00:00She always looked good, and always still looks good.
00:03Correct answer.
00:04The dress that you wore at the 2012 Democratic Convention.
00:10Girl, you look cute.
00:11You look very cute.
00:12And it showed off her legs a little bit.
00:15I liked it.
00:16Yeah.
00:20Look, let's face it.
00:21Everybody wants to look like Michelle Obama.
00:24Michelle's dresses are iconic, and I think her style communicated a lot about her personality.
00:29She was a first lady who took bold initiatives.
00:32She was very fashion forward.
00:35But despite that bold sensibility and that sense of real elegance and grace,
00:41she was also able to connect seamlessly with everyday people.
00:44People could walk up to her, and she would always hug people and make them feel close.
00:48So there was nothing that would be prickly or standoffish.
00:51It was really all designed to invite people in.
00:53We really wanted to ensure that Mrs. Obama's story was woven throughout the narrative.
00:58We actually begin with her very early life here on the south side of Chicago,
01:03all the way through her early career, her life of public service, and into her role as first lady.
01:09We are on level four of the museum.
01:11It's called the People's House.
01:13I'm standing in front of the fashion case.
01:16It's called Celebrating Fashion and Design.
01:19The first look that we have in the case is from Election Night in Grant Park in Chicago, November 2008.
01:27It is a black and red sheath dress by Narcissa Rodriguez.
01:32Just a really beautiful sense of gradation between the red and the black.
01:37She also wore it with a kind of shrug-like cardigan.
01:41Cardigans were just central to Mrs. Obama's kind of fashion vocabulary.
01:44But it also is otherwise a sleeveless garment, which seemed almost revolutionary at the time.
01:51It was just central to who she was.
01:52And so this dress, I think, is an introduction to Michelle Obama as first lady.
01:57The second look we have in the case following election night is the ensemble Mrs. Obama wore for the 2009
02:04inauguration.
02:04It's a beautiful ensemble in this lemongrass-coloured lace material designed by the late Cuban-American designer Isabel Toledo.
02:15We have a beautiful sketch by her husband, Ruben Toledo, and also the accessories that Mrs. Obama wore in terms
02:23of the shoes, Jimmy Choo, and the gloves, which were J.Crew.
02:27This glimpse into the high-low fashion approach that Mrs. Obama would take.
02:32We may recall it was a freezing cold day.
02:35And so Isabel Toledo wanted to ensure that there was layers of warmth within the overcoat while also maintaining this
02:41really beautiful silhouette.
02:43We can only display these garments for 12 months before they need to rest for 10 years.
02:48And so we're working with Ruben Toledo to create a replica of the ensemble using the original lace material.
02:55There is a lot of work that goes into preserving garments as Mrs. Obama wore these dresses.
03:02She was a part of history.
03:04And so in preserving them, we are preserving history and really documenting her role as a remarkable first lady and
03:11the first black first lady.
03:13Many of the garments in the fashion case are on loan from the National Archives, from the Barack Obama Presidential
03:20Library.
03:20There are very specific conditions under which they can be displayed in terms of the environment, the humidity controls, very
03:28specific low lighting to ensure that light is not degrading the material.
03:34Textiles can often be very fragile.
03:36We want to ensure that people will be able to see these garments for hundreds of years to come.
03:41This is a beautiful piece by Neem Khan, who is an Indian-American designer.
03:47It is a knee-length dress that Mrs. Obama wore to the opening of the Anna Wintour Costume Center at
03:53the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
03:56This center is for anyone who is curious about fashion and how it impacts our culture and our history.
04:03As you see this garment in person, you realize all of the remarkable beadwork that is included in the materiality.
04:12This is an ensemble Mrs. Obama wore for a state visit to receive President Francois Hollande.
04:18The overcoat is by Tom Brown.
04:21And then we have these amazing kind of thigh-high boots by Jimmy Choo.
04:25The next look we have is this beautiful dress by Tracy Reese, a black American designer.
04:31It's a dress that Mrs. Obama wore for the 2012 DNC convention.
04:36She was speaking to thousands of people.
04:38When you've worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut
04:45behind you.
04:46No, you reach back and you give other folks the same chances that help you succeed.
04:53It is a dress that tonally picks up on the idea of the American flag.
04:57This is something that Farrah Jasmine Griffin has written about in her introduction to Mrs. Obama's book, The Look.
05:03But it's just so tonally beautiful, that red, white, and blue sentiment to the dress.
05:10I didn't know ahead of time, obviously I had no involvement in what dresses were going to be going up
05:15in that case.
05:16But I was pleased that one of my favorites, I don't know that much about fashion, but I know what
05:23looks good.
05:24And one of my favorites turned out to be in there, and that was the dress that you wore at
05:31the 2012 Democratic convention.
05:34She looked very cute.
05:35And it showed off her legs a little bit.
05:38I liked it.
05:39I didn't know that.
05:40That was beautiful.
05:41You like that dress?
05:42I told you at the time, you just don't remember.
05:44She talks about me not liking attention, and as she points out, well, then you shouldn't have run for president.
05:51She has trouble taking compliments.
05:53So if I go, oh, girl, you look cute.
05:56She's all, thanks.
05:58And then she just kind of brushes it off.
06:01So, no, I talked about that dress when you were wearing it.
06:04The next two looks we have speak to the fact that Mrs. Obama often wore outfits more than once.
06:11She repurposed them for different occasions and for different reasons.
06:15This dress is by Pabal Gurung.
06:18It's a dress that she wore on one occasion in 2013 for an engagement with Prince Harry.
06:24The other dress is, again, the high-low fashion aspect to her sartorial diplomacy, so to speak.
06:32And this is a dress, it's called the Target Marona dress.
06:35It's a dress that you could purchase at Target that she sometimes wore with a belt.
06:39And this is a dress that she also wore on vacation.
06:43It was important to Michelle Obama to wear clothes over again, not just once and then put them away, because
06:48that's what we all do.
06:49We have a dress, we like it, and we put it on for one occasion, and then we wear it
06:53again.
06:53And so I think she was mindful of not trying to appear different than everyone else, but really just like
06:59us.
06:59So we have this wonderful look that Mrs. Obama wore in Japan.
07:03It's the Japanese label Kenzo, but at the time was under the creative direction of Humberto Leon and Carol Lim.
07:11We see the ensemble of accessories, so the Jimmy Choo shoes, a belt by Roxanda, Serbian-British designer.
07:19I think it's important to point out that Mrs. Obama did not shy away from patterns or prints, these very
07:25kind of bold gestures that she wore so gracefully.
07:29The final cluster of garments that we have in the case is a series of ball gowns.
07:35The first is this really beautiful ivory-colored kind of column-like gown by Tom Ford that Mrs. Obama wore
07:42to Buckingham Palace with these beautiful kind of lambskin opera gloves.
07:47It's obviously a sleeveless dress, but the gloves are elbow-length and create this remarkable kind of elegance, worn with
07:55these lovely chandelier-like earrings by Kathy Waterman.
07:59And then we have a gown by Jason Wu, who had also designed the first inaugural ball gown.
08:05And this is the gown that Mrs. Obama wore for the second inauguration in 2013.
08:10It was very important to Michelle to put the spotlight on designers who weren't brand names, who weren't household names,
08:16in order to lift them up.
08:17And it had a dramatic impact on so many of these young designers who she put on the map.
08:23We have the Jimmy Choo shoes, a kitten heel.
08:27This is one of her favorite styles.
08:28And then towards the end of the case, we have this real showstopper, which is a Versace gown.
08:36It's made out of chainmail material that Mrs. Obama wore to the Italy state dinner, which was the last state
08:43dinner in 2016.
08:45It weighs about 15 pounds, if you can imagine that.
08:49But really beautiful, it's a rose-gold-colored chainmail with a beautiful sketch here by Donatella Versace.
08:56And this is Atelier Versace.
08:59Alongside these gowns, we have what we refer to as a tactile station.
09:03And we have tactile stations throughout the exhibits on every level.
09:07This is a wonderful opportunity for all visitors, but especially visitors who have low vision or who are blind and
09:15who cannot see the objects in the case,
09:17to really have a connection to the object, which is to touch some aspect of the materiality of an object.
09:24We have braille throughout.
09:26So again, the explanation of these fabric swatches is explained here in text, but also in braille.
09:33And we have a universal experience point where a blind visitor can plug in their headphones and receive a visual
09:40description of the garments.
09:42The last dress in the case is the dress by Millie, designed by Michelle Smith, that Mrs. Obama wears in
09:51the National Portrait Gallery portrait by Amy Sherald.
09:54It has this really beautiful geometric pattern that is certainly very modern in its sensibility, but which also speaks back
10:05to the quilters of Gee's Bend.
10:07And so there's a really wonderful mixed art historical reference kind of bound up in this dress.
10:13The painting is obviously iconographic in and of itself.
10:17Now, there was a whole kind of pilgrimage effect to see the portrait at the National Portrait Gallery and when
10:22it went on tour around the country.
10:24So I think it's remarkable that people get to come to the museum and see the actual dress in person.
10:30One thing I would like to point out are these custom-made mounts for each of the garments on display.
10:37We wanted to be really mindful about skin tone and how we were presenting Mrs. Obama, but without being overly
10:45literal.
10:46So we spend a lot of time really thinking about the materiality of the mounts, the color, the skin tone.
10:52I hope that as the center evolves over the next 20 or so years, that local residents in particular feel
10:59a sense of true ownership of the space.
11:02But at the same time, we also reach people across the country and around the world and that we really
11:07build this local yet global dynamic.
11:10Over the next 25 years, I think what you will see is an evolution here.
11:14But I hope what stays the same is this sense of infinite possibilities that lie within each of us.
11:20It was really important to Michelle to weave in a wide range of designers, some who were household names, some
11:25who had not been recognized before,
11:27that came from all different backgrounds all across our country, richly diverse, in order to help her tell her story,
11:34which is richly diverse itself.
11:36And she's encouraging, I think, through her fashion for people to find their own voice through their attire.
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