Vintage Fashion Outfit Inspiration: First Lady Style from Jackie O to Michelle Obama

The beauty of creativity is that it can’t happen without collaboration — and it especially can’t happen without collaboration from past influences.

Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama took some creative influences from the past when she wore a 1950s A-line dress purchased from New York Vintage at the annual White House holiday party. Her second-hand garment caused a media storm because at least to their knowledge, no first lady had ever worn “used clothing” to a gala event before.

But times — both fashionable and political — are changing, and vintage fashion is no longer a hush-hush admittance between women of celebrity prestige and power. Michelle Obama takes cues from the past because she is an advocate of fashion’s economical and artistic influences of the present. The fashionable first lady has established herself not only as a fashion icon, but as a fashion icon with an agenda.

She’s been quoted as saying, “The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it. Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.”

Thanks to the power of digital media and society’s hunger for immediate communication, we can track what Michelle Obama wears to every public event and its ripple effects on everything from store sales to designer collections to an upcoming spread in Vogue Magazine.

But in the ’60s and ’70s, fashion journalism was just a whisper amongst the press house corps. Actually, it probably was nothing more than a joke to most — the fashion news of the day was not what color Jackie Kennedy wore or how high Pat Nixon’s heels were. Still, what images are available from the first lady reigns of Jackie Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, Betty Ford and yes — especially Michelle Obama — tell the visual truth: Fashion mattered in the White House because it impacted an economy of arts with strength in opinion and its resulting buying power.

In other words: fashion sells, fashion makes jobs and fashion moves culture.

Keep scrolling for my analysis of the fashion agendas of five fashionable first ladies — and how you can take their styles and wrap them into your own style resolutions for a vintage-infused 2011 and beyond.

xx, SD

First Lady Michelle Obama

Agenda #1: EXPOSED SHOULDERS

Floor-length evening wear with one-sleeve or halter top necklines exposing bare upper chest and shoulders

Agenda #2: A-LINE DRESSES

A-line dresses which emphasis the waist and poof into an “A” shape. Popular in the 1950s after being introduced to the fashion markets by designer Christian Dior

Agenda #3: THE COLOR YELLOW

Outfits consisting of matching canary yellow to light yellow and gold pieces

First Lady Jackie Kennedy

Agenda #1: HIGH-NECKLINES

Jackie’s high necklines paired with pearl necklaces blended chic with conservative and a subtle hint of sexiness

Agenda #2: PILLBOX HATS

When stepping outdoors, Jackie O was known to wear pillbox hats, which originate from British military headgear circa World War I

Agenda #3: ROUND FRAME SUNGLASSES

Jackie popularized “bug eye” sunglasses, channeling a celebrity who wished to remain incognito

First Lady “Lady Bird” Johnson

Agenda #1: PEARL NECKLACES

Lady Bird Johnson was almost always seen wearing her classic, short strand white pearls when posing for pictures or at a public event

Agenda #2: COUNTRY STYLE

Lady Bird was an advocate of preserving nature and establishing wild flower parks, and her love of the great outdoors was stylishly illustrated with prairie-inspired dresses and eye-catching, wild brights

Agenda #3: STRAW HATS

Even in her old age, Lady Bird appreciated a wide-brim straw hat

First Lady Pat Nixon

Agenda #1: FLORAL BROACHES

For added suit jacket flair, Pat opted for flower broaches over wearing the day’s standard metal broaches. She appended them on her collar and immediately below her neckline

Agenda #2: YELLOW

Pat and Michelle Obama share some fashion commonalities: a serious penchant for the color yellow. Pat even decorated a room in the White House with the color, posing for pictures in her sequin beaded yellow inaugural ball dress

Agenda #3: FASHION FUN

Pat wore busy patterns and wasn’t afraid to show excitement for the camera. While other first ladies maintained a stoic or conservative smile when photographed, quit ea few pictures show Pat’s genuine emotion and a warm charisma [not to mention affection for Big Bird!]

First Lady Betty Ford

Agenda #1: THE COLORS ORANGE & RED

Betty often wore feminine power colors like orange and red. She was argued to be the most politically active first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt, and her fashion choices illustrated resolve to dress the part for her sought-after political duty

Agenda #2: INFORMED ELEGANCE

After the stock market crash of 1929, Betty Ford  supported her family as a model and dancer, later moving to New York City to pursue a dancing and modeling career. So it’s no surprise that her fashion choices possess an elevated excitement than seen from within the closets of previous first ladies. Much like Michelle Obama, Betty Ford chose clothing accentuating her best features and fashion know-how. She was not shy of shiny, sparkly and seductive

Agenda #3: NECK SCARVES

Betty’s signature style piece became the neck scarf, which she would tie as an ascot with dresses or tucked into a suit jacket for a pop of under-collar color