Fashionable First Ladies (Paperback)

From their dignified swearing-in ceremony outfit to their choice of Inaugural Ball
gown, America's First Ladies make news in the world of fashion and several have
become trendsetters with their distinct personal style and great panache on the
national stage. This book explores the fashion sense of all the First Ladies, noting
important firsts and signature looks such as: Jacqueline Kennedy's incomparable
taste and style which was firmly rooted in her extensive knowledge of art and history;
Pat Nixon's distinction of being the first wife of the president to wear pants in public in
1972; Nancy Reagan's favored red-colored designer ensembles; Mamie Eisenhower's
ever-present hairstyle with bangs; and Rosalynn Carter's frugal reuse of the Inaugural
gown she wore to her husband's inauguration as governor six years earlier. Also
featured are First Ladies whose clothes, style and fashion sense had political
consequences in their day such as Mary Todd Lincoln's lavish spending on wardrobe
and jewelry while the nation was at war and the on-going controversy of how revealing
First Lady gowns should be from Frances Cleveland being petitioned by the Women's
Temperance Union in the 1880s to cover up her shoulders to set a better morale
example to Florence Harding's Jazz Age evening gowns of bared shoulders and
Grace Coolidge's sleeveless flapper gowns just forty years later. America's First
Ladies sometimes led and often reflected the fashions of their times but their unique
interpretation of fashion and style has become a venerated cultural institution.