'I didn't vote for that dress'

Washington - Barack Obama's victory speech may have electrified the nation, but the dress worn by his wife, Michelle, has attracted almost as much feedback in internet chatrooms and among fashion aficionados.

Michelle Obama appeared on stage at a huge Chicago rally late on Tuesday wearing a black cardigan over a scoop-neck black sheath with splashes of red in the upper and lower half separated by a band of black at the hips.

The outfit was a slightly modified version of a dress presented by designer Narciso Rodriguez in September for the 2009 Spring season.

"I voted for Obama, but I didn't vote for that dress," homemaker and mother of three Jessica Bettencourt from Wisconsin told The New York Times.

"I don't know what was worse," Chicago lawyer Karla Wright told the paper, "that stupid criss-cross band around the middle or that black sort of border coming up from the hem."

Not all comments were negative.

"That dress was unpretentious," Julie Gilhart, fashion director of New York's top-price Barneys clothing store, told the Times.

"It said, 'Be who you are - don't let someone else tell you how to be'."

Symbolic colours

The Italian daily La Stampa dubbed the dress "the look of victory" and said the black symbolised mourning for Obama's grandmother, who died on the eve of the election, while the red was for passion.

A contributor to the website of the German newsweekly Focus also suggested there was hidden meaning in the colours, perhaps red for the political left and black for the first African-American to win the US presidency.

"It is more about the symbolic effect of the colour combination red/black. Because the daughters were also in red or black. Very unusual and surely no accident," the reader said.

Others were dismissive, describing the subject as superficial besides the historic importance of Barack Obama's election win.

"The USA must be doing pretty well if it is worrying about the First Lady's dress!" one typical Focus posting said.

One fashion expert described the interest attracted by the frock as "depressingly trivial... and yet fascinating" because of what it told us all about Obama.

"You may like or dislike Michelle Obama's dress, but that's not as interesting as the agenda behind it, because you can be sure there was one," wrote fashion editor of the London Times Lisa Armstrong.

Definitely not Desperate Housewives

"This was one of the most choreographed First Family Elect Appearances in history," she said, adding that "even seven-year-old Sasha Obama had been dragooned into that monochromatic colour scheme".

Carola Long of the London-based Independent said Michelle Obama's fashion sense was a far cry from the traditional first lady look "reminiscent of the uptight Bree from Desperate Housewives", a reference to a popular television series.

"The presidential race may only just have come to an end, but the battle for fashion supremacy was sewn up months ago," she wrote.

Whatever the significance of the dress, one thing is certain - the world is going to hear much more on the subject over the next four years.

"At the least, it promises four lively years of fashion-watching at the White House," added the New York Times.

- AFP