It isn’t just that glitter thigh-high boots by Balenciaga would be a bold statement by any woman. It’s that someone from such a stodgy of an institution as government would “dare” to wear them. That person, of course, could be none other than Michelle Obama, who appeared in the aforementioned boots while at the Barclays Center in promotion of her new book, Becoming.
Interviewed by none other than shoe guru Sarah Jessica Parker (always interchangeable with Carrie Bradshaw) herself, Michelle’s discussion of the incredible pressures of constantly needing to maintain a certain bar of excellence as a result of working doubly hard just to represent her race seemed only to shed a light of further contrast on the pile of inadequacy that has taken her (and her husband’s) place. Both successors seeming to prove that so long as you’re not black, there’s no need to try diligently or at all.
This aspect of the discussion added further weight to Michelle’s sartorially stunning decision to wear these now especially iconic approximately $4,000 Balenciaga boots. As she told Parker during their dialogue, being the First Lady forced her to realize “fashion does have meaning,” and very obviously influenced many of her choices in how to dress and present herself. She even used her elevated position to make a calculated move to wear more affordable brands interwoven with the expected high price tag articles, in addition to seeking out up and coming designers from more diverse backgrounds. If it sounds like the exact opposite of a particular other “First Lady,” that’s because, well, it is.
Tracking Melania Trump’s egregious fashion decisions over the short almost two years since her sugar daddy took office, it looks as though she’s been high on both classic drugs and some rich person’s special kind that deliberately promotes insensitivity. A quick overview of her most scandalous outfits to date includes wearing a pussy pink blouse with according bow flourish right after her husband’s infamous “grab ’em by the pussy” comment was leaked, placing a pith helmet–the ultimate symbol of European colonialism–on her head while visiting Africa, donning heels in a Texan disaster area post-Hurricane Harvey and, most notoriously of all, opting for an out of season and out of stock jacket from Zara that read in large white letters, “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” while on her way to visit a detention center in Texas where the children of migrant workers had been separated from them at the order of her “hubby.”
Looking back on all these poor, seemingly very conscious (because it’s almost worse to think that it’s not) decisions on Melania’s part, we can only look once more to our former First Lady to be reminded of what’s possible on the vestiary front. But now that Michelle is in civilian mode, she’s unabashed in her choices, confessing that she wore the boots because, “Now I’m free to do whatever. They were just really cute. I was like, ‘Those some nice boots!'”
Melania seems to feel the same freedom despite her theoretical position of social responsibility. It is thus no surprise that she, shameless Dolce and Gabbana wearer (they were one of the only high fashion houses that would agree to dress her, after all) that she is, finally had to snap back at her many critics, “I wish people would focus on what I do, not what I wear.” First of all, she probably doesn’t want anyone to focus on just how little she’s doing once they look beyond the smoke and mirrors of her wardrobe. And second, maybe, thanks to Michelle, she might pull her head out of her surgically manipulated backside long enough to see that this focus can actually be positive. When you don’t dress with sociopathic intent. Not that, at this rate, her closet can do anything to save the nation from its demise.
