"Where in the world are Ralph, Donna and Calvin?" According to Women's Wear Daily, "major American fashion designers" have their noses out of joint because first lady Michelle Obama is wearing ... other designers' clothes.

The Telegraph has more on not just her looks but the reception her looks as well as her actions earned, as does "Fabsugar UK.

As possibly the world's most confirmed anti-fashionista, the sniping tone of the rag trade's leading authority's article, once it was pointed out to me, made me grin up my sleeve. Seriously, when you recognize that the "big American" designers' clothes are (a) overpriced beyond the dreams of avarice (b) crafted in sweatshops overseas and (c) designed for starveling barely-adolescents, it's obvious WHY Mrs. Obama wears, instead, J. Crew, for instance.

Like the auto and financial industries, fashion is in crisis. Yet the person in the administration best positioned to support its major players — those whose collective vicissitudes play into the economy in a considerable way and whose individual swings of fortune impact the lives of countless working people up and down the supply chain and their families — is giving them the cold shoulder.

Oh, my gosh. Michelle Obama chooses clothes by designers regular American women can (a) wear and (b) afford? She doesn't strive to emulate the "heroin chic" look? Quelle horreur -- NOT.

Yes, actually, and at least one designer is ok with that: (Michael) Kors, the only major designer to have found his way into a recent photo op, defends Obama’s range. “She’s the first First Lady who’s ever worn sportswear,” he says. “If you think about it, she’s worn everybody from Azzedine Alaïa to Michael Kors to Isabel Toledo or Jason Wu to J. Crew to Donna Ricco.”

First just look at Michelle Obama. She's fit, healthy, graceful, vigorous, smart, and, well -- she's physically attractive. Oh, and, um, not only is she smart, but she makes being smart cool. Plus, she looks terrific in my favorite shade of blue.

Both the Obamas are fit, physically active people. It shows. Not in that sweaty exercise-addicted way W sometimes displayed, but in a way that absolutely turns the "fashion sense" of establishment fixtures wrong-side-out. With gorgeous results, IMNVHO.

And I'm not alone, according to the still-in-a-snit WWD:

London's The Daily Telegraph proclaim(s) Obama “the mint-green queen of fashion,” while The Guardian said “Mrs. O has all but obliterated last year’s Carlamania from the fashion history books, with an outfit that draws a direct bloodline between her look and the wardrobe with which Jackie Kennedy wowed Europe in 1961.”

Yep. She's being compared to Jackie Kennedy. The editors at Women's Wear Daily are in a fizzy hissyfit over this, but I think the evocation of the fabulous Camelot First Lady is perfectly appropriate. Why? Because Michelle Obama is young. She's fit. She's lovely. She's lively. She is, in a word, cool -- in a way full of what the young people nowadays call 'hotness.' Not since Jackie has a first lady been able to bring this panache, on America's behalf, into the public eye with such seriously delightful results. It's another corner turned toward the 22nd century.

Said (Vera) Wang.

“I love seeing young designers and their vision and how they grow and all of that,” she says. “On the other hand, of course, I wish she would consider some of us, because I think we also have contributions to make.”
Wang acknowledges the resonance of an association with Obama. “She represents modern womanhood, a brilliant, active woman and mother, because of her position, her beauty and her stature. She embodies America right now. She is the face of America.”

WWD goes on:

"By extension, then, Obama’s choices represent what’s right, active and modern about American fashion, and her omissions — well, you get the idea."

A brilliant writer over at DKos, who is a veteran of the women's fashion wars, penned a piece today pointing out one thing that may have (perhaps even unconsciously) figured into the Michelle Obama style: recently there's been a serious lack of non-Aryan-type models in the clothes that "big" designers like Lauren, Klein, de la Renta and others have displayed.

Do I say this is a deliberate choice on Michelle Obama's part? Nope. (I think I'm less likely, though, to give the designers a pass. I know that whether they'll admit it or not they were playing to the nation's financially well-set-up as potential buyers, and since at least the turn of the century that's been an increasingly restrictive circle).

But I do think Mrs. Obama's deliberately choosing clothes she wants to wear -- and let's tell the truth up front. She is not by any stretch of the imagination a "runway model" ... Michelle Obama's not fashionably emaciated. She doesn't look absently pouty. She looks like (gasp! Not that!) a real, live female human being.
No need for the faux passion of the pose with her; she is alive, vigorous, physically active -- not doctored, airbrushed, plastic-surgeoned, corseted, botoxed, stylized and kabukified.

Nor is she so uncomfortable in her own skin that she must bow to the world's Simon Cowells in all manner of issues about which the style-makers are clearly clueless:

For his part, de la Renta notes that, in recent history, first ladies have always had direct contact with a designer, typically relying on one or two. He suggests that, designer or otherwise, Obama would benefit from expanding her current range of fashion advisers, particularly on matters of protocol. “You don’t,” he declares definitively, “go to Buckingham Palace in a sweater.”

Um, excuse me?

Not only did she wear a sweater to the Palace, she looked good in it. As she had earlier in a different ensemble featuring a cardigan.

This, of course, didn't make the WWD editors feel any less stung:

Even Britain’s Press Association — a wire service that usually reports stories in a staid, neutral tone — melted in her wake. "Mrs. Obama looked dazzling in a sequined champagne cardigan paired with a mint pencil skirt, both from American midmarket brand J. Crew,” said one report Wednesday morning. It added: “Mrs. Obama did not put a foot wrong in low-heeled animal skin print heels and her signature pearls.”
The Times of London’s fashion department’s Twitter site called Obama’s cardigan “spring incarnate,” and told Brown — who was dressed in a navy blue suit by London-based designer Britt Lintner — to “lighten up, love.”

WWD admits:
Jenna Lyons, J. Crew’s creative director, obviously was pleased at the First Lady’s fashion choices. “The topic of conversation is really the economy. It’s appropriate and also sends a message that she is wearing something from a brand that is approachable and known by American consumers, and a brand that people can be a part of.”

Hat tip to 55 Secret Street not just for those photos of Mrs. Obama and Queen Elizabeth, but for this note:

The sleeveless police will not be happy that she dared to "bare arms" at 10 Downing Street, but they will get over it.
Carl Anthony, a historian at the National First Ladies Museum, is genuinely confused by the brouhaha over the sleeves:

"Michelle Obama seems to favor a once-popular style," said Anthony, noting that Nancy Reagan, Mamie Eisenhower, Bess Truman and other First Ladies going back to Dolly Madison sometimes ditched the sleeves. The new First Lady "is not some kind of history heretic here," Anthony said.

I've got a few ideas about why it's such a problem for some people...

As for the first lady's London wardrobe, I think she's doing it just right by sticking with tasteful, classic looks. I'm not overly impressed, but I wasn't really looking to be bowled over by this trip. I'm looking forward to France for obvious reasons just like everyone else.

I have no idea what else people will find to complain about where Mrs. Obama is concerned. But honestly, my inner anti-fashionista thinks it's hilarious that the snooty likes of the inventor of the "paper bag waist" feel left out of the loop -- and, for a change, off the gravy train.

And I agree with Melissa Harris-Lacewell's comment:

When Michelle insists on femininity it strikes back against the reduction of black women to hypersexual breeders or asexual laborers. She asserts the right to be a "lady" and it is potentially powerful.

I like that the First Lady is putting her own particular brand on American style.