Michelle Obama wore a nearly $3,000 pantsuit to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago while touting to attendees that her parents were “suspicious” of the wealthy.
The former first lady began her DNC speech by saying the last time she was in her hometown of Chicago was to memorialize her mother, the woman “who showed me the meaning of hard work and humility and decency” and “who set my moral compass high and showed me the power of my own voice.”
“She and my father didn’t aspire to be wealthy. In fact, they were suspicious of folks who took more than they needed,” Michelle Obama said. “They understood that it wasn’t enough for their kids to thrive if everyone else around us was drowning. So my mother volunteered at the local school.”
All the while, she was wearing a black pantsuit jacket that is available for pre-order online by the New York fashion designer Monse for $1,690.
The online description invites customers to “pre-order our Resort 2025 Criss Cross Jacket as seen on Michelle Obama at the DNC.”
Michelle Obama paired the jacket with the matching trousers listed for $890.
“Pre-order our Resort 2025 Tuxedo Cuff Trousers as seen on Michelle Obama at the DNC,” Monse wrote. The estimated ship date isn’t until Nov. 8, three days after the election.
The New York Times described Michelle Obama’s outfit, a sleeveless recreation of the traditional pantsuit, as thematically “forward,” in line with the former first lady’s message at the DNC.
The Times’ Critics Notebook described Monse as a “small, independent label founded by Fernando Garcia, a Dominican-raised New York designer, and Laura Kim, an Asian American (and one of the founders of the Slaysians, a group of fashion insiders formed to combat anti-Asian hate).”
Garcia and Kim are also the designers of Oscar de la Renta, “the brand that has dressed first ladies for decades and which Mrs. Obama wore when she was living on Pennsylvania Avenue and still does,” the Times said.
The newspaper gushed over the former first lady, and her stylist, Meredith Koop, for choosing Monse.
The Times said selecting “the smaller fashion house over the establishment name was fully in line with Mrs. Obama’s practice, developed as first lady, of using her platform to highlight lesser known businesses (especially fashion businesses) and designers who represent the stories she is telling: about entrepreneurship, the melting pot, the American dream. The election.”
Michelle Obama “wore a dark navy sleeveless jacket belted over cropped trousers. The lapels of the top were de- and reconstructed to cross over the throat in an almost militaristic way, and the shoulders jutted out to frame the biceps. It was both understated and edgy, kind of armorial,” the Times said. “This was going to be a fight, her tunic and her speech suggested, and everyone should gear themselves up to get out the vote.”
The Trump campaign and others criticized Michelle Obama for omitting that she and her husband, former President Obama, have an estimated net worth of $70 million, as well as luxury real estate holdings in Chicago, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., when telling the DNC that her parents “were suspicious of folks who took more than they needed.”
“Getting really tired of multi-millionaires preaching about the evils of money and greed,” one X user wrote.
