Style Meets Substance

Every first lady makes an impression, whether she means to or not. Some arrive at the White House already well versed in the sartorial requirements of the job — what Lady Bird Johnson referred to as “the harness of hairdo and gloves.” Others resent the expectations or struggle with the language of imagery out of insecurity or ambivalence or a failure to grasp why what makes them feel comfortable should be any business of the public’s. Although she finally found her groove in Oscar de la Renta pantsuits, Hillary Clinton confesses in her memoir, Living History, that she was slow to understand that her appearance was no longer solely a representation of herself: “I was asking the American people to let me represent them in a role that has conveyed everything from glamour to motherly comfort.”

(See pictures of fashion icon Michelle Obama.)

In Michelle Obama’s case, her image has provided a welcome distraction from the challenges and criticisms her husband faced in his first two years in office. Whereas most First Ladies symbolize an Administration’s psychological subtext, Obama has done the opposite. The Administration muddles along; the President’s popularity dips and dives — Mrs. Obama just puts her best outfit forward. She is as unflappable running a relay race in a pair of athletic pants as she is standing serenely on the steps of the North Portico in a glamorous evening gown. And she seems undaunted by risk taking, never plagued by second guessing, unafraid of making a statement. For the state dinner on Jan. 19 welcoming the President of China, Obama wore a brilliant crimson gown by British designer Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen. Although some Seventh Avenue designers expressed disappointment that she didn’t go with an American designer, the First Lady’s diplomatic nod to her guest in the chosen color was impossible to miss.

(See pictures of Michelle Obama’s fashion diplomacy.)

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Michelle Obama — and it is the essence of her style — is her ability to finesse the differences between what Eleanor Roosevelt called the person and the persona: the private self and the projected public image. The effortless way Obama carries herself suggests not only that she has mastered the art of blending person and persona but also that she has resolved one of the contradictions that have plagued working women in America for the better part of a century. Which is to say, the mistaken but deeply entrenched belief that style and substance define two mutually exclusive paths and that a woman has to choose one or the other.

You can see this contradiction played out in the two approaches First Ladies have taken throughout history. The style line runs from Dolley Madison to Jackie Kennedy and includes First Ladies who used style and image to advance their husbands’ agendas and cultivate their own influence. The other line follows the course of 20th century feminism. It runs from Eleanor Roosevelt to Hillary Clinton — those First Ladies who broke with the traditional limits of the role and threw themselves into the political fray, testifying at congressional hearings, challenging conventions and championing causes.

(See TIME’s photo-essay “Oscar de la Renta: Dressing First Families.”)

Given her widespread reputation as one of the most stylish women ever to inhabit the White House, you might think Michelle Obama automatically belongs in the Madison-Kennedy lineage. But her background argues differently. No one can claim that Michelle Obama doesn’t know what it’s like to work or that she entered marriage because she didn’t get an education and lacked economic power of her own. It is plain that she has learned as much if not more from the example of Hillary Clinton as from the example of Jackie Kennedy.

What makes Obama exceptional is that she seems so at home in both camps. So at home that the whole debate about style and substance suddenly seems passé, an anachronism of the gender wars, a false dichotomy enforced by narrow-minded men and women at war with themselves. That Michelle Obama does not see style and substance as an either-or choice is a powerful statement that the underlying assumptions about women’s roles and images have changed. Embodying the confluence of substance and style, she has helped reconcile the long-standing antagonism between them. She has, in some sense, made them one and the same.

Betts is the author of Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style

See pictures of Michelle Obama’s Jason Wu dress.

See pictures of the fashion looks of Sarah Palin.