Robin Givhan

The design team at Moschino, led by Rossella Jardini, didn’t even realise that Michelle Obama was wearing one of the company’s ensembles the first few times it happened. She’d selected a chartreuse suit for an Iowa campaign rally but cinched the belt, which had been sold with the hip-length jacket, in a pleasingly eccentric manner. It was tied in a bow and adorned with an abstract brooch that looked vaguely Native American. At the Democratic National Convention, she wore the jacket with black trousers. And without a belt. The suit was rendered virtually unrecognisable to its own designer.

Even more surprising than Obama’s personalised styling was the choice itself. Moschino is an Italian brand—based in Milan, manufactured in Italy and with 54 per cent of its sales in Europe, compared with only 10 per cent in the United States. Dresses are priced between $895 and $2,000. In a politically correct world—one in which US first ladies traditionally wear American designs for their most public appearances—Jardini didn’t think Obama would ever wear a high-priced Italian designer brand on such public occasions.

Since the 1960s, when Jackie Kennedy was taken to task by American apparel unions for her fondness for French designers, it has been assumed that the first lady’s state wardrobe would be handled by Americans. Obama, though, has worn Lanvin, Junya Watanabe, Sonia Rykiel and Azzedine Alaia. She has the most international wardrobe of any modern first lady, turning her closet into a virtual United Nations and using her aesthetic sensibility as a form of non-verbal diplomacy and a reflection of an increasingly inter-connected world. Obama’s Moschino clothes—some of them dramatic, insouciant and attention-grabbing—have made repeat appearances. Obama wore a white blouse with a Brobdingnagian bow in Prague on her first overseas trip as first lady. A coral-coloured jacket with a pleated swing back and a matching skirt made an appearance during the “You lie!” address to Congress in September. Perhaps most notably, she was in a modest black Moschino ensemble when she met the pope in July.

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