Forever FLOTUS: Fashioning Michelle Obama as Cover Girl

With their husband’s election to the world’s highest office, wives of US Presidents now instantly become international fashion icons. Situated within discussions about impression formation and impression management, the wives’ individual appearance practices become of great interest to the public and scholars alike. Wives’ personal appearance choices are thought to serve as proxy for global sentiment about the President, the US Presidency, and the First Family’s positionality as a unit in society. In short, appearance matters. Magazine covers as imagery can capture such sentiment and the potential influence of First Ladies as they leave indelible marks on our country as influential, educated, socially conscious, attractive, fashion-forward leaders in the history of the US and the world. Chicago native, Michelle Obama, recently voted to be the most influential woman in the world, has been featured on in excess of 150 US magazine covers. Such imagery serves not only as a promotional tool for select publications, organizations, and/or causes, but also contributes to and dictates a unique aesthetic presentation of presidential leadership, womanhood, and global fashion. In the digital age and public sphere, such imagery does not remain on newsstands. It is incorporated into design elements in homes (e.g., framed as art), as well as into decorative elements used for and placed upon clothing and accessories. Utilizing the unique dataset of magazine covers, publicly available photographs, and imagery from various social media outlets, this paper seeks to further contextualize representations of the former FLOTUS in the canons of art and fashion.