror.
Honestly, I can’t be mad.
Tickets to the inauguration were a birthday present from my man to me that I will be grateful for eternally. This is a historical landmark of my generation in our nation, and I get to be a part of it. What better way to kick off the New Year than celebrating the inauguration of our first black president!
P.S: I can’t wait to see what Michelle will wear to the Inaugural Ball. I hope she goes with Christian Lacroix or Betsey Johnson, since they were about the only designers that got it right. Yes, Michelle Obama is Black.
Email your questions/comments to My-Cherie.
