Seventh Avenue Looking to Michelle Obama to Save Fashion...

Throughout the campaign, First Lady Elect, Michelle Obama has  demonstrated not just that she understood the power of clothes to transmit a message, but a readiness to adjust that message as the need arose.

Michelle Obama was not alone in that; Cindy McCain notably tweaked her image as the campaign ground along, softening her appearance to seem more populist and less like a member of the rules committee at an exclusive country club.

Yet Mrs. Obama did something bolder on the campaign trail and, in a sense, less expected. With flashcard clarity, she signaled an interest both in looking stylish and also in advancing the cause of American fashion and those who design and make it. She wore off-the-rack stuff from J. Crew and, at times controversially, designs by fashion darlings like Isabel Toledo, Thakoon Panichgul and Narciso Rodriguez. She brought to the campaign a sophisticated approach to high-low dressing, a determination to adapt designers’ work to suit herself — adding jewelry or sweaters or wearing flat shoes with sheaths or even altering dressmaking details — as well as a forthright conviction that it is the woman who should wear the clothes and not the other way around.

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