Every first lady makes an impression, whether she means to or not. Some arrive at the White House already well versed in the sartorial requirements of the job -- what Lady Bird Johnson referred to as the "harness of hairdo and gloves" -- and embrace the style-setting authority of the role as Jacqueline Kennedy did in 1961. Others resent the expectation, failing to grasp why what makes them feel comfortable should be the public's business.
This talk looks at how first ladies -- from Dolley Madison to Jacqueline Kennedy to Michelle Obama -- have affected American style and changed the way women in this country dress for work, for the public spotlight, and for themselves.
Bio
Kate Betts
Kate Betts is a contributing editor at TIME magazine where she has written about the worlds of style and design since 2003. Betts is also a columnist at The Daily Beast. Until this year she was also the editor of TIME Style & Design, a special issue published six times a year in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Previously, Betts was the editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar from June 1999 to June 2001, where she completely redesigned the 134-year-old fashion title. She moved to Bazaar from Vogue, where she was the fashion news director from 1991 to 1999. At Vogue, Betts was responsible for developing and producing all fashion features, including runway reports, designer profiles and popular culture stories. She was editor of many of the magazine's most popular sections, including "Vogue's View" and "Vogue's Index," a special shopping section that she created in 1995.
Wife of the president of the U.S. Although the first lady's role has never been codified or officially defined, she figures prominently in the country's political and social life. Representative of her husband on official and ceremonial occasions both at home and abroad, the first lady is closely watched for some hint of her husband's thinking and for a clue to his future actions. The wife of the president played a public role from the founding of the U.S., but the title first lady did not come into general use until much later, near the end of the 19th century. By the end of the 20th century, the title had been absorbed into other languages and was often used, without translation, for the wife of a country's leader—even in countries where the leader's consort received far less attention and exerted much less influence than did her counterpart in the U.S. Although unpaid and unelected, she is able to influence behaviour and opinion, and some first ladies have used their influence to affect legislation on important matters such as temperance reform, housing improvement, and women's rights.
(born Aug. 4, 1961, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.) 44th president of the U.S. (2009– ). Obama graduated from Columbia University (1983) and Harvard Law School (1991), where he was the first African American to serve as president of the Harvard Law Review. He moved to Chicago, where he served as a community organizer and lectured in constitutional law at the University of Chicago before he was elected (1996) to the Illinois Senate as a member of the Democratic Party. In 2004 he was elected to the U.S. Senate and quickly became a major national political figure. In 2008 Obama won an upset victory over former U.S. first ladyHillary Clinton to become the Democratic presidential nominee. He easily defeated Republican candidate John McCain and became the first African American president. In 2009 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
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