Michelle Obama in Vogue

I don’t particularly read fashion magazines but I like to be aware of fashion and what’s going on in the fashion world. Partly because the way fashion magazines sell fashion amuses me. And partly because it helps me understand, why some women dress the way they do. Fashion magazines don’t sell reality, they sell a dream. An unattainable dream which I have seen some women try to emulate and achieve all their lifetime. Sometimes I wonder, if it is a frivolous pursuit.

So when I saw Michelle Obama on the cover of Vogue and Vogue India, I was pleasantly surprised. Because for me Obama is not really a fashionista. She totally defies the stereotypes of what a fashionable woman should be all about. She is an intelligent, hard working woman who has embraced fashion. She is not the typical fashion model or a beauty queen. She is someone who doesn’t bat an eyelid before getting her hands dirty in a garden. She is not ‘white’, she eats pizzas, she doesn’t have flowing hair, she doesn’t have a pencil thin body, she is married and she doesn’t give sultry looks.

I think she totally defies the stereotype that intelligent women cannot be fashionable and vice versa. I think Obama brings meaning to fashion. It is not she who is in want of fashionable image, but fashion is in want of more women like her. Who are ordinary, yet charismatic. Who stand up for values, yet fun.

I have always liked fashion, but I have received very typical reaction from friends who think – how I can like fashion if I am intelligent? or I can’t really serious or intelligent if I like fashion? I wish I come out of these stereotypes, sooner than later….