Tuxedos should be different from black business suits because a black-tie event is not a business event held after dark. Barack Obama’s state dinner tuxedo had two traditional differences:

• silk lapel facings
• fabric-covered buttons

But his tuxedo was more like a suit than a traditional tuxedo in a number of ways:

• notch lapels as opposed to dramatic peaks or a graceful shawl
• a second (unused) front button, which interrupts the smooth line below the button
• flap pockets (hard to see in this pic), which is similarly disruptive

His sleeves and pants are far too long, hiding his shirt cuffs and puddling at his ankles. Because of his sleeves, you can’t see it, but he’s wearing a watch. Wearing a watch at this kind of event is faux pas because it implies you have another engagement starting later. Besides, doesn’t Reggie Love tell him what time it is?

His tuxedo shirt with gold studs is fine. His bow tie is real and well propotioned. I personally don’t love his choice of patent blucher shoes, but it’s not against the rules.

The fit is acceptable, although a slimmer tuxedo would show off Barack’s body. Surprisingly, Joe Biden’s tuxedo isn’t much better. This administration needs a stylist!

Editors’ note: Kyla actually wrote this with the rest of her criticism back when it was, ahem, more relevant, but we split it into two posts and forgot about posting the second half until now.

Election Night

The most puzzling of all Michelle Obama’s clothes is her election night dress, which looks so off because it’s a Narciso Rodriquez runway dress that was modified to remove the sheerness in the skirt and straps and make it more soccer-mom friendly with broader straps, a modest neckline (Ms Obama almost never shows even a hint of cleavage, except in formal wear), and a longer A-line bottom. The neckline no longer echoes the ‘V’ of the bodice or contains any edge whatsoever.

It looks like it was chosen to try and make her look 20 lbs skinnier with the black bars on the sides (also broadened so they cover more), and the V’s of red created by the ribbon bodice thing attempt to force an hourglass. It’s an obvious attempt to create a body that’s not hers, and the forced modesty completely destroys the style of the dress, including the fussy out-of-place cardigan she put over it.

Inauguration Day

The colour was nice: an unusual, peppy yellow-green. That, coupled with the green gloves, are really the only things I liked about that outfit. The National Post linked to this pic of Pat Nixon:

And yeah. That really says it all. The dress was very conservative and “typical First Lady” for a woman who has never dressed First Lady but, as I said in my last post, prefers One Of The People. It looked like an awkward costume, made all the more awkward by the attempts to make it different, which fell flat. While I liked that she played with silhouette with the long coat and shorter skirt, the long, loosely-closed and flapping coat looked more like a housecoat. It was bad enough when I thought she put yet another cardigan under it, but then I heard those were panels sewn onto the front of the dress. Eww. And she should have gone with dark green or brown shoes, not medium green. And could have done without the white sheer pantyhose. Not to mention, she looked cold.

Inauguration Ball

Michelle, stop raiding the Whitehouse closets; it’s unbecoming:

Actually, Nancy did it better: it’s white and one-shouldered, but aside from the subtle patterning, it’s simple and clean. Michelle’s was all over the place. It had pleats, gathers, fabric petals, beads, a train, and asymmetry. Two, Michelle, choose two of those things then let the rest go. She’s tall and not overly thin, so she has presence automatically. That much going on is just a wall of stuff. Someone suggested that it was just a bad gown for TV, since you couldn’t really see the details and it just looked like cotton balls. I agree, I bet it looked better in person. That doesn’t make it suck any less when it’s on TV.

Best

Will Smith’s shawl-collar, double-breasted tuxedo stands out in a good way. It fits him perfectly. He tied his own bow-tie and remembered to wear shirt studs. The shawl lapels are wide enough that he can even pull off a broach.

Dev Patel is a skinny dude so he wore a skinny tux. It’s slim-cut single-button with a narrow shawl lapel. His bow-tie is the perfect size and the shirt’s ruffled placket is a neat touch, too bad the sleeves weren’t a bit longer. The flap pockets are also unfortunate.

Hugh Jackman’s main costume was a perfect classical tuxedo with a shawl-collared vest. The only problem with his outfit was the shirt buttons, which is a mistake also made by a lot of his guests.

We expect Mickey Rourke to be dressed crazy, but his white suit with black vest was actually kind of a reasonable way to say “fuck convention”.

Honourable Mention

John Legend’s brown suit-tuxedo is bad (worst dig: “was he sponsored by UPS?”), but if you must wear a four-in-hand tie, as many stars do, you should at least kick it up a notch with a tie clip or pin.

Worst

Given that he’s one of the most-photographed people there, you think he’d get a real bow-tie. Maybe he could have asked his dozens of nannies if any of them know how to tie one? Brad Pitt’s tuxedo was lacking in all sorts of other details.

I’d like to think that Philippe Petit’s weird shiny suit and dandified white scarf were some kind of commentary on America. But I suspect the real explanation is that French entertainers dress just as badly as entertainers in other countries.

Philip Seymour Hoffman looks like he’s attending his own funeral, but that’s better than last year when he was attending his own prom. I’m not even going to mention the toque.

Sean Penn wore the worst of all possible shirts. First, it’s nearly as dark as his tux (midnight blue rather than black), which is a cool look if you’re an appropriate age to date Miley Cyrus. Second, the collar doesn’t fit, so he has to leave it unbuttoned. And finally, it’s a button-down collar, which I don’t like for casual wear but can’t even conceive of for formal wear – and he makes it even worse by undoing the buttons! Amazing.

(If this blog had archives, I would link you to the many clever posts I have written in the past about menswear, but since it doesn’t you’ll just have to take my word for it.)

Barack Obama had two signatures in his dress during the campaign: blue ties with charcoal suits – which passes for daring in the uniformity of Washington – and contemporary-cut suits, which are appropriate for his age and build. Yesterday he showed up to get inaugurated in the red tie + navy suit uniform of Washington, signifying that rumours of Change are overrated, and baggy, pleated, cuffed pants ending above some business-casual shoes.

The last time anyone cared what a President wore to their inauguration was when Kennedy wore his hat (and morning dress), so Barack can be excused for just throwing something on during the day. But his evening dress is inexcusable: a weird hybrid of suit, black-tie and white-tie – exactly the kind of thing upper-class families dress The Help in so there’s no mistaking them as guests. This outfit would easily have made one of my Oscars worst-dressed lists. (The invitation specified black-tie, which means Michelle was overdressed in her ball gown.)

Maybe the transition team overlooked someone to help Barack get dressed in the morning? I can only hope that a protocol officer in Clinton’s State Department takes care of him before he makes a serious mistake, like wearing a tie to sit down with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I believe it was Jared who first described Michelle Obama as the First Soccer Mom. Instead of favouring the high-end conservative clothing of previous first ladies, Ms. Obama appears to favour clothing most often seen on the “stylish” soccer mom at the church social. Maybe she really is a soccer mom to the core, or maybe she wants to appear to be “one of the people” in direct opposition to Cindy McCain’s socialite style, but either way it is working, because her campaign outfits become iconic in Middle America.

Ms Obama has a narrow fashion profile, wearing the same things over and over: below-the-knee A-line skirts, scoop-neck or crew-neck sleeveless shirts, dark cardigans, and either low-heeled pointy pumps or flats.

When she wears dresses, they usually conform to the same silhouette.

With the addition of the occasional fairly plain shift dress

She is apparently pants-challenged, as evidenced by too-short-to-be-pants-too-long-to-be-clam-diggers or the sweatpants she started wearing to rallies shortly before the election. (See, she’s just like you!)

She also has a thing for accessories. She wears a charm necklace with a dogtag reading “Hope” and a very sparkly tiny peace sign. She wears pearls often (oh how First Ladyish!), but opts out of the classic look and instead wears a variety of strand lengths and seems to favour jumbo pearls.

She is famous for wearing a lot of broaches, often multiple at a time.

She is attempting to create a signature style: soccer mom if they had money and cultural capital. Her looks are easy for other middle-aged women to replicate: fake pearls, flower-print skirts, and odd broaches are slightly odd but women can easily afford to go out and buy half a dozen to look like her. But there’s nothing classic or elegant about her clothes, they’re all mall-style. She may be a style icon for the housewife set, but it’s not a timeless look, nor an interesting one: she’s no Jackie O.