When Michelle Obama came to Brooklyn Wednesday night, a generation of Black women turned out—much like their daughters when Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour hit the New York City area this past summer. The line at Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House wrapped around the block as audience members in trenches and peacoats with the occasional resplendent faux fur clutched copies of the former first lady’s newest book, The Look, which was released on Tuesday. The book’s launch event doubled as a live taping of Obama’s podcast, IMO, with her close friend Tracee Ellis Ross serving as guest cohost.
Obama swanned onstage in a black Loewe dress with pink and yellow accents from American designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s first collection for the Spanish heritage brand. After explaining why she wanted to focus on beauty and fashion in her third book, she discussed the “renovating” that President Donald Trump has unleashed on the White House’s East Wing, which has traditionally been the office and domain of the first lady.
“When we talk about the East Wing, it is the heart of the work. And to denigrate it, to tear it down, to pretend like it doesn’t matter—it’s a reflection of how you think of that role,” Obama said. “Whether the West Wing understood it or not, I used to tell them: All the stuff we do on the East Wing, from the clothes I wear to [family dogs] Bo and Sunny to Malia and Sasha and grandma, those were five extra approval points that he got, because we provided a balance.”
At the beginning of the talk, Obama turned to the topic at hand. In the past, she said, she’d avoided talking too openly about fashion—an intentional effort not to overshadow both her husband’s efforts and her own work on initiatives like the Let’s Move campaign. But as she noted, January 2016 will mark 10 years since she and her husband, Barack Obama, left the White House. The Look came about because Obama was feeling nostalgic for that moment, and wanted to spotlight the team who kept her looking immaculate—helping her focus on the work of being first lady by handling all the details.
“I wanted to wait until it felt like it was time,” Obama said. “I wrote two books, and I really do feel like the world, and the country, knows who I am. So now it’s time to talk about the how of fashion because I knew it was always important.”
Jenna Lyons—the designer and former Real Housewife who was interviewed for the podcast companion to The Look—was in the audience at BAM. While filing out of the theater, she told Vanity Fair that the book made her nostalgic for the era’s politics above all else. “It’s nice to be a part of that history, and be connected to something that is so meaningful to not just me, but so many of the other people,” she said. “That whole era had so much attached to it: pride and hope and excitement and feeling like things were changing. We were moving forward, and I can’t say that I feel that now. And it’s really devastating.”
The night’s interstitial soundtrack included artists that appealed to the Obamas’ shared musical sensibility—D’Angelo, Solange Knowles, “Candy” by ’80s funk band Cameo—and gave the event the air of a dance party. Once the audience members began removing their stylish coats, it became clear many of them were sartorially inspired by Obama’s eclectic White House–era professional style. A handful of women in hats, striped dresses, and sharp separates also seemed to be drawing from the more modern eye-catching looks she’s embraced since she returned to civilian life. When Obama mentioned her dress’s designer, it prompted a whoop from a woman in the crowd wearing Loewe sneakers and a fringed jacket.
In the nearly 10 years since she left the White House, Obama’s book events have turned her into an in-demand entertainer. Part pop star, part Mark Twain as an after-dinner speaker, she uses these events to show off a sense of humor that was usually under wraps during her East Wing years. This time around, her jokes included teasing Ross for her posh upbringing, putting their genuine friendship on display. “My mother was not Diana Ross. I love my mother, but my mother was the opposite of Diana,” Obama teased. When Ross mentioned that shop owners would occasionally judge and surveil her when they didn’t know who her mother was, Michelle batted it away: “You look just like her, girl.” With a laugh, Ross replied, “Not with glasses and braces!”
Now that IMO, the podcast she normally cohosts with her brother Craig Robinson, is firmly established, it seems Obama has decided to spend her post–White House years as a content creator—and decidedly not as a politician. Wednesday’s event took place exactly one year after Kamala Harris’s loss in the 2024 election; onstage Obama reiterated her disappointment that America didn’t choose to elect its first female president last year.
“As we saw in this past election, sadly we ain’t ready. Let me just say, my disappointment in the number of men and men of color that would not vote for a woman…” she said, interrupted by thunderous applause and cheers from the crowd. “That’s why I’m like, ‘Don’t even look at me about running, because you all are lying. You’re not ready.’”
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