Michelle Obama on Her College Style, First Lady Days, and the Gloves That Shook Up the State Department

Hi everyone, I m Michelle Obama.

I m here with my glam team

and this is my Life in Looks.

[calm music]

This is my sophomore year at Princeton

going to the library

and I m in what appears to be

a basic Levi denim jacket

with a red vest.

This was sports sack.

This was the happening bag.

I think it was one of those rare purchases

that I bought with my own money

and I had my hair in braids.

Now, would you have dressed me like this?

What do you think Meredith? I think you re

a cutie patootie.

I love your little bag and your little watch,

your little rolled up sleeve.

You know why I had to roll up sleeve, right?

No. Cause the watch? Short.

No. No, it s too short.

It was too short.

Okay, tall girl problems. Tall girl problems.

Hashtag tall girl problems.

The rollup sleeve was a tactic.

Yes. That I had to employ

with almost every outfit.

And I m sure the watch was Timex

cause that s all I could afford.

Ho. Aw.

Who is that? Me.

You know.

[all laughing]

When I decide to get married I was like,

let me go look at some gowns real quick

cause I gotta get this done

so I think I went on my lunch hour.

How many dresses did you try on?

You know, this is so me, right?

I went by myself.

I was- Okay.

of course you did.

I wasn t thinking like,

Now they make such a big deal

outta bringing everybody. Did you have an idea

of like what kind of dress you wanted?

I wanted the hourglass silhouette.

Okay. I knew I wanted

to emphasize my decolletage.

Okay. And this dress

had sleeves that detached.

Our first dance was unforgettable,

Nat King Cole.

I get the feels when I look at this photo every time.

Look, I had no jitters, I had no doubt,

I knew that I was marrying my friend

and somebody that I could trust.

The first election night.

This is Barack s US Senate win.

I did get the suit at Barneys.

It was all about efficiency

because it was one of those things,

I m rushing in between work and doing my thing

and it was like,

Oh man, election night is coming,

I don t have anything to wear.

And it fit perfectly

which is a rare thing for somebody my height

and it was a quarter length sleeve

so I didn t have to worry about the pushup concept.

On nights like this,

I am not thinking about me,

I m thinking about my kids.

Sasha looks like she was scared.

She enjoyed the limelight, always did.

It was just that there was a big boom that happened,

a big pop and that scared her.

All right, next is,

I thought this was South Carolina,

but I read somewhere that-

Sorry. What?

No, I read somewhere.

I did, I read somewhere

where it was another state primary night,

Saint Paul, Minnesota, I saw that.

This was like my uniform.

This was Maria Pinto sheath dress with an Alaïa belt.

And those sheath dresses were beautiful.

It was practical for campaigning

because while we were there doing that rally that night,

I was probably at a farm festival and then at a school.

It s never just one event on the campaign trail,

it s usually five, six,

the day s worth of activities

and then you have to be ready for TV.

So I had to get ready in the day

and just keep myself ready throughout the entire day

so no glam.

Could have used y all back then.

You looked good. You looked good.

You looked girl. It was all me.

I remember when you were on The View

and had a black and white dress on.

Oh yeah. It just stood out to me.

And I was like, you raised the bar so high.

And I was thinking,

If they ever get in the White House,

I would love to work with Mrs. Obama.

Did you really think that? I really did.

Wow.

So what did it feel like when we called you and-

I thought it was a hoax.

I m like, Someone s really playing with me good.

But then when I kept corresponding with the White House

and then when I ended up in the salon, it was real.

This was presidential election in Grant Park.

Do you remember?

I remember exactly where I was.

[Michelle] Where were you?

So I remember on election night

being home and watching and I was like,

Wow, are we really gonna do it the next day?

After you guys won I picked up my newspaper,

everybody wanted a copy of my New York Times and I was like,

Nope.

And I still have it till this day.

Gotta get that signed. I should.

I should girl.

I remember like going to sleep, I m like,

I m just gonna go to bed because this ain t it.

And then some of them was like,

Girl, get up, history is about to happen.

The process of finding a dress for election night

probably started a week or so before.

I just didn t have time to think about

what this dress was saying.

I wanted it to feel vibrant,

I wanted it to feel alive,

but I didn t have a whole lot of time

to think about what it would mean, you know.

I didn t think about this being

a historic moment in that regard.

I was thinking,

Now we gotta live, what s next?

It was a whirlwind and you literally get

from election night until Inauguration Day,

which is the end of January

to completely change your entire life around.

My first introduction to Jason Wu,

big name designers tended to dress

the first lady for inauguration.

I was pretty clear that I wanted to change that up.

Jason Wu s story meant a lot in this moment.

Canadian, Taiwanese, gifted, young,

he must have been in his twenties at the time.

And I thought,

He s the designer

that should be designing this dress for this family.

The dress just happened to be ethereal in that way.

There were 10 balls that we went to.

We would dance, leave, get in a buggy

and go to the next ball in the convention center,

do it again.

We did this until two in the morning

so I knew this dress had to feel light and flowy.

And once I put it on,

I knew that this was the dress, no questions,

wasn t even close.

Ooh, the first Vogue cover, yes.

It was actually internally on the presidential side

a bit controversial.

The team wondered whether

being on a fashion magazine was the right signal.

I don t think they understood Vogue.

I don t think they fully understood the impact and power.

I had to look primarily white people in the eye and say,

You don t understand what this means.

By then I understood that I had to control my own image

before I left it up to other people to protect my image.

I thought this was an important opportunity.

Shout out to Anna Wintour.

We even said that I wouldn t show up in Couture,

that I would wear my own clothes and do my own styling

because this wasn t going to be a fashion shoot,

this was about what we were doing.

Being the first lady,

you have to be aspirational

and representation at the same time.

Being too unattainable,

you know, makes people feel like this place isn t for them.

This is your house,

this is not our house.

If young people don t see themselves in places of power,

they don t think it s for them.

This was the State Dinner at Buckingham Palace.

I love the slope because I love the gloves.

I mean, this is such a story of these stupid gloves.

It was just so much back and forth.

I m like- With who?

The State Department, the East Wing.

I had already commissioned this dress from Tom Ford

so I set up a call with him

because I wanted to hear the fashion perspective.

And he was like, Meredith, do the gloves.

He was like, I ll send you two pairs.

But you hear in that how much political pressure there is,

how many voices.

There s a different level of pressure

when people are already in the back of their minds

are wondering, do you belong?

But there is protocol,

there s all this protocol.

The question is,

Well, at dinner,

what do you do with the gloves?

You know, I was like,

Do I take these gloves off?

Lemme tell you,

those were leather gloves

that it took three people to put on.

Once they were on I m like,

They re not coming off.

I m eating in the gloves.

So I was sitting next to Her Majesty, the Queen,

and we had a conversation, it s like,

Do you take your gloves off?

And she s like,

I don t take the gloves off.

So I was like, Whew.

If I had talked to the State Department,

there would ve been three memos and eight edicts

about what to do with the gloves.

I kept those gloves on all night.

Ooh, this is one of my favorites.

Oh, the bangs, yeah.

That was about giving my edges a break.

For all black girls out here

you know what an edge break means.

Johnny Wright was my primary stylist in the White House.

He cut the bangs.

By this point Mrs. Obama was doing

a number of different things to her hair from extensions-

No longer had a relaxer.

Yeah, no longer had a relaxer.

[Narrator] How long did you have a relaxer?

All my life

child.

We had played with a number of different things

from wigs to extensions and things of that nature

and it was a conversation about

really just giving her hair a break.

And I always tried to keep my look fairly consistent

so that the story wouldn t be

Michelle Obama has bangs, right?

But it was. It was.

But it was.

Expert page turning.

Ta-da, this was the last State Dinner.

I know Meredith didn t think I would pick this dress.

So how were you thinking about Italy?

I was thinking Italian designers.

I was thinking,

This is the last one,

we can really go out with a bang.

Growing up a lot in the 90s

and seeing Gianni Versace and those collections,

the craftsmanship,

the way they approach design,

the chainmail signature gowns

and you always look so beautiful in blushes

and kind of really soft pinks

so I asked them if they could do rose gold

and it was just such a beautiful contrast

of like strength and femininity and,

sorry, body tea.

Like you were sexy.

Like it was just really sexy.

Nothing wrong with that.

I love the color.

I love the way it draped her skin.

I liked the flow.

So when I chose the makeup,

I went with a metallic rose gold eyeshadow

followed with a liquid black liner for a cat eye.

This was like play for them too

because I understood that throughout these eight years

they wanted to like go HAM, right?

Usually want to hear her

not talk about the makeup first but this was,

Have fun, do your craft.

And that s what we did.

This was the last cover with Vogue with Annie Leibovitz.

Annie had me in the garden.

This was the result of us having a little more fun,

a little more wind blown,

a little more chill.

My comms team would always be like,

Nope, no, have her standing up.

No, get her up from there.

And, you know, you could just see the wind

coming out of the sails a little bit.

So I had to tell my team,

Stay out of this.

Let everybody do their thing.

And that was the freedom of

not having to worry about what anybody said.

I was proud to do this.

I went with a monochromatic look.

It was a bunch of shades of nude,

nude eyeshadow,

nude blush,

nude lips,

natural, pretty and...

What?

Like Carl will be answering the makeup question.

He just like-

He knows that. And I accented it with...

Yeah, and you know the shimmer on the shoulders,

a little lotion moisturizer.

Carl loved to shimmer.

And she looks like herself.

That becoming era. The boots were on fire.

Oh man.

We don t need no water let this motherfucker burn.

This look was teetering on the brink of my comfort zone,

but it was still beautiful.

This was me telling my story.

I wanted to be comfortable

on what was a 35 city international tour and it s like,

We re doing pants, we re doing suits.

With the exception of this look.

This is a Balenciaga look.

It came down the runway I think in yellow and blue.

And I thought the yellow was really different and cool

and like a little bit too much,

but in a good way.

I showed you a picture of the boot and you were like,

Yeah, I ll try it.

And then-

I don t think I said it like that.

I mean, if you re gonna wear thigh high gold boots,

it s in New York next to Sarah Jessica Parker.

I was out of the White House

so it was a long trip.

By then I was wearing my hair, natural, curls

much more often.

A lot of times I d do it

when I wouldn t have hair and makeup.

We had started wearing

natural hair extensions at this point.

We wanted to make it sure

that it mimicked her natural texture.

And she was like, This is easy.

And she got really creative

and she would do twist outs on herself,

especially because Mrs. Obama

started going to the hair salon

at such a young age. I learned something y all.

So it was kind of like reintroducing

her back into her hair and her being in control.

So she d be like,

I just put two twists in my hair

and I took it out and I like this.

And I m like,

Yeah girl, that s a twist out.

That s what that s called.

A lot of people wear that style.

So it was one of those things where

it allowed her to play and experiment in her own hair

which is extremely important.

I wanted to be able to recreate anything that they did.

I didn t wanna be caught unaware, you know.

It s like, What happened to Michelle Obama?

Everybody was on vacation and she looks crazy, you know?

And I m still that practical woman that s like,

I gotta be able to get up and spur the moment.

I don t wanna have to say no to a date night with my husband

because Carl s not available.

Oh yeah, well this, you know, looks Sergio Hudson amazing.

I mean we saw this look and I was like,

That bad.

That s a beautiful suit.

That signature belt look which just topped it off.

So we did a curl set.

I know a lot of people think it was a silk press,

it was not a silk press,

it was just a curl

and a round brush. And I don t know

what that is.

I didn t anticipate that the hair would go viral.

This is the first time that they had seen them again.

It was nostalgic after, you know, 2020

and it was just a powerful moment

and I think that everything together

is what actually made the moment.

This was Biden s inauguration after January 6th.

There was a feeling of unease, an uncertainty.

We were determined to go to the inauguration.

But usually when I do big events like this,

you guys come with me.

I was very clear that I didn t want

more people than necessary to be put

in what could have been harm s way.

Every decision was based on,

Let s just get through this day.

This look is on The Light We Carry book tour.

I would describe The Light We Carry book tour

as a little bit more casual,

a little bit more cool,

in my mind, elevated cool.

Like it s something that still felt very much you

in that sort of classic sense but with edge.

It was fun to be able to play in this space

from a style perspective.

And braids, it just went with it.

There s so much versatility in it.

So like I just wanted to show everyone,

like it s kind of no different

than having loose hair or having locks.

Like you can play with it in so many ways.

So like that was my own personal mission

when we were on tour.

I also understood the importance

of making the statement that

me as a black woman,

that we as black women,

women of all,

there s so many versions of us,

there isn t a political statement to it.

This is just about how we wear our hair,

what we want.

And right now I wanna play tennis,

I wanna swim,

I wanna run,

I wanna jump.

I do not wanna sit in the the hair salon for hours on end.

Except for one day. Except for one long day

when we are together.

For 24 hours. For 24 hours. Yes.

And my husband is like,

Y all done yet?

And I was like,

If you don t get outta here

asking about whether we re done,

we re not done till we re done, Barack Obama.

Younger generations have done a great job

of owning what they wanna do.

And now hair,

you can wear a bust down as I learned from Marsai Martin.

Thanks Marsai, I hope I said it right.

All right, this was

the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

And this is a beautiful suit by MONSE.

It just represented where I was at the time,

you know, still in suits.

This was my last political venture.

I knew that I was gonna do this

because I believed in Kamala Harris

so I felt like I had to weigh in.

So my focus was on what I was gonna say,

that s where I could leave

the rest of the thinking to my team.

Obviously this is a big night,

so many things happening,

it s very important that the message comes across.

But you did specifically request

for braided ponytail, right?

I just thought it was a super powerful look

and the speech was one of the best speeches I ve ever heard.

But one thing I wanna say about this night,

just in general, fashion aside,

outside of anything else,

what anybody believes in,

this speech,

and speeches I ve seen you give before,

it was mind blowing.

This is up to us,

all of us,

to be the solution that we seek.

You are one of the greatest authors of our time.

Well, thank you. It was truly amazing.

We felt it,

and people that were watching it felt it.

This is at South by Southwest,

61 years old,

starting a wonderful podcast with my brother.

This time in our lives is

more of a reflection of who I wanna be moving forward.

Meredith, you chose this look because

we were at South by Southwest and you were like,

Let s do a little.

But being able to play in that way now is a part of that,

that freedom,

and writing this book, The Look,

is about sharing that journey.

I mean, it has been quite an arc

from being that little girl

on the South Side of Chicago to today.

So I hope that when people read through this book

that they understand that journey

and hopefully they think about their own.

Working with this team has

truly been a privilege.

It s just

a blessing.

It has been an experience of a lifetime

and seeing all the looks that we created

that are iconic just kind of blows me away

and I just wanna tell everyone here I love you.

I love you too. I love you too.

I just wanna thank you all

publicly from the bottom of my heart

for just being outstanding every minute of the day.

I love you all.

And to everyone out there,

thank you.

Thank you for listening.

This was my Life in Looks.

[upbeat music]