gEYE tre-BAYYYYYY and Michelle Obama

By Jennifer J. Foster

Published: June 11, 2008

When I wrote that post about Skipper

Cindy McCain and her wardrobe the other day, I had no idea that I was touching on a subject that’s apparently all the rage these days.

Political junkies like me have Super Tuesday.

Fashion junkies have, apparently, the candidates’ wives.

Consider this article from the New York Times’ “Fashion Diary” –

SIDEBAR:

Fashion Diary? The New York Times has a Fashion Diary?

Does the ombudsman know about this?

END SIDEBAR

– in which Guy Trebay (I can’t hear that name in my head without a French accent: “gEYE tre-BAYYYYYY) discusses the fashion sense of Michelle Obama.

tre-BAYYYYYY analyzes Mrs. Obama’s outfit last Tuesday night, when her husband laid claim to the Democratic presidential nomination.

The “gumball pearls,” tre-BAYYYYYY said, are “a retro wink at traditional decorum.” Mikki Taylor, beauty director and cover editor of Essence magazine, offered that the pearls “are not little ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ pearls … Those are large pearls. Those are pearls you have to deal with.” This, in addition to pointing out that the wannabe First Lady apparently took to the stage – GASP!! – WITHOUT the “prerequisite suntan stockings.”

Obviously, Taylor said, Michelle Obama’s look says, “I’m here to do business.”

Oh, obviously.

As for the belt, tre-BAYYYYYY called it a “another signature accessory,” noting that Vanity Fair had taken notice of it when it named Mrs. Obama to its International Best-Dressed List. The belt she had worn 15-plus months ago “signified to me that this woman had an independent and strong and distinct fashion sense,” said Amy Fine Collins, a Vanity Fair contributor and “a guardian of the 68-year-old list,” tre-BAYYYYYY said.

OK ... accessories, whatever. To each his own. But then I read this:

But it was particularly the color Michelle Obama chose Tuesday night that seemed symbolically rich, even if its message may have been so subtle as to be subliminal.

“I don’t know if that’s something they consciously thought about,” said (First Ladies biographer Carl) Anthony, referring to the fact that purple is, as every schoolchild knows, created by mixing the primary colors red and blue.

When I first read that, I ended up having to take some Tylenol because my eyes hurt from rolling them so far back in my head.

Seriously? He’s saying Michelle Obama chose to wear purple because of the whole red-blue thing?

????????

It seems appropriate to paraphrase Chandler Bing here:

gEYE? I think you’ve gone over to the bad place.