First Ladies

With presidential primary season finally finished, the fashion world turned its attention to potential first ladies Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain. In June Peter Som, Tory Burch, Nicole Miller, Ralph Rucci and Iman were among those feting Obama at the Sikkema Jenkins & Co. gallery in New York’s Chelsea. The soirée was followed by an intimate dinner at Calvin Klein’s Perry Street apartment, where the designers buzzed about the prospect of a younger first lady in the White House. “You just know that if she becomes first lady, she’d be the kind who would be into fashion,” Behnaz Sarafpour told WWD. And indeed Obama was dressed that evening in a chic black Isabel Toledo ensemble and a dramatic pearl and crystal necklace custom-made for her by Tom Binns.

McCain, meanwhile, paid her respects to the industry with a hush-hush visit to the Seventh Avenue showroom of Oscar de la Renta, designer of choice for Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton. McCain told WWD that she wasn’t shopping for any particular occasion—like an inauguration—but rather was “just looking.” That took quite some time, at least according to one of her security agents who let slip to WWD’s reporter that McCain’s browsing was taking “way too long.

Photo: McCain: Pasha Antonov/WWD Archive; Obama: Nancy Kaszerman/Zuma Press